John Redwood
The form of this statutory instrument is to amend regulations relating to foreign postal packets. It includes GB-NI postal packets alongside foreign postal packets in important matters in the regulations specified. How can the Government defend that? They are effectively treating Northern Ireland and GB as foreign countries to each other, accepting a form of regulation designed for a true international border and clearly violating the terms of the internal market legislation governing the United Kingdom? [Interruption.]
Victoria Atkins, Financial Secretary to the Treasury
If I may, I will address that point, and then I promise I will come to the hon. Member for North Antrim in due course. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham used that language, so that I can make it clear for the purposes of Hansard that this is not about trying to differentiate or draw lines around our precious Union.
July 19, 2023
In Germany they removed their Berlin wall. Now they have the nerve to put up a Berlin wall in our country.
July 19, 2023
+ 1
July 19, 2023
RW,
Most apposite.
July 19, 2023
No, Robert, the wall between NI and GB is a wall which Boris agreed to in his oven ready deal, a wall which was part of the Conservative manifesto in the 2019 General Election, a wall which the British people voted for at that election, and a wall which the Houses of Parliament freely voted in favour of in January 2020 as part of our withdrawal from the UK
July 20, 2023
I have the 2019 Conservative Manifesto in front of me, and not one of the assertions you make are true – there was no talk of any ‘wall’ or impediment in UK-NI trade until in 2020 the EU imposed their aggressively hostile ‘interpretation’ of the NI Protocol. Northern Ireland is aa full and integral part of the United Kingdom, and this is only challenged by malign remainers whose only hope lies in doing the maximum harm to our Union.
On the contrary, the November 2019 Tory Manifesto promised ‘Northern Ireland will enjoy the full economic benefits of Brexit including new free trade agreements’, and undertook to ‘Ensure that Northern Ireland’s
businesses and producers enjoy unfettered access to the rest of the UK’, and ‘Maintain and strengthen the
integrity and smooth operation of our internal UK market.’
This is what we voted for in December 2019.
It is to the eternal shame of the Tory MPs that in 2020 so few of them joined Sir John Redwood in taking those pledges seriously.
July 19, 2023
“not about trying to differentiate or draw lines around our precious Union” well maybe you are not “trying to” Victoria but nevertheless that is clearly exactly what you are doing.
July 19, 2023
LL, +++
July 19, 2023
@Lifelogic +1
July 19, 2023
So what are the Government going to do about the appalling actions of Coutts Bank against Nigel Farage. It shows that not only employing (bad?)people in senior positions but they are clearly damn fools too. Farage’s views are far more sound than those of Coutts.
July 19, 2023
LL,
Yes I hope the electorate grow to realise that Nigel Farage and Reform are the only way forward in 2024 when our useless government is swept from office.
July 19, 2023
Alas Sunak’s Con-socialists swept from office to replaced with even more deluded socialists. Perhaps one even in a coalition or deal with the SNP. This if the Tories do finally do a few sensible things & recover a bit but zero sign of this under the current, tax to death, currency debaser, globalist, open borders and pusher of green crap Sunak.
July 19, 2023
+++ agreed
July 19, 2023
I’ve seen it suggested that a likely explanation is that one or more seriously wealthy clients have told Coutts they will move their accounts unless Farage is ‘cancelled’. This would align with the wider movement to coerce companies into cooperating in advertising boycotts on entities like GB News. Whilst in theory a private business should be free to treat with whoever it chooses, the making of decisions based on orchestrated political coercion is a sinister new development.
July 19, 2023
Coutts has picked the wrong person to have a fight with. Good on Nigel Farage for highlighting the hypocrisy of the banking world. We are fast heading for a social credit system and this needs to be stopped. It should be a basic right that people have access to a bank account.
July 19, 2023
Don’t you think Coutts are free to do business with who they want?
July 19, 2023
Depends what their reasons for sacking someone are Sartori.
Maybe you might be next…
July 20, 2023
No, they are not. They hold a UK Banking License, and must trade according to its terms and the conditions imposed by the Regulator. Their parent, Natwest Group, had to be bailed out with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. The government still controls 38% of the bank and its capitalization. Of course they can’t eject customers whose politics they find inconvenient to their pursuit of leftwing ideologies via the B-corp diversity model.
July 20, 2023
Sounds like an EU fan.
July 20, 2023
They made me laugh when they said they are an ‘inclusive’ bank. So inclusive that you have to have a million pounds laying around to keep in your account. Hypocrisy comes no where near their crazy plan, and to pick on someone as high profile as Farage who was sure to make a big thing of it shows how stupid they are. I wouldn’t want someone that dim to look after my affairs.
July 19, 2023
So stupid the managers at Coutts even thought they could attack Farage in this way without any consequences. Even saying he was a friend of Novak Djokovic (one assume this was on offence as he (very sensibly) refused the Covid Vaccinations). This as he was young, fit and healthy & had anyway Covid and clearly had zero need of them so why take any risk. This even had they been save and effective and as was (quite wrongly) claimed.
