Last night I was asked on Any Questions why I supported Brexit which the young questioner thought would have an adverse effect on her generation in particular. Here is a longer version of my answer.
Dear fellow voter,
I support Brexit above all for the younger generation, because it will give to you something I was denied. It will give you the most precious political inheritance of all. It will give you a powerful UK democracy where the British people can make their own choices. Our Parliament will be able to do whatever the people wish, whatever we choose in the ballot box.
The freer the country the more prosperous it usually is. The USA is a mighty economy based on the architecture of freedom, and on the great principles of its Constitution. Switzerland is richer than EU countries, with a fine tradition of Parliament and referenda. Norway’s democracy has been preserved by staying outside the EU, and she too is a very rich country.
It is because I have confidence in the generations to come that I want to pass to them a democracy that works, where they will be in charge as they reach the age of holding powerful jobs. It is the EU’s austerity policies and thought throttling centralisation that has spawned such high youth unemployment in many EU countries. I do not want you to have to battle to restore our democratic freedoms, and to resist their further erosion to the EU, as I have had to do.
Yours sincerely
John Redwood
November 18, 2018
Splendid, concise, accurate, John.
November 18, 2018
Martin Howe QC makes it clear in his article today that the UK cannot leave the EU without its permission. He states the 179 pages of the backstop makes that point.
May has a history for opting out but then opting back in. May has effectively issued article 50 but has opted back in under different names. Regulatory alignment is single market, non regression clauses are staying in employment, energy, environment, tax etc. Changing the name of tenCFP or, CAP into a binding treaty is not leaving. At most it is a technical leave to be replaced by opting back in by a binding treaty forever. With the option of going fully back in as the UK in the never ending backstop will not be able to change from the EU or get any competitive edge against it or obtain any meaningful trade deals outside the EU.
It is a vassal state. This was collusion not negotiation. Nor was it incompetence. It was dishonest, underhand working behind everyone back to be sprung on them at the last moment to prevent and challenges. May is a liar and has be ousted. Remainers and remain media doing their best to keep her in place.
November 18, 2018
Indeed it is very hard not to come to the conclusion that this was simple, planned, dishonest, underhand collusion with the other party to the negotiation by Theresa May. Why on earth did she ever think she would get away with it? She is at best the pathetic puppet of some in the civil service, âthe enemy withinâ as NIGEL Farage might call them.
November 18, 2018
JR, read Paul Goodmans analysis of the Irish backstop. Similar to Martin Howe, the 179 pages is shocking, the articles/annexes giving meaning to the protocol. Martin Salmyr is correct May is effectively giving away N. Ireland to the EU as a price fir Brexit, it without a any say whatsoever! The EU will tax and legislate for N. Ireland! There will also be a hard border between N. Ireland and the U.K. To prevent one between Ireland and N. Ireland.
Explain to us why we should believe anything this treacherous woman says? Giving away our sovereignty and part of our country!
November 18, 2018
If JR permits, hereâs the link: https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2018/11/from-an-analysis-of-the-texts-deal-the-irish-protocol-would-separate-great-britain-from-northern-ireland-parts-of-it-may-be-illegal.html
Mrs Mayâs Christmas special turns out to be a free Northern Ireland with ÂŁ39bn-plus cashback. No wonder the Taoiseach had to warn grinning TDs not to gloat.
November 18, 2018
The example of high youth unemployment in Spain and Greece confirms your comments John. Living in a truly democratic country is something to grasp with both hands.
November 18, 2018
Theyâll fill their European army with them called something soft like National Service, the young adults just need to hope they donât have people in glass offices telling them to go over the top with the modern equivalent of a bayonet facing machine gun drones.
November 18, 2018
France is bringing back conscription. That will please Andy and his children.
November 18, 2018
I’m not sure that the UK can be referred to as truly democratic at the moment.
November 19, 2018
It never has been. Most people had no vote until the 20th century. It is an oligarchy headed by an unelected head of state, an unelected upper house, civil service and a backward local election system. And most of the land is still owned by a few at the top.
And now Brexit will isolate us in a progressive Europe.
November 19, 2018
Margaret Howard, Give me our own democracy over the corrupt non-democracy in Brussels every time.
November 19, 2018
MH
Agree totally with you on democracy
Progressive Europe…… ha ha ha the EU is the most rigid, backward looking, protectionist organisation on the planet…. they make Trump look laissez faire
November 19, 2018
Libertarian
Makes you wonder how they managed to turn themselves into the world’s largest, wealthiest, most successful trading bloc despite being on their knees only half a century ago.
Must be doing something right.
November 20, 2018
With low growth, falling share of world trade, huge rising debts of member nations, high levels of unemployment, huge and rising levels of youth unemployment.
Austerity for EU member nations imposed on them despite democratic elections calling for a different policy.
Just adding the sales turnover for 27 nations then comparing them to one nation doesn’t make them a success.
November 20, 2018
margaret howard
Let me tell you. Germany , France and the UK are the only three countries that are amongst the worlds largest wealthiest trading countries. The UK is leaving, France is going backwards and Germany is slowly grinding to a halt. Why? Because of protectionism. It always happens, protectionism kills innovation. Of the top 200 digital tech companies in the world only 8 are in the EU, and 4 of those 8 are UK companies. The mistake that countries, companies and organisations make is to believe that the thing that made them successful in the first place will last fore ever and to fail to innovate, change and grow. The EU is doomed for that reason as it just won’t change, it just wants to do more of the same
November 18, 2018
Dear John,
Have you put in your letter of no confidence?
November 18, 2018
No because he does not want Jeremy Corbyn as a PM.
November 18, 2018
Tabulazero
Yet another post showing how out of touch you are. Congratulations
November 18, 2018
I hope not.
What happens when a leadership challenge is triggered? Would the soft-in-the-head remainer majority in the Tory party vote for one of their own, who promptly declares the new ambition is to cancel Brexit and withdraw the Article 50 notice?
I fancy a leadership challenge, when it does come, is going to emanate from the remainer wing of the party, when it becomes clear we are leaving on 29th March with no deal.
November 18, 2018
What do you think will happen when the DUP read and digest what May has done? The Tory party will lose its support and there will need to be an election. Suggest Tories get rid of her ASAP.
November 18, 2018
The punishment extension does not provide certainty for business, nor justify the ÂŁ40 billion plus assets. It is not a transition nor a implementation. It is now clear it is an unlimited possible trade discussion. Please explain what you now think it is.
November 18, 2018
Indeed. A transition with no end, no say in the rules or mechanism to leave. The worst of all deals in history, whilst dividing the UK. All for ÂŁ100 billion including assets. Has she colluded with the EU to get this deal to take us back in in a few years. No trust left for the legacies!!
November 18, 2018
Brigham,
We are in a rather silly situation that even those who resign their cabinet positions because of the withdrawal agreement on which the PM insists, still publicly say they will support her. She will not change her position (recall Mr Kenneth Clarke’s description of her), and yet those who know her position is wrong will not act. It is an absurd situation. I suspect they do not want to look disloyal so as to make their own run for the top job, but playing the future of democracy and the UK, alongside careers is damming enough for any future public support.
In terms of Dr Redwood, one would guess he sees the process as anonymous.
November 18, 2018
If no please do!
November 18, 2018
I appreciate he may wish to keep that confidential but like you I hope he has.
November 18, 2018
There is little point in putting in a letter.
Mrs May will win the first round by over 25% which gives her a mandate to plough on her way. While she is worried about a contest she must at least listen to the few leavers remaining in the cabinet.
November 18, 2018
Leaving aside trivia such as roaming charges which exercise the young disproportionately, itâs my impression they dislike Brexit because they think it robs them of their identity as European citizens.
Older voters may struggle to understand this, but it needs an answer nonetheless. Have we got one?
November 18, 2018
Good question? Some of our youth really do think that the ability to travel and live in the Europe was only granted after we joined the EU? Some in our universities think that cooperation in science research and funding comes from through membership of EU. We can invest far more in science R&D if we are paying less to the EU and are more competitive.
November 18, 2018
You won’t get an answer, because there isn’t one, because nationalists like John Redwood can’t imagine anything beyond their Little Englander mentality.
And it’s not a matter of “thinking” that it robs them of an “identity”. It as an undeniable fact that brexiteers have voted to take away European citizenship from those that value it.
Reply I want an outward looking independent democratic UK that trades with the five continents
November 18, 2018
Oh dear. So the poor Swiss are non-European? They’re happy with Swiss citizenship, so why shouldn’t we be happy with British? They’re situated in the middle of Eurpoe for goodness sake, and you never hear of them being called anti-European by you people, because it would show your anti-British bias. Yet you’re happy to join the unthinking group-think which calls us non-European?
