A recent  Comres poll shows just 3% of the public think Parliament is doing a good job on Brexit, with 78% judging it to be doing a bad job.

The public wants to get on with Brexit, and dislike the way Parliament is trying to slow it down or stop it altogether. When asked about delay,  41% want to leave with no delay, and 33% want to leave with just a short delay.  Staying in as a permanent option has only 35% support, showing a good number of Remain voters now want to get on with it and accept the result of the referendum.

The public are very critical of both Mrs May and Mr Corbyn, and think the negotiations have gone badly. They blame both the government for poor handling, and Parliament for helping undermine the UK bargaining position by seeking to rule out no deal and demanding the UK makes concessions.  6% think the Agreement is a good outcome for the UK with 40% thinking it is a good outcome for the EU.

Opinion is shifting amongst young voters, where more are coming round to the idea of leaving. Amongst 18-24 year olds 36% now wish to leave with 43% wanting to stay. The rest are don’t knows.

Yesterday the Telegraph published another new Comres poll.  This showed 55% of the public thinking Parliament is trying to stop Brexit, and 54% think Remain MPs and the establishment have damaged the UK’s negotiating position.  Support for Leave amongst under 35 year olds is up by 7%, with bigger increases for older people.

MPs seeking to control the agenda in Parliament to hold a series of indicative votes should consider these findings carefully before voting. More than half the public think withdrawing our notification to leave would damage our democracy yet there are those in Parliament who favour this option.

Too many in the media just accept the assumption that we have done well out of being in the EU and will lose when we leave. There is little  evidence to support either of these contentions.

We joined in 1972. We were made to remove all tariffs on products the rest of the EU was good at, whilst they maintained many barriers to service exports which we were good at. As a result there was a predictable deterioration in our goods trade balance with the EU, and closure or slimming of many of our factories. Our car industry suffered heavily from the tariff free competition of VW, BMW, Mercedes, Renault, Fiat and the others. BLMC in particular had to slim and close plants. Our Lancashire cotton industry and Yorkshire woollen industry was hit by Italian and German textiles. Our ceramic tile industry was damaged by Italian competition and later by Spanish. In the 1970s we lost a lot of manufacturing capacity. The nationalised steel industry had to start closing its five new large scale plants for lack of demand as steel using industries fell away in the EEC.

We also saw a further deterioration in our balance of  payments as a result of high financial contributions we  had to make to the EEC, as all those charges were negative flows across the exchanges. Soon after we joined there was a deep western slump which hit the UK particularly badly. Whilst this was not mainly the result of EEC membership, it exacerbated the bad trends EEC membership was causing.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s we saw another recession brought on by the UK’s membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. These job losses and factory closures were entirely the result of EU membership, and very damaging.

More recently we have seen a lot of factories shift elsewhere in Europe thanks in part to EU grants tempting businesses away. When I was a business Minister one of the regular complaints from UK companies was unfair competition from the rest of the EU where companies in favoured locations got special EU grants and financial assistance on favourable terms or free.

The UK growth rate has been slower since 1972 than it was 1945 to 1972. Some try to say the war disrupts the picture,  but it is difficult to see why. Whilst the war was a terrible thing, it gave us very full employment with the diversion of many people into the armed services. All their efforts did under standard accounting count as national output. There were also big increases in manufacturing output domestically as we had to produce most of our planes, vehicles and bombs nationally. There was a also a surge in home food production. Of course there was also a fall in non military output as factories were diverted to war work.  Imports from the continent obviously stopped as it was under German control, and imports from the rest of the world were restrained by German military action to prevent or destroy them.

An EU study has showed practically no gain from EU membership for the UK economy, but it is on optimistic assumptions. To me there has clearly been a modest net overall loss of output compared to what would have happened if we had stayed out, though of course output is up over our time in the EU as you would expect. The headwind of big financial contributions  to the EU has been damaging. Margaret Thatcher’s renegotiation helped a bit  by cutting the burden.

This  week I am told the government may ask Parliament to debate and approve a Statutory Instrument under the EU Withdrawal Act to delay the date it comes into effect. The government also says Brexit will be delayed by the EU  Council offer to delay made to Mrs May. Some say EU law is still superior to UK law before the EU Withdrawal Act comes into effect and we therefore have to obey the Council offer.

I will oppose and vote against a delay SI. It also implies the UK government is not sure of its legal ground that it rightly wants Parliament to decide to delay. It clearly does not want to rely on the Council decision. There would at least be a conflict of laws if the UK Statute repealing all EU power on 29 March comes into effect whilst the Council assumes the delay is in force. Some will argue the whole point of the EU Withdrawal Act is to repeal The European Communities Act 1972 which is the foundation of all EU power over UK courts and government. What an irony if the EU tried  to assert its own  law over our very act of throwing off its powers.