July 19, 2023
So the co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Physics prize, Dr John Clauser, says the so-called climate emergency’ is a ‘dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.’
He is exactly right.
July 19, 2023
Yes, I saw Mr Farage making his statements and disclosures about the sinister and dangerous behaviours of Coutts. He sounds like a straightforward, honest, courageous and trustworthy man.
Would our host have asked a question in todays PMQs if the PM had, in the clear evidence of disreputable and probably criminal behaviour by Coutts, asked its chairman to resign immediately?
Banking control over all of us grows. I bank with NatWest and received a letter as no doubt did all its customers that fron 11th Sept it was introducing greater controls over how we operate our accounts. Tighter limits on what we could pay in and draw out, stops would be placed on transactions they considered out of pattern. Even for me, where my monthly income is £1700.
So beware. Maybe MPs can put an immediate stop to this if enough care.
July 20, 2023
I suggest you switch your bank account from NatWest.
The Bank’s behaviour requires punishment and our pathetic MPs aren’t going to deliver any so the Bank’s customers must.
July 19, 2023
Victoria Atkins could make things clear by not creating a muddle.
July 19, 2023
Is this not a clear demonstration that the Windsor Stitch Up is working?
July 19, 2023
+1
July 19, 2023
James1
Our so-called government cannot defend their actions in relation to the Postal bill. They should hang their heads in shame.
July 19, 2023
What a pigs ear of a “solution” the Government have negotiated for Northern Ireland.
Why do they not go the whole hog and cast it adrift to join the EU, as that would be at least more honest than what we/they have now.
July 19, 2023
@Berkshire Alan – This Conservative Government – Honest all in the same sentence!
July 19, 2023
Sir john
Better together
July 19, 2023
When are the two WEF puppets Sunak and Hunt going to legislate to stop banks “cancelling” people because they hold political opinions or social views which the Woke disapprove of?
Sunak handed NI over to the EU in order to appease Biden – the man who cut and ran from Afghanistan without even bothering to tell the USA’s major ally in advance and who then, as a reward, blocked Ben Wallace from the NATO Leadership.
I suspect that if Biden told Sunak the Falklands must be handed over to Argentina, Sunak would ask if tomorrow is soon enough.
July 19, 2023
Donna – There are MORE than two WEF puppets. Let us start off with the the whole of our so-called government who are following the Globlaist UK Establishment WEF NWO AGENDA. Unti our WHOLE system of government is changed , nothing will happen. But CHANGE is coming and Nothing can stop what is coming, NOTHING. Hang on in there.
July 19, 2023
‘The Windsor Knot’ was just that to ensure the UK stays subordinate to the unelected unaccountable EU. This comes over as a concocted back door mechanism by a fraudulent Conservative Government to keep the Countries hands tied and slide it into misery and poverty.
Why is the UK(the UK) not a Sovereign Free Democratic Nation – because the so-called Conservative Government is still fighting the People.
Shame on you, the Conservative Party you deliberately and maliciously forced this on the People of these Islands against their will.
July 19, 2023
+ 1
July 19, 2023
The only fact fhat is clear from your ping pong wifh Victoria Atkins is that the NIP and the Windsor Framework are unfit for purpose. Why can’t our idiot government see this and kick the whole damn nonesense into touch. Wake up, these arrangements are only in place as a punishment for Brexit or for an eventual EU and Biden led reunification of Ireland. Sunak and his cronies need to grow some cohones in their final year of power.
July 19, 2023
Although supposedly a “Brexiteer” Rishi Sunak grossly over-estimates the economic value of a special trade deal with the EU, still following the standard Tory line of over six decades. We know that because he has told people in Northern Ireland how lucky they are to have “privileged” access to the EU Single Market. He knows that if he unilaterally ditched the Northern Ireland Protocol/Windsor Framework the EU reaction could extend beyond Northern Ireland and the cross border trade to cancellation of the entire trade deal with the UK.
From the Irish Times November 11 2021, about the likely EU reaction to the UK activating Article 16:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-on-the-northern-ireland-protocol-the-price-of-repudiation-1.4725007
“The UK must learn that there is a hefty price to pay for reneging on treaties”
“… punitive actions confined to the protocol’s remit … will not represent … sufficient economic leverage on the British .. The alternative sanctions approach … is for the EU to abandon all or part of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) … Instead of facing Northern Ireland-specific measures, the UK could face tariffs and possible quotas on all its exports to the EU.”
July 19, 2023
These three interventions and the Government reaction to them, expose the so called Windsor Agreement for what, if anyone was still in any doubt, for what it really is: a total fraud on the people of Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole, and the Government are clearly determined to persist in it.
July 19, 2023
Just think, you live in the UK and your PM and his Government treats you as second class Citizens. Not through anything you have done, just through his/their desire to cause problems to the nation, manipulate and not listen. Impose the will of foreign bureaucrats with directions, rules, regulations and laws that you cant vote on or have any say on them going forward.