November 18, 2018
Tim
Please supply numerical evidence of how many of these people think they need European Citizenship
Unlike you I engage with the real world , speaking to 100’s and 100’s of young people. Not ONCE has any of them mentioned European Citizenship
November 18, 2018
Well, Tim – it was obviously from your first sentence that you are a remainder.
Remainders simply cannot argue their point without introducing an insult or two. This is pathetic. But then – when you’re losing an argument (and if you don’t know how to conduct one) I suppose insults are just the result of your frustration.
November 19, 2018
L Jones
Tim and friends have not one single reason to stay in the EU, they are unable to articulate any checkable fact , therefore they resort to Facebook myths and memes and personal insult
The latest is that the yoof were all banking on spending their future moving to work in Romania, Spain, Italy or Poland etc . Leaving aside that none of these countries have any jobs and 11 of them have minimum wage of less than 2 Euros per hour.
November 18, 2018
Yes – I think this is a very fair point. Those of us of Mr Redwoodâs generation have lived through a historically remarkable period of harmony in Europe, first in the West and then the East too. We know we donât need the EU to do that for us – a set of free, friendly, democratic trading nations was sufficient.
Indeed we see the EU, with its obsession with bureaucratic centralisation and contempt for national and local democracy, as a threat to that harmony, not an enabler. We see shades of Orwellâs 1984 in the way it operates.
But I think younger people tend not to see it this way … âEuropeâ and the EU have become somewhat conflated, and that without the EU weâd be back to 1914 or 1939. Sadly it seems to be those educated at university who most readily get Europe and the EU confused.
November 18, 2018
Three of geographic Europe’s five most populous cities are outside the EU and likey to stay that way
Istanbul
Moscow
London
St Petersburg
Berlin
November 18, 2018
Deduct Berlin and add Zurich, Geneva and Oslo, those cities that can’t be European as they’re not in the EU.
November 19, 2018
Would you like to live in any of them?
November 19, 2018
Moscow and St Petersburg both of which I know well,absolutely!Ask expats who work there what they think-the Soviet Union is long gone!
November 18, 2018
Very true and I think that is something Brexiters like John Redwood do not or do not want to understand:
For many people of my generation, living inside the EU is what correspond to normal life. This is it.
Ripping away what has become an integral part of many peopleâs identity will therefore leave profound scars.
I do not see a reconciliation between Leavers and Remainers any time soon.
There will be no forgiveness for the older generation who, by the way, will not be the one bearing the consequences.
November 18, 2018
You live in Europe, not in the EU.
Just because one lives in Liverpool, and supports the local club, and is proud to be a Liverpudlian, doesn’t mean they have to support the many and varied policies of Liverpool Council over the years.
The youth unemployment rates in Southern Europe are high, but modulated because of open access to the UK, Germany etc. This is likely to change soon for several reason.
The Euro is a false construction, destined to fail.
Immigration from outside the EU will cause fissures.
Do you think only old fogies are voting for AfD, 5-star etc? From the rallies I’ve seen, this isn’t the case. The UK is a different case, because we don t have the youth unemployment, Euro problems, but we have the fallout and anybody living since the 60s here can see the way it’s going.
November 18, 2018
The difference is. of course, that the people of Liverpool can vote their councillors in and out again, so the silly policies don’t last.
November 18, 2018
As usual you confuse being European with the EU
November 18, 2018
Then you are singularly lacking in imagination, Tabulazero. This is a great pity. There’s a big world out there – why don’t we join it as soon as possible? You can always hide behind your sofa until you get used to the idea that you still belong to Europe, just not to your EU masters.
November 18, 2018
**Ripping away what has become an integral part of many peopleâs identity will therefore leave profound scars.**
I quite agree. This is how the fishermen felt when their traditional fishing rights were removed, how the farmers felt under the effects of CAP, and how many of us younger folk felt when EU laws came in two years ago restricting the use of online tip jars and transactions right down to Paypal, cutting the EU off from sections of the online global community. Also how many people from every background who identified as British felt in 1992.
There’s a lot of anger on both sides, but the older folks are more likely to have been harmed directly.
November 19, 2018
Dear Tabulazero, I agree that people under 60 know nothing of life outside the EU and that is why many are vulnerable to scare stories about being cut off.
Those of us who can remember life before EEC membership know that for most ordinary people, there was surprisingly little difference. Britons could wander freely across the rest of non-Communist Europe and even Yugoslavia without a visa, as I and many others did – Switzerland was the hardest.
Britons could and did live and work on the mainland just as French, Germans, Dutch, Italians and many others lived and worked in the UK, not because we had any constitutional right to do so but because there was no reason to stop us.
Perhaps many younger people do not yet realise that, while there is record employment, opportunities for good jobs here in the UK are progressively shrinking. And the next generation of Britons could not take initiatives, for instance to cut CO2 emissions by technical advances, because the UK has lost the industrial resources needed: to build wind farms or nuclear power stations, develop better cars or building materials. This is not the EU’s fault but the trend cannot be reversed inside the EU.
November 19, 2018
Tabulazero, The younger generation will get roped into Mrs Merkel’s Militia, if we stay in your rotten empire.
November 18, 2018
@eeyore; The UK will always be ‘European’ and our citizens will always be Europeans, did you by any chance mean to say because they think it robs them of their identity as EU citizens?
That said, doesn’t being a member of the EU rob them of their full identity as Commonwealth citizens, and how many young people in the UK also hanker after getting a US ‘green card’ one day – should the UK also become an unincorporated territory of the US too, if not the 51st state!
Being able to live in another country did not start with the EU, nor is it owned by the EU…
November 18, 2018
eeyore
Roaming charges aren’t an issue , some UK companies offered this BEFORE the EU regulations and ALL mobile companies have confirmed it will continue after we leave
Most millennials and generation Z that I speak to ( i speak to many many 100’s each year ) never ever mention EU citizenship ( in fact i can’t recall even 1 incident) . They talk about travelling and working abroad, but hardly ever in Europe , they prefer more exotic places .
Those that mention it like Andy and Newmania aren’t young , the very small number who do are ultra remain activists .
However if it really was a problem to them they should be living/working in an EU country now and applying for right to stay
November 19, 2018
Quite, my extended family, especially the younger members, travel in, work in the UK, Asia-Pacific and North America. I don’t know of any in the continental EU.
November 18, 2018
eeyore Sadly, I fear that you are right, and I’m at a loss to know what can be done about it. At school in the 50s and 60s I was taught that there was, in official terms, no such nationality as “English”– only “British”. Now, very late in the day, perhaps we English suspect that this should not have been accepted, as it has robbed us of something we can now only assert at the risk of being called zenophobes, almost as though being English has become something shameful to admit to. Enviably, the Scots and Welsh seem to suffer no such misgivings. Now it seems that identifying as “European” has been deliberately encouraged over and above any idea of being “British”.
November 18, 2018
Yes. There is no such identity for the is no European demos. The Evil Empire in this matter as in so much more is all form over substance (whilst it suits it).
Those amongst the young who seem rather more in touch with the modern world are more keen on the notion of “world citizen”.
November 18, 2018
Roaming charges. Check out Project FI for how to deal with roaming charges.
Google have introduced a 170 country mobile phone plan with no caps on data and graduated charges up to 6 gb.
What this shows is that you don’t need the EU to get roaming charges sorted. It’s a red herring.
November 18, 2018
Older generations were not subjected to the intense grooming process applied to the young by a generation of exclusively female teachers who have themselves been indoctrinated during tertiary training in the non-subject of ‘Education’; there is no more hostile group in society to whom we were, are and would be and who foist their horrific prejudices on children.
November 18, 2018
You can be a proud European, as I am, without being in a Soviet Union of Europe.
November 18, 2018
Even the young are not as stupid as you imagine. They, in my opinion, would vote for democracy.
November 18, 2018
I normally answer their question auf Deutsch. And if that results in blank stares, I try Francais. If that also fails, I ask them, in plain English, which European languages they are fluent in. More often than not, I get the response that they speak none at all. At that point I default to some time-honoured Italian advice- ‘Ah shadduppa you fayce’ …..
November 18, 2018
Monty Yes I think you have correctly identified a paradox: the sad take-up of modern foreign languages at A-level and degree level, yet the purported desire of the young to be able freely to take up employment in European countries. It would be laughable if it weren’t rather sad.
November 18, 2018
You can be citizen of a European nation but you cannot properly be a citizen of the EU even if it soon decides to call itself the United States of Europe.
The EU is just a trading bloc.
It is not a nation.
November 18, 2018
You did not get the memo that the EU is foremost a political project ?
November 18, 2018
No I didn’t get that memo.
Have you a link?
Once for many years I was told it was just a free trading bloc.
Now you tell me it is far more than that.
November 19, 2018
@Tz – Not when people were asked to vote in the first referendum
November 18, 2018
No you donât have one. I am in my mid 40s. I have been a European citizen all my adult life.
