The Northern Ireland Protocol and the absence of early return of all our fishing grounds led me not to vote for the final Brexit settlement. I would have preferred to leave the EU on WTO terms, and felt we paid a high price for the Free Trade Agreement. As a heavy net importer from the continent the Trade Agreement was always likely to help them more than us. This was reinforced as with all EU trade deals by its concentration on goods where they are strong and its weak provisions on services where we are strong.
I voted for the legislation the Johnson government proposed to fix the border issues. There was always a ready fix of mutual enforcement, where we would police goods exported from NI to the Republic for them by ensuring such goods met their standards, and they could do as they wished for goods they are sending to NI. The UK had no wish to impose a north/south border and no need for one. The volumes of trade are low over that border. Far bigger were the volumes of trade between GB and NI which should be internal matters for the UK with no need for border controls. I was annoyed when this legislation which had passed the Commons was abandoned.
I voted against the Windsor Framework. This did impose a border between NI and GB, requires checks on GB to NI trade and requires all business whether for export or not to be EU law compliant in NI. It meant NI faced new EU legislation which it had no part in debating or amending which the rest of the UK did not have to adopt as a non member of the EU. It was no wonder the DUP felt they could not work in Stormont all the time they were treated differently to the rest of the UK and all the time they faced new laws with no representation.
I wish to see the draft law the government is now proposing which the DUP leadership says will address these two crucial issues. I look forward to seeing the guarantees the DUP has won on EU law and border controls to GB. It is important NI is fully part of the UK internal market with no additional controls on a sea border between NI and GB.
January 31, 2024
It will be another sellout.
January 31, 2024
Sure will be Sunak is good at pushing through sellouts helped by EU many anti-democrats and Traitors in the Labour Party like Starmer, Benn…
January 31, 2024
The DUP have been treated utterly disgracefully by the Sunak govt through Heaton-Harris. Sunak cut the pay of DUP MPs to force them to accept vassal state status in the EU. He tried to coerce, bully and then bribe DUP to accept N.Ireland being given away. We were told UK would leave EU as one nation! Your party/Govt has deliberately still not secured that after 8 years!! The new agreement has lots of taxpayer bribe money where citizens in N.Ireland have 25% more per head spent on them!! Why, JR? Bribe?
Sunak’s false claims when he announced his EU Windsor sell out was also a disgrace but a clear example he was not acting with integrity as he claimed. We were repeatedly told no British PM would countenance a border down the Irish Sea or have goods checked from one part of our country to another. Johnson was clear that would not happen!!! Your party for this alone needs to be obliterated. Not stand up to EU or leave as the public voted but happy to send and waste multiple billions to corrupt Ukraine!!
January 31, 2024
“We were repeatedly told no British PM would countenance a border down the Irish Sea or have goods checked from one part of our country to another. Johnson was clear that would not happen!!!”
Yet that was exactly what Johnson agreed to after playing his part (along with others) in the downfall of May’s deal which was designed to avoid just such a border.
February 1, 2024
May’s deal was to sell out the nation! We voted leave in its entirety as set out byCameron. It was very clear not the rubbish touted by Tories in betraying the nation.
January 31, 2024
“The British government are trying something quite hard:
1. “They’re trying to tell the DUP that something has changed about the way Britain relates to NI and they’re trying to get rid of checks.
2. “They’re trying to tell the EU that nothing has changed”
3. “And they’re trying to tell the Brexiters that everything is fine and this doesn’t reflect the UK’s ability to embrace Brexit freedoms”
Sky news man sums it up.
“Not all three things can be true. And everybody inside government knows it”
January 31, 2024
It also offers the DUP a chance to climb down after their fruitless boycott without losing face.
Interesting splits in that party between the old school ones and the newer ones that are less intransigent.
Jamie Bryson in the spotlight as a DUP mole.
A unionist version of ‘the men behind the wire’ maybe.
January 31, 2024
The Brexit impossibility triangle surfaces again.
February 1, 2024
No such thing. Made up by remainers who deliberately try to thwart democracy.
January 31, 2024
JR,
If there are to be no more goods checks between GB and NI does this mean your party and govt have sold us out again and are going to be EU compliant/lockstep across the whole of our country? The truth please.
