Yesterday Mrs May received plenty of friendly Conservative advice to be firmer in her negotiations with the EU. Conservative leaders who love the EU more than their party have in the past lost their jobs. John Major, David Cameron and to some extent Edward Heath all lost their jobs by being too enthusiastic about the EEC/EU. The overwhelming majority of Conservative members today expect their Leader to stand up to the EU and to get on with leaving the EU as we have agreed to do. Mrs May seems to understand where her party is and acknowledges that we want to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws. She has made a clear red line over a border in the Irish Sea, but needs to dig in behind other red lines as well. She is in danger of being dragged into potential concessions that compromise such a result.
John Major is the best example of a leader whose complete tenure of office as PM was dominated by a bad policy decision which came from the EU. The UK’s membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism which he had championed with his friends at the CBI did substantial economic damage. It first led to an inflationary credit expansion, then led to a sharp monetary contraction, a big fall in the pound and penal rates of interest which brought on a predictable and damaging recession. It did not just cost John Major his job, but meant the Conservative party was out of office for 13 years and failed to win a majority in the Commons for 18 years. The CBI leadership sought to ignore the damage their recommended policy did to many businesses.
David Cameron too lost his job directly be being too pro EU. He failed to negotiate firmly with them. He then wrongly decided to recommend a so called deal which amounted to very little, only to discover the UK voters wanted to take a much firmer line with an EU that had treated him badly. He rightly saw that his position was untenable when he lost a referendum on the issue of continued membership on his renegotiated terms, having been fully behind staying in. He too trusted the CBI advice, and saw similar advice coupled to wildly inaccurate short term forecasts from the Bank and Treasury look absurd in the year after the vote.
Edward Heath took the Conservatives down to defeat in a General Election mainly owing to the economic problems of the time, part national and part more global. The fact that the UK had just joined the EEC was however a contributory factor to his demise. There was no improvement in output, incomes and living standards when we joined in the way Mr Heath had promised, and many UK manufacturing businesses were hit badly by the tariff free competition EEC membership unleashed in steel, cars, ships and others. Mr Heath had also upset a significant minority in his party, lost friends over the EEC, and diverted enormous amounts of government time and attention to putting us under EEC rules and taxes to try to conform. He did not see the economic disaster coming and when it hit he had few political friends left.
October 23, 2018
And then there’s Mrs Thatcher. The architect of the single market, who gave up more power to the EU than any other Tory leader by accepting majority voting – sensibly so, because she knew it was the only way to get tough decisions taken. The Conservative Party gave her the boot too. The problem is that successive Conservative leaders have been realistic in the need to make compromises with the EU in order to improve trade, while they have been serially stabbed in the back by wildly unrealistic extremist backbenchers. And now it is Mrs May’s turn – she is trying to put together a deal and all she gets is disloyalty from Mr Mogg and Mr Baker and Mr Redwood who have no plan of their own but are committed to wrecking Mrs May’s
Reply Not true. The PMs who came after Mrs T gave up much more power than she did by surrendering veto after veto
October 23, 2018
At the time Thatcher agreed the single market it was an economic concept and was planned to extend to services. It has turned out not to include services, except for certain arrangements such as financial passports, but instead has been used as a political Trojan horse for political integration. Presumably thatâs why Margaret Thatcher subsequently favoured Brexit.
October 23, 2018
Richard 1, Henry Spark is talking twaddle. Margaret Thatcher was not the architect of the single market developed by the EU. She wanted a single market based on free trade and mutual recognition. She was defeated by the EU hierarchy. The EU’s single market is centralised, bureaucratic and dirigiste. All contrary to what she fought for. It’s plainly laid out in her Bruges speech (and in her memoirs).
October 24, 2018
Indeed. She also argued for a hard ECU to sit alongside national currencies, which would have been greatly preferable to the euro.
October 23, 2018
Yesterday May said, “We must make the commitment to a temporary UK/EU joint customs territory legally binding”
Do you think temporary means forever in perpetuity JR? I do. She is untrustworthy. Get rid of her, get rid of her advisors and install a PM who is committed to leaving the EU. May need not apply.
October 24, 2018
Her Machiavellian Chequers plot demonstrated her perfidious character and should have shaken the scales from the eyes of anyone who didn’t already know that she was beyond redemption. British interests will not be served by her and her coterie of EU shills.
October 23, 2018
Also worth noting the associated fall in GDP growth rates:
âą Before Single Market (1968-1992) : 2.5% ave GDP growth p.a.
âą Since Single Market (1993-2017) : 2.2% ave GDP growth p.a.
https://facts4eu.org/news_feb_2018.shtml#sgl
October 23, 2018
The reason is EU over-regulation. Economists for Free Trade estimate: âthat EU regulation has reduced UK GDP by around 6%; that probably about a third of this can be reversed [without adverse consequence] giving us a projected gain of 2% of GDP, or a growth rate 0.15% per annum faster over the next 15 yearsâ http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/08/15/the-reasons-the-pm-gives-to-surrender-our-powers-of-self-government-again-over-the-supply-of-goods/#comment-954904
October 23, 2018
She too was brought down by the EU, in her case by being too anti-EU, along with the poll tax debacle. The question is is it not time for the Tory Party to formally do what everyone can see it already has done… split? Indeed, a complete realignment of British politics needs to take place along the lines of attitudes to the EU.
The country is bitterly divided and will remain so. Your victory has been an entirely pyrrhic one.
October 23, 2018
There are ‘splits’ in both biggest parties Toffeeboy that’s why they work because neither are extreme and have to bring people from both wings in each organisation into the middle to get agreements. Rather this and the people roughly know what the middle ground is between labour and conservative and not know what you’re going to get at all in some hotchpotch coalition where both party manifestos can be blown out of the window.
October 23, 2018
They are both coalitions of necessity, a consequence of the FPTP system rather than anything else. Coalitions are no bad thing, they require skills such as cooperation and compromise, skills which appear to be sorely lacking in Westminster politics at the moment.
October 24, 2018
“Coalitions are no bad thing”
I’m open on that proposal, it will be interesting to look back at the Conservative – Lib Dem coalition in a few years to see how well or not that worked !!!
Certainly the Lib Dem leader at the time doesn’t deserve to have been made a Peer at this stage in his career…
October 24, 2018
Well it certainly gave the impression of being more stable than what we’ve had since. Plus, unlike any other government in my lifetime, it could at least lay claim to the majority of votes case, whereas the last two single party governments have had 36.9% and 35.2% vote shares. Hardly an example of representing the majority.
October 23, 2018
Toffeeboy, Where does our government reside? London? Or Brussels? Because if we are to remain in the EU of ever closer union (since the 2015 Remain no longer exists), then Westminster should close down. And our existing political parties will be irrelevant.
October 23, 2018
Ask any Westminster politician if they believe in democracy and they will inevitably answer ‘yes’. Ask them if law makers should always be accountable to the voters, and they will again reply ‘yes’. Strange then that so many want to belong to the EU.
I’d say they need to have a deep and meaning conversation with their consciences. Any ‘split’ should be along the lines which define true democrats from the ones whose ideals are seriously flawed.
Tad
October 23, 2018
As Professor John Curtis pointed out: “Something like 70% of the Conservative vote are people who voted Leave.” https://www.conservativehome.com/video/2018/05/watch-curtice-above-all-what-the-conservatives-have-to-do-is-to-deliver-on-brexit-in-a-way-that-will-satisfy-the-aspirations-of-leave-voters.html
But did you miss the People’s Vote 2016 that settled the matter anyway?
It’s not rocket science to work out how “an experiment in infamy” is likely to turn out. https://brexitcentral.com/tories-press-epic-betrayal-british-public-expect-epic-punishment/
October 23, 2018
Thatcher was certainly not too anti-EU. Certainly not while she was PM anyway.
October 23, 2018
Interesting that the BBC claim there is now a wave of sympathy for May after a few intemperate remarks about ânoosesâ and âknivesâ being twisted. I think the remarks are silly, but I have never had the slightest sympathy for May who comes across as a rather cold individual herself.
I get a sense that there is a bit of theatre in play. Ninety five per cent etc. Maybe the EU will throw her a few crumbs so she can claim a last minute victory? Withdrawal agreement must be voted down. It is the number one task for all sensible MPs.
October 23, 2018
Yesterday, MPs were queuing up to condemn those remarks, which is a proper thing to do, but I would be most interested to know where they originated and if they were even genuine. There’s a part of me that says ‘contrived’ and ‘milking it’.
May certainly had an easier time in the Commons yesterday.
Tad
October 24, 2018
@Tad
I very much doubt it, the MSM are in cahoots to undermine Brexit, and what better way to do it than turning the chief saboteur into a victim? As Jean Claude Juncker says “When things get serious, you have to lie”
October 23, 2018
Totally agree. According to the Telegraph, rumour has it no. 10 were responsible for the anti-May remarks to get her just that – sympathy. The woman is a liability. Unfortunately for us, sensible MPs are in short supply.
October 23, 2018
The hard reality is three choices: stuck in an Irish backstop the U.K. in whole or part cannot get of, no deal or repudiate the backstop. These are the factual choices. The December capitualtion by May is clear. It is difficult to understand why the ministers and MPs failed to read it.
May will delay for time to keep the U.K. in a perpetual backstop by legalizing it. There has never been a need for a transition or implemention or what it really is a punishment extension as a vassal state. As for a backstop to backstop nonsense it advances absolutely nothing, changes nothing and creates uncertainty not certainty because a political declaration can be change infinitum and is not legally enforceable.
Time for Tory leave MP to stand up and act or cowardly disappear into the sunset.
October 23, 2018
Cold, incompetent, robotic, wrong headed on every issue and rather nasty with it. As shown by her “go home illegals immigrants” vans and by the treatment by the Home Office of many of the Windrush generation.
October 23, 2018
You seem to forget Henry Spark, that the Single Market Mrs Thatcher recommended was not the political entity it is today. The EU’s direction is governed by its political aims.
October 23, 2018
And Mrs T was brought down because she wasn’t sufficiently pro EU. Her visionary Bruges speech left her a marked woman, though for reasons of PR it was made out the poll tax was responsible for her downfall..
October 23, 2018
Rose
“And Mrs T was brought down because she wasnât sufficiently pro EU.”
Yep.
Interesting that the current PM will be brought down for being too pro-EU.
October 26, 2018
What makes you think she will?
October 23, 2018
I totally agree with that.
Tad
October 23, 2018
After May’s underhand behaviour over the way the vassal state plan was written and ambushed at Chequers which undermined Davis and his team (plus all of you who thought that was the only plan being worked and negotiated on- no has told us what plan Robbins was negotiating when Davis was in office?) I would have thought you would have all learnt she is devious, treacherous, underhand and completely untrustworthy. Incredulously you all let her spout her confirmation of the vassal state plan yesterday. Why would you all give her another chance to ambush you all with another late plan? May did this in December she did it in July and now you let her have another chance to deceive you!
It was good to see Grieve upset that his meanful vote is now a meaningless vote. I doubt he will let that go lightly. Raab clearly a remain convert.
Rudd last on TV did a complete U turn saying a second referendum with remain on the ballot paper. When in govt she claimed the result must be respected! Clearly another not to be trusted. She is in a seat with a slim margin, I hope the voters take note. She also made a point about language being used towards the PM, has she forgot her previous vile language towards Boris Johnsonin the referendum debate? Or does she mean it can only be used when she thinks it is okay to be vile? Two faced slimy untrustworthy person if there ever was.
