The EU and Remain MPs always thought  the argument in the U.K. was all about trade. They denied in the U.K. but not elsewhere that the true quest was for ever closer Union  including full monetary, economic  and political union. They tried to turn crucial arguments about democracy and national accountability into profit and loss items on trade account. They tried to ignore the  high cost of belonging to the EU which was more than the likely cost of tariffs to trade on  WTO EU terms as a third country. They insisted on a lop sided view where a free trade arrangement with the EU was crucial but a free trade agreement with many other important trading countries was impossible as a member of the EU.
Since we left they still presume to lecture us with these views even though we rejected them many times as contradictory or untrue. They now seem to want to belittle or disrupt any trade agreement we negotiate with others, to validate their nasty view that we would not be able to do this on our own.
I remember all too many meetings or meals with leading representatives of continental members of the EU when they lectured and hectored me for daring to oppose first the Exchange Rate mechanism and  then U.K. membership of the Euro. More recently they have done everything  they can to rubbish Brexit, instead of conforming with their Treaty which requires them to seek positive and friendly relations with neighbouring countries.Why didnât they respect our referendum decision and seek to keep our import market?
What a contrast with Australia and New Zealand. The U.K. left them in  the lurch when we joined the EEC/EU , imposing EU tariffs against them and substituting EU food for the food they sent us. As soon as we voted to leave the EU the High Commissioners of both Countries  made it clear to MPs that their countries harboured no grudges and saw this as a great opportunity to develop closer relations and free trade with each other again. Why shouldnât we switch  more of our attention from the angry , legalistic and negative EU  to friendly allied countries that wish us well?
June 18, 2021
Exactly so. In an increasingly hostile world, we should recognize and nourish our true friendships. We should not be slow to acknowledge that the Evil Empire is indeed “angry , legalistic and negative” and shun it accordingly.
June 18, 2021
Are you aware, that 97% of the Commonwealth’s people – well over a billion and a half – are in places such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana and so on?
Only three percent are in Aus, NZ and Canada.
Are you sure that you have properly understood this piece, or that it really is what it purports to be?
June 18, 2021
Most of the Commonwealth just want revenge for being plundered and pillaged by the British Empire for three centuries. Particularly the Indian subcontinent.
June 18, 2021
acorn, how do you know that ‘most of the commonwealth just want revenge’?
Do you disagree that the British Empire advanced global civilisation more and faster than anything else in history? We arrived in Countries without universities, hospitals and democracy and introduced them. I know a number of Indians my Cousin married an Indian lady and this is not the impression I get. In your eyes did British subjects do nothing helpful or right at all?
June 18, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
acorn complete twaddle straight out of the woksters handbook.
But not as funny as Monty Python’s Life of Brian film and the scene:-
“What have the Romans done for us”
June 18, 2021
Acorn .. yes and with China it’s worse.. they have long memories going back to the days if the opium wars. Heaven help any young Brit that gets caught at the wrong side of the authorities in China today because as far as they are concerned it’s pay back time.
But not only China, Malaysia and a lot of the Muslim countries as well.. places where the Empire in its time handed out harsh and lop sided justice
June 18, 2021
âïž
June 18, 2021
Acorn
I suppose they want revenge for us giving them independence and leaving them with infrastructure i.e transport, railways, civil service, defence, British passports. How horrible of us.
Alternatively this country could have done what De Gaulle did to the former French colonies. Check history.
June 18, 2021
Yeah, right on comrade!
No doubt their hatred of Britain explains why they voted for the Queen to be the Head of the Commonwealth, and recently voted for Prince Charles to take over from her.
If you weren’t such a left-wing fanatic you would understand that the British Empire was a glorious achievement – mainly for those lands (which weren’t even countries at the time) which we developed and helped. The British Empire was Britain’s gift to the world, together with the Industrial Revolution, democracy, modern medicine, etc, etc
June 18, 2021
Complete nonsense: Indian academic research papers show the enormous debt India owes to (e.g.) the British-organised medical services. Here is one such research article (Public Health in British India: A Brief Account of the History of Medical Services and Disease Prevention in Colonial India) published in the Indian Journal of Medicine (2009). The writer finally concludes: “The British Imperial government set up and strengthened an organized medical system in Colonial India that replaced the indigenous Indian and Arabic medicine systems. Slow progress in early years was due to indifference on the part of the people and a lack of funds and medical professionals on the part of the government. The people of India resisted the British colonialism, and they were reluctant to support any services by the foreign government. These trends slowly changed as the natives were educated according to the British system. …in the late 19th and early 20th century. There were dramatic improvements in medical and sanitary conditions in British India. IMS efficiently coped up with deadly epidemics like the plague and cholera. Almost all the diseases prevalent at that time in India like small pox, leprosy, and malaria were controlled successfully. There were very few epidemics in later years and many of the diseases were almost eradicated. Officers and researchers of Indian Medical Services contributed a lot to the study and prevention of diseases.” The writer is a Pakistani academic at Lahore University. Not much ‘desire for revenge’ evident there! Nor did I find anything but appreciation of the British during my own working time in India.
June 18, 2021
Correction: “…in the late 19th and early 20th century there were dramatic improvements in medical and sanitary conditions in British India….”
June 19, 2021
Thank you for this extra information. It is time the British government started to stand up for Britain and answer back to all this negativity and anti-British rhetoric that people like acorn like to spread.
The Tories just keep turning the other cheek to the insults the other side throw and this is why membership is falling through the floor but votes still tick the box, no one wants to be seen on the hated side of the argument and the left do so well with this contemptuous – the right never do anything right. It is time to discuss the progress, inventiveness, job creation, life improvements for the majority. If we keep importing poverty in great numbers then it deflates the improvements that are being made but we should still reflect them.
June 18, 2021
JR, but look at how long it takes for deals with the common wealth to be properly implemented because of awful ties in WA and NIP holding the UK back!! 15 years! I am surprised they are willing to wait.
Why does the UK have to be subservient to EU rules on level playing fields on environment, Labour laws etc. Further EU restrictions and annexation used in N.Ireland to restrict all UK business. Why continuing laying electric power lines to Holland and France to be further be reliant on EU energy when, as you point out yesterday, the EUâs behaviour will come with heavy cost. They already threatened to blockade and cut off electric with Jersey!! Is your party and govt competent at anything? Stop blaming others, sort out your party and govt. Time for Johnson to walk. It is an insult May to be paid in any public office, same for those who betrayed our country being paid to sit in House of Lords. Scrap the chamber and create something new, it is rotten to its core.
June 18, 2021
Hope, +1
June 18, 2021
What are you suggesting Martin – that we don’t want to trade with places like India? đ
I think closer trading arrangements with India will be a lot less risky than cosying up to China.
June 18, 2021
Yes, and like in all such things India will expect increased freedom of movement between our countries.
I have no problem with that, how about you?
June 18, 2021
the proposal appears to be 18-30 year olds can come here for 2 years to work.
Happy now?
June 18, 2021
A trade deal does not have to include freedom of movement Martin and until the EU became overtly political they had never included this feature.
June 18, 2021
I realise you are desperately trying to play your race card on this topic MiC.
But there is no problem with people coming here providing they can provide a positive contribution to themselves and this country.
I have no problem with that, how about you?
June 18, 2021
Freedom of movement being an intrinsic part of trade is an EU invention. Other countries do *not* expect that.
June 18, 2021
Frankly, I’ve always believed immigration is a bit like rainfall Martin.
Too little and you get drought, too much and you get floods, both extremes being undesirable. So I don’t really care where the rain comes from, provided it comes in the desired amount. It would also be nice to get high-quality rainfall, rather than just the unfiltered kind but maybe that’s wishing for too much.
June 19, 2021
Yes, Micky, from a population of well over a billion I’m sure that you Leavers will welcome every single one who wants to come.
Won’t you?
June 18, 2021
India with approx 1.4 billion population – about 93% of the 97% you quote as relevant.
Playing with stats again?
June 18, 2021
Sorry, maybe it’s over two billion – you get the picture.
June 18, 2021
Are you claiming they all want to leave India MiC?
It seems only yesterday you were castigating posters on here telling them only a tiny percentage of EU citizens want to emigrate to the UK.
June 19, 2021
Seems that it was around one percent of European Union people who came here.
Now, as for India with 1.4 billion people, that would mean 14 million.
No, of course that’s not all of them Peter, is it?
So I trust that you will be happy with that?
June 19, 2021
Well we accept about half a million new arrival a year now and have done since 2000.
Are you happy with 14 million?
June 18, 2021
I am not sure that recriminations over recent behaviours are particularly helpful.
Far better to concentrate on the job in hand. We have unfinished business. The outcome of the Northern Ireland Agreement should be our main focus.
Like many, I would have preferred a clean break on WTO terms and build back from there. However, we are where we are and the dance continues.
June 18, 2021
Good morning.
To be fair the Conservative Governments of both MacMillan and Heath made much the same arguments even though many, on both sides of the political divide, were making points about loss of sovereignty and the move to be a bit part of a Federal Europe. It was, and is, and will always be, a political project first and fullmost ! Its aim was very clear from the treaty the Conservative Government of, Edward Heath signed, without a referendum from the people, that we were to march to “Ever closer UNION” with the then EEC. Only after the Maastricht Treaty and the creation of the European Union (EU) did it become clear that those that warned us about this project were in fact correct. Mercifully in 2016 we finally got our chance to right the wrong, but the Conservative Governments of both Theresa May MP and Alexander Johnson MP have cocked things a bit up.