To avoid legal doubt Eurosceptics advised the UK government to proceed to get us out under Treaty law by Article 50 and in domestic law by the EU Withdrawal Act. This latest ploy by Mrs May to sort of agree a delay runs the danger of muddling legal clarity. Parliament being full of Remain MPs may vote for delay to avoid testing this legal issue. It will only do so if Mrs May insists on   this unpopular  move against her own party, with many of us declining to support. She will need Labour votes to get it through. To be sure of delay the government will have to change UK law to do this.

Some MPs claim Parliament has been prevented from expressing a view on Brexit and needs a series of indicative votes on different options. Where have they been these last two years? Parliament has talked about almost nothing other than Brexit. The  pro Remain MPs  told us for years before the vote the EU had little power, it was not very important,  there was no need to go “banging on” about it and  the electors were not interested in it. Now these same MPs  claim it is critical to our economic survival, that the EU has tentacles into so many things that matter  and bang on about it to the exclusion of all else.

Parliament has had endless debates rerunning the referendum. In the referendum itself and since we have discussed the Norway model, the Swiss model, EEA membership, EFTA membership, Customs union membership, single market membership, and some combination of all the above memberships. We have had debates and votes on staying in the single market, staying in the customs union, and  having a second referendum. Each of these proposals has been defeated. Why do we have to do all that again?

If Parliament has more debates and more votes they would only be indicative. The government need not accept them. The EU/EEA/EFTA etc may not wish to negotiate the answer Parliament wants should Parliament suddenly back one of these proposals above the others. The government may not agree with the proposal. A large number of Conservative and DUP MPs may not agree with the proposal. Parliament cannot make the government adopt a particular policy. All it could do is to vote no confidence in a government which refused to take its advice. It has tried that recently and the government won the vote. Why would the government wish to proceed with the least unpopular proposal, if that entailed continuous backbench rebellions on its own side in large numbers? Why would the Opposition MPs who favoured a different approach to Brexit then behave responsibly and help the government get it through against the wishes of many Conservative MPs? Wouldn’t they see opportunity in  defeating a government trying to implement their chosen policy against the wishes of many of its own backbenchers?

There is a reason why Parliament in our system lets government get on and govern, defining its task as stopping decisions and laws which it thinks are wrong but not as dictating to government what laws and decisions are right. That latter way anarchy lies. Parliament either has to put up with the government or sack the whole government. It cannot run it from the backbenches. The government’s idea that it needs to appeal to Parliament generally for  support means it has given up on finding a Conservative answer that the governing MPs will vote for.  That is a strange conclusion for a PM whose job depends on being the Leader of the Conservative party.

On the EU the Manifesto made a lot of sense. It said“As we leave the EU we will no longer be members of the single market or customs union
“We believe it is necessary to agree the terms of our future partnership alongside our withdrawal, reaching agreement on both within the 2 years allowed by Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union.
“We will not bring the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights into UK law.
“We continue to believe that No deal is better than a bad deal for the UK.”

It also confirmed that we will take back “control of our laws” and “We will control immigration”. “We will pursue free trade with European markets, and secure new free trade agreements with other countries”

It is difficult to see how an MP who supported this Manifesto can support the current Withdrawal Agreement.

All MPs should remember the words of the government leaflet to all households before the referendum:

“This is your decision. We will implement what you decide”

Parliament has declared verbal war on the people. The rows  can only be ended if we leave the EU on 29 March with no Withdrawal Agreement.

The public has  been very patient as 2 years 8 months have passed without fulfilling the promise to take control of our borders, our laws and our money. Parliament has endlessly re run the arguments of the referendum as if we had not done all that in the campaign and come to a decision. MPs against Brexit  have  been patronising or dismissive of Leave voters.

We need to leave to create an independent democracy in our islands. We did not vote leave to achieve some  changes to our trading arrangements. We voted leave to govern ourselves, to throw off the yoke of Brussels government. We voted against the lies that had wrecked our economy in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. We voted against  the stream of laws and taxes coming out of the EU that   damage our prosperity. We  voted out to confirm we do not want to join the Euro and enter their emerging political union.

We voted to take back control of our fishing  grounds, to have a policy which is kinder to both our fish and our fishermen.

We voted to take back control of our taxes, so we can take VAT off female  sanitary products, domestic fuel and green products, where today we cannot remove those taxes.

We voted to control our borders so we can have the  same rules for EU as for non EU migrants.

We voted  to spend our own money on our own priorities. I want that Brexit bonus budget in April.

Above all we voted leave to be free again. It will be a crippling irony for our democracy if the people insist their Parliament takes back control, only to find Parliament refuses to do so. What part of Leave do Remain MPs not understand? Why do so many MPs want to stay in a puppet Parliament, whose laws are imitations of the EU ?

These Remain MPs are letting the people down badly. They blame the public for bravely choosing freedom. They  lack any vision of the better future that beckons. Their pathetic whining of how our country will be worse if they take responsibility from the EU tells us more about their inadequacies than about the bold vision of the  people.

The government is proceeding as if there will be a third vote on the Withdrawal Agreement on Monday. They will of course need to persuade the Speaker that something meaningful has changed from the previous version they put to the Commons, which lost by 149 votes.

