Jesse Norman

Sunday Times op-ed: Beyond Brexit, the chance to be One Nation again

A striking thing about this Conservative leadership election is just how unconservative it is. In days gone by one might have expected the candidates to extol the importance of fiscal rectitude, keeping taxes low, deregulation and public spending restraint. But there has been very little of this.

The fact becomes more surprising still when one thinks that the UK is now in its ninth year of economic growth. Inflation and interest rates are low, employment is at an all-time high. The UK’s public finances are at last under control. This is, many would say, the moment to be storing away the grain against the proverbial and inevitable “rainy day”.

Telegraph: No Deal would be bad, but its possibility will get the EU to engage

How should the next Conservative leader and PM deal with Brexit? Only by facing the facts and then acting with energy and decisiveness.

First, we need to acknowledge the mistakes of the past few years. It was a mistake to agree a short Brexit timetable without a clear understanding of how that timetable could be achieved; not to recognise that the narrow but decisive Referendum vote could and should form the basis within Parliament for an agreed withdrawal deal; to allow the EU to dissociate the financial settlement from the overall deal; and above all not to prepare from the outset for No Deal.