Brexit-supporting voters have a clear but crucial choice at this month’s European Parliament elections, Conservative MEPs’ leader Ashley Fox said today.
They can support the Conservatives, who are committed to an orderly Brexit which safeguards jobs, businesses and our security. Or they can select between the Brexit Party, which wants to leave the EU but has no credible plan how to deliver it, and the ever-more extreme UKIP, which tolerates loutish and abhorrent behaviour from its candidates.
Mr Fox, who is standing in the South West and Gibraltar constituency, said: “I didn’t want to fight these elections and I am as frustrated as anyone that they are going ahead. I was ready to leave the European Union on March 29 and enable the Country to focus on other issues.
“But democracy is a messy business. We have a minority Government and a Parliament which has rejected every option put before it – the Withdrawal Agreement, no deal, Common Market 2, a customs union, a second referendum and the revocation of Article 50 – without indicating what it will support.
“It is taking far longer than anyone wanted but we will get there. The Conservatives are going to honour the referendum result and deliver the orderly Brexit that people expect, businesses crave and our economy demands. “
As the governing party, only the Conservatives can secure Britain’s departure from the European Union. Until that is achieved, the Government will require experienced Conservative MEPs in Brussels with a strong track record of working in Britain’s interests.
Over the past five years Conservative MEPs’ achievements include steering through legislation to improve air quality and cut the number of air quality related deaths in half by 2030; drawing up new rules to prevent any repeat of the Dieselgate scandal which saw car manufacturers cheating emissions tests; and shaping legislation forcing online platforms to remove terrorist content within an hour.
Mr Fox said: “In contrast Nigel Farage has spent that time making the occasional provocative speech in Brussels, annoying the people we will soon be negotiating a key new trading relationship with, and then sitting back and doing little work. He himself admits he treated it as ‘semi-retirement’. But that didn’t stop him drawing his full salary.
“A vote for the Brexit Party simply risks putting Jeremy Corbyn a step closer to Downing Street.”
Mr Fox concluded: “For anyone who supports leaving the EU, this election boils down to a clear choice between the good, the bad and the unelectable. Only the Conservatives can deliver the good, orderly Brexit that will set our country on the road to greater prosperity.”