It is good that we are rebuilding old links to are past friends who, in their wisdom, have not spurned us. I have more in common with an Australian than I do with an Austrian despite the geographical divide. What I would really like to see, and this would be a TRUE SIGN OF GLOBAL BRITAIN, is for us to reach out to developing markets in both South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Long term these will provide us with many of the raw materials, markets and food stuffs we need.
Bring it on !
June 18, 2021
Mark, reference to T May having cocked things up a bit must be the kindest judgement of the year. She was a pro EU fifth columnist who lied to Parliament and the electorate in a continuos habitual way until sussed by those close to her at that revealing Chequers meeting. Her continued presence in the HoC only emphasises the complicity of most members. Brexit means Brexit was at the heart of her lies.
June 18, 2021
I don’t see T May as a 5th columnist, at least she didn’t start out that way. It looked to me like she was driven in that direction by the advisers she had.
The problem with Brexit was never that the UK couldn’t succeed as an independent country, but that the civil service has lost the competency to run the country. They are terrified that Brexit will find out they are useless.
June 18, 2021
The thing about being an MP is that you should be intellectually strong enough to know and follow your own beliefs. Whether May was a genuine fifth columnist or just weak intellectually and swayed by “advisors” isn’t the point-either way she should never have put herself forward to lead and, for goodness sake, should never have been chosen to lead.
June 18, 2021
Not just the Civil Service you can include most MPs. Being in the EU was a soft ride for all those in power
June 18, 2021
Unfortunately, many of the most senior ones are useless….only a constant stream of new Ministers to bamboozle. No shareholders, no stock price, no bottom line to worry about.
June 18, 2021
And that there is the truth.
June 18, 2021
I am sure you are right about the civil service, they became an extension of Brussels. However May chose her leader of the Brexit team, an out and out EU federalist and she rewarded him with a knighthood at the end of her premiership. Her say one thing and do the opposite epitomised her premiership. Her failure could not be accidental or down to a malign civil service. She was in charge, on the bridge at the time, busily falsifying the log book while telling the passengers that there would be sunshine tomorrow.
June 18, 2021
@agricola; “Brexit means Brexit was at the heart of her lies.”
Come off it, those were probably the only true words she ever spoke as PM! Even Brexiteers disagreed as to what Brexit meant, re read the various manifestos extolling us to vote for Brexit, at one extreme it was implied we would effectively leave at 10am on the 24th June 2016 on WTO rules whilst at the other they wanted BRINO.
June 18, 2021
Jerry,
Brexit refers to the event not what was individually wanted as a result of it. May repeated the mantra ad nauseum until her version got voted down on three occasions. It was so dishonest it could not get past a remain Parliament.
June 18, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
@agricola; EXACTLY, Brexit even today means different things to different people, thus Mrs May’s catch phrase “Brexit means Brexit” was and is 100% true to this day, Brexit means what ever the individual want it to mean. Many think Boris has not delivered Brexit either, many hate the NIP even if they accept the WA, others believe we should have left on WTO terms.
Stop blaming Mrs May for Brexiteers not being able to agree between themselves! Although had Remain won I suspect the same problems would have occurred, from those who backed Mr Cameron’s pledge to carry on reforming the EU from within to those who would have used a Remain majority to demand we join the Euro and common travel areas etc.
June 18, 2021
Jerry don’t please confuse what the electorate voted for with what a remainer government and Tory party tried to deliver. The appalling withdrawal and trade agreements have both to some extent tied us to the EU. It was not ‘Brexiters’ who agreed to them. And don’t forget the CBI and its lobbying members who have also had a say in this.
June 19, 2021
@John Hatfield; Please do not assume what you voted for, what you understood as Brexit, is the same as the person in the next road who also voted for Brexit, there was in excess of 20 campaign groups wanting the Brexit vote, all wanted a different Brexit. See my reply to @agricola above.
June 19, 2021
Jerry, People vote the way they do for all sorts of reasons, whether they vote Leave or Remain, Conservative or Labour. You cannot use that to retrospectively modify what was offered by Parliament just to suit your prejudices.
And what was offered was Leave – entirely, completely, with no caveats, and no part-in/part-out alternatives. Everyone understood what Leave meant – before 24th June 2016. Even if they had preferred something else.
June 19, 2021
@NickC; “People vote the way they do for all sorts of reasons”
Which is what I said in the comment you replied to!
“And what was offered was Leave â entirely, completely [../rant/..]”
That is a outright lie.
There were 28 “Leave” manifestos/groups [1], in fact one manifesto entered the lexicon with their ‘Flexcit’ idea, as debated on this very site in the years before the referenda, and all groups were within the law to campaign for their version of exit during the official referendum period. Do not be confused with the ‘official group’ designations, all that did was unlock centrally funded financial support for the campaign, it did not make either of the two groups manifestos the only possible policy document post the result.
Whilst some groups did want a WTO exit, some wanted an exit via a FTA &/or WA, some wanted the UK to join the EFTA or EEA whilst some wanted BRINO. Thus people in the same household could have all voted Leave but for totally different reasons.
[1] Are you seriously suggesting that the “Business for Britain” group wanted the same sort of post Brexit polices as the “Socialist Party, England & Wales” group did?!
June 19, 2021
Jerry
There were many different groups and voices on the remain side too.
But it is all the the past now.
You need to accept the result of the 2016 referendum.
June 18, 2021
True, but she is now sound on unlocking and her âopt outâ organ donation will help many people. Almost nothing else positive to say about her. Her and other remoaners actions surely left Boris with the mess resulting in duff deal the NI issues now.
June 18, 2021
Agricola, a heartfelt and visceral +1
June 18, 2021
She never completed the rhyming couplet, at least not in public:
“Brexit means Brexit
The Tory party wrecks it”
June 18, 2021
That hasn’t stopped T. May getting ÂŁ100,000 a pop for opening her mouth. Perhaps her horrendous political career has helped in those payments, pay to see a freakshow.
June 18, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
Agricola
T May having cocked up things a little bit?
Sorry mate she was and never has been alone, one of many.
Try reading : This is London: Life and Death in the World City by Ben Judah published by Picador and reported on in the Daily Mail.com
The exposure of what is really is happening to all these illegal immigrants and the squalor and takeover of foreign gangs of swathes of London. All ignored by the police and the majority of our politicians. It would seem that organised crime and lump labour Is the biggest financial institution within our capital city.
June 18, 2021
Well said Mr B.
June 18, 2021
Yes, Heath having abandoned the Commonwealth and succesive conservative governments having confirmed the break, it was appropriate that the people led by an honest and honourable Nigel Farage should force a return to sovereignty despite a traiterous and duplicitous Mrs May. It is her legacy of treachory and incompetence that is at the heart of present NIP problems. The conservatives emerge from this cesspit of their own making, smelling of anything but roses. All honour to Ms Truss for retrieving a trade base we can trust. Long may her efforts to build on it continue.
June 18, 2021
@agricola; Farage lead no one, other than his group of merry and very happy MEPs, UKIP talked the talk but never walked the walk so to speak.
Scargill (along with Foot, Shore, T.Benn etc) probably did more for a return to British sovereignty, nor did they want the UK to give it up in the first place, unlike so many now Brexiteers!
June 18, 2021
Greetings to the myopic, or perhaps you were herding sheep in the Falklands at the time Jerry.
June 18, 2021
@agricola; You appear to be the myopic, try looking up from that old UKIP manifesto…
June 18, 2021
Jerry, if I am a Brexiteer, does that make you a Remain deer?
June 19, 2021
@John Hatfield; No, it makes us both Brexiteers, but that doesn’t mean we have to become Maoist about things, what you want from Brexit may well be different to what I want, what our host wants.
June 19, 2021
What reasons you and I had for voting Leave, Jerry, may well have been different. What we were offered by Parliament was not. Your ballot paper was the same as mine.
June 18, 2021
Well said. I will never forget that it was a Conservative PM that killed political honesty and democracy in the UK. I have waited decades for the opportunity to right that wrong, and the many evasions of democracy that followed by all political parties. This is the Conservatives opportunity to show us that they DO respect democracy and the will of the people. They should not waste this opportunity and make sure they listen to ALL of the people and not just the noisy and woke minorities.
June 18, 2021
Chesham and Amersham! ( They HATE HS2).
Unbelievable!! ( I suppose itâs true?
Is this the warning needed to wake up the tories?
June 18, 2021
@EH; Nothing to do with HS2, what ever the new MP says (she now needs to hang on to her job come 2023/4), the LibDems love HS2, they also want more homes built. The Chesham and Amersham result is either a comment on economic policies, Brexit, CV19 or just general unhappiness with the PM/govt.
June 18, 2021
No, you are wrong. The LibDem campaign focused entirely on two issues: HS2 and homes built on green land. You may say that they were cynical and dishonest, but then that’s only to be expected from them. The point is that these were the two issues of the campaign and these were what the voters punished the government for – and rightly so!
I’m delighted the government lost on these issues. HS2 is a monumental waste of money (along with Hinckley C – have you seen the radiation leaks at EDF’s equivalent nuclear power station in China reported the other day?!). First we were told it was about speed, but when that argument was destroyed they said it was all about carrying capacity. This too is nonsense – if more capacity is needed just use double-decker trains (and don’t mention the ‘low bridges’ red herring, as that is cobblers).
And as for the push for more housing, who is this for? Is the native population increasing? No, it is migration: and specifically third-world migrants and bogus asylum-seekers (tens of thousands every year!) that is driving demand. Until Priti Useless takes action to stop this flood the demand for housing will increase and Tory support will fall in seats like this.
June 18, 2021
How do you know all this Jerry?