October 24, 2018
According to a mogg cast robbins signed off that deal in Brussels clearly with the approval of May – he only does what she wants – but Rabb had to rush over to cancel it due to significant Cabinet disapproval.
Since then it has been an attempt to still fudge the sellout but get it through anyway.
Trust has become a major issue and the faces of the front bench during her statement and questions were a picture. Even the Chancellor looked as if he wanted to be somewhere else.
October 23, 2018
Nobody stood up to the EU more than Mrs. T. She made us proud. She was outnumbered on the single market but got us the rebate only for Blair to hand it back again in return for zilch.
Contrast that with weak pathetic May who has capitulated at every turn and made us a laughing stock of the world. The Eu can’t believe their luck that we have such a spineless negotiator to represent us.
October 23, 2018
I hear that Oily Robbins had negotiated a border down the Irish Sea, but Raab had to go on a flying visit to Brussels to put that right as that would have been a step too far and could have ultimately brought down the government. So I ask, who the hell put him in post in the first place, and why hasn’t he been replaced?
It is then we begin to see just how badly suited May is to the office of Prime Minister.
Tad
October 23, 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-27053536/euro-moments-thatcher-says-no-no-no-to-europe
Could any of us imagine Theresa May doing something similar…? She would doubtless say Yes, yes, yes!
MAY.OUT.NOW
zorro
October 23, 2018
Also it was not ‘sensibly so’ this was a big mistake by the Thatcher Government. Since Ted Heath all UK governments have been digging the UK into this EU ratchet trap. Let us hope that, despite the dishonest Appeaser May we can still extricate ourself from this mess. A mess created by the Europhile politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers without any consent of the people.
Lord Adonis the other night was on LBC with Nigel Farage. He suggested we should pay a huge leaving bill to the EU to pay Farage’s EU pension so he would ‘not become a burden on the state’. Perhaps he is a bit obtuse not to realise that paying the leaving bill is a far bigger burden on the State (or rather a burden on the taxpayer).
When you leave a club you do not have to pick up pension bills. These should have been provided for by the EU and saved for (as part of the employment costs each year).
October 23, 2018
Henry Spark,
I doubt if BBC watching Guardian readers will ever get this, but it all comes down to democracy. Those who try or tried to compromise the cherished democracy the people of the United Kingdom fought so hard to secure, especially without reference to them to seek their permission, were or still are, on a collision course with the true patriots. And always will be.
We keep getting leaders who are little more than stooges who owe their allegiance to the undemocratic EU rather than the UK where law-makers can be removed if they get it wrong. The real disparity though is self-evident. It’s between the voting public and parliament. The people voted out, but the majority of politicians (no doubt with one eye on advancement, possibly as a future EU commissioner with a lucrative salary) largely want us to remain, despite the never ending stream of nauseating platitudes intended to deceive.
Leaving the undemocratic EU is the right way to go as it leads to freedom. Those politicians who think otherwise really have chosen the wrong vocation. Their way leads to division and discord.
Tad
October 23, 2018
The E.U. have made repeated claims that they didn’t ask the U.K. to leave and that we are in a mess of our own making. They are certainly right on the latter point. By refusing to accept the democratic decision of the U.K., even though some pretended to do so, far too many of our politicians, both past and present, who believe they have been blessed with superior wisdom to that which those who elected them have, have painted us into a corner from which it is now almost impossible to escape and inevitably leading to a no-Brexit, which is what they have wanted all along.
The E.U., however, is wrong on the first point. By changing its rule base and its long-term aims, most of which U.K. citizens disagreed with, and then by refusing to listen sympathetically to David Cameron when he asked for some minor changes to ease the immigration burden on the U.K., the E.U. virtually forced us into a referendum. They thought they held all the aces, as did dear Mr Cameron, but both badly misjudged the mood of U.K. citizens.
By refusing to show clear and strong leadership, Theresa May has encouraged (and I use the word deliberately) nor done anything to discourage the many different factions that have festered and grown in the U.K. since Brexit was announced. Why she has done this is a mystery because she must realize the Conservative Party will be a big loser as will be the U.K. As for her own reputation, she will now go down in history as the PM who played Chequers while Britain burned.
Sadly, even if she is replaced in the next week or so, in the very short while left until March 29 2019, her replacement will be faced with an impossible task as he or she tries to bring back sanity from the chaos she has deliberately caused. Who would want to take on such a poisoned chalice?
October 24, 2018
Boris, Davis and about 40 who agree with JR and are patriots.
October 24, 2018
Boris, Davis and about 40 who agree with JR and are patriots..
October 23, 2018
Lifelogic
” A mess created by the Europhile politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers without any consent of the people.”
==
Really? No consent of the people? Over 16m of us voted Remain, nearly equal to the Brexiteers numbers.
No country should allow a system where 17m voters are allowed to determine the future of 65m citizens. It’s not democracy.
EXIT BREXIT!
October 24, 2018
Margaret Howard, Really? You think that, if Remain had won by 17m to 16m votes, David Cameron would be negotiating for the UK to leave the single market and have our own commercial policy (instead of the EU’s CCP), in deference to the 16m Leaves? So why, when Leave won with 17.4m, are we negotiating to remain in the EU’s single market?
October 24, 2018
But you advocate allowing 16 million voters determining the future of 65 million. Strange approach.
Or do you just advocate “your way” like all of your activist ilk?
October 28, 2018
If you think Redwood and Co have no alternative plan, then you clearly haven’t read this blog or are too blinkered and entrenched in the myre of Project Fear to form an informed opinion…
October 23, 2018
With this logic, why then not include ALL Tory prime ministers, as they ALL lost their jobs in relation to the EU (too friendly or too alienated). It exonerates the EU and puts the blame at the Tory party itself, which has always been utterly divided on the EU.
October 23, 2018
And now all EU nations – divided by the EU !
The EU never accepts responsibility, Peter. This is what is wrong with it.
October 23, 2018
@Anonymous: these 28 (soon 27) nations have made the EU, and joined it voluntarily. As such they ARE the EU. And . . . being a voluntary union, they may leave if they so wish (see Greenland, and now the UK).
Are you looking for some outside enemy?
These divisions are national, I see no EU interference in the many divisions in the Dutch democracy.
October 23, 2018
No. I’m not looking for an outside enemy.
It is a falsehood that the EU is united. Euroscepticism is mainstream throughout.
October 24, 2018
@Anonymous: of course the EU is not united in every aspect. That is why there is a variety of party groups and indeed there are eurosceptic parties in maybe all EU nations. So what is the problem?
October 23, 2018
Indeed Mrs Thatcher too made several mistakes in agreeing to transfer many powers to the EU.
Also she appointed Major as Chancellor, allowed him take the UK into the ERM disaster and even supported the dope to become the next PM.
October 23, 2018
@Lifelogic: What I mean is that she was brought down byUK politicians who thought that she was not sufficiently pro EU anymore. SHe wasn’t brought down by eurosceptics. As such the bringing down of Tory leaders has come from both sides.
October 23, 2018
Pointed out yesterday: https://brexitcentral.com/remainers-falsely-framed-brexit-vote-choice-economic-stability-democratic-legitimacy/ “Vibrant democracy and vital economy go hand in hand. … Have you ever wondered why support for the European Union was so mute until 2016? Why did even pro-EU Prime Ministers like David Cameron and John Major drape their speeches in eurosceptic language?
The answer is: because [after Maastricht] there has never been popular support for membership of the European Union; any support shown was usually sceptical; and most importantly because the architects and enthusiasts for the UKâs membership were isolated elites who achieved ever closer union by stealth.”
October 24, 2018
@Richard:
Iâm sorry but my answer is a different one. A few point:
1) What is far away gets less interest. The EU is far away
2) The average Briton had absolutely no interest in the EU and no understanding of it either.
3) Even now, Britons have no real understanding of the EU, they rely on easy media one-liners
4) A small group (now the more zealous brexiteers) always did have an interest and dislike
5) There has been a decades long poison drip feed by the UK media, especially the tabloids
6) There is a problem in the psyche of some Britons, which, being polite, Iâll just call ânostalgiaâ
As for democracy: as only a quarter of your countryâs size, and as a EU/Euro country we are outperforming you economically. No quarrel with you on âVibrant democracy and vital economy go hand in hand.â
October 24, 2018
PvL, If that tripe makes you feel happy then you continue believing it. Most older Leave voters voted to remain in the common market in the 1975 referendum. They changed their minds (I was one of them) in the face of “a decades long poison drip feed by the UK media” against our independence, and because of the EU’s own actions and characteristics. You are another one who won’t face the fact of the corrupt centralising dirigiste EU ideology for what it is.
October 24, 2018
NickC,
The Eu has absolutely nothing to do with ideology in any shape or form , at least not how you express and use the terminology ideology
October 25, 2018
Hans, “Ideology: A system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy” – Oxford English dictionary. The EU is an ideology, it has no demos or patria. And its proponents like you are ideologues.
October 23, 2018
It hardly exonerates the EU Peter, if it had been democratic and of any earthly use, we would have wanted to belong to it which would have solved everything.
Tad
October 23, 2018
@Tad Davison: Iâm afraid that is nonsense, Tad. The EU is far more democratic than it is given credit for in the UK, which itself is hardly a shining example of perfect democracy.
It is the partial sharing of sovereignty that the UK doesnât understand and cannot cope with, and being stripped of any sense of specialness, which is difficult to stomach so soon after having have been a world power, and which some Britons still have to come to terms with.
October 24, 2018
PvL, I am afraid that is nonsense. Only a tiny number of very old people can still even remember the old British Empire. If anything the vast majority of the people who voted Leave have rather mixed feelings about the UK controlling so many countries in the past, rather than jingoistic. Indeed the very reason we want self-determination, is because we believe that all peoples should have self-determination. You have fallen for Remain propaganda again, and a strawman to boot.
October 24, 2018
@NickC: Not true,
The number of comments I get about WWII (when Britian was an empire) shows the memory of that time is still vivid (unless the lost empire part is subconsiously suppressed)
October 25, 2018
PvL, Not true. Comments about WW2 are about WW2, not about the British Empire. Our WW2 comments concerning Europe are often made in bewilderment in the face of hostility towards the English by the EU and even by some European people. I think we would be embarrassed by gratitude, but hatred is unjust.
October 24, 2018
Such is the disparity between the truly cognisant ‘leave’ people of the United Kingdom, and the deluded notions of democracy from those within the European Union.
The description ‘Far more democratic’ takes a fair bit of swallowing, and Italy’s budget immediately comes to mind followed by the number of countries that have voted against EU treaties, only to be forced to vote again when they didn’t give the result the EU wanted. And in the UK, our laws are made by elected representatives we can vote out if we don’t like what they do.
If that makes us special, then I agree, and our system is the one to emulate. We shouldn’t be forced to ‘stomach’ anything less. But I wouldn’t just say the EU is undemocratic, or even anti-democratic. I would say it is downright dangerous and the UK is best out of it altogether.
Tad
October 25, 2018
@Tad Davison L.O.L. Your “system to emulate hasn’t even been emulated in the UK’s devolved governments. Most of the 1400 parliamentarians unelcted! And I could go on.