If He and his Government can do that to one section of UK society you have to question who do the think they are working for. Not part of the UK, not treated as Humans, 100% pure prejudice from a corrupting Conservative Government
July 19, 2023
The current tax collection method for postal packages imported into the UK needs to be less bureaucratic and inefficient. It costs the Post Office £10 to process the tax on each parcel. The parcel will likely get held up in the system, resulting in a hassle for the recipient and importer sorting it out. My wife receives such parcels, and we often have to travel half an hour to the nearest post Office Depot to release them.
In 2017, my business contacted HMRC to suggest implementing an alternative system whereby the importer would register the parcel online and pay the tax before posting it. This method would have created a unique bar code enabling the package to be sent unhindered to the customer and save them £10.
They responded by saying they were already working on a similar project and I should not bother presenting my proposal to them. Since then, nothing has happened. They seem to have stuck with their existing bureaucratic system, which they now want to extend to Northern Ireland.
July 19, 2023
I find it disturbing, disingenuous and discourteous that in taking a position of ego and personal gratification this PM and his Minions have chosen to force a region of the UK to leave against their wishes.
It this stage in the ‘game’ and it gives the appearance that they are playing a game shouldn’t ALL UK regions be given the option whether they wish to be subjected to this Socialist Dictatorship of go their own way? Most if not all the UK Regions of the UK would flourish being independent of this cabal – the can keep London it is in their own image.
July 19, 2023
The only way to interpret that is that “this is about trying to differentiate and draw lines around our precious Union.” …. To bring us closer to the EU position.
July 19, 2023
It is clear that Sunak has given way to the EU by sacrificing our relationship with N. Ireland . Biden of course is delighted with this situation and probably had a hand behind the scene in the negotiations . We must put our foot down on this matter and overturn the Windsor deal .
July 19, 2023
Join us with a total boycott of anything EU.
We must show them we do NOT need them.
The eu made a big mistake when they made it law to mark the country of origin on products – making it easier to stop using their produce.
July 19, 2023
It is no wonder this Conservative Government wants just a token of a UK Defence Force. They act as a bully that is frightened of being found out, so in order that there can be no uprising, no challenge, they get rid of the means.
It is a bit like having the Conservative Government as the major influence, player, owner actually in control of UK Banks, when they then get to give those they don’t like the run around. Petty and vindictive. In the mean while they give an Indian Company taxpayer money, but exclude UK Companies, this is something not reciprocated by the Indian Government it is not giving UK Companies Indian taxpayer money in India. Fairness for all?
Export jobs, export wealth get rid of those that wish to play a part in a vibrant UK
Where is the UK economy in all this in the dustbin, NI, forgotten.
July 19, 2023
Why is Taxpayer money just ‘given away’ and not treated as a shareholder/lender style investment?
July 19, 2023
Treacherous back stabbing Sunak got rid of 5 Tory Brexiteer MPs on the legislative committee last week who were going to oppose his EU cave in agreement to align GB as close as possible to EU and give away NI! Cash was correct in his comments about the event. He did it on same day as immigration bill to hide his treacherous actions.
Tomorrow I vote Reform encouraging all to do the same.
July 19, 2023
+1
July 19, 2023
Shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic. We need a new Captain. Or even better a basic honest Conservative
July 19, 2023
Home Office data as at 18th July 2023
Illegal Immigrants – 574
Small boats – 12
To quote a movie line ….’we’re gonna need a bigger boat (barge)’
July 19, 2023
The so-called “answer” added up to “I can make it clear for the purposes of Hansard that this is not about trying to differentiate or draw lines around our precious Union”.
So, basically, you were fobbed off again with a non-answer. The HoC debate structure is not really fit for purpose. It never gets anyone to change their mind about much of anything, nor does it give an opportunity to genuinely hold people to account.
P.S. It’s now clear that something is failing when politicians call it “our” something (“our” NHS, “our” precious union). And when they call it “precious”, that means it isn’t really important to them at all, they use that language while allowing those things to collapse, hoping not to lose the votes of those who do care about them.
July 19, 2023
I was rather looking forward to today’s ‘King Speech 4’, as the published 1-3 were pleasingly similar to the Reform Party manifesto
July 19, 2023
HoCs today discussing ‘All Party Parliamentary Groups
They have never been nor will they ever be of any practical use nor hold any bearing on government ….they’re jollies
One MP was proud to declare that he was chair of 9 or possibly 10 APPGs (he wasn’t quite sure) …..how about just representing your constituency and reviewing proposed laws and policies
Scrap APPGs
July 19, 2023
Another MP has declared that he is chair of 12 APPGs and an officer of another 80 ….no wonder they’re so distance they’re busy on jollies & doing their hobbies
July 19, 2023
‘… this is not about trying to differentiate or draw lines around our precious Union.‘
No, it’s about trying to draw lines through and across it.
July 20, 2023
I’ll believe this when I see some evidence that it’s true and not just another fantasy:
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/good-progress-in-negotiations-to-secure-stormont-restoration-heaton-harris-says/a525812637.html
“Good progress in negotiations to secure Stormont restoration, Heaton-Harris says”