The vote of the Brexiteers
October 30th, 2018
Letter to the Times from Stephen Bush, published on 25th October 2018
As someone who canvassed in the streets, knocked on doors, fielded questions at public meetings and in the media, I can testify that those who supported leaving the EU were perfectly clear what they did NOT want from their vote (letters October 20th to 24th) , namely any continuation of the following: the right of 450 million EU citizens to move at will to settle in this country; payments into the EU’s budget; the right of EU boats to fish in the UK’s internationally recognised waters; any role for EU courts in Britain’s internal affairs.
Mrs May’s failure to communicate these four simple conditions for the negotiations in a formal UK paper soon after sending her Article 50 notification on March 29th 2017, while the EU Council quite properly declared its own guidelines in its paper of 29th April 2017, is the root cause of the morass of muddle and uncertainty we are currently in. Nobody of course foresaw that the EU’s negotiators would manufacture a problem over the Irish border, or that they and Mrs May’s advisors would propose carving up our country.