From what I’ve read of the Brexit plans put together by United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May, they are very bad deal for Britain. The plans, put together by the Cabinet at Chequers, make Britain look weak and shackle Britain to many of the European Union institutions and policies that we the electorate voted to leave in the first place.

The proposed offer to the EU is basically that Britain signs up to everything bar free movement that the EU desire including following capricious EU rules and shelling out billions that could be better spent at home. It is a weak and grovelling policy towards the EU that would ensure continued influence over Britain’s economy and society with the added insult that because Britain will no longer be technically a member of the EU, we will have no say over any of these rules or any EU imposition on Britain. What happens I wonder if the EU reject this generous offer of a Brexit in name only? The only thing that Theresa May has got to negotiate with is the issue of free movement of migrants to the UK. Where will Mrs May’s next negotiating position be if she has already offered the EU so much?

We voted to leave and make a clean break from the EU and that is the policy that Britain should be following. Many of us expected that there would be a need for our exit from the EU to be negotiated in order that the transition from membership to non-member ship would be as painless as possible for both Britain and the remaining member nations of the EU. A mutual divorce between the members of trading blocs is like the break up of a marriage, the more acrimonious it is then the greater the likelihood of unnecessary collateral damage. What May has done is not just try to walk a middle path in this political divorce, but has basically put her hands up and said to her partner’s ‘look just take the lot, I don’t care’.

When I look at the reports I’ve seen of the Chequers meeting, I see behind them a Prime Minister who hasn’t the faintest idea about projecting political power and confidence. Mrs May has a mandate from the voters for Brexit and is not in my view carrying out that mandate in the most effective way. Why she is doing this is anybodies guess and there are numerous conspiracy theories out there about just that question. But my view, based on my observation of her since she was Home Secretary, is that she is a weak and vacillating individual, timid, averse to risk and possibly easily influenced by those with political or even religious agendas. The type of personal qualities that I percieve Mrs May as possessing are probably the least wanted personal qualities in a leader when there are matters such as Brexit to be dealt with.

This is not the deal that we who voted for Brexit wanted or expected. It contains within it the capacity to morph into a Brexit in name only (BINO). I doubt very much that it was this sort of BINO deal that those of us who voted Leave in 2016 had in mind. This capitulation fest of a policy was not what I or many other Brexiteers whom I have spoken to wanted. This is not freedom from the EU this has the potential to chain us to the EU although with slightly different chains than before.

If the Chequers policy is what Theresa May calls a negotiating position then it is completely laughable. It is the equivalent of a person visiting a second hand car salesman and immediately paying the asking price or even more than the asking price, rather than negotiating a more fair price with the vendor.

I’m really not surprised to see Brexit Cabinet ministers resigning over this policy. This policy looks too much like capitulation and these ministers were right to put country before party and before their political careers and to resign. I would not be at all surprised to find that by her actions Theresa May has crippled the Tory party and this is going to play very badly with local Conservative associations who I suspect will soon be hit by a wave of resignations. This exodus from many people’s long term political home is one that can only be halted by replacing May with a Brexiteer. May’s ill thought out policy needs to be fought and it needs to be replaced with one that is more sensible and beneficial to the long term future of Britain as a trading nation outside the EU.