Have you spoken to all those who voted?
June 18, 2021
The Times 17th June
â The Liberal Democrats, however, are hoping to win by exploiting opposition to HS2. The partyâs internal polling, seen by The Times, suggests that the Tory lead has been narrowing, with the Lib Dems expecting 41 per cent of the vote compared with their 45 per cent.
Sarah Green, 39, the Lib Dem candidate, has vowed to be a âthorn in the sideâ of HS2, despite her party campaigning in support of the ÂŁ106 billion project at the last election. Helpfully for her, Florence began drilling a day after the by-election was officially called.â
You need to be wary with these politiciansâŠtheir policies are very changeable.
June 18, 2021
@X-Tpry; @EH; Unless this new MP, as a PPC, re-wrote the entire LD national policy document as agreed by their last party delegate’s conference (2020), what ever she said during the by-election was for polling day only, national policy remains unchanged until changed by conference. Is she really going to get to her feet in the HoC and rubbish her own ‘front bench’, now that could be an interesting spectacle!
I do not believe the voters of Chesham and Amersham are that naive, they know HS2 and the new housing is coming whatever, the elephant in the room is the fact that the area was 55% for Remain.
June 18, 2021
Fine.
No one is saying they KNOW. We can only go on what is said/reported.
And anyway we are all aware that politicians rarely tell the truth. I think that the idea is to be a âthorn in the sideâ of HS2 ..yet broadly support the policy. Potty.
And the former Tory held the seat in 2019 when Johnson was banging on about Brexit (haha), but she was probably very popular.
Who knowsâŠ
I donât care. I just want some normality. The OLD one.
June 18, 2021
You just donât get it Jerry
Voters voted against the governing Conservative Party.
It is what voters have done many times in mid term by-elections in the past.
In my opinion they mostly didn’t vote in favour of the Lib Dems manifesto.
We shall see what happens at the next general election.
June 18, 2021
A total disaster. It’s turning a sweeping swathe of this country into a mess.
No, they’ll just plough on with it. A stupid and costly decision but, hey, whose money is it, and whose lives?
June 18, 2021
It is also taking building materials (cement) out of circulation in the house building push, as my friends in the trades are telling me.
June 18, 2021
Spot on.
The tories would not recognise âoutstanding beautyâ if it got up and hit them in the face!
June 18, 2021
The trend is predictable to anyone outside Westminster
Forget what the London centric Polls say
Forget the borrowed Labour Party votes, the Referendum Party votes, the floating votes, the traditional Conservative votes
Whoâs left to support this government â the Greens, the new Tory and a few leave voting Labour
The story will be told ââits only a by-electionââ
June 18, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
I think that the biggest factor in this stunning win for the LDs is proposed Tory disempowerment of local people re planning law, allowing their developer friends to trample unfettered over people’s living environments.
The genteel folk of the Home Counties will be utterly appalled by this and rightly so, and also by the Tories’ shameless appeal to people whom they perhaps see as “the tattoo-headed mob” booing the England side, and, they imagine – probably wrongly, often living in the former Red Wall.
Correct or not, these people will not want to be associated with such a party.
Labour should take careful note – Blair managed to win many such seats too.
June 18, 2021
More to do with bottling Freedom Day than with your overt hatred of working class people, Martin.
June 18, 2021
I detest ignorant aggressive people of ALL classes, NLA.
June 19, 2021
So do I, Martin, so do I.
June 18, 2021
MiC
One minute you ate complaining about the high price of housing and the lack of home building to satisfy demand, now here you say you want local control over planning issues which would inevitably result in less homes being built.
June 18, 2021
The people’s Blue Boris ought to try keeping his head while all about him are losing theirs’. MacMillan would have sacked a third of the Cabinet by now.
June 18, 2021
formula57
He cannot sack his cabinet, his fillets are too closely entwined with his thinking and madcap policies. He cannot afford to have too many being abandoned to do a Cummings on him.
He will carry on doing what he does so well plenty of double speak and no guts to really do anything. He needs them to survive to keep the hustle alive.
June 18, 2021
Meanwhile, in the real world, the EU has cordially agreed a new trade deal with the UK. It isn’t a very good trade deal, and causes many new obstacles to trade and splits Northern Ireland from Great Britain, but that is entirely because the UK has chosen a self-harming path which refuses to align with the rules of its biggest market by far, the EU. Brexit is going really badly and I can understand why you try to deflect attention. But you aren’t fooling anyone
June 18, 2021
@Grey Friar; I think you will find the UK is quite willing to “align with the rules of its biggest market by far” (if needs-be), it is the EU who refuses point blank to accept WTO rules and thus allow 27+ otherwise sovereign countries to trade freely with the RotW.
June 18, 2021
If any of those twenty-seven would prefer that then they can leave by the mere sending of a letter, as did the UK.
They don’t appear to want that, do they?
June 18, 2021
why not ask the various 27 sets of peoples, by way of Referendums, if they would like to Leave or Stay……simple response?.
June 19, 2021
Well, they will look at the mess that this country is in and there’s your answer!
June 18, 2021
EU is a declining market.
Our new company has more enquiries from India than Germany.
Let’s grasp new opportunities, not cling on to old ones.
June 18, 2021
@SJS; “Our new company has more enquiries from India than Germany.”
Yes, but what are you marketing, Chapaties or Bratwursts?…
June 18, 2021
Why do you have to respond in such a silly manner Jerry?
Cheer success.
June 18, 2021
Medical engineering parts
June 19, 2021
@SJS; Thank you (for a sensible reply…), and it makes perfect sense, given that Germany has a very good and advanced Medical engineering industry of their own, thus for you a bit like trying to sell sand to the Saudi’s!
June 18, 2021
No, it is growing, even though the developing world might be, er, developing, and faster in relative terms.
June 18, 2021
GF
Why should the UK alone, accept all future rules, regulations and directives the EU may produce, in order to sell goods into Europe?
China, America, India, Japan and South Korea sell huge amounts of goods in Europe but do not align themselves with EU rules.
Making products which simply meet the requirements of the markets you are selling into is a very different thing and is something our exporters already do.
June 18, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
Yes but we are the latest and most junior on the block.. it will be the same if and when we ask to join the pacific trading alliance. You surely don’t think we are going to waltz in there and dictate terms of trade.. the mind boggles.. we don’t even have a merchant navy anymore.. not even british trading posts.. no overseas trading agencies.. all gone
June 18, 2021
We have a conservative government that is a little like the English football team tonight, a disappointment.
June 18, 2021
I think there is some evidence that the EU is shooting itself in the foot Grey Friar. EU imports have fallen quite sharply and whilst our exports have declined too – the balance is in our favour. When someone exports twice as much to you, as you do to them – then overtly trying to place barriers to trade between us is not exactly wise.
I had customers I wasn’t very fond of but I never let that impede my ability to sell more to them…
June 18, 2021
But the EU is NOT “our biggest market by far”. Our market is the entire world. Of that, our biggest market (“by far”) is, actually … the UK. The EU is only 3rd.
Furthermore, as any businessman will tell you, it is not a good thing to be over-reliant on one customer – expecially when he is a difficult and antagonistic one. So we want to REDUCE our trade with the EU. So actually, Brexit is going fairly well overall, but with a few major problems (NI, fishing, govenment procurement) all self-inflicted by the cretinous agreement that Boris made. Get rid of these problems and we will be a very happy country indeed!
June 19, 2021
Grey, Our biggest market by far is ourselves, the domestic UK market, roughly six times bigger than the EU. The next market by bloc rules is the rest of the world trading under WTO rules with trade deal supplements. Do you never learn?
June 18, 2021
Exactly right.
I assume all these innumerate, group think âexpertsâ who wanted to join the ERM ) as a step to joining the EURO the same types of experts we have now pushing the mad insane net zero carbon lunacy – which will also end badly unless abandoned quickly. Or the types of experts who did not notice that many lives could be saved by merely vaccinating people in order of risk adjusting for gender, vaccinating men slightly younger than women.
Please save us from duff âexpertsâ and scientists who keep getting things wrong. Regards the ones who join committees with particular suspicion.
June 18, 2021
Yes LL, english clubs are full of committees, breeding grounds for camels when race horses were intended.
June 18, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
I donât know why you donât put yourself forward. As a self advertising polymath always certain that you are right you should be able to show these duff experts up. I am sure that 20/20 hindsight is a qualification that will make them very jealous.
June 18, 2021
On the ERM, Euro, the net zero lunacy and the grossly negligent gender error in the vaccination order, the climate change act, the problems of the NI Brexit agreement, the dire NHS structures⊠I and many others pointed these all out well in advance so not hindsight at all. I have no interest in being a politician, no party would take me anyway as I rather like to tell the truth as I see it. I could not join the Conservatives with its current insane climate alarmist, tax borrow and piss down the drain socialism with the highest taxes for 70 years agenda.
Anyway were I to moved back to the UK it would cost me over 20 times more in tax than the MPs pay. I would not be elected as the public do not really want to hear the truth. Plus all the other unpleasant intrusions and restrictions on free speech that would follow.
June 18, 2021
I’m getting this growing sense that you think men should have been prioritised in the vaccine programme LL – but maybe I haven’t read enough of your posts to be certain yet?
June 18, 2021
đ
June 18, 2021
Well if they wanted to save 1000+ lives, nearly as many new widows, 30,000+ extra hospital admissions and save many ÂŁmillion then this was what logic and the risk maths dictated. But clearly they either did not want to save these lives and widows – or were realty too dim to see the obvious maths (despite being told this was the position at the time).
