The Brexit bears love blaming any factory closure or lost job on Brexit when it is usually industrial change or company misjudgement. Every western country is witnessing the collapse of the High Street, and most are seeing distress in their car making businesses, given the huge pace of legislative and technical change. These same people do not balance their commentaries by looking at where all the extra jobs and investment are coming from. It is coming, of course, from the new winners.
Since the Brexit vote the UK has attracted substantial new investment and jobs, with net employment well up and unemployment down. How different it proved to be compared to the false forecasts of the Treasury, Bank and IMF. One of the sources of those jobs has been the major US tec giants. Apple has announced a 500,000 square foot new headquarters in the new Battersea development. Google is taking a new 650,000 square foot facility at Kings cross. Amazon has a new HQ at Shoreditch and is making substantial investments around the country in new distribution facilities. Facebook has set up a new London engineering hub. A host of new technology companies have clustered in parts of the UK, finding the skilled workforce, market and access to finance they need to grow.
The UK economy will do better once we have left if we spend the money we save and if we enact laws and taxes that are good for business and for people who want to get on in the world by setting up businesses and employing others. Chagne is happening at a fast pace. A successful economy will need to embrace the digital revolution. The EU is fighting it with regulations and austerity economics.
Innovation and flexibility are at a premium.Who will run the AirBnb of car leasing? Who will produce autonomous vehicles? Who will discover the new mix of services and some retail that will underpin a modern High Street? Who will adapt more old buildings of the pre digital era to contemporary uses? Who will develop and sell more labour saving robots and tractors to pick fruit and plant seeds? As we leave the EU we can do things better and recapture lost markets with new ways of doing things.
I am trying to get Ministers in this government to see the huge opportunities and to start planning for them. At least Liam Fox yesterday announced a series of penal tariffs imposed by the EU on things we don’t make or produce for ourselves will come off as soon as we leave, making some items cheaper.
February 26, 2019
“I am trying to get Ministers in this government to see the huge opportunities and to start planning for them. ”
Your points are well made but if Ministers minds are already set against Brexit you will struggle to get them to listen, still less change their ways.
We are now in the Brexit endgame. If you can ensure your fellow Leave MPs stand firm and vote down the Withdrawal Agreement the most pressing task will be achieved.
What happens after that could go a number of ways, but people should not be fooled into thinking it means no Brexit.
February 26, 2019
If the media is to be believed we are about to be sold out by the cabinet.
Subservience beckons
If this happens, your party has done this while Corbyn fiddled
February 26, 2019
Just heard May in parliament, nothing she says can be believed anymore. She is the most dishonest PM in living memory. The govt needs to be brought down. Cabinet and the Tory govt have betrayed the nation. Labour Party the same. May’s choices leav the EU with all the cards. Her behaviour and that of the cabinet is absolutely disgusting. Words fail me.
Tory associations need to withdraw support immediately.
February 26, 2019
We read that the cabinet has approved to pay the EU billions in the event of no deal! May has lost the plot and the loony Tories are allowing her to continue!
February 26, 2019
Hope, I share your anger and frustration with our totally dishonest and dishonourable PM and her fellow MPs. A disgrace to this country.
February 26, 2019
Looking at ConHome and national association motion to leave on 29/03/2019 deal or no deal no delay. I take it no one will lift a finger for local elections in May for the Tory partly after May’s betrayal of this motion today.
Taxation at 50 year record high. I also suspect no one will want to pay tax wherever possible because May’s government wants to give the EU billions even if there is no deal! they will start to pay on our exit date we read. Our public services are in dire straights.
Moreover, loony tune May today stated in parliament she rectified a social injustice by changing stop and search! Murder rate at historic record highs, stabbings at record highs and this is her pathetic response. How about the victims and their families. Immigration at record historic record highs, lost illegal immigrant at historic record highs, Compare to her Windrush scandal! May is an uncontrollable idiot.
February 26, 2019
I agree with Hope and Chris. A disaster waiting to happen. May should have gone months ago. She is an utter failure and we can’t believe anything she says. God knows why anyone wants to stay in the party.
February 26, 2019
Hope, Theresa May is just not believable. The draft Withdrawal Agreement suits the EU because they rightly assessed that our MPs will accept anything rather than the mis-named “No deal”. This is an outrage. It is people vs MPs.
If MPs will not back Leave without qualifications on 29 March they are cheating us. And the British don’t like cheats. The ramifications of this government’s incompetence and lies will have an effect for decades. Clearly neither the Tory nor the Labour party will now survive as they are.
February 26, 2019
There is an effective response to May reneging on the promise to leave at the end of March.
Call a vote of no confidence in the government. Labour gets its general election but Parliament is suspended and thus a WTO Brexit comes into force at the due date at the end of March.
Leavers get re-elected. Dross lose their seats.
Country before party.
February 26, 2019
We are not in the Brexit endgame at all.
You lot genuinely think it will be done on March 29? Bless. No. That it when the process of gradually destroying Brexit – and crushing its instigators – begins.
February 26, 2019
Andy, You need to start thinking of the younger generations instead of just being a rich self-satisfied middle aged man. Southern EU has appalling prospects for the young – nearly 40% youth unemployment in Greece and over 30% in Spain and Italy. We need Brexit to protect our youth.
February 26, 2019
You do not mention the Czech Republic. Or Slovenia. Or Litahuania. Or the half of EU countries which have lower or similar youth unemployment to us. Why is that?
Also – if the EU or even the Eurozone is entirely to blame for the economic problems in Greece, why are most other EU and Eurozone countries not experiencing the same problems?
The reality is that Greece was a basketcaee before it joined the EU and Eurozone. It is still a basketcase now. But at least it has had support from Europe whereas it would have completely collapsed as a result of the 2008 crisis without it.
February 26, 2019
Andy your comparison countries have an average minimum wage per month of EUR480 EUR400, EUR842, furthermore
‘There is no specific statutory minimum wage in
Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia,
Slovenia and Spain.’
Perhaps cheap teenager labour is the reason?
February 26, 2019
Andy, You pick on Greece because it’s small. Just as the EU did. But conveniently drop Spain and Italy which are far larger than Lithuania, or Slovenia, or Greece. France too has terrible prospects for their youth compared with us.
The Euro area (the EU’s flag-ship policy) as a whole has youth unemployment on average 44% greater than the UK’s, even with big economies like Germany and Holland. Millions of young people are paying for your EU ideology as they flounder in poverty and hopelessness.
February 26, 2019
Usual remainer propaganda from andy
Everything that is good in any member nation is all due to the glorious EU
Anything bad in any member nation is the member nation’s own fault.
February 26, 2019
I did not say that at all. I have always said that the EU is far from perfect. But those of you who blame the EU for everything – which some of you do – are just fools. Quite clearly varying national policies and circumstances are the biggest influence on performance.
As for my examples having low wages and no minimum wage – what the ghastly all encompassing EU does not force these things on sovereign states, and they are allowed to decide their own economic policy? Who knew? Well, I did.
February 27, 2019
Don’t try to turn it round andy.
I don’t “blame everything on the EU”
Most EU fans would have had the UK using the Euro.
It is plain that for the majority of nations it has led to austerity, high unemplyment and dreadfully high youth unemplyment.
Yet you refuse to accept that and blame it all on the individual nations.
Just as you now carry on doing regarding their minimum wage rates.
February 27, 2019
Andy, Well you don’t know very much then. The Eurozone economies are in essence controlled from the centre by the EU and the ECB – from budget deficits to the amount of currency they can issue to the Target2 imbalances.
We do not blame the EU for everything, but you extol the EU for everything. You’ve just spent many months claiming that Brexit will impoverish us, particularly youth, whilst being oblivious to the plank in your eye of miserable EU/EZ policies that have blighted a millions in southern EU.
It’s rank hypocrisy. An apology from you is in order. But I don’t expect one, because you are just a Remain propagandist.
February 26, 2019
So.
For daring to vote Leave we don’t just get Remain. We get HARD Remain.
Some democrats Remainers are !
February 26, 2019
Andy
“…when the process of gradually destroying Brexit – and crushing its instigators – begins.”
Not if we crush you and your type first!
