Please find below the link to my participation in the Spectator’s ‘Has Brexit Failed?’ event at Conservative Party Conference last Monday
https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/has-brexit-failed/
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Comments are closed.
Please find below the link to my participation in the Spectator’s ‘Has Brexit Failed?’ event at Conservative Party Conference last Monday
https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/has-brexit-failed/
Comments are closed.
October 12, 2023
Good morning,
For something to be seen as failed it must at first have been given a fair chance. That has never happened. We got our say and was promptly ignored and then betrayed.
BREXIT has not happened.
October 12, 2023
+1 Mark B
October 12, 2023
We have to leave the EU to make a judgement.
October 12, 2023
Interesting today,, very little solar energy, even less wind and we are running 3 coal fired generators.
Fossil and nuclear are providing 70% of generation and Max Headroom is going to reinstate the ban on gas boilers and ICEs.
Welcome to the brave New world of denial.
October 13, 2023
+1
October 13, 2023
It has been pretty windy in Wokingham district – perhaps Sir John should advocate a windmill farm being built here?
October 12, 2023
Brexit has never happened ’cause:
1) There was never the leadership to implement it
2) There was never a proper plan to implement it
3) There wasn’t the money in the country’s coffers to pay for it
Brexit was a great idea in theory – but not in practise.
October 13, 2023
Cameron and the Civil Service in an act of gross (surely criminal) negligence did not even prepare for a leave outcome in the vote. Then Cameron abandoned ship like a spoiled child and went off to make a bit of cash with etc ed. Despite this outcome being circa 50% likely. Generals have been shot for lower levels of negligence.
October 13, 2023
Brexit is happening, the Tories need to shout out about what is being achieved by Kemi and others.
1) Negotiations couldn’t start until the end of the withdrawal notice. So, not until January 2021, after we’d had the pandemic nationwide lockdown to deal with. That delay was caused by DC and rogue MPs and the likes of Benn.
2) We had to allow the EU better export terms than they were giving us because we hadn’t set up alternative supply lines, those are being set up now.
3) We are saving ÂŁ3bn per year just from the 80% customs duties from RoW imports not being paid across. There are savings from membership fees from untaxed vices like prostitution and drugs that the EU was charging us millions for.
4) The Membership fee, we were the 3rd biggest payer in, totally unappreciated, has only just started to drop significantly, we were still paying in fully until recently. We now have this money to spend, and I don’t understand why Hunt isn’t shouting about that; we were paying it, now we’re not?
5) Exports are up, we have regained reductions in trade following on from lockdown and recovery period.
6) Tot up the savings from the Erasmus scheme, Turing is more reciprocal and we no longer have to provide free higher education in Scotland and UK student loans to all EU students. We need to look at value for money in British Universities they don’t just get tuition fees from the students they also get grants and other monies from the taxpayer what are we getting for that from each off them, can we have a list of how much we invest on top of the tuition fees please.
October 12, 2023
And the most important reason Brexit has never happened is because we don’t have the politicians in Parliament to LEAD and make it happened. We don’t have the politicians with the business experience and leadership. Who have actually done a proper business plan and created a high quality brand and exported it abroad. Something like that.
So Brexit is a bit like someone coming up with a great idea in business but doesn’t have the leadership skills to lead it, won’t do a proper business plan to plan for it and doesn’t have the financial resources to pay for it.
October 13, 2023
John, there needs to be a Brexit Progress blog set up by the government that we can dip into. Ask Kemi if her department can start it.
October 13, 2023
nothing to do with CCHQ selecting pro-EU candidates for years?
October 12, 2023
+1 and Sunak too is still betraying it with his dire Windsor Accord and other measures. Starmer will betray it even more when he almost certainly (given Sunakâs direction of travel) wins the election next year.
October 13, 2023
According to Labour MPs in shadow cabinet positions they have already signed up agreements with the EU, visas for artists etc. what have they offered in return to announce these agreements ahead of time?
October 12, 2023
+1
Tory party refused to implement publicâs wishes by acting in lock step with EU and finding ways to give it our taxes! Three Tory PMs refused to implant leaving when it was the central reason to be elected!
October 12, 2023
@Mark B; That’s a bit like claiming the 1993 Grand National was not a failure, that it wasn’t abandoned, because it never officially started! The UK govt held a referendum, the UK govt sent the required Article 50 letter, the UK govt singed a EU Withdrawal agreement, the UK parliament voted to make that agreement law, Brexit has happened -just not how you would have wished.
October 12, 2023
The Grand National analogy:-
Itâs as if the Jockey Club did not want a race and had told the clerk of the course and his team to deliberately ruin the ground.
Itâs as if the starter had screwed up several times.
Itâs as if animal rights protesters had all run on to the course and interfered with the race.
Itâs as if the horses had all been misdirected down a dead end part way through the race.
Itâs as if Devon Loch had jumped over an imaginary fence just before the winning post.
October 13, 2023
+1
It is as if they created the, Benn Act designed deliberately to hobble the government making it illegal to leave the EU without a ‘Deal’. Basically handing over the negotiating advantage to the EU making impossible for us to Leave or, a deal so bad that effectively destroyed the result.
October 13, 2023
Jerry
I ordered, and paid for, steak and chips. I was then given thin gruel. Ergo, I did not get what I ordered.
October 14, 2023
@Mark B; “I was then given thin gruel”
You ordered what was on the menu, and despite many suggesting, you failed to confirm you wanted a T-Bone, so do not complain that you got gruel. The referendum merely said ‘steak’, not what *type of steak*, no one else to blame than those Brexiteers who were to scared to demand being asked specifically HOW the UK should leave the EU, not just if we should leave…
October 12, 2023
Agree …how can one debate the effectiveness of a subject, when it hasn’t started
October 12, 2023
Of course Brexit has failed. It’s failed because our supposed leaders refuse to implement the basics, which would deliver the advantages.
For instance we have still been printing work visas like confetti, and inviting people from around the world to come here with skills already in oversupply, undercutting locals, and destroying the jobs market.