You are taking that away from me and my children.
And this is one of the key reasons you will lose in the end – as identity is key and, no matter how hard you try, you can not impose it on us.
We never stopped you being British.
November 18, 2018
You have never been a citizen of the EU andy.
It is legally impossible.
Check your passport.
November 18, 2018
Andy
There are 54 countries in Europe. Only 27 of them ( and dropping) are in the EU
It is NOT and never has been possible to be a European citizen, so you and your kiddies haven’t lost anything .
However if you wish to be an EU citizen, as you already own a home in France it is fantastically easy to register as a citizen in France which gives you all the things you say you want . You can also pre register your kiddies for conscription into the EU army too
Why come on here day after day crying that you lost. Why dont you take action ? Why dont you go and become a full EU citizen as you scream and whine that you want ?
November 18, 2018
Oh, Andy.
Are you aware of the saying: it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool…. etc?
Do go and read up on the difference between ”EU” and ”Europe” and then try to educate other people like yourself on Facebook.
Some of us have children for whom we voted ‘leave’ because we don’t want them to grow up with their country shackled to a foreign power, with the possibility of conscription when they are old enough. Ours will thank us – I’m sure yours will thank us too. I wonder what they’ll think of a dinosaur like you, too afraid to break the shackles?
November 18, 2018
You can emigrate if you want it so much.
November 19, 2018
Andy, So the losers are the winners? But you maintain that the losers should be the winners, and as we are now the losers (you said so) that makes us the winners. Again. Alternatively you could stop re-defining words to suit your bigotry and accept the democratic Leave result.
And no you are not a “European citizen” and nor have you ever been. You may be a “citizen” of the EU; but the EU is not Europe. The EU may be a federal state but it is no nation for you to be nationalistic about.
November 18, 2018
Yes, the EU is a political construct, anyone born in Europe is European.
November 18, 2018
You may as well say we are all citizens of the Earth.
November 18, 2018
I can easily get a contract that supports roaming across most of the world (as well as the EU). It costs a few ÂŁs a month more, because someone has to pay for it. The effect of abolishing roaming charges is to spread the cost across all EU mobile phone users, slightly increasing everyone’s charges. The savings accrue to those who would otherwise have incurred those charges, i.e. (apart from a few percent who live near a border) those taking the most holidays and/or business trips overseas.
In other words, we’re all subsidising the better off. You know it makes sense.
November 18, 2018
What exactly is “being European” ?
Are we all European as we share history, many shared values, religions, being close geographically and culturally ?
I’d love to know why they think being ruled by the political structure of the EU makes them more “European”. It’s very strange to think a political structure to defines you.
They will be no less European when we leave the EU government.
November 19, 2018
Correct.Europe is a geographic expression-nothing more- whose definition has changed over the centuries(eastwards from the River Don to the Ural mountains-I believe because the Russian nobility after Peter the Great began wearing western style clothing).
The notion of EU as Europe goes back to Charlemagne’s Carolingian Empire(incorporating France,Germany,Benelux, Catalonia,Northern Italy and some of the western Slavic peoples) as distinct from the semi-asiatic Byzantine Empire and is reflected in the award of the Charlemagne Prize in contemporary Europe.
November 18, 2018
Except ‘Europe’ isn’t a country, so you can’t be a citizen of it (despite the EU insisting on their emblem on our passports). But the EU want to erase national sovereignties and democracy to leave Europe as the defacto state. The EU will then be a dictatorship.
November 18, 2018
Good morning.
Very nicely put.
We do not talk enough, or even about, the direction the EU is taking. Some here point to PESCO and full UNION by say, 2025. But we as a society just do not talk about it. EVER CLOSER UNION is a real thing. It is the creation of a European Superstate and the destruction of democracy. Look at what happened to both Greece and Italy. Their elected. governments where removed and the people ignored and even punished. Sounds familiar ?
Best we leave.
November 18, 2018
M B.
Your point is very well made, we in the UK simply do not keep up to date with the changes being implemented and plans for more. There are many that would affect us if we fail to leave, EU army, enforced use of the Euro, centralised taxation, EU wide pensions system. The idea that we could just ‘remain as we are’ is a nonsense and needs to be debunked.
Political Brexiteers really don’t seem to have much stamina for this fight do they?
November 18, 2018
UN poverty envoy claims govt is “mean-spirited” and “callous”. I thought it was May’s staff appraisal!
November 18, 2018
Agreed, not enough talk about where the EU will be in five years time.
Expands to 34 countries, how many of those will be net contributors.
Loss of Mrs Thatcher’s rebate.
Further dilution of voting power through Qualified Majority Voting.
Join the Euro.
EU Army .
A quick read through the “Five President’s Report” shows their intentions.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/five-presidents-report_en
Then there is talk of another referendum, can Article 50 be withdrawn?
If it can there will be a cost?
Loss of Rebate, Have to join the Euro…who knows
November 18, 2018
The videoclip of Guy Verhofstadt in the European parliament provides a hugely convincing example of what exactly we would be losing with being a member of the EU or a vassal state thereof. It is a vicious rant, in my mind, but serves the very important purpose of exposing the main goal of the eurocrats viz to grab sovereignty of the individual countries by what they believe to be their right.
The link to the videoclip is on Jacob Rees-Mogg’s twitter, or a search on twitter for The Core will also provided the link.
November 18, 2018
Indeed why on earth do so many young people think they should be governed by unelected bureaucrats whom they cannot remove, do not live in the UK and have little interest in the success of it? I blame the appallingly pro EU bias of the BBC and the generally lefty and greencrap education system in the UK.
Many younger voters have also fallen for magic money tree economics, absurd climate alarmism, the expensive renewable energy lunacy, getting into ÂŁ50k of debt for worthless degrees ……
Many feel they have been dealt a bad deal compared to earlier generations. Many want even higher taxes on the rich yet they do no even realise whoâs appallingly high the tax take currently is. Total tosh there has never been more opportunities for them with the vast improvements in IT and other technology.
More damaging red tape from May today. Another burden on companies to train people in you company in mental heath problems. What a great plan? Far better to have someone in every company trained a bit (regardless of any need and who training may never be needed) rather than a proper professional who can be called in as is needed. More expensive virtue signalling form the left dope make business less productive and the country poorer. Well done dear!
November 18, 2018
âyet they do no even realise how appallingly high the tax take currently isâ I meant.
Tax to death Hammond has given us the highest taxes for 40 years combined with fairly dire public services.
Many people seem to think that high taxes are a jolly good thing in themselves. When in fact they are very damaging to the economy, jobs and general UK prosperity. They render many business activities and job just not worth doing. This as so much money is wasted in the collection by government and the person being taxed, and then the government wastes more within the system or bureaucrats. Then finally generally spend it very inefficiently On something as stupid as the EU, subsidies for renewable energy, the dire NHS state monopoly, HS2 or the likes.
Government can only âinvestâ by taking money off others who would probably have invested it rather better. Say about three times better on average.
November 18, 2018
The young often think that rent controls and minimum wage controls are a good idea too. In fact both cause far far more harm than good to the economy (and indeed to tenants as they just kill the supply or rental properties dead and kill investment in the sector). Wage control just say that people cannot work (even if they want) to for less than ÂŁX per hour. It destroys jobs and prevents people learning how to work. They can, it seems, work for ÂŁ0 per hour though as a volunteer – but not for ÂŁ0.01p to ÂŁX.
November 18, 2018
Hopefully the bridge blocking, climate alarmist dopes yesterday will get some sensible sentences that deter such damaging actions in future. Rather than a slap on the wrist. This action might easily cause deaths by delaying ambulances, doctors and urgent deliveries to hospitals and similar. Perhaps it did it certainly will have damaged the economy, inconveniences millions and increased pollution?
November 18, 2018
Lifelogic
It’s got nothing to do with climate. It’s about having dreadlocks or turquoise hair, refusing to move and having to be picked up and carted away in front of the cameras.
In a nutshell; waging a campaign of non conformism against no particular target.
Attention seeking, basically.
November 18, 2018
The young have always rebelled against authority, but in this case they have apparently been duped/seduced by the eurocrats. They will grow wiser and make up for those old voters who are apparently “about to die off” (according to the globalist mantra that it is the old people who have voted to leave). do not forget, this is a classic Marxist tactic to foment divides between people and breaking down traditional bonds which hold society together e.g. between old and young, redefining marriage, between genders. ( The transgender debate didn’t arise spontaneously but out of a carefully choreographed campaign by the globalists/deep state, in my view, in order to deliberately create division and disrupt the bonds in society).
November 18, 2018
I thought the May government liked damaging the economy. If they don’t why have they been indulging themselves for two years in senseless time wasting?