Sunak stated on 7/3/2023 that illegal boat people would be detained and deported within a matter of weeks. Legislation passed last year. Today Rycroft gave another dire performance before select committee when questioned by Tory MPs about boat people’s status. He said part of the asylum process. He was reminded since legislation that had no status. How exactly have 17300 been lost if they were detained like Sunak stated?
Dullard Cleverly now saying very few will be deported to Rwanda. Taxpayers have paid £300-400 million so far!!
We read today 40% of social housing given to asylum seekers/foreigners. Is this shocking statistic true?
Is your party/govt and civil servants just lying to us again?
January 31, 2024
Suspicions well founded.
January 31, 2024
Let us not forget the Tory party instructed the nation to vote remain and used £9 million of our taxes to send leaflets to every household to remind us!! Lord Greensil Cameron fully behind it. He then stomped off like a spoilt rich child because we did not do as he told us! The disgrace is back in the foreign office to lead EU foreign policy!! Hands up who believes Sunak and Greensil Cameron?
January 31, 2024
‘ I would have preferred to leave the EU on WTO terms, and felt we paid a high price for the Free Trade Agreement. ’
It all comes back to what May did as Prime Minister in the end.
Everything since has been an attempt to botch up the bad job that she attempted to set in place.
January 31, 2024
Correct
January 31, 2024
Donaldson will be out of a job very soon. The EU is already crowing that nothing has changed
Fishy and Chicom are hapot to keep us in hoc to Brussels as their handlers at the WEF have instructed.
January 31, 2024
Cleverly says don’t let Labour take us back to square one with immigration!! Is he really that thick? Does he think the public is? Is he aware of the illegal and legal immigration figures? Currently want to cut legal immigration by 300,000 per year leaving a total of 900,000 a year or 74,000,000 total population within ten years!!
Get real Cleverly your party has lied about immigration for 14 years and acted 180 degrees in stark contrast to your manifesto promises while people like Osborne made clear no one was serious in private, Cameron back in Foreign office instils zero confidence,
January 31, 2024
The DUP are looking for a way to climb down without losing too much face, after the failure of their prolonged boycott of Stormont.
There are already splits between the more intransigent old guard and the newer faces.
Hence the emergence of Jamie Bryson as the DUP ‘mole’.
A Unionist version of ‘the men behind the wire’ ?
January 31, 2024
We’re still dancing to the EU tune
Once again our government is intervening when it doesn’t need to ….let the EU take action, let them police the border, erect controls and impose regulation ….we don’t need to do anything
Why are we trying to solve the EU problems
January 31, 2024
This is not the EU’s problem, it’s one the UK caused. WTO rules require equal treatment of all incoming goods. What we’re doing as of today at Dover and Folkestone needs to be applied everywhere. If we didn’t do that, then the UK would likely find itself at the end of a WTO dispute and having trade sanctions applied by other countries until such time as equal treatment is implemented.
Reply Yes there are similar checks on non EU already.
January 31, 2024
Mickc,
Agreed. Sellout upon sellout.
January 31, 2024
Good morning.
And what of Services ? Did any so called ‘deal’ include those ?
The EU made damned well sure it got what it wanted. It can fine us for any minor discretion much like it use to. No other country in the world, not even those that have a land border between it would suffer such.
We put a border between parts of the UK but, the EU would not put a border between the RoI and it. We were willing supplicants in this matter and I have felt totally betrayed by a parliament that has, on every occasion open to it, showed that it has total disregard for this nation and its people.
MASS IMMIGRATION is deliberate and all the anti-British stuff be churned out is designed to destroy the British people and our sense of nationhood all to appease the likes of the EU.
BREXIT was the first open battle. We won the initial skirmish but underestimated the cunning of our foe and that fact that those within our ranks, namely the political class, are working against us.
The time has come to rid ourselves of these ‘traitors’. For that is what they are.
January 31, 2024
++++ You hit the nail squarely on the head.
Anyone now still unable to see what is going on is either comatose, or making a profit somewhere out of it all.
January 31, 2024
The Rogue parliament is in full swing and be in no doubt there is no difference between LabCon socialists.
The EU Horizon sell out scheme shows exactly the duplicity to shower EU with taxpayer money. Who in their right mind would give EU £2.4 billion each year for schemes to promote EU interests forever knowing the EU might award some of our money back!
Who would give away our territorial waters and fish therein for nothing and then link any future agreement to energy knowing your govt sold out our country to EU energy interdependence!! Did Sunak learn nothing from EU hostility over stopping covid vaccines, PPE, threaten to stop electric to Jersey and food lorries going to UK!