The choice between a Magna Carta horse and cart democracy and e.g. a post-war mercedes democracy is not a difficult one.
Voting out politicians is easier in the Netherlands than in the UK and also possible in the EU, if you’d care to read about the past examples.
October 25, 2018
PVL, you seem to suggest members of the UK’s devolved assemblies are unelected, and I find that very perplexing.
If per chance your disparaging comment about a ‘Magna Carta horse and cart democracy’ refers to the House of Lords where appointees merely revise laws (in some cases) made by elected representatives in the House of Commons, then there is some agreement between us.
Frankly, I have very little time for the House of Lords as presently constructed. But you still don’t, say anything about appointed EU commissioners making EU laws, and I have very little time for that institution either. Is that your idea of a Mercedes democracy?
Tad
October 25, 2018
PvL, LOL. Most of our national laws are now made by the EU in Brussels by politicians we don’t elect, and can’t remove, and by bureaucrats that no one elects. National democracies such as ours and yours are over-ruled by the EU government that has power over us all. If you are comfortable with that post democracy ideology, you can have it. But don’t come whinging to us again.
October 23, 2018
Indeed – they are not one party. The party of Thatcher, Major, Cameron, Clarke, Heseltine etc is the Conservative party.
The party of Duncan Smith, Rees Mogg, Baker etc is UKIP. They have all the attributes you would expect of the purple prunes.
October 24, 2018
Andy, As Mrs Thatcher began to understand the corrupt stranglehold of the EU better, she increasingly fought against it. So much so she was stabbed in the back by europhiles.
October 23, 2018
Peter
“. It exonerates the EU and puts the blame at the Tory party itself, which has always been utterly divided on the EU.”
==
The EU is just the latest bugbear for the tories. After Brexit something else will be will appear.
There is only ONE reason – and Mrs May put it into words – the Tory party has become the ‘NASTY PARTY’. It will only change if decent people stop voting for it.
October 24, 2018
Margaret Howard, The EU has been opposed by UK people from all parties and none for 50 years. Why do you want to be ruled by Brussels? Do you think we are incapable of being independent?
October 23, 2018
Classic cases of power corrupting. John Majors self important vapourings, when he should have been so embarrassed by what he did, that he never uttered another public word, sums it up.
What better feeling can there be for both politicians and their senior officials who have climbed the greasy pole than to be wined and dine, feted, photographed with other so called leaders, black limo journeys etc, their egos massaged and feelings of self importance as contributors to The Grand Project continuously enhanced and finally constantly fed a stream of unchallenged propaganda. Oh, plus of course bringing war to an end.
No wonder they lose touch. To me it is only the illusion of democracy that separates them from 18th Century royalty.
etc ed
October 23, 2018
You say Mrs May seems to understand, but thatâs only because her policy is to spin things out to absolutely the last moment when she calculates enough MPs in all parties are so terrified of no deal theyâll vote through any hopeless Remainer deal she comes up with. She may be right. Itâs a dangerous policy for the Brexiters to leave her in place till the last minute, whatever assurances sheâs given them are worthless.
October 23, 2018
Here’s the alternative tactic: May is being left in place BECAUSE she cannot find a deal that will be approved in the House; consequently the clock is running down to Freedom Date. IF, at some point she tries to bring her ‘nonsense deal’ forward, a leadership challenge can be initiated, taking up more time.
Brexiteers are, hopefully, being clever tactically; ensure no new legislation on Brexit before 29-3-19.
October 23, 2018
Hope you are right Peter.
October 23, 2018
They should look to Trump. He is about to confound the Democrats and the celebs in the mid terms.
If only the right leader would step forward today in the UK. The People (the real ones) would get behind him.
People are sick of the elites and political correctness.
(8 Captcha tasks. If traffic is down this is why.)
October 23, 2018
Lol, when it tries to make me do it for a fourth time I give up!
October 23, 2018
Dear Roy–Very much agree–Her 95 % squawking is ridiculous given that so few want to get to her 100% at all.
October 23, 2018
She may well be right.
October 23, 2018
Agreed. That’s why she must be removed now.
October 23, 2018
I’m of that opinion too. I think she’s both cold and calculating.
That might be useful in certain circumstances, but when those traits are used to gain advantage by subterfuge for a cause that I do not agree with, I tend to take that personally.
I’d love to see a time when all politicians are honest and can be trusted. Yet there are some I would trust, the ones I am still in contact with. They can keep the rest, and it’s a big list!
Tad
October 23, 2018
Yep ! That’s the plan.
October 23, 2018
Indeed exactly right. So why exactly do the Tories keep electing such pro EU, left wing, big government, tax increasing PM leaders? This when they are clearly such a disaster both economically and at the ballot box? Even against extremely poor opposition.
Amazingly John Major did not even apologise for his entirely predictable disaster that was the ERM (and indeed the Euro he would also have joined given the chance) nor did he even learn anything from it. Cameron too learned nothing from Majorâs disastrous leadership (other than that he had to dishonestly pretent to be a Eurosceptic low tax at heart Tory to get elected as leader). May is now rather like Ted Heath with subservience to the EU, endless interventionism, prices and income controls, the highest taxes for nearly 50 years, an economically illiterate, tax to death chancellor, endless new red tape everywhere, she want to build on EU workers ârightsâ, want gender and even race perhaps pay gap reporting drivel, endless political correctness, a dire NHS, police who have largely given up on most crimes, violent crime and murders that are increasing rapidly, open door immigration and a bossy, vacuous, visionless and robotic delivery style.
Where is someone to ask her âhas the Right Hon. Lady has taken leave of her sensesâ.
But then did she ever have any?
October 23, 2018
I don’t remember Edward Heath, but agree David Cameron lost his job over the EU.
However, John Major lost the Conservative administration through the “cash for questions” sleaze and a popularism for brand Blair.
People didn’t vote labour in 1997 to be anti-EU.
I expect Theresa May to lose her job over the EU, and also because she shows no imagination or initiative, has no charisma and inspires no-one.
Reply They voted in 1997 to express anger over the failed economic policy of the ERM
October 23, 2018
Heath called an election on “who governs Britain” (Heath or the colliers) ; unfortunately, the electorate gave an equivocal answer . Major supercharged the issue of Tory sleeze by his hypocritical ‘Back to Basics’ initiative. However, the ERM debacle destroyed the Tory’s trump card, economic competence (only in comparison with Labour, obviously).
October 23, 2018
The Daily Mail’s campaign against “sleaze” was only waged because of the other matters Mr R mentions. They didn’t wage such a campaign against the succeeding administration though there was plenty of damning material.
October 23, 2018
Indeed Major destroyed the Tory Parties reputation for relatively economic competence with the ERM (that he took us into as Chancellor and kept us in until the bitter end). This caused thousands of repossessed homes with circa 17% mortgage rates, destroyed jobs and businesses, broke up marriages and even destroyed peoples lives through suicides.
He then failed even to say he was sorry for the entirely predictable result nor did he learn anything from it.
Osborne and Hammond were/are keen to continue with economic incompetence to with their tax, borrow and endless waste agenda too. Usually while pretending to be tax cutters!
October 23, 2018
Agree there LL. JR says the ERM did substantial economic damage, but to many it was totally ruinous.
Have just seen a note on TV that says the EU has rejected the draft Italian budget and they must submit a revised one within 3 weeks.
October 23, 2018
Tim Stanley today in the Telegraph today says, âThe greatest tragedy of Mrs Mayâs leadership is that she has squeezed the vision out of Brexitâ. He is exactly right.
May stood on a manifesto promising endlessly to be pro business, to lower taxation, cut red tape to save billions, cut crime, that Brexit means Brexit and to be strong and stable. Yet she and Hammond have done almost the precise opposite on every one of these. She is a total disaster, very slightly better than Corbyn/Mc Donnell/SNP is the best one can say of her.
October 23, 2018
And she is about to keep UK in a customs union, BRINO.
October 23, 2018
She’s only slightly better than Corbyn and McDonnell because she is a Socialist and they are Marxists. The lesser of two evils.
October 23, 2018
Endless talk from you Conservative MPs complaining about May and how she is conceding, conceding, conceding and it’s ALL damaging talk. The reality is it’s not her fault because None of you have the balls or political will to overturn her once and for all – you just shout from the sidelines and allow her and her Civil Servant to roll over you whilst she effectively destroys ‘the People’s’ Referendum Vote 2 years ago. ‘Ah yes’ you say ‘Cometh the hour and in Parliament we will vote down any deal which does not return our Sovereignty etc etc’. You wont and you know you wont because collectively you don’t have the political courage to do so at the end of which you will find a suitable excuse to hide behind to absolve yourselves from weaknes- Politicians always do.. What we don’t need is a history lesson on what previous Prime Ministers did or did not do – what we NEED is what you (collectively) are going to do about this one – that is today’s issue. I have been following you for years and some of the criticism above is not directed at you personally as it is well known that you are a man of principle, courage and a good and honest broker. First and foremost what some on your site may not know is that you are a very active, industrious MP who serves his Constituency well and of that I have personal experience. No more history – end this chaos quickly and deliver to the letter what the majority voted for.
October 23, 2018
Jumeirah, That is a very sad indictment of the current state of our democracy. But unfortunately all too true.
October 23, 2018
I’m very sympathetic to the points you make. The Brexiteers themselves might not have the numbers to effect the necessary change at the top. The way to go about her removal, is to make sure the remainers fully understand that the Tories will again crash and burn and be cast out into the political wilderness for years to come unless they give us the clean Brexit we voted for.
Tad
October 23, 2018
Jumeirah,
I think the problem is not lack of balls but the fact John and his fellow Brexiteers are outnumbered by those EU-loving, ‘careers come first’ Tory MPs. I’m sure John and the ERG have discussed getting rid of May but if they can’t get the numbers, which they obviously can’t, and they fail in their bid to get rid of her, not only is she safe for another year but it will give her the confidence to think she can do whatever she wants re Brexit..
October 24, 2018
JoolsB, Short of someone thinking of another way to halt the Chequers Bremain, Tory Leave MPs can do nothing else other than try to oust Theresa May. So what if they fail? It’s not as though they, or we, will be worse off. And it could jolt Mrs May’s complacency even if she wins again.
I am getting fed up of this wretched Tory hand-wringing, this “we caaaann’t dooooowooo anything” pusillanimity. That way lies Chequers and Bremain and Corbyn who will dismantle the UK, as well as keep us under the EU’s thumb. Fight back or be a serf – your choice.
October 23, 2018
Great article by Tim Stanley in the Telegraph on the uselessness of Mrs May. Looks like Conservative Brexiteers were far too sanguine about their ability to control her actions. Tim Stanley is probably right we should just have gone for the Norway option at least for an interim period, it would be much better than Chequers minus.
No change no chance
October 23, 2018
Inadequacy is perhaps a fairer word than uselessness
October 23, 2018
A broken compass on all issues, a total lack of positive pro-Brexit vision and an inability to understand how to negotiate.
Just totally out of her depth really. Not good at thinking in real time when interviewed (even by the absurdly gentle to her Andrew Marr) and even robotic at reading things out that have been done for her.
October 23, 2018
As Simon Heffer puts it: just not up to it.