November 18, 2018
The costs of their actions should be charged to the organisers of this protest.
They could have stood at Speakers Corner or hired a hall and called a meeting or assembled in Hyde Park.
Time to allow the vast majority to go about their business free from interference by the mob.
November 18, 2018
Some very effective points well made John.
We need more positive facts like these.
Perhaps many in our population should also be reminded that the Commonwealth Countries, now have more political freedom, and have greater sovereignty than we do at present.
Whilst we allowed them to go their own way, we went in the opposite direction and denied our citizens the same freedom.
Whilst we no longer control our once Colonies, we now exist in loose voluntary co-operation arrangement, which seems a far more sensible for all parties involved.
November 18, 2018
To Alan Jutson:
(In response to your 12.04pm 18 Nov motorway query in older posts, overtaking is on the right; unchanged. Fuller rationale exists, but our longer mutual interaction is beyond the intended purpose of this site).
November 19, 2018
Adam
We agree to disagree, nothing wrong with that.
November 18, 2018
Excellent
And we must be free well before the EU collapses.
November 18, 2018
40 top horrors of Mayâs dreadful proposed deal from the Spectator blog. Just how could May have thought this was even remotely close to something remotely acceptable?
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/11/the-top-40-horrors-lurking-in-the-small-print-of-theresa-mays-brexit-deal/
November 18, 2018
It’s the idea that there are others in thrall to Mrs May and her mad ideas of what is acceptable that is REALLY disturbing.
We’ve got used to the idea that she hasn’t got our good at heart, but only that of the EU – but to know that there are other MPs backing her in this is worrying in the extreme. They can’t all have been ‘got at’.
It makes you wonder if they’ve actually read what she is trying to tie us into.
November 18, 2018
What you should have hit back with is that for the last 40 odd years weâve had no control over our country what so ever and getting worse especially with the thought of a European forces and a federal Europe imminent, the education system I think have had a big hand in this loving of the Eu pushing it down the Youngâs throats, what the older generation like myself should be telling the youth of today that life wasnât perfect pre Eu but at lest we were free to do what we want and say and had done for hundreds of years , and if we had a government we didnât like we could vote in another who had the interest of our country at heart
November 18, 2018
ConservativeHome posts this article today: From an analysis of the Withdrawal Agreement text: Mayâs broken promises on the ECJ, the backstop, customs â and dividing the UK.
It does not bode well for the future you seek.
November 18, 2018
It’s hard to argue with your belated concern for the young- but no need to be too concerned as I have no doubt they will in their own time overturn the damage you Ultra’s have visited on this country- and so brexit will turn out to be all just a mistake, marked by a forlorn footnote in the history books alongside Luddites
November 18, 2018
Crocodile tears….
Perhaps you’d like to describe the glorious future that the EU might have planned for us should it succeed in enfolding us in its tentacles.
Could you please list the benefits that will accrue to us should Mrs May get her wish and allow the EU to take over our lives. What will the UK be called? When do you think conscription will begin to enter the lives of the very young to whom Dr Redwood writes today? How much extra of our own tax money should we allow the EU, so that it can achieve its imperialist and expansionist aims?
We need to know from people like you exactly what they think lies ahead, that golden future that you believe your EU masters have in store for us.
November 18, 2018
Spot on. Shame on those supporters of Theresa May who think splitting their party is more important than the future if our country. If anyone is doing the splitting, they are, ignoring the views of the majority of their members and telling us that what we can read for ourselves in the withdrawal agreement, actually means something that plainly it isnât.
November 18, 2018
It is barely any time at all since the fate of the young generation was a source of concern even though the UK had been a member of the EU for over three decades.
An example of the kind of concerns being expressed at the time would be a BBC Web site news article titled, “What became of the class of 2008?”. Dating from 2nd June 2009, the first paragraph of this article reads as follows (with my emphasis added):
“Experts are predicting doom and gloom for those graduating in the summer of 2009.”
November 18, 2018
Well said John Redwood. Short and to the point but do not expect the snowflakes to understand it.
November 18, 2018
Have you pointed out to this young person that both Switzerland and Norway are inside the Single-Market but in name ?
I think not.
What is in store for this young personâs generation is a low-cost, low tax, low regulation country devoid of any meaningful safety net.
It will be wonderful for a few people and dire for the rest.
That was the plan all along.
November 18, 2018
Switzerland is not in the single market. It has a low tax,light regulation, sound money, balanced budget economy – the richest in Europe. A peaceful and prosperous country where there is so little political Ya-boo that most people couldnât tell you the name of the president. A Switzerland-type deal would I think have been a good compromise result but it seems the EU were not open for that – so most likely it will be WTO Brexit instead.
November 18, 2018
Switzerland has signed a raft of bilateral agreements with its EU neighbours that grant it access to the Single-Market for goods as a quasi member. These agreements include provisions for freedom of movement, contributions to the EU budget and ECJ supervision.
All three things are British red lines, meaning that a Swiss type of deal was not what the UK wanted
It is membership but in name.
November 18, 2018
Switzerland is in Schengen. And that is the exact opposite of what most of the little Englanders voted for.
November 19, 2018
An irrelevant detail. Besides Schengen is already collapsing with extensive border checks between Schengen countries, as it becomes clear Schengen is a license for illegal migrants, criminals and terrorists. No votes in that one. Readers will note you can not refute the points I made about Switzerland.
November 18, 2018
And it isn’t in the Customs Union.
November 18, 2018
Tabby
If you are going to continue to cry and moan on here at least do some research before you post. We know you dont know much about the EU , but at least try to get some basic facts right
November 18, 2018
Nadhim Zahawi MP was defending the deal and T May just now. He must be mad. It is far better to have a divided party than one united behind an idiotic deal and a moronic PM marching her army over the cliff. Had the party united behind John (ERM fiasco and no apology) Major he would still have buried the party for several elections.
Get a sensible leader with some real Tory vision and a working compass and then the party can then unite. But do get rid of thus appalling left wing, tax and regulate to death, lying appeaser and total electoral liability first.
November 18, 2018
You criticizing the EU austerity policy knowing what the Conservatives have done to the UK is pretty rich.
November 18, 2018
By comparison they have suffered real austerity.
All that has happened in the UK is a small reduction in the rate of increase of state spending.
November 18, 2018
Presently-younger UK folk did not exist before the EU itself, so many of them have been conditioned to regard EU control as a normal part of life, unaware of how better it is to be independent & free.
Those older, who lived here before EU restrictions, want to regain their freedom. Referendum-voted age profiles reveal ascending Euro-scepticism as involvement with the EU was proportionally the less nuisance to their lives.
Consequently, the conditioned youngers may regard regaining independence from the EU as if Sevenoaks were seeking secession from Kent. Naturally they feel more loyalty to the status quo, but including the unnatural wayward EU nonsense.
November 18, 2018
Please do everything you can to get rid of this draft agreement as itâs time to put the country before political careers.
November 18, 2018
The assessment of the deal on Conservative Home makes clear that the UK will not be able to set tariffs lower than EU tariffs for other countries. All trade deals with the US, Australia and Pacific area will be off. Time for Dr Fox to put his feet up.
November 18, 2018
Quite, but the wooden lady Remains unturnable unless the majority of your fellow MPs get the message. With her in charge the young and future generations face servitude.
November 18, 2018
A very honourable and caring address to the younger generation, JR.
Though if we ever free ourselves from the pariah the younger generation will need to be given the truth about what the EU is and how great this country was before being sold down the river. There is a lot of brainwashing to be undone.
November 18, 2018
Patronising arrogance. I am 23, I know what is best for me without being talked down to by OAP polticians and like the vast majority of my generation I want to stay in the EU. Its our future not yours
November 18, 2018
Then you are welcome to go and live in the EU.
November 18, 2018
Lisa. They say youth is wasted on the young. Too right it is. Maybe when you mature your attitude will too.
November 18, 2018
Lisa Todd
Good for you
Now please supply a list of the reasons you need to be in the EU and why they can’t be achieved as an independent country
ps which part of the EU are you currently living in?
November 19, 2018
Libertarian, I live in the UK, London in fact. I have plans to go and work in Germany. As of now, I can do that as easily as I can go and work in Wales. The day we leave the EU, I lose that right. I can work in Germany only if the German government is good enough to let me. So here is my question. How is Brexit taking back control? When the UK is in the EU, I need no permission to work in Germany, the moment the UK leaves, I need that permission, and the UK government cannot help me at all, it is up to the German government. So it seesm to me that Brexit is all about surrendering control. I doubt it matters to you pensioners. It matters to me.
November 22, 2018
Lisa
Thanks
Thats funny because I worked in Germany and France quite easily before we had free movement .
I currently own a business in France
Let me explain how being in control helps. There is nothing stopping a future UK government negotiating free movement anywhere in the world.
