The closest any of my Remain opponents in debate have come to saying anything nice or positive about the EU is their occasional claim that the EU is about peace in Europe.
I agree with that aim, but fail to see how the EU has created or helped it. Peace came about following a bruising world war, when a newly democratic Germany and democratic France emerged from the violence and decided to co-operate with each other, under the security umbrella provided by a US led NATO. The leading western democracies have no wish to invade each other again or to annex the smaller countries, whether the UK is in the EU or out of it.
My fear is that as the EU seeks to develop its military arm and to assert itself in foreign policy, it will become a force for instability as we have seen in the Balkans and the Ukraine. I do not wish the UK to be dragged into far away conflicts by an EU that has more ambition than strength or commonsense to follow it through. There is no need for a rival to NATO.
For the rest of it, the Remain case is an increasingly absurd barrage of extremely pessimistic forecasts. Most of them are based on the idea that we are in a Union with a group of very unpleasant states who will wish to damage us so much that they will happily bring their own economies down in the process should we dare to leave.
Listening to the German Finance Minister in the bits of his recent intervention that did not get reported much he made clear that if the UK despite his warnings and advice does leave he will want to sit down and sort out how to continue Germany’s very profitable trade with us. The day after we vote to leave the rest of the EU’s rhetoric will change from mild threats and insincere protestations of love for us if we stay, to a strong wish to save as much as possible of the strong links and collaboration there is across the Channel.
Remain have fallen in the polls the more they have relied on bullying to get people to vote for them. They have fallen in the polls as their tv spokespeople have turned to personal abuse and false allegations, instead of helping Leave inform the public of how the EU works and what the future might be like under either scenario.
I have not spent my time painting lurid portraits of what Remain might be like if we had a more serious re-run of the 2011 Euro crisis or if the European banks get into worse trouble,  for two reasons. One, I do not want it to happen as it would be damaging to so many people. Two, I think it more likely the Euro area will muddle through with slow growth and a gradual move to the richer countries sending more money to the poorer countries and accepting more debt write offs as they need to do.
Nor have I spent my time in full flow thinking through some of the worst scenarios we could get into as the EU tries to flex its limited military muscle. Again I do not wish to see that happen, and it is not the base case.
Meanwhile, all Remain does is invent ever more absurd ideas with huge figures plucked out of thin air. What a pity they have no positive vision of life in the EU for the UK. They spend most of their time denying how much it already does. They refuse to discuss the next moves to a Euro Treasury and political Union. They only seem proud of the fact that we  are  neither in the Euro nor in Schengen, two of the central pillars of the modern EU. Often these are the same people who used to tell us we did have to join the Euro.
If even Remain does not want to join in major parts of the EU, why hang around arguing with the other members who want to get on with their fuller Union?
June 13, 2016
The EU is about Free Trade and a single market , if you believe that this is a good thing then the EU is a good thing . If you belive that the Fre market must be socially grounded , and any Conservative should , it is a good thing .
The word,is embarking ona new era of prosperity with Asia emerging from poverty and even Africa beggining to join the world . Malaria close to beaten education rates up and poverty in retreat everywhere
This has been achieved by captalism and free trade
At this exciting point in our world`s history all you can worry about is the Poles working at Sports Direct and and (foreign ed) faces ion the Doctors waiting room , and don`t pretend that the votes are coming from anywhere else .
I presume , Mr Redwood these are the reasons why , for most of your career you were a critical supporter of the EU, I am sure Ms Le Pen , Mr Putin and Mr Trump will be delighted at this late converison to small minded populism.
Well Done
Reply I voted against our membership of the EEC and have always wanted us to leave. I am all for free trade. The EU is about something very different. It offers big government for a customs union.
June 13, 2016
The Single Market is NOT about free trade. It is a Customs Union and if you are NOT one of the 31 members, you have to pay a tariff on all goods, services and your people are not allowed to work without adequate visas and paperwork.
Whilst being part of the EU we are NOT allowed to sign our own trade deals. This means we cannot get the terms we would like for our companies selling abroad. We are, in effect, a captive market for others and cannot freely choose goods and services which may be far cheaper on the world market.
June 13, 2016
JR, remain means Turks being allowed via free access to the UK. Pleae read Guido Fawkes and the Sunday Times about diplomat messages over Turks and Kosovans being allowed into the UK. Again, this is in stark contrast to what Cameron is publicly saying (as well as Chuka etc). He is an utter disgrace. You cannot beleive a word he says.
June 13, 2016
Oh quelle suprise – few days to go and a surprising diplomatic immigration scandal is confected . For the last two weeks the Brexit horde have been pretending Immigration will stop if you vote for them but there is far far more immigration for outside the EU , no reciprocal freedom of movement and no economic advantage .(False allegation left out ed)If we commit economic suicide it will be on the basis of lies and ignorance and wilfully encouraging bigotry
I wonder how many people , like me are thinking , I can`t vote for Corbyn but I will have nothing to do with this gang of (Brexiteers ed)
June 13, 2016
Immigration from outside the EU can be stopped. Spot the difference?
I’m guessing not. Evoking foreign Bogeymen and women. Le Pen, Putin and Trump, while throwing around silly accusations of bigotry places you firmly among the terminally blinkered, as does your assertion that the EU is about free trade (it isn’t, it is a geographically limited customs union which comes with all kinds of political, social and economic strings which you choose to ignore).
You may well find it difficult to find anyone to vote for. No wonder.
June 13, 2016
Getting ratty, are you? Good.
Three out of four Britons want immigration reduced, and the fourth should not be allowed to dictate to the others.
Now see if you can spot the subtle difference between these two sentences:
1. This government chooses not to cut immigration from outside of the EU.
2. This government cannot cut immigration from the rest of the EU.
June 14, 2016
Newmania – Yours is some of the most unhinged and angry writing I have ever read on this blog. Not because of your position but because of your lack of self control.
I dread to think what has been edited out.
etc ed
June 14, 2016
“What does Remain look like? A nasty world of threats, rows and no vision”
The title of this post.
And up pops Newmania to prove it. What a gift !
June 13, 2016
Surely, by now, everyone knows that you cannot believe a word that (cast Iron, no if no buts, at heart a low tax Conservative) Cameron and Osborne says.
Osborne even now pretends he is keeping his IHT promise of 7+ years ago. Does he really so deluded he believes his own drivel? Or is he just blatantly lying? I certainly think the latter.
June 13, 2016
The EU is not at all about free trade. It is about an anti-democratic, socialist, central command, bureaucratic superstate. That and well paid jobs and pensions with special tax rules for failed elderly politicians and bureaucrats.
June 13, 2016
An article to make your blood boil in the Spectator,LL -“Why do we indulge the crimes of the left” by Ed West.
Looks at,amongst many other things,the shocking bias on the Edexcel A level Government & Politics syllabus – which pupils have to regurgitate to get the marks.Oh and the Arts & Humanities Research Council (what happened to that bonfire?)is spending ÂŁ818,000 on a “Socialism goes Global Project”.
If you had ever wondered why the mawkish jottings of Anne Frank are force fed to our children whilst Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich has vanished from national consciousness,wonder no more.
June 13, 2016
Indeed not to mention all the duff fake “renewables” guff and climate alarmism drivel in place of real science and real engineering.
June 13, 2016
Indeed it is appalling and hugely depressing. Schools and academia is a hot bed of lefty lunacy indoctrination, green crap, every higher taxes, ever more EU and endless BBC non think.
Marking the brighter children down for getting right answers and indoctrinating many others into lefty lunacy & quack greenery.
I see the BBC had Beatrix Campbell OBE on yet again honorary doctorates conferred by Salford University, Oxford Brookes University and The Open University too . etc ed
Needless to say she had nothing sensible to say.
June 13, 2016
But of course she played the “your a racist if you care about immigration levels” card.
June 13, 2016
I suppose even in my day they pushed things like “To Kill a Mockingbird” at us.
I found it dreadfully tedious and rather irrelevant to life in the North of England at the time.
June 13, 2016
Indeed, having now read the article fully, I am sure that is exactly how so much of “education” now is. It is hugely depressing. The BBC is the adult version of this indoctrination agenda.