October 23, 2018
Somebody else who didn’t notice the Irish government categorically rejecting the kind of “light touch” border arrangements which obtain between Norway and Sweden, in fact rejecting:
âanything that would imply a border on the island of Irelandâ.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/10/21/there-will-be-no-economic-blockade-of-the-uk-when-we-leave-the-eu/#comment-968195
And they didn’t say:
“Well, we might accept a border like Norway-Sweden for an interim period”.
I haven’t yet got to this point in yesterday’s Commons proceedings, but unless I missed it no MP asked Theresa May what kind of final deal with the EU we could conceivably strike which would satisfy an Irish government of that temper and so make it possible to cancel or discontinue the backstop.
The true answer would be a deal that fully satisfied the Irish demands as stated nearly a year ago:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/10/13/tax-and-spend-3/#comment-966230
âBrexit: Remain in customs union and single market to solve border issue, Irelandâs European commissioner tells Mayâ
October 23, 2018
DC. A quick glance at Streetview shows substantial customs and border posts on major routes between Norway-Sweden and Norway-Finland.
October 24, 2018
Precisely, and the Irish government rejected anything like that.
October 23, 2018
Richard 1, Theresa May has not created this BREMAIN mess because she is “useless”. The Chequers plan is not an accident that just “happened”. Chequers is deliberate. Chequers has taken months to prepare. Chequers supplanted the DExEU White Paper because of a conscious decision. Civil servants have been negotiating Chequers and our military, security and diplomatic subservience to the EU since at least March 2018. The EU did not get Chequers from the UK before our own Cabinet did by mistake. Mrs May is provably culpable for every one of those deliberate decisions.
October 23, 2018
Well some here did suggest that. But it is a bit late now.
October 23, 2018
It just dawned on me today. If we have a house: we are part of it, we live in it.
Mrs May wishes to go outside the door, build an attachment and would have us live there. She is trying to dovetail or jigsaw-fit the UK House into the EU House.
We should just leave the EU House ( we never felt at home in it anyway) and move back into our UK House; for, our hearts are still there.
Also, it’s better for shopping at DIY and grocery stores. A new life at Home, where we love and belong.
The Remainers still have their toys there too. They’ll make new friends.
October 23, 2018
I have always struggled with how David Cameron and William Hague went from vocal Eurosceptics in opposition to timid Europhiles in government.
What envelope did the civil service give them on taking up their government positions? Did it simply point out how deeply we had become entwined so we had to make the best of it or was it something else?
October 23, 2018
Maybe they lied.
October 23, 2018
I’d disagree with the, ‘Maybe’ bit.
October 23, 2018
Cameron certainly did. Hague I think (very foolishly) just changed his mind in totally the wrong direction. He did after all read PPE (Magdalen) perhaps that infected him with a total inability to think logically (as it often does it seems). Or perhaps it is just that the people who aspire to read PPE at Oxford are self selectingly dodgy already?
October 23, 2018
I have often thought the same myself. Including the anti EEC campaign literature Blair used when he tried to become elected and Neil Kinnock’s anti EEC demonstrations.
The EU tentacles have proven extremely adept at brainwashing or influencing senior politicians.
I wonder if our host would have gone the same way had he become leader of the Conservative party.
October 23, 2018
Great point NS!
It seems to happen all too often. It’s almost as if cabinet government and collective responsibility is just a charade, and once a newly appointed minister takes the red box, they realise someone else is really in control and British parliamentary democracy is just a sham. All the more reason to get our independence back and put matters right.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. At this moment, the Tories more than any other political party are in a position to give the country a strong, ethical representative government, but they keep foisting duds upon us. People who have little or no resonance with the public and who seem unable to communicate with those they want to vote for them.
A successful politician has to win people over, not cause divisions, and that happened in each of the above cases to a greater or lesser extent. The least divisive ones were the most successful and vice versa.
A politician whose public persona diminishes more with each passing day, first becoming a figure of ridicule, then despised, is not fit to be Prime Minister, and that is why we need a new one. No matter how much we dress up a turkey, it’s still a turkey!
Yet it seems it’s always those who inhabit the bubble who are the last to see it. Christ help us if this goes on much longer.
If we had a referendum on Mrs, May – a person who threw away a good lead in the opinion polls at the last election, she would get wiped out. But I have a feeling she will remain doggedly in No 10 because she is the remainers’ last chance to stop Brexit, sly fox that she is (another animal analogy – no offence to Foxes).
Tad
October 23, 2018
There is a telling word in your post today, “Mrs May seems to understand where her party is and acknowledges that we want to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws.” That word is “seems”. It seems to me that what she seeks to negotiate is not the Leave I voted for. Either she is playing a Macchiavellien game (my default assumption), or she is suffering from blinkered vision in which the objective is to achieve an agreement, any agreement, so long as it is a 100% agreement. In this interpretation she will be unwilling to determine that No Deal is the better choice. She will leave that responsibility to someone else, either the Conservative MPs who remove her first or the House of Commons as a whole voting down whatever she presents to it. For me, either will do so long as they reject the dogs breakfast that surely will be presented for your and our approval.
October 23, 2018
Any objective bystander knows that the WTO deal (that the rest of the world uses) is much better than the vassal state plan promoted by May. It was clear yesterday she was not changing her position. Her advisors still saying no deal is the least preferred option and he least likely to happen.
There is no certainty for business, fisherman, citizens by any punishment extension as it isn’t based on a political declaration which is not legally enforceable and could be changed or revoked.
For the hope of this declaration May is prepared to make our country a vassal state, with an open ended backstop which only the EU decides to end, join numerous EU bodies, be half in and half out, pay billions of our taxes, follow non regression clause for energy, employment, environment and has still signed the U.K. up to defense, security and intelligence led by the EU!
Who is more deranged and fixated on the EU project May or the Tory MPs for allowing this humiliation and madness to continue?
Why has no one questioned her over the dishonest KitKat policy to hide costs and ties to EU? Why has no one challenged her for behaviour for the way her vassal state plan was conceived written and ambushed on the country? What plan was being negotiated by Robbins when Davis was in office the vassal state plan or the one Davis was working on?
October 23, 2018
Tory voters want two things
1 – Elect a pro-UK independent leader
2- Confront and bankrupt the left (liberal and hard)
October 23, 2018
So you would rather the Country be run by a single party ad infinitum?
A bit like the old U.S.S.R.
October 23, 2018
England tends to be a Conservative voting country and seeing as most of what any UK Government does nowadays only applies to England, what’s wrong with that? Besides, after Brexit, there’s a chance the party currently calling themselves Conservative will split so there will still be a choice. Plus there is UKIP of course, the real Conservative party and the only party proposing an English Parliament allowing the English the same self determination as the rest of the UK and western world enjoys. Something to their eternal shame, the anti-English party calling themselves Conservative refuse to do, even though without England, they would not exist anyway.
October 24, 2018
If you have to recruit from a Party membership of appr 192 members per seat (or maybe 450 for those seats where Conservative has a realistic chance, and those members are not always of an attractive age, appearance (not to mention qualifications) or have more attractive things to do than standing for Parliament, you have a bit of a problem. Styling advice may help..
October 23, 2018
Mr Redwood,
” The overwhelming majority of Conservative members today expect their Leader to stand up to the EU and to get on with leaving the EU as we have agreed to do.”
Most likely, but that is a small portion of people likely to vote Conservative. What about the non-member Conservative voters. Do they have identical preferences? Or maybe somewhat less hostile to the EU?
October 23, 2018
Regular Conservatives & other British folk tend not to be hostile to the EU, but prefer to be free from exposure to the hostility of EU diktats.
October 23, 2018
Rien, there are plenty of Labour voters who also want out of the EU. Liberals too for that matter. You don’t have to be a Conservative voter to want out.
October 23, 2018
Leavers comprised 70% of the Tory vote, since all Leave voters have nowhere else to go, save UKIP, carrying out the referendum result would result in a thumping win for the Tories at the next GE.
October 23, 2018
Helen Smith, Indeed, I too thought that Rien Huizer’s questioning whether Leaves were only a small proportion of Tory voters to be even more bizarre than his usual flights of fancy. Unless he reckons that 17.4 million Leave votes came only from Labour and UKIP?
October 24, 2018
You misread my comment: I asked about the (possible, not certain) difference in brexit attitudes between members (who are a very small proportion of voters) and Tory voters (some 125K vs 10 million plus). It has been suggested that Tory Part members are far more radical (ie see no problem with a no-deal outcome) than the average Tory voter who feels more comfortable with the current policy line of the government (ie withdrawal agreement, transition and future relationship of some kind that does not damage economic interests too much.
But apparently, reading properly is not ex(c)iting..
October 24, 2018
Rien Huizer, You have to make up your mind whether you’re asking a real question, or asking a rhetorical one for which you then provide the answer you want. Expect your rhetorical questions to be treated as your statements.
As Helen Smith stated about 70% of Tory voters voted Leave. Every indicator I have seen shows that all Leave voters, with very few exceptions, are fed up with Theresa May’s Bremain. If you are sincere then don’t fall for Remain propaganda about Leaves. They really don’t know what they’re talking about.
October 23, 2018
If history repeats itself. But my question was out of interest. There appears to nbe a discrepancy between members’ position re the EU and the Co0nservative Party in general. That is of importance for the parilamentary party because members are important during the selection process but relatively unimportant as voters. So I meant a different question than the one you replied to..
October 24, 2018
Rien Huizer, That’s because you were being too clever by half. If you stopped trying to slag off the UK and Leave in everything you say, you might be able to phrase your questions rationally.
October 23, 2018
Mr Redwood,
Furthermore, what of those “red lines” ( a rhetorical device to both simplify towards the public and appease eurosceptic professionals like yourself whilst mortgaging her future space for negotiating a good (in her view as I understand it) outcome), what of those red lines are important enough to risk the deal that Mr Raab is visibly proud of?
October 23, 2018
Rien Huizer, We did not decide to allow Theresa May to copy David Cameron and commence “negotiating” with the EU, we decided to Leave. The English is primary school level yet Remains and EU trolls like yourself are determined to convert Leave into something – anything – else but actually leaving the EU and its treaties.
October 24, 2018
@ NickC,
You said: “We did not decide to allow Theresa May to copy David Cameron and commence ânegotiatingâ with the EU, we decided to Leave” .
(1) negotiating about how to leave is not inconsistent with the “decision” (maybe the “we” you refer to does not cover all of the people who woted leave, but that is a minor point).
(2) deciding to ignore that “decision” is politically difficult but constitutionally possible according to many experts
(3)As has been said by many well respected people in the UK, the term “leave” covers a wide variety of outcomes. For instance I can leave my golf club and play on greenfee basis. I can rejoin. I can join another club. I can negotiate with club management to become a social member and only use the clubhouse facilities. In all cases I At least temporarily) cancelled my full membership. So the debate is not about whether the Uk should or should not leave the existing membership of the EU -that is pretty much settled- but exactly what the future relationship will be and how the UK will go from A to B. A pretty normal process, I would say, unless one has no idea of what international relations in peacetime consist of.
October 25, 2018
PvL, What a load of self-serving tosh. There is no necessity to negotiate “how” the UK leaves. How the UK goes from “A to B”, or subservience to Leave, is a matter for the UK, not the EU. All the EU needs is a leaving date and a settlement. The UK must negotiate with many international bodies directly where the EU negotiated for us over the past 45 years. If it were possible to openly ignore our Leave vote, Theresa may would have no need to lie about Chequers. What you do with your golf club membership is up to you.
