There are those who seem to think the UK is too small and too unimportant to be an independent country. They think we need to choose between submerging our identity with the EU and accepting their government, or being a junior partner of the USA and accepting US decisions and standards. The people who think like this favour us being controlled by the EU, and spend their time running down the USA at every opportunity. This doctrine is reflected in the EU’s spin, with President Macron warning us we will be opting for junior status in some kind of USA Union if we dare to implement our wish to leave the EU.
This view is absurd. There are many advanced successful countries in the world who are neither members of the EU nor client states of the USA who are considerably smaller than the UK in population, in total wealth and military power. From New Zealand to Singapore, from Australia to Canada, there are prosperous countries that have alliances with many but are ruled by none other than themselves.
It is also a dangerous myth that the EU or Europe is in some way capable of defending itself. Most European countries like the UK are members of NATO, and rely on the US defence umbrella and the NATO guarantee of mutual assistance for their defence against potential large aggressors. NATO is a better arrangement than the EU, offering mutual support but not enforcing a legal obligation on each NATO member to provide troops and weapons to every NATO action. For many years it has helped keep the peace in Europe and ensured the continuing commitment of potentially huge US forces to the defence of the West.
If we look back at our history we will see that we have in the last 250 years been at war with France, with the USA and with Germany. The war with the USA was in stark contrast to the war with the other two. The UK lost, with many in Britain unhappy about taking up arms against US settlers from the UK who had similar views of liberty, limited government and taxation to the home country. The USA triumphed not only by might but also by right, and since then relations have usually been mutually supportive.
In the cases of the long wars against France and Germany the UK’s role was totally different. Here the UK stood alongside the small and oppressed countries of Europe that had been invaded and quelled by the imperial powers, and fought successfully for their liberation. Once again might and right combined to ensure a happy outcome after terrible violence. These victories made the UK a good European, and showed that many people and nations did value self determination and self government. When British armies finally reached France at the end of the Napoleonic wars and Germany in 1945 those nations were relieved and surprised that the British army was banned from looting, rape and commandeering supplies, and duly paid for food and other items needed. It made the point that this was no army of occupation or oppression, but liberators of Europe from tyranny who planned to go home as soon as their job was done.
Today the problem is of course very different. It is not from violent conquest but from clumsy bureaucracy and poor EU wide economic policies stifling opportunity and limiting the political expression of democratic electorates. Architects of the EU project itself say the UK will become a colony of the EU if we dare to leave. This worrying language or poor joke sums up what is wrong with their analysis. The UK does not have to choose between staying in a centralising EU or accepting poor terms from the USA for a deeper and closer relationship with her. The UK can continue to champion global free trade, democratic self government and a world diplomacy to try to settle world problems. We will continue to need NATO to help with our defence and with our contribution to global security, and we will continue to trade with the EU and the USA with or without free trade deals. We need only accept a Free Trade deal if it works for us as well as for them.
August 25, 2019
You missed out the smaller nations which are successful like Russia (lots of land – few people), Japan, Indonesia, South Africa (?), and are there no South American States worthy of at least a little respect too?
The EU is unique and it is a twentieth century answer (Socialist state, top down, elitist) to a nineteenth century question (unification of Germany and Italy and the rise of nationalism).
Wake up! The world has moved on.
August 25, 2019
Yes, good old blighty, eh?
Shall we look at the UK’s recent imperial history in Africa, say?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau
This country, in common with France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and others, has a terrible record of slaughter and brutality around the world.
John’s pious tone in the piece seems a bit silly to me.
August 25, 2019
But you haven’t got an answer to the essential point he makes have you?
August 25, 2019
Richard1
Well I have one when JR maintains that:
“From New Zealand to Singapore, from Australia to Canada, there are prosperous countries that have alliances with many but are ruled by none other than themselves”
They are all Commonwealth countries with the Queen as head of state, so not as independent as you make out.
The constitutional crisis in Australia in 1975 is a case in point. It culminated with the dismissal from office of the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), by Governor-General Sir John Kerr
Although Kerr had to resign Governor Generals still have the power to dismiss government ministers to this day so not as independent as JR implies
August 25, 2019
Ask an Australian or a New Zealander if the UK still has any control over their countries sovereignty… they’d laugh at the suggestion. This is 2019 not 1975.
August 26, 2019
margaret howard
Once again your historical sciolism never ceases to amaze me. Will you ever produce something worthy of discussion?
John speaks from erudite research while you appear to speak as though you have recently read several paragraphs from Wikipedia.
For those of us that have actually had the privilege to live and work in both New Zealand and Australia, your comments would be deemed highly disrespectful and offensive. Both nations are extremely proud of their full independence and democracy.
August 25, 2019
Crawl back under your stone in Brussels.
August 25, 2019
Ian- you’ll get yours soon enough- when you’ll realize that it’s not all Brussels fault but more like homegrown. It seems all of our problems have been there from decades back- it was called the english sickness back in the sixties well known all over- even further back in Australia- even today the aussies still talk about the whinging poms
August 25, 2019
Do you drive like that going forwards looking backwards? You have what’s called rowing syndrome. Presumably you would have nothing do with Germany either because of their 20th century history?
August 25, 2019
“Few nations have repudiated their histories with the speed and anger of Britain, and post-imperial and post-colonial Britain possesses a deep self-loathing of its history and culture. Few cultures are so explicit about guilt and repudiation, although this is matched by the American far left, which sees the country’s founding as Original Sin. These are elite formulae that have been disseminated to the middle class through the educational system and media.
Fortunately I did not grow up in a middle class family so I did not imbibe this post-colonial guilt. It had and has nothing to do with me or mine and I am one of millions who feel that way. I am glad of that because every day I see it used as a cudgel to beat us into self loathing, and submission to the idea that we are not worthy because of past sins, and we should just bow out of thinking of ourselves with pride and confidence. This, I put it to you, is at the core of the remainer heart. It is self-defeating and with an attitude like that, it could well become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I agree with Boris on this: we need to rediscover our can-do spirit and to hell with defeatism.
August 25, 2019
Wonderful well said indeed.
August 25, 2019
Yes. Remainers are realistic about both the past and the future. Leavers are wilfully ignorant about the past, and unrealistic about the future.
August 25, 2019
Kathleen P
“I agree with Boris on this: we need to rediscover our can-do spirit and to hell with defeatism.”
Except that Boris Johnson has just done the opposite by loving up to the French and Irish, and agreeing with them that May’s capitulation plan could go through with a few tweaks to fool the voters. (Dream on Boris, we aint that stupid)
August 25, 2019
KP: very well put !
August 25, 2019
Excellent summary Kathleen. I totally agree with you.
August 25, 2019
Kathleen you speak for millions of long gone and sadly not long forgotten Brits who were themselves both extremely poor and slaves to the more wealthy, an endemic system inherited for centuries until recent times. So those who cast ordinary UK citizens with any faux “gilt-trip” (a young persons expression I came across) need to check themselves as in “Let him cast the 1st stone, who is clean (and not without faulty assumptions)…” Etc …..
August 25, 2019
Totally agree ; with this attitude, the German nation would never be free from the chains of ancestor guilt and the Italians would still be answering for the romans.
Maybe those feeling most guilty could assuage their guilt by giving all their possessions to the poor of countries that suffered most heavily under slavery/colonialization …….
A bit like all the people who cry for refugees but somehow never actually take one into their home and the people who “offset” their carbon guilt.
August 25, 2019
An excellent appraisal by John Redwood, and also Kathleen’s response
August 25, 2019
Excellent comment Kathleen.
August 25, 2019
It won’t be long before we start apologizing for James Watt, Abraham Darby I, II & III, and Richard Arkwright, for the carbon footprints they have caused around the world!
August 25, 2019
Having lived and worked in post colonial countries for over 20years I can assure you we are well thought of in general. The main positives are our honesty and fair play.
Martin from Brussels has no experience outside of his air conditionined lair and he certainly doesn’t understand what a pigs ear the EU is making of itself.
August 26, 2019
Well said, Kathleen.
Remainers seems to be infected with a loathing for their country (if indeed this IS their country).
Those of us who travel extensively and have lived and worked abroad recognise this out-dated idea that Great Britain is hated for its ‘colonial past’ as just that – out-dated.
It is the suggestion by remainers that our colonial cousins are ignorant, backward-looking peasants that I find most offensive and bigoted.
August 25, 2019
Compared with the colonial administrations of Spain, France, Germany and Portugal, the British empire was a paragon. Yes, there were incidents we should not be proud of, but our record is hugely better than any of those I have mentioned.
And it was us that brought an end to the slave trade.
August 25, 2019
So our empire robbed and repressed our colonies but not quite as badly as others did. And we ended the slave trade having profited from it for two hundred years and in ending it paid huge compensation to the salve owners and not a bean to the slaves. And you are BOASTING about that?
August 25, 2019
I don’t feel guilty for what my Great Grandfather did or didn’t do to survive in what is a different country (the past).
I sure as Hell don’t lie awake at night worrying about what your’s did.
You do the best you can with the cards you’re dealt – that’s life.
Learn from the mistakes past generation made.
August 25, 2019
Henry Carter
So by your reckoning we should be receiving huge compensation from Italy, because of the atrocities committed against our ancestors by the romans ?
Incidentally, I note you do not mention what DeGaulle did to the former French colonies after WWII, you do not acknowledge that thousands of americans died in Vietnam because of the mess left by France in Indo China, nor do you mention Turkey’s appalling treatment of Armenians. And then there’s Stalin.