February 26, 2019
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00012/full
Britain one of the least racist countries in the EU. Take note, Andy.
February 26, 2019
“We are not in the Brexit endgame at all.
You lot genuinely think it will be done on March 29? ”
We ARE in the Brexit endgame. That does not mean “it will be done on March 29.”
It means the can kicking comes to an end unless May can get an extension. Leavers still have to vote down the Withdrawal Agreement. After that, there are a number of possible developments.
However, with no Withdrawal Agreement, a delay means both sides regroup. Leave would be best served by removing May and recalcitrant MPs – however long it takes.
February 26, 2019
Good morning.
The reason why this is, is because principally many of the rEU27, principally Germany, France, the Netherlands and a few others, do not have such an advantage and wish to nix ours. That way they can then build up their own market and take our share. Witness their envy of the UK’s financial sector and the fact that the Single Market in Services is undeveloped and EU negotiated FTA’s do little for us.
The rEU27 really do fear the UK Leaving the EU. They fear that we will become more and more competitive and take more investment as they descend into ever decreasing spirals of large contributions to the EU and damaging micromanagement from the ……centre in Brussels. And all this topped up with a EURO project that is slowing strangling them.
February 26, 2019
Slightly tangental.
Just a quick post to thank everybody for the responses to ‘what would it take to change your mind?’
Two things I learned was that some people see that we need to look at GDP over a longer time horizon, say 3 years rather than one year, to come up with any conclusions about whether Brexit is working.
Also that some people actively do not seem to care about the effect on GDP and say it is simply about getting our country back.
Personally I think the second view maybe a grave error. My experience has been that when government spending is under pressure, it can lead to social problems as there isn’t enough money to go around.
February 26, 2019
Merlin, you put forward some interesting points, without ending with an insult, for which I thank you 🙂
But, for me the most compelling reason to leave the EU [and that’s not leave Europe] is the future direction of travel…
February 26, 2019
And I thank you for the thank you. Yes, all this insulting each other is a huge pain and it seems a bit unfair.
Just because I disagree with the Brexiteers, it doesn’t mean I can’t see they are doing what they think best for this country. And vice versa, of course.
February 26, 2019
Merlin,
Your approach is extremely welcome. Everyone that I have spoken to on the subject, has a personal point of view (rather obviously) and this has – in large part – been shaped by their experiences, be that travel, work, etc, etc, hence it is such a tricky subject to debate or try to reason with..
I had a fruity conversation with a chap from/in France, who asked why we didn’t stay in the EU and work at it from the inside….I asked him if he remembered David Camerons’ effort at a ‘re-negotiation’…..and then politely informed him that there is no point in staying in a ‘club’ if no-one listens to you when you absolutely NEED change
He was completely dumb-struck..as if he didn’t know it had happened. Shame really….it could have been different, but now it needs (the situation) to change!
February 26, 2019
If GDP is not GDP per head (and it is not) then it has no net beneficial effect on the people of this country. They cannot be expected to put up with high immigration watering down their standard of living indefinitely.
And how exactly is throwing away extra £billions on Danegeld to Brussels going to help ‘government spending’?
Your arguments are those of the hotel guest, not of the lifelong resident.
February 26, 2019
This argument bothers me. In economic circles, it’s known as the lumpen labour fallacy.
According the this argument, you should never give women jobs because they will take away all the jobs from the men.
As we have seen, women have been a huge asset to this country and the economy. They do not take jobs. They make jobs and they make businesses.
However, in the short-term immigration certain puts pressure on schools and services, so I do agree with that aspect.
February 26, 2019
Though I always have to add the effects of Brexit are so complicated. To paraphrase Niels Bohr.
‘Anyone who claims to understand Brexit doesn’t understand Brexit.’
February 26, 2019
Merlin your response is a well argued non-seqitur.
Mancunius did not say that immigrants take jobs from indigenous people, we acknowledge that immigrant demand can create jobs. What he did say was that the GDP per head is declining and so our collective (and at the mid to lower end individual) standard of living is getting less at the same time that excess demand is putting prices up.
Your final qualifier about strain on schools and services (and housing and road capacity and trains and defence and policing and eventually social care etc.) Is as likely to be long term as short term precisely because GDP per head is declining as such so is the tax take.
February 26, 2019
Merlin, What, like the appalling youth unemployment in Italy, Spain and Greece? That sort of social problem?
Frankly, being independent of the EU does not itself lead to destitution and social problems, and it is absurd to guess it will. Basing your love of the EU ideology on such a guess, when you have nations similar to us in the rest of the world doing perfectly well, is doubly so.
February 26, 2019
Merlin
Belgium has requested that the EU Commission allow them to use state funds to assist business post BREXIT as they may not be ready for a ‘no deal’. The UK on the other hand, once out all the treaties no longer apply, we can do what the hell we want. Big difference !
February 26, 2019
Merlin, you’ve got it the wrong way round. There’s not enough money to go round because the government is spending too much, and they are spending it nothing like as carefully as it would be spent if the money was simply left in our pockets and purses as taxpayers.
February 26, 2019
We are in our present pickle due to decades of mismanagement of the economy. Both by our various governments and the EU. Fundamentally, we need to allow the free enterprise system to work. We have not been doing so. Our politicians keep trying to “improve” it. What they need to do is get out of the way. There is a role for the government to play, it’s an important role, but it’s a limited role. Our government should not be spending what now amounts to over half of the income of the people of the country. They should consider what people want more in terms of what people are willing to pay for, rather than in terms of what they think people ought to want.
February 26, 2019
As I keep saying. All governments should do, is legislate to keep markets free, fair and open. Let competition do the rest. Trying to micromanage and tell private enterprise that is should employ ‘x-type’ of people is wrong. Government have no business in business and business have no business in government.
February 26, 2019
“All governments should do, is legislate to keep markets free, fair and open.”
Merlin, I fully agree. Unfortunately the EU spends a lot of time passing rules that favour big businesses rather than keeping a level playing field for all (e.g. the upcoming Article 11&13).
Even our own government is not immune, with the upcoming huge overhead of “making tax digital” initiative – easy to implement and retrain staff for a company with a finance division, much less so for a business with five to ten people, and impossible for some of the micro-traders I work with.
However, leaving the EU will at least remove one source of red tape and inequality.
February 26, 2019
Sorry, that should read Mark, not Merlin.
February 26, 2019
@ James
I totally agree. There is clearly a role for Govt to play, but it should be minimal
I cannot understand why successive governments have not learnt the lesson of ‘unintended consequences’. I wonder if the constant parachuting of people into Senior roles, who stay a year or two without fully understanding their brief, just to move onto the next post is part of the problem?
Question: would it be better if a Minister for Transport (say) must have come from a background of working in that industry? Energy strikes me as a particular problem-child galloping over the horizon…?
There must be a better way of doing this and many Ministers wouldn’t have a hope of getting their jobs in the private sector…yet we pay for their errors in the medium/long term…it’s nuts really.
February 26, 2019
Mark B, The EU already took away our leadership in civil and military aviation. Or, rather, our leaders, transfixed-by-the-EU-ideology, gave it to them. One of the main advantages we have is that the EU tends to say it will do the opposite of the “Anglos” but actually copies us. And to be fair, they are good at copying. Meanwhile our Remains/europhiles don’t even know what’s going on.
February 26, 2019
NickC
“EU tends to say it will do the opposite of the “Anglos” but actually copies us. And to be fair, they are good at copying.”
Can you give us a few examples?
February 26, 2019
Saving the Euro with QE? The United States of Europe? Will that do?
February 27, 2019
The UK created $550bn of new money in its QE programme between 2009 and 2012.
The eurozone began its programme of QE in January 2015 and has so far pumped in $600bn of extra money
So, the EU of 500m people printed about the same as the UK of 60m people?
So as between 2008 and 2015, the US Federal Reserve in total bought bonds worth more than $3.7 trillion, it is as usual the UK copying the US like we do when we go to war with them.
February 26, 2019
You can always tell the true stance of a politician, regardless of what ‘party’ they belong to, by their ‘I know best control freakery’ and fetish for mountains of red tape.
It is this that makes it harder for businesses to succeed and thrive. What on earth happened to free market principles that enables entrepreneurial innovation to exist and grow and subsequently the country’s economy to benefit from it?