Just listened to Alok Sharma (COP26 president) on a political thinking podcast. What a complete dope he is, seems to be an admirer of Greta Thunberg and Swampy he even likes the An Inconvenient Truth movie and then watched it a second time. He says net zero is âThe biggest investment opportunity since the industrial revolutionâ. What a deluded plonker he is or is he just another professional liar? We have âless than ten yearsâ he says. Pathetically wet and poor interview too.
June 18, 2021
Committees, !!! Aaargh.
âExpertsâ taken singly should be listened to but with great suspicion.
Experts in a committee, suspicions should be squared or cubed of the numbers of virtue signalling posers round the table.
Adam Smith had a good understanding of the worth of professionals when they form a coven.
June 18, 2021
To answer your final question, âbecause it is better to trade with big nearby markets than small faraway onesâ
Reply Why, when they are so unpleasant and when they deliberately impede fair and free trade.
June 18, 2021
The perfect reply to a remoaner
June 18, 2021
So what caused the bye-election result?
June 18, 2021
The effect of Borisâs idiotic HS2 project I assume. No where near as idiotic and net zero wait until people find out the huge costs and economic harm that will do!
It seems the NHS undertook 1.6m fewer operations than usual (the Guardian today). One hell of a lot of suffering and doubtless many deaths the direct result of this. Plus huge economic damage from having a less able to work workforce. Yet since JULY last year all cause deaths are entirely in the normal range. This mainly one assumes due to many deaths circa 70,000 having been brought forwards slightly by Covid in the Spring of last year.
June 18, 2021
Again, LL, this is not a moan, just a direct example.
I was injured permanently 13 weeks ago and yet to be seen by a doctor. Any sort of doctor. I expect I pay ÂŁ5000 pa in tax to the NHS. Not even a letter to tell me I’m on the waiting list for an MRI.
We did NOT ‘save the NHS’.
Luckily I am fit and being guided by a private physio and am nearly back to full function. I have switched from a HIIT running bias to a calisthenics one, which is no bad thing at my age but I do miss hill sprinting – there’s nothing that makes you dig so deep.
God help anyone with a painful condition or a terminal one.
June 18, 2021
Best wishes and best of luck, MRI scans are not even very expensive to do perhaps go privately. Vets do them all the time on pet animals and with no waiting list. But of course at âourâ wonderful NHS patients are not so important as many animals. The machines often only run for parts of the day a huge waste of the capital equipment.
June 18, 2021
Surely it is better to be able to trade with whomever offers the best terms and value at the time. The more options the better.
June 18, 2021
Strange reply. Itâs Brexit that took us out of the freest and fairest trade bloc the planetâs ever seen
June 18, 2021
It isn’t free or fair Len
We had to pay many billions a year in fees
It isn’t fair with its protectionist tariffs which hit poorer nations trying to sell into Europe hard.
June 18, 2021
It isnât them being unpleasant.
June 18, 2021
No, I follow various Continental news sources and I haven’t heard any of them broadcasting anyone mouthing malicious lies about the UK.
How refreshing they are.
June 18, 2021
Indeed MiC
The citizens of Europe have little animosity towards us here in the UK.
Nor us with them
We want friendly co operation and free trade.
Peace and prosperity.
Sadly the EU elite are standing in our way.
June 19, 2021
Their politicians, I mean, their pro-European Union ones.
June 18, 2021
Reply to reply – in truth we made the running on all of this. It matters little if they are unpleasant we are out now and they don’t have to put up with us anymore especially after all of the upset and insults we hurled at them via Farage the ERG crowd and of course the rag daily express and others.. they are only relieved we have gone and i’d say thinking of their summer hols about now.
June 18, 2021
I cannot understand any politician who would prefer to trade with a controlling greedy self entitled neighbour, just because they are a neighbour. Accepting that trade means you also accept their belligerent attitude.
The UK is irreplaceable for the EU. The EU have lost far more than our annual fees, and seem determined to lose our trade and friendship too.
I also cannot understand the EU who treat their neighbour so badly that they drive away a potential ally. How long before the EU need help from it’s neighbours, be it financially or military, and will that help be forthcoming? I hope not!
The sooner we cease our reliance upon the EU, the better.
June 18, 2021
Accepting that the EU is dire, how long before Europeans, who I have found to be delightful fellow human beings you would be happy to introduce to mother, realise just how dire the EU is. I think that most of them, having experienced far worse in their past 100 year history, look upon the EU as something better. It is maybe, but far better is available. It is up to us, a sovereign UK, to point this out to them by being measurably more successful. They will then follow in their own time.
June 18, 2021
Well, in terms of building fire safety, the pollution of watercourses with sewage, and running railways we don’t seem to have much to show them so far do we?
That’s just to mention three things.
June 18, 2021
and you have researched as many as possible to list, haven’t you?
A real patriot.
June 18, 2021
OK, the UK’s Guide to How To Export Dairy Produce, Fish and Seafood doesn’t seem to be selling very well either.
June 18, 2021
MiC
Building fires kill over 5000 people a year in European countries compared to a few hundred in the UK.
Pollution…The majority of Europe’s rivers, lakes and estuaries are highly polluted and only 40% meet EU standards.
French state rail company lost 4.3 billion and the German state rail lost 4.8 billion in 2020 adding to losses in previous years.
June 18, 2021
I can understand that the concept of the EU is attractive to that great swathe of European countries that have fought over provincial and national boundaries for hundreds of years. As just one example out of so many, the area of Alsace-Lorraine was a constant cause of dispute and military action in the C15th – and was still being argued and fought over in WW1!
The Italian states were at each others’ throats during the Renaissance and only became united in the C19th, but continued to have territorial disputes with the Austrians. I won’t even touch on the Eastern European countries’ disputes, up to our own day, nor the unification of Germany ….
It’s my view that our different histories have forged a different perspective, and that the UK and the EU should be polite and considerate neighbours to each other rather than attempting to live as one legally-united family.
June 18, 2021
We don’t need to be polite we should just go our own way – leave them alone
June 18, 2021
None will follow. The EU is imperfect. Your alternative is worse.
June 18, 2021
A lot of people with family and friends in a lot of European countries say they have wished us good luck and expressed how they feel envious of us. As with a lot of decisions itâs getting their politicians to act thatâs the problem. When youâve got Macron stating publicly that heâd never give his country a referendum on EU membership – because he knows theyâd vote to leave – what can people do?
June 18, 2021
a, I will only mention countryeconomy.com âCountry comparison Ireland vs United Kingdomâ.
The RoI is a neighbour, with historical links to the UK, it might be the closest country on which to try your proposal.
From the numbers above would you really think the Irish are going to come back running, because âfar better is availableâ from the UK?
June 18, 2021
O/T: Interesting to see Rolls Royce Aviation going the sustainable aviation fuel route (18/03/2021 http://www.rolls-royce.com/media/press-releases/ )
sustainableaviation.co.uk âSustainable Aviation Fuels Road-Mapâ
There have already been 300,000 (small) plane flights using these SAF since 2016. Airbus is now SAF on its A350 Flying Lab.
June 18, 2021
Hefner
That Rolls Royce Press release is just PR.
They are not planning to cease using fossil fuels.
June 18, 2021
WP, maybe, or maybe they look at what GE and Safran are considering for the future.
June 19, 2021
It’s just kerosene though, isn’t it?
June 18, 2021
If I chose to resign my membership of the local golf club, I wouldn’t expect to still be able to access the members-only bar, to be able to tee off at members-only tee off times, paying members-only rates and park in the members-only car park.
The EU is not treating the UK badly, it is treating the UK like any third country, which is what the UK decided that it wanted to be. What you are seeing is simply the inevitable consequence of the type of Brexit this government chose to pursue, nothing more.
June 18, 2021
Very odd golf club Peter.
28 members
All have members rights and a vote.
Yet only 9 pay into the club.
The other19 take money out.
The club loses money every year and the rules requires two wealthy members to make up the losses.
One member recently has left and management treat them in awkward manner.
All other non members are treated in a friendly manner.
June 19, 2021
Only thirteen of the US fifty states pay net into the federal budget.
The European Union is quite normal in that regard.
June 19, 2021
That bit of desperate whataboutery has no real counter argument MiC
PS
America is a nation
The EU is just a trading bloc.
June 20, 2021
Thanks for the laugh-out-loud, Pete.
June 18, 2021
All ok except that the EU is not a golf club
June 20, 2021
And another!
June 18, 2021
Good comment, thank you
June 18, 2021
There’s absolutely nothing to disagree with in today’s excellent article. For a contrarian like me I find that truly disappointing.
The Bogan EU is an affront to nation State democracy but it must be said that that Britain since 1997 has become disturbingly authoritarian and openly Marxist and that cannot be denied.
Some will have caught yesterday’s comments by Lord Frost and his call to take apart the exploitative and dangerously intolerant woke State that’s now taken control of both parties and it seems both our public and private lives. Lord Frost at least understands the existential danger represented by this professional class of Socialist grievance mongers who see identity as the true great weapon to assert control
We need new laws asserting our divine right to freedom of expression, freedom from the poison of identity politics and laws to stop political parties nobbling legislation to preserve their position and insulate themselves from external harm
If you want to see the destruction of cultural Marxism freedom of expression must now be elevated as a national priority.
I want my VOICE BACK from the fascist left
June 18, 2021
DOM,
Your last two paragraphs say it all. The assylum is PC, Health &Safety, and Woke. Outside is sanity. Problem is you have to travel a long way to find outside.
June 18, 2021
GB News is the latest victim of this pressure of course.