Please graciously refrain from suggesting that we are some kind of uncivilised people. We could always stop foreign aid and asylum, and loans to Ireland etc if you think so lowly of us, and we could turn a new page in our history by viewing the suffering of others as ‘not our problem’
August 25, 2019
Utter nonsense and divorced from the factual reality, we traded with our empire, our wealth was generated between trade and the industrial revolution.
Take a look at the tax records for example in Malaysia, some years we got more in taxes then we spent, others we spent far more than our income in taxes. They even thought so much of us they brought us a battleship.
August 25, 2019
Fishknife and Steve – excellent replies to HC!
August 25, 2019
@HCarter – Fishknife and Kathleen P put things very well.
We must take responsibility for our own actions, but for ours alone. It is not your or anyone else’s place to heap responsibility or guilt on us for what others have done.
August 25, 2019
Spare us the faux outrage. The British Empire was one of the most humane known. For all its faults, the British influence has had a lasting, mostly benevolent, influence on the social and political life of most former colonies, and the divestment of colonial status was one of the least bloodthirsty dissolutions of empire in history. The majority of former colonies maintain friendly relationships with the UK. They are content to have the Queen as their head of State in many cases, and not for nothing are the Commonwealth games known as “the friendly games”. The English language in many recognisable forms, is the world’s major method of verbal and written communication. Heath’s divorce of the UK from the Commonwealth was a major error in an error-strewn political career, and it says much for the respect our commonwealth friends have for the UK that they are prepared to renew old alliances and trading links. While the E.U. sinks into a sclerotic stupor, incapable of curing its foundering banking system or its obscene levels of unemployment in the South, and even its dependence on US military power to protect its eastern borders with Russia, the commonwealth is composed of emerging nations, eager to grow and trade. They are the future. The E.U., a 20th Century solution to 19th Century problems, is the past. Better off Out.
August 25, 2019
Yes, how many realise the pivitol role played by the Royal Navy throughout th 19th Century in stopping the slave trade from West Africa. HMS ‘Blake Joke’ was permanently stationed there to run down slave runners. All in all a Royal Navy vessel took this work on for over 40 years!
In addition Britain forced other Empires to quit the slave trade, paticularly Spain & Portugal.
BTW the worst of the slavers were AFRICAN!
August 26, 2019
While it was Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans the largest slavers were the Arabs. Indeed it was King Faisal who abolished slavery in Saudi Arabia in the 1960s. The government bought the slaves for $2000 a time.
August 25, 2019
Kathleen P
” This, I put it to you, is at the core of the remainer heart. It is self-defeating and with an attitude like that, it could well become a self-fulfilling prophecy”
I must say that is a new one on me. We voted to remain in the world’s wealthiest, most successful trading bloc along with 28 other totally independent nations all with their own sovereignty and parliaments.
The only defeat I feel is being denied membership after 50 years of success by 17m mostly elderly misguided nationalists.
August 25, 2019
We voted to leave the eurocracy. We were the 3rd largest world economy when we joined, we are now 6th largest.. not a sign of a success story is it. The wealthiest trading bloc is the United States of America … they did it right. The world has moved on from the eussr model .. 90% of world demand will come from outside the eu within the next 10 years … we need to be moving towards them instead of staying in the insular, protectionist and out of date eurocracy.
August 25, 2019
You must let me know which trading bloc that is. The only one I know of is hell-bent on removing national sovereignty, is totally dependent on a foreign ally for defence of its eastern borders, has a banking system in an advanced state of collapse and obscene levels of structural unemployment in many of its constituent satrapies. So not really successful at all
August 25, 2019
Nations don’t commit atrocities humans being do. Evidently, you appear not to understand that quite simple distinction
August 25, 2019
I am sick of hearing about our terrible record of brutality while an empire. We are not that country anymore. We just want complete self rule not subservience to others. Are you sure you are not Margaret Howard?
August 25, 2019
Very true. Attitudes and actions change over the years and centuries. you cannot judge actions using the prevailing standards of the time, as your yardstick
August 25, 2019
The duty remainiacs just out to disrupt. But it’s good that they continue to expose their weak arguments. It makes me feel better to know we are right, but frustrated that we have to go over the same ground until they finally see the light. It’s like continually teaching a remedial class the two-times table.
August 25, 2019
Well, let’s have a look at Trump’s attitude to European countries in the shadow of his recent conduct towards Denmark – one of NATO’s founders – shall we?
Incidentally people in those countries of the ex-British Empire know their history – unlike the English. That is why the UK spends billions on “aid”.
August 25, 2019
He simply offered to purchase land from them.
They said no thanks.
Yet you Trump haters get all angry about it.
Very odd.
August 25, 2019
And when they said “it’s not for sale, actually” he cancelled a state visit which had long been arranged.
That is the egregious, petulant conduct, that normal people criticise.
August 25, 2019
He thought he would be wasting his time going after his desire to buy land was rebuffed.
I rather agree.
He is busy man.
Why waste time.
August 26, 2019
He is clearly lots of things, and decent, intelligent people around the world, in enlightened countries, have reached settled conclusions as to what they would be, and as to what sort of people his sycophants might be too.
August 26, 2019
Edward2
“He simply offered to purchase land from them”
No he didn’t – he wanted the whole country.
And he didn’t cancel a simple visit when he was rebuffed he cancelled a state visit, an altogether different insult to the country.
Wrong stick again.
August 26, 2019
Lefties hate the USA and the Republican Party and President Trump by their own set bissed views
Its well understood.
Anything he does you will parody and criticise.
The same happened with everything President Reagan did.
Yet Clinton and Saint Obama could do no wrong.
And Margaret that is such a weak and pedantic comment.
He asked.
They said no.
You get all indignant.
Very silly.
August 26, 2019
Margaret Howard
Greenland ( the second country to leave the EU ) voted to leave the EU in 1982 and left 2 years later .
Greenland was granted independence from Denmark in 2008, however Greenland is highly dependent on the grants paid by Denmark which account for nearly half of GDP. Denmarks contribution to Greenland is set to diminish year on year .
Greenland is NOT even in Europe its in North America and I wonder what would happen if Trump approached the Greenland government direct .
August 25, 2019
No, the UK spends billions on aid not because of a guilty conscience but because PC politicians like to look big by spending other people’s money. The fact that large chunks of it are wasted does not concern them or that there are more worthy causes at home. Small men trying to look big is what it is all about.
August 25, 2019
Martin in Cardiff
Yes of course JR is responsible for history. What a stupid, fatuous post.
Trump is currently the idiot president of the USA , we dont trade with Trump ,we trade with customers and suppliers in the USA
You and Margaret Howard and other socialist lovers of the EU keep banging on about the British Empire as if it had any relevance to anything . You both show your total ignorance because you wrongly think that Brexit voters are trying to recreate the Empire. We aren’t the UK is the 5th largest economy in the World, we are an advanced economy who leads in many fields of new technology and services. The EU is a backward looking , protectionist , innovation killing organisation.
Oh and as for the EU brings peace… lol there have been 35 wars , coups, revolutions, insurrections and violent separatist campaigns in Europe since the formations of the EC
Henry Carter , try reading a history book. The Egyptian pyramids were built with slave labour, the Greeks, Romans, Huns, Mongols, Persians, Indians, Maya, Aztecs in fact just about every larger country has been both slave owning and brutal in the past. The UK has lead the way in civilising society over the last 300 years starting with the industrial revolution
August 25, 2019
You have no conclusive evidence as to what anyone is thinking or intending, but no doubt you will carry on making your silly assertions as to that, along with those in relation to any number of other matters.
August 26, 2019
Martin in Cardiff
“You have no conclusive evidence as to what anyone is thinking”
Yes I do because you keep writing it down for all to see !!!
August 26, 2019
Really? You are imagining things, many of them too, I think, Libertarian.
For instance, where did I assert that John is responsible for history? Or that Leave voters are trying to recreate the Empire?
August 26, 2019
Question:
Why do 53 ex-colonial countries wish to remain members of the Commonwealth? Surely, if they had been so badly treated by the British Empire they would now be anti-British? What do these independent countries see in Britain that the self-loathing left doesn’t?
Commonwealth of Nations
“The Commonwealth is a “voluntary association” of 53 independent and equal sovereign states. The Commonwealth is home to 2.4 billion people and includes both advanced economies and developing countries.”
August 26, 2019
Dennis Zoff
“Why do 53 ex-colonial countries wish to remain members of the Commonwealth?”
Really? Do you really think the people of member countries like Bangladesh, Botswana, Cameroon, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea etc have any idea what belonging to the Commonwealth means or receive any benefit from it?
It is basically just an opportunity for their leaders with assorted spouses to live it up every year at their expense for a few days and enjoy dinner with the Queen.
In fact, most of these countries are so poor that just three of them, Britain, Canada and Australia make up 50% of wealth.
August 28, 2019
Maggie maggie little mags
Oh please please do research before posting
Botswana ( I country I’m very familiar with ) is one of the richest and freest in Africa , its GDP $42 billion makes it the 75th richest country in the world . It has a GDP GREATER than 22 European countries
India with a population of 1.2 billion ( ie 3 times more than the EU) is the 6th largest economy in world GDP $2.9 trillion ie bigger than France
Nigeria GDP $380 billion
South Africa GDP £375 billion
Singapore GDP $323 billion etc etc
For contrast 18 EU member states ALL have economies far smaller than those listed. Or to put it another way the UK economy is greater than the combined economy of 19 smallest EU states
Why would you want to be in the EU when you can be in the Commonwealth
August 26, 2019
libertarian
” lol there have been 35 wars , coups, revolutions, insurrections and violent separatist campaigns in Europe since the formations of the EC”
How many of these were the result of the break up of the Soviet Union and had nothing to do with the EU?