We have failed to encourage employers to train locals, and instead have given them big tax perks to use imported workers from abroad.
The massive influx of immigration has continued, grown, both legal & illegal, putting massive pressure on infrastructure and services, like housing, healthcare, schooling, roads, and so on. Doing that was not on the side of the Brexit bus.
What was on the side of the Brexit bus, about giving the NHS more money, has not helped because the population has been grown significantly, the NHS management has been allowed to waste large amounts of the money on inefficient admin, and virtue signalling like vast numbers of “equality officers”.
So all in all its a failure of our political and ruling classes.
October 12, 2023
+1 I G
October 13, 2023
Iain the biggest employers that aren’t training are the NHS! We should demand they train British students living here as a priority. They should make sure they train more working class doctors and nurses with the required grades and not cap them.
October 13, 2023
the NHS is busy replacing actual doctors who have been to medical school with Physicians Assistants who have done a 2 year course. there has been a total breakdown in the norms of training a medical workforce, the norms of prescribing and X-ray requesting, the norms of operating. We have PA’s doing brain surgery, anesthetics for major ops, and so on. Meanwhile actual doctors cannot get training slots because they are all taken by PA’s.
its social engineering of the medical workforce of the worst kind.
October 14, 2023
Itâs cost saving Iain, and seeking efficiencies, I donât agree with UK born doctors not being able to get places (is it because theyâre being picky over where they want to train down South perhaps?).
I never agreed with PCSOs, half police without any powers.
I didnât agree with Teacherâs Assistants but they are now considered essential where before a teacher never had an assistant but lots of kids have suddenly got all manner of behavioural difficulties.
I did agree with more phlebotomists, and boy has that worked, the time savings for doctors having people who require regular blood tests from diabetics to people with high blood pressure seen for their checks by practice nurses.
Doctors used to see you when you were pregnant about three times during certain stages of your pregnancy, now they donât see you at all even with complications in one pregnancy the midwives, radiographers deal with everything.
People get frustrated if they train for six years then canât get a job immediately to steam roller their way to the top, perhaps there just arenât enough top positions for all those high flighers as in other professions people get stuck on the bottom two rungs. If those bottom two rungs deal with most issues then training people for four years instead of 6,7,8 may be sufficient to fill all the vacancies. I donât know at what level these 100,000 unfillable vacancies exist do you?
Iâm not sure its social engineering or do you feel the top training positions are being selected on contacts and family connections rather than merit? That should be investigated. There are plenty of professions where that happens and other people are blocked from progress because they donât have people opening doors for them. Scotland is actually better and fairer but they also have family and friend cliques its nearly impossible to stop.
October 14, 2023
As Tarczynski succinctly put it, “Zero illegal migration equals zero terrorist attacks. The safest place in Europe – Poland.”
October 12, 2023
If Brexit hasn’t lived up to expectations it is because many have put spanners in the works and would prefer it not to be effective because they said so.The childishness, lack of vision and ability to manage Brexit has been overwhelming.
October 12, 2023
Childishness – — Bunter Johnson? Quite agree!
October 12, 2023
Indeed but a full Brexit taking all the advantages it offers has not yet been delivered and may never be at this rate.
The country has been further held back by the incompetemce with which the government dealt with Covid (pointless lockdowns, endless waste, net harm vaccines, net zero and vast over taxation for the bloated and inept state sector.
Allister Heath is spot on as usual today.
âThe BBC and Black Lives Matter have exposed the virtue-signalling classâs moral depravity
Anyone who cannot see that Hamas committed an act of genocide has lost all sense of right and wrong.â
So will Southgate and his England football football team really still keep taking the knee to this appalling Marxist organisation? Will Suank please kill the BBC licence tax too and now. But Sunakâs record is hardly promising so I doubt it.
October 12, 2023
That is not what a proper leader would say. Leaders take responsibility for things. They ultimately blame themselves when things go wrong – not others. Brexit was the mistake of Brexiters ultimately. Not because Brexit was a bad idea (it was a great idea). But because there wasn’t the leadership or the planning or finance to implement it.
October 12, 2023
Opinion polls in Britain inform me whether Brexit has failed for the British.
One of the amusing things post referendum was that for many months Brexit could only be defined as âBrexit means Brexitâ. Bilateral trade deals on prosecco appeared not to be possible and even Johnson had no plan.
On the EU side, Brexit has been handled reasonably well. The EU has stayed unified, some compensation for lost exports has taken place. The EU has moved on.
October 12, 2023
P.S. Different from what John Redwood suggested the treaties dont mention “united states of europe”. “Ever closer union between the peoples of europe” can be interpreted in various ways and currently there is clearly no majority in the EU for a “united states of europe”. There are politicians and MEPs who want to move towards a federal arrangement, bu they are a minority.
Reply A President, Parliament, anthem, flag, Ambassadors, foreign policy, currency, supreme law making etc.
October 13, 2023
PvL I’d love know who s questioned on these opinion polls, no one I know has ever been asked, I regularly ask them when this crops up, Michelle Dewberry regularly says she is in the same position as me. People on John’s blog how many of you have been asked about Brexit support this year?
On your second point do you read and listen to Verhofstadt? We know that if elected Starmer is going down on bended knee to the EU. His MPs are making pronouncements now about what has been agreed, do you know what he has already offered to give the EU?
October 13, 2023
@Tracy:
Imagine 45 mln British adults and a poll sample of 2500. Such samples give reliable results. You then have a negligible 1 in 18000 chance of being part of any sample.
Verhofstadt is just an ordinary MEP, one out of more than 700.
Discussions and negotiations have little or nothing to do with bended knees. The UK is now totally sovereign.
An example: A Veterinary Agreement with the EU (like e.g. Switzerland has) would make many things in import and export a lot easier, and Keir Starmer apparently understands that.
But the UK is totally free and sovereign to enter into such an agreement or not.
October 14, 2023
Yes but if a majority of that poll sample are in a pro-eu area and excludes for example Stoke on Trent or another high leave area then samples are skewed.
1 in 18000 in one day or over say 70 years of regular polls?