Well, I don’t drink cider and it’s several decades since I’ve visited Ikea but I use do Vodaphone and own their shares (unfortunately). I think these companies need to be careful about how they present themselves. Do they wish to sell to a very noisy minority or do they want to continue to sell to a much less vocal majority, who are often more conservative (small ‘c’) in their views.
We are watching some GB News but still prefer Ian King (on Sky) in the morning and catch one of the main BBC/Sky News slots around about 6.00pm. But it’s certainly very nice to be able to switch away from Kay Burley, or the daily ‘Climate’ shows or the endless Committee Meetings that both the Beeb and Sky love showing. There are also many repeat “Features” on the rolling news channels and seeing the same thing three or four times over several days is not very entertaining (so a good reason to hit the Channel change!)
On GB News, Andrew Neil (at 8.00) has been worth watching. Liam Halligan has some worrying views on inflation and the regional reports have been interesting. They even have a “Good News” slot – and amazingly it seems that there still is some. đ
June 18, 2021
You seem to have plenty to say for yourself here and no one appears to be stopping you. I don’t think that John has been approached by any fascists trying to find out who you are and to silence you, as actual ones would.
It is all the same delusional, victimhood-obsessed whingeing if you ask me.
Your idea of having no voice seems to be that anyone expressing an opposing view – which generally makes far more sense – is NOT silenced, and shows up your nonsense for what it is.
June 18, 2021
‘You seem to have plenty to say for yourself ‘ STAGGERINGLY contradictory.
Give us a break and stop providing your own opinions that Sir John regularly includes – or does he also block many more?
June 18, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
What must be a few misplaced or even inadvertent hurty words (now called microaggressions) can – and have – led to careers ruined and workforces scared to speak at all.
That, surely, has to be a greater evil than the original sin.
Microaggressions have always been there. Soaps are based on them. It’s not just BAMEs and trans people who suffer them and certainly not over trip wires that have been deliberately set by means of unwritten changes to acceptable woke words of the day.
June 18, 2021
Being murdered is not “microaggression”.
June 18, 2021
DOM, again my heartfelt +1
June 18, 2021
Good Morning,
A couple of years ago, the NI MP’s saved the UK from the appaling May BRINO deal; and thereby Brexit. We have a debt to pay to NI and we must stand up for them as they did for us. Lord Frost is making the right noises, will Bunter Boris do the right thing this time, or just weasel his way out of his reponsibility?
June 18, 2021
Peter WĂČod
Weasel he is not. Kipper, definitely which means words and no Ă ction.
June 18, 2021
Peter Wood,
We are not yet out of BRINO. The protocol issue is not just a matter of being grateful to Norn Iron. It’s about continuing, calculated EU organisation interference in these isles. Its a ploy to keep us under their control and cause damage.
Lord Frost is unfortunately powerless. He is there to provide headlines. As for Boris, who knows what he will do? I get the impression he makes it up as he goes along. Boris is also lazy and weak so will go for the easy option and hope his team can put a good spin on it.
June 18, 2021
We are looking for a trade deal with the US.. so with Biden in the white house and the Irish caucus on the Hill what is Boris going to do.. what do you think?
June 18, 2021
Describing the EU as” Angry, legalistic and negative “is an appropriate label to hang on European politicians for generations prior to the EU being thought of. Their spite will continue and multiply as their project sinks further into the mire of their own making. I would suggest that in any joint venture and specifically in intelligence we wear welders gloves.
June 18, 2021
Mr Frost just asked the EU for an extension to delay the implementation of your Brexit sausage ban.
He might be making the right noises in public. In private he is capitulating- just like he did over the withdrawal agreement and over the trade deal.
Basically, Frost is really just not very competent.
June 19, 2021
Such types don’t have to be competent.
They have an ÂŁ11 billion-a-year misinformation industry, most of the UK press, to blame everyone but them for the results of their recklessness and temerity.
The BBC follows the agenda set by them too.
June 18, 2021
I also opposed the Euro and ERM not because I was clever enough go foresee the disaster to come, but because it was a leap into the unknown, cooked up by ideologues just as Brexit has been.
Sir John is misleading you. As free-er trade conditions have been encouraged the actual tariff costs of trading have ( as Sir John often reminds us) become a small part of the equation His unsupported statement EU fees would equal it is intended to make you think there is no overall net loss . That is a terminological in-exactitude .There is vast loss and the microscopic gain made by the Australia deal would need to about 350 times the size to compensate.
You will not notice its existence , there will be no new jobs no new motor industry , no new opportunities for services nothing real at all .
The world of Sir John`s youth was one in which the Queen pitched up in far flung lands waved her hand and it was almost as if Britain was still a global power. That has gone.
We need people who understand reality to run the country.
June 18, 2021
One did not need to be clever to predict the ERM disaster with its 17%+ mortgage rates just able to think slighty. Many of people predicted the disaster. An exchange rate that might be right for today will nearly always be wrong tomorrow, the next month or the next year. This as economic conditions always change.
June 18, 2021
n exchange rate that might be right for today will nearly always be wrong tomorrow, the next month or the next year.
…Agreed and the same is very true of a irresponsible National debt ….
June 18, 2021
It isn’t the actual Australia deal itself that is important, but the doors it opens. The UK sees the future it wants, and how to get there. The Australia deal is just the first step along that route.
June 18, 2021
Exports of dairy products have dropped dramatically and many of Trussâs claims are just political puff.
And in other news, more shades of Animal Farm. Politicians, UEFA officials are to be allowed in without quarantine whilst the ordinary Brit is treated like a pariah. So letâs risk even more lockdowns for the sake of a football match.
And lickspittle MPs will say nothing. Utter cr*pp.
June 18, 2021
If this were the Plague, the Black Death or Ebola then politicians and UEFA officials wouldn’t want to come here.
NO MORE LOCKDOWN.
And whatever happened to ‘Plague Island’ ? We’ve just hosted the maskless G7. The first of its sort since the pandemic started.
June 18, 2021
Correct
June 18, 2021
Completely different to leap into a group huddle currency where there is no domestic control and to a situation where you’re in control of your destiny.
June 18, 2021
NM
You talk as if all our trade with Europe is stopping and all we have as a substitute in a new trade deal with one other nation.
Neither is true.
June 18, 2021
I think you misunderstand Sir John’s point. The Australia deal is a signal that the UK is freed of the protectionist racket that is the EU. Germany has done exceedingly well from the Euro. France is desperately trying to hang on to its coattails. Italy, Spain, Greece and Ireland are not so euphoric about the EU and, if the UK succeeds outside the EU, will be the hole in the dam.
June 18, 2021
Clutching at straws8
June 19, 2021
Yes, if Cold Fusion had worked then it would have been the death of the other green energy schemes.
June 18, 2021
Well prior to joining the EEC, Australia accounted for 12.5% of our export market. Cleary times have changed but it’s rather pointless to compare the low base we find ourselves currently at with the Aussies, with where we could be. Nor does it make any sense to compare the EU with a single country.
Surely much better to compare the prospects of trade with the EU with other ‘communities’ around the world? Australia is part of the Pacific Rim group. It has a population of 26M, so let’s assume that it could ‘offset’ any loss of trade to the Netherlands (pop 17.5M), Japan has a population of 126M, so is capable of offsetting Germany (pop 83M). I’m not suggesting that we will stop trading with the Netherlands or Germany, just that other (improved) trade relationships are quite capable of making up any loss of business and that these are also markets which are growing much faster than the EU (which has the slowest growth of any of the global economic groups).
June 18, 2021
Time to spend more diplomatic effort on our friends and much less on our enemies. After America’s inexplicable use of a demarche, in the run-up to a visit to this country, Biden must be viewed as an enemy. He’ll be much less important after the mid-terms.
June 18, 2021
I suspect that when 5%+ inflation proves to be far from “transitory” his popularity will decline a bit faster. However, I’ve decided I’d like to see him serve his full term, as I don’t think I want Kamala as President…
June 19, 2021
Wait for the forensic audit results of the votes and consequent actions.
June 18, 2021
How weird it was to expect ancient enemies to behave differently once in an agreement. A century worth of treaties didnât stop two devastating wars.
The defeated after WW2 were never going to play fair were they?
And gradually the political tendencies had to surface.
So we had to get out!
But the dreadful forces are embedded here in the U.K. encouraged, entrenched and flattered by successive governments.
Did we abandon the Commonwealth in 1949 terrified of stirring up German colonial envy or retribution and thus muddying our relationship with Europe? Churchill had called for European unity three years earlier.
June 18, 2021
Which side do you think that the UK would have taken if the Germans had spoken English as a first language?
June 18, 2021
well at least the germans fought !
June 18, 2021
Well, weâve never had a problem fighting civil wars have we? So why would language make any difference?
June 18, 2021
Iâll never forget a lecture from a Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer
He started off by saying ââTimes up, we go to war with France every 100 yearsâŠand our times upââ
June 18, 2021
Just a thought.
Is Johnson delaying âopening upâ because if we are not in a state of âemergencyâ the experimental jab canât be sanctioned?
Two mice in a bar.
1st mouse â Are you getting the jab?â
2nd mouse âNot likely..they havenât completed the human experiments yet!â.
June 18, 2021
You have a point, LL, but in fact Parliament (though not with Sir John’s vote) approved the extension of the state of emergency till September. So it doesn’t matter what the public health facts are during the summer. After that, the regime can go back as before to waving the scarecrow of a ‘fourth wave’ (or 5th, wherever we are by now), with the help of the Vichy press, and get the state of emergency renewed again, counting on Johnson’s loyal Opposition, of course.