June 13, 2016
Now we even have Tusk saying Brexit might lead to a break up of the EU and could lead to the “destruction of Western civilisation”.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen for Western civilisation is the break up of the antidemocratic, sclerotic, top down socialism of the EU.
Surprising he did not mention impacts by meteors or plagues of locusts.
June 13, 2016
Amazing isn’t it? A pathetic little country of no importance which can not survive on it’s own, full of hopeless and helpless “little Englanders” wants to regain self-government and that may bring about the collapse of western civilisation. Some Remainders seem to have no concept of irony.
June 13, 2016
Western ‘political’ civilisation was the term he used I think.
Though what that means I’m not sure.
June 13, 2016
Well, in that case the latest poll suggests that the end is nigh.
June 14, 2016
I can feel a touch of the Frankie Howerds coming on:
Woe,Woe and thrice woe!
June 14, 2016
Too true, maybe he should have taken Cameron more seriously when he [CMD] went there “cap in hand”.
Do we see a better deal coming down the line before 23rd June?
Oh, BTW you forgot “plague of frogs” but that’s probably not very PC nowadays đż
June 14, 2016
If we’re that important why don’t they pay us to stay ? If we’re that important why didn’t they grant Mr Cameron his modest demands ?
June 13, 2016
“The EU is about Free Trade and a single market”
No it isn’t. It’s about the centralisation of control on a Europe wise basis and the establishment of the United States of Europe.
For example, the EU Defence Force (coming in July) and the European Tax Identification Number. If it’s just about free trade, why are they two things necessary?
– and these are just two examples of the many more things they are storing up for us if we remain…
June 13, 2016
The EU defense force has been coming since about 1950 perhaps you could remind me how many soldier it has
June 13, 2016
Count them for yourself:
http://www.eurocorps.org/
By the way, it’s “defence” in British English.
June 13, 2016
You are quite right Newmania the EU is incapable of organising the proverbial in a brewery. 10 years and counting to negotiate a trade deal with USA, 8 years and counting with Canada and Australia, still lets look on the bright side we do have a full EU trade deal with Syria and Morocco. Oh hows the single market in services coming along ? You know the bit that is now worth 3 fifths of economic activity .
Donald Tusk was interesting today and I quote
âAs a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety.â
So this is the organisation that last week told us that a bunch of us Little Englanders were too small and insignificant to survive properly on our own. Just a week later we are so powerful that leaving their club will destroy civilisation. The Remainers are a bunch of brain dead, scaremongering, failures living in the mid 20th century and trying to pretend the world never changed
June 13, 2016
Exactly, the so-called “single” market/customs union is merely a means to an end. The EU is all about control and who has it.
At the moment unaccountable bureaucrats have the control and we want it back.
June 13, 2016
You miss the point. We only ask that we return the choice of our own direction to our sovereign Parliament.
It is not the faces in the waiting room that concentrate the mind. It is the fact we can’t get into the waiting room as it is full.
June 13, 2016
Indeed. Project Fear (aka Project Insult) is failing because the worst is already being done to the working classes.
No matter how hard they work, no matter how sensibly they vote, no matter how successful they make our economy, they themselves are forced to share the fruits so that they never get to feel good about their decisions.
Poverty is being imported into this country and the working class are feeling its full effects.
Thankfully they blame the policy and not the migrant. This makes me proud of being British. Newmania’s snide comment is extremely unfair.
June 13, 2016
Our people are suffering wage compression and high personal overheads. The EU economy (and the UK’s) is in fantasy land, or nightmare land – depending on your social position.
Champagne property costs and ginger beer wages.
June 13, 2016
“Poverty is being imported into this country and the working class are feeling its full effects.”
Excellent comment – the left and Remain need to be taken to task on why they want to keep importing more poverty – maybe someone can ask Gordon Brown.
June 13, 2016
The Labour party actually has a vested interest in importing poverty, because the eradication of poverty in this country would remove its raison d’etre.
June 13, 2016
It seems to have escaped your attention that the EU is about ever closer political union and all that that implies. The Five President’s Report sets out the road map towards this future. It has significant implications about the way this, and other EU member countries are run.
It is not what I voted for, or told I was voting for, in the 1975 referendum. Voters were lied to then – as the subsequent release of Cabinet papwers has revealed and as Nick Robinson’s two documentaries on the subject confirmed, with recorded interviews with the principal players.
June 13, 2016
Nor is is what I did not vote for in 1975. I was too young but even then I was for out. Benn, Powell, Peter Shaw and the rest even then knew what a disaster the EU was likely to be for the UK. They were quite right.
June 13, 2016
@Oldtimer; We were told, it’s just that few listened, this was confirmed only the other week by way of those re-broadcast programmes from the 1975 referendum on BBC-P. If you, like most, including myself, did not bother to listen that doesn’t equal a lie, it just means that (most likely) political prejudice was alive and well in 1975 as it is today, how many current Labour voters are dismissing what our host says simply because ‘he’s a Tory’, whilst people of all shades dismiss Mr Farage because he is UKIP.
June 13, 2016
Jerry
Good post, agree
I’m going for a lay down now !
June 13, 2016
Newmania, this seems a very lop sided view of reality.
Leave wishes a direct relationship with the emerging and emerged free capitalist markets you mention, not one controlled by a group of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, who at best serve the needs of vested interests in Europe. It is due to the sclerotic progress of said bureaucrats that we have no trading agreements with the markets you allude to.
It is however not just the trade bonus we might enjoy on leaving, there will be an opportunity to move out of the democratic void that is the EU, and revert to the sovereignty of our own Parliament.
Foreign faces as such are not the problem. We have welcomed them to the UK for many hundreds of years. They have integrated and become a positive asset to the UK. The problem has been that, since the advent of the Blair government, which for purely perceived self interest, invited said faces in such large numbers that they have impacted on our social structure and way of life, that it is now at breaking point in many areas. We may have enjoyed the range of cuisine this has offered, but not the waiting time to get a GP appointment, a place in a local school, or a home to live in.
The small minded popularism you refer to is the reaction of people across the EU who feel they have no democratic control of an out of control experiment with their lives. They are turning left and right politically to anyone who is offering an alternative. This is not necessarily for what you may associate with the left and right politics of the past. Neither extreme has ever appealed to the British so we are increasingly deciding to go our separate democratic way.
If you are honest, you will find on analysis that the EU, as presently set up, is closer to the old USSR than it is to any fully democratic model. It lumbers on minus the ever increasing consent of the people. In such mode I predict that it will fall apart. I hope it does so without harming anyone any further.
June 13, 2016
“The EU is about Free Trade and a single market ”
No, the EU is about setting up a federal United States of Europe, and everything including the single market and the single currency is directed to that end.
Why has been May 9th been designated as “Europe Day”? Some people assume it’s to do with V-E Day but the connection is in fact only indirect.
It was the date in 1950 chosen by Robert Schuman for his “Schuman Declaration” which the EU openly takes as its starting point:
http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/symbols/europe-day/index_en.htm
“Europe Day held on 9 May every year celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historical ‘Schuman declaration’. At a speech in Paris in 1950, Robert Schuman, the then French foreign minister, set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europeâs nations unthinkable.
His vision was to create a European institution that would pool and manage coal and steel production. A treaty creating such a body was signed just under a year later. Schumanâs proposal is considered to be the beginning of what is now the European Union.”
So what did Schuman say in that proposal which is officially “considered to be the beginning of what is now the European Union”? The text is here:
http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/symbols/europe-day/schuman-declaration/index_en.htm
and it said:
“The pooling of coal and steel production should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step in the federation of Europe … ”
and:
“… this proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation indispensable to the preservation of peace.”
Richard North has done some interesting research into the background to the Schuman Declaration:
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86053
The whole article is well worth reading, but I will just highlight that earlier drafts of the declaration made the federal purpose even clearer.
Anybody who thinks this is about trade and markets and economics is missing the point that it is above all else a political, in fact a geopolitical, project.
June 13, 2016
“The century of democracy is over”-Benito Mussolini
“The age of purely representative democracy is coming to an end”-Peter Mandelson.
I suppose there is a slight difference.
June 13, 2016
The World Trade Organisation is about free trade. The United Nations is about world peace. We are members of both.
Why do we need to be locked into an impotent political union of 500 million people when we are part of a commonwealth of a billion plus and a world of seven billion?