Theres nothing stopping you moving to Germany right now, but its not quite the same as moving to Wales as you still have to register as a “foreign” worker in Germany you’ll need to register your residence at your local Civil Registry (Einwohnermeldeamt) office within three months of your arrival too. The other difference between Wales and Germany is you can’t claim benefits in Germany until you’ve been there 5 years and you also have to have compulsory health insurance
What makes you think I’m a pensioner, and why do you think being rude helps your argument?
November 22, 2018
Lisa
ps There are 900,00 UK citizens who live in the EU. Just over 700,000 live in Spain, Ireland and France. Over 70% are pensioners who’ve retired there . So blaming pensioners isn’t really logical to be honest
November 18, 2018
When I was your age I voted for our membership of the EEC to continue. I didn’t know what was best for me and neither do you. What about our grandchildren’s future?
November 18, 2018
Yes, Lisa, you cannot put an old head on young shoulders. A maxim my dear Grandfather taught me in my junior school days. It takes many years for someone to gain experience and wisdom and some day I hope you will.
November 18, 2018
You don’t know anything. You have a single vote like all adults who also have a future. The older ones vote in the best interests of their younger relatives based on greater knowledge, skills and experience.
November 19, 2018
Dear Lisa Todd, What would you say is the cut-off point for having a future?
November 19, 2018
Patronising arrogance ? I thought it was a polite response to a direct question from a young person, actually.
Never mind. We’ve got the message. We’re not meant to vote. OK. We won’t then.
You’re about to experience a country in which a large swathe of the population gives up on voting. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
All together “OHHH Jer-emy Cor-byn !”
November 19, 2018
Lisa
Once we’ve implemented the democratic vote and left, you for the first time will have a chance to experience what its like to be an independent country. Then you and your generation can make a sensible choice to either stay out or rejoin based on actual comparative knowledge
November 19, 2018
But we had a referendum and you lost. Don’t you believe in democracy?
November 18, 2018
In my experience the young are disproportionately interested in USA culture and businesses – not many would be prepared to go and live and work in Berlin but many more would go to New York immediately. The EU freedom of movement benefit is one that a tiny minority of our young people have made use of, it is a theoretical benefit for them only. Of course they have been peddled lies about how theyâd have to get a visa to visit Europe on holiday after Brexit and this may have influenced the more gullible of them.
November 18, 2018
May’s idiotic agenda is certainly doing wonders for a UKIP revival and spitting the Tory Vote in the polls today. She is a massive electoral luability and must go to avoid Corbyn/SNP and serfdom.
November 18, 2018
BBC News has two young journalists reviewing the papers. One an American wearing a funny suit who said that the problem for Brexitters is that they don’t have s plan. No matter how many times they say that they want the trade deal that was being prepared while May and Robbins were preparing their capitulation, it is ignored by the snowflake media. They are too feeble minded to want their own country and prefer to be ruled by unelected bureaucrats. Perhaps when they have to support a European Army and put down their rebelling peers, they may start to think.
November 18, 2018
John, there is an excellent prĂ©cis of the “Backstop” and Transition on ConHome. Basically we have 4 scenarios.
1. We are now members of the EU subject to all EU law and ECJ oversight.
2. We are in a Transition phase which can be extended until 2099 i.e. 80 years following all EU law and ECJ oversight.
3. Should we leave the Transition phase without an FTA then the “Backstop would activate, keeping us in the SM and CU until such time the EU agreed we could leave.
4. The EU will offer us an FTA on the same terms as now that is as long as we stay in the SM and CU together with unlimited access to our fish.
Basically this document in whatever form cedes control of the United Kingdom to a foreign power. In times gone by this would be called TREASON.
May is an out and out liar and as Quentin Letts says, she is out to neutralise Brexit and destroy the Tory Party in the process.
November 18, 2018
You were a bit outnumbered on Any Qs, especially as they’d increased the panel to 5 members!
It was interesting to hear J Dimbleby apologising for the extreme bias of the audience – they were that bad. In the interest of balance, you’d have thought the Beeb could have found more people who supported Brexit. According to Dimbleby, they were ‘self selecting’. Right. In Yorkshire?
November 18, 2018
The Remainer mentality is like that of a prisoner who has been incarcerated for 40 years, and when the cell door is opened on their day of release they’re scared to venture into the outside world, at least they have three meals a day on the inside. They’ve been institutionalised.
November 18, 2018
Very new left tactic to promote the views of the young, easily manipulated and lack experience. Traditional societies defer to the opinions of grey hairs, the gaffer and gammers.
November 18, 2018
Let’s not believe the Remainer speak, that all young people are pro-EU.
Our extended family and friends, includes a surprisingly high number of Leave voters. That is surely the case with others.
But, having seen a World where the young have fought against the Establishment…the injustices of War…a belief in Freedom, the current situation is absolutely bizarre.
We have a large element of younger people who are fighting to keep an archaic, 1950’s style, Eastern European Bloc cabal, lead by a bunch of old Dinosaurs.
Seriously? How on Earth did the UK get down to this base level.
The EU and our Establishment should be congratulated on their indoctrination of our young.
The EU is the ‘opium’ of our young people.
November 18, 2018
Both my children, one aged 33 and the other aged 23 have voted leave with no persuading from myself.
November 18, 2018
My greatest concern was for my children who are far better educated than I am.
I afforded housing with relative ease at 3x my income but for them it now seems an impossibility. Much of my old age provision is going to have to be used to help them.
I do not believe freedom of movement and the housing crisis is unrelated. It is particularly acute where the new arrivals go. The clue that my hunch is right is that this seems to have caught the government by surprise and now we have emergency house building vandalising the country I love.
If the government has no control over who comes here and then goes on to demonise those who ask questions about it and force us to shut up then the frustration has to come out somewhere.
It is not about race. I am quite used to the multiracial South London which I grew up in. It is purely about numbers. The abuses of our hospitality don’t help but are rare and most migrants are perfectly nice people.
November 18, 2018
Dear all
Just watched the Maybot interview with Sophie Ridge , she claimed that “as far as I know 48 letters have not been received”
So I ask the same question again
How do we know if Sir Graham Brady has actually received 48 or more , has called them all and agree they wish to go ahead? I know nothing about Brady or if there is an audit trail of this procedure
Of course it would be far easier if all the people putting in letters had the courage to state it in public .
Then this is the Conservative Party and they couldn’t organise a proverbial in a brewery
November 18, 2018
May’s now saying the 48 letters needed to trigger a leadership election have not been reached
It is my belief that there are many Tory MPs so spineless that they’ve become almost compliant robots triggered to respond accordingly.
To think that there are Tory MPs whose loyalty to a liberal left leader is greater than their loyalty to the United Kingdom and the preservation and strengthening of its democratic institutions
Spineless
Gutless
Clueless
Selfish
Egotistical
Power hungry
There are so many Tory MPs that will sell their soul to the devil to become a Minister and secure a government role
So the message to the Tories is – Theresa May or the United Kingdom?
November 18, 2018
If they retain Appeaser May the vote will spit with a UKIP revival and many Tory MPs will lose their seat. Then Corbyn/McDonnall/SNP will destroy the economy in very quick order and doubtless extend voting to anyone over 1o in an attempt to stay in power or even worse.
November 18, 2018
Whatever damage the EU can inflict upon us when we are outside the EU it is nothing compared to the damage they can wreak upon us when we are inside the EU and subject to their directives, rules and regulations decided either by unelected bureaucrats or by QMV.
When further eastern European countries become EU members the EU will be like the Eurovision Song contest.
The young should bear in mind that we will never, ever get another chance to leave the EU via a treaty clause to become a free, democratic and sovereign state.
November 18, 2018
Indeed.
November 18, 2018
Off topic:
Would deposing of Mrs May actually achieve anything?
I think it would… Mrs May is clearly in the EU’s pocket, I’m sure that they [the EU] would rather deal with her than an unknown.
Anything to get the EU on its back foot and believe that we will walk away has got to be a good negotiating strategy.
November 18, 2018
Excellent
November 18, 2018
And of course, the young can campaign on a platform to rejoin the EU in future if they wish.
November 18, 2018
If we flourish outside the EU the young won’t want to rejoin.
November 18, 2018
It is reprehensible for remoaners abetted by quislings to mislead young persons in this matter.
Many of the putative benefits of EU membership available at individual level will lie unused by most. In any case, the notion that “the rest of the world” is confined only to the EU is plainly nonsense but also damaging.
In my youth I spent a summer working in South Africa (at the time I just got on with overcoming all the obstacles, including sourcing a visa: activities that I now realize by today’s standard perhaps place me on a heroic plane). I learned a lot and things I may never have discovered but for that experience. Today, I would be much more impressed and interested in a youth who chose to spend time in Shanghai or Rio de Janeiro than Paris or Warsaw.
