I have received a dozen or so emails from constituents wanting me to oppose a “No Deal” Brexit. I have answered them individually, but as some have used a standard lobby email I thought I would offer my response more widely in case others are thinking of sending the standard one.

Dear Constituent

Thank you for your email. The government has said it would prefer a deal and is seeking one. It is however quite possible no good deal will be on offer, so we would then leave with no Withdrawal Agreement. We will of course leave with many other smaller agreements, covering issues like aviation, customs and haulage so we will carry on trading, under the umbrella of WTO rules. We know this works fine as it is how we currently conduct the majority of our trade which is with non EU countries.

I see Brexit as offering the opportunity of boosting our economy and providing more opportunity and prosperity to my constituents. I have proposed a Brexit budget with better funding for our important pubic services . It should also boost the general economy through tax cuts on working and enterprise. Our economy is being slowed by a needless fiscal squeeze and by the marked slowdown in the Eurozone currently underway. The first part of my wishes will come true with the government’s Spending statement offering substantial increases for Wokingham and West Berkshire schools, Thames Valley Police, FE Colleges and the NHS.

I have investigated thoroughly the scare stories being put out that we will be short of food and drugs owing to difficulties importing from the EU. I am pleased to assure you that the government has confirmed no major EU suppliers have announced cancellation of their contracts to supply us. The UK authorities have confirmed that they will ensure smooth passage of imports through all our ports of entry and will not need to check every consignment at the port as some seem to think. Calais is as keen as Dover to keep their business and see their port operating smoothly after our exit, whilst Antwerp and other Dutch and Belgian ports would dearly love more business if Calais did stumble. As today most trucks will pass through the borders based on their advance filing of a manifest, with any necessary Excise, VAT, tariff and other adjustments usually taking place electronically through the accounts of the principals or the logistics companies involved. Most Just in time supply chains currently handle both EU and non EU components. It is the duty of the supplier to send the items in good time to arrive on time. Just in time chains have regularly had to handle French strikes, bad road congestion and accidents on both sides of the Channel and train and ferry cancellations. The UK government is exempting components for use in UK factories from tariffs. This not only means no new tariff barrier on EU components but takes off the current tariff barrier on non EU components, helping the assemblers and offering them the prospect of some cheaper supplies from non EU sources.

The UK may well sign Free Trade deals with non EU countries after we have left. There is no need to do any damage to the NHS or to our food standards in order to do so, and there will be a vigilant Parliament that would not allow any UK government to do such damage.

If there are other worries you have about our exit from the EU please let me know and I will do my best to reassure you or to get action to deal with the problem.

Yours sincerely

John Redwood

I went into Wokingham Town Centre this morning to thank those who were collecting signatures on a petition to the Car Park owners of the Euro park in Denmark Street to keep the park open. I support the request to keep the car park. There were plenty of people about in the town enjoying the late August sunshine and the new cafes, restaurants and shops. Many were willing to sing, as the car parks are needed close to the centre to make it easy for shoppers and leisure users of the Town facilities.

The Brexit vote was based around the proposition that we the people need to take back control from Brussels of our laws, our borders and our money. Brexit voters wish to recreate a strong UK Parliament, answerable to voters, with sovereign powers. The MPs keep their jobs for as long it pleases the voters, who decide at election and by election time if their Parliament is exercising their sovereignty in the way they wish.

The Remain MPs just do not understand this central idea of people’s sovereignty. They have done all in their power over many years to remove power after power from the UK Parliament and therefore from UK voters by transfers to the EU through a series of Treaties and through acceptance of all ECJ rulings, Directives and Regulations the EU makes. They misled the country over the extent of the power grab by Brussels, sought to deny Parliament proper debates and votes about much of the law and decisions coming from the EU, and where debate was forced over EU laws rightly had to tell us it did not make any difference what Parliament thought or said as laws, decisions and judgements made by the EU could not be amended or set aside by our Parliament.

Now they are seeking to thwart popular sovereignty by appealing to our law courts. They ironically claim they are seeking to buttress Parliamentary sovereignty by asking judges to set the Parliamentary timetable, and to interfere in the legislative process. This achieves the very opposite. A sovereign Parliament (sovereign because it is derived from the sovereignty of the voters) sets its own timetable, decides what it will debate and legislate or how else it will make and communicate its decisions. If a majority in Parliament disagree strongly with government direction of the timetable then they have many options to overturn the decision or the government.