And it is a myth that the Egyptian pyramids were built with slave labour since the discovery of villages where the builders lived nearby with their families.
And to justify our history of slavery because the Huns, Mongols and Aztecs did it is preposterous.
August 26, 2019
Margaret Howard
“How many of these were the result of the break up of the Soviet Union and had nothing to do with the EU?”
None Ive not included wars to do with Soviet Russia but does include the breakup of Yugoslavia
No Margaret I haven’t justified anything, Ive just pointed out that just about every major “civilisation and empire” was built on or involved in slavery including the Egyptian empire in the past, yet for some reason you only want to condemn the British slave trade . Why is that? Why do you support slavery in other historic nations ?
August 25, 2019
Martin – how much do you know about the utterly cruel and wicked behaviour of the Belgians in the Congo? Or the constant inter-tribal warfare common to Zulu tribes? Remember the slaughter in Rwanda in our lifetimes (thankfully things have much improved there)?
There are many more examples from Africa – what you may not be aware of are the many instances where the British government were, presciently, very much against taking over colonial/governmental power, but were pressed into it by adventurers and traders.
August 25, 2019
Re-read my post.
Try to understand it this time.
August 25, 2019
@Mike Stallard; Our host often misses out the inconvenient facts, as indeed you often also do at times, it matter not one jot the population or land mass size (large or small), what makes the countries you and our host cite successful is their natural resources and/or ability to process such resources into products the RotW want and need.
The UK is not rich in the former, though we were once rich in the latter but have given so much up/away in the last 40 years…
But what of Macron and his “junior status” jibe, even if he is correct, so what, surely better a much loved [1] junior of the USA than very much the junior of the looming USE, often loathed, due to our rejection of EZ membership and other EC political aims…
[1] due to our entwined histories, governance and much social, legal and business cultures
Reply The UK is rich in oil, gas, coal, wind and water power, has gravels, phosphates, tin, temperate crops, good grazing for sheep, cattle and other farm animals etc. This is a well blessed isle
August 25, 2019
@JR reply; Minerals that few currently want/need, tell me, what is the UK’s known reserves of Cobalt, Lithium, Gold, Diamonds etc.
What of the old minerals/technologies that we do have ample reserves of, iron ore and scrap steel is perhaps the most useful but how much processing capacity does the UK have compared to the 1950-70s, production of natural gas (and oil) might well have peaked, whilst the govt you were a part of abandoned hundreds of years of coal reserves underground (in a fit of political spite), yes some might be still accessible but at a much higher cost, both financial and safety, even if CCS and perhaps even modern production of coal-gas can be perfected.
That is why the UK needs to not only have the ability to process wanted resources into products the RotW want and need, but must ownership of that ability mus reside here in the UK.
“[The UK] is a well blessed isle”
I agree, but we first need the political will to be so again, I neither hear nor read anything from the Brexit wing of the Tory party that suggest there is any – spouting on about ‘market forces’ is not going to cut the mustard any more, just as it isn’t any more in the USA.
August 25, 2019
” The world has moved on. ”
Yes – the world has moved on – and apparently all heading to the UK for a life on our taxes.
August 25, 2019
Big neil. Yes, a hundred boats have been intercepted recently in the Channel. How many more have made it that we don’t know about? Boris says they are going to be sent back to France. When? Will they claim asylum first and live off us for years before this happens or will they simply disappear only to start up a car wash?
August 25, 2019
Russian population is 145 million. Down on the time of the 1917 Revolution, when it was 163 million. But much larger than any EU country, and 9th most populous globally.
August 25, 2019
A typically hysterical misdescription of the EU. All 28 members of the EU are independent countries, with independent governments which remain in control of all the big decisions that affect their citizens – tax, health care, education, defence. The EU just eases trade, to mutual benefit. They have not lost their identity, and they never will – you seriously think Italy is ever going to be like Sweden, or France like Finland, or vice versa? The real choice here is partnership with our neighbours with whom we do most of our trade, or going it alone in an increasingly turbulent world. Finding that Ireland is calling the shots over the border is just a small taste of what is coming in future as the UK foolishly thinks it can go its own way, as if it still has an Empire to call on
Reply I do not think the EU removes identity. It removes powers of self government
August 25, 2019
Should Canada enter a political monetary and fiscal union with the US, Japan with China, NZ with Australia (& Australia with China), Etc etc? After all, all these countries are ‘going it alone’ in a turbulent world – how do they manage it?
August 25, 2019
That is why P Trump got rid of NAFTA, Richard1. It was meant to become a borderless supranational entity with free movement of people to satisfy the multinationals, another unit for the One World Government model of the globalists. P Trump has saved the integrity and sovereignty of the USA by his replacement trade deal.
August 25, 2019
@Chris; Interesting theory….
August 25, 2019
He has made minor tweaks to nafta. But nafta is an FTA, it’s not equivalent to membership of a political union or even a customs union. Perhaps the UK should just join nafta as well as the TPP?
August 25, 2019
@Henry Carter; “The EU just eases trade, to mutual benefit. They have not lost their identity, and they never will”
Piffle!
Even the EC and EP talk openly about eventual full political union, it is even written about in the Treaty of Rome (TFEU), nor does one need a “European Constitution” (the original name for the Lisbon Treaty), nor a Parliament, to achieve what you suggest above – just Trade agreements.
August 25, 2019
@Henry Carter; “The EU just eases trade, to mutual benefit. They have not lost their identity, and they never will”
I look forward to when the Irish people realise they’re enslaved, the penny will eventually drop.
Presumably they’ll realise when we’re out and doing rather well, and expect us to help. The trouble for them is that we won’t have forgotten their disrespect.
August 25, 2019
They only joined because we did!
I wonder………………………………..?
August 25, 2019
Don’t forget the SNP Steve! They are positively campaigning for dead-end entrapment and a survile loss of nationhood.
August 25, 2019
They won’t get it, Tad. The EU doesn’t need any more dead wood to carry.
August 25, 2019
steve
“Presumably they’ll realise when we’re out and doing rather well, and expect us to help. The trouble for them is that we won’t have forgotten their disrespect.”
Help them? After centuries of suffering our ‘help’ the last thing they will want is a replay. Cromwell and his murdering horde anyone?
August 25, 2019
Good heavens, this is 2019. Now if you had referred to eu loving Bliar and his Iraq ventures you may have made a point.
August 25, 2019
MH
Right that’s it, I want massive compensation from Italy because of what the Romans did.
Grow up !
August 25, 2019
We don’t remain in control of taxation. EU rules state that once VAT is charged on an item it cannot be removed.
August 25, 2019
“All 28 members of the EU are independent countries”
Is that why so many governments of EM members have been toppled by the anti-democratic EU and their self interested antidemocratic bureaucrats? 28 members with (as Trump puts it) heavy anchor’s round their ankles. Many with absurd youth unemployment rates caused largely by the suffocating insanity of one size fits all EU policies. Cut the anchor chains now.
The EU have already destroyed four “Conservative” PMs. Thatcher and the appallingly dire pro EU ones of Major, Cameron and May. Perhaps Boris to follow soon if he rats & fails to leave cleanly.
August 25, 2019
Lifelogic
“The EU have already destroyed four “Conservative” PMs.”
Really? And there was me thinking that we live in a democracy and the voters had done that.
Can you name any other PMs in the other 27 EU countries that have had their prime ministers destroyed by Brussels?
August 25, 2019
Not just PM’s but whole governments – Italy and Greece for starters, and that’s without even looking. Cyprus had its bank accounts emptied by Brussels over Greece.
August 26, 2019
graham
” Cyprus had its bank accounts emptied by Brussels over Greece”
No it didn’t. A limit was put on withdrawals after the 2008 US/UK caused bankers crash to stop speculators draining the country.
A similar measure was introduced here after the banking crisis to prevent savers moving their money across borders to chase the highest level of protection.
August 26, 2019
Wrong
Banks were closed for days by order of the EU.
When they opened again huge reductions were made from accounts.
Imagine the EU stole your hard earned savings overnight Margaret.
August 26, 2019
Greece and Italy for starters. In Italy’s case, Brussels insisted upon appointing the President of Italy before financial aid was granted to the banking sector, so there is an E.U. apparatchik lording it over the democratically-elected Government.
August 26, 2019
MH
Italy, Greece, Cyprus , Catalonia
August 26, 2019
@LL; “The [EEC &] EU have already destroyed four “Conservative” PMs.”
No, the Tory party destroyed four “Conservative” PMs, and sometimes their Govts too, Heath [1], Thatcher, Major & Cameron, whilst May jumped before she was pushed.
[1] how many Tory voters took Powell’s advice in 1974?…
August 26, 2019
I was an early teenager & rather too young to vote – but even then I found the Enoch Powell/Tony Benn/Peter Shore/Barbera Castle line far more convincing logical and rational than the Heath/Wilson Conservative/Labour/Liberal pro EU agendas. One was logic and reason the other irrational emotion and wishful thinking it seem to me at 14 or something.
August 25, 2019
Henry – You really think the EU operates on mutual benefit between say Germany/France and Italy/Greece?
August 25, 2019
Well said Fred!
Isn’t this EU thingy fantastic! It draws countries in with promises of free trade, and before they know it, they have become mere colonies of an institutionally corrupt foreign political entity that seeks to wipe out the nation state and impose rule by directive.
What isn’t there to like? (tongue in cheek)
August 25, 2019
Henry Carter
“A typically hysterical misdescription of the EU. All 28 members of the EU are independent countries, with independent governments which remain in control of all the big decisions that affect their citizens”
Oh that’s odd, I distinctly recall not being able to wake up in the mornings without virtually every aspect of what I do having been got at by EU law.
