Letter to the Times from Stephen Bush, published on 25^th 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 20^th to 24^th) , 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 29^th 2017, while the EU Council quite properly declared its own guidelines in its paper of 29^th 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.

Letter to The Sunday Times, published 15th October 2017.

You are absolutely right about the need for Britain to have a Brexit strategy independent of the EU negotiations.

Nothing is more likely to induce the EU to negotiate properly with Britain about trade and money than the prospect of losing unfettered access to what will be,  when Britain leaves the EU, its largest export market.   At the same time it would lose any prospect of our continuing to make an on-going contribution to their budgets.

Unfortunately Mrs May has given scant attention to the “walk-away” strategy if Monday’s latest White Papers (on trade and customs ) are anything to go by. These are largely repetitive confections of wish-lists to which the “stakeholders” are invited to make suggestions,  not  tightly thought out plans which would be the hallmarks of true leadership.

It took looming catastrophe before Chamberlain was replaced by Churchill in 1940. Mrs May needs to go now before another disaster overtakes us.