Which way will GB News go, I wonder.
June 18, 2021
-1
June 18, 2021
Third mouse, “I didn’t hear you. could you say that into the ear on my back ?”
Fourth mouse, “I need to go to the gents, could you look after my babies while I’m gone ?”
June 18, 2021
LOL!
Very good indeed!đ
June 18, 2021
And in other news Tory voters in Amersham show what a lot of us think about concreting over the South. We will get the usual rubbish that it didnât matter but of course it did. Big time.
June 18, 2021
And the LibDems had a candidate called Green. Good move.
June 18, 2021
Planning mattered. HS2 mattered. The Tory culture war mattered. And in Chesham and Amersham Brexit mattered too. I live in the constituency.
Four of my neighbours – all older couples – mostly voted to leave the EU. However they all have properties in Europe and are all appalled that reality Brexit has negatively affected them. One of the couples, relatively recently retired, was hoping to live six months of the year – during our winter – with their children and grandchildren in southern France. Because of your Brexit they now canât.
It isnât the Brexit they voted for and they are cross about it. I am publicly expressing sympathy for them but am privately killing myself with laughter at their self inflicted plight.
June 18, 2021
Andy, so the 4 couples plus you all have properties abroad. It used to be that you could travel to the ‘other countries’ and stay for 13 weeks. Isn’t that still available? Why would these older couples – leeches on our state as you see it, want to leave EU? Odd don’t you think? All thick or racist, or both I presume?
June 18, 2021
We done to the good folk of your constituency, Andy.
June 18, 2021
They can stay longer than 90 days.
My parents did, years before the EU even existed.
Bit of unnecessarily complicated paperwork but it was successfully achieved with a bit of professional local help.
June 18, 2021
Like the couple that went to the authorities in southern spain to get residence permits and were asked how long they were here – ten year they replied – ten years the official said and you still can’t speak spanish – request denied
June 19, 2021
Would you recommend that UK immigration authorities also bring in that requirement Garret?
June 19, 2021
Nah – there’s not that much call for Spanish speakers here, Pete.
June 19, 2021
Good effort at deliberately missing the point MiC
But my point remains.
Would you lefties who think British citizens living abroad who do not speak the local language should be expelled, extend that logic to those who don’t speak English after living here in the UK for a similar number of years?
Come on MiC
Tell us.
June 18, 2021
Apparently not all Leavers are stupid but your anecdote illustrates that at least some are.
June 19, 2021
Will in Hampshire,
If you have decided some leave voters are stupid, it must logically follow that some remain voters are also stupid.
June 18, 2021
So this by-election brings a ‘shock-wave’ ? No, not really. The size is remarkable, but the result certainly isn’t. HS2, continuous failure to accept the fact that the project has been doomed from the very start put the seat under pressure. Could it be that this result is a harbinger of the fate awaiting this Government?
Sir John if ever an event was a catalyst to send a shudder through the complacent sit-on-hands Tory majority- then this one is. Discuss?
June 18, 2021
It was hardly a marginal result, was it? A swing of 25% or more.
Let’s remember that Blair used to take such seats too.
It’s far, far more than just HS2.
June 18, 2021
Usual by election mid term.
Come the next general election these surprises return to normality.
Many precedents in political history.
Mind you MiC ,Labour just 600 odd votes.
Dreadful result for Sir Kneel
June 18, 2021
Chesham and Amersham! is an Illustration of a Government in tune with the Metro Left with total disregard to the whole of the UK.
That type of result is ominous here in Wokingham, the left have highjacked the local council so are now entrenched on the ground with foot soldiers and are ostensibly running a council of the left for the left.
June 18, 2021
Is the result ominous for Wokingham? We have also had devastating infrastructure and destruction of prime, beautiful farming land. House building and road disruption has peaked beyond any resident’s memory (mine is over 50 years here). Sir John has an advantage of being one of the more truly Conservative candidates to be put up (unless he takes advice and stands Independent), but the disaffection might knock his majority somewhat. Other less well supported Tory MPs ought to be shuddering at their prospects in the next GE.
June 18, 2021
As far as I can see the Wokingham constituency is being “modfied” with a new one to be created between Reading and Wokingham that takes what were conservative areas away from Wokingham but combines them with the University campus- perhaps there may be some shudders yet.
2 years for the Cons to mend some fences, sending round the road sweepers just before elections won’t quite do the trick this time.
June 18, 2021
nota# what are you talking about? The Conservatives have kept their majority in the Wokingham Borough Council. They have 31 seats out of 54, with 18 to the LibDems, 3 to Labour, and 2 Independents.
June 18, 2021
The EU and Remain MPs always thought the argument in the U.K. was all about trade To me it was always about the notion of Democracy in that all laws, rules and taxes that apply inside a Country were created amended and repealed by those that have to abide by them. Anything else is a Dictatorship.
June 18, 2021
Food sales to the EU last Qtr have fallen, but sales to non-EU have risen. I hope that consumption in UK has risen and that import from EU has fallen. Trading in general probably down which can be celebrated.
June 18, 2021
Were or Remain HoC has and is still fighting the UK leave the control of their masters in Brussels is by keep using the word Brexit. It is the UK that is trying to leave the EU not just GB, unless of course the reunification of Ireland was always part of the plan. – it certainly looks that way.
The disrespect of the people of the UK shown by the majority in the HoC and this Government shows how much democracy here is in the gutter.
June 18, 2021
@nota# – apologies once more for the never ending misplaced words – predictive text and a small screen(scream)
June 18, 2021
What a shame that such a simple thing as trade has been complicated the World over by politicians with their own strange prejudices and short term friendships, simply due to the fact that they want part of the value of every individual trade for themselves and their Countries, in order to fund their own ideals.
No wonder the barter trade or alternative market is still alive and well in many communities, and probably one of the many reasons why politicians do not trust the self employed, and do their best to try restrain and control them.
June 18, 2021
Elsewhere “police used a sweeping national security law against a pro-democracy newspaper for the first time”
IDS âItâs yet another example of the ghastly dictatorial communist and its lapdogs”,(edited for effect)
Of course he is talking about China but it could have easily been the UK. The UK Government seeks to administer a left wing cancel agenda in the UK at the expense of freedoms of speech and democracy. Its about Control, not the will of the people. As already mentioned here today HS2, in hock to France on energy, aggressive green agenda that in science and in practice makes no sense, battery while the rest of the world goes hydrogen etc – its a massive list of failure.
June 18, 2021
I truly thought you WERE talking about here!
The left wing ( or fake left wing?) is an excellent tool for imposing totalitarian control.
The council here has gone âwokeâ in just about every way.
And it shows in the tatty, unkempt state of the horrible place.
June 18, 2021
Mr Redwood – why are food and drink exports to the EU down by nearly 50%? Is your Brexit not going very well?
When will you apologise to the producers affected by the trade barriers you have erected? Are you happy damaging so many livelihoods?
Reply EU stocked up at the end of last year. Restaurants closed on much of the continent early months this year
June 18, 2021
Dairy produce exports to them are down by 90%.
These are perishables which cannot be frozen. You can’t stock up with them.
June 18, 2021
This sort of anti-British, Brexit-blaming comment is precisely why you lost the referendum and why support for rejoining the EU is so low.
Apart from the fact that – as our host said – EU restaurants have been largely shut, the main problem is the decision BY THE EU (NOT the UK!) to impose restrictions on imports from the UK. This shows that they have chosen to be our ENEMIES. There is no rule of physics, or God-given law, which prevented the EU from opening its doors to us and offering us a generous deal of equivalence and unhindered trade. But instead they chose the path of hatred, enmity and warfare.
Only an EU troll, or someone afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome, would side with the EU rather than the UK on this issue. Your comment shows on whose side YOU are. Thankfully, you are in an increasing minority in Britain.
As for our food producers, they will, and are, finding new overseas markets, as well as a bigger home market – once our stupid and cowardly prime minister finallly retaliates against our EU enemies and imposes controls and restrictions on their exports to us. Overall, we will be better off. And our EU enemies will be the losers.
June 18, 2021
The food and drink industry mostly blames your Brexit. Why are they wrong? Presumably cheese exporters know more about exporting cheese than you know about it? They blame Brexit.
June 18, 2021
Most restaurants in France and elsewhere are closed or operating at greatly reduced capacity.
Did you not know andy?
June 19, 2021
Since mid-May, in France only outdoor dining with up to six people (after QR code scanning) around a table with tables 10 m apart was allowed.
This changed when on 09/06 restaurants, bars and cafes had the possibility to reopen with same restrictions applied on indoors dining (which many proprietors said was a crazy situation), except in the Ile-de-France area where only outdoor eating was allowed.
So after yet another change, all restaurants, bars and cafes (indoors) reopened on 15/06 in France (connexionfrance.com, internaute.com).
So as confused as and not so different from what has been going on in the UK.
Did you not check the information before writing your comment, P2?
June 19, 2021
There has been a huge reduction in restaurant trade, hotel trade and holiday apartment bookings over the last 15 months
You base your faulty argument on only post May
Total fail heffy.
June 18, 2021
I hope they at least know that they are eighth in size of exports. Seven other industries export more than food and drink does. Funny how they never get mentioned.
And by the way, food and drink is special. It is low value and high volume. Export costs are relatively higher than any other industry. Exactly positioned for EU blackmail.