The suggestion that all EU 28 have their own independent governments quite frankly can only come from a total crackpot, or someone who has been banged up in solitary for the last 40 years.
August 25, 2019
Please do explain what it is the EU does to you when you wake up in the morning. I have breakfast, brush my teeth, get the kids ready for school, get the bus to work, turn on my computer. Not a hint of the EU anywhere
August 25, 2019
Kathy Hume
For starters everything you buy is watered down, less quantity. Tried to creosote your fence lately ? Whitewashing the greenhouse maybe ?
Or perhaps you’ve built a house ?
It’s everywhere from stupid 13A mains colours to what we are and not allowed to buy.
All EU regs need to be abolished. That said I always circumvent them wherever possible…..even made my own creosote.
In fact I never buy anything I can make myself, and always use imperial weights and measures. Even where it cannot be made at home I go online and buy ‘Made In England’, or made in the USA.
August 26, 2019
Kathy Hume
COMMISSION DIRECTIVE 2009/129/EC rules on the make up of toothpaste and fluoride
If you eat bacon for breakfast then (EU) No 1169/2011 meat products will have been implemented . If just eggs then (EU) No 1308/2013 classification of eggs directive .
Then when you turn on your computer there is very much a hint of the EU. Every website has to ask for you to repeatedly accept cookies, GDPR etc
August 25, 2019
What aspects of what you do have been ‘got at by EU law’.
And which aspects would you like to change.
You have had more than 3 years to think about it – so this should be good.
August 25, 2019
ANDY
EVERY TIME WE WRITE LONG LISTS, YOU RUN AWAY AND HIDE.
Maybe stop asking us to provide you with the same thing over and over again?
August 25, 2019
He seems to have the memory of a goldfish. Some top tier earner, can’t even retain simple facts.
August 25, 2019
Andy
“And which aspects would you like to change.”
You for one thing……you need re – educating. National service 50’s style should do the job. But it has to be on the telly so we can all laugh at your blubbering.
August 25, 2019
Italy’s government have had their budget rejected by the EU, why do you believe it is independent?
August 25, 2019
Henry Carter
Why does a “trading block” need two parliaments, a currency, a central bank , a flag and anthem and an army?
If the 28 are in control can you show me how they all voted to implement the more than 12,000 DIRECTIVES that the EU has so far put in place?
August 25, 2019
Doesn’t the word ‘directive’ sort of give the game away!?
August 25, 2019
7 pay in the rest take out,
August 25, 2019
Is there any Brexiter who isn’t obsessed with WW2? You compare the Nazis, who invaded countries, slaughtered millions, pursued genocide and smashed democracy wherever they went, with the EU, which is an organisation based on international treaties and the rule of law and which countries choose freely to join or not. You should be ashamed of yourself, John Redwood.
Reply I made no such comparison and said the EU is very different from an empire based on violent conquest! Please do not lie about me.
August 25, 2019
No he did not do this, but there are actually some parallels and many differences. It is similarly a socialist, top down, anti-democratic governments know best system. It it wrotten to the core and is getting worse by the day.
August 25, 2019
The EU was an idea by those who saw the horrors of WW2 but they were largely utopians who chose to ignore the fallibility and culture of human nature. From the Iron and Steel Community in the 1950s the plan was always a federal Europe. The myth is that the EU is the European saviour of peace, it is the reverse as shown with Ukraine and their peddling fear over the Irish border. Without the USA, Nato and nuclear weapons the USSR/Russia would rule over Europe, no need to worry about borders then. Obama made it plain that he wanted USA involvement in Europe diminished, even removed. We are lucky there is an Anglophile/Brexiteer now in the White House.
August 25, 2019
A.Sedgwick
“Without the USA, Nato and nuclear weapons the USSR/Russia would rule over Europe”
Really? But the Soviet empire collapsed in 1989 and is no more. Little to do with Nato, the US or nuclear weapons which both sides possessed.
The USSR finished because it failed to keep up with Western success and development.
But let’s not forget the role the people in its occupied countries played. The Hungarian uprising of 56, Prague Spring of 68, Velvet Revolution of 89, and all the other brave acts of resistance that earned these countries their freedom.
Neither should it be forgotten that Stalin’s Russian empire had actually been one the the 4 major Allies that won WW2!
August 25, 2019
You need to buy a new history book Margaret.
Yours is faulty.
August 26, 2019
Margaret Howard
Well my history book says this about the Gorbachev led breakup of the Soviet Union
The foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The main goal was winning the Cold War and the rollback of Communism—which was achieved in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the end of the Soviet Union in 1991
August 26, 2019
Well said Libertarian.
Star Wars defence systems and the economic power which led to the huge military might of America versus the dreadful povery of socialism in USSR and the lack of freedom for its citizens was the reasons the Berlin Wall fell.
Obviously lefties cannot allow themselves to accept these facts.
August 25, 2019
Reply I made no such comparison and said the EU is very different from an empire based on violent conquest! Please do not lie about me.
……I can vouch for Mr Redwood on this. If the contributor would care to actually read what JR said…..etc.
August 25, 2019
Remainers do not like to be reminded of what happened in modern European history, but do like to keep on about what happened in Colonial history and events from 200 years ago. They clutch at any cudgel to beat their own country. M.H is the chief exponent of this flagellation. Leavers usually use WW2 to counter such arguments. I do not recall any Leavers who continually and gratuitously drag it all up in the way Ms. H. does or you suggest.
August 25, 2019
Garland
I think you’ll find its the dumbest remainers who keep calling Brexit voters far right, alt right nazi fascists
Yup I’m a Brexiteer and I draw no conclusions between WW2 , the British Empire or any other historical issues with our present situation which is to face a duplicitous , anti democratic establishment who refuse to implement the will of the people
August 25, 2019
Small is beautiful.
Nothing inspiring in this world has been created by committee.
August 25, 2019
James Bertram
Ahmen to that
August 25, 2019
Sir John,
You write many excellent articles here, but this really is one of the best. Thankyou.
August 25, 2019
When it comes to looking after its own international interests the EU is a fart in a bottle. Utterly useless, prefering to leave it to others. Witness the Staits of Hormuz. They would still be discussing matters when an invader reached Lisbon. Still awaiting US support.
The junior status that Macron speaks of is enjoyed as a member of the EU, where some are more junior than others.
Being out will be like a breath of fresh air. It only suits those who like not having to make decisions and take responsibility for those decisions. This is why belonging suits so many in Parliament, they have neither made the law by which we live, nor have they had to be responsible for it. It is why Parliament is in need not only of a radical reduction in numbers, but of a great clearout of the inadequate to the task.
Should Boris get it wrong, then these democratic changes will happen faster than you think. The marker was put down at the EU election. Ignore it at your peril.
August 25, 2019
well said (and warned)..
August 25, 2019
Any country, or organisation, that demands a large annual fee, supremacy of its law above national laws, control of our fishing waters, borders and trade should be told to take a running jump, no matter who they are!
The USA have asked for none of these. The EU demand them. We have a very bad deal with the EU!
August 25, 2019
You are in for a nasty surprise.
Amusing for us to watch though.
August 25, 2019
Based on what? Another Andy made up ‘fact’? Give us the refs please.
I live in the forlorn hope that someday you’ll write something sensible.
August 26, 2019
graham1946
Andy is not on here to provide healthy debate. He is here to deliberately and negatively trigger individuals with puerile nonsense.
Treat him as an adolescent with a quick pat on the head then send him on his way to the child’s playground.
Our kind host’s comment section is for educated adults….Andy does not fit this category!
August 25, 2019
Good morning.
This is one of the more ridiculous arguments made. It is made by people who think others are too stupid to see through it. A double insult to Leavers.
The EU is primarily about France and Germany with the BENELUX countries thrown in. The rest, including the UK, are superfluous to the grand scheme of things. The EU movement after the WWII grew stronger as a means to prevent Germany and France going to war with each other. They soon realised that, whilst competing with each other over who should be the dominant power in Europe, they could work together to divide the spoils. That is why they always agree a great deal before a Council meeting so to present a single united front. And no matter how the UK tried to divide them this was never going to happen.
So it is better to leave them too it and go our own way.
August 25, 2019
Are Remainers aware of GDP? Take a look and see how small the junior serfs, sorry ‘members’ of the EU are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal)
August 25, 2019
WOW MORE OF YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THIS SITE
August 25, 2019
Fred H
You are right
The GDP of the UK is greater than the combined GDP of 19 EU member states
August 25, 2019
Dislike of the US is very much part of the EU’s spin and also in the indoctrination of students in the education system.
I agree Sir John with all you say. The whole propaganda coming from both UK and EU is so obvious to me, though clearly they must think people believe it. And I would go so far as to say, it’s mostly the Remain voters who do! So I suppose one could say the indoctrination…partly worked!
August 25, 2019
It’s the old argument of, “If New Zealand can be[successfuly]independent, why can’t Britain?” The answer is usually some nonsensical sophistry about being too far away. Remainers think in old, outdated notions of geographical distributions of power, the West, the East, Africa etc, that because we are just twenty two miles from Calais, we must necessarily subordinate ourselves to the Continent.
The great coming worry is going to be the achievement of a genuine Brexit.