I am left wondering if there is a plaque somewhere in Whitehall with the meme, ‘why have it easy, when it can be complicated’?
February 26, 2019
Ronald Reagan:
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.””
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
February 26, 2019
I posted former President Ronald Reagan’s words here and it got deleted. Well done 😉
February 26, 2019
This is the real reason the establishment claim to fear “No Deal” – should, please God, it come about, the absence of dire consequences will irretrievably expose them as the incompetent dishonest deluded decadent parasites they really are.
February 26, 2019
Oliver
Again, more and more people are coming round to this view. That is why we need a people GE and not another referendum.
February 26, 2019
Their phobia about No Deal is just cover for engineering No Brexit.
February 26, 2019
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6744547/Theresa-set-RULE-No-Deal-Brexit.html#comments
Do these these people want a civil war and that goes for turn coat labour wanting a second referendum, they really do not understand the feeling of the public but they will if we are betrayed and kept in the undemocratic eu , it’s about time a mass march was organised in the centre of England like Birmingham and not snowflake London by the leavers to show the remoaners what we want and that’s OUT
February 26, 2019
Oh do be serious, civil war indeed !
I played for veterans 15 against some youngsters a year or two ago, I have just about regained the use of my limbs….. believe me the old are best off sticking to outraged letters to the Daily Telegraph.
February 26, 2019
I do one hour of heavy resistance training 5x a week and three HIIT runs up steep hills. My peer group is very similar.
Practically ALL of my young colleagues are obese.
I think ours will be the first case of the older generation caring for the younger.
February 26, 2019
Newmania, Plenty of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s voted for Leave too. And look at the Gilets Jaunes for an example of civil insurrection. When governments won’t obey democracy they encourage rebellion, even if it takes some time.
February 26, 2019
NickC. Quite right. My children are in their twenties and thirties and they voted leave. We were in a garage today and all the young mechanics we spoke to all want to leave with no deal. They are sick and tired of it all. Their message was just get on with it. Big business should not have the final say.
February 26, 2019
NickC
“. And look at the Gilets Jaunes for an example of civil insurrection.”
Really? I’ve heard that they have now ended up fighting each other.
Just another rabble.
February 26, 2019
Dude you don’t get it…some of us got our military training in far tougher places than Wales…Try Rhodesia and South Africa and fighting in Angola, South West Africa and Mozambique…I might be ‘old’ but I ain’t dead yet….And I’ll get behind the barricade …….
February 26, 2019
Not only that but apparently the government has agreed to pay off a large part of the divorce bill whether we get a deal or not.
The good news is that if May extends article 50 then the Brexit Party will be fighting the EU and local elections giving us a chance to bury all 3 legacy parties.
Every cloud………….
February 26, 2019
I’ve just signed up for it. First started voting Conservative in 1978. No more until there has been a clear-out.
February 26, 2019
Moreover, the ministers she is said to be caving in to are nothing like as valuable as the ministers she happily let go over Chequers and the DWA.
February 26, 2019
No only are Labour now in support of another referendum but the choice would be May’s disastrous deal or remain. In other words, no Brexit. Labour are even bigger traitors than remain Tory MPs and that’s saying something.
February 26, 2019
Ye gods , not the ‘white heat of technology’ re heated … its like a museum of naff slogans
Business investment is lagging behind France and Germany and slowed badly towards the end of last year but lets not get bogged down in facts There was no brake on innovation, but if you wished to sell into our largest market now you would not wish to set up your exciting new venture here , the worst place in Europe to do European business.
February 26, 2019
Well. A double whammy here.
The EU loses one of its top three contributors.
The EU loses one of its biggest buyers.
And that goes whether we leave in the EU in a mean way or whether our economy goes *pop*.
Whatever. We do not go down in isolation and the binds and usurious rates included in the WA ? Germany, of all places, should know about this sort of thing so even they might not want it.
February 26, 2019
“EU loses one of its top three contributors”
Daily Telegraph this morning:-
“EXCLUSIVE:Government planning to pay billions to Brussels-even in event of no deal Brexit”
Geopolitics demands that those perennially bankrupt/impoverished statelets in the East be funded lest they be (re-)absorbed into Mr Putin and Mr Xi’s Eurasian project.
February 26, 2019
Yes. But at what value the pound ???
February 26, 2019
Anonymous
“The EU loses one of its top three contributors. ”
The European Commission has a different figure namely that the UK is the sixth highest contributor to the EU budget per capita
February 27, 2019
Margaret Howard, Like people who use percentages to disguise the true figure, you try to hide the enormous amount of cash we just hand over. Talking about GDP/capita can make sense. But this isn’t a pissing contest. What the EU loses is our total amount of cash.
February 26, 2019
@Newmania; Except what you claim to be one of those “naff slogans” was never a slogan, nor even quoted correctly, Wilson merely asked people to recognise scientific advances and by doing so Great Britain could be world leaders – and we would have been had it not been for the naysayers on both the left and right.
As for our largest market, that would be the world market, some 150 odd countries, verses the EU27…
The EU will soon become one, the USE, or as close to it as will make little difference. So when @Newmania talks about selling (read: exporting [1]) into our largest market (read: the EU27) it’s akin to an English business back in the 1950s selling their products to a Scottish business – there would have been little or no growth in the 1950s had the UK not exported outside of its own Union of four nations, and in some cases the Empire/Commonwealth!
[1] and thus earning foreign currencies, thus increasing the national wealth
February 26, 2019
“Let’s not get bogged down with facts.” A fairly accurate description of your post. Just because you claim something to be true , it doesn’t make it so. All the current evidence suggests that your are well wide of the mark. As I have said to other remoaners, you have the opportunity to make the EU your future home. Free movement is still in force.
February 26, 2019
At my age it would not be practical but I`m sure that, like me, a lot of parents will be considering opportunities to study and work abroad for our children,
February 26, 2019
Well said. Many of us are wondering why we should carry on sharing an island with so many ranting leave bigots anyway.
February 26, 2019
I leave the ranting and bigotry to you. You do it so well! I just identify flaws in your arguments and suggest suitable solutions. Overseas travel and studying did not begin with the formation of the EU. Indeed, in past centuries, wealthy families (like yours?) sent their offspring all over the globe, to sample different cultures. Nowadays they all come to us! I am quite happy for this to happen but freeloaders may not apply. We cannot withstand the logistical and financial pressure indefinitely.
February 26, 2019
I have had enough of you now Andy, carry on and I will report you to the Equality Commission.
“Harassment is unwanted conduct related to the equality grounds which damages, or which is done with the aim of damaging, a person’s dignity or of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that person”
February 26, 2019
Andy, I would encourage you to go, so I don’t have to share an island with so many ranting Remain bigots who lost the Referendum.
February 26, 2019
Even less chance of them getting into Oxbridge according to the news this morning.
My boys faced almost open discrimination on application to their courses – particularly the one who’s at med school.
All while in the EU !
February 27, 2019
Mine got into Cambridge because he was good enough and therefore they gave him an unconditional offer – meaning he didn’t even have to wait for his A-level results.
They know what they are looking for – nothing to do with the EU.
February 26, 2019
@Newmania; “a lot of parents will be considering opportunities to study and work abroad for our children,”
Indeed, I understand the possibilities of studying in the USA, Canada and Australia are very popular, at least amongst those without closed minds to the RotW…
February 26, 2019
Well, I daresay they could fit it around a couple of years’ conscription.
February 26, 2019
‘As we leave the EU we can do things better and recapture lost markets’. And this type of statement explains why most of us are deeply, deeply cynical of all politicians.
Sir John knows full well that the UK will not be leaving the EU as per the prescribe date set out by legislation. He also knows that May will either push for an extension or seek opposition support to circumvent the referendum result. And yet he continues to assert that our leaving the EU is a fait accompli when he knows that this is not true
You do yourself no favours by saying such things
We now understand Tory Brexiteers have no intentions of bringing down this Europhile government. Their loyalty to their party, their employment and their lifestyle far exceeds their loyalty to democracy and the fundamental importance of UK sovereignty and independence
Such is the nature of contemporary politics that we can no longer rely on our political class to act in accordance with the unwritten rules of morality, decency and truth
February 26, 2019
Dominic,
With a very heavy heart, I fear you are quite correct.