June 13, 2016
If you think the EU is only about free trade and a single market I suggest you need to better inform yourself. Why is there an unelected EU Commission responsible for initiating laws and regulations throughout EU? Why must there be free movement of people in order to have free trade? Name any other free trade area where such ruling applies. Why does the EU set tariffs on products from countries outside the EU which we in want to import into UK? I could go on but suggest you read more of our host’s excellent daily diaries to improve your knowledge.
June 13, 2016
Brian–Absolutely right about the wretched idea of “Free Movement” not applying, in particular within NAFTA which nevertheless seems to get by OK.
June 13, 2016
@Leslie Singleton; Mr Trump might disagree with you on that, of course it is not official âFree Movementâ, but the USA economy relies on cheap(er, unregulated,) labour just as much as the UK economy does…
June 13, 2016
Dear Jerry—If you think (though as usual I am unsure what you think) that there is free movement of any kind (never mind completely unlimited free movement, which is fatuous but what we face) in to the USA from Canada and Mexico, you are even more deluded than I thought.
June 14, 2016
@Leslie Singleton; If you think that then it is you who is deluded, not I, nor Mr Trump! If illegal immigration was not a problem in the USA why are they spending millions of USD on their southern border defences, why is Mr Trump suggesting that the USA spend millions more erecting a secure border wall – and no, it is not all about drug smuggling.
June 13, 2016
@Brian Tomkinson; You make a good case for a single world government….Not!
June 13, 2016
Perhaps that’s because I don’t want a single world government but an independent, self-governing UK that trades with the world.
June 13, 2016
The EU is not an area of free trade , it is a customs union, which costs us ÂŁ10billion to belong to, that represents en effective 5% tariff on the trade we do with the EU.
We tore down the Iron Curtain only to have a Bureaucratic Curtain put up in its place, also supported by vindictive threats if some country considers leaving it.
June 13, 2016
Obviously a fully funded EU troll.
They never answer why it is necessary for political integration to trade. We have a free trade zone in the Americas, we have ASEAN and various other groupings. None have a supra national unelected body ruling them.
About 140 countries aren’t in the EU and seem to manage nicely.
June 13, 2016
The EU has done more to lock out Third World farmers than any other. Including dumping surplusses in their markets.
June 13, 2016
‘Free Trade and a single market’
An oxymoron, surely ???
June 13, 2016
Single Market yes. But the EU is certainly not a free trade organisation. It is protectionist and has built a ‘fortress Europe’ wall around its members which keeps out products from the rest of the world. Our people could have food bills 20 percent lower if there was real free trade allowed by the EU, but this would undermine EU inefficient farmers and producers, to whom we must pay CAP to keep prices high.
The fact that the EU are even threatening us, their most important export market, with tariff barriers should we leave proves beyond any doubt that your assertion that the EU is about free trade is incorrect. It is a political project, for elites and corporations.
June 13, 2016
We can either be inside the EU tariff wall, trading within it with just 7% of the world’s population and trading over it with 93% of the world’s population, or we can be outside the EU tariff wall and trading over it with the 7% and also trading outside it with the 93%.
Whatever was the most advantageous position in 1972 that is not necessarily the same now and it’s quite possible that just from a trading point of view we would be better off out rather than in.
June 13, 2016
A genuine free trade agreement only takes one sentence to define it.
Any agreement that runs to 4000 pages, and grows daily is categorically not about free trade; it’s about restrictive practices.
June 14, 2016
Indeed
June 13, 2016
I believe the original question was roughly ‘What does ‘remain’ look like’.
Still none the wiser? And I don’t believe you actually know, either.
June 13, 2016
Whatever it looks like now, it is unlikely to look the same in a year’s time.
June 13, 2016
What a pertinent phrase that is, JR; ‘an EU that has more ambition than strength or commonsense’. One for my commonplace book, if I may. Your recent article ‘The EU now wants a naval force in the China seas’ highlights this ambition and lack of commonsense.
June 13, 2016
I see in the DT today that 2 senior French naval officers have written to the editor to say that the UK leaving the EU will act as a beacon for those across Europe who see the nation state as the corner stone of democracy and well-being. Perhaps more importantly they stress that Brexit will apply the brakes to the (in their words) ‘push to the integration of the armed forces of the member states and the otherwise dangerous development of a common defence force’.
They add that Brexit would justify De Gaulle’s and Churchill’s far-seeing view of Britain, which I find an interesting position for these senior French naval officers to take.
June 13, 2016
Indeed a the remainders are desperate to say how imperfect the EU is and how we are opted out of the EURO and Schengen.
I see they are rolling out pension robber, Gordon (no return to boom and bust) Brown today. I think the country has had rather more than enough of Gordon and the huge “tax borrow and waste” and the subsequent massive bust that’s his dire government presided over.
Meanwhile Migration Watch, in a report today, show how huge inward migration is likely to be if we remain in the EU with an open door to all policy.
Also interesting to see all the EU plans places on the back burner until after the Referendum. If we get do get a remain vote they will walk all over Cameron and the U.K. Will be treated by total contempt.
June 13, 2016
Even more total contempt that is.
June 13, 2016
On Sky News this morning during the review of the newspapers the Migration Watch forecast of 250,000 per annum arriving here for the next twenty years if we remained in the EU came up. One of the reviewers, a singer (Gayle?) I believe, whose full name escapes me commented that this had to be a good thing because they would all be economic migrants, here because of the work, and that meant that the economy would be ‘booming’.
In response to a comment that these enormous numbers would put an even greater strain on infrastructure hospitals, schools etc., which are struggling now, she again mentioned that the economy would be ‘booming’ and therefore the country could afford all the extra infrastructure that would be needed.
It was clear that she had only the most limited grasp of the subject, and was prepared to say anything however superficial to promote the EU.
Why do we as viewers have to listen to drivel like this from ‘slebs’. I don’t know who is worse, these people themselves or Sky for inviting these ‘dumb and dumber’ on to the programme.
It just goes to demonstrate the vital necessity of voting to leave the EU, so we can wrest back control of our affairs and reduce the influence of such misguided and ill-informed people.
June 13, 2016
If that was all the EU was about then that COULD be a good thing, but its not.
Have you read the Five Presents Report? – https://ec.europa.eu/priorities/publications/five-presidents-report-completing-europes-economic-and-monetary-union_en
If you had, you would understand total political union was the name of the game and the UK would very quickly just become a region of the greater EU, regardless of any phoney “opt-outs” or imaginary veto’s if we decide to remain.
June 13, 2016
It is sad that Marseilles demonstrates small minded violence on its fellow EU citizens. It is also very sad today that Orlando has seen the small minded attacks with devastating consequences on the gay community with claim to possible Islamic derivations. These are small minded people. We in the UK have people flooding to our communities . Have you ever asked why? Probably not and I will answer . It is because we are not small minded , we do not condone violence, we want to trade with the people we want to, globally , we want to lead ethically , we want to show our own stability and ability to trade with and be friendly with all other nations and have the choice to veto those who do not agree with peace.
June 13, 2016
Margaret – These people are usually drug addicted. This one was on steroids apparently. Have you met young men on steroids ? They are like walking time bombs.
The same for chaps on skunk cannabis.
June 13, 2016
I am not sure about that, although many are very body conscious working out , taking protein drinks and would not reveal to me if they took anabolic steroids which differ greatly from the steroids used as an inti inflammatory.
I do speak to many constantly on the edge , but the reason they do indulge in many types of drugs is to increase their confidence and Alpha male appearance so their original nature of kill or be killed can be projected.
June 13, 2016
anti inflammatory i.e.
June 14, 2016
“I do speak to many constantly on the edge , but the reason they do indulge in many types of drugs is to increase their confidence and Alpha male appearance so their original nature of kill or be killed can be projected.”
So we agree. Good.
June 13, 2016
Just another week in the EU. How many of the British public are aware of this constant regulation sausage factory output? How many even know who their MEP is?
PARLIAMENT PREVIEW ⊠Thereâs a lot of activity in Parliament this week as commissioners deliver updates and get grilled as part of their âstructured dialogueâ with the Parliament. The highlights:
IMCO committee â Will discuss the firearms directive, content portability proposal, rubber stamping network and information security directive. Commissioner JourovĂĄ will also talk e-commerce and parcels.