June 18, 2021
Reply to Reply: Has the EU been applying Sanitary and Phytosanitary checks unfairly? If we believe they are, do we have recourse to the ECJ rather than the WTO:
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/spsund_e.htm
There is an obvious problem with the English sausage which is that it is not a definable product; sausage is a generic term and manufacturers use that licence to put anything they like in it unlike continental sausages which have names or regional definitions which indicate what a consumer should expect. Perhaps English sausage manufacturers need to up their game. or accept that the English sausage doe not travel.
June 18, 2021
We allowed Ireland to take over UK sausage companies such as Walls. If Boris wonât ban EU products that they have effectively banned from the UK such as dairy and chilled meats then the UK people need to really concentrate on what they are buying to support our UK based companies producing chilled meat and dairy, just how many of them are there? Who are they?
June 18, 2021
Our food and drinks industry, which is our *eighth* biggest export sector, is somewhat magical. It is going out of business, and simultaneously suffering a critical shortage of labour.
June 18, 2021
The mercantilist ignorance of critics of the Australia deal is revealing. There is much talk of âconcessionsâ – meaning opportunities for us all to buy Australian goods and services if we want to with at least fewer restrictions. There is quoting of the ridiculous civil service forecast of gains of only 0.02% of GDP. Ryan Bourne has a good piece on it all in the telegraph today.
But the most significant at thing about the Australia trade deal is it reminds us that countries can have free trade and friendly cooperation without one having to pay the other or accept legal and regulatory subordination.
The EUs antagonistic attitude may be a blessing, irritating as it is. Who now thinks if the whole thing blows up over NI and we move to WTO terms it would actually now be the catastrophe continuity remain so shrilly forecast? There really isnât much more they can do to damage us.
June 18, 2021
Great post Richard.
June 18, 2021
Thanks
June 18, 2021
Yup. Free trade rides again. We have been here before. In the long run, protectionism, whether the 19th or the 21st Century version, always loses.
June 19, 2021
What “free trade”?
Your brexit has thrown up all manner of obstacles to trade with a neighbouring, near-surrounding market of half-a-billion people.
You try to stand the facts on their heads.
June 19, 2021
The obstacles have all been placed in our path by a belligerent EU
June 18, 2021
OT I read that the LibDems have won Chesham And Amersham by 8000 votes, overturning the 16000 majority achieved by the late Cheryl Gillan. By any standards this is an extraordinary turnaround. Labour polled less than a thousand votes; it supporters must have voted LibDem. If this result does not wake up Tory MPs from their complacent torpor and find a new leader who actually represents conservative voter interests then nothing will.
June 18, 2021
An âextraordinary turnaroundâ?
Not really. The Lib Dems took a number of seats in SW London at the general election. I knew this would happen simply by looking at the election posters displayed by homeowners. The Lib Dems are the only party those opposing Conservatives in these areas vote for, as Labour are anathema.
In the case of Chesham you have the additional impact of HS2 and apparently local politicians taking liberties with planning laws.
However, Lib Dems are an irrelevance at a national level. Sir Edward Dopey and his chums will never build up a sufficient head of steam to play a part in government again.
June 19, 2021
Never underestimate the Tory Party to cock things up. Remember one Theresa May MP when she called an unwanted GE and lost her majority having to rely on the DUP to prop up her government.
June 18, 2021
oldtimer
Yes indeed, with turnout at 50% this time around it would seem that a substantial number of people did not bother to vote compared to the 75%turnout at the last general Election.
Who knows if all those who did not feel they would vote this time were mostly Conservatives.
Me thinks it is rather simplistic saying the LibDems are now on the rise, given what they actually stand for.
Nationally The LibDems support HS2, but their candidate was against it !
Nationally they support all things Green, with more public spending, when I would suggest most Conservatives are against it. !
June 18, 2021
And yet a minimal backlash and debate from the news media, or MPs
Could it be they donât want to discuss the Tories as theyâll then have to discuss the poor performance of the Labour Party and the Green Party
Why are the Tories going fully âgreenâ when the voters arenât ?
June 18, 2021
The Plague, like all emergencies, exposed the true colours of nations.
The rich EU countries made backdoor deals for vaccines in breach of the spirit of the EU. The EU smeared the reputation of the OXFORD Zeneca vaccine, because it was British.
The irony is that those of us who wished to leave the EU were belittled as Little Englanders, racist, xenophobic, dimwitted people when events have proved that EU countries, when the crunch came, were nationalistic xenophobes whose bureaucracy made them dimwitted.
June 18, 2021
The Evil Empire and its Ministry of Disinformation.
June 18, 2021
Please, John Miller, don’t call it The Plague. It was serious but nothing like The Plague which took up to 60% of the European population of all ages.
This has been a failure of nerve in the West. And Boris has squandered the vaccine effort.
I was disappointed to hear that he intends to carry on in office.
June 18, 2021
What !!! Boris hasnât resigned or been pushed
Who else is to blame….Gove ?
June 18, 2021
We simply need to be patient where Europe is concerned.
The current regime in Brussels led by the inadequate VDL is making life difficult for many member states over a wide variety of issues, even threatening fully signed-up members like Macron with legal action over, of all things, waste water. Then of course, there is the festering sore of the vaccine debacle.
Meanwhile, there is the approaching and serious argument with the German Constitutional Court which could and should derail VDL’s naked attempts to borrow centrally.
She is also trying to acquire what, for Brussels, is the holy grail : The right to directly raise taxes across the EU using the excuse of global warming via centrally taxing carbon use. If she succeeds in this, Brussels will be able to exert much more control over member states through the distribution of vast extra amounts of funding that they will have been forced to send direct to Brussels.
VDL has little of no effective political antennae and will undoubtedly continue to push things too far. As she is almost impossible to remove from office, eventually, Eurozone members in particular will demand a loosening of the straight jacket. All bets will then be off.
June 18, 2021
Sir John,
It is true that the UK left Australia and New Zealand in the lurch. Britain had been by far their main market for wool, wheat, lamb, beef etc since the nineteenth century. There was indeed a great deal of resentment at the time with the feeling that they had been abandoned by the mother country, now that it had found new friends. However this did trigger a long-overdue impetus to develop new markets in the middle east, southeast asia, Japan, and especially China.
The world has since moved on, new generations have grown up, and old attitudes have faded. Cultural and family ties remain strong and I believe more British nationals live in Australia and New Zealand than the entirety of the EU. With the internet and this new digital age, the days of the expensive long-distance phone call (with noticeable time-lag) are in the past.
Now that Australia’s relationship with an increasingly belligerent China has turned sour, a new UK-AUS trade deal could not have come at a better time. Hopefully New Zealand will soon follow.
June 18, 2021
An Australian once remarked to me that “Australians will forgive a lot, but we’ll never forgive the British for three things: Gallipoli, body-line and the common market”. Hopefully this trade agreement will start the process of shortening that list to just two.
June 18, 2021
Yes, it is very good that we get with our real friends, who appreciate us and have more of a common shared history.
I’m amazed at how anyone can think of the EU as a friend when so many EU elites do all they can to poison things for us – I have no time for their attitude which hasn’t changed for decades. They were always so worried that the UK would usurp them somehow – Perhaps it might just.
A combining of nations that think the same way, and share so many values, to trade with each other with very few constraints was always preferential to a bureaucratic EU that was only interested in power over us all — WHY ON EARTH DID WE EVER SUCCUMB TO THE EU?
June 18, 2021
A total loss of nerve by Heath and his generation.
June 18, 2021
liked the way Prince Charles avoided elbow bumping with matt hancock.
Cant think of a more cringeworthy current spectacle than grinning idiots
elbow bumping.
They should greet each other by raising one hand as Red Indians used to.
June 18, 2021
Impossible, for what you suggest would amount to a reprehensible appropriation of, er, Native American culture.
A better approach would be to be even more English, and just ignore each other.
June 18, 2021
How
Much better to bump fists (with a glove on) and maintain a decent social distance, than bump elbows with faces less than one metre apart.
June 18, 2021
Sir JR
Being both Danish and British I do not see the legalistic, controlling and angry suppliers in the EU taht you keep talking about, but pleae do explain what I have missed
June 18, 2021
Bill
I think you will find its the politicians who are the problem, Businesses on both sides are frustrated with them and their ever growing systems, rules and regulations.
June 18, 2021
You are right Bill.
There are no angry suppliers in Europe.
We here in the UK will choose to buy where we want and often that is in Europe.
It is the EU and its political elite that are just getting in their way.
June 18, 2021
First get it clear in your mind whether you are trying to explain reality, or the dystopian nonsense put about by people like Andy. The numbers are nothing like the “disaster” he keeps going on about.
June 18, 2021
Glad to see under this FTA people under 35 will be allowed to go and work in Australia for 3 years. A far more attractive offer than EU freedom of movement which was only taken up by a small section of the wealthy middle-classes who could speak something other than English.
June 18, 2021
The Commonwealth comprises 54 Nations with a total population of 2.4 Billion.
Compared to the EU, it is enormous and is the perfect vehicle for us to ride away from the demented clutches of the EU parasites.
Brexit brought us Freedom, so let’s get on with it and completely breakaway from the heavy, debilitating chains that persist today – despite Brexit! Leave means leave.
Enough is enough. They’ve had their chances, it’s time to move on, to move forward and abandon our past as an obedient EU prisoner and enjoy our future in the much bigger world out there.
June 18, 2021
But most Leave voters hate what little free movement there already is around the Commonwealth.
They do not want to increase that with countries where 97% of those people live, that is, NOT in Aus, NZ or Canada., which is what better trade would involve as ever.
June 18, 2021
But most Leave voters hate what little free movement there already is around the Commonwealth.”
That’s ridiculous. Leave voters simply want to control UK borders the way Commonwealth countries protect theirs.