Perhaps Verhofstadt has a higher perceived profile than he justifies. I shall bear in mind heâs just a minnow 1 of 700.
Negotiations have everything to do with a British leader on his knees, bending to the will of other leaders. We are not totally sovereign we have to abide by EU regulations in Northern Ireland and for some reason that is an excuse given to not make changes in the UK such as taking 5% vat of energy (do you think that is a lie and that we canât just take it off including in Northern Ireland).
There is a problem in France with meat at the moment I read this week, we get chicken with salmonella from the Eu community, we had horse meat sold as beef in food products. Some countries in the Eu treat the movement of animals for slaughter appallingly. Can you tell me what this Veterinary Agreement gets for British farmers what markets does it open for them and what extra competition does it allow in against their interests?
If Starmer is signing up for that already agreed, then I think he needs to tell people before they elect him. In fact I believe it is essential we are told what he has agreed for one of his cabinet MPs to say sheâs got a visa for musicians lined up already what is the deal struck, because the UK already gives this visa to EU artists and musicians freely right now to the detriment of hiring British artists.
October 15, 2023
@Tracy:
The segments of my family in Stoke on Trent have indeed never been polled (and they are very pro EU, of course đ )
There are two prime examples of veterinary agreements with the EU, the Swiss model and the New Zealand model. Both are described in a recent BBC article on N. Ireland.
Incidents (salmonella, horse meat, BSE etc. ) have occured in spite of agreements.
It seems to me that this puritanical British sovereignty leads to quite a few problems in the real world, but that was your own choice. How splendid is this splendid isolation?
Reply The only thing wrong with our Brexit is we are still too bound by the Northern Ireland Protocol which we should legislate ourselves to correct, and have not yet repealed or amended much EU law. If the EU as Germany says wants fewer barriers for trade then it should just remove them as it was the EU that imposed them. We have no need to discuss or concede further.
October 15, 2023
reply to reply:
Interesting Mr Redwood, in my perception the EU never invented these socalled “imposed” barriers just for Brexit, they already existed for third countries when the UK was a member, and thus had to be applied in absense of the UK wanting further alignment. I’m sure some in the UK (current Tories) have no need to discuss further, but no governments will be there for eternity. It may take (again) a Labour government to make progress for the N. Ireland devolved government.
Reply So you agree the EU imposed the barriers, so they could remove them if they wished. The UK is not going to offer more tribute.
October 13, 2023
Our PM Theresa May had no understandable way to communicate her failings on the subject and resorted to that idiot mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’.
‘Brexit has been handled reasonably well. The EU has stayed unified.’
Oh come on Peter, that is nonsense and you know it.
October 13, 2023
@Mickey Taking:
Not a word of nonsense here. The EU explained and negotiated Brexit totally as one man (unified) instead of as 27 separate countries. And on the EU side the process was completely transparent towards the 27 member states at every step.
October 12, 2023
We have BRINO.
Brexit never happened.
October 12, 2023
Brexit has never been allowed to happen and this has gone hand in hand with the complete abandonment of conservatism.
Unfortunately the non conservative europhiles are still in charge.
October 12, 2023
The first man lists theoretical gains which mostly have no practical effect.
We have a broken United Kingdom. It is arguable whether this was done deliberately or due to appalling negligence on our part.
Sovereignty – where we have it – has not been used. We mostly mirror what the EU do. In any case, we are now completely in thrall to globalists on all major issues.
We have no control over our borders.
We will probably be brought tighter to EU rules by the next government.
October 12, 2023
Yes – it was a most stupid thing to do and was bound to fail because we are now in a no-mans land neither here nor there.. it was in fact the worst decision of a lifetime for which generations to come will pay and all because the champions for change thought we could wing it, chance our arm, and the sunny uplands would suddenly appear, a most stupid thing to expect as there were no building blocks in place for our new situation and that’s it – no need to spell it out – and nothing at all to do with civil servants so let the blame lie where if should – ‘it was the horrible lies wot done if for us guv’
October 13, 2023
The worst decision of a lifetime was not heeding De Gaulle’s refusal and ingratitude for his years having a fine old time in London, and the rescue of France, securing being No.2 behind a new resurgent Germany c/o USA funding.
We should have recognised the jealous spite for what it was, and steered clear.
October 12, 2023
More money for the NHS is possibly the best joke in the episode.
Last woman adopts a similar line to the first man, list minor details that nobody cares about – lithium? Free ports ?
Camilla makes good points about UKâs own internal bureaucracy and hostility to change.
October 14, 2023
Donât you think free ports are a good idea Peter to export our goods and to receive goods at lower costs from around the whole world on return vessels? Isnât that what Rishiâs new rails plans are to connect the old great ports Liverpool to Hull and points in between for movement of goods from East and West as well as South to North.
October 12, 2023
Lifelogic will go off on one when finds out Camilla is a PPE graduate.
October 12, 2023
I think we can agree that leaving the EU is not what is could have been.
We are out and must stay out. The benefits will continue to accrue so long as we appreciate our new role and freedoms.
October 13, 2023
I agree NS.
I’m not sure the new freedoms will continue with Starmer. People aren’t being communicated with this government about what freedoms they have gained; people seem here to be unaware of new trade, increased trade to existing buyers, re-onshoring of British jobs, especially in the Midlands. Reducing our balance of payments.
October 12, 2023
âDo you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?â 1975
The answer to that was ( mainly because of the lies told) âYESâ.
THAT answer wasnât ignored was it? The wealthy few bound us closer and closer.. quietly.
Those of us who had read dystopian novels and had holidayed in places where the British were hated knew that the answer should have been a resounding âNOâ.
However, if it is the wrong answer for the establishment it counts for diddly squat! So much for democracy!
October 12, 2023
The greatest failure of Brexit is that Northern Ireland remains subject to swathes of EU laws and will increasingly be separated from Great Britain, and it is clear that the UK government intends this to be the permanent situation until the province finally leaves the UK and rejoins the EU as part of a united Ireland.