ECON â ECB vice chair DaniĂšle Nouy, Eurogroup chair Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Commissioner Hill appearing.
EMPL â Commission Vice President Dombrovskis, and Commissioners Thyssen and Moscovici will discuss EU recommendations for national budgets. Vice President Ć efÄoviÄ and Commissioner Oettinger will chat about ânew economy and working practices,â i.e. Uber and its ilk.
ENVI â Top guest is the Commissionâs Frans Timmermans on what exactly âbetter regulationâ means in relation to the environment. Up for debate: caffeine energy drink marketing, waste rules and wildlife trafficking.
ITRE â Hearing on robotics and big data, a vote on the energy labelling directive, Commissioner BieĆkowska to get grilled.
TRAN â Discussion of draft report catchily titled: âUnleashing the potential of ferries in coastal areas and inland waterways: a contribution to multimodal passenger transport.â
JURI â Cross-border adoption, shareholder rights directive, Commissioner JourovĂĄ will attend.
June 13, 2016
And, guess what, a lot of what they do has already been largely predetermined at the global level, when non-EU countries like Norway were at the “top table” and had their say while the EU countries were represented by the EU. As Richard North has been arguing for some years now, and with masses of detailed evidence.
June 13, 2016
Agree on the personal attacks – Amber Rudd in particular is a disgrace and should be ashamed of herself, even though I’m sure she’s just parroting lines written for her by Cameron’s adolescent spinners.
June 13, 2016
Cameron actually said her performance was ‘outstanding’, so yes, she obviously was.
June 13, 2016
@Roy Grainger; First you condemn personal abuse, then engage in it yourself….
June 13, 2016
Here we go again.
BT writing a letter to all of its staff. Typical, stuff you Jack we and our shareholders are all right and the rest of you can sod off.
Really is a bit rich coming from them, in light of where it has its call centres.
If they had really developed a super fast broadband operation that covered all areas especially rural locations they might be listened to more kindly. Take the easy pickings and the rest just have to get on with it.
When we leave then companies like BT will have to roll up its sleeves and start to begin really listening to its customers and their expectations. If they do they will create new markets within the UK.
Great to hear the former head of the CBI supporting leave on the BBC this morning.
That is what we want people with vision and dedication to suceed.
June 13, 2016
I’ve just cancelled my BT contract in response to this.
BT are the worst organisation in Britain. They have failed consistently,despite having a monopoly, to provide adequate infrastructure for a 1st world country. They are inefficient and incompetent and vast numbers of their customer service staff are actually based in India . When we leave BT, Openreach & BT Sport need to be broken up into 3 separate companies
June 13, 2016
Certainly the BT Openreach monopoly should be broken. This is a classic case of regulation supposedly introducing competition but failing to do so. Any number of service providers can offer phone and Internet access, but all must go through BT Openreach, so pricing hardly differs at all and providers can’t differentiate at all on service – because they supply through a BT monopoly. In rural networks where they are unchallenged by cable operators such as Virgin, Openreach refuses to configure local networks in an optimal way, forcing customers to choose between extortionate costs for a leased line or woefully inadequate service. Meanwhile the govt pours subsidy into BT Openreach to – Supposedly – role out fast broadband. I have been in touch with my MP about this. I think it’s a major comptitive disadvantage for the UK. I Hope other MPs representing rural constituencies will assist Sajid Javid and Ed Vaizey in coming to a sensible decision to break up this monopoly.
June 13, 2016
Openreach is the equivalent of Network Rail. They are both classic examples of Conservative Party “privatisation” ideological naivety.
Some systems, by virtue of very large fixed costs, are natural monopolies and best owned, and sometimes operated, by a state monopoly as a public good or service. This concept is a total anathema to a Conservative government. So customers have to pay a higher price, to pay unnecessary intermediary agents profits, which have to be regulated.
Cellular telephone systems are a similar problem; multiple, expensive, base stations from multiple operators, to cover the same reception areas.
PS for this evening. “Omar Mateen, the Florida shooter who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, just ushered Donald Trump to the White House, Britain out of the European Union, Marine Le Pen to the French presidency, and the world into a downward spiral of escalating violence.” (see: Mike Norman Economics.)
Brexiteers; stay cool, don’t panic about Sterling FX rates or any casino stock markets b******s. The BoE can crush any Sterling Bond trader at will. The UK Treasury is never going to run out of Pounds Sterling to pay your pension.
June 13, 2016
Richard1
Agree, but its worse than you say for me. I live in a rural area I was forced to order a GEA Fibre connection as my broadband was running at 0.2 MB. They offered me a GEA at 8mb for ÂŁ250 per month. Having no option I ordered it. They dug up my garden, drilled holes in my house walls and ran a cable into my home office ( which is still hanging out of the wall) then after 6 months of no further activity emailed me to say that they couldn’t provide the service. BT are incompetent etc ed
5 weeks ago my BT landline stopped working, I reported it, they agreed it was an exchange fault but told me they were too busy to look at it. It took 15 days before it was fixed. I just cancelled the contract.
Luckily a small local company came along and offered me WiMax services. I now get 30 mb at ÂŁ20 per month
June 13, 2016
I wouldn’t touch BT with a bargepole.
First lot to be privatised and the first of a long line of rip offs for customers. We had the ‘opportunity’ to buy what we already owned. Biggest con trick of the 20th century.
June 13, 2016
Unexpectedly I find myself in the strange position of thinking better of our European neighbours than people in the Remain campaign. I reckon that if we politely decline the marriage proposal then we can still be very good friends, and we can still converse and help each other when required, while they seem to think that if we decide not to take part in the planned wild ride to political union then our neighbours will hate us and that will be the start of some everlasting feud.
Or if they don’t really think that they are nevertheless implying it, and thereby potentially stirring up the xenophobia that they decry and damaging our international relations as well as our economy and the economies of other countries across the world.
And to be honest I really don’t like it when Cameron claims that people come here from the rest of the EU to scrounge, and if he stops them getting something for nothing then they won’t come. I don’t doubt that there are some, a minority, who have been pulled here by our possibly over-generous welfare system but it seems an appalling slur on the great majority who are simply exercising rights which our Parliament freely granted to move to a better economic environment and work to make better lives for themselves.
It’s quite hard to believe that those leading the Remain campaign, and especially two men holding Great Offices of State, could be so irresponsible.
June 13, 2016
Denis – It’s not the Leavers who are xenophobes. We have faith that our EU partners will stay civil if we exit the EU. It is the Remainers who claim that Europe will descend into conflict without our influence.
Of the welfare system: It is not simply a case of ‘scroungers’ coming here to exploit it but that it cushions us from the worst effects of wage compression and reduced working conditions. It makes it appear that mass immigration works when the national debt figures show differently.
June 13, 2016
@Anonymous; ‘We are not xenophobes’, you then can’t help proving that many are…
Its not the fault of European migrants but the economics of globalisation, how can eastern European migrants be responsible for the fact that it is now often cheaper to make and import goods (never mind services and call-centres etc.) from China and India etc!
June 14, 2016
Few people will say that is the fault of those migrants who are here lawfully and conduct themselves well. Whether they are from inside the EU or outside the EU they have not been responsible for the Acts by which Parliament has allowed them to come and settle here, they have merely taken up the opportunities directly or indirectly offered to them by the politicians we have elected.
June 14, 2016
Jerry – Do carry on. The misuse of the xenophobia word is doing wonderful things for Brexit.
June 15, 2016
@Anonymous; As usual, and once again, your are wrong, it is your miss use of the word that is doing huge damage to Brexit.
You appear to have a “deep-rooted fear [1] towards foreigners” (OED) when the real economic problems are being caused by globalisation coupled to an unwillingness of our own population to work at the going rate for the job. UK (based) businesses thus have only three opinions, employ those who are willing to work at the going rate -migrants, switch production to a cheaper country -such as China, India or Turkey etc, or close-down.
[1] that migrants are taking our jobs, that they are slowly bankrupting the NHS etc.
June 13, 2016
Nasty World John? Too true.
More truths coming out of the Turkish Embassy proving that our Prime Minister is telling even more porkies.
Whe is he going to wake up to the bleeding obvious. He is totally out of his depth.