October 23, 2018
My mother would say to me when I wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying or being stubborn – ‘Are you deaf, or daft?’
Mrs May clearly didn’t have anything like that said to her when she was young.
October 23, 2018
She was told -‘ Trust in the Lord dear and all will become clear’, she thinks clear for a second vote on her rotten deal or remain.
October 23, 2018
Stred, Yes that’s what the establishment are aiming for – a second referendum where the choice is Remain or the Chequers revolving-door Remain. When they said we were thick they really do believe their own propaganda so they expect us to swallow their lies. Ask Amber Rudd.
October 23, 2018
She would hear far worse if she got out of the ‘bubble’! She might finally realise just how angry people are by her ineptitude and back channel pro-EU dealing.
Tad
October 23, 2018
The problem is deceit: the British people were told that we were joining a common market, an Economic Community, not a domineering political state in the making.
October 23, 2018
Yes. True
October 23, 2018
Walt, The entire history of our relationship with the EU is one of deceit. Politicians have lied to us continually about the EU. Theresa May is no exception, witnessed by her secretly concocted Chequers plan.
The Heath government deceived the British people in 1972; the Wilson government deceived with talk of the “common market” in 1975; in the late 1980s John Major deceived us with the ERM; the Blair government deceived us over a supposed reform of the EU CAP paid for with our money. And all while we suffer a deluge of prodnose diktats whilst being relieved of over ÂŁ800bn gross (at current rates).
The EU is an authoritarian, corrupt, centralised, dirigiste technocracy with no demos and no effective democracy. And all that even if we had wanted to be part of an United States of Europe – for which there never has been a majority, even if we’d been directly consulted, which we weren’t.
And now the bar-stewards have stolen the Leave we voted for. Does Mrs May think Chequers is the end of the matter?
October 23, 2018
Good morning.
On this I agree. But the only Conservative Leader that actually can be said to have lost their jobs over the EEC/EC/EU, was Lady Thatcher. It was her; “No, no, no !” in the HoC over further integration which sealed her fate.
Cameron said he felt that he was not the right person to lead the country out of the EU. He was right. But neither it seems most of the Conservative Party who, are by a clear majority, are for Remain.
John Major was the man who rammed us into the EU via Maastricht. From that I, Her Majesty the Queen and all her subjects became EU Citizens. I do not remember being ever asked to give my consent to such. Not until 2016 would I get the chance to make my voice heard on that matter, some 23 years later. But it was well worth the wait đ And the fact that Article 50 was issued on his birthday was indeed a classy touch. Many thanks to the person(s) whose idea that was. đ
I was think about our history over Europe. It is especially poignant at this time of year, what with Armistice Day just around the corner, and it marking 100 years since the end of the Great War. Europe, for as long as England, and I do talk only of England here, has been a source of much trouble, sorrow, pain and cost. Cost in both money and, more importantly, blood. But again, when I look at our history with regards to further horizons, I see only joy. I feel I have more in common with someone from India than an Italian. An Indian would be living under English Common Law. They would have a much more common and shared history. Not all good, but not all bad either. Indians fought for the British in two world wars and they look at our country with some respect. We too have left them with a lasting legacy.
To summarize. I do not fear the future. The future for a UK that is democratic, free and open to trade is one that will prosper. But a UK that is shacked at the hip to a cabal of neurotic misfits and a political system who think that it is ‘we’ the people, all 500 million of us, are wrong about their little EU. A closed and corrupt plutocracy.
End of rant
October 23, 2018
So just post comments of people that agree with you. My one, albeit long(ish), post of the day and you moderate it. Whilst some people post multiple times and not on the subject that has been written on.
Dear, dear.
October 23, 2018
That’s because our leaders don’t take notice of what the electorate are telling them. We had a referendum and the result was clear. Leave. Alas, what we find are politicians from all parties doing all they can to sing the tune of the EU and completely ignore their own people. This is why we voted to come out. We are fed up with other countries being in control of our laws and the way we live. We are fed up with not knowing what is being proposed until it becomes law. If we went back to making our own laws we would be fully aware of what was being proposed and if government stuck to their mandates when they got voted into power it would be so much better. Instead, they go off at a tangent which is more suited to THEIR needs and don’t fulfil what they promised. So far it seems we have done all the rolling over in the negotiations with the EU. It’s about time we stood firm and said what we want and what we don’t want and then just leave if it’s not suitable. Our leaders for the past 40 years seem to be intent on dragging us down. We want to see progress in the world and we want the shackles of the EU removed.
October 23, 2018
Sorry that should be 28 years since Thatcher and not 40 years.
October 23, 2018
The establishment elite, Parliament and the corporates may well be successful this time in unlawfully seizing power and illegally overturning the referendum result, the only referendum the country has been allowed to vote upon for over 4 decades to confirm our willingness to lose our freedom and sovereignty at each new treaty.
However, the British people now know far more about the EU and its final destination and will no longer continue to accept âever closer unionâ under an unelected and unremovable dictatorship with the EU eventually controlling our currency, our taxes, our immigration, trade and foreign policies, our military, our laws, our assets etc..
Such a manoeuvre would not settle the matter in the long-term and would lead to great political instability until Parliament was populated by MPs who truly represented their constituents.
We see this starting already in other parts of the EU, who are further down the line having been signed up to the Euro, where the youth are no longer prepared to accept the damaging consequences of EU rule.
October 23, 2018
The Wednesday of truth is coming for Conservative MPs – get your letters in.
October 23, 2018
From your tone in this post it sounds like you are going to give Mrs May more time.
What has she done or said which makes you believe she will act any differently to the past two years.
She has already said that 95% of the deal has been done/agreed which includes all points of capitulation so far.
Thus our huge payment, acceptance of EU rules, judgement by the ECJ, extended transition periods, Irish border, etc etc.
Do you really think she is capable of undoing what she has already agreed to over the last two years.?
October 23, 2018
If 95% of the deal is done, I am curious: the papers are full of the things we have given up, but I have not seen anything she has negotiated which gives Britain an advantage.
No agreement that firms trading outside the bloc need to follow their trading partners’ rules, not those of the EU countries they do not trade with.
No agreement that firms do not have to trade with other EU countries when costs outweigh benefits.
No solid improvements to fishing and farming.
No agreements on the new finance laws – an area where Britain being outside them could be a huge benefit.
The list goes on.
Giving that staying in the Single Market is not a benefit, what exactly has she negotiated that benefits Britain?
October 23, 2018
Alan
Yes, I can’t understand why so many MP’s are saying they are happy with her leadership when she is making such a pigs ear of the whole Brexit saga. It’s not only Brexit either. With taxes really high the Conservative party seems to have lost their way under her leadership.
October 23, 2018
doesn’t mean she agrees with them, but in true Mrs May style she will string them all along until she finally delivers their heads on a silver platter to her superiors in Brussels. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The news is that the civil service is currently planning for the usual Brussels solution to an unwelcome referendum result, i.e. another referendum.
October 23, 2018
Bob, It would not surprise me if we get a second referendum. After all it has been denied by Theresa May.
October 23, 2018
Watching Theresa May give her statement and answer questions yesterday:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-10-22/debates/92803368-83B2-4DAC-8538-7759D29A9E8C/OctoberEUCouncil
I noted down a few crucial points, which I would like to mention in separate comments in some sort of logical rather then chronological order.
The first being that when asked at Column 63:
“Will the Prime Minister outline what comprises the 5% that is still to be negotiated?”
her answer was simply:
“The backstop.”
In other words, according to her the remaining obstacles to a withdrawal agreement now centre entirely on the problem of the Irish land border, which I have previously described as “largely fabricated” but will henceforth characterise as “fictional”.
And I will conjecture that for her it is in truth a very welcome fictional problem, insofar as it provides a pretext for her to renege on commitments she made in her Lancaster House speech and instead keep us where she wants us, under the thumb of the EU.
Reply The EU has not agreed her wish to be in the single market for goods nor her customs collection model
October 23, 2018
But that is what she wants, to keep the whole of the UK under the rules of the EU Customs Union and the EU Single Market in perpetuity.
October 23, 2018
Can someone please explain to me why Mrs may etc and the MSM still harp on about the Irish border problem when there isn’t one. The Irish PM recently said in the Irish Parliament that there would not be a hard border even if there is no deal with the EU.
I understand that the passage of individuals across the border isn’t considered to be problematical. What is so special about the Irish border that China etc have no problems importing into the EU?
October 23, 2018
Correct John, but what sheâs intending to do is sign a withdrawal agreement and only then attempt to negotiate her Single Market and Customs arrangement during the transition. And it doesnât take a genius to see the EU will spend the entire 2 years saying NO so we get to the end of that period with no trade agreement. Assuming sheâs still in power which at this point seems very likely as you all (bar a few letter writers) keep saying you support her.
October 23, 2018
Roy Grainger, Well said.
October 23, 2018
Very silly for the PM to use language like “backstop”.
As you say, it is a fiction…and it does seem as though she is perpetuating the myth
October 23, 2018
Quite.
Thank you for your questions yesterday in the Commons. The questions were superb. If only many more MPs were more forthright. If only you didn’t have to ask them.
Stupidly I hadn’t thought about the cost/payment implications of any extension or similar which fall into the EU’s next multi-annual financial framework. Mrs May is being so very accommodating to the EU, I wondered if they asked her about this?
I see Mrs May is now using the phrase ‘temporary customs territory’ rather than ‘temporary customs union’.
October 23, 2018
Yes , thank you for your questions .
The points were well made .
And I did enjoy the Ministers reply to the last of your points on the lines of
‘Yes I can give you the Treasury forecasts but I know that you have little regard for our numbers so do not see much point in doing so ‘!
October 23, 2018
The link to Mr Redwood’s contribution in the H of C, is in this D Express article:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1035063/brexit-news-theresa-may-brexit-talks-eu-chequers-deal
October 23, 2018
@Alison
Yes, what a lovely play on words.
October 23, 2018
Whatever you call it, it is still totally unacceptable and must be stopped.
October 23, 2018
Typical politicians trick to flex their words whilst changing nothing so that they can say they havenât breached their Red Lines. So it is now described as a territory.
My guess is that a lot of that is going on at present.
October 23, 2018
Off topic to some extent: may we assume that Sir Nicholas Clegg will be arranging food parcels from the EU so they meet his preferred, EU, standards, rather than risk his and his familyâs health in local Californian shops and restaurants? If not, how else will he be able to ensure he doesnât inadvertently eat the chlorine washed chicken or hormone fed beef over which he has stirred up such fears in arguing we shouldnât want an FTA with the US?
October 23, 2018
Also sort of a linked question: could any of those who insist that JIT supply chains can only work within the EU explain why Sir James Dyson might have chosen Singapore for his electric car assembly plant?
October 24, 2018
The batteries are made in China and most parts will be too. Singapore company taxes and admin are better. They can employ hard working cheaper Asian labour. They have equatorial sunshine to power the factory, like Tesla. The port is in a good position for Asian and American customers. It’s not in the EU.
