Sir Bill Cash was MP for Stafford and Stone from 1984 to 2024. He led the Maastricht Referendum Campaign and the Maastricht rebellion in the 1990s and campaigned against European government throughout his career.
A vote for Reform out of frustration would put our successes at risk with a massive Labour majority.
With just over a week to go, we need a wake-up call in the interests of our families and our country. As voters, we must see what is at stake. I was impressed by what Michael Heseltine said last week and, despite our differences on the EU, I very much agree with him that we are Conservative first.
Britain is not “broken”, and Brexit is a success. The greatest benefit of Brexit is that we have regained our freedom, self-government and democracy in peacetime, as we regained it in Normandy in the war. My father was killed in Normandy, winning the Military Cross against the Tiger Tanks of the Panzer Divisions, and is buried there, which is why I went to the D-Day commemorations at Ver-sur-Mer earlier this month – a lasting reminder of the sacrifices that were made.
Wanting Europe to come together after the war was understandable, but the EU turned out to be a mistake for the United Kingdom. It is now increasingly repudiated by common consent of European countries because it is essentially undemocratic.
I often challenged Remainers to answer a simple question: “Will you ask your constituents the following – would you want to rejoin the EU, where laws are made not by elected MPs in Parliament, but by the Council of Ministers by a majority vote of Member States behind closed doors without a transcript?”. Not one ever dared to reply.
Now we have left the EU, our laws are now made by our own Parliament, not by a qualified majority vote. The enactment of the REUL Act 2023, based on eliminating the supremacy of EU Law under the Act, has led to a significant reduction in EU legislation.
Although we do not trust Labour to continue this, it is still on the statute book and has had a significant beneficial effect. We have now revoked or repealed over 2000 EU laws, with more to come. Since we left the EU, well over 7,000 laws have been made by the EU which do not apply to us. Since 1972, we never rejected one single word of European legislation in the House of Commons until we left.
Although people are frustrated, it is important to understand the full impact and costs of Covid and Russia’s war in Ukraine on the economy and public finances. Covid alone cost the taxpayer £400 billion – even more in real terms than the Second World War. It is utterly unacceptable for Labour to attack the Conservatives on spending plans when they were in support of Covid measures and supported Ukraine.
The war’s impact on energy costs and inflation, interest rates, and the cost of living have undermined confidence. This problem is global and not the fault of the Government. This has had consequences for the economy and short-term tax policy, but we are now on a new path to significant tax reductions. Labour will greatly increase taxes, as anyone can see from Starmer’s evasive attitude in television debates.
Germany is mired in stagnation and deindustrialization, with rising unemployment, stagnant wages, and severe austerity. Out of the EU, our economy under the Conservatives is working and is comparatively good.
Inflation is down to 2 per cent, we are the fifth biggest exporter globally and we have the joint fastest growth rate in the G7. The IMF reports that the UK economy will grow faster than Germany, France, Italy, and Japan. Since 2010 the UK has had the highest manufacturing productivity growth in the G7, accounting for 40 per cent of our exports.
Remainers said trade would plummet if we left the EU, but the opposite is true. Post-Brexit trade deals have helped to bring in billions of pounds in new investment for the UK. ONS data shows that since 2016, the nominal value of UK exports to the rest of the world has increased by 54 per cent, with the services sector rising by 70 per cent. There is still more to do through further deregulation, and only the Conservatives can be trusted to deliver.
Furthermore, we have removed 192 barriers to trade in 79 countries and made better deals with Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand, and on the brink of new deals with the Gulf Area, India, Mexico, Turkey, and South Korea. We now do so on our terms, no longer constrained by EU interference. EU trade with the rest of the world is falling off a cliff. We have also been providing online guidance to help potential exporters with good advice.
We must also not forget that our contributions to the EU if we were still would now have been £24 billion a year. There is always more work to be done, but listening to Labour, Reform, and other doomsters is simply wrong. We have achieved stability, laying firm foundations post-Brexit for economic prosperity.
On illegal and economic immigration, voters and Member States in the EU are now tearing their hair out with their new Migration and Asylum Pact, passed by majority vote, which imposes compulsory quotas and fines for non-compliance. This has infuriated the voters, and the EU is in disarray, with Emmanuel Macron forced into a snap election.
Conservatives welcome genuine refugees from places such as Hong Kong, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, but repudiate those who come illegally, and condemn the gangs who destroy their lives. Illegal migration is a global issue, and the problem turns on renegotiating international treaties which the EU simply cannot do without massive constitutional change.
We, on the other hand, with clear legislation, can override such treaties, including the ECHR because, unlike EU Member States, we have an unwritten constitution and the Supreme Court will support an unambiguous override of international law.
Never forget the UK Government appears to be continuously undermined by a fifth column of ideological remainers in the BBC and other broadcasters, egged on by the woke-ridden EU obsessives in the Civil Service and Government Legal Service, who have battered Ministers with their international and human rights laws and failure to rewrite Treaties.
Reform UK cannot and will not produce solutions, but simply rants about punishing the Tories, which will only punish Britain and betray Brexit. Reform UK will never have a parliamentary majority. It needs 326 MPs for this. They will never pass a single word of legislation. Every vote for Reform undermines Brexit and Britain and boosts the evasive and contradictory Keir Starmer, whose record on Brexit shows he is not to be trusted.
He called the democratic referendum result in 2016 “catastrophic”, and later called for a second referendum. Nobody should believe that Labour will not significantly undermine Brexit. In the last few days, David Lammy has made this clear, stating that he would bring forward a “reset on Europe”.
Labour always fails. They made such a mess economically after the war that the voters brought back Winston Churchill within six years. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher created a competent and realistic economy, which New Labour blew. Labour governments leave office having busted the country’s finances – as Liam Byrne said: “There is no money”. A Labour landslide, as always, means increased taxation, which Starmer doesn’t deny. Labour cannot be trusted.
On social issues, for example, our Online Safety Act 2023, unlike the EU, imposes imprisonment for up to two years on big tech bosses putting young people at risk of self-harm and suicide from online content.
It was the Conservative Party that passed the Referendum Act in Parliament and regained our sovereignty, not Farage’s ranting from the sidelines. His circus act claiming he is the real opposition and that he could be the Prime Minister in 2029 is as absurd as his Manifesto. His recent comments about the war in Ukraine are a disgrace.
His misleading claims that UKIP, The Brexit Party, and Reform delivered Brexit are total rubbish. In the 2019 European Parliament elections, the Brexit Party merely obtained 30.5 per cent of the vote on a derisory 37 per cent turnout. Even this derisory result was the product of proportional representation. Never forget, this was also a prime reason for the disintegration of the Weimar Republic. In the 2019 General Election, the Conservatives won a majority of 80 with a 67 per cent turnout.
Many people are yet rightly uncertain. There is too much at stake to vote for Reform out of frustration and then face a Labour catastrophe.
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Author: Sir William Cash MP
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