He should give the country notice that he will be resigning no matter which way the vote goes on the 23rd
June 13, 2016
So great is the Leave position that one wonders why the referendum polls and betting odds are not convincingly in favour of it.
Remain is not the risk free option. The EU is not in a steady state and nor is it anywhere near complete.
The worst thing is that it has our country deeply divided.
Around half of our people hate being in the EU and those who wish to Remain dismiss them as irrelevent. It has made our people be nasty to each other. It has not made our country a happy one.
So much for the EU being a force for unity !
June 13, 2016
What seems to be happening now is that an attempt to bring socialism into Britain through the EU is stirring Labour to wheel out Gordon Brown: ‘you cannot get socialism through a British parliament so now get it through a European one’ is what they are saying. The implicit assumption is that a Britain free of the EU will somehow strip workers of their rights and turn into a right wing state. As far as I know Switzerland and Norway, outside the EU, continue to protect the rights of the ordinary worker.
I am interested to see Labour’s John Mann has come out as a Brexiter. His constituents can see the malign effects of EU policies and so he has declared himself accordingly.
June 13, 2016
“What seems to be happening now is that an attempt to bring socialism into Britain through the EU is stirring Labour to wheel out Gordon Brown: âyou cannot get socialism through a British parliament so now get it through a European oneâ is what they are saying.”
This new Remain angle may backfire if it highlights how the EU can undermine a nation’s democratically elected government. Attempting to bring socialism in through the back door against voters’ wishes (in the UK or any other EU member state) shows utter contempt for the democratic process.
June 13, 2016
As the Remain campaign has largely given up on rational arguments and descended to advertising slogans such as:
“Nine out of ten economists agree Brexit would be bad for our economy”
perhaps I could suggest a couple for the Leave campaign?
“Eight out of ten economists aren’t worried about Brexit”
Not so worried that they could be bothered to respond to the survey.
And, whenever there is mention of that fantastic market of 500 million consumers eager to buy our products but without wishing to sell us anything in return:
“Nine out of ten people don’t live in the EU”.
June 13, 2016
The referendum campaign has dragged on with both sides exhausting their arguments ; it has become boring with the “undecided” still undecided . Yesterday – at our local celebratory lunch of the Queen’s Birthday , discreet questions were passed around in an attempt to find out how people were going to vote ; those who were “undecided” a couple of weeks ago are still in the same mode with the older age group as adamant as ever to “leave”.
Being able to spell out and quantify the outcome of leaving or staying seems to be the stumbling block ; both sides are relying on principles and philosophies . The one mistake the remainers made was their scaremongering tactic plus the considerable dislike for Cameron ; no matter what the outcome , Cameron now has to go and the Conservatives face a re-unification task .
It will be a miracle if one side is able to come out with a decisive winning point ; for me it simply comes back to the point that I want our independence and democracy restored .
June 13, 2016
Well, there are theoretical conclusions and there are empirical observations, and the empirical observations which are still being ignored are in this chart:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-annual
showing that since 1956 the average growth rate of the UK economy has been 2.5% a year, and with all the noise generated by numerous other factors it is not possible to detect any effects of the UK joining the Common Market or that being developed into the Single Market.
The theoretical projection was that creation of the Single Market would add about 5% to GDP, while the theoretical estimate is that it has actually added only 2%, or only 1% in the case of the UK, a shortfall of 3% or 4% of GDP.
So thanks to the Single Market failing to meet the original expectations it could be said that we are all “permanently poorer”, as Osborne likes to predict will happen if we leave the EU, by 3% or 4% of GDP, but who cares about that?
How often do we hear people lamenting that if only the EU Single Market had worked out as expected they could have achieved their present level of prosperity eighteen months sooner?
It all has to be seen in the context of the average person in the UK gradually getting better off, with GDP rising by an average of 2.5% a year through natural growth of the economy, so what Osborne calls “permanently poorer” is in reality just “permanently not quite as well off as we might otherwise have been”.
June 13, 2016
Norman Lamont has an article citing work that looks at it in a similar way:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/not-only-can-britain-can-leave-the-eu-and-have-access-to-the-sin/
“A fascinating book on this subject has been written by Michael Burrage, a former academic at the LSE and Harvard and a visiting professor at several Japanese universities … While the OECD, the IMF, the Treasury and others have tried on the basis of various economic models and assumptions to predict the future â always impossible â Burrage looks at the past, what has actually happened and the known facts.
His conclusions are counter-intuitive. First, the UKâs exports have grown least during the period of the single market while those of non-EU countries have benefited the most … “
June 13, 2016
Another excellent assessment and of course once an argument attacks the messenger not the message you know they have nothing of value to say. I wonder if you would tell us whether Phillip Hammond and Teresa May are still alive, two of the biggest jobs in government affected/involved with the EC, we get total silence. I presume they are anti Cameron’s stance but are too ‘loyal’ to speak out or protecting their jobs by hedging their bets. Whatever, their silence is a disgrace.
Reply They are both fully committed to Remain and have never done anything helpful to Euroscepticism in office.Both are campaigning for Remain. Mrs May was recently sighted in Henley, for example, arguing for Remain.
June 13, 2016
Was she in Henley because there is an invasion of immigrants coming up the water?
June 13, 2016
I seem to remember Hammond stating that he would vote out if he was voting now a couple of years ago or did I imagine that?
June 13, 2016
Like almost every previous incumbent of the F&CO, Hammond has been got at by the Civil Servants and gone native.
Look what happened to Major and Hague.
Their brainwashing was so effective it’s still working today !
June 13, 2016
The other rhetoric from the Remainders is that “bigger is better”, “we are better together” the problem that I see with this is that alliances, company takeovers, amalgamations etc. tend to reach a “critical mass” where they become so unwieldy that they cannot operate efficiently. They only realise this when a smaller “innovative” company comes on the scene.
I believe that the EU is at this point and the UK relieved of this burden will do much better outside of this “straight jacket”.
The UK has tried and tried to get meaningful reform and failed (which other member countries also seem to want but are unwilling to rock the boat), there is a limited to how long you can keep hitting your head against a brick wall.
June 13, 2016
Spot on, I’ve had plenty of experience of that in the workplace. The only way the EU could work is to do far less
June 13, 2016
I am told by Cameron that if I dare to vote “leave” he will take Britain out of the Single market ! This is, presumably because Vote.LEAVE has said we do not need it. I thought the Prime Minister was supposed to represent ALL the British public and not a group singled out by the Electoral Commission to fight ONE side of the argument.
This just goes to show that Cameron will destroy Britain if he can damage the people he hates. He is a vindictive, spiteful little 6-year old who wants to hurt the people who do not agree with him. He stinks!
June 13, 2016
Quite so, John.
I also have yet to hear a positive vision for the EU being put by the Remain side.
Indeed I would really like to know how they, the Remainers, would deal with a Euro-Zone Political Union.
June 13, 2016
Remain represents a global ruling class who have come to view the electorate in modern democracies as (to be talked down to ed).
That is why they lie to us; we don’t count because they view us as so far beneath them that it doesn’t matter.
That is why the EU ignores referendum results. That is why the EU is utterly indifferent to 50% Youth unemployment in Southern Europe.
That is why they view the law as something which affects only ordinary people but not the Gods who rule the world. (Think Hillary Clinton and her clan.)
I don’t agree to be treated like that.
June 13, 2016
And in case no one has noticed, the Union bosses and most Labour MPs stand firmly with the ruling elite, just look at Stephen Kinnock as an example.
June 13, 2016
I simply cannot understand the ‘Remain’ arguments. Why should my pension be affected? Why should the NHS lose out? With selective immigration we would have less people coming into the country who are dependent on state benefits; we would have less demand on the NHS. We would also have less pressure on our prisons, a report this week suggested that we needed five new prisons just to house foreign prisoners.
Even if our net payment to the EU is less that the claimed ÂŁ350 million/week, the EU decides what that portion of that money being spent here is used for; this may not be the priority of the government of the day or the people. They give lots of money to pro-EU organisations; trade unions get quite a few millions. Would the government give millions to the trade unions or tell them to fund themselves?
We need out so that we can spend our taxes on our choices, not where Brussels dictates.