February 26, 2019
Quite right Peter the vodka will take a bashing tonight.
February 26, 2019
I feel so sad to say you’re right, Dominic, and there are many of us with heavy hearts, Peter. We are now rapidly losing faith even with those whose seeming fortitude, up to now, we’ve admired. Perhaps it wasn’t fortitude after all. I don’t like to think what it might have been. Have we been duped?
At least, till now, we’ve felt some have been fighting our corner, but as they cling so desperately to May even while they acknowledge her perfidy, how can we go on believing in them? I am sickened by the openly shameless self-serving-ness of our MPs. They are dishonourable to say the very least, and they don’t even care that we know they are. Pitiful.
February 26, 2019
Plenty of help from Labour yesterday. Support the Losers Vote and from an MP, whose name is forgettable, best Fear of the Day. Doctors will be having to chose which cancer patient to treat. BBC lunchtime politics chat show for Remoaning. They really must think that the people who elected them are very thick indeed.
February 26, 2019
I agree.
February 26, 2019
The ‘threat’ of 15 Cabinet ministers to resign unless ‘no deal’ is taken off the table is exactly what May wants.
A true Remain PM would tell them that she will not be blackmailed and Cabinet Members so minded must resign before leaving the meeting and that their jobs would be filled with Brexiteers by lunch time. She should further state that should a new referendum be called by Parliament, she would regard that as a ‘no confidence’ vote and call an immediate General Election, thereby stopping Parliament altogether and allowing no deal to go through and at the same time clear the house of those who cannot stand democracy.
February 26, 2019
How I wish that could happen, but the PM hasn’t got the guts or the interest in democracy.
February 26, 2019
Indeed. We are being sold out big time as was always her plan. The ERG have been played along with the rest of the gutless Tory MPs
February 26, 2019
Yes, Dominic. I fear you are absolutely right about the Brexiter MPs when you write:
“Tory Brexiteers have no intentions of bringing down this Europhile government. Their loyalty to their party, their employment and their lifestyle far exceeds their loyalty to democracy and the fundamental importance of UK sovereignty and independence..”
It all seems to have been bluff and bluster from them.
February 26, 2019
Indeed. Brexiteers should request a vote of “no confidence” to bring down this Vichy Government and an election then called to put Brexiteer candidates in every constituency.
February 26, 2019
That word ”should” again.
February 26, 2019
Imagine how much better the country would be, if we could also free ourselves of the politicians who cannot see life without the EU umbilical cord.
February 26, 2019
Please read the comments in the news media.
This country is slipping into civil disobedience.
May is gambling with a civil war.
February 26, 2019
This is going to go on for decades if not longer. Never mind our civil war before the Restoration, some people still cannot accept that Richard III lost at Bosworth and the Tudors came in. But this passion is what makes Britain Great. Why don’t we just stay in and
destroymodify the EU from within towards a better end.February 26, 2019
Javelin,
You are correct. As May rules out no deal and Corbyn pushes for a Bruno Vs Remain referendum then disobedience seems the only choice available. It is as though EU supporting politicians see this French like approach as optimum. Let the proletariat get it out its system then carry on regardless.
February 26, 2019
The prodding and provoking of the entire EU population is beyond reason. And here especially re Brexit. Beyond accidental?
Order out of chaos?
February 26, 2019
No. We’ll just leave voting to the kids. Our input is clearly not wanted.
People like us never smash up high streets or the West End. (Margaret Howard always gets this one wrong.)
February 26, 2019
I may have to revise what I’ve just said at 8.37
I have just visited a few comments pages on newspapers and never read the like of it – and the tens of thousands of “up” ticks to them.
Indeed. We are on the cusp of something awful.
February 26, 2019
There is indeed a considerable amount of simmering robust opposition to our Remain establishment. Though, as in 2016, they are in denial.
February 26, 2019
Indeed all we need is for the government to get us out and get out of the way. Lower simpler taxes, far less red tape, cheap reliable energy and far less government. Freedom and chose for individuals as to how we invest or spend our own money. Be it on education, health, business investment, housing, saving for pensions, our children or whatever ….
That way we can create real jobs rather than endless crones, parasitic and unproductive ones.
February 26, 2019
We need to be competitive. Philip Hammond keep complaining about low productivity in the UK but he and government are the main reason for it.
Restrictive employment laws, restrictive planning, endless green crap, expensive energy, highest and most complex taxes for 40 odd years, endless government waste like HS2, and idiotic subsidies for renewables, project fear (from Hammond Carney and many others) deterring investment. The Mayor of London’s office even run endless expensive adverts to tell us about London’s filthy polluted air, (to justify yet another tax).
Average wage is circa £26K and increased by about 3.1% in 2018 so £800 less tax 24%, less 12% NI, less the 20% increase by Hammond on all your insurance taxes, less council tax up 5.1%, less the increase in workplace pensions contribution 1% of salary.
So is anything left after this or is all of your £800 increase going straight to government so they can largely waste – on things like HS2. Hinkely C, banning gas hobs, subsidising green crap and similar?
February 26, 2019
Absolutely. I would love to stop spending more than half of my taxes on your pensions, healthcare and social care. I also do not want my taxes spent on pointless aircraft carriers with no aircraft.
I could save 60% of all my taxes if I did not have to fund you folk and our national warmongering.
February 26, 2019
I had to contribute in the same way when I was employed. That’s how the system works. The current taxpayers contribute to the existing pensioners. You are not being singled out. By the way, thank you for my pension this month. It’s much appreciated!
February 26, 2019
Never mind, Andy, you can go to bed safe in the knowledge that your fixation with the EU ideology has helped to impoverish millions of the EU’s younger generation.
February 26, 2019
Andy
You don’t pay any tax from of your Jobseeker’s Allowance so who are you trying to kid?
February 26, 2019
You are certainly not funding me mate. We pay at least 100 time more in taxes than my family ever get in services. This even before they steal another 40% of me on death (which I will hopefully avoid by good tax planning and death timing (yet another cost/tax on me)).
I agree that Blair’s & Cameron’s counter productive wars were hugely and predictably damaging, totally idiotic and very expensive – in many tragic ways.
February 26, 2019
The aircraft carriers were built as part of EU joint defence plans. The reason there are no planes is that they were meant to be French and half the crews were meant to be from the EU. The RN cannot even crew them.
February 26, 2019
Sorry:-
freedom and choice for individuals
crony jobs not “crones”
February 26, 2019
Yes, remain will clutch at any set of unrelated circumstances to justify their lack of confidence in GB ltd out of the EU. Their dependency on the EU for all intellectual thought and supposed business advantage is pathetic. They can only think of the next EU giro. They do not realise that the longer we remain in the more we will be screwed.
As you imply there is a whole world of unfettered opportunity out there. We need a whole new set of MPs to understand this and create the right legislative background to take advantage of it. The current HoC contains too many negative vibes.
February 26, 2019
government planning is always wrong, whether it be numbers of each skill to train up, numbers of each type of building to build, where people will want to live, what will be the next “big thing”, and so on
the best thing government can do is stop thinking it has a clue, or that top down planning is a valid approach, and instead hand power as much as possible over to individual citizens, and facilitate the changes that people and money making business themselves ask for
government should get its own act together on the basics, law and order, defence, immigration control, driving down the overhead of the state, and leave the rest to millions of individuals and businesses making small decisions which collectively move things in the best way
its got to be said, business is already too heavily manipulated by the state and the silly way it imposes stricter anti pollution and such regimes which our competitor nations do not, forces out business is certain directions while doing nothing positive for net world pollution, so all that stuff needs a rethink
as does intellectual property protection, as a leading country which produces a lot of the best IP we suffer greatly from other countries using our designs, software, entertainment, etc without paying their dues, there should be a strong push in international negotiations to improve this
we also need a concerted effort to improve the quality of our political class, we cannot go on with the dire quality political candidates all the main parties select
February 26, 2019
There are many examples of AIM listed companies that are raising new equity capital to accelerate their growth both in the UK and globally. They are based on new and evolving technologies which seek to provide competitive advantages. May’s WA would make it all too easy for the EU to snuff out their innovations – as Dyson has experienced.