Is Boris planning to push May’s deal minus the backstop through Parliament, in which case what happens if after the two year interregnum, we still have not agreed a new trade deal? Will this mean the withdrawal agreement keeps running, with all its attendant horrors? And the other danger is that we sign up to so many(supposedly)mutually advantageous, post Brexit agreements(all presumably adjudicated by the ECJ, not the British Supreme Court of Judicature), that we ‘remain’ umbilically attached in perpetuity, to the EU. One thinks of the fate of Switzerland in its attempts to stay independent. Even no-deal will be threatened by the plethora of ‘arrangements’ made aprés la deluge! The answer is for Britain to stamp its authority and not be dragged down by the ‘sinking ship’ that the EU surely is. NB, there will not be a flood of problems, merely a few puddles!
August 25, 2019
The EU is a protectionist racket run by a remarkably wider selection of sanctimonious hypocrites and nonentities than normal. We are unable where it counts to vote the ruling politburo in or out. Such a shame we gave them the benefit of the doubt for quite so long before at last waking up to the democratic deficit and self serving corruption that exists at the core of the whole sorry saga.
August 25, 2019
Do you have any understanding at all of how the EU work? Seemingly not. And not a hint of irony about unelected El Presidente Boris and his banana republic regime – selected by a group of old white men.
August 25, 2019
As usual, no argument put forward to educate us all – just ageism and racism. If you said the same about non white people you’d be locked up. Come on Andy, tell us all how the EU works and whilst you are at it read a little about how our own political system works as you seem to have no knowledge of your own country. Produce a fact or two why don’t you?
August 25, 2019
Andy
There are more BAME people in the UK cabinet than the whole of the EU parliament , there are more BAME UK MEPs than there is in the rest of the EU parliament .
Please explain who voted for Martin Selmayr
Johnson was elected, he was elected as a an MP just like every other UK MP. He was made leader of the conservative party by the members of the conservative party . He was made PM by the House of Commons and the Queen
Meanwhile Ursula von der Leyen has been confirmed as the European commission president
She won the support of just 383 MEP’s and her name wasn’t even on the original ballot paper
Yup I understand how the corrupt EU works , shame you dont
August 25, 2019
Libertarian,
Nice to have you back it is nice to see you have grown up a little and stopped your more personalised attacks
August 25, 2019
bill hans brown
Grow up you say
So you’ve changed your name for no apparent reason
You posted a fake lie about me on the thread about fishmongers and butchers and refused to apologise for your “mistake”
Maturity and you aren’t remotely acquainted
August 26, 2019
bill resorts to personal attacks whenever the debate is lost.
August 25, 2019
Okay Andy, let’s pretend for a moment that Jeremy Corbyn leads Labour to a substantial majority at the next election….and then tragically, a few weeks later, is fatally run over by a London bus.
Q/ Should another general election be held immediately? Or should the procedures for electing a leader in the Labour Party, be invoked?
May I remind you that Harold Wilson resigned the premiership in 1976, and was replaced by James Callaghan, apparently without the need for a GE.
August 25, 2019
And how did Gordon Brown become PM? He became Leader of his Party in an uncontested internal election, and therefore PM, just like Mrs May and Mr Johnson.
But apparently it’s ok if Labour do it.
August 25, 2019
what is your problem with democracy?
Parliament’s legal intention for the UK to leave the EU is not conditional upon a withdrawal agreement
no deal allows the UK government to scrap thousands of import tariffs on non-EU imports, which will reduce prices; to save £39billion; to regain control of fishing and to increase the level of democracy in the country.
August 25, 2019
The discussions about the damage the could be caused by leaving illustrates clearly how much damage big government causes to living standards, productivity and efficiency. It is all about artificial and pointless barriers we will face when we leave. These are not in the EU’s interests nor in the UKs. But they are largely just pointless government red tape.
Singapore is twice as rich in GDP per cap with a population of just under six million from having been half as rich not that long ago. Having tax levels of under 15% of GDP rather then nearly 50% helps rather a lot. Of course the UK is not too small. The problem is that it has far too much government, taxation, red tape and waste in government. It is suffocated by the EU and has daft employment laws and an idiotic energy policy on top. Despite all this tax public service heathcare, policing, social services, education etc are fairly dire too.
August 25, 2019
What will happen if the next US President is a Democrat President? The UK will be squeezed between two Anglophobe forces. The grotesque Pelosi has already stated that there’s no possibility of a UK-US FTA under a Democrat President. It is therefore imperative the UK leaves the autocratic EU as dictated by British law
If Johnson performs a fudge the UK will be exposed on all sides should Trump fall and an Anglophobe Democrat becomes POTUS
August 25, 2019
Don’t worry Dominic, Trump has as much chance of losing in 2020, as Jeremy Corbyn has of winning next time around!
August 25, 2019
Henry Carter is badly mistaken in his views on the benign operations and intentions of the EU! Following federalization, Britain will cease to be even as independent, as arguably, she now is, but will be changed into a glorified county council!
August 25, 2019
We would feel better about ourselves if everyone stopped referring to a ‘special relationship’ between the US and the UK.
We need to develop a policy of self reliance and independence from all which is not helped when we imagine some sort of favoured status.
August 25, 2019
Yes. There is something in our political psyche that we have to be understated and risk averse no better illustrated by Theresa May.
Jingoism, flying flags etc, national pride all labelled by the (il) liberal elites as populist right wing intolerant ‘little englanders’ as we know promoted by the BBC.
Whereas time and time again it is proved that we are more tolerant, embracing multi culturism to a far greater extent than many in the EU.
As people and collectively as a nation, we are independent and neither want to bully or be bullied and it is quite apparent that the EU seeks to do the latter and made a serious misjudgement believing Theresa May reflected the majority.
Indeed I believe that for decades the British people have been fed up with politicians promising much to get our votes and delivering much less and the referendum was the latest example.
Life is about personal choice and being an independent nation means we can also chose what’s best us. An FTA without the rest of the baggage gives us precisely that opportunity.
Ps I see Boris is still prepared to pay the 39 billion if there is a deal. Why why why? And if he’s prepared to do that, what else is he selling out On?
August 25, 2019
The key difference of course between membership of the EU and a comprehensive FTA eg with the US, is an FTA doesn’t impose all sorts of other obligations to pool sovereignty, and doesn’t require surrender of independence in trade policy with the rest of the world.
WTO Brexit will be a role of the dice, but probably now unavoidable. if the EU do try to make life difficult, as Tusk just threatened again, Corbyn and the Marxists might be able to claim it’s a crisis of capitalism and squeeze in with the support of the Scottish separatists. It will need very strong direction, a clear lead, and radical free market policies to ensure the UK is competitive and the post Brexit years a success. I hope Boris has a coherent plan.
August 25, 2019
The Brexit “gossip” at the moment is all about the political efforts to thwart
our vote. As with the run up to March 29th, the defenders of democracy are not
making specific noises about what would happen if Boris does not deliver on the
mandate. It is probable that Boris’ intentions are his and his alone, but should
you not consider the risk that the loudest voices are the ones that are heard?
August 25, 2019
The UK will then gain a higher calibre of politician as they will have power and responsibility. Politicians have become soft and lazy with so many decisions taken in Brussels.
August 25, 2019
It’s interesting to consider, that France, if it were governed effectively could easily stand alone as a nation, but still fears the might of Germany next door, so would rather propitiate their independence for a dishonest way to keep their farmers happy, support their industry, and give the appearance of leading the EU…
When nations succumb to living off others instead of generating growth potential internally, they lose the ability to move forward, As if on benefits, and this makes for more duplicity.
The EU, as an entity, encourages duplicity and secrecy, as well as parasitic mutuality they describe as integration.
Germany, of course, could easily stand alone, but desires more influence and customers obliged to support it’s industry.
Both France and Germany, in their dishonesty, promote disruptive views to justify their motives.
August 25, 2019
Bryan ..One of the best contributions on here.
August 25, 2019
France stand alone. you have never been to France. let me see,mmmmm, monday 9 till 12, tuesday wed thurs, 9 till 4, friday 9 til 12, sat and sun off. dinner 12 till 2 but no chance of anything from 11:45 to 2:15 coq/brandy break 2:45till 3:30. ezz time to go ome, they are so beurocratic it cost more to collect car tax than it made so they scrapped car tax. However France is a sleeping giant run by the unions, if they break the unions it would be a world power. viva la France.
August 25, 2019
Yes, tim, they still know how to live instead of the treadmill country we have become. Who decided that people can’t do their business between 9 and four? Who decided it’s not good for families to sit together at the dinner table rather than snack on the hoof?
We are run by big businesses and have forgotten, unlike the French, to live life not get consumed by work.
And despite all of this France, according to wiki, is ranked as the world’s tenth largest and the EU’s second largest economy by purchasing power parity.
So they manage to enjoy life while at the same time being one of the world’s most successful countries.
And let’s not forget the food, wine and brandy they enjoy with such obvious abandon.
August 25, 2019
They also seem to riot with abandon on a regular basis, yellow vests and blockages on a whim .. not really a sign of a contented society is it.
August 25, 2019
Robert
Lest we forget:
Wiki
“The 2011 England riots, more widely known as the London Riots were a series of riots between 6 and 11 August 2011, when thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England, saw looting, arson, and mass deployment of police, and resulted in the deaths of five people.”
How many deaths have there been in France so far?
August 26, 2019
That was simple criminal behaviour in the UK.
It had no political motivation. whereas in France the protests are very much political and are directed at the elite leaders of France.
August 26, 2019
MH
Lol
France is a backward agrarian economy, with weekly riots and high unemployment . Completely dominated by unions.
As a visitor to my business in France 2 weeks ago, trying to find somewhere open to have lunch on a Sunday was beyond a joke
Oh and to answer your question
FRENCH Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Sunday said that 11 people had lost their lives during the country’s sometimes violent yellow vest crisis, as he unveiled the grim consequences of more than six months of social unrest.