June 13, 2016
I’ve now watched several debates in which the Leave spokesman has been told
“Nine out of ten economists think leaving the EU would be bad for our economy”,
and has then been challenged to name one economist who thinks the opposite.
That invariably floors the Leave spokesman, leaving the Remain campaign in undeserved victorious possession of the economic field.
It’s painful to watch, especially if you know the overall economic effects of the EU could perhaps best be described as “moot but in any case rather marginal”, and even more so when you suspect the leading Remainders also know that to be the reality.
Surely there must be some recognised economists who agree with the Leave case, or at least disagree with the Remain case, who would be prepared to have their names publicly cited? Or does it all have to be left to amateurs to try to counter the Remain case?
I don’t agree that it’s a good strategy to cede the economic argument and instead focus on the immigration argument, because we need to win both arguments if we are to attract enough support to win the referendum.
Right back in February Graeme Leach, who is described as Chief Economist & Director of Policy at the Institute of Directors, had this article:
http://www.cityam.com/235348/eu-membership-the-true-cost-to-britains-economy-and-the-unrealistic-assumptions-you-need-to-make-the-numbers-net-positive
in which he juggled the benefits and costs of the EU and concluded that:
“Heroic and â in my view â utterly unrealistic assumptions about the completion of the single market, are required to make the numbers net positive.”
So why are we not hearing this kind of thing now during debates?
Even today, Boris Johnson has a Telegraph article about the Single Market without really exposing its low level of economic insignificance.
Reply There are a good number of us who forecast these things and think we will be better off out – and several of us got the ERM and the euro right, unlike these establishment figures.
June 13, 2016
… it’s low level of economic significance!
June 13, 2016
its.
I really wish you had an edit function.
June 14, 2016
Analysis consists of data, axioms, logic, results and conclusions. HM Treasury has published analysis in its 200 page ‘dodgy dossier’. It’s pretty dire, biased stuff but at least they have gone through the process and published.
Mark Carney says that he has carried out analysis of both Remain and Leave but cannot publish for 8 years because he is bound by confidentiality. Sorry, but if you can’t or won’t publish you deserve to be ignored.
I have seen no other published analysis by the Remain camp. For the avoidance of doubt, Christine Lagarde staring bleakly into the camera and saying “Things might be pretty bad or maybe very, very bad for the UK after Brexit” is NOT, repeat NOT analysis.
I have gone through calculations based on our current net payment to Brussels and modest tariffs and non-tariff costs on our exports to EU-27 based on the Canada Europe trade deal. The middle forecast is ÂŁ12 billion net savings on payments to Brussels, offset by ÂŁ3 billion spent on tariffs and non-tariff barriers. We would be in the black.
June 13, 2016
What worries me that if we vote to leave, the government will negotiate little more than a name change to status to âAssociate Memberâ and all the bad stuff will carry on as before â but worse.
If we vote to leave I can see us soon having to mount a new Leave campaign.
June 13, 2016
After June 23 vote we the public will have done our bit and can resume our ordinary lives. But, deo volente, for Mr Redwood and other Leave statesmen the real battle will then begin.
Their careful generalship is producing results. Polls and odds are moving in their favour. Reports of voting intentions include over 60% Leave among Tories, and as much as 70% in some Labour strongholds. The Leave leaders are understandably reluctant to discuss post-poll tactics in advance, but let’s have faith that they are ready, willing and able to move matters forward in the desired direction.
As to the current personalities and policies of government, for the moment the less said the better. But I do not doubt we shall see a remarkable display of the power of parliamentary democracy to give effect to the clearly expressed popular will.
Reply Yes, we are thinking about how we implement the will of the people if Brexit wins. This is where having a large number of Conservative pro Brexit MPs matters, as it did to secure the vote in the first place. There are of course many more potential Brexit Conservative MPs after the vote if we win.
June 13, 2016
JR,
You will have your legions of Ukrainian readers up in arms.Referring to “the Ukraine”,rather than “Ukraine” suggests a region of Russia,one and indivisible from the Motherland,rather than a sovereign state.
The trouble a preposition can get you into!
June 13, 2016
Cameron is out of his depth, he is in at the deep end and is thrashing around. He acts as a one man band, he lied in saying he had reformed the EU, he and future PM’s have no veto and no say in the closer political, economic and monetary policies of the other 27 member states. He gave it all away for something he already had. Statement by the European Council put out in June 2014:
“The concept of ever closer union allows for different paths of integration for different countries, allowing those that want to deepen integration to move ahead, while respecting the wish of those who do not want to deepen any further”.
If we remain in the little benefit we get from the single market will be costly, ‘I will not pay’, we have heard that before.
Are we ruled by Dictator Cameron? We are a democracy and although the Conservative MP’s and Cabinet are split over in and out, exit from the EU is a Parliamentary decision.
Although you could never win the argument, should Cameron and his half who want to stay in have any say in the exit we negotiate?
June 13, 2016
Much of the Referendum debate has been shadow boxing. False but accepted premises in arguments.Shreds or threads of issues painted as fundamentals; officially produced economic “metrics” disassociated from anyone’s holistic reality. ( On all sides ,but admittedly perhaps more from Labourites as they superciliously think most of their electorates too thick to understand all but the simple. )
For example ,take the term “tariff”. ..a tax on imports or exports imposed by one side or the other. Remain, say the EU will impose them deliberately or by the WTO default position if we leave the EU. Also “We should impose tariffs on Chinese steel. ”
In fact many exports and imports, are composite…like any machine, composed of numerous parts, built in 100 different locations across the EU and throughout the world.If the EU were to impose tariffs then it would necessarily include items increasing the cost of making that machine and in the selling of it. The EU could be increasing the price in fact of its own semi-manufactured items and thwarting its own export market plus increasing bills for its own citizens .
If you impose an import tariff on say steel then you are compelling your own buyers and users of steel to buy or own expensive steel in preference to imported cheap steel. The rest of the world, as in the Chinese case, will benefit by being able to buy cheap more competitive steel and leaving our own steel products wasting on the docks, eventually destroying our own steel industry.
The point: The Remain nor the Leave Campaigns: the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party have in or outside Parliament thoroughly explained the double-edged sword of “tariffs” , nor on-going repercussions on other bi-lateral and multi-national trades on other commodities by contagion.
So, Remain threaten an uninformed electorate about what the big bad wolf is going to do to us with tariffs and simultaneously how they will beat the Chinese by tariffs. All nonsense. Misinformation and spurious arguments across the board.
CONCLUSION: The Remain Campaign’s arguments are based on Mr and Mr. and Mrs. Important from Very Important Company speaking nonsense and largely getting away with it because they are Important. Important for being important with a very important listed history of being utterly wrong, which is also important.
June 13, 2016
There’s been quite a lot of discussion on the figure of ÂŁ350 million as the UK’s net contribution to the EU budget. The Remain side want to halve that figure.
What no-one seems to take into account is where the money is spent. If it is spent outside the UK then it isn’t subject to UK tax and even if we halve the figure to say ÂŁ180 million then that will all be lost to the UK taxpayer.
But if the money is spent within the UK it will be subject to tax as it is received in wages and salaries. Then it is spent again and much of what it is spent on will be subject to VAT. Then it might end up in someone’s paypacket and be subject to income tax again.
The upshot will be that ÂŁ350 million spent locally will give better value to the UK taxpayer than ÂŁ180 million spent overseas.
June 13, 2016
More magic money merry go round rather than the more usual magic money tree so loved by EU economists.
June 13, 2016
The Remainers in TV interviews are now fielding what might be called middle-ranking MPs. They trot out scripted remarks with stereotypical scripted replies to set counter-questions. If they understand the way of economics and industry they do not evidence it. The Rt Hon Chris Grayling in one recent mini-debate didn’t even need to get out his jousting stick to knock a Remainder off her goofy hobby-horse. Much to the tweet: “painful” of Douglas Carswell MP
June 13, 2016
The EU is a massive dictatorship under construction – and a certain being called Dave wants his reward of a seat at the top table for the destruction of our nation. EVIL in a suit.
June 13, 2016
The Remain Camp actually is picture-perfect. Their knights in shining armour are:
Foreign mercenaries:-
The Dutch PM Mark Rutte; The Ex-Grand Duchy of Luxembourg PM Jean Claude Junker; Ex-Polish PM Donald Tusk; The 4-months- left American President Obama; German Chancellor Merkel .