February 26, 2019
This post emphasises the importance of getting No Deal over the line, followed by lots of liberal trade deals. The problem is this rotten parliament. It looks more likely with every passing day that the next General Election must be Brexiteers (ALL Brexiteers) vs the rest.
February 26, 2019
I agree about ALL Brexiteers. However, there are some Tory Brexiter MPs who could not do that. Witness their appalling smearing and mocking of Nigel Farage, and UKIP, and the steps they took to sideline him, and to deny him, many believe, a fair fight at Thanet South. What happened to the case against Craig McKinlay and one of his team?
February 26, 2019
It is reported that the govt plan to hand over much of the £39bn even if there is no Deal and just resolved this in a meeting. Is this true?
February 26, 2019
Given the record of May, Hammond and Robbins and this appalling fake Conservative Government I rather suspect that is it true.
February 26, 2019
How do the Conservatives think they will win an election with the entire Conservative news and social media comment sections calling them untrustworthy and traitorous day after day, week after week, month after month ?
February 26, 2019
Javelin, I don’t think the “establishment”/deep state minds which Party wins as long as the UK is blocked from effectively leaving the EU. I also think it doesn’t concern May that much if the Cons suffer defeat at an election as long as she and her team have successfully carried out the establishment’s deep state requirements, and ensured that we will be a vassal state.
The only people who will mind among the Conservatives are the true Conservative grassroots, and a motley collection of weak and impotent Tory Brexiter MPs who apparently believed they could say that they were Brexiters, but in reality put Party above country and sold us out also. They are now as bad as the Remainers in my mind.
February 26, 2019
The Brexiteer Party will be standing candidates in every leave constituency. How will that work out for remainiacs in those seats?
February 26, 2019
It’s very simple. Tory Brexiteers like Sir John and his colleagues are not prepared to bring down a pro-EU government and fell a PM that’s dispensed with the principle of honesty, sincerity and morality
She and her EU partners are constructing events that will ensure we remain in the EU.
Only a Eurosceptic Tory PM and Eurosceptic government will guarantee UK independence and sovereignty
And these articles written by Sir John are based on a false premise. I find that disingenuous
February 26, 2019
‘And these articles written by Sir John are based on a false premise.’
Or hope.
February 27, 2019
The stark facts are just as you have written, Dominic:
“It’s very simple. Tory Brexiteers like Sir John and his colleagues are not prepared to bring down a pro-EU government and fell a PM that’s dispensed with the principle of honesty, sincerity and morality..”
This is what the electorate see, Sir John, and any amount of words from you and fellow Brexiter MPs just will not convince the Leavers. All of you seem to condone Theresa May’s disgraceful behaviour and that is the message we get loud and clear. Why should any of us vote for you now? I won’t be voting for Conservatives unless an utterly committed Brexit leader takes over pdq and “strains every sinew” to effect Brexit and restore honesty and integrity to the Party. Even then I will need real proof of intent and not manifesto promises which are of the pie crust variety.
February 26, 2019
I will certainly not be voting for Remain candidates and I will be doing all I can to avoid purchasing EU goods to reduce our £100bn/year trading deficit with the EU.
February 26, 2019
Especially Irish beef and dairy sold in great quantity by M&S, Aldi &Lidl amongst others.
Disgusted by the Irish …. PM? Teach him a lesson he will never be allowed to forget and boycott ALL stockists.
Actions have consequences for the common man – just make sure this joker suffers.
February 26, 2019
New jobs and investment might come from all of these new trade deals that Liam Fox has lined up for us when we leave – except that he hasn’t.
This whole brexit thing is on it’s last legs now – has to be – because the whole idea was so stupid from the start – so watch the parliamentarians do it – they will confound the whole thing out of existence
February 26, 2019
Along with people’s trust in Parliament and ‘democracy’ . Many, myself included will never vote for anything again. What’s the point, when our so called Representatives can just turn the whole thing on its head anytime they like. Democracy will finally be gone from thus country to the delight of the EU panjandrums, to be followed by democracy in the whole of the EU in due time. Europe has been down this road before, at least twice in the 20th century, but no one takes notice of history when they know best.
February 26, 2019
FranzB, Why is it stupid to be as independent as New Zealand? It was Parliament that gave the people the choice to make. Leave is not going away.
February 26, 2019
We are already independent. And, as I have pointed out New Zealanders are poorer than us. Why do you want to make us poorer?
Also you don’t really want to be like NZ anyway. NZ is friendly with its neighbours, it cooperates internationally, it based its policy on fact and its understanding of democracy is that people are not only entitled but encouraged to disagree.
You actually want us to be like North Korea. No international deals with anyone. Full control of our own sovereignty and where anyone who disagrees with you is fed to wolves.
February 27, 2019
This is the third time I have told you that New Zealand is not poorer than the UK andy.
GDP per capita UK 39,720 usd
GDP per capita New Zealand 42.940 usd
PS
Due to treaties we have signed with the EU the UK is not independent as other non EU nations are.
For example the ECJ has legal supremacy.
February 27, 2019
Andy, The UK is not independent, see Declaration 17 of the Lisbon treaty which states that EU law has primacy over UK law.
You’ve been told this fact before but you are a slow learner, like most Remains. You obviously didn’t know what you were voting for.
I am quite happy for the UK to be friendly with its neighbours, etc, I just don’t want to be run by them. As New Zealand isn’t.
February 26, 2019
Sir John, it is not the Sq Foot than matters but how many employees these new buildings will have that matters, after all in this robotic age a 1,000,000 sqf warehouse can be run by a permanent workforce of 10 people…
Reply These are offices!
February 26, 2019
@JR reply; Even so, it is still the employee count that really matters, not the floor area of a new office block or what new technology is used in a new factory or warehouse.
February 26, 2019
Of course! Why not open a million sq feet of office space for 10 employees?
Have you any commercial experience at all?
February 26, 2019
@graham1946; “Have you any commercial experience at all?”
Yes. For my sins for a time I was actually involved in commercial office space planning and installation, some of it within Central London!
These days office blocks are often as much data server centres as mere space for desks (especially so with the tenants business is big data…), then of course there are the circulation/walking spaces on each floor, space given to service ducts, personal and service lifts, stairs, rest areas, meeting rooms, non-paperless office storage, kitchen/catering/concessions etc, janitorial and other maintenance rooms.
Then large modern office blocks can have several subterranean floors given over to parking/loading-docks, space for HVAC (not all of which will be on the roof or exterior). and other electrical or plumbing equipment and so on, all of which count when talking ‘floor space’, thus only worthy of mention if talking taxable business rates and the like.
Well you did ask….
February 26, 2019
Jerry, at circa £40 per sq ft rental for prime office space in London, I can assure you that office buildings will not be thinly occupied by employees. The average occupancy rate is broadly in the order of one employee per 150 sq ft.
February 27, 2019
@James; In the past, when the efficiency of the typing pools etc. ruled the productivity targets each employee would likely have had just twice their desk area!
Then of course today’s big tech companies can afford to make architectural statements, if they wish, and they do…
I’ll ask again, what is the employee count estimate for the new offices being occupied by the companies our host cited?
February 26, 2019
Dear Mr. Redwood,
I see that something you are very keen on not happening has happened.
It is reported the government has make plans to pay billions of euros to Brussels to settle large parts of the £39bn Brexit divorce bill even in the event of a ‘no deal’. Ministers made the in-principle decision on Monday at a meeting of the Brexit ‘no deal’ preparedness cabinet committee. Under the plan the Government will table an executive order, or Statutory Instrument, in the final days of the Brexit negotiations to create the legal foundations for future payments to Brussels.
It’s quite amazing but so sadly predictable isn’t it? Amidst the shambles they have made of Brexit our government can always find the time and the money to please our Euro ‘friends’.
Stand up for the UK in Brexit negotiations? Not a chance! Make preparations for a No-Deal Brexit? No way! Offend our Euro-colleagues? Mais non!
February 26, 2019
Maybe if we actually escape the web of Brussels these new industries will stand some chance of long term success.
We have seen so many of our industries fall to EU over regulation with the resultant human misery.