November 18, 2018
On the democracy front.
What you really mean is that it will give you more power. The electorate get nothing.
Take the latest, that you intend paying off the EU with 50 bn. The number keeps rising. At 20,000 nurses per billion, that’s a lot of people in the UK whose health care suffers.
Or 20,000 police per billion. Would 20,000 police make a difference to knife crime?
The Brino brexit means we have to suffer because the Eurocrats demand their pensions.
Austerity is a symptom. Go and check the accounts. 209 bn a year going on state debts. That’s why you are taxing with no services. That’s why the Tories have hit its past supporters with penal taxes.
There’s a massive disconnect between what you say you want, and what you do. It’s just spin.
November 18, 2018
“…I want to pass to them a democracy that works…”
As yet it does not exist. No more verification is required than in the fact that our parliament is unable to execute the instruction of the British people to remove our nation from the clutches of the EU and return to us our birthright handed down by prior generations going back to before recorded history. We are captured by the EU because of the prior capture of our democracy by the forces of globalism and marxism leveraging the FPTP electoral system to frustrate the aspirations of the people.
November 18, 2018
Excellent response, Mr Redwood, and supported by some extremely wise words from President Reagan:
“Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. We did not pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. ” Ronald Reagan
November 18, 2018
Meanwhile the woman from the CBI says that this is not a perfect deal but it would be far far worse to leave with no deal, so there would be rationing at ports and shortages and interruptions of supply chains etc etc; but the ideal of “frictionless trade” will be for the next stage, with a permanent customs union; the “backstop” is just a “technicality”; and she is thinking about real people in the country and their futures, etc etc.
Well, if this deal is not a perfect deal from her point of view it is coming very close to that, as claimed in a CityAM article I first referenced months ago:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/10/16/how-not-to-negotiate-with-the-eu/#comment-966895
âFor the last two years, British industryâs focus has largely been on the UK government. The private sector, including the shipping industry, has taken to the airwaves to feed the mediaâs thirst for new Brexit opinion, and crammed into Whitehall meeting rooms to highlight threats â real or perceived â to their respective sectors.
The Chequers deal is proof that the government has listened â it is as close to what we asked for as we were ever likely to get â and the Prime Minister has shown considerable fortitude in squaring the circles needed to deliver it. The rest of the government and all of Parliament now need to get behind it.â
As for her idea that any deal is better than no deal, firstly I wonder how many of her CBI members go into negotiations thinking like that, and secondly of course leaving the EU without any new special or preferential trade deal would not mean that there was no deal at all on trade because the WTO treaties are not contingent on EU membership.
November 18, 2018
According to Theresa May we should:
“Remember there are those in the House of Commons who just want to stop Brexit.”
We know that, and we know she is one of them and is just looking for a way to wangle it while still presenting herself as a friend of the people and their democracy.
November 18, 2018
Dear John
I have made comments here, before, about the urgent need for the Government to publish its plans for a No Deal scenario.
The EU has published their plans.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/communication-preparing-withdrawal-united-kingdom-european-union-30-march-2019-contingency-action-plan-13-11-2018_en
Where are the UK plans???
It is not good enough, to say, Theresa May is a Remainer she won’t do that.
Theresa May is also the Prime Minister of our Country and must act in the”NATIONAL INTEREST” (her fave phrase of the moment)….she must now act in the best interests of the UK.
MPs must prevent gross dereliction of duty, by May, and force her to publish No Deal Contingency plans…urgently.
November 18, 2018
I was in complete horror this moring.
Presented with a child born deaf, unable to speak & walk, asked to attend a work capability assessment & faced with losing her home Tory MP Kwasi Kwarteng resorts to sound bites about the benefits of âgood & strong economic managementâ & reducing the deficit!
Absolutely shocking!
Using the debunked ” household budget ” anology at a time like that is disgraceful. It ade me sick to the bottom of my stomach.
The government budget “deficit” is the non government sector “surplus” to the penny.
Kwasi Kwarteng should learn that before he opens his big mouth. Then he wonders why the Tories are struggling to win elections.
November 18, 2018
Of course he could not respond to a specific case without knowing the details – including whether they had been accurately portrayed. The point he made – but not forcefully enough perhaps – is it is a nonsense for the UN poverty official to be running around the UK, a wealthy country where by global standards there is no poverty, whipping up class hatred, presumably to try to give a boost to the far left opposition this guy supports. It is people like this, abusing their positions in the UN, who call the whole organisation into question and lead politicians like Trump to cut its funding. Let him focus on the countries where there really is poverty – North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela etc. Notice what they have in common?
November 18, 2018
The author is apparently an Australian leftist human rights lawyer who has previously praised regimes such as that in Mauritania – a nation with real poverty and hellish conditions due to abuse driven by socialism and Islamism. I hope the UK govt will follow trump and explain to the UN that our taxes are not available for the propagation of mendacious left wing propaganda.
November 19, 2018
So the more the state spends the wealthier we will get.
Amazing theory.
November 19, 2018
I heard him too. He didn’t virtue signal, as is the fashion, but confined his comments to what was useful. We are so used to people wearing their fake hearts on their sleeves that when someone doesn’t do it, it comes across as it did to you.
November 18, 2018
Theresa May pretends that there is no alternative plan to her rubbish plan, and I suppose one might ask why a man ruling a tiny Alpine principality could achieve something which has eluded the Prime Minister of the fifth largest economy of the world.
From the FT, May 10th:
https://www.ft.com/content/4e3d830a-52dc-11e8-b24e-cad6aa67e23e
“… the Alpine stateâs place inside two separate regimes â the Swiss customs union and the EU-linked European Economic Area (EEA) â has made it a laboratory for Brussels-compliant, hybrid solutions to vexing trade problems.
Britain is exploring its system of âparallel marketabilityâ, a legal fix agreed by the EU in 1995 that allowed Liechtenstein to straddle two distinct economic spaces with conflicting standards on goods.
One senior Whitehall official described it as âa very interesting ideaâ, with relevance to the effort to avoid a hard Northern Ireland border. âIt is a good answer in theory,â said the official. âWe need to look at how it would work in practice.â”
“The solution â directly negotiated by Prince Nikolaus von Liechtenstein â effectively allowed the free circulation of both Swiss and EU goods inside Liechtensteinâs territory … ”
Well, of course the answer is not lack of ability but lack of will: Theresa May does not want any alternative solution to the fictitious problem of the Irish border, she wants to use it as a pretext to keep us under the thumb of the EU.
November 18, 2018
Quaint
Except that making us poorer, taking away our rights and flooding our country with Frankenstein foods does not improve democracy. They just all make our country and our lives a bit worse.
If you want to âgive us democracyâ youâd change the UK voting system so parties are properly represented according to how many votes they get – both at local and national level.
My local council consists, almost entirely, of Conservative councillors. Who represents the 50% who did not vote Tory?
Nationally 60% did not vote for your party in 2017. And yet the minority continues to tell the government want to do.
The arguments of Brexiteeers have been repeatedly exposed as false. Your Brexit will inevitably be undone – the question is simply how much damage you manage to inflict in the first place and how many of you end up in prison as a result.
November 18, 2018
It would be good to know whether Sir Nick Clegg, who has repeatedly pedelled the same sort of rubbish as you regarding âFrankenstein foodsâ, is now consuming these in the US, or whether he feels he needs to obtain parcels from the EU, of foods compliant with EU standards.
November 18, 2018
House prices increased from 3x income to 10x income since we signed Maastricht.
Coincidence ?
November 18, 2018
Andy, good, change the voting system and UKIP will get more of a look in.
November 19, 2018
Andy
You’re so called Frankenstein foods are responsible for the biggest rise in life expectancy , the ending of wide scale famine and the greatest growth in income and equality in the history of the human race .
Being a middle class rich boy in Western Europe waiving your wad at Africans and Asians is a pretty poor look
If you prefer to eat chlorine washed bagged salad from Holland or European salmonella chicken, or horsemen lasagne thats your choice.
Me I eat locally farmed British organic corn fed chicken
November 18, 2018
You might also have mentioned, Dr Redwood, that the plans for an EU army, which Sir Nick Clegg dismissed as a ‘dangerous fantasy’ is now becoming a reality, supported by Macron and Merkel. Despite drastic cuts, our armed forces are possibly the best equipped and trained in the EU and would shoulder the burden of any action the EU might engage in, had we remained. The young should be grateful that our departure means they will not now run that risk. France has already re-introduced conscription and the EU might make it compulsory in all member states.
November 18, 2018
I heard your reply on the programme and agreed with every word.
Unfortunately younger voters have been badly influenced by those in the education system who are, almost to a man ( or more likely, woman ) trendy lefties. They have been indoctrinated that the EU has been A Good Thing and that it has been responsible for peace in Europe since 1945, a sound economy and our ability to travel around Europe unhindered.