The government approach to get MPs to vote for the Agreement depends on which MP they are talking to. Leave supporting MPs I hear are  told  there will be  a long delay to Brexit or no Brexit if they do not vote for the Agreement. Remain voting MPs are told there would be  a no deal Brexit on 29 March. As all this has appeared in the press, the two sides can see that at least one side is not getting the truth. The danger for the government is both sides may choose not to believe the government, knowing it faces different ways.

There are some Conservative Leave inclining MPs who switched votes between the first vote on the Agreement and the second. They were mainly won over to what they still regard as a very bad Agreement by the worry that maybe the alternative was a long delay. Now the government has revealed its hand to the European Council and has not even asked for a long delay, some of them may switch back to opposing the Agreement as the worry they were told about has not yet materialised.

The DUP have always taken a principled stance on this matter. Their simple red line is they cannot accept anything which gives different treatment to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. They deeply resent the EU attempt to create a new country called UK (NI) which would have different laws and customs arrangements from the rest of the UK. The difficulties for them lie in the Agreement text itself, with many pages creating island of Ireland solutions where the DUP want UK solutions. It is difficult to see how they can be persuaded to change their vote. Press briefing about making  more payments to Northern Ireland went down very badly with the DUP who were not proposing any such deal.

Meanwhile Remain MPs cannot accept the Agreement either because its vagueness on what shape the future partnership will take gives them no legal or bankable guarantees of the close relationship including customs union membership, EU environmental and employment laws  and single market rules that they want. They are very concerned that if the UK did sign the Agreement we could end up with a very bad deal  not including  the features of the EU they most wish to protect. Mrs May’s insistence that the UK will be leaving the Customs union and the single market , necessary to keep to her Manifesto, alienates the opposition parties and a handful of Conservatives. To Remain the Withdrawal Agreement is nowhere near as good as staying in. They want the PM to tear it up and try again. They want as Labour sets out at the  very least a customs union membership with close convergence of legislation.

In summary it is a very bad deal for the UK as a whole. It upsets both sides for different reasons, but Remain and Leave do agree by a big majority that this Agreement is not the way forward. The next few days will be crucial for both the government and for Brexit.  Labour sense that the government is very unstable and are likely to see this as a good opportunity to maximise opposition to a very unpopular deal to build their case against the government generally.

The government should not try to delay an answer until 12 April.  It would require difficult Parliamentary processes for no obvious gain.

Why would MPs vote for the Agreement after March 29 when they have not been willing to vote for it before March 29?

Mrs May should have asked for a free trade deal tonight and told them she cannot get the Withdrawal Agreement through, given the large defeats, the  dislike of the deal by the public and the reluctance of most MPs to change their minds on it.

The faltering and badly drafted letter to Mr Tusk is unacceptable, asking as it does for a delay of three months in our exit from the EU.

188 Conservative MPs made clear our  opposition to any delay last Thursday in the vote, with another 12 unable to support the Prime Minister’s motion to delay. Our actions, allied to Cabinet dissent, has persuaded the Prime Minister to drop the idea of a long delay for no stated purpose which I characterised here as the phantom option.

The Prime Minister has decided to appeal to Labour and SNP MPs to vote for a short delay were she to be granted one by the EU. The letter both says she could not take the same deal back to the Commons for a vote this week under the Speaker’s ruling, and says she will  bring the same Agreement back next week after the Council for a third vote. It does not explain how this happens. The suggestion is getting Council endorsement for the documents Parliament has already considered somehow makes a difference.  The letter asks for the extension to Article 50 only to pass consequential legislation following approval of the Agreement. The letter is silent on what happens if the Agreement is voted down again or not voted on at all, though it implies we leave on 29 March with no extension.

What should the EU make of this? Many of them will feel the Prime Minister has told them before she can speak for Parliament and will get her deal through, but is still 149 votes short of a majority at last count. She has told them she would meet the timetable, only now to have to confess she cannot. They will doubtless want her to answer questions about why she wants the extension, how she would use the time, and above all why should they believe this time is different and the Agreement will go through.

They would also be wise to ask her how sure she is she could pass delay through the Commons, given the strong hostility of two thirds of her party to any such proposal. She would need to demonstrate she had a clear and reliable understanding with the Leader of the Opposition that he would provide enough MPs to offset the 200 Conservative MPs known to be against delay. This cannot be done by even a large Labour backbench rebellion but would need the Leader of the Opposition to take joint responsibility with the Prime Minister for delaying Brexit and whip accordingly. This seems unlikely, as there is little in it for Mr Corbyn to enter coalition with the PM over Brexit when any firm position on the subject splits his own party more.

Meanwhile I agree some MPs have been delaying Brexit as the PM says. These MPs clearly include the Prime Minister herself who has wasted far too much time on a negotiation and Agreement which the public rejects massively. The latest poll shows just 14% support  for Mrs May’s Agreement.

Does this mean they are rewriting it?  Can it  be different from what she and the Brexit Ministers told the Commons this afternoon?