October 24, 2018
And Singsapore offers huge incentives to businesses with forward looking ideas. So far Dyson made things manily in Malaysia (and then mainly via a contract manufacturer) , a neighbouring country. Johor, actual location of the plant is across the water from the Tuas industrial estate in Singapore where Dyson makes the more technology sensitive parts of its products. If production costs in Britain (especially labour, logistics and parts) were similar to Singapore, Dyson might decide to move production back to the UK.
October 24, 2018
Wasn’t it interesting that a trade agreement between Singapore and the EU was finally signed on 19/10/2018 and that Dyson announced his choice of Singapore for his electric car assembly plant 48 hours later?
Reply Mr Dyson took manufacture of electric motors to Singapore in 2013, long before Brexit! he chose Wiltshire for a major R and D facility in 2017, after the Brexit vote
October 23, 2018
Naughty Richard1 but absolutely correct, maybe he feels only his family is intelligent enough to make decisions on what they buy themselves but the rest of us in the United Kingdom have to be ruled by what the EU decides is good for us (like diesel vehicles and poor quality pork products).
October 23, 2018
Amber Rudd says forcing Theresa May out of office would be a âtotal indulgenceâ.
Yes Amber…We all need a little indulgence, particularly, in these bleak times that May has created, by her disgusting, Brexit, double-cross.
What does Rudd suggest…break out the Ferroro Rocher, instead?
Nah!…let’s “indulge” ourselves, by saving Brexit and respecting the Democratic vote…We deserve it…Get May Out!
October 23, 2018
Some organisations have joint Managing Directors. It is probably within Mrs May’s power to appoint a joint PM with responsibility for proper Brexit as a means of solving the present blockage.
October 23, 2018
Words have consequences. Yesterday, violent rhetorical barbs were aimed at the PM, and even if genuine, were probably quoted out of context. Either way, the effect was the same – to stigmatize Brexiteers. Coming in the wake of ‘the nice, reasonable people’ on Saturday’s march, I think this was very possibly ‘fake news’. (As in America, it shows how high the freedom stakes really are!)
That is why I read your blog, JR. As usual, your piece this morning is balanced, reasonable and humane – of the standard the ‘silent majority’of sensible people in this country traditionally expect from our Parliamentarians. It is far more likely to swing the argument in our favour, than all the hateful anti-May rhetoric.
October 23, 2018
‘Balanced, reasonable and humane’ – to which I should have added – ‘but suitably incisive’.
October 23, 2018
‘Mrs May seems to understand where her party is…..’
Pity then about the ‘dementia tax’ which cost her the votes of the ‘blue rinse brigade’, their spouses and also their children who hoped to inherit the family house.
It was not her ‘strong and stable’ message which she now blames for the catastrophic result.
Out of touch and still in her own bubble, doing everything to her entire satisfaction but not to that of the Party at large!
My friends up North tell me the Conservatives are toast at the next election.
October 23, 2018
Certainly they are if they remain under the appalling Theresa May. Even against Corbyn/SNP she is a compete disaster.
October 23, 2018
They are toast everywhere
October 23, 2018
Waste of time electing Tory PM then, a vote for Torys is a vote for the EU, The party of the EU.
October 23, 2018
There’s none so blind as those that will not see. Ted Heath was a classic example of such a person.
His infatuation with Europe and with himself should have been a lesson to all that followed. However, as is the norm in such Political Circles, they ignored the fact that history does repeat itself and that doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result confirms the insanity of the project.
I fear Mrs May falls into that category as well as, “There’s none so deaf as those that will not listen”.
At present, with so much anti-Chequers Plan sentiment from both Home and Away if she does not see or hear the problems, then she is unfit for office. And it is down to the Party members to send her to the Sick Bay and replace her and her Remainer Cabinet with the full Team Brexit!
October 23, 2018
So what exactly is this fictional problem of the Irish land border which makes it necessary to have this “backstop”?
Theresa May at Column 59 referred to:
“the backstop that ensures no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland”
and stated:
“the key thing is for those proposals to ensure that we have no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.”
But when asked at Column 61:
“Who is going to put this hard border up?”,
given that:
“The EU does not want a hard border and will not put one up. We will not put one up. The Republic of Ireland will not be putting one up. Who is going to put this hard border up?”
she had no sensible answer.
She started with:
“We are obviously committed to no hard border, and we have made it clear that in any circumstances, including in a no-deal situation, we would be doing all that we could to ensure that there was no âhard border.”
In fact not only was that commitment recalled in the Joint Report in December 2017:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/10/21/there-will-be-no-economic-blockade-of-the-uk-when-we-leave-the-eu/#comment-968231
but as she had pointed out earlier, at Column 47:
“The commitment to avoiding a hard border is one that this House emphatically endorsed and enshrined in law in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.”
Which is in Section 10, and it is quite specific:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/section/10/enacted
“Nothing in section 8, 9 or 23(1) or (6) of this Act authorises regulations which –
(b) create or facilitate border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after exit day which feature physical infrastructure, including border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day and are not in accordance with an agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU.”
So why has the UK government not publicly protested to newspapers and other mass media outlets in the UK and in Ireland about their continued use of propaganda images showing a “British Customs” post?
When I complained about it to IPSO:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/09/13/there-are-other-options-to-chequers/#comment-960463
my complaint was dismissed out of hand, but more to the point why does the government do nothing to stop this lie being spread? Because it is a convenient lie?
October 23, 2018
Only ”seems” to understand, though. I think most of us wouldn’t even go that far in giving her credit. It is obvious she has alienated most people. Just ”seeming” to understand doesn’t even cut it.
And if she DOES understand – is she suddenly going to have a Damascene moment?
October 23, 2018
You are correct. The overwhelming majority of Conservative members are now very anti-EU. (This hasnât always been the case).
What you fail to point out is that there arenât many Conservative members anyway – and they are also overwhelmingly old white men, average age well into their 70s.
Yours is a party of Victor Meldrews. Alf Garnetts even. Comedy old white men who everybody else laughs at – with good reason. An angry, irrelevant party.
You are old angry friends should geg on with your Brexit Mr Redwood. You should stop whining about the impact of what you voted for.
We will get on with making sure you are held to account and are brought to justice.
Reply Not true. Plenty of women members
October 23, 2018
Andy, according to pictures still available on the BBC website, not all people in the People’s Vote March last Saturday were young chicks. There were by the look a lot of mature and old people. So not all old people are Leavers, not all Leavers are old people, in the same way as not all Conservatives are stupid, not all stupid people are Conservatives. Or being revolutionary at 20 does not guarantee you are conservative at 60, or being Conservative at 20 guarantees you are a national-populist at 60.
The world it seems is more complex than that. Or would you disagree with the assertions above?
October 23, 2018
Andy, You still cannot say what the EU does for us that we cannot do for ourselves. Nor have you come up with reasons why the UK is incapable of being independent of the EU. You cannot justify the CFP, nor even CAP. You have no answer to the corruption within the EU that allows Selmayr’s appointment to flout the EU’s own rules.
There are very few UK citizens who want this nation to disappear, simply becoming a province of the EU empire. You may be one of them. But for all your opinionated bravado, unsupported by facts, you are in a lonely position. Even most Remain voters are dissatisfied with the EU. The EU is merely a deservedly unpopular ideology. Eventually it will almost disappear like its predecessors fascism and communism.
October 24, 2018
NickC
If , I did not have respect for all on this site I would use different words for your latest input.
Comparing an institution set up between two old enemies after two world wars France and Germany to forward trade, harmony and peace in Europe with fascism and communism is wither just a simple provocation and should be treated as such or it reflects total ignorance about ideologies, so which one is it?
October 24, 2018
Hans, You obviously don’t like the truth. The EU is just one more authoritarian, anti-democratic, centralising, political ideology in a pantheon of failed authoritarian, anti-democratic, centralising, European political ideologies like fascism and communism.
Your notion that the EU is only for “trade, harmony and peace” is just ludicrous. If it were true, there would be no need for the dirigiste centralism, the CAP, the CFP, the Euro, the EU army, and all the other appurtenances of a state. The EU even has a try at creating EU “patriotism”, via propaganda. It fails, because there is no patria, and no demos.
October 24, 2018
Yes, NickC, you are quite right. The EU political bloc is essential to the advancement of the New World Order project of the globalists, and their motives and goals are rather deeper than hci suggests. Detailed information about how the globalists are working towards One World Government is easily accessible, so I do not know why hci is apparently unaware of these.
October 24, 2018
NIckC,
I said this is how the Eu started out now how it is today. (read what is written)
You can call the organisation a lot of things today but it is not an ideology and mixing the too, is just a distortion of reality and facts and unfortunately it shows you are not able to make the distinction between ideology and political organisational progression and reality.
Talking about liking or not liking the truth here, is far from the facts about ideology such as fascism and communism, so let us just stick to reality about what these ideologies represent , instead of sticking to distortions like you, unfortunately seem to do
October 23, 2018
When there is no Political solution to a problem one has to resort to the practical.
How to empty an egg without cracking the shell?
In the nick of time there will be a joint Task Force to implement the Border Agreement, it just isn’t timely to announce it quite yet, we need a bit more brinkmanship and a few more concessions to the Brussels before Mrs. May comes back, like Cameron before her, triumphantly waving another ‘victory’.
I’ll trust Martin Howe to read the latest iteration of the Ponzi scheme.
October 23, 2018
The only friendly Conservative advice May needs is stop blocking the way for a leader to come forward and execute the referendum decision to leave the EU in substance as well as in name. In short to go and go now.
October 23, 2018
We don’t want Rudd’s 2nd Referendum.
It must not be allowed to happen.
If we are forced into a 2nd Referendum…how should that be handled.
Having held a democratic vote, that mandated the UK to leave the EU…what might the questions be on a 2nd Referendum.
It can only be the SECOND STEP in the process…we are leaving…so HOW do you want to Leave:
1) Do you want to accept May’s Deal?
2) Do you want to leave with No Deal?
October 23, 2018
Is anyone really surprised that Ms Rudd has come out in favour of a second referendum?
How to spot a turncoat in one easy lesson.
Tad
October 23, 2018
Actually we already voted for the deal we wanted in 2016. It was Leave. And the outcome we expect is Leave.
October 23, 2018
Merkel= the EU has.
October 23, 2018
I didn’t hear her reply but a Remain journalist on LBC said she came off best and dealt with you firmly. How did she wriggle out of wasting ÂŁ60 bn on staying in for longer and ignoring the referendum and manifesto?
October 23, 2018
Not just the Conservatives.
Most mainstream European political parties, including (UK Labour and LibDems) have lost support due to their excessive subservience to the eu
October 23, 2018
Having stated unequivocally that the UK government will not be introducing any “border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day” on the Irish land border, as expressly mentioned in, and forbidden by, Section 10 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/section/10/enacted
Theresa May then went on to claim at Column 62 that there had been no corresponding commitment on the other side:
“We would look to work with Ireland and the European Union to ensure that there was no hard border, but there has been no commitment in relation to that.”
Which contradicts a recent claim that both Jean Claude Juncker and Leo Varadkar have given that commitment to the Irish Parliament:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/10/19/the-government-has-to-understand-there-is-no-deal-on-offer-from-the-eu/#comment-967684
But even if what Theresa May said is true that would in any case raise a question of why the UK government so supinely accepts that the EU and the Irish government should be allowed to take such an irrational position without any challenge.