The older generation, like ourselves, know that these are lies and half-truths with no basis in fact. We travelled all over Europe in the early 70s and hardly ever had to produce a passport, the Single Market has been responsible for no more than an extra one percentage point of growth since its inception and, of course, it is NATO that has preserved the peace.
Given the brainwashing that those under 50 have been subjected too, it’s hardly surprising that most supported Remain.
The deal we have been offered is a poor one and must be rejected. Our future success depends on it. As Mrs May has undermined successive Brexit secretaries and is therefore entirely responsible for the outcome of the so-called negotiations, she has to bear responsibility for this shambles.
It’s been obvious for weeks that whatever was to be the outcome, it was never going to be acceptable. The fact that Mrs May has refused to listen MPs of her own party and others means that she has to go. Now.
November 18, 2018
I was half way through my education in 1973 when the UK and Ireland joined. Ireland joined because most of their trade was with the UK and didn’t want to miss out – guess they should leave now if they don’t want to miss out. Anyway since joining the UK education and BBC have been manipulated by funding from EU – that was first extracted from the UK. The condition of accepting funds from the EU has always been you must promote the EU and say nothing bad about it. All the population who began their education post 1973 have only ever heard pro-EU propaganda – they have been told what to think. Those educated prior to this were always taught to think for themselves. Fascinating if anyone in university promotes Brexit they have threats of grades being downgraded by the professors – or with JRM they used violence against his supporters.
November 18, 2018
Too much socialist indoctrination in the classroom, methinks.
November 18, 2018
The other day I commented on Mrs May “This is no way to run a government. She is unfit for purpose”. Marr’s interview with Dominic Raab on the reason for his resignation threw more light on why she is unfit for her office. He was asked to travel to Brussels to sign the draft on behalf of the UK government when he noted that the wording had been changed from the earlier draft. He did not agree with the change that someone had made unilaterally. He said he asked in Cabinet who had changed it. He says he got no answer. This is, to me at least, extraordinary.
It is obvious that nothing that May says can be relied on. If Conservative MPs fail to remove her from office before she does irreparable damage it will be the political death of the party they claim to represent. It is also obvious that this draft agreement is a blatant attempt to reverse and undermine the referendum result.
November 18, 2018
I am not a “younger citizen” but was nonetheless rather moved by this. Let’s hope that the next generation of voters will be able to thank you in due course.
November 18, 2018
My kids have cancelled Christmas this year, 2 remainers and 2 leavers, Christmas dinner only. What surprise that was to me, no shopping for me to do this year, the younger ones are the leavers, I am in the middle didn’t vote and wife voted to leave, looks like I will be referee, took me back a bit.
November 18, 2018
When will the UK be getting rid of half it beef herds, sheep and pigs, to be replaced by trees and not fruit, salads and veg will it be before 2021 or after, Holland has already moved to no meat Monday.
November 18, 2018
There is a good letter in the Sun Tel today explaining why grass fed beef is fine for the environment. Presumably applies to sheep too.
November 18, 2018
The five ministers who are refusing to leave the cabinet will change their minds when faced with rudd and be glad to get out and replace by more women.
November 18, 2018
Wonderful John. Some supporting figures :
Notes from TradingEconomics website September 2018
Eurozone youth unemployment increases compared to the previous month and annual rates:
0.7% in Spain to reach a rate of 34.3%
0.3% in Italy to reach a rate of 31.6%
0.2% in France to reach a rate of 20.4%
0.1% in Portugal to reach a rate of 19.6%
0.6% in Slovakia to reach a rate of 14.5%
0.4% in Lithuania to reach a rate of 12.6%
November 18, 2018
Well said. What the âit’s our future!â brigade fail to take into account is that the old codgers who (supposedly) voted for Brexit are the very same people who voted to remain back in 1975, when they themselves were young. The numbers work almost too neatly: someone in his early 20s back then, just out of university perhaps, will now be approaching retirement age. The remainers of ’75 have lived the future of Ever Closer Union that the young remainers of 2016 desire, recognise that it was a grave mistake, and that continuing with it would be catastrophic. They want better for their children and grandchildren.
November 18, 2018
No. You have lived it. You have reaped the benefits – and you have voted to take those benefits away from your kids and grandkids.
November 19, 2018
Andy, If we leave then there will always be the opportunity to re-join should you or your children (or another government) wish to do so.
If we fail to leave this time then there will be no legal way to leave ever again.
There will never be another article 50 clause in any subsequent treaties.
The irony about our youth wanting to work and live abroad is that âabroadâ more often means the USA, Australia, Canada and N.Z. and not the EU, and certainly not Eastern Europe or the âstanâ countries that Mr. Cameron thought should be joining the EU in his âAtlantic to the Uralsâ speech in Kazakhstan in July 2013.
November 19, 2018
Andy
for about the 20th times
List the benefits
November 18, 2018
All hopes are now Gel to be able to keep his party under control and vote the deal down and send Mrs May back to renegotiate a new deal.
November 18, 2018
Same you didn`t get down with the yoot
You don`t vote so I don`t care
Too bad future, I wont be there
Word.
( I have no expertise in this area admittedly )
November 18, 2018
Newmania. What’s your post all about?
November 18, 2018
Very simple, basic, question…
Parliament can’t bind its successors.
How has it come to pass that we are in this bind?
And might it be a good idea to enshrine on law the inability of any future bunch of clowns (to insult clowns) to repeat this fiasco?
November 18, 2018
It will give you the most precious political inheritance of all. It will give you a powerful UK democracy where the British people can make their own choices.
Most of the youngsters today are not interested in political inheritance simply because over the years under parties of all colours the teaching of real history and everything my generation learnt about the Empire and all its achievements has all been brushed aside by the dumbing down of the subject and the political leanings of the new generation of teachers.
November 18, 2018
Not true. But todayâs young get it without the rose tinted glasses.
The British Empire did some good things.
It also committed plenty of horrific crimes.
No doubt you learnt about the glories but not the grotesque violence.
November 19, 2018
Andy, there were many in India that wished we hadn’t left there. I wonder if they would be anywhere near as advanced as they are today without our input?
November 18, 2018
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) “Spain continues to be the most desirable location for the three-quarters of a million Brits living in the EU. However, the EU as a whole is not the most popular destination for British expats, with more than half preferring to live in English-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand, US and Canada. The UK population according to the ONS is 66 million. So less than 1/66 of the UK population live in the EU.
I would ask the young person if they think it is fair to subject the entire UK to EU membership so that a few people have the right in the future to live in the EU.
November 18, 2018
What you’re about here is imposing UK democracy on the young whether they like it or not just to suit your own agenda. Maybe these youngsters might want to live a different way, with say no borders, no politicians, little government with parliamentry voting by the people at the touch of a button from their homes, and with no differences between peoples, just administraters and the minimum of robotic technicians to do what’s needed- the drudge
November 18, 2018
JR, from the ERG’s “Your Right to Know”:
http://2mbg6fgb1kl380gtk22pbxgw-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Your-Right-to-Know.pdf
“The ERG published a paper explaining the case for its alternative … A Super Canada trade agreement would not involve being in the Single Market or Customs Union … ”
And would therefore be vetoed by the Irish Republic.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/11/17/73-of-conservative-members-oppose-the-draft-withdrawal-agreement/#comment-974232
“Given that this Irish government has hit upon such a brilliantly successful strategy to protect the economic interests of the Republic, with the co-operation of Theresa May and Olly Robbins, I cannot believe that it or any future Irish government will ever say:
âActually weâve changed our minds, it would be fine with us if it was decided that Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would no longer be under the rules of the EU Customs Union and the EU Single Market.â”
November 18, 2018
I like this reply, simple & reflective. Youâre a little younger than me John so I can remember more years where we enjoyed those very freedoms weâll regain outside the EU. But it concerns me greatly that young Europhiles see little if any difference between the original ECSC, then the EEC, EC & EU, a few even believing these were just renaming exercises rather than power grabs. Hopefully youâve seen the video circulating today of a very animated Guy Verhofstadt saying the only problem with the EU is that member states wonât surrender more of their sovereignty. What a Guy, the gift that keeps on giving.
November 18, 2018
May must go
November 18, 2018
Norway was dirt poor before the oil!
November 19, 2018
Dear Mitchel, Norway did have one of the larger sea transport, shipbuilding, fishing and aluminium industries in the world.
November 19, 2018
Correct-didn’t stop it from being one of the poorest states in western europe though.
