Thats part of the problem - what would be the basis for saying it's 100% cancelled (cancelled yes - but what response would they need to receive to say we shall never darken this door again?). Presumably, even if the current board won't look at it again, they can't look to bind a future Nominet to that position?
No, but they can be pretty clear in their message.
Something along the line of:
"After 2 rounds of consultation, involving 15 face to face meetings, 1,204 written submissions, 191 emails, 7 stakeholder meetings, 2 webinars, 66 lords a leaping, 12 pipers piping, we will not be pursuing direct.uk.
It has become clear that there is a lack of support for the launch of a .uk namespace at the second level. The prime factors affecting this issue include a consideration of the needs of the existing registrant base, which holds over 10,000,000 domains, as well as the inevitable risk of phishing attacks, misdirected emails and general consumer and business confusion that launching .uk would introduce.
Given that these risk factors will clearly not change in future, we do not anticipate that the prospect of a .uk domain name at the second level will ever be feasible. Instead, we will be exploring alternatives to encourage registrations and renewals under the existing, trusted .co.uk extension, while working on a security programme designed to enhance the trust and stability of the entire UK namespace.
It remains only to thank all those who participated in the consultation process and shared their views on this matter."
Ok, it's rough and could do with a polish (and the right figures) but you can hopefully see how a statement as unambiguous as the one above would scotch future attempts before they ever got started.