October 12, 2023
A letter published in our local newspaper on April 3 2008, headed:
“We can’t rely on patriotism of MPs”
“After Colonel Pride carried out his Purge in December 1648, it worked out that only a third of MPs were considered fit persons to continue sitting in Parliament.
It seems that a similar exercise now – excluding all the MPs whose primary loyalty is not to this country but to the EU – would leave us with an even smaller rump.
That is the only conclusion to be drawn from a vote taken on March 5th, when an overwhelming majority of MPs voted down proposed New Clause 9 for the Bill to ratify the Lisbon Treaty – an amendment designed to protect the legal supremacy of our Parliament against attack by Declaration 17 attached to that Treaty.
Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs obeyed their whips and voted en masse against this amendment, but even the party which many people still reckon to be the most patriotic tried to stop its MPs voting for it – with the Tory whips texting their MPs that there would be no more votes, knowing that this vote was about to be called.
So now we know. Out of 646 MPs, we can rely on the patriotism of just 49.
Not including a Liberal Democrat MP who apparently could not make up his mind whether or not he wanted our Parliament to remain supreme, and so voted on both sides, and unfortunately not including our local MP, Theresa May, who abstained.”
October 12, 2023
Brexit was a hardy plant seeded in deliberately stony ground by a majority of parliamentary MPs, civil servants, members of the House of Lords and the BBC who have an inbuilt contempt for democracy. Unknown to the above the seed was coated in fertilizer and has thrived to their continued disappointment despite them going out and pissing on it at every opportunity. There are many loose ends remaining, but democracy will in the end prevail.
October 12, 2023
Put another way, Brexit has not failed, but those entrusted to carry it out have failed in a most traitorous and mother knows best way.
October 12, 2023
Brexit hasn’t failed, it’s barely begun. Because the Remainiac Conservative party has totally failed to implement Brexit.
October 12, 2023
It’s an odd question because Brexit itself was just an enabling step not a specific policy or programme. It handed power to UK politicians to take decisions which previously were prevented – these policies could be Conservative or Labour and directly opposed to each other. For example I believe that the next Labour manifesto will include imposition of VAT on private school fees. This policy could only be implemented after Brexit, it was not allowed when we were in the EU. Similarly you could imagine various Labour industrial subsidy policies which Brexit now allows. So the question really is whether the Conservative government have used Brexit to implement Conservative policies which were previously prevented, and the answer of course is NO, they prefer to stay aligned with the EU even to the extend of breaking manifesto promises like banning the export of live animals.
Just incidentally, I see lawyers at the Supreme Court yesterday were arguing that the Rwanda policy is illegal under “retained EU law” – another Conservative government failure that that is even arguable.
October 14, 2023
But Peter Van Lewen above tells us the UK is sovereign so how can there be any retained EU law that canât be changed?
October 12, 2023
PS, our country has much bigger problems than just Brexit.
We need a true leader to lead us out of all this (out of all the big problems in general).
I don’t care if that leader is a Remainer or a Brexiter (or someone who sat on the fence over Brexit). But for either the Remainer or Brexiter to firstly admit that MISTAKES that were made over the whole Brexit Referendum.
Admitting mistakes is the first great strength of a great leader – even great leaders make mistakes – VERY BAD mistakes sometimes and in big ways. But the difference between a great leader and a mediocre or bad leader is that the great leader admits his mistakes and learns from them and moves on from them – instead of getting mired in them.
That’s what people in Parliament should be focusing on now.
October 12, 2023
I heard it. I had a couple of questions coming out of it:-
– what were the âobvious reasonsâ which stopped you from commenting on the claim that Brexit has damaged the financial services sector?
– I was surprised that no one challenged Charles grants claim that Brexit has resulted in ÂŁ40bn pa lower tax receipts, because (he claims) the economy is smaller than it otherwise would be. Since the U.K. economy has grown approx in line with the major EU economies, for Mr Grants claim to be true presumably it would have had to be the strongest growing by far had we remained in the EU, such as to now be 5% or so larger than it is?
October 13, 2023
“Brexit has not damaged the City of London, a senior Wall Street boss has said, despite fears that leaving the bloc would trigger an exodus of bankers and business from the Square Mile.
David Livingstone, Citigroupâs chief executive for Europe, Middle East and Africa, told The Telegraph that the City has ânot been diminishedâ by Brexit, adding that efforts by Brussels to create a rival financial centre to London have so far failed to yield meaningful results.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/16/citigroup-david-livingstone-brexit-city-london/
But if Sadiq keeps making London a bad place to live, not dealing with knife crimes and racial/religious tensions, ULEZ, VAT on school fees, increasing council taxes to fund 500 PCSO but what benefit are they? ÂŁ20 for tfl.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/council-tax-rise-london-sadiq-khan-greater-london-authority-government-row-b1052240.html
October 12, 2023
Failures like Keir Starmer who tried to reverse the UK peopleâs stated will after the Referendum created the dead weight on Brexit progress.
October 12, 2023
I see that the debate is proceeded by an add for the energy grant farming âindustryâ that is Drax. Burning imported wood (young coal that is less efficient than coal imported on diesel ships & trucks) and pretending it is ârenewableâ & this saving the World – even wittering on about âCarbon captureâ which would make it even more energy inefficient, costly and wastefull.
Surely pure bonkers crony capitalism, paid for by rip off energy bill payers and tax payers.
October 12, 2023
Dan Hannan says it’s failed. Nigel Farage says it’s failed.
It’s failed.
Why it’s failed is another matter. The Tory Party must be made to pay. Either for giving the people a choice that was undeliverable or for failing to deliver what was chosen.
The Men-in-Boats are going to cost you all dearly.
October 13, 2023
It’s not gone far enough for Farage Paula; he wanted a no-deal just walk-away deal, did you?
Hannan said Brexit has lost the pr battle accumulating evidence of failure rather than any successes. I would like to see John Redwood in a podcast with Dan Hannan and Farage on Brexit. Or JR and Hilary Benn.