June 19, 2021
There are already severe restrictions between Commonwealth countries. Why shouldn’t there be restrictions between UK and the others?
June 19, 2021
Of course there can be – but they won’t agree to trade deals if there are.
June 18, 2021
Here’s a letter I’ve sent to the editor of the Irish News, maybe they will publish it …
“Martin O’Brien admits that “Dublin bears some responsibility” for the poor state of Anglo-Irish relations.
That is something of an understatement, given what happened in late November 2017.
True, when EU Commissioner Phil Hogan proclaimed that Ireland would “play tough to the end” over the border and threatened to veto trade talks that could be taken as Brussels talking, rather than Dublin.
But when the Irish Minister for Europe Helen McEntee told Sky News that her government would not tolerate any arrangement which even “implied a border on the island of Ireland”, that was clearly Dublin adopting an absurd, extreme and intransigent position.
At that point the UK government should have announced that it would not be making any changes on the UK’s side of the land border, and nor would it be seeking any special trade deal with the EU.
However the ingrained obsession of Theresa May and other leading Tories with the illusory economic benefits of EU membership prevented that, and so led both countries into the present debacle. ”
As is my wont I provided references:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/25/phil-hogan-ireland-eu-commissioner-brexit-chaos
https://news.sky.com/video/is-the-norway-sweden-border-a-solution-for-ireland-11141058
June 18, 2021
Denis Cooper – yes and after all of that the UK side went on and negotiated and then signed off and ratified the WA including the NI Protocot.. nothing to do with dublin
June 19, 2021
You obviously missed the bit about Dublin threatening to veto any such agreement.
However you could also see that I lay most of the blame on those leading Tories who believed, or pretended to believe, their own longstanding lies about the huge economic benefits of EU membership.
June 18, 2021
Sir John, you have frequently posted analyses of the government’s green agenda, so although that is not today’s topic I hope you will allow me to point out that 7 out of the world’s 10 largest offshore windfarms are in UK waters. Regardless of one’s views of these devices, that should mean that, as a minimum, we should be able to have the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing industry, capable of not just meeting our own requirements butb also taking advantage of export opportunities as other coountries go down this route.
But no. Less than half (48%) of the money spent on offshore turbines stays in the UK. This is a disgraceful betrayal of British industry and British manufacturing and indeed the British economy as a whole. The government said they wanted to increase this to 60% – a pathetically unambitious target! – but even this has now been stymied because (as reported yesterday) it appears that Boris’s moronic agreement with the EU does NOT allow the British government to favour British manufacturers! Can it get any worse? What part of “Take Back Control” does Boris not understand? He failed on NI, he failed on fishing and now it is clear that he has failed on government spending and procurement too.
No, I can and will never vote for that fool again. No wonder the Tories lost Chesham and Amersham!
June 19, 2021
+1
June 18, 2021
Having cordial working relationships with Countries that do not wish to impose their ‘Rule’ on you makes common sense
The Commonwealth is some 2.6 Billion people, and the greater majority don’t run protection rackets and don’t seek isolation, above all they have more than an once of democracy and decency imbedded in their cultures. That is not something that can be said about the EU Rulers(The Commission) who are not accountable and operate well above their pay grade. You have to feel sorry for the peoples of the EU Countries another generation that wont be permitted to join humanity and the world
June 18, 2021
That’s a ringing endorsement of the governance and societies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, the West Indies, and all those countries besides Aus, NZ and Canada, and where 97% of Commonwealth people live.
Have you researched this in any depth?
June 18, 2021
your lack of addition skills is quite alarming.
June 19, 2021
So, do you think that the rule of law is better in Nigeria, say, than it is is, in oh, Germany or Denmark for instance then?
June 18, 2021
No it isn’t MiC
You are spinning it.
nota is right
June 18, 2021
No, it is not a “ringing endorsement of the governance and societies” but about the answerability of those Governments to their people. Democracy guarantees answerability, not perfect outcomes.
June 18, 2021
After all the huffing and puffing by the Rulers of the EU about AstraZenca their own Political Court says the EU Commission has no case against AZ.
A unaccountable Trade Protection Organisation becoming a supra-national government makes no sense, its an insult to the people of the European Countries that want to be free and democratic.
June 18, 2021
I think this case was really the EU27 versus the Commission. We forget that the Commission is not the EU 27 and it is being tested by the EU27 every day. This case was really about the Commission defending its failures and deflecting blame onto AS, not to convince you and me, but to try and convince the EU27.
June 18, 2021
That’s an interesting angle, and with some merit, I think.
The Council of the twenty-seven leaders is a higher authority than the Commission.
June 18, 2021
No it isn’t MiC
I’m always amazed how little pro EU fans like you understand about the powers of various EU functions.
It is the unelected Commission that has real power.
June 19, 2021
No, it’s the Parliament and the European Council.
Read the comment, not just the reply.
People keep telling you.
June 19, 2021
Complete nonsense again MiC
The Commission designs and makes the laws and has the real power.
Get your facts right.
June 19, 2021
It proposes them, as do ordinary members of the public by the Citizens’ Initiative.
Parliament rejects, amends, or passes them along with the Council Of Ministers.
Like it tabled over a hundred amendments to TTIP – that the Commission had referred to it – before the US realised that it could not be bullied and gave up.
If you want a real rubber-stamp Parliament then look at the Tory UK one eh?
June 18, 2021
Yeah, it would be if it were that, but it ain’t, mate.
June 19, 2021
Wrong again.
Have another go MiC
The Commission is the power.
June 18, 2021
I take back nothing i said on this blog during brexit. whatever the “frailities” of individuals my opinions remain the same.
June 18, 2021
That is simply terrific. Unfortunately I cannot remember anything you said on the subject.
June 19, 2021
poof as I disappear in a cloud of dust
June 18, 2021
UK covid death rate today 11 thatâs 42% decrease
June 18, 2021
The thing to watch in this new wave is the growth of new cases, and how many of them eventually become “serious/critical”. My guess is that we get many new cases, but few of them lead to fatalities.
June 18, 2021
We went into lockdown due to death rate, so we should come out of lockdown due to death rate
We’ve never gone into lockdown due to flu infection rate ?
June 18, 2021
Lockdown address transmission. Once someone is infected, lockdown cannot help them. Lockdown is about transmission, treatment is about death rate.
June 19, 2021
Lockdown was triggered by the death rate – everything else is mission drift
June 18, 2021
I see the new power cable between the UK and Norway started up today. I hope the EU doesn’t try to step in and claim that the electrons don’t come up to EU standards.
June 18, 2021
No they won’t because neither country is in the EU
June 18, 2021
Try looking up Norway’s status.
June 18, 2021
As usual, most of the arguments are irrelevant. Trade does not depend on sentiment, but on price, delivery and quality.
Now that we are no longer behind the EU’s high external tariff barrier, increased trade with the Commonwealth will happen automatically. No-one except a tiny number of obsessives is going to go out of their way to buy EU goods when the same quality is now available at lower prices, from outside the EU.
We can all just get used to the idea of the EU being our main trading partners as increasingly out of date. We can also start to get used to the idea that “remain” never had anything to do with principle, and always had everything to do with the EU trying to keep its captured UK market.
June 18, 2021
So from where else can people buy their BMWs, VWs, Mercs, fine Burgundy – yes Nigel – gorgonzola, and take their Continental and Mediterranean holidays then?
June 18, 2021
Plenty of non EU countries to have a holiday in MiC
Cars, wine and cheeses, lots of non EU choices home built and elsewhere in the world.
June 20, 2021
There’s only one Champs ElysĂ©es, Acropolis, and Piazza del Popoli though.
June 20, 2021
And they used to be MINE.
June 18, 2021
They can buy them from the EU if they wish. This isn’t about the EU being forbidden to sell to the UK. That’s all covered by the FTA. It’s about the EU losing the protection of their external tariff barriers, and goods from third countries becoming relatively cheaper in the UK market. That will automatically lose the EU market share in the UK.
June 18, 2021
volvos, hyundais, Kias,MGS….Burgandy? Pinot grigio, S.African Merlot, plenty of choice non French.
June 19, 2021
Why don’t we retaliate against the EU – and let’s face it, we are talking about the unelected European Commission and its allies? We should divide and rule. Slap a 30% import duty on German cars and tell the German Government that it will be removed only when EU Member States minimise the bureaucracy faced by UK exporters to the EU. That includes scrapping the idiotic Northern Ireland protocol (and perhaps the Good Friday Agreement for good measure). Withhold any remaining monies owed by the UK to the EU.
We could go the whole hog and withdraw recognition of the European Commission. We could inform the G7 and other international bodies that the EU is not a nation and so should not be represented. We could negotiate with individual Member States, for example paying the Dutch for their industrial scale trawlers as a fast track method of increasing the UK’s share of fish caught in UK waters.
What it comes down to is that Sovereignty is not something that exists only in theory. It means seizing it in practice. If the UK Government doesn’t like my proposals, what are its?
June 19, 2021
If we we want to give the whole world a real belly laugh then the UK could indeed try those things.
June 19, 2021
Have said it many times in the pasf, the Commonwealth is potentially the greatest free trade area in the World. No country is forced to belong. Only gross violation of human rights leads to expulsion. Many members are developing countries and would benefit hugely from free trade with the more affluent members. It has win win potential all round.
June 19, 2021
Johnson tries to get a deal with India.
The UK is the weaker party in those talks.
June 19, 2021
Well let’s see how it goes MiC
You see all trade deals as a zero sum game.
But both sides can benefit.
June 20, 2021
I do no such thing.