After the Salzburg debacle she was full of “The EU must explain its objections”, but she has never publicly demanded to know precisely why the EU and Irish authorities would even dream of erecting barriers on their side of the border when the UK government has already said that it will not do that under any circumstances.
I recall posing this question on here on March 1st 2018:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/03/01/shopping-for-an-eu-agreement/#comments
“It would help a great deal with the current empasse if the Irish authorities told us precisely what checks they would actually perform if they felt compelled to reintroduce checks on our good exports at the land border … ”
Coincidentally that was the day before Theresa May sold the pass in her Mansion House speech, as she recalled yesterday at Column 47, and without any hint of shame.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/05/28/social-care-and-the-nhs-2/#comment-937422
“This is what she said:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-our-future-economic-partnership-with-the-european-union
âWe have been clear all along that we donât want to go back to a hard border in Ireland. We have ruled out any physical infrastructure at the border, or any related checks and controls.
But it is not good enough to say, âWe wonât introduce a hard border; if the EU forces Ireland to do it, thatâs down to themâ. We chose to leave; we have a responsibility to help find a solution.â
In other words she gratuitously accepted responsibility not just for our side of the border but theirs as well, as handed them the opportunity to blackmail us.
October 23, 2018
Mr Major is also a prime example of the dangers of a leadership challenge that fails. Arguably a significant factor in their loss of the 1997 election, and the length of time it took the Conservatives to regain power, was the fact that they were lead into the election by the individual who had caused the ERM debacle and put his career behind the Mastricht treaty. Had he been successfully replaced, but by you not Mr Clark, the result might well have been different. That is why, as it is essential that Mrs May goes, a botched result of a challenge would be a disaster and great care must be taken to avoid it.
October 23, 2018
The question is if Mrs May will act on the advice received. She has already given too many concessions to the EU, she has no voters’ support and she has given the negotiations to a civil servant rather than to the minister for DExEU, a department of her own creation. She agreed to the unfair sequencing imposed by the EU without so much as blinking and despite David Davis advising her against it. She had willingly signed to a border in the Irish Sea before the DUP stopped her. What is there left in favour of Britain? Very little. The PM gave away the country’s negotiating position from the start and now she is hoping to keep Britain tied up to Brussels and EU law. Thus, it’s doubtful that she will listen to advice or change her stance. The problem is that she is also dragging the Conservative Party down. The only hope is the Brexiters in Parliament oust her before she completes the gift of this country on a platter to the EU. The question is why they haven’t done it when they’ve had ample opportunity for doing so.
October 23, 2018
I think read on facts4eu that we are on the hook for “our share” of pensions liabilities for all EU officials for the next 45 years or so (ÂŁ10bn) not just the UK ones – I could understand UK officials but this is taking the biscuit especially when listening to the usual mouthpieces about leaving and losing the so called “benefits”
Also something about being signed up and integrated into PESCO… the list goes on.
At the start of the process I was hoping to see a gradual well organised withdrawal possibly a step into EFTA for 5 years or so then if necessary review later on but I’m quickly coming to the point that we need a clean surgical break and sort out the issues one by one as they arise.
The UK approach to all this has been nothing but shocking.
October 23, 2018
If we take the liabilities i.e pensions do we also keep the assets that we invested in?
October 23, 2018
John,
I remember Edward Heath. Manners dictates that I cannot say here what I thought of him then and indeed still think of him now.
Re 1973: you omitted to say that our food prices went up, our fishermen were pushed aside by those from the EEC. Moreover we had to watch as the Government fawned to the French and the Germans whilst turning it back on the Commonwealth – who had sacrificed a lot in the 1st and 2nd World Wars fighting German imperialism.
October 23, 2018
Heath was just as appalling as John ERM Major and the Appeaser May. Cameron did at least give us a referendum (eventually) but only as he thought he would win it. Then he (absolutely appallingly) failed to prepare for a Brexit outcome and just abandoned ship! Three appalling Tory PMs even Mrs Thatcher made massive errors (Major being the main one).
October 23, 2018
It is a valid point that being pro EU has cost numerous Tory leaders their jobs. I don’t believe May ‘gets’ this and am confident she will continue to let us down, just look at her choice of advisors.
October 23, 2018
Helen
Mrs May is toast. As soon as those who are keeping her in power have no further use for her she’ll be dispensed with, and she has virtually no support from the electorate.
She will not be surviving.
She might do a fair bit of damage beforehand, but she’s finished and she knows it. Look at how she is scraping the barrel for support….’ they’re being really horrible to me saying those nasty things, please be on my side, I don’t deserve this, all I did was betray the British people ‘
It’ll be feet stamping next, then water works and if we’re lucky; an eleventh hour stitch up.
October 24, 2018
Steve, Theresa May is accomplishing exactly what the globalists/deep state want her to do. I think they have plans for her to stay put because she is certainly scaring off the Tory Brexiter MPs from acting,by just doing what she is doing. So, no need for the globalists to dispense with her yet.
October 24, 2018
The people who let you down were those who said there was an easy exit from the EU, who didn’t believe the government had any obligations in Northern Ireland, or to help businesses keep trade frictionless, or to continue support for top-level scientific research, or to secure the rights of ex-pats, or to reach a financial settlement with the EU etc. An obligation-free Brexit was what you were sold…and being incapable of basic critical analysis, you bought it.
October 23, 2018
Here is somebody else unthinkingly accepting EU ways:
“The core issue is, itself, not that hard to understand. Any goods allowed across the border from Northern Ireland into the Republic do not have to stop there. Once they have entered the Single Market area, they are allowed freely to circulate anywhere in the Union.
That, of course, is what the European Union has to protect. It cannot possibly allow goods to pass freely across the Irish border unless it is certain they conform fully with Single Market rules. Therefore, it follows that regulatory alignment must be maintained on both sides of the border. And it also means that any goods coming into Northern Ireland must also conform with those rules.”
Which is fine enough up to the words “Therefore, it follows …”, because the next parts do not really follow at all except within the EU’s fixed “Single Market” ideology.
The UK could pass a new law saying “All goods in Northern Ireland must comply with EU rules” to replace the present UK laws implementing the relevant EU laws, and apparently the EU would be content with that new UK law as a legal means to prevent non-compliant goods crossing the border from Northern Ireland into the Republic.
But if the UK passed a new law saying “All goods which are taken from Northern Ireland across the border into the Republic must comply with EU rules” then the EU would not be at all content.
No, indeed not, rather the EU would still feel compelled to erect something akin to the Berlin Wall on its side of the border to keep out any non-compliant goods, etc ed
October 23, 2018
No form of customs union must be countenaced for a moment – whatever its wording, guise, proposed ‘temporary’ status, extent or purported limits, it is still the Imperial German Zollverein, bringing us no advantages at all, as it would strangle our trading independence at birth.
The Attorney General has already made that point crystal clear to the Cabinet – so why are Cabinet members not raising its voices about the renewed siren voices from Brussels?
To listen to some May loyalists, anyone would think ‘loyalty’ to a PM who continued to flout the people’s decision was a virtue, instead of being – as it is – obsequious, self-serving remainerist cowardice and fraud.
October 23, 2018
Oh, look, a rare negotiating triumph for our Prime Minister, it seems the EU may arrange for not just Northern Ireland but the whole of the UK to remain under its customs thumb as she has been demanding:
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2018/1023/1006113-brexit/
“EU may offer British PM a UK-wide customs union”
A pity about that independent trade policy she repeatedly said she wanted, in fact she said
it again only yesterday; but then as we are so often reminded this is a negotiation and we cannot expect to get everything we may want, or even anything with her in charge.
October 23, 2018
“The EU will want to know which part of the Union Customs Code acquis (body of law) the UK is willing to swallow in order to be part of such a customs union.”
I suggest the correct answer would be:
a) all of it, for any goods being exported to the EU, but
b) potentially none of it, for other goods within the UK.
I recall my letter in the Irish Times a month ago, which offended some readers:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/brexit-time-to-mind-our-own-business-1.3636142
âBrexit â time to mind our own business?â
“The legitimate interests of the EU and its Irish satrapy do not extend beyond the nature of the goods circulating in its own EU Single Market, and it is gross impudence on the part of the EU to presume that it should be able to continue to control goods permitted in the United Kingdom once we have freed ourselves from the EU, any more than the EU can expect to control goods permitted in the United States or other âthird countriesâ.”
October 23, 2018
Oh, and no doubt Leo Varadkar would be very happy to see his ally Theresa May granted her wish on this; from three weeks ago:
https://www.ft.com/content/a4770b92-c721-11e8-ba8f-ee390057b8c9
“Ireland backs Theresa Mayâs plan for all-UK customs union with EU”
And Ireland also backs the UK staying under the rules of the EU Single Market; so he is well on his way to getting what he wants, in flat contradiction of the promises Theresa May made in her Lancaster House speech.
October 23, 2018
Old Corby must be loving all this Brexit chaos, that the Brexit Hijacker May has caused.
Standing back…warming his hands and old bones, on the ‘bonfire’ that May has set alight…
…we thought it would be a bonfire of EU regulations and diktats.
Instead, we have a bonfire of UK Democracy, and the Tory Party.
When May forces through her Chequers BRINO…the bonfire will flare up…but it will die down, one day…and from the ashes, a new Conservative Party may eventually arise.
It could be a Conservative Party, rather than the current Tory-Lite Government, we have now.
The revival may take 3 terms in Opposition.
The voting public has a VERY long memory.
Heaven knows how much damage a Corbyn Government will do to this Country.
Between May, destroying our belief in Democracy and the Tory Party… and Corbyn ruining our UK financial future…we will always remember those responsible…have no fear of that.
October 23, 2018
Did I hear this correctly? Is May saying that if the EU drop the Irish border issue they can have extra implementation time. The Irish border problem is one of the EU’s negotiating points to gain more concessions and she has fallen for it. It is not a problem. She is not talking tough, she is going in for more appeasement. And we don’t need extra time, we don’t need any time. We need out, completely out, on 29th March.
May must be forced to resign. She is leading us to disaster and humiliation. The statements that you cannot change generals in the middle of a battle or campaign is nonsense. It happened very successfully in North Africa in WW2, for example.
October 23, 2018
Sign the withdrawal agreement first and hand over the money then we can talk about the UK joining a customs union on a separate treaty with the EU after you have agreed to all we want in the withdrawal agreement, then we will talk about what you can have and can’t have.
Great deal.
October 23, 2018
And I ought to have added that we changed Prime Ministers too at a crucial and difficult time. Just as we must now.
October 23, 2018
Yet, with all this back history, the Tory leaders continue to be attracted to the EU like a moth to a flame. I have come to believe it is really about the British establishment not liking the people over whom they rule, they have no faith in the people or the country, that is why they sold us out to the EU, and why they are so loathed to depart the EU.
October 23, 2018
EU is right, they handed over to the EU how the negotiation should go and EU chooses step by step negotiation with second from the last step is a signing of the withdrawal agreement and money and last step trade.
It the UK gov trying to stay half in the EU, that is the problem, the EU is happy to let you go and are suggesting that if the UK wants a customs union or anything else, that comes after you have signed the withdrawal agreement, paid the money and left the EU altogether but Mrs T. May and supporters want to sign up now to be half in the EU and then blame that on the EU to the UK people, it the EU who are now standing up for the UK leave voters and making sure the UK leave the EU in full on the 29th of March 2019, extension and so on have ways been UK ideas, not EU ideas, paying the EU 40 billion seem a good idea now if it gets Mrs May and supporters out of the way so the UK can leave altogether.