October 12, 2023
I see that the debate is proceeded by an advert by âDraxâ the grant farming industry that claims burning wood chopped down forests imported on diesel ship (young coal imported ) is ârenewableâ. It is of course far less efficient, more expensive and less environmental, than just burning old coal. Lots of money in this bonker CO2 religion and tax payer grant farming it seems. They even want to make it even less efficient with their carbon capture grant farming agenda. Still lots of coal in Selby is there not?
October 12, 2023
Failed? It never got off the Launch Pad!
October 12, 2023
The establishment are still in the process of wrecking it.
They are hobbling the UK economy to stay in lock-step with the failing EU economies because they know that the case for rejoin, align, EU army etc will be destroyed if the UK outstrips the EU by a considerable margin…
Is the mess over interest rates, inflation / money printing, bond sales, high taxes, windfall taxes, failure of energy policy including net zero etc etc… all “mere” incompetence? Possibly – modern politicians and those running institutions such as the BoE are almost entirely useless – but the extent of the failure we are seeing is too great to be simply incompetence.
The conspiracy theories sound a little crazy but… if you have eliminated all the other possibilities then whatever remains must be the truth.
October 14, 2023
For some they will find out and will be literally shocked, when the internal civic society begins to fracture and the collapse begins. Still be in denial or not being aware of the scale of what has been perpetrated on us.
October 12, 2023
I am watching Trump do a live speech in the US, got to be said he is talking a lot of sense. A wide ranging speech demolishing lots of things the political class take for granted. Like the way we allow China & India to take the mickey in agreements with us, out of control immigration, electric car nonsense, on so many issues he has the pulse of the ordinary people. He may not be perfect, but I have not seen any UK politician prepared to take on the accepted wisdoms of the liberal elite, in joined up ways across the whole joined up spectrum of issues, and do it so well.
October 12, 2023
No, our self interested low quality politicians have failed Brexit.
October 12, 2023
A huge, unexpected Brexit success was exposing (per your words) the “noise and resistance throughout from parts of the British establishment who don’t want us to use any of the great Brexit freedoms”. That we have so many in positions of power and influence so willing to commit treason is shocking and still needs to be dealt with.
You go on to say that post Bexit (and in contrast to E.U. ways), governments “either get it right or they get thrown out and replaced by people who do what you want” and “You have an opportunity in elections to chose some better ministers”. Nice, I can hardly wait! đ – but that outcome from the first is doubtful and the second all too easy alas to find better but not likely good enough.
October 12, 2023
Brexit isnât the failure itâs this Government’s implementation of it.
October 12, 2023
A lot of fans of socialism say the same thing about socialism.
October 12, 2023
The 3 comment replies so far I fully endorse .
October 12, 2023
That podcast was only rescued by your contributions. I found polarizer Camilla Cavendish tiresome and as for Charles “I respect the OBR” Grant one can only look towards cancellation.
Is the Katy Balls a BBC person? Whether or not, it was disappointing to hear her reflex-like parroting of the Bank of England lie that the cause of our inflaation was the war in Ukraine.
October 12, 2023
So was the fire at Luton really caused by a diesel xxxx. Diesel (which is essentially not very flammable in normal conditions) rarely explodes. Was it perhaps a hybrid with a lithium/iron battery?
The EV car industry (EVs causes more CO2 not less than keeping your old car almost always) seem vary keen to play down the battery fire issue lest they get banned from RoRo ferries, long tunnels, EuroTunnel, parking close to other cars etc. Could it be that a small diesel fire set the hybrid battery off?
What is certain is once a Lithium battery goes they are very hard to put out and even minor crash damage can often write off the car. Hence Insurance costs on EV cars can be very high. Must be quite a bit of CO2 from the Luton Airport Fire if that concerns you.
Reply We need a proper report with evidence of what caused this fire.
October 12, 2023
We canot judge Brexit until it actually happens.
For example, we are importing a large amount of immigrants from continental Europe. A disproportionate amount of them end up in prison. Alex Chalk (Justice Secretary) now states that he wants to rent prison space from overseas as our prisons are full.
No…Brexit has not happened as we are still doing the same idiotic things we were doing when inside the eu
October 13, 2023
I read that 10-12% of our prison population is not British.
October 12, 2023
Failure rests with the political class and establishment to take advantage of the potential changes possible post Brexit. It was depressing to listen to the Remainers on the panel and their failure to comprehend the demographic, energy, industrial and financial problems that the EU faces now and in the coming decade. The UK is well out of them. It has enough problems of its own to contend with without paying up for EU’s as well.
October 12, 2023
I listened to Camilla Cavendish saying how we have cut ourselves off from the EU market, and yesterday I read here:
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/starmers-conference-speech-was-a-confident-act-of-reassurance-but-what-about-brexit/
“… an excellent way to get growth would be to open Britain up to the largest trading block in the world â the EU … ”
and I wonder what world these people are living in? Certainly not the real world where we are still selling huge amounts to the EU despite allegedly having no access to its market:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/09/28/the-uk-balance-of-trade/#comment-1411555
And when I read this:
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/research-papers/uk-trade-tracker-q3-2023/
I find it impossible to work out whether our trade with the EU has gone up a bit or gone down a bit in volume terms, that is adjusting for price inflation.
A fall in exports of 0.62% of GDP corresponds to a 1.9% relative fall in exports, taking all exports to be 33% of GDP.
This is for all exports, goods and services, EU and non-EU, and no separate numbers are offered for EU trade. However:
“Despite all of this, since the TCA came into force in 2021, the share of EU trade increased to 53% by Q2 2023. This has shown that on both sides of the channel trade with partners of such close proximity will remain the preferred choice.”
I hope that later on in the discussion somebody pointed out to Camilla Cavendish just how stupid her comments were, how totally detached from reality, and why does the government never put these people right?
October 12, 2023
Brexit hasnât failed. Itâs the politicians from all sides of the house who have failed, failed to implement it. Traitors, the lot of them. The only party that will get Brexit done is REFORM UK.
October 12, 2023
Reform UK is run by a way-overly-rated, glib, pretty boy (Richard Tice).
The only way forward is the Conservative Party with people who have proper business experience running it (Boris, Theresa May, Liz Truss have no proper business experience / business leadership experience).