Let us hope that should we actually get Brexit we can elect some sensible politicians who actually care about the lives of their constituents.
Ordinary people have lives too and they need jobs and stability and familiarity. They need to be happy!
( Is it true that Mayis going to cave in to an extension of A50?? Please no.)
February 26, 2019
………..Let us hope that should we actually get Brexit we can elect some sensible politicians who actually care about the lives of their constituents…….
That’s a certainty after the biggest betrayal in our history. The legacies have been found out and will be punished at the next election. Another treaty if needs be to undo Mays surrender vassal state law taking without a say WA.
February 26, 2019
This government appears to be blind to the potentials of a clean Brexit, and the establishment is behind that…
It’s interesting – or should that be ‘sad’ that Western nations are suffering the same maladies – Every western country is witnessing the collapse of the High Street
This suggests a common cause, such as similar policies….. and we all know that the EU has been pushing socialistic policies in our face for decades, with similar ones getting passed in Australia and Canada – is it any wonder we are not innovating or doing as well as we might. Our government, of course, follows these policies to the letter.
February 26, 2019
@Bryan Harris; How did either the EU or ‘Socialism’ bring about first the ‘warehouse outlets’ style of retailing, then the internet and E-commerce?
All of which has damaged the High Street far more than ‘Socialism’ ever did, the UK High Street of the 1970s was alive and well back in the heady days of the the socialist 1960s & ’70s. E-commerce is nothing but a a hard nosed Capitalist invention…
February 27, 2019
If I explained you still wouldn’t get it
February 27, 2019
@Bryan Harris; Try me!…. It is you, Bryan, who doesn’t understand the finer details, for you everything has to be either a broad-bush and/or a scapegoat.
February 26, 2019
It would appear that we are not effectively leaving the EU, Sir John, and May and her Remainer advisers and MPs have just about got it sewn up with all the various moves and votes planned.
Brexiter MPs have allowed this to happen as they were not prepared to remove Theresa May but instead always gave her the benefit of the doubt. They could still take radical action and resign from the Party, trigger a General Election, and appoint a leader utterly committed to upholding democracy, effecting Brexit, and returning to Conservative principles. Ditch the pathetic centre ground, “we are not the nasty party” mantra. If Farage worked with you (or rather you allowed him to) you could have a landslide result and re-establish true Conservatism in the UK.
February 26, 2019
And as May has just agreed to sign a delay to specifically ruled out the option that most Leavers want, I suspect the next election will be quite a painful experience for her. Oh I forgot – she’s stated she won’t be leading the party, so she won’t have to face any consequences for her party.
February 26, 2019
say hello to your fellow MP, wearing a tag today, released early from prison, back in parliament and voting…
gives us all something to be proud of
February 26, 2019
New jobs? – apparently cash-in-hand car washing by immigrants is booming. No tax to pay plus free healthcare for getting here. A great plus to the economy.
February 26, 2019
Yeah. And not nearly enough doctors and nurses as promised. Lots of car washers and competitors for low skilled jobs though.
February 26, 2019
All at £3500 per annum for taxpayers for each minimum wage worker to subsidise Company’s and reduce wages.
February 26, 2019
But how many UK born trades people did work for cash today, this week, this month, rather than putting it through the books, perhaps to stop their business falling into the VAT net? Typical of the UKIP type to scapegoat EU migrants regarding tax fiddles but say nothing about the same crime committed by UK passport holders.
Also if a few more British born people could be bothered to get off their rears, go buy a £1 bucket from their local DIY ‘shed’, plus some car was-n-wax and a sponge and then during their days off (or in the evening during the summer) actually use them themselves there would be one less opportunity for the cash-in-hand opportunists, who ever runs them…
February 26, 2019
After all the doom-mongers, it is refreshing to hear Sir John still has a burning desire to free the country and smell the coffe.
It has been depressing to hear so many negatives from folks who have never experienced the challenges and joys of running new ventures and businesses.
Britain’s history is one of defying the odds and breaking through tough times David and Goliath style. Even in the darkest hour we must believe in ourselves.
The Australians and other pioneers in the Commonwealth all have this great trait and expect us to be the same, not Winging Poms led by snowflakes….
Keep up the good fight for our freedom Sir John and don’t doubt your noble cause.
You talk more sense than the sheep amongst you, both in and out of Westminster.
February 26, 2019
When it comes to “crashes”, “falling off cliffs”, and impending doom, the media is ignoring the realities and telling fairy tales in order to push for remaining in the EU; an option without benefit to the UK.
All the risk of impending doom lies in blocking an orderly and complete Brexit; here’s why.
Europe has already seen mass yellow jacket demonstrations. If the EU impedes Brexit, it will be a clear message to the people of the EU (and the UK) that there is no peaceful or democratic way to leave the EU.
A blocked Brexit tells the people of Europe that the only exit from the EU is going to be by the use of force by the citizens of Europe. A blocked Brexit confirms the EU as a Dictatorship which will not allow anyone to leave.
I don’t pretend to know what will happen, but the risk is there, and politicians need to understand that risk, and understand that we have already seen French demonstrators say they they will defend the French way of life with their life if the need arises.
The people of Europe have in the past given their lives to fight off Dictatorship and defend their Nation States and they will be prepared to do so again.
If 650 or so MPs want to block a Democratic vote by 17 million people, they need to understand the possible consequences, not just for them, but for the whole of Europe.
February 26, 2019
If we spend the money we save, JR ? The Telegraph reports today that the Government intends to pay billions of pounds to Brussels whatever the Brexit outcome. The degree of treachery is incomprehensible.
February 26, 2019
I remember trying to introduce computers years ago the sheer wall of negativity and fear folks had. There was a saying ‘How do you recognise a Pioneer?’ The answer was they are the ones with arrows in their backs. Still true today.
February 26, 2019
It is surreal: the government gives the people the choice of Remain or Leave; we have the final debate (at the end of decades of debate) and on balance decide to Leave. In 2016. Yet 3 years on, the government and continuity Remain are conniving to arrange for the UK to Remain, merely utilising different treaties. It’s as though the Referendum never existed.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the EU hates us, I would say that we would be better governed by lying incompetents like J-C Juncker than by lying incompetents like Mrs May. As it is she will be gone shortly. So there is a chance (no more than 10%) that we will actually leave the EU treaties, and be forced to get a competent government to survive our establishment’s desperate last attempts to keep us under the EU’s lock and key.
February 26, 2019
I wonder whether we shouldn’t cancel the WA & stay in the EU until Dec 2020 – after all under the WA we are effectively non-voting but fully paying members for that period anyway. then we leave on 31 Dec 20 either with a comprehensive FTA in place or else on WTO terms. we could offer a further bung I suppose as an easement if needs be. Needs a new PM and negotiating team though. This could be a tactic for clean brexit supporters to re-gain the initiative.
February 26, 2019
Do you REALLY think they’d let us go?
February 26, 2019
“The UK economy will do better once we have left if we spend the money we save”
And yet the cabinet is planning to hand over the £39 billion in ongoing payments to Brussels, even in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Clearly Hammond will stick at nothing in his attempt to prevent us from breaking with the EU.
February 26, 2019
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1092568/brexit-news-deal-vote-theresa-may-EU-cabinet-quit-latest
So these 15 ministers want the PM to take a no deal off the table because they cannot except they lost the referendum, well tough hand your notice in I’m sure you can be replaced, what Mrs May should do if possible and legal if these muppets do push her to hard is call for a GE ammediatly so by shutting down Parliament there by having a clear coast for us leaving the Eu on 29th March without the intervention of all the remoaners in Westminster
February 26, 2019
Just why do you think Amber Rudd was returned to cabinet so soon ?
February 26, 2019
It is choreographed with the EU and establishment. MSM supporting the Vichy Parliament and the sham democracy. We will need action in the near future to frighten the liars and charlatans in the Westminster bubble.
February 26, 2019
So now we have three ministers presenting the PM with a faite acompli. Do as we do or we leave, to which the reply should be goodbye. There are many more MPs who could replace them from leave who are infinitely more capable.
We have Corbyn and Starmer demanding a second referendum where the options should be, remain in the EU or accept the terms of the WA. In effect remain in one way or the other. Very Marxist don’t you think.
