Sputnik: Would an extended Brexit transition period be a betrayal of those who voted to leave the EU? And is it really necessary or just an attempt by the elites to destroy Brexit?
Diane James: It is a very concerted attempt to destroy Brexit. The EU plays a very long game in this situation and the longer it believes that it can extend this process, before Brexit were to happen, it can continue what I call its absolute damage exercise against the leave campaign and against leave supporters.
It believes that it can overturn the leave outcome by either a second referendum or quite frankly seeing a new government coming in to the UK and saying, it's gone on to the too difficult pile; we're not even going to do that.
It's a betrayal of absolutely everyone, and it doesn't matter whether they are a leaver or remainer. If this goes ahead according to the EU terms, then the Chequers deal still leaves us under their control and to make matters worse, we're going to be paying a 60 billion pound divorce bill.
There's all sorts of things coming down the line and we're going to be voting on this as MEPs next week, in terms of the budget and the EU hasn't cut its cloth here, it's still coming up with these grandiose expenditure plans and all the time the UK is either in transition, or still a member of the EU, we're still liable for those bills.
Sputnik: Did the EU ever have the intention to give the UK a good Brexit deal?
Diane James: They've been the architects of fear and regretfully it has to be said that a lot of the remain campaign have bought into that and are playing it out on behalf of the EU. You could almost call them EU puppets as a result, they're not thinking through what's going on here, we made a democratic choice and had one of the largest voter turnouts ever, who wanted to make their voice abundantly clear in terms of the membership situation.
We had our own government spending nearly 10 million on a leaflet that hit every single household, there was ample opportunity for the remain campaign to win and they didn't. The EU has managed to get two referendums that threatened a country leaving, one was France and the Netherlands has toyed with the idea of having a vote that could have led to an EU membership referendum, and the EU is absolutely desperate to make sure that no member ever leaves in case it starts to open up cracks, that are relatively superficial at the moment; like in Poland and Hungary, but if the UK gets away out of the EU prison, gets its freedom and independence back, there could be other countries that want to follow suit.
The views expressed in this article are those of the speaker, and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