August 26, 2019
viva?
August 26, 2019
Ah so you agree they are a lazy lot of barstewards, who try to live off the backs of others?
August 25, 2019
French policy has always been to seek allies to bolster their own position against Germany. Whether it be the UK, Russia or some others, they simply cannot face having such a powerful nation right next door. The EU is just the latest ruse.
August 26, 2019
When you keep being beaten it is wise to try an entente cordiale!
August 25, 2019
By this time nobody gives two hoots about what you think- you and your type have brought the UK to the edge of economic meltdown madness and with no clear plan for the future- nothing-Zilch
You say “This view is absurd”- please please don’t use this word ‘absurd’ – you know what happened when the Danes used it
Vassalage to the US is the future- no doubt! you’re already falling into line from what I read.
August 25, 2019
@ bartz
You talk about a clear plan for the future, but how aware are YOU of EU plans for us if we stay in – I’ve no doubt you have not a clue what to look forward to.
Did we get a plan when we went into the EU – No of course not, all we were given was lies….
The WTO Brexit plan is quite clear, but you would prefer to make it more complicated. Brexit will work fine as long as people like you don’t go out of their way to obstruct it.
August 25, 2019
WTO Brexit is quite clear.
Needlessly make everyone poorer to appease unappeasable ignorant old bigots.
Tell me – who elects the WTO and how can we remove them?
August 25, 2019
Andy
The WTO isn’t government , its doesn’t have a parliament, anthem, flag or army. Its a system of implementing agreed trading standards.
But even you know that , you just think youre being clever when in fact you make yourself look sillier by the day
August 25, 2019
The WTO does have a flag and court, but no army like the EU
August 25, 2019
bartz
Let me have a copy of the EU plan for the future will you
We are escaping vassalage and formalising a trade deal with our currently biggest trade partner the USA , something the EU has failed to do. Just because the EU demand vassalage to trade doesn’t mean everyone else does
Oh and as you proclaim you dont wish to be tied to the USA I guess you will be swapping your iPhone for a greek mobile, your computer for a Romanian PC, Google for an Italian search engine, and moving onto a Portugese social media platform ?
Give me ONE example of why there will be economic meltdown after Brexit , I’ve asked remainers this so many times…. nope never an answer they all run off screaming and crying…youre pathetic
By the way your starter for 10…. 86% of ALL UK economic activity is internal within the UK and therefore ANY form of Brexit has very little impact
August 25, 2019
A timely article today. I learned of W4B – World for Brexit in today’s DT Letters.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2019/08/24/lettersbrexit-can-play-vital-role-strengthening-democracy-across/
Launched in Washington D.C. in July, it reinforces your message and confirms the ascent of the Anglosphere for the common good.
With the BBC and MSM’s embargo on positive Brexit news I suppose it is no surprise that this has just leaked out.
August 25, 2019
Re: W4B
As others see us – Peggy Grande article:-
https://brexitcentral.com/there-is-a-world-of-support-out-there-for-brexit-britain-as-you-embrace-self-governance/
W4B site: https://w4b.world/
August 25, 2019
Thanks for the link. It was well worth listening to how others think of the UK and our democratic deficit.
August 25, 2019
Launched in Washington?? WASHINGTON! And you Brexiters claim this is about the UK being independent!! All you want is to be America’s poodle
August 25, 2019
So in your world we can only read papers and reports published in the notoriously unbiased Brussels. Give me Washington every day.
August 25, 2019
What a very blue pill view of reality you have Mr Redwood. I agree completely that Britain is quite capable ofbeing independent but sadly it won’t happen. Our establishment is split into two camps. The Brussels subservient and thec Washington subservient. Claiming that New Zealand, Australia and Canada are not client states of America is laughable. Washington says jump and they fight each other to see who can jump highest. When, and if, Brexit happens we will be locked a trade deal with America which will be used in typical Trump style as blackmail to make us even more of their poodle than we already are.
As for the NATO rubbish who are these potential large aggressors? Are Chinese gunboats going to sail up the Thames as ours used to sail up the Yangtze? Is Putin going to invade all of Europe just to acquire a load of bankrupt and incredibly troublesome countries? I suggest that that is absurd and if we are actually an independent entity we should rely on ourselves and defend our own country not everybody elses.
August 25, 2019
PUTIN is perfectly capable of invading the countries across the borders with Russia, and the Chinese gunboat in reality is the shipping exporting so much here that they are trying to make UK dependent on them.
August 25, 2019
I served in BAOR in the 60/70’s and can assure you that it was NATO that kept the peace back then and most certainly not “Europe”. In my view we came very much nearer to some very serious conflict than most people realise (certainly not the young) and on at least one occasion I believed that I would not see out the week.
We have allowed our armed forces to decline to such an extent that I doubt we could mount a successful defence of our shores, let alone any more distant interests. We (like the Europeans) hide behind the US and are very reliant on their protection, which we seem to take for granted. Whatever yours views of Trump, he is absolutely correct to castigate members of NATO for not investing in their share of our defence. We have made this mistake in the past with nearly fatal consequences.
August 25, 2019
It really is tiresome to hear this country talked down.
Small and insignificant?
I guess that’s why we’re a member of the G7 and the second largest net contributor to the EU.
Bigoted and racist?
Well, that’s obviously why people cross the whole of enlightened Europe to get here.
Selfish and “I’m alright Jack, particularly the elderly?
See above, we have sizable net immigration so we can’t be too bad a place to live .It would be lovely to give the less able more but we’re a country which is already heavily in debt and our welfare system is a huge chunk of our national purse.Realism has to trump “nice” sometime.
Perhaps the denigrates would like to take a proper look at the world without their rosy-colours specs and give us a list of ten better counties to live in or shut up because it’s their attitude which will bring this country down.
How many people like “Jasmine” vowed to leave the country if Johnson became PM,but she’s still here?
Tiresome.
August 25, 2019
Get used to it.
We have 30+ years of anti-Europe bile to repay – with interest.
And we’ve barely started.
August 25, 2019
Dear Mr. Redwood,
@Andy,
‘My family pays a vast amount of tax!’
Give us another one Andy, that one has kept me going for 24 hours!
August 26, 2019
Did I mention Brexit?
It’s standard left-wing speak on practically every political issue.
Try answering the questions.You seem to love the EU because it would give you freedom of movement…so where would you take your talents for preference?
I’m sure they will welcome you with open arms, EU or no EU membership.
August 26, 2019
Andy
“We have 30+ years of anti-Europe bile to repay – with interest. And we’ve barely started.”
OOH, OOH, a threat !
What are you going to do then, bash us with your ‘man – bag’ perhaps ?
No, Son, after brexit you and your kind will go quiet.
August 25, 2019
Andrea Leadsom today – There are vast Brexit opportunities for business
Companies want an end to the uncertainty, and the Government will do all that it can to support them.
Well Andrea May putrid W/A treaty that you voted for three times would not have helped them at all. It was appalling.
Business wants a bonfire of all the daft red tape, sensible level of simple taxation, easy hire and fire, cheap reliable energy, good law and order, a solid education system in sensible subjects, far fewer worthless degrees, easier planning, fewer state sector parasites. We want government out of the way and not help from them! They can only help by taxing us first and so do more harm than good in general.
August 25, 2019
Andrea Leadsom!
Seriously. When you have to quote know-nothings it really does your case no good.
August 25, 2019
Business will in fact be facing a vast increase in red tape trying to export to a market that was friction free and this is especially true for services and high end value products.
Going back to the border with Ireland , for the moment ( and Ireland is going to be a problem all of its own) the cost of the additional requirements is such as to make many small businesses unviable. That will be even more true if they are lumbered with the costs of an attempt to pretend there is no border
Big Business is relatively unconcerned by entry barriers for obvious reasons Small business , start ups new markets are going to suffer most and they are the ones that will have to look elsewhere.
Brexit is an idea invented by retired middle managers whose jobs are now done by computers. Brexit has been determine to ignore what business wants form the start and I have yet to see any evidence on this blog that a single poster has any involvement whatsoever in solving the problems Brexit creates.
Further imbecilic suggestions not required – ta
August 25, 2019
Well stop making them then. Ta.
August 25, 2019
Now that is funny, denigration of red tape by a europhile is not something to take seriously. The serious businesses are quite happy to leave and know they will continue to be able to run their business throughout the world with no problems .. even across the never a real problem Irish border.
August 26, 2019
Newmania
You STILL haven’t told us when your job and you are moving to Frankfurt . You told us that it was, so when ?
Yes of course high end products are notoriously difficult to sell into Europe if you aren’t in the single market. Its why no one in the EU owns an iPhone for instance….. oh wait
August 25, 2019
I have often advocated applying a “USA Test” when considering our future relationship with the EU.
The test would be :
“Would any US President, even an Obama, accept the terms on offer for the future relationship ?”
In other words, does it give us back the same kind of full autonomy as a fiercely independent country like the USA ?
In respect of the Withdrawal agreement, it fails the test at almost every turn.
That’s why just dropping the backstop is nowhere near good enough and it has to be a No Deal exit.
We are currently in a very high risk game. We have to hope that the forces of Remain fail to get their act together and Labour continues to insist that Corbyn is the only alternative PM. If so, very few, if any, Conservatives will support his vote of No Confidence and there will be enough Labour abstentions to see it fail.
Maybe the Remainers and Bercow can stop us leaving on the 31st October. Hopefully not, however, if they can, then an immediate election becomes inevitable but given recent polling, I can’t see how Boris can win a majority.