October 12, 2023
We have jumped from being controlled by Brussels to being controlled by the UN, the WEF, and coming shortly the WHO. Also, why have our banks been allowed to become the net zero police? I was shocked to read the Nationwide Building Societyâs Climate-related Financial Disclosures 2023. In this document, they set out how EPC ratings will determine the future cost and approval of mortgages. They are even calling on the government to make actual home energy usage data available to them to improve their carbon reporting. So the homeowner with an EPC rating of C or higher will get a better mortgage deal but the owner in a D-rated or lower home will either be refused a mortgage altogether or have to pay considerably more. This impacts those owning older properties which can never attain a higher EPC rating including the majority of housing stock in our towns and cities. These properties will become unmortgageable in our dystopian future.
October 12, 2023
It is distressing to see politicians wilfully building trade barriers, instead of tearing them down. (The fainthearted protectionism of the Australian trade agreement was a case in point.) We should not be imitating the idiocies of the EU, let alone consulting its wishes. Unilateral Free Trade, now!
October 12, 2023
I’m fed up with people like Charles Grant falsely claiming that the OBR finds productivity to have fallen by 4%.
The OBR is not a reliable source, but in any case that is supposed to be a long term projection:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/31/uk-trade/#comment-1407234
And as for their 5.5% shortfall, the “doppelganger” model is plainly nonsensical:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/07/05/the-obr-tries-to-revive-its-old-remain-forecasts/#comment-1327395
but if it did tell us anything it would tell us that we are actually better off outside of the EU Single Market:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/01/26/brexit-wins-3/#comment-1369885
He said he was going to deal with “facts and figures”, what a joke.
October 12, 2023
John Simpson responded to the criticism of the BBC in a post on X:- âCalling someone a terrorist means you’re taking sides and ceasing to treat the situation with due impartiality.â, “The BBC’s job is to place the facts before its audience and let them decide what they think, honestly and without ranting.”
Well not something the BBC usually do is it John Simpson – witness Covid, the net harm lockdowns, masks, test and trace, their endless attacks on landlords, motorists, the EU, vaccine safely.
Note on vaccine safely just VAER reports as early as Jan 2001 showed the vaccines were significantly unsafe and should have been stopped certainly for the young and children.
No real doubt they would do v. significant harm, particularly in the young who clearly never even needed them. See VAERS data with Dr Jessica Rose video with Dr John Campbell.
Impartial on the BBC sure Mr Simpson? Try it on Covid Vaccine harms, net zero, ârenewablesâ, the size of the state, tax levels, the NHS, the unfair BBC tax, the EUâŠ
October 12, 2023
I tried really hard to listen to the contributions from Grant and C Cavendish and to take them seriously. But as Sir John demonstrated, only someone of his intelligence could make their arguments for them.
October 12, 2023
There was a popular majority that voted for Brexit whilst there was and is a parliamentary majority for remaining in the EU.
There is a failure of the electoral system when the will of the people is not served by the major parties on the most important issues. Its all very well JR suggesting that an unpopular government can be ejected by the electorate but where does that leave us when the alternative is no better than the incumbent, a state of affairs that does not exist in countries where all votes, not a third, count such that new parties can arise and obtain support on the basis of better, less doctrinaire policies?
October 12, 2023
Germany is the example of a country with PR that you are looking for, Mr Forthurst.
While we have the Conservatives run by Blairite politicians like Sunak and Hunt, the situation here is very little to different to Germany. Neither the SPD or the CDU can gain a majority there, so you have endless coalitions. Whoever is in power, the policies do not vary very much, just a little more emphasis on those linked to the Green party or the FDP when either are in the coalition.
Neither here or in Germany are the mainstream politicians seriously interested in dealing with inward migration.
The AfD are rapidly growing in influence as they want the problem sorted.
Sunak might want to get rid of the boats, but that’s a tiny problem when most of our difficulties over the NHS, housing education, and a lack of GPs is down to the 600,000 net migrants being allowed into the UK every year.
At neither party conference did the parties talk about reducing net migration to manageable proportions.
I reality, we have no “Housing Crisis” : most of Starmers’s 1.5m new houses will be taken up with migrants including the entire amount of “affordable Homes” he plans to built !
Where does that leave the rest of the population ?
We are somewhere behind German voters, but if inward migration at anywhere near the current numbers carries on unchecked, the door will be open to the Reform party. It will end like Brexit : Reform will scare the Conservatives enough for them to adopt more Right of Centre candidates and their policies.
Why doesn’t Sunak and Co just do it now ? He might even win a small majority if he does!
October 13, 2023
Chris, if Starmer builds these homes in places with high numbers of British-born renters whose private rent is fully covered by the State, we should be able to save money in the longer term (but where is his money for this coming from to build them?).
Housing associations just blow money on themselves and their perks and pensions the best employers in the UK year after year with no responsibility to build more value homes themselves, extend 3 beds into 4 beds for bigger families so simply knock two together. Most have lost a 1000 homes off their roll from buying them with no new builds at their expense.
There are whole areas in places like Oldham that buy up cheap housing, rent out high to the state to family and friends and the taxpayers are paying off the mortgages.
October 12, 2023
That is theoretically possible with PR: in practice the two ‘main’ centrist, pro-EU parties self-identifying as ‘socialist’ and ‘conservative’ in e.g. Germany, Netherlands or the Republic of Ireland, join together at will to exclude any well-supported challenger party from government. (‘Populist, extremist’ etc – these are the indignant cries with which it justifies this anti-democratic hauteur.)
Since the nature of PR elections is a competing cluster of splinter parties, it is virtually impossible for even a determined electorate to win the (at least) 52% of the seats that would be needed for such a challenger party to gain power. So the perpetual result is a compromise government nobody voted for, with policies no one chose except the politicians who join together post-election to stitch up the parliament like a kipper.
October 14, 2023
Yes mancunius. Yes. That is exactly what PR delivers.