Both options spit in the face of the electorate.
I expect May to wade through all this verbal diarrhea, remember the 17.4 million who voted(instructed) leave, and the act of Parliament that confirms in law that we leave on 29th March. Any shift from this is betrayal. It will destroy the conservative party and ensure their absence from power for the foreseable. Replaced by a Brexit party, hopefully led by Nigel Farage. It would give me someone to vote for who I could trust to carry out my wishes.
In military terms, the performance of our current politicians is what gets people killed. They are mostly abysmal and dishonest to the core.
February 26, 2019
150 bn is available for people to invest and get rich in the UK.
The governments stops paying the debts that don’t exist. You know, the ones they won’t admit to owning.
NI gets diverted into investments that are owed directly by the people earning the money in the first place.
Or is the accounting fraud going on? For example hiding the big debts so the people don’t realise they are being conned.
February 26, 2019
Mick
“So these 15 ministers want the PM to take a no deal off the table because they cannot except they lost the referendum,”
It’s more than that Mick. Dig deep enough and you’ll find they all have one thing in common: a self interest in stopping brexit.
Could be business interests, property etc, but it’s there.
February 26, 2019
On the referendum. I propose a couple of simple amendments.
First there is a special finance bill.
Remainers have to decide what gets cut,
or they have to introduce a Brexit tax to pay the EU and subsidies to EU nationals who don’t meet the no recourse to public funds test.
Somehow I foresee they will have a problem proposing austerity.
So with no money to pay off the EU, there’s no deal.
February 26, 2019
May’s treachery apparently complete. It is indeed an “extraordinary betrayal”:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1092475/Brexit-latest-news-eu-uk-deal-theresa-may-no-deal-uk-divorce-bill
BREXIT LIVE: May braces for Brexiteer fury after paving way to DELAY exit & BLOCK no deal
THERESA May has paved the way for delaying Britain’s departure from the bloc or blocking a no deal exit in an extraordinary Brexit betrayal.”
What are those MPs who are honourable going to do about it? The situation demands radical action if the country is to be saved and democracy upheld.
February 26, 2019
Your party has betrayed the British people I just hope they remember next election.
Corbyn or May makes no difference you get Juncker.
February 26, 2019
A stain on British history
A PM committing an act of sedition and betrayal against the British people and –
A leader of the opposition quoting Marx at the despatch box
Politics is now swimming in the sewer
We need desperately need a new party to represent the moral majority
February 26, 2019
With May’s latest betrayal of our country as seen today I think the time has come for the ERG to tell her that they will sit on their hands in ALL future votes on government business until she has gone.
Traitor is not a word to be used lightly but I am running out of those more suitable.
February 26, 2019
Sir John, do you think we will ever leave?
February 26, 2019
I notice your question did not get an answer.
February 26, 2019
I’ll take that as a no then.
February 26, 2019
I cannot help feel that we are going through another Suez experience. We thought we were a democratic country but now we discover that the establishment will override any decision it likes. I voted remain but have been persuaded by Sir John and events that the EU is neither democratic nor good for prosperity. The last two years have left me depressed about the state of democracy in our country. Sir John, do you have any words of hope?
February 26, 2019
And who will provide the electricity to power Gove’s electric cars?
Not wind not solar not coal and not gas, when the wind does not blow, the sun does not shine, you close the last coal station and leave decades of gas in the ground all to appease the green idiots who you fund with our taxes in order to lobby you lot against our interests.
February 26, 2019
Oh…superb. Sky News.
Floor and wiped!!
Soooo well done.
Reply Thanks
February 26, 2019
What ever Brexit cards we thought Mrs May was holding, then she folded them today in Parliament.
The Brexit aspirations, hopes and votes of multi millions of electors – both in the Referendum and also the supporters of both main Parties at the Election – cast aside and ignored.
It has never been clearer from both the EU and a majority of UK MP’s, we the citizens and subjects, must learn to keep in our place and do as we are told!
Betrayed!
February 26, 2019
“If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”
February 26, 2019
How much more of your duplicitous lying traitorous leader can you stand Sir John? Or is it still the party before the country? How many of your colleagues in parliament are prepared to let the betrayal go on?
She ignored the defeat of her WA by 204 votes she ignored the Brady vote, she breaks promise after promise.
She is a tyrant, a dictator within our democracy which she is attempting to destroy. Is she mentally fit to continue as your leader and our Prime Minister. Just what did we do to deserve her?
reply Mrs May won the leadership election originally and won a motion of no confidence in her leadership late last year. The Conservative party has a constitution and proceeds by means of votes.
February 26, 2019
Reply to reply: your constitution obviously fails to deliver. It serves not the good of the country/the people of this country but rather it permits the preservation of its own, good or bad, and in this case, an apparently corrupt and dishonest leadership. Time to revisit the constitution and make it more robust, fit for purpose and above board.
February 26, 2019
Take a look at Conservative Home today. You may get a flavour of how many constituencies are happy with their leader and parliamentary party. Can’t see many posting/activists for them at any future election.
Goodbye legacies.
February 26, 2019
does not seem interested in the votes of the citizenry though
February 26, 2019
Reply to reply
In that case your party can be considered as traitors. The constitution of the Conservative Party will be irrelevant when something even a tinge preferable turns up, which it will.
February 26, 2019
Reply to reply.
So everything is ok then. Move along, nothing to see.
February 27, 2019
Yes, TPW, and that is the problem in a nutshell. The Cons MPs deserve all that will be coming to them.
They cannot call themselves “honourable” yet try to hold on to power at all costs, even if it means the UK being betrayed. These two just do not go together and for very many in the electorate it is a clear and hugely concerning message that Tory MPs, including the Brexiter MPs, are sending out to the electorate. The message has gone down very badly indeed.
February 26, 2019
Then NOW is the time to set a precedent.
February 26, 2019
Mrs May is now reaching the final stages of her plan which in my opinion was produced jointly with her friends in the EU with the sole objective of keeping the UK in the EU.
I have stated before that she excels in duplicity and mendacity. She has looked serene on so many occasions when with the seeming chaos you would have expected someone to look worried. The reason was that she was actually carrying out her instructions to the letter.
If only a whistleblower would leak the original script for us all to know just how deep this treachery and betrayal goes.
It is now Parliament against the people and our democracy has been undermined by the charlatans elected to uphold and implement it.
February 26, 2019
Remainers in charge:
Oliver Letwin
@oletwinofficial
Very good news. PM statement does what is needed to prevent no deal exit on 29 March and enables MPs to forge cross-party consensus on new way forward if PM’s deal does not succeed on 12 March. No need now for Cooper-Letwin Bill.
3:38 PM – Feb 26, 2019
February 26, 2019
Who in their right minds would take off no deal if it were a true negotiation not collusion and deception?
February 27, 2019
Actually, the PM has merely done the minimum needed to prevent the Cooper-Letwin motion and bill winning approval in the HoC tomorrow. That enables the no-deal option to persist, going forward.
Little can be done within a two-month extension, in which Europe’s MPs and MEPs will be largely absent for the extended Easter break. But it will give the UK and the EU a few weeks more to prepare for the inevitable managed no-deal WTO Brexit that Leavers now see as the preferable alternative to the unacceptable WA.
February 26, 2019
The PMs statement merely confirmed that the backstop was under discussion. No mention of other toxic aspects of the WA. The only way anything will be gained from such discussions will be the retention of leaving on WTO terms. This being more of a problem for the EU than the UK.
What I fail to understand is the weekness of the challenge to the PM. Why is noone extolling the virtues of the financial gains and the freedom that WTO would give us.
February 26, 2019
Because there aren’t any.
February 26, 2019
Parliamentarians who do so are in a minority, because so many are planning to subvert and thwart our leaving the EU. Ever since Maastricht the political classes have stitched up our political system between them. That little mistake should be corrected at the next General Election.
We also have the Bank of England desperately trying to pile predictions of doom sky high. Every day Mr Carney tries to talk Britain into a recession, with no luck so far.
February 26, 2019
The correct way out of the self-inflicted predicament the UK has got itself into is to make a tactical withdrawal. Serving notice of Article 50 was a mistake. This has stripped the UK of all bargaining power.
