UKIP MEP on 2nd Brexit Referendum: 'It Would Be Betrayal of the British People'

Doubts remain over Theresa May’s Brexit plan after reports surfaced that the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, told British MPs that the Chequers plan had in a Brussels meeting. Sputnik spoke with UKIP MEP Margot Parker to find out more on the situation.

Sputnik: Should there be a second Brexit referendum?

Margot Parker: There shouldn’t be a second referendum and it would be a betrayal of the British people. They knew what they voted for, they knew what mattered, and you’ll probably see from numerous surveys that … people haven’t lost the views of why they voted and what they voted for. In the meantime, of course, we’ve had a government that has been very lacklustre, the prime minister hasn’t shown a great deal of skill, and her chequers fiasco shows exactly that.

I think that that has annoyed people intensely, who think please can you get on with it, you’ve had all this time. They are extremely dissatisfied and by the way, the Labour Party are not very special, people know very well that these guys are all over the place, some didn’t want to leave, most definitely some are Remainers and some are Leavers. … They dance around trying to put up a case because they are the opposition, but they are not very meaningful. Many people, specifically in the north of England, feel very let down by the politicians who are in charge.

Sputnik: Is Boris Johnson planning a bid to become prime minister?

Margot Parker: I’m sure he’s planning to. By resigning he took himself away from the sharp end and made it a bit difficult, but who knows. She doesn’t have the confidence of the vast majority and people gave her the opportunity last year and she did this crazy election, threw away her majority and put herself in jeopardy, but then people thought, alright we got her elected, so let’s leave her to it; so she’s massively disappointed the vast majority of people … even her own supporters.

Unfortunately we have a remaining prime minister and a remaining cabinet. David Davis did the best he could and he got very little to be able to bring back and say here’s the progress. …  The civil servants were most definitely driving the bus, but we haven’t voted for the civil service … and David Davis had his hands tied.

We hear a lot of people speaking about this dire disaster … but we are one of the world’s largest economies and we’ll be able to just go out there, make trade deals and do things that you actually can do without asking for permission from Brussels. Actually, that was a very exciting prospect, they need to make the most of this and start to put their country first and not their political careers.

I think that’s sort of where we are, and the doom and gloom which continues, which we had before voting with George Osbourne saying that it will be absolutely dire, it will be the end of the world, but he was wrong, they’re all wrong. These catastrophic predictions have been, I think, quite shambolic and nasty actually, they need to have pride in their country to say we can go out and do this. … We have faith and we believe that our best days our certainly ahead of us, providing that our government grasps the opportunity and do their job.

We cannot be shackled to decisions being made in Brussels, we must have the Brexit that people voted for, we can’t be tied in in perpetuity, because we must be free to make those decisions and at the end of the day, WTO is not a bad thing. We already do this with other countries. It is predictable, we’d love to have a deal, but not at any cost.

The views expressed in this article are those of the speaker, and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.