October 12, 2023
Indeed as you say:-
“There is a failure of the electoral system when the will of the people is not served by the major parties on the most important issues. Its all very well JR suggesting that an unpopular government can be ejected by the electorate but where does that leave us when the alternative is no better than the incumbent”
This is generally the normal situation in the UK. The public want lower taxes and decent efficient public service. For all of my life governments have largely delivered the complete reverse. The public has no real say or power on anything. Currently Labour and the Tories are for ever larger government, ever higher taxes, ever more regulations, more power to the WHO, supported lockdowns and the net harm vaccines, ever more net zero lunacy, the dire energy act, more EU alignment and the dire Windsor Accord… Even if they promised sensible things who would ever trust them to deliver any of them?
October 12, 2023
LETTING VOTERS choose a committee of frauds, liars, fools and often corrupt cheats (once every five years) to then vote to choose the direction and speed of the bus for all those five years does not give you any meaningful control of the bus at all. Even worse when it is the country not just a bus. Then on top of this we have the unelected House of Lords, the Bishops, the Lords who have bought their places, the friends of corrupt PMs and Ministers plus the unelected Civil Service, the Judges, Charites, Crony vested interests, people who buy influence, the botched and biased devolution agreements, the BBC propaganda outfit…
Yet they absurdly pretend this is a Democracy?
October 14, 2023
Labour wants citizens panels, when most canât even be bothered to go out to vote, unbelievable. Where has that come from some EU idea no doubt.
The guy screaming out for this change by grabbing Starmer at conference and sprinkling him with glitter. ABH? When MPs are being stabbed what sort party doesnât give their leader decent protection at an event like this, would he be shot in America, Germany or France? Who gave him his pass to get in that hall was he a Labour member? It will be interesting what he is charged with (on his personal record for life stopping him getting some jobs and positions probably not) and what his restitution is. If he gets nothing then you know it is just a PR puff exercise to show an unruffled Starmer rolling up his sleeves, cool guy. BUT it is a bad precedent to set to turn a blind eye to this.
October 12, 2023
There is nothing wrong with our representative democracy, our constitutional monarchy. The failing was one of honesty and integrity in the political and media class. I am sure an earlier generation than the selfish immoral baby boomers would have honoured the referendum.
You have a good general point though, in that throughout my life the electorate has been in favour of capital punishment, in favour of deporting foreign criminals, and against mass immigration, yet has been consistently outvoted in Parliament. CP may have narrowed somewhat over the years. But we never had a referendum on those things. The remarkable thing about 2016 was that we did, and they brazenly sabotaged it.
October 13, 2023
Yes, I agree, Rose.
October 12, 2023
You won’t get that changed by the Conservatives. It’s in their interest for them to keep a system which only requires them to secure little more than 1/3 of the votes in order to claim to be a “majority”. What is in the country’s interest is secondary.
October 12, 2023
“Has Brexit Failed?”
I’ll pose a counter question.
Has BREXIT been tried, yet ?
October 12, 2023
Oh dear I had to give up at 24 mins who is Camilla Cavendish, she seemed to have much more volume on her mike and much more say. Interrupting you rather rudely around 1 minute in when she was left to waffle on unchallenged during her set.
One point though, isnât Germany struggling for skilled workers at the moment within the EU?
These figures are so large people donât understand how much it means if UK people are nearly ÂŁ100,000 per household in UK debt, how much would the UK household be on the hock for in the EU ÂŁ806bn post covid bailout?
John you say we can choose better ministers in the next election. We didnât get a choice of our Conservative MP last time and heâs bailed for this next election. We donât know what we vote for, which conservative thought voting for Anna Soubry as a Tory was a vote for a now Labour supporter, who thought voting for Antoinette Sandbach was a vote for a Lib Dem vote reneger standing on one ticket and doing something else that suited her. We vote for the party and then they change everyone we thought we were voting for. Vote Boris get Sunak.
Most people I know are despairing no party is representing them. These pie in the sky promises canât be trusted because any hung parliament can overturn anything, and we get what some over-power wants that we didnât ask for i.e. smoking bans and maths to 18! Where the heck did that irrelevant issue come from, education will overturn most of that, kids are vaping anyway and smoking more pot than ever before. Just concentrate on getting growth from these trade deals for British owned companies, and if we are spending money letâs spend it on growth for the UK. Not growth of imports, other than finding imports that save us money. Find new markets and help businesses to sell. Tell us which exports are doing well.
The left are running this country down in order to win, I donât hear the right saying well hold on, after the last bust weâve had a lot of repair work to do and weâve fixed x y and z.
Weâve built x social and affordable homes, 5-10m more per year than the last Labour government. Weâve spent x on the NHS, weâve spent x more on this x more on that, if those divisions have wasted that money it is for the media to interview their six figure leaders and push them for why.
Whatâs the point of Hunt? How can Labour not have to borrow more to keep their future promises? Does false growth come from spending on social and affordable housing built with State money or is that actually classed as debt? Do new pfi agreements count as government debt? Whatâs the con trick going on here?
October 12, 2023
I suppose that was Charles Grant who butted in with “There’s no European army, John, there won’t be either”, thus proving your point that many British enthusiasts for the EU are ashamed to tell the truth about it.
October 12, 2023
Be careful about howling that Brexit has failed – remained claim that therefore you wish to have Remained!
This partial Brexit and the fact that we have the power, once we get the political will, to fully implement Brexit is a whole lot better than having remained in the EU.
However I see MSM objections to âTaiwan Must Ask for Permission Regarding Microchip Shipments to the Rest of China…â – Nothing says freedom and sovereignty like having to ask another nation whether or not you’re allowed to trade products even within your own internationally recognized borders.
And of course the U.K. is in exactly the same position regarding NI.
Itâs not good enough for the U.K. to be the equal of Taiwan! We need some half competent MPs.
October 14, 2023
Yes Lynn, Nigel Farage screwed up there.
October 12, 2023
Yes, you did get the most applause, and rightly so.
What an utter pill C Cavendish is! How could DC stand it? She should know that Condoleeza Rice got to know Jack Straw so well, and his constituency, that she had him removed as FS. Not that any lessons were learned when one contemplates the recent occupation of Kensington High St.