As far as the EU is concerned there is nothing more to negotiate until you have left but the politician and the rest are refusing to go.
That the real story.
October 23, 2018
Hello John. I do not know whether you are aware about myself being blocked on twitter. I was trying to retweet your comments about the EU on 2 recent occasions, but have been blocked from doing this. Not the best way to spread your argument.
October 23, 2018
Mrs May is wrong because as far as the Eu is concerned the leaving process is 100% done.
October 23, 2018
The daft thing is if Mrs May pivoted to a Canada plus FTA with max fac on the Irish border she would have the instant support of the majority of her MPs, all the DUP, a good slice of the coherent labour MPs and 85% of the Tory membership.
Not to mention 17.4m of the British Public.
October 24, 2018
Max fac does not secure an invisible Irish border. It therefore contradicts the UK government’s pledges. Kindly stop posting irrelevances. We are in a bad enough position without people suggesting “solutions” that are non-existent
October 24, 2018
It is the EU that is proposing to put electronically checked passport control on borders with 3rd countries from 2020 and charge 7 Euros for a 3 month visa. Don’t you read your own websites? Junker denies it but it’s still there. The UK could ask Irish customs to let them know who is arriving on the island.
October 23, 2018
I have an alternative theory;
For decades the governments in this country have taken orders from the EU.
Now at last we’ve had a referendum and voted to leave, we find that government is not doing as we say. We did not vote for any deals, negotiations etc. Reflecting the fact that we know what the EU is and therefore absolutely cannot be trusted.
What if; the government is just being bloody minded, because they resent for once having to do as the plebs say ?
Hence as many spanners in the works as possible along with two years wasted on nicey-nicey negotiations and capitulation, when what should have happened immediately following the referendum we were out there and then.
You cannot negotiate in good faith with ungrateful countries that hold the British in historical contempt.
They’re jealous of us, and we sure as hell have had enough of them. Why bother ? Just walk away and leave.
October 23, 2018
EU is waiting for Mrs May, her gov and supporters to stop messing about and get on with putting the withdrawal agreement before parliament to be voted on because 27 have already past it.
Mrs May doing her utmost with her mainer supporters in gov and outside gov to keep the UK in the EU by some means and trying to get something added on to the EU withdrawal agreement but the EU is resisting and pointing to the terms that are the agreement of a step by step approach that they sign up to last year, trade and what happens after they, UK leaves the EU has nothing to do with the withdrawal agreement and they have always said that.
All Mrs May has to do is put the withdrawal agreement before parliament to be voted on and do not see why it will not past because of nearly all MPs in parliament have read it and agree with it apart from a few who do not want to pay the money, as soon that is done the UK will be fully out of the EU on time.
As I have from the start said that, the EU does not want the UK in the EU, they cause too many problems and get in the way of what they want to do, losing the UK 10 billion or so is well worth it to them, as far they are concerned 10 billion is just accounting error and just want their money up to dec 2020 without the UK trying to hang on in the EU to 2020 and beyond, the EU just want to get rid of the UK as quickly as possible, if there is any problem with goods and so on at the borders it won’t the EU doing it.
What is the EU saying, you leave first and thing go on as now till we have agreement on trade and I don’t think they will let them go back into the customs union it would have to be separated customs agreement outside of the 27 member customs agreement or free trade agreement or no agreement, that because they do not want the UK interfering with the EU any more and who can blame them.
By the time they spin it in the media It will be the EU fault for not keeping them half in.
October 23, 2018
Whatever our political affiliation…we have all seen history being made…Theresa May is the worst Prime Minister the UK has ever seen…by a Country Mile!
October 23, 2018
I recall that Harold Wilson’s promise to give us an in/out vote on EEC membership was an important contribution to Labour’s general election success in 1974.
October 23, 2018
Our host mentioning the CBI reminded me of John Longworth’s article:
“When repeatedly asked at a House of Commons Committee how many full members the CBI has, the head of the organisation, Caroline Fairbairn, refused to answer. I know because I was there giving evidence, me being the only pro-enterprise, free trader present (the other two compatriots were the CBI and the TUC). The reason she refused to answer is that the CBI has around 2,500 full members, not the 190,000 they claim. These policy-making, policy committee-dominating members are large multi-nationals, often foreign-owned. The CBI is a well-funded âthink tankâ of officials, rather like the pro-Remain civil service, dominated by multi-nationals with narrow vested interests and part-funded by the EU.
The second most prominent business group, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) consists of local Chambers which are themselves made up of secretariats and local business members. They have around 60,000 members. Some of the Chambers are dominated by foreign multi-nationals eg Airbus, Nissan etc and some receive EU funding. Many have public sector members and they receive local and national government funding. They also profit substantially from export documentation.” https://brexitcentral.com/government-ignore-special-pleading-false-voices-business/
October 23, 2018
Therefore: “The Alliance of British Entrepreneurs (ABE) has been founded to represent the business owners and wealth creators who believe that Britain can thrive and prosper as a sovereign, independent nation after Brexit.” https://facts4eu.org/news_sep2_2018.shtml#abe1
October 23, 2018
I take it, Mr Redwood, that you and other established colleagues were mercifully spared this indignity (promoted by CCHQ apparently):
https://order-order.com/2018/10/23/cchq-offering-colour-counsellor-help-candidates-take-control-images/
“CCHQ offering “colour counsellor” to help candidates “take control” of their image”….
Amid reports that CCHQ are struggling to fill their target seats, the party is offering would-be candidates the chance to spruce up their appearances with special one-on-one sessions with âColour Counsellorâ Jules Standish, a âcolour & style expert passionate about getting men and women into their true colours to look their best and feel good every day, by putting personalities on display and turning faults into assetsâ. ….
“For only ÂŁ30, candidates have been offered the chance to âdiscover how to mindfully take controlâ of their image âthrough colour and style to ensure ultimate well-being in successâ.
All I can say is that the Party has taken leave of its senses. Needs to be cast out into the wilderness for some years to acquire some wisdom, common sense and humility.
October 24, 2018
Probably blue with gold highlights.
October 24, 2018
Probably blue with gold highlights..
October 24, 2018
If you have to recruit from a Party membership of appr 192 members per seat (or maybe 450 for those seats where Conservative has a realistic chance, and those members are not always of an attractive age, appearance (not to mention qualifications) or have more attractive things to do than standing for Parliament, you have a bit of a problem. Styling advice may help..
October 23, 2018
What I cannot understand is why you and others are not asking Mrs May and the gov to put the withdrawal agreement before parliament to get out on time instead of letting Mrs May and supporters keep the UK in the EU for three more years or more with no sign of coming out, giving the EU the money ensure the UK is out on time and also can carry trading with the EU while trade talks are taking place and in the meantime trade is going on with them as now or until Mrs May and the gov sign new agreement or not, could it be that the EU agreement is not all that it seems and Mrs May has already agreed to no trade agreement with other countries and competition rules inside the withdrawal agreement that has not been disclosed to the public and therefore cannot sign the withdrawal agreement with the EU as it is and needs a way of stopping the public from knowing.
The money buys you leaving on time and you can also go to WTO whenever you like or sign to rejoin in some way, I would the EU in one go and put it on the credit card and start a new budget instead of letting remainers keeping the UK in the EU for an undisclosed amount of time and money which could run into many years.
Strike while the iron is hot.
October 23, 2018
The big news last week was from Spain dropping its dispute with the UK on Gibraltar and agreeing to the withdrawal agreement with the UK, just waiting now for the UK to get on with it next week the EU and me hope.
October 24, 2018
Consider these two offences:
(1) Using threatening language towards the Prime Minister via a third party.
(2) Failing to acknowledge that the European Commission is Hell bent on creating a Federal European SuperState, resulting in the destruction of the UK.
Which of these two offences is the worse?
October 24, 2018
Your #2 is something that was tried (with the blessing of Churchill if I am not mistaken) in the 1950s and it turned out to present all kinds of difficulties. Very few people in the EU (and also very few EU officials, according to what I hear) are prepared to give up national sovereignty as it exists today. The EUR, Schengen and the four freedoms). Those 4 freedoms with some caveats the UK does not seem to understand: did the EU keep Germany from de facto nationalisation of ailing banks? Did Germany rush into importing vast numbers of Eastern Europeans? No Germany and other countries used the space within the EU agreements re those freedoms to act in what the gobvernment of the day saw as the national interest. Apparently the Blair, Brown and Cameron governments did see strict adherence to EU as more in the national interest than Germany that, on top of taking it easy with state support and mobility, violated the Growth and Stability Pact. The UK could have done all of those things too but decided it did not want to.
That Federal State is nonsense at least for the next couple of months and maybe for the next century. It would require a treaty change and unanimity. Besides, The current situation where small end medium sized states like Germany, France etc are both in a strong free trade area with the potential for further economic and cultural integration and in the NATO defence alliance is probably the best of all possible worlds for the peoples of Europe.
October 24, 2018
It’s still there …
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ldeucom/61/6109.htm
“Preliminary draft Constitutional Treaty, drawn up by the Praesidium, which the President presented at the European Convention’s Plenary session on 28 October 2002 (CONV 369/02)”
“B. SUMMARY DESCRIPTION
PART ONE: CONSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE
PREAMBLE
Title I: Definition and Objectives of the Union
ARTICLE 1
â Decision to establish [an entity called the European Community, European Union, United States of Europe, United Europe].
â A Union of European States which, while retaining their national identities, closely coordinate their policies at the European level, and administer certain common competences on a federal basis … ”
But the UK government took fright at that word “federal”, and demanded its removal from the text before it was noticed by UK citizens.
October 25, 2018
Agree with you but pse add “and others” after “UK Government” in your final paragraph. Fully fledged federalism is supported by a msall minority. About as small as the minority that would like to blow up the current EU.
October 24, 2018
Are we going to swallow regulatory alignment in perpetuity? What is the matter with the establishment that they have led us into this unholy and embarrassing mess. But what I find so depressing and which I now feel increasing anger about are the lies , the attempt to deceive. Chequers locks us into a bureaucratic, undemocratic agreement which surrenders ultimate power still to the EU and the ECJ . But May simply lies about that. We’ve all had enough . I can only hope that honourable Conservative MPs like you John some how get rid of her and soon .
PS . The port services regulation is now law. So regulatory alignment would mean we have to implement it.
October 24, 2018
Inflation was rocketing before we entered the ERM. Please get the facts right.
October 24, 2018
Well it went up from 8% to 9.5% in 1990 when we attempted to join.
It fell later due to the dreadful recession it caused.
Some rocket.
October 25, 2018
The entire political class in Westminster is inept. If I was buying a house from Theresa May I would ask for the keys from her as a backstop with the right to move all my furniture in. She would give me a very generous one off payment to cover my costs for moving in plus an annual payment to cover all my bills until we settled on the price I would pay for the house. And I would agree only that we would have some talks in the future where we would perhaps agree the selling price. But if we failed to agree the price the backstop would apply and I would keep the keys and she would pay my bills anyway. You have to be an MP to think that is the way to sell your house.
October 27, 2018
So why did Ian Duncan-Smith lose his job then? He could hardly have hated the EU any more.