UK born allies of the above:-
Ex-PM Major; Ex-PM Brown;Ex-PM Blair and an assortment of other X-Men who genuinely fear for their pensions as they’re living them.
June 13, 2016
In this morning’s Today Programme a Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz , the Vice Chancellor of Senate House , Cambridge University, was interviewed.
He said that membership of the EU was vital for research funding from the EU from which we get more that we give them.
Also being out of the EU made it more difficult and even impossible for EU researchers to visit the UK and vice versa and collaboration between the UK and the EU science departments would be disastrously curtailed.
To get exactly his words listen on iPlayer to the broadcast at around 8.50am today.
JR – altho this seems far fetched to me the Porf. is a very distinguished personage and will carry a lot of weight so please comment on this and give your view and anyone suitably qualified to give a view – thank you.
Reply How many more times do we have to deal with the same old nonsense? Out of the EU we will continue to give the research grants direct to our universities that are currently sent via Brussels – its all our money they get back.UK universities will continue to collaborate and exchange personnel with EU universities as we do today with non EU US universities! I am a fellow of All Souls College, a leading international research College, and I am not worried about this. (nor am I speaking for the College)
June 13, 2016
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/06/12/letters-david-camerons-threat-to-make-brexit-penalise-pensioners/
“Science funding error
SIR â Why are so many Nobel Laureates (Letters, June 11) unaware of the fact that EU research funding is equally available by right (EU regulation of December 2 2013) to EU and to non-EU states alike?
Have they abandoned basic research? Their letter was embarrassingly ill-informed.
Professor Alan Sked
London School of Economics
London WC2
SIR â I was surprised at the letter signed by so many Nobel Laureates, who must be among your most intelligent and well-informed readers, because it reveals such universal and total misunderstanding of the funding of European science projects.
Of course we wouldnât lose European scientific funding if we left the EU. There are 15 non-EU states that are full participants in Horizon 2020, and there is no reason at all why we would not continue to enjoy full membership of this programme and other organisations, such as the European Space Agency, which have many non-EU members.
Furthermore, standards and rules are increasingly set at the global level rather than at the European level. Our ability to participate in global level bodies is increasingly restricted by our EU membership. Our influence on the framing of such standards and rules is therefore commensurately diminished.
The eminent Nobel Laureates believe that free movement of people within the âsingle marketâ is essential to retain our cutting-edge position in science. But recovering at least a modicum of power to control who comes to settle in this country would also empower us to end discrimination in the granting of visas against professors and students from non-EU countries, massively increasing the range of talent from which our universities will be able to choose the very best.
Viscount Trenchard
London SW12
June 13, 2016
In terms of demographics who knows? Who can believe expert statistics?
Take the case of Chinese people who we all know and have seen working very hard: a strong work-ethic indeed.
Shortly after Communist President Nicolae CeauÈescu fell from power in 1989, I visited friends in Romania who told me without prejudice that because the former regime had Marxist-Leninist links with its only ally except Albania, there were “many” Chinese living and working in their country, particularly in the capital Bucharest. I saw this too with my own eyes. My friends spent two weeks transporting me every day miles upon miles all over the place on a matchless grand tour
But the internet says only 4,000 Chinese in Romania “mostly arriving AFTER 1989” Another statistic puts the figure at 2,500.Romania, by the way, has a total population of about 20 million.
I admit I made no effort at all to count Chinese heads in Romania. But 4000, even in 1990, seems a huge , gross and odd understatement
So, we get lots of statistics on population and its growth from the EU and from Remain’s experts.Information on this and on economics, it seems, is heavily guarded by “Experts” for reasons which they expertly do not wish to share.
June 13, 2016
France, by law, in its police activities, is not allowed to keep statistics regarding crimes committed by:
1. Asylum seekers
2. Migrants from EU states
3. Migrants from external states to the EU
4. Persons described by ethnicity
5. Persons described by their ethnic or religious community
6. Persons described by their nationality
Given that France has a historic love for bureaucracy: making and keeping statistics, then something is very amiss.
Worrying is that apart from France there are only Germany and ourselves who appear to be able to count anything at all. Oh Sweden of course has refused for over a decade to count migrants and migrant crimes. But I hear they are now learning to count after one or two nasty experiences.
The Remain… Camp and their countless allies ( do not forgive the double pun ) hate numbers; hate facts; hate reality; hate the light of day like the mythical Dracula
June 13, 2016
Well, I would not dispute the lack of statistics according to the criteria you chose, but you could easily find in data.gouv.fr the “Chiffres departementaux mensuels relatifs aux crimes et delits”. In those, over the 125 months from January 1996 to May 2016, the 106 geographical entities making up France (France Metropolitaine + the overseas territories DOM-TOM), and 107 categories (from different types of thefts, crimes, rapes, sexual assaults, ….) the figures are duly compiled and could be easily compared as they are also presented as Microsoft Excel tables (Tableaux_4001, either TN, PN or GN.xcl if you are interested).
I would think any MP, public servant, academic, student or interested person could track down a lot of interesting trends from those.
It might not directly relate to your criteria, but with some knowledge of French social geography, it could give you most of the information you say is unavailable.
June 13, 2016
Oops, 245 months. Sorry.
June 14, 2016
hefner;
Thanks. I have passed on your references to interested persons who, I’m sure will make the best of the info provided.
June 13, 2016
hefner:
Thank you. I wondered where I could get the desired information. One has to cast a hook and impaled maggot to catch a fishy:-)
June 14, 2016
You could also have got the same information from some computer-savvy people at Front National. Any acquaintances over there?
June 13, 2016
The Remain Campaign cannot show British people what Remain 2026 will look like.
The educated ones among them realise all too painfully that an individual member’s Veto in a committee of 28 if used, even once, would mean retaliation by any ONE or group of members within that committee on other related issues or even totally unrelated issues.
Therefore, a veto, is virtually useless in practice. Varying degrees of most uncomfortable compromises are required.
Turkish people, either as a whole or in specified and agreed categories will in fact enter the UK. Turkey, as a 100% member or a variation on full member will join the EU. Cameron should tell the truth. All seasoned members of all political parties know how committees work. So do their friends, workmates and relatives; in fact, the vast majority of British people are not as daft as he hopes and believes.
June 13, 2016
Following up on a very interesting comment by Denis Cooper a couple of blogs ago about hauliers and TIR (transport international rouiier):
From a large number (far too many!) of road trips between Reading and Folkestone these last three years, I would assess the proportion of Eastern European trucks (H, PL, SK, CZ) to 75 percent, then 20 percent roughly from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, with maybe only five percent of GB lorries.
Obviously these trips of mine only cover a small part of Britain.
However, as the gov.uk site makes it clear under “International authorisations and permits for road haulage” (updated 26/02/2016), up to three “cabotage” jobs (internal to the UK) are allowed within a seven day limit between two international jobs. This is very likely to explain the large drop in UK-registered international hauliers these last ten years. Maybe the fact that continental drivers are more likely to be able to speak English than English drivers to do the equivalent in any continental language might also play a part.
The question for after Brexit is whether the present situation is going to be kept, and if it is to change, what change is going to be pushed forward in Parliament, how will this be implemented? Is there any chance to revive a British international transport industry, which might have as much suffered from the EU diktats as from the neoliberal creed of these last thirty five years?
June 13, 2016
The trouble with the whole EU thing is that it has been made so complex with so many tentacles that the average person simply does not understand it.
People do not even understand the components, like the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the Parliament. They say in theory that the Parliament holds the Executive Commission to account, I do not believe that for one minute.
I think that people who hold the power in politics and in the media take advantage of this confusion so almost have free rein to wheel out childish “facts” which leads us to where we are now.
Remainers have to be honest, there is no such thing as pooling sovereignty – once some power is centralized democratic control become so distant it is meaningless.
Also to conflate being in organizations like WTO UN etc. with being in a top down authoritarian EU is ridiculous.
June 13, 2016
Why do you make the assumption that all current member states of the EuroZ0ne and those that are theoretically legally committed to joining the EuroZone – i.e. all member states apart from UK and Denmark – will wish to join a European Federal SuperState? Why abandon them all to their supposed fate?