Perhaps one point you could have made on services in general, without compromising yourself, is that once our fishing, our farming, our manufacturing, and our orchards had been severely diminished by membership of the EEC/EC/EU, we were left with our services, and the Franco German axis refused to let them into the Single Market or include them in the trade negotiations with other countries. So in materialstic Cavendish speak, what was the point of our joining? 6% of our business exported to the EU – it is more now – while the other 94% was under the Brussels boot. We were just the cash cow and the absorber of goods and excess population.
October 13, 2023
Another good response, Rose. You should become an MP I’d vote for you.
October 12, 2023
Brexit hasn’t failed. We haven’t had Brexit.
What failed was the Democratic process – with the Westminster Uni-Party refusing to implement the result of the Referendum and the wider Establishment doing everything it possibly can to prevent benefits from being realised/implemented.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party failed to honour the result of the Referendum.
October 12, 2023
SirJ must find it hard to look upon his fellow Tory MPs
October 12, 2023
Someone been telling porkies about brexit and someone is also telling porkies about the Luton airport carpark fire âŠ.we donât believe you !
October 13, 2023
I suspect you are right on Luton Airport we shall see, it must already be clear to those in the know what really happened and why it got out of control and spread so quickly.
October 13, 2023
Do you think the car was sabotaged?
I think car parks now that are built under flats that people live in should have water sprinkler systems.
October 12, 2023
I voted Leave. The way the politicians and civil service have handled Brexit makes me think of a beer festival that’s been organised by the Temperance Society.
October 12, 2023
Before this government I could travel by car the length and breath of Britain without hindrance of fine by ULEZ, LTN, Congestion and 20mph zones âŠ.after a brexit I was hoping for more freedom and less collective union
October 13, 2023
I listened to this. You were robust as ever. The disdain from Charles Grant was hard to bear (although you couldn’t wish to meet a nicer man) and the patronising attitude of Camilla Cavendish had me yelling at my iPhone.
What I don’t understand is why no one ever takes the likes of Grant and Cavendish to task on the very poor modelling on which their nigh-on propoganda is based. The OBR did not do its own modelling. It took the average of everyone else’s models. Everyone else’s models give bad results because they assume much lower inflation – an assumption that turned out to be false – and because they assume a large impact on productivity due to trade for which there is no evidence despite many economists looking for that evidence.
The models are bunk and they should be exposed as such. The technicalities may be hard for many to grasp but all that is required is that they gain an impression that, actually, the figures from the Remain side can’t be trusted.
And as for Cavendish’s nonsense about Condoleeza Rice…Rice doesn’t call Britain because we’re can’t give them the inside scoop on the EU any more? Sounds like a problem for the US, not for us. Why does no one point this nonsense out?
October 13, 2023
Sorry – they give much lower *immigration* not much lower inflation
October 13, 2023
I think it’s actually impossible to claim Brexit as a success or failure as ‘Brexit’ itself was never clearly defined at the start. There are an infinite types of Brexit that could have been implemented, but only a binary choice offered.
If the definition is as simple as “Leave the EU”, then that has been completed as we are no longer a member – If that’s the ‘success’ you’re looking for.
The Brexit we have seems badly planned and badly executed, and (as yet) providing few benefits to most of the population.
October 13, 2023
I see it reported in the media today that thousands of UK citizens are unable to access their pensions or savings due to Brexit red tape, and Lloyds Bank has admitted closing 13,000 bank accounts also due to Brexit red tape.
I wonder if all those affected consider Brexit a success…
October 13, 2023
BTW, I am an AVID supporter of Brexit in theory. There is nothing s-xy or attractive about being part of the EU or Single Market. BUT if we’re not ready to leave yet (’cause we don’t have the leader, plan or finance), then we could end up in a worse situation than before – with an even bigger debt – and with possibly even returning to the EU and then stuck in it for good).
Brexit should be like or should have been like releasing a new product brand. TIMING is essential (with the leadership, plan and finance in place to make it a success). But if the timing is wrong, then not only has the company missed out on a great business opportunity – and screwed it for good or more likely screwed up for good – whilst at the same time, costing the company lots of money – for nothing.
Which is why you need people with practical, business-like / entrepreneurial-like / leader-like brains in charge of big, complicated stuff like this – instead of people such as Bill Cash whose more Byzantine in his thinking than practical and sharp-edged business-like or Nigel Farage whose just an armchair critic with no real business-like / entrepreneurial-like leadership experience.
October 13, 2023
BTW, not saying Bill Cash is a dishonourable man. He IS an honourable man – but he’s not qualified to be a leader in something such as Brexit. He simply doesn’t have the skills / abilities – and so his advice is more unhelpful than helpful type thing.
October 13, 2023
Lastly, if the big whigs in the Tory Party want to make this country great again and with Conservative values and remain relevant to young / middle-aged Tory voters then they have to do the following:
1) Focus on how to instil the following with traditional Tory values (i.e. Family, Work Ethic, Personal Responsibility, Patriotism, Sovereignty etc) into / more support from the: A) The churches (Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker) B) The educators (universities and schools) C) The Press D) Those in the Arts.
This will also help to reduce immigration as lots of people here don’t want to do jobs that business leaders and others are hiring immigrants to do.
And this will bring down taxation dramatically.
2) Focus on how to attract higher quality Tory MPs into Parliament with proper business-leadership and overall-business experience.
3) Focus more on how to help build up the UK High Tech industry, adding billions to the economy, and lots more jobs that are highly skilled, highly productive and with large, high-quality-brand exports abroad.
And 1, 2, and 3 would then make Brexit much more of a reality / to work well.
October 15, 2023
Has Brexit failed? No, of course not. We will be linking our growing trade with the EU to our global activities with predicted success. The Camilla Cavendish comments illustrate the Remainer attitude which still has no loser consent. She should have been saying she will be using and promoting our new freedoms. There was nothing positive in her comments. Thank God for John Redwood, I say. And my life is no longer controlled by Ursula Van der Layen. What’s not to like.
STEPHEN BAILEY