Maybe the Brexit Party will fold completely if we have left but if not and there is no electoral pact, current polling would give the LibDems, Labour, the SNP and the Greens a Remainer majority which they will use to scrap Brexit. They probably won’t even call another referendum, saying that the election gave them the mandate to revoke A50 permanently. As long as they get 52% of the popular vote and a majority of seats, that would be hard to argue against.
There is all to play for and unfortunately the outcome may well rest on the decisions of a handful of Conservative MPs like Grieve, Hammond and Clarke.
August 25, 2019
The person I’m most worried about is Bercow. Can nothing be done about this openly and unashamedly biased Speaker? How does he have so much power with which to make mischief?
August 25, 2019
I’ve got it, Corbyns real plan to leave the EU, he is a genious, he has made fools of them all, by playing the fool! inspector cluseau!
August 25, 2019
I have believed for some time that the EU is basically the third great European War fought with economics instead of guns.
The history goes back to the annexation of Germany by Prussia before the first war. It started with a free trade area, became an economic union and then Greater Germany, in reality Prussia.
For the historical background to the EU we need look no further than the Red House Agreement for the great plan…
August 25, 2019
Well you don’t need tanks when you have ‘free movement of people’ and can basically impose you will via the EU Commission and EU Council. As the late Nicholas Ridley remarked monetary union is just a German racket to take over all of Europe and it has been remarkably successful in that regard, if in no others. What is badly needed is a counter weight to the EU and its imperialist ambitions and we could have had this with EFTA but our dim politicians never seem to think things through.
August 25, 2019
either that are actually in favour of the imperialist ambitions?
August 25, 2019
The US versus EU debate does not exist other than rhetorically . Our trade will continue to be dominated by our neighbours. The naïve are encouraged to assume America`s cultural domination of the UK reflects an economic relationship . It does not . That cultural domination incidentally includes the whole extreme liberal baggage of political correctness aggressive feminism and Western self-loathing
August 25, 2019
Newmainia
WRONG
The USA is our biggest trading partner , We live in a service based world which has no geographic constraints which is why our reliance on the EU has been dropping consistently for the last 10 years. Trade works best with common legal frameworks as enjoyed for more than 100 years around the anglo sphere and the commonwealth
ps You still haven’t updated us on why your job wasn’t moved to Frankfurt and why you STILL haven’t managed to open an office in the EU
August 25, 2019
Libertarian
The relative size of trading partners is not so simple to determine but the
The context here is a Redwood post comparing the US and EU.
Treasury quoted the figure of 17% US and 44% EU in its 2016 report . The amount of imports is rather higher, 53% which the economically illiterate here think is a bad thing. Exports to the US are about 13%.
As you can see there is no real comparison and the supposed choice is non-existent, even if any real company would consider exchanging paying customer for the gaseous waffle leave folk embarrass us with.
Your suggestion,that the passporting problem, might be solved by establishing an office in the EEA( or in the UK), on the other hand is ‘down right ‘ brilliant. Only last week I mentioned this to a German Insurer wishing to trade in the UK and I am sure the helpless laughter was merely an expression of relief …..
Was this a joke ? If so you have delighted us with it enough, by now.
August 25, 2019
Now there is a statement I will never believe .. a German laughing.
August 26, 2019
Newmania
Oh dear then you and your German friend might want to let the Bank of England know that their scheme makes you laugh
Solvency II and Insurance Distribution Directive
Insurance Distribution Directive Branch notification form: for UK firms intending to establish their branch in a particular EEA state, and UK firms that intend to notify us of changes to the details of a current branch.
If a regulated firm intends to passport out of the UK under Solvency II or the Insurance Distribution Directive it must inform us by using the following form/s and submitting them to PRA-passporting@bankofengland.co.uk.
ps I had a meeting with some senior folk from Allianz in Guildford last week ( they are hiring apparently) , they seem to have a number of offices in the UK. So you know Allianz is a German insurance firm.
When are you leaving Newmania ?
August 27, 2019
Libertarian, so by “start an office” you meant comply with the requirements of a branch office in another country” did you ? I see, another one of your jovial attempts to appear like a educationally sub normal eight year old. You can spare me the hilarity in the future.
August 26, 2019
Libertarian,
You still have not updated on why you did not admit you were wrong on businesses growing stocks up to end of March 2019
August 26, 2019
Any company faced with uncertainty will take action to mitigate those potential effects on their business.
If that means swopping cash for stock then they will
It is what Directors are paid to do.
Your comment makes me feel you have never run a trading business.
August 26, 2019
Edward 2
this is exactly what our Libertarian friend is saying did not happen
August 25, 2019
You might like to check the trade balances.
August 26, 2019
The US is a major trade and investment partner for the UK – by some measures the biggest of all.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44802666
August 25, 2019
The EU are certainly not behaving like the ‘friends’ that politicians are obliged to call them. Collaborating with UK MPs to subvert the will of the British people and keep us in a trade bloc against our will – one which now intends to become a federal super-state… these are not our friends, we have been competing with them for centuries so let’s do so without the blinkers and shackles.
When I listen to that oaf Tusk calling our PM names at the G7 and before it makes my blood boil. Who is this inflected little technocrat to call us names while claiming to be out friend? Bloody cheek.
Isn’t it amazing how quickly people choose to forget how you helped them. It’s as if we never liberated France as recently as about 70 years ago… from the Germans!
The flaws in the EU are so enormous it beggars belief that none of the media are reporting – not mainstream anyway. The price of food is hiked by external tariffs – the internal EU producers of goods simply hike their price to match or slightly undercut the tariff-added price from the rest of the world.
While the CAP over-produces food and subsidises big businesses over small ones (beneficiaries of state aid under CAP include Tate & Lyle at nearly a billion and even the royal family’s estates get £1m a year from CAP!!!).
The old ‘butter mountains’ etc are now sent to Africa as ultra-cheap surpluses. Sounds good for a moment until you realise that means their farmers cannot compete and have no work, there’s no internal market.
The EU is a global force for ill. Let’s get out and see it collapse, then maybe what comes after might be better.
August 25, 2019
why don’t we spend the £80,000,000,000 we will save from leaving the EU no deal WTO rules on military spending, ship building, aircraft, and armaments, all to be made in our country, just imagine it!
August 25, 2019
I’d use any savings to purge Labour’s Gramsci inspired client state. I’m sure these pro-Labour parasitic apparatchiks will have awarded themselves juicy employment terms which will need obligating at some point. The public sector rich need utterly decimating. They are not self-financing. They are profiteering off the backs of small and medium sized wealth creating private sector companies who pay the tax
If Labour can indulge in this form of parasitic politics then the Tory government should counteract it and then explain to the public what Labour’s plan has been for decades
August 25, 2019
Well I hope the ships will float, generate enough electricity, have big enough engines, the aircraft can fly, land on carriers and without US permission. Will the guns work in all climates, use standard ammo? All built in England? I think not.
August 25, 2019
I happened to see Boris Johnson saying that the UK had benefited greatly from free trade over the past two centuries. Well, maybe that was true in the past, but as far as I can see from the projected numbers which are officially quoted the law of diminishing returns has started to operate on trade liberalisation, at least in most cases. Given that the trend growth of the UK economy has been around 2.5% a year more or less since World War 2 I don’t regard the one-off gain of a fraction of a percent of GDP we might get from a special trade deal with the US as particularly important, it is nothing more than marginal, and indeed of the same order as the one-off gain of about 1% of GDP we got from the EU Single Market.
August 25, 2019
Rather off topic, I have just dropped this letter to the Maidenhead Advertiser:
“Dear Sir
I note that Phil Jones of the federalist European Movement only cites EU sources to support his claim that we are obliged to pay the EU £39 billion when we leave.
(Viewpoint, August 22, “£39bn EU commitment must be honoured by all”)
If he had consulted the legal advice provided to the House of Lords Constitutional Committee and reproduced in Appendix 3 to their report “Brexit and the EU budget” published on March 4 2017 then he would know that if we leave without an Article 50 TEU withdrawal agreement then we will have no such obligation.
In fact it is generous of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to offer to pay the EU even £9 billion, let alone £39 billion, or £60 billion, or whatever higher, and even more “salty”, number some eurocrat may choose to pluck out of the air.
However with regard to Mr Johnson I increasingly wonder why he insists that we will leave the EU on October 31, when as far as I can see there is no legal impediment to him telling the EU that we have decided not to avail ourselves of the full extension period granted to his predecessor and so we will be leaving earlier.
After all it is pretty obvious that such a long extension was primarily intended to maximise the opportunities for supporters of the EU like the Tory MP and previous Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond to get their act together and stop us leaving.
Yours etc”
If anybody writes in to say that we need more time to prepare for withdrawal then I will ask what the government was doing about that during the three years that our local MP resided in No 10 Downing Street and the snake Philip Hammond lived next door.
August 26, 2019
All this reminds me of the Moody Blues song …(very appropriate)
GO NOW.
August 27, 2019
And why not?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/794750/Council_Decision.pdf
“(9) On 10 April 2019, the European Council agreed to a further extension to allow for the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement by both Parties. Such an extension should last as long as necessary and, in any event, no longer than 31 October 2019.”
They say they will not change the Withdrawal Agreement, and there is still no prospect that as it stands it could be approved by MPs so that it could be ratified, so why hang about until the last possible date?
August 25, 2019
Sir JR,
An interesting analyses with some good points. However, I have one slight problem with being told that the EU “is limiting the political expression of the democratic electorate” and if we leave we will not have that constraint anymore.