The UK should use its sovereign right to withdraw article 50. This is the best option for both leavers and remainers.
We should use our influence within to change the EU. Leavers can properly plan for a future exit at the right time rather than just bickering about paying owed money back because we chose to leave mid-term and pretending the Irish border problem isnt a problem.
February 26, 2019
There’s something rotten at heart of the Tory party. I think they’re called MPs
We all know Labour’s a rancid presence in the UK and has been since the early 1970’s but it seems the Tory party’s not too far behind now
I believe representative democracy died today, put to the sword by a liberal left fascist in cahoots with a rancid Marxist.
This betrayal by all MPs will not be forgotten at the next GE.
You derive your ultimate authority FROM THE PEOPLE not from the STATE
You appear to have forgotten you govern by consent.
February 26, 2019
I expect there will be plenty of comments about today’s betrayal by Theresa May but in the meantime I would like to mention that earlier in the day Mark Carney appeared before the Treasury committee and recalled the Bank’s economic “forecast” in May 2016 based on the assumption that we would vote to stay in the EU, which was in contrast to “all the scenarios, not forecasts” in case we voted the wrong way.
And it is comparison of the subsequent reality with that May 2016 “forecast” that provides the basis for the Bank’s present specious claim that the vote to leave the EU has already cost us 1.5% lost GDP growth.
He did have the grace to admit that:
“… we will never know the answer to that because it is a counterfactual, because that was a forecast and this is relative to that forecast …”
but that did not stop him reciting the 1.5% figure as if it was a reliable calculation.
At no point in the committee proceedings did I notice anyone, either an MP or one of the Bank’s representatives, suggest that what had been happening to the economic data in the period before the vote, in fact before there was even any probability that there would be a vote, should be seen as just as significant as what has happened since the vote.
For example:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/02/12/the-world-economic-slowdown/#comment-995176
“Last night I annoyed my wife by calling her in to watch Ed Conway on Sky News standing in front of a chart clearly showing the UK economic growth rate to have peaked in 2014 and rather erratically declined since then , with no obvious break in the pre-existing downwards trend at or around or since the time of the EU referendum, and yet in effect denying the evidence that he himself was presenting to viewers by representing that the slowdown in growth must be attributable to our decision to leave the EU taken two years later in June 2016.
A chart much like this, set to show the pattern over the past ten years:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-annual
Her reaction was that I had shown her this before, which could well be correct as the same brazen anti-Brexit lie has come up again and again … “
February 26, 2019
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Well, she who heads the government (I can no longer bring myself to write her name) has thrown down the gauntlet to the Brexiters and dared them to do their worst.
The stakes could not be higher. It is almost a given that whatever Mr. Cox brings back from Brussels on the backstop will be little more than a figleaf to hide her shortcomings inspite of how he will portray it in the Commons. In any event her deal is so shockingly bad it must be rejected.
If her deal threatens to carry, perhaps the ERG should counter with its own threat to abstain or vote against her government’s future legislative programme and hope to bring what would be a welcome end to her appalling administration and the installation of a Brexit-backing government led by a Conservative. As I said earlier the future of our country as a sovereign and independent country is in the balance.
Or the ERG could support a no-confidence motion. Goodness knows there cannot be a soul left in the House who has any confidence in her except those who owe her their privileged positions. However, this might be a non-starter as Mr. Corbyn now has a few problems of his own and will not be so keen to spark a general election as he was a few weeks ago.
The game is afoot. Are Brexiter MP’s going to capitulate? For some of them this would mean a lifetime of campaigning to get the UK out of the EU down the drain. For a great many Leave voters it would mean finding a new party to vote for.
February 27, 2019
AJ, I believe they have already capitulated, and are now merely stating their position so that when they go down they can say, “Well I stated my position clearly but could not do anything because of X, Y and Z…” as if that excuses them. In my view it does not excuse their lack of action one bit. Words are cheap. If they do not take radical action, they apparently think they can save their Party (which seems to be what it is all about for them). I would not be so sure. Many in the electorate are hopping mad and I believe will take radical action themselves at the ballot box and in local Cons Associations.
February 26, 2019
A lot of comments here spewing hatred towards the PM – some crying out for her to be removed. Please tell me by what lawful means you would go about that? Are you not making the job of our faithful ERG contingent more difficult? They are vilified enough as it is as ‘extremists’, so they need to keep their cool, and try to win by calmly arguing our case, however uphill it seems to be.
Unless I am mistaken, today’s developments were not the work of the PM, but a large gang of Remain-inclined ministers and others – surely these are the obstructive ones (as we would see it). And as I read it, although the PM has opened up other pathways today, she has NOT taken ‘No Deal’ off the table; moreover, she states that her preferred option is still to leave the EU on 29 March as planned.
To put it mildly, her WA is not to our liking! Like those minsters threatening a rebellion, she is (in our view) simply wrong to have cut the EU so much slack. That does not make her, or any of the others, ‘treasonous liars’ (etc).
BTW – Cheer up! – Anna Soubry was unhappy with today’s events (‘nothing has changed’ she blasted), which means things may not be as bleak as many fear! 🙂
Either way, not long to wait now. Looking around the world, for all its faults and woes I believe this is still a much beloved nation. Although our corporate and often grievous folly over recent decades has led us into this strait, at street level, its people are still of a generous spirit, and largely decent – which is reflected also in their sense of humour and balance – again, why so many made the right judgement in 2016!.
As we approach ‘wits end corner,’ my prayer is that we may again see the pundits routed, as a sign that there’s yet mercy towards Her Britannic Majesty’s realm, in heaven.
February 27, 2019
Norman, A valiant effort to defend the lying PM! However the recent history cannot be re-written. From the “Kit-Kat” Brexit to the duplicate White Papers (with the DExEU WP being trashed), to the EU getting Chequers before the Cabinet, to the dWA that locks us back into the EU with no exit, Theresa May has authorised the lot. And therefore lied to her Ministers, never mind lying to Tory MPs and the public.
February 26, 2019
A very timely intervention by The Bruges Group asking those concerned to send letter to MP to ask the PM honour the result of the referendum. Letter prepared, and very easy to dispatch to MP via The Bruges Group – about two clicks. Usually I edit such letters but this time felt not necessary.
http://www.brugesgroup.co.uk/mp/member.php?t=1551211694&campaign_id=10#top
February 26, 2019
I have just read this piece in the ‘New European’ (not my usual reading I assure you!) from a while back?…. https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/my-brawl-over-brexit-with-prime-minister-theresa-may-1-4807899
Just read the purported retorts and mannerisms from May to the constituent….
It got me thinking to why we are in the position we now are with TM as PM, and I think that I understand now…..
zorro
February 26, 2019
A technology company is one that creates technological products not one that uses them. Amazon is a retailer; Google and Facebook are media companies. There are a lot of technology products made in China: Mr Williamson, please note. These large users of technology products require huge amounts of electricity to power them so it is up to the government to stop trying to power them with wood pellets and wind and get real.
Yes, we need our own technology businesses; recently, the thieving banksters of the City tried to get the government to part with its golden share in R-R, possibly one of the last major technology businesses which the government has not allowed to be flogged off. Is it not about time the government widens its definition of ‘strategic’?
February 26, 2019
The Conservative Party GE 2017 states :
“No deal is better than a bad deal” (P38).
In the light of the propaganda via our MSM that “no deal” (WTO terms) would be economically catastrophic over the short term I would say :
“In the long-term “no deal” is better than no democracy”
February 27, 2019
I think both Conservatives and Labour are going to have massive problems at the next general election, it will only take one person to stand in each constituency genuinely in favour of a proper Brexit…
February 27, 2019
Thank you for your optimism. As a software engineer I had my concerns about leaving the EU, but also recognize that there are many opportunities if we have a forward-looking and techno-optimist vision. The worst thing would be to be out of the EU and then have a Luddite policy of our own – and there have been noises in that direction with the attacks on Facebook and Instagram.
A free-market, pro-innovation Brexit is what we need.
February 27, 2019
Yet another of my comments have been excluded. What is your problem with mentioning the horrors this Country faced before and during WWII? They are so very relevant and their exclusion makes me worry about your loyalty to the elders in the Nation.