Brexit did deliver, says key Leave campaigner

Ten years ago, people in the UK woke up to learn the country had voted to leave the EU, by 51.9% to 48.1% - Brexit was happening and would reshape Britain.

Leaving the European Union was the life's work of Sir Bill Cash, the former Conservative MP for Stone in Staffordshire and a prominent Eurosceptic.

I asked him, on this 10th anniversary, whether he felt Brexit had delivered to the people who voted for it.

"As a constitutional choice, the answer is yes," he said. "They decided they did not want to be governed by other people."

Leaving the EU was a cause Sir Bill put his career on the line for.

Despite serving four decades as an MP, he said his party tried to deselect him at one stage.

If an MP is deselected, it means they are removed as a candidate and cannot represent their party at a general election.

"I was in real trouble," Sir Bill admitted. "But I was rebelling for a reason.

"The reason was because I wanted my constituents to have self-government and sovereignty."

There are arguments from both the Leave and Remain sides that the process of Brexit consumed a lot of political bandwidth over the past decade, meaning things like welfare reform, defence spending and tackling immigration were not prioritised.

That suggestion was firmly rejected by the former Stone MP.

"It's not Brexit that's done this. It's the people, for example, in parts of the civil service who were just not prepared do the job at the time," Sir Bill argued.

"That is a serious problem and it went to the very highest level. You had resignations, I won't mention their names but I know who they were."

He said he was now concerned about what the government, and Sir Kier Starmer's successor as prime minister, would do next.

In one example, before Sir Kier announced his resignation, Wes Streeting said leaving the European Union had been a "catastrophic mistake" and the UK should "one day" rejoin the bloc.

"Attempting to go in by the back door is very damaging to our sovereignty, self-government and our democracy," Sir Bill said.

Streeting has since encouraged Labour MPs to back Andy Burnham's bid for No 10.

There was no seamless transition for Staffordshire cheese producer Simon Spurrell, when the terms of Brexit were brought in in 2021.

He said he was now waiting with bated breath to see what the new prime minister will do with the planned EU reset.

Spurrell said he would welcome the food and drinks safety deal currently on the table.

"I want to see the food standards align that'll make it small business friendly again, and then let's look at some economic European community involvement as a first step," he added.

But Sir Bill warned against any attempt to rejoin the EU and said it would take away the right to self-govern from the British people.

"Joining up with Europe on the scale and the manner in which they're doing, is not a good idea," he added, saying he would "fight it flat out".

The UK's minister for EU relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, told the BBC in April that Labour was adopting a "ruthlessly pragmatic" as well as an "ambitious" approach to becoming closer to its European neighbours.

It would not make any deals with Brussels that go against UK national interest, he said.

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