How does that with the EIU analyses that some of the most democratic countries in the World , measured on number of variables are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany , Luxembourg, Germany and Netherlands and UK falling down the ranking. All countries that are members of the EU?
August 25, 2019
Why has Borris capitulated? He has offered 9,000,000,000 and what ELSE?
August 25, 2019
£39bn was expressed as starting cost, likely to increase. If we settle on £7bn or £9bn I won’t quibble.
August 25, 2019
Allegedly you studied history. You seem to have overlooked US slavery and Manifest Destiny. Do you consider that those institutions were on the the right side of history. What about Prussian universal education and social security? Was that the wrong side of history?
Reply No of course not I strongly condemn slavery, practised by Europeans as well as by the USA
August 25, 2019
The persistence of European slavery outside Europe is an interesting point but the persistence of the Jim Crow into the mid 60s, and all that tells us, in what was supposedly a civilised country is an important fact about America today.
PS
I wonder what the Duke of Wellington would have said had he been informed he was waging a war to liberate oppressed people or how impressed he would have been to see the Uk managing to completely isolate itself form any European ally …… are you sure you studied history ?
August 25, 2019
Exactly as JR says.
I want the UK to be free to forge its own way in the world and be a leader in democracy, free trade, rule of law and good administration. Not to be a vassal – which the Remoaners would voluntarily have us be.
I find it strange that so many people prefer the centralising and oligarchical Franco-German EU and ignore the possibilities that independence brings.
Remoaners fail to realise how ridiculous they have become. The reality of Remain leaves me cold.
August 25, 2019
What a pleasure it is finally to have a PM who is actually negotiating on behalf of the UK by throwing out the backstop, and pointing out that no deal equals no money for the EU, while at the same time being open to a sensible deal rather than the WA. I sincerely hope he sticks rigidly to this line.
Perhaps his biggest mistake was not to have organised a mass resignation at Chequers or earlier so there would have been more time to negotiate properly, and to prepare properly for no deal to act as the big stick behind the negotiation.
August 25, 2019
Mark
“What a pleasure it is finally to have a PM who is actually negotiating on behalf of the UK by throwing out the backstop, and pointing out that no deal equals no money for the EU, while at the same time being open to a sensible deal rather than the WA. I sincerely hope he sticks rigidly to this line.”
I held that view, until Boris went on a feet kissing mission to two countries that wish to see ours chained and humiliated. Just like Theresa May…..swanning off and returning with nothing but more capitulation.
Until I see Boris kicking arse abroad then as far as I’m concerned he’s no different than any other swindler we’ve had in No 10, and Nigel Farage will get my vote.
We need to see some real teeth…..preferably sunk into Varadakar’s backside. We need to see the expulsion of EU fishing vessels from our waters, and Macron publicly reminded his country only exists because of our sacrifices.
If we don’t see such things we won’t vote for the Tories at the next election and they’ll be finished for good.
August 25, 2019
Steve- let me say it straight- Boris is going nowhere- the backstop is there it has been negotiated in good faith by the EU and the UK- it’s not going to change no more so that the 39 billion owing- talking it up or down is in the realm of the ERG echo chamber- a la Mark Francois or Theresa Villears usual. The Boris card is well marked by the EU- despite his Churchillian charm and F**k business he doesn’t really the pass Statesman test..more like a pretender- just ask Trump
August 25, 2019
Apologies that this is off-topic, but Please do consider.
There are a number of Acts that need to be repealed in relation to the EU – It would perhaps be a good time to start making a list of them.
1. The Retail Price Maintenance Act
https://independencedaily.co.uk/repeal-of-rpm-act-1972/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1
2. Equalities Act 2010
Not strictly related to the EU, but it brought in a great deal of politically correct nonsense – Repealing it would bring sanity to many areas of public life.
August 25, 2019
Great. It would mean that job adverts could say “no one called Bryan Harris need apply” or pubs could have a notice over the bar, saying “we do not serve Bryan Harrises”.
August 26, 2019
@Martin from Cardiff?
Your point being?
Isn’t it time common sense replaced the barbaric politically correct nonsense that an over-indulegance with socialism has given us??????????
The BBC already posts adverts telling white people not to apply for jobs…
August 26, 2019
Place a link to one.
August 25, 2019
JR
“Germany in 1945 those nations were relieved and surprised that the British army was banned from looting, rape and commandeering supplies, and duly paid for food and other items needed”
The following is a diary entry by the future US president John F Kennedy on visiting Bremen in 1945:
Kennedy also visited Bremen, an important north German industrial and commercial center, and a major port city. As Kennedy reported, the Russians were not the only occupation forces to carry out wide-scale looting in Germany: “The British had gone into Bremen ahead of us — and everyone was unanimous in their description of British looting and destruction, which had been very heavy. They had taken everything which at all related to the sea — ships, small boats, lubricants, machinery, etc.”
As regards your description of wars against European nations compared to the US
you go on to say:
“The war with the USA was in stark contrast to the war with the other two (meaning France and Germany). The UK lost, with many in Britain unhappy about taking up arms against US settlers from the UK who had similar views of liberty, limited government and taxation to the home country. The USA triumphed not only by might but also by right, and since then relations have usually been mutually supportive.”
This is of course another misleading statement. Although the War of Independence ended in 1783 Britain repeatedly tried to win back its colonies there culminating in the War of 1812 which included burning down the White House in 1814 and did not finish until after our defeat in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans.
And as far as our continental wars are concerned until the 20th century Germany was the only European country we had never been at war with. Just the opposite for as Dr Lucy Worsley tells us in her excellent new BBC TV series “The First Georgians: The German Kings who made Britain” we have much to thank Germany for
That’s more than can be said about any American president.
August 25, 2019
Margaret Howard
“The German Kings who made Britain” we have much to thank Germany for”
You state the obvious, at least to our generation who were given truthful history lessons at School. We were taught that being Anglo Saxon was something to be proud of, as indeed every race should be proud of their identity.
“That’s more than can be said about any American president.”
Some were good for England, some not so. Though I tend to like America for it’s people, not necessarily their Presidents. If I were to settle in the US, it would be in the deep south. Of course, first travelling Route 66 on a Harley is obligatory.
I’d also look forward to decent sized burgers, a far cry from the piddly things we have here.
August 25, 2019
americans upset that we beat them to the spoils!
August 25, 2019
JFK was no saint either and the Bremen looting of goods mostly industrial equipment of it was true was nothing like the scale of looting carried out by USA and Russia for advanced science and technology that took them into Space.
Germany ( and Japan) brutalised everywhere they went and Russia showed no mercy to them too.
From the veterans I knew it would be insulting to even suggest Brits behaved anything like that. Whilst not perfect they were the most disciplined knowing they had better morals than the enemy.
Excellent BBC ? BBC brainwashing is working splendidly on you Marge!
August 25, 2019
I hope you keep this diary open post 31st Oct so we can all call up old friends of ERG mindset.. would love to be in a position to say ‘told you so’..but don’t really expect that will be open tmianyone..as i suspect all you deluded types will by then have taken to the hills..it probably will take you years to get over the shock..what shock- you might ask? the shock of the deluded crawling out from under a rock and finally seeing reality. No Elderado No big deals with countries far away..and no way back to the EU as an equal partner..EU the biggest largest richest trading bloc on the planet with the richest spending power..stupid people
Reply This diary was open long before Brexit. I look forward to writing after exit how absurd Project Fear was
August 25, 2019
The trading bloc is termed the Eurozone not the EU though most with an objective mindset would more accurately describe the Eurozone as the German Economic Empire
August 25, 2019
reply to reply…..and hope you enjoy a toast to success, and your and our stamina in ecaping the camp.
August 25, 2019
but after a long list of Remain MPs, someone called Andy, Margaret H, New mania, Martin from Cardiff.
August 26, 2019
should have linked to reply…
Martin – – or pubs could have a notice over the bar, saying “we do not serve Bryan Harrises”.
August 25, 2019
The BBC reports today :
“This week German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested there could be an alternative to the backstop but the onus was on the UK to find it.
But the next day French President Emmanuel Macron said the backstop was “indispensable” to preserving political stability and the single market.”
The UK has said it will respect the GFA and thus will not implement a hard border on the N.I. side and clearly will therefore be finding a way to manage the UK’s SM.
Since the UK is leaving the EU and will therefore no longer be involved in any EU decisions it is clearly not up to the UK to devise the necessary procedures for the EU to “preserve” the EU’s SM.
This is for the EU to design and implement. Not the UK.
The “backstop” is simply a device invented by Mrs. May and the EU to ensure that the UK is trapped in the EU and will be negotiating with both hands tied behind its back and with a gun to its head.
As Mr. Macron said about the backstop to his fishermen :
“The UK will be trapped in a customs union after Brexit unless Downing Street offers European fishermen full access to British waters during the coming trade negotiations.”
August 26, 2019
Original Richard
“As Mr. Macron said about the backstop to his fishermen :
“The UK will be trapped in a customs union after Brexit unless Downing Street offers European fishermen full access to British waters during the coming trade negotiations.”
Now you see the purpose of the WA. And this coming from the leader of a country that wouldn’t even exist were it not for our sacrifices. How ungrateful can they get !
August 26, 2019
all hollow threats…..they are only problems if you are bullied into believing them.
Just walk away Boris.
auf wiedersehen. au revoir.
August 25, 2019
Watching boris on the news. Peston asked about the 39 billion. Boris didn’t come back with a comment about our share of Eu bank deposits, investments, and infrastructure.
In a divorce one side does not get all the assets. That seems to be the eus position.
Not only are we to be denied sovereignty and equality they get to keep al the assets.