The Gina Miller judgement created a costly delay in our departure from the EU – around £7bn of extra EU net budget contribution for starters. It required Parliament to legislate a decision it had already taken, the decision to send the Article 50 letter. Parliament did so by a very large majority, showing the demand for a longer legislative means of expressing the decision made no difference to the will of Parliament then that we should leave. Mrs May was wrong not simply to legislate straight away to cut down the loss of time and head off the legal challenge. The legal challenge weakened Parliament by placing the Courts above Parliament in an important matter of political judgement.

It is to be hoped that the courts this coming week understand it is not their role to tell Parliament when to meet or what to debate. It is for government to lead this. If the Parliament has lost confidence in the government’s judgement in these matters then it is for a new Parliamentary majority to emerge to vote the government down. We do not elect the judges. We cannot sack them at an election if they cease to please. The decision on how and when to leave the EU is one that only Parliament can take. It has to take it in the knowledge that it promised to take us out of the EU following the vote. If MPs do not keep their word on this they should expect voters to show their strong disapproval when next they judge the performance of the members of this Parliament in an election. Either Parliament gets us out soon, or the sovereign people will demand a different Parliament.

The most common way to prosperity is to get a well paid job. One of ways to get a well paid job is to start with a less well paid job, do it well and work your way up the organisation. Today’s shelf stacker in the supermarket may be tomorrow’s section Head in the shop, and the store manager in due course. Another way is to do well in education and training, emerging with qualifications and skills employers need. That way you can enter higher up the pay scales when you begin. Some lack success in education, but have energy and an impulse to serve others which develops successful small businesses.

Many companies now do a good job helping their workforce to achieve more and earn more. Companies often have training programmes for those who did not get on well at school and did not leave with good relevant skills. Many companies recognise that they do not just need to attract talent, but they also need to nurture and create talent. Employers have to serve the local community in many ways, including helping people to help them as better employees. A good company appreciates it has an employer brand as well as a customer brand, and will attract better or more willing people if it has a good reputation as an employer.

Families, teachers family friends and other adults known to the young person are important and they can help. Grown up children will often get their first job whilst still living with their parents. Parental or other adult support and guidance over how to accept the disciplines of the workplace and how to make your way in the office or factory can make a difference to a person’s prospects. Just as an employee has a right to expect a caring and supportive employer, so an employer would like an employee who is keen to learn , who wishes to do well for the business and understands the importance of customer relations and customer satisfaction to the ability of the company to pay good wages.

Now we have much fuller employment that task of encouraging jobs for those still in long term unemployment is more difficult. Some find entering the job market difficult owing to a lack of role models in their families and possibly owing to drink or drugs or some mental health problem. That is why local and national government has many programmes to tackle addictions and afflictions and spends large amounts of time and money on trying to assist the most difficult to help.

Getting the better paid job is just part of the route out of poverty. It also opens up the opportunity to own assets, allowing people to establish some store of wealth for the future as well as income for the present. People make very different uses of this opportunity.

Shock horror, we are going to have the same 3 week break for party conferences we have always had. Bigger shock horror, we are going to end the longest Parliamentary session since the civil war, and have a new Queen’s speech as we used to do every year. Worse shock horror, the Remain forces who have dominated the Parliamentary agenda for three years complaining about the result of the referendum will not have many more days to repeat this. Most of the country will breathe a sigh of relief if the endless rows about Brexit are over and we can get on with a decent agenda for the UK.

The irony of Remain is they now dare to say it undemocratic to implement the referendum decision, undemocratic to have a new session of Parliament with a new agenda for a new government, and undemocratic if the majority get their way. It is they who launch the attack on democracy, by denying the result of the referendum and seeking to stop the transfer of powers of self government back to Parliament, which was the whole point of the Brexit vote.

So what should we want from the new Queen’s Speech? Certainly an end to the endless and pointless wrangling about what type of Brexit we want. We will now get the one sort available to us, Brexit without a Withdrawal Agreement. We need from the Queen’s speech a clear statement of how the powers and money we are getting back from the EU will be used to boost our economy and lift our public services. The new government has made clear its wish to spend more on schools, the NHS and the police. It needs to show how this money will be spent, so the money buys more capacity and better quality in these important areas.

The new government needs to set out its plans for better infrastructure. We know it wants to send fibre broadband and 5G to every corner of the country. Does it want a version of HS2 or will it come up with cheaper and faster plans to enhance rail capacity and service? What actions will it take to improve our road network, starved of investment for two decades?

Will it embark on a bold programme of tax reform, to raise more money by lowering rates and encouraging enterprise and investment? Will it remove VAT from green products and home energy, once we are free to do so? Will it free the homes market by cutting Stamp Duties?

There is so much a good positive post Brexit government can do. I want the government to launch all this in a Queen’s speech, so the opposition can debate and vote on it and the government can set out just how much better off we can be once Brexit is behind us.