It has been English foreign policy for centuries that no one power dominates continental Europe – Perfidious Albion, divide and rule and all that. Why change now?
June 13, 2016
Well if any other countries don’t want to join a super state Brexit will give them an example to follow. Staying in the EU in the hope of stopping the steamroller would be an Olympic standard triumph of hope over experience. At one point it was said that the Foreign Office believed, or pretended to believe, that widening EU membership would stop the drive to ever-closer Union. The number of member states has almost quadrupled since we joined. The steamroller trundles relentlessly on.
June 13, 2016
Precisely, Pitt the Younger must be turning in his grave.
June 13, 2016
Are you not perhaps being a little hard on Remain?
Today they have come up with a very positive idea, voiced by none other than that great visionary Gordon Brown.
That idea seems to be that we should become the leaders of the European Union.
Just imagine CMD or his successor turning to the next European Council and saying: ‘I know we’re not in the Euro, I know we’re not in Schengen and we’re exempt from ever closer union, but here’s what we think you lot ought to be doing over the next few years…’
June 14, 2016
He’s been doing exactly that for years, that’s one reason why he was totally humiliated and given nothing during his “Renegotiation”.
The second reason was because they are all so arrogant that they couldn’t possibly imagine we would actually vote to leave their wonderful organisation.
Looking at today’s headlines, they must be wishing they had behaved differently.
Like CMD, Miliband and Clegg just before the Scottish plebiscite, might Merkel instruct Junckers to make us a last minute offer of better terms before next Thursday ?
I somehow doubt it.
June 14, 2016
PS what has happened to arch-Europhiles Clegg these last few weeks ????
June 13, 2016
Seems we’ve reached peak Project Fear, this from Donald Tusk president of the European Commission:
âAs a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety.â
Hard to see how they can top that …
June 14, 2016
You couldn’t make it up, could you !!!
See, we really must be TFLEITW ( The fifth largest economy in the world ) if we could do that to poor little Europe.
Over the Centuries we’ve had battles with dictators from all over Europe.
But they’ve always ended badly – for them.
June 13, 2016
Top german finance minster wants more Africans and muslims let into Germany to stop inbreeding in his country, millions more on there way, I wonder what the german people thing of that.
June 13, 2016
One bank in Belgium shut down and another one bail out in Spain, lots more to come.
June 13, 2016
I see lots of risks for the UK but coming out of the EU is not one of them.
June 13, 2016
I wonder if it is better to see the European Ungoliant as an organisation of states, or rather as a “control haven” (by analogy with a tax haven): an institution to which power can be transferred so it can be executed without control of the people in the individual countries. So, while it would not be in the interest of Germany or France to punish Britain for leaving, the interests of the EU – or the politicians whose organisation it is – might be different. The economic costs might be acceptable if they can be blamed on the British people not following the path chosen for them.
June 13, 2016
I confess to being delighted that Polly Toynbee seems near to tears in her article about Labour voters and Brexit:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/13/brexit-supporters-leave-vote-right
“…Inside Labourâs London HQ, I joined young volunteers manning the âLabour Inâ phones with every fact at the ready. We had sheets of Labour-supporting names to call in Nottinghamshire â and the results were grim. âOutâ, âOutâ and âOutâ in call after call, only a couple for remain. âIâve been Labour all my life, but Iâm for leave,â they said. Why? Always the same â immigrants first; that mythical ÂŁ350m saving on money sent to Brussels second; âI want my country backâ third. And then there is, âI donât know ANYONE voting in.â
Try arguing with facts and you get nowhere. Warn these Labour people what a Johnson/Gove government would do and they donât care. Warn about the loss of workersâ rights and they donât listen â maybe thatâs already irrelevant to millions in crap jobs such as at Uber or Sports Direct. âWeâre full up. Sorry, thereâs no room for more. Canât get GP appointments, canât get into our schools, no housing.â If you tell these Labour voters thatâs because of Tory austerity cuts, still they blame âimmigrants getting everything firstâ. Warn about a Brexit recession leading to far worse cuts and they just say, âStop them coming, make room for our own first.â……….”
June 13, 2016
I do not understand why she is crying. All of the points in the final paragraph will have little or no personal effect on her. It’s why she can espouse Socialism with such vigour.
June 13, 2016
Offr Topic:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr Justin Welby, is entitled via Free-Speech which his Church has historically never championed but, the exact reverse on pain of public burning, his own views and to express them as a British individual and within the confines, no doubt, and borders, of his job description.
Frankly, I, personally, do not know if God is in favour of Remain or Leave. It is unlikely God would give Archbishop Welby a nod either way before giving the rest of we his children a nod. He hasn’t.
June 13, 2016
Off Topic:
Conservatives on TV have been challenged: “What will you do after the Referendum to unite the Party given the absolute disagreements?
Answer: “Oh we will bury our differences and go on…”
Excuse me!!! Sorry to interrupt an obvious tĂȘte-Ă -tĂȘte. We the People are 65 million strong. There are not many sites, what with increased migrant encroachments on green belt land where we can bury the hatchet. What say you?
June 14, 2016
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Chris :
Poor old Polly, she must have been choking on her Asti Spumante when she arrived at her Tuscany villa for the weekend to write the piece.
I’ve read the full article and the section about Margaret Hodges’ experience in Barking is even more telling.
Toynbee says of Hodges’ constituents :
“Roused by anti-migrant leavers, will they ever revert to Labour? Their neighbourhoods have changed beyond recognition, without them being asked.”
For some reason, Toynbee cannot bring herself to utter one bit of sympathy or understanding for these people’s heartfelt plight. This, in essence is Labour’s problem. While it is run by a metropolitan elite who are able to choose not to suffer any of the deprivation caused by the huge influx of people into hundreds of relatively small areas, it has no chance of keeping their vote.
These voters are not the slightest bit racist. If the influx was of white, British, working class people going to A&E, taking the same jobs, houses and GP appointments, their raised voices would be uttering exactly the same words.
But Corbyn and co just can’t see that : they just call them Racists or more famously, Bigots and continue to ignore them. Whoever is moving into an area, politicians need to look after the indigenous people if they want to retain their support – and, more important, social cohesion.
At least Corbyn is keeping to his pro-immigration principles : Cameron’s attitude is far, far worse.
CMD cynically won the keys to 10 Downing Street twice on a platform of reducing net migration “to the tens of thousands” yet has done absolutely nothing to bring it about.
No ifs, no buts, his unequivocal support for continuing EU membership without having negotiated any means of reducing the net inward flows of people looks likely to be his undoing.
If he does lose the referendum, the blame will not lay entirely at the door of the No 10 propaganda machine : A very substantial proportion of it will lie with the EU in Brussels and its de facto leader, Merkel, who ensured CMD went into the referendum battle with an assault rifle but no ammunition to fight with.
I’ve said here before, Politicians in the UK and across Europe, and especially in Brussels, need to take notice and act on what the people want to see happen, even if they have to do so while holding their collective noses.
With Blogs like this and the Internet in general, the days of “We know best” are long gone. Politicians need to realise this and act accordingly. If they don’t get a grip, things will get far worse. Nobody wants to see Fascist leaders and/or Governments in power across the EU yet this will be inevitable : If they don’t start to listen.
Junckers and Co nearly saw it begin in the Austria Presidential election. Only 30,000 extra postal votes saw the left wing Presidential candidate into office. Brussels breathed a collective sigh of relief but, for the time being, are carrying on exactly as before.
This can’t last forlong : first there may well be Brexit to deal with then, as is becoming increasingly likely, then there is Marine LePen who could well win the Presidency of France in May next year. It might only take another Cologne-type incident or Paris-style attack for her to win in the first round.
As for our referendum, on holiday some 6,000 miles away but reading all the papers on my iPad, I’m beginning to think we might really be able to win. In the time left to Remain, even that so-called Big Beast Gordon Brown is not going to be able to turn round such fervent Labour attitudes as found by Polly Toynbee.
More Asti Spumanti, anyone ?
PS we will be back in time to vote !
June 14, 2016
One other benefit of leaving the EU, which nobody has mentioned, is we will not have to keep contributing to the Galileo project which is in direct opposition to the USA GPS system. GPS is given to the world for free ! Galileo is costing a fortune and will continue to do so for the rest of its life. Nothing is free or cheap from the EU !