November 18, 2018
EU demanding new concessions since their meeting, and apparently making clear that no time for further negotiations on these:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1046978/Brexit-news-Theresa-May-UK-EU-withdrawal-agreement-political-declaration-latest
“Brussels piles misery on May: EU forces FISHING concessions from UK in trade declaration
EUROPEAN Union countries have forced more concessions out of Britain as they tell Theresa May there is no time for negotiations on her controversial divorce package. ….”
November 18, 2018
Given the utter dog’s breakfast that Theresa May has made of Brexit her most likely option now is a “second” referendum in which the (rigged) question will be: Accept May’s deal, or Remain.
For Mrs May it has the multiple advantages of: keeping her in as Prime Minister (something dear to her heart); keeping her Chequers/DWA deals alive (ditto); by-passing the Tory Leave MPs (ditto); by-passing Labour (convenient). It also locks out most Leave voters.
November 18, 2018
NickC..it could be that the EU27 will not agree with the withdrawal agreement and not sign up. Could be that they will see there is no point with so much trouble in English politics any agreement is likely to fail. Therefore we will just leave march 29..more likely
November 19, 2018
But would she get it through Parliament? It was not in any manifesto, it would take six months to hold, a government majority would not be available, and Corbyn would demand a General Election as the price of enabling her to pass it.
November 18, 2018
An eloquent answer with a few troll like responses from the normal Remainer brigade. Of the ones Iâve read none seems to take on the arguement that increasing levels of democracy as well as something that should be treasured in its own right, are generally associated with higher levels of wealth.
There seems constantly the refrain from many younger voters that âyour taking away our futuresâ. Sounds a bit like taking away their dummies, and about time. Do you really need Michel Barnier et al to study and qualify for a profession or set up and run a successful business; (done both) or do you just need drive and ambition.
Iâll try and sum up this wisdom of older voters in a few sentences without writing a thesis.
A few years ago scientists claimed they couldn’t answer the riddle of why humans were coded genetically to survive long past their useful reproductive age. Easy with a little science and maths. Hunter gatherer societies were all the rage 10 000+ years ago. Youngsters with the genetic coding for longevity were more likely to survive because of the wisdom of elder tribe members who had passed on this trait. Wisdom such as in unusually harsh conditions where to go for the most suitable food source etc meant survival and propergation of genes.
In ancient and modern societies with few exceptions it is the older members of a population who are in positions of leadership and influence because of their wisdom even in societies like the Ancient Greek city states were youth was worshipped be it for beauty or its war like potential eg Sparta.
So my message to aggrieved younger voters is that you wouldnât go far wrong listening to the older pro Brexit generation especially when theyâre talking about the importance of democracy and freedom.
November 19, 2018
I see Mrs May congratulated Latvia on 100 years of independence on Twitter (No10 account). Presumably she considers occupation by the Germans and the USSR and now effectively the EU as being independent. At least we know how she thinks, but I suspect Latvians will feel grossly offended, as they were variously occupied by the Swedes, Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russians in the centuries before.
November 19, 2018
Latvia never existed as any form of unified state before 1918-the territories that comprise the contemporary Latvian state were ruled at the local level by the Baltic German nobility (descendants of the crusading Livonian Order of Sword Brothers,cousins of the similarly crusading Teutonic Order which had carved out neighbouring Prussia in the late middle ages) regardless of the changes of imperial ruler in subsequent centuries.The Baltic German Barons substantially ran the entire Russian Empire in it’s final decades;they were the most ferociously devoted and loyal tsarists!
November 19, 2018
Mark
Who are we to judge having invaded and occupied a quarter of the globe in the last few centuries. Calling it ’empire’ makes little difference to the people who experienced it.
November 19, 2018
Living under totalitarian communism was a terrible life for those subjugated by USSR.
Millions murdered, imprisoned without trial, sent to gulags and salt mines, millions more suffering starvation and abject poverty.
To try equate it to the British Empire is ridiculous.
November 20, 2018
OTT-studies show that education and healthcare in Soviet Asia was far superior to that received by subjects of the British Empire’s non-white colonies.They did,after all,believe in race equality.
I think you may need to read a more nuanced history rather than cold war propaganda.
November 23, 2018
Mitchel
I think you could do with a better reading. The Soviets believed in race equality? Dont think you are right there. Edward2 talked about people sent to the Gulags, I’m pretty sure that health care and education wasn’t much kop there either . Haven’t even mentioned the famine
November 19, 2018
Margaret, I’d like to know why you choose to live in the UK. You dont’ say anything positive about your own country. It’s as if you hate it. If it’s that bad then leave.
November 19, 2018
Margaret are you British?
Are you honestly saying that there was no benefit to Africa, India or America of British influence?
November 19, 2018
a-tracy
Maybe we should ask the Zulu, the Xhoza, the Australian Aborigine, the New Zealand Maori, the Apache, Chippewa Indians, the Amazonians, the Carribean Island Indiginous Peoples, the millions of African slaves shipped into the colonies… just to mention a few.
fedup
Attack the argument, not the person
November 20, 2018
Now you have switched the argument as to who should live in any nation.
Effectively you could claim that as dinosaurs lived on earth before man all nations belong to them.
You support mass immigration for Europe yet when it happened in the past you hate it.
November 23, 2018
Margaret Howard
The Zulu and Xhoza aren’t the indigenous people of southern africa either they replaced the Khoisan . The whole of human history is one of mass migrations .
Any how a-tracy asked about benefits not the rightness of actually doing it
November 19, 2018
Whilst it is true that many (but not all) countries of the British Empire benefited from our presence over time they could hardly be said to have been independent. It may also be true that many of them did less well on becoming independent. However, there is surely no doubt that German military occupation of Latvia was brutal, as was the occupation by the USSR for most of its duration, only becoming more benign under Gorbachev. Latvia has spent most of the past century far from being free and independent, and even much of the time they weren’t occupied by a foreign power they were subject to dictatorship.
It is very worrying that Mrs May considers that to be independence.
November 20, 2018
All the new NE European states-Poland,Latvia,Estonia,Lithuania -that were created after WWI and may have started as social democracies ended up by the start of WWII as,to a greater or lesser extent,dictatorships,benign or otherwise.
The best of the new states was undoubtedly Czechoslovakia-and look what happened to that!
November 19, 2018
“The freer the country the more prosperous it usually is. The USA is a mighty economy based on the architecture of freedom, and on the great principles of its Constitution. Switzerland is richer than EU countries, with a fine tradition of Parliament and referenda. Norwayâs democracy has been preserved by staying outside the EU, and she too is a very rich country”
Surely deep down JR must be aware that this is a lot of humbug.
Switzerland is rich because it is a small country that has become the world’s banker
Until Norway discovered oil it was the poorest country in Europe and America is lead by a cruel winner takes all establishment that treats many of its poor worse than some third world countries and which many of its southern states still resemble.
And the crime rate in the ‘mighty, free, prosperous USA is many times higher than in any EU member country.
I wonder why?
November 23, 2018
MH
Hit the nail on the head
the top 10 richest, healthiest, happiest countries in the world are ALL small, independent countries
You might want to think about that
ps actually the Swiss economy is dominated by Pharmaceutical industry , industrials such as Nestle and watch makers as well as bankers.
November 19, 2018
A large majority of my fatherâs generation did not count the economic cost when faced with deciding whether to fight for freedom or surrender our freedom and democracy.
It appears a large proportion of my sonâs generation now believe that such economic items as âjust-in-timeâ deliveries to EU owned motor manufacturers and mobile âphone roaming charges are more important than the ability to elect and remove those who decide upon our laws, taxation and spending, immigration and foreign policies etc.
But this is only because they fail to realise that they are still benefiting from democratically made decisions and that this benign state of existence will disappear as the EU becomes ever more powerful and hence more corrupt.
November 19, 2018
If our youth are unhappy with the way they are ruled now, with many laws decided already by the EU whilst our governments always pretend they have initiated the legislation to hide the EU directive, how can they not imagine their unhappiness when they are directly ruled by a combination of unelected and un-removable commissioners and QMV ?
I feel our youth need to understand how and who makes our EU laws and what is happening in other EU countries by searching the internet rather than just relying on the BBC for their foreign news.
They would then see, for instance, how the effects of the Euro have brought massive youth unemployment to many EU countries and how the youth in Italy are now voting for parties who are Eurosceptic and fighting the EU to be able to run their economies in the way their voters wish.
November 20, 2018
Yesterday on national radio a remain supporting young lady, described as a former Apprentice star and Big Brother candidate, said :
âI donât think we should ever have had a referendum. We elect a government and we put our trust in that government to make major decisions for us.â
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1047432/Brexit-news-UK-latest-update-EU-deal-Theresa-May-Luisa-Zissman
It is clear to me that many young people still do not understand how the EU works.
Leavers should be concentrating on making it clearer that membership of the EU means a UK government will not be taking the âmajor decisionsâ and that these will be taken by people we do not know, have not elected and we cannot remove.