Response To Theresa May's Speech.

Theresa,

I DO NOT STAND WITH YOU. You may say you stand with me, but I fear that you are at odds with the majority of the nation. You are deluding yourself if you actually think you are in step with the majority of people outside of Parliament.

The majority wish to leave on the terms set out leading up to the 2016 referendum. Those terms were clear and unequivocal: We were told if we voted leave, The UK would leave the EU apparatus, we would leave the customs union, we would leave the single market and we would leave the jurisdiction of the ECJ.

These were couched as threats prior to the referendum. If we voted leave, we would suffer the consequences of exiting all of the apparatus and institutions of the EU politically, economically and legally.

And we still voted to leave, because those terms were exactly what the majority of the country wanted.

However, the deal that you have  done with the EU reneges on every one of those threats or promises that the Conservative party made prior to the vote.

If MPs vote to accept your deal, we will be tied all of the above for at least 2 years and possibly for ever. Especially if the backstop is triggered.

The people were clear in June 2016 on what they were threatened with should we dare to vote leave. We know what we were promised. We voted leave anyway, because that is what we wanted.

Your cowardice after the vote is clear for everyone to see. I know you are scared, I know you fear being the person responsible for legislation. But that's what the people want: someone responsible that they can vote in our out of office. We do not want unelected beaurocrats in the EU making our laws.

We voted leave in 2016, despite the warnings, despite project fear. We gave a clear mandate to the government, YOUR Government to leave the EU. It was then the job of government to manage the process of leaving.

It was not for government to keep us in the customs union, despite the threats and promises government made to us.

It was not for Government to keep us in the single market, despite the threats and promises made to us by Government.

It was not for Government to keep us in the EU tariff area. We wanted a clean break so we could start negotiating deals around the country.

It was not for government to tie us to the ECJ. We wanted rid of the idiocy and bias of the European Courts.

We wanted to be on our own.

Last night, your speech proved to the population of the UK that you had not understood a single iota of what we wanted and voted for back in June 2016.

You do not stand with us. You stand apart. You stand alone. You have no support from the majority of the population, nor the majority of MPs in Parliament.

It is time you considered your position and the position of your government.

Theresa May: Crisis of Confidence and Leadership.

One thing that has become clear during Theresa May's tenure as prime Minister is her innate inability to trust the people she has employed in cabinet.

The strength of a true leader is to first select people they can trust and then inspire them to do the best job they can. A true leader doesn't micro-manage, but instead has the confidence to let their team get one with the small stuff while the leader leads.

Insetad at Chequers we had a prime example why Theresa May is not a leader.

She set up the DexEU department with David Davis as head and set them the task of negotiating Brexit. Now a good leader would set clear general terms about the way they want the negotiations to go forward after forming a concensus with the wider team. David Davis and the DexEu team went forward with what they thought was the best plan to acheive Brexit; the so-called Canada+++ option, where the UK would pick out the best bits of trade agreements already negotiated with non-EU countries and use those agreements as a framework that best suits the UK. So frictionless trade subject to strict adherence to EU standards (but only for UK-EU trade, not the whole country).

The DexEU even went to the trouble and expense of producing a white paper outlining the framework they would be working to.

Cue the Chequers Friday and the neurotic response from May. Phones forbidden and official cars removed from those who didn't sign up to her totally different white paper. That's right: her and her staff in No.10 went to the trouble and expense of coming up with a totally separate white paper usurping the DexEU one.

The sign of a poor leader: micro-management, neuroses, mistrust and plain bad management.

That's why the government has been consumed with Brexit and cannot get on with doing any other government stuff: she is so neurotic that she has to micro-manage the outcome of Brexit. Some would say that she is being pushed by outside forces in Whitehall, the establishment and the civil service. Those pro-remainers that have her ear and work against those that want a true Brexit.

The same goes for the previous election, where she took poor advice and allowed the release of the "dementia tax" details, which alienated a huge swathe of Conservative voters and almost lost her the election. The election run-up was trip after trip, pratfall after pratfall... The Tory party appeared divided, chaotic, unled.

A good, true leader would be able to let go and allow the DexEU to work on it's own to get the best result for Britain whilst taking care of the big picture.

A good, strong leader would have assigned a cabinet team she could trust, rather than assigning one for political expediency.

A good leader would have not run for leader if they couldn't deliver true leadership. A poor leader runs for leadership to massage their ego, or to assuage their competitive nature.

I know which I think Theresa May is.

Revelation Time: What I think Theresa May Thinks Brexit actually means.

I've said here and elsewhere a lot of words about the Chequers proposal and how it doesn't deliver Brexit. But in a moment of revelation I think I know what Theresa May is thinking in her dealings with the EU over Brexit.

And I've come to the conclusion it isn't Brexit.

She's using the referendum vote as a bargaining chip to reform the EU itself and therefore allow us to stay within the EU. There is no other explaination as to how she thinks the Chequers proposal is an exit from the EU in any way, shape or from.

It can only be the explaination, because last Sunday she said the Chequers deal was one of two options. Chequers or staying in the EU. There was no fully out option in her mind.

I think she has deluded herself into thinking she is Margaret Thatcher Mk2, that she can go to the EU and demand concessions and refom the EU from within, to make it more acceptable to UK pallettes. By leveraging the threat to leave and remove our budget contribution or partially leave and reduce the money flow she thinks the EU will roll over and play ball. But the EU ain't like that. They will bend for a while, but then snap back later once they have an agreement.

She thinks she can use the referendum to go one better than David Cameron and force the whole EU to capitulate and change fundamental policy. She thinks she can get concessions on immigration, payments, and all the other things that previous PMs have failed to extract from the EU.

That I think is her plan in a nutshell: gain concessions from the EU and stay in a reformed EU, or just stay in without concessions.

She's renegotiating the terms of being inside the EU, rather than negotiating our exit.

Brexit it ain't. Not by a long chalk.