We voted leave and do not want your govt or Rogue parliament to keep signing EU pacts, treaties etc. Definitely not giving our military to EU control under security and defence pact.
January 31, 2024
Indeed the political class are indeed working against us. On the EU and NI on the net zero lunacy, on the absurdly high size of the state on open door immigration to lower wages etc.
JR is exactly right but the battle is lost with Sunak in charge and the large number of Consocialist MPs.
January 31, 2024
Northern Ireland belongs to the UK, not to the EU to split it for their own purposes. The WTO option was known to have been a much better route to regaining our sovereignty and freedom. That opportunity was spoilt, now causing dynamics pulling in wrong directions. Attempting to correct that mistake with the messed up border and the sham of a ‘Windsor’ agreement made the bad choice worse.
The Pharmacy First agreement is similarly flawed. Allowing a pharmacy both to prescribe and supply medicine is like having snake oil salesmen write their own purchase orders. If an MP is a doctor who owns the pharmacy next door, that would be a blatant breach of interest; even if snake oil cured the ailments.
January 31, 2024
LL,
Your first line is the most chilling; if you are correct then, put simply, the democratic contract between voters and representatives has broken. Are we seeing the end of the democratic experiment?
Judging by most comments here today, there is certainly anger at the deception and contempt demonstrated by the PCP, which will surely result in their removal. My fear though, IF we don’t have real REFORM, then we might just be jumping out of ‘the frying-pan’. Dangerous times.
January 31, 2024
So you will be another Reform voter I asshme.
January 31, 2024
Yes Reform is the only way forward. No good the tories saying a vote for Reform will let Liebour in. That ship sailed ling ago.
Remember get Brexit do e, and we’re still aligned to Brussels.
January 31, 2024
Well I won’t be voting for another 14 years of failure and inaction. And neither will I vote for more of the same, but worse.
But I will see who is on the ballot and make my decision then.
January 31, 2024
Yes Mark B. Betrayal by our WEF trained political class is deliberate and malign. I will never forgive them for the destruction they have wrecked.
January 31, 2024
The purposes of the NI settlement, reinforced by Sunak’s Windsor Treachery, are to:
a) permanently lock the Northern Irish economy into the Single Market in order to increase the likelihood of future citizens of NI accepting that their “best interests” are to join Eire, and
b) to keep rUK shackled to the EU, forced to apply its control over huge areas of our economy so that, when the Ukraine War is over we (along with Ukraine, the EFTA nations, Turkey and possibly Switzerland) will become an Associate Member.
The vote to LEAVE the EU was a vote to restore our Sovereignty. Treason May deliberately tried to prevent it and Johnson told us that the nations which make up the UK would all leave together. That has not been delivered. The Not-a-Conservative-Party did not allow us to LEAVE the EU.
It refused to allow it.
Sir John ….. anything to say about the ONS predictions that net migration will push the UK’s population over 70 million by 2026, 11 years earlier than predicted? Your Government is importing millions of poor people from the 3rd world and expecting British taxpayers to subsidise them.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party has “promised” for 14 years to cut immigration. We are being governed by blatant LIARS. Cutting net immigration by 300,000 means 900,000 still coming every year. We need Net Zero immigration.
January 31, 2024
Re your penultimate sentence, Mark : how ?
Our population (the law-abiding element, that is) is disarmed and largely silent, even cowed. In the last 70 years our main political parties have changed the composition and culture of our country and, in this last 14 of those years, whilst pretending otherwise, they continue apace. The Tories allowed the Brexit referendum and didn’t like the result of the electorate : the then leader ran away and Parliament blocked Brexit’s proper effect. But, realistically, how can you change this ?
January 31, 2024
It’s up to us to vote for something different as the Tory’s have betrayed us. We need Reform.
January 31, 2024
Could it also be that, far from WEF’s and other silly-billy globalist conspiracy theories, the UK political representatives to the UK-EU talks, the Davis, Raab, Barclay, Frost were second if not third rate negotiators, you know, the type of clowns whose starting positions were ‘They need us more than we need them’, ‘Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy, the day after the vote, the UK holds most of the cards’, (or as said by Michael Gove, [see Huffingtonpost.co.uk 19/04/2016] ‘The facts of life say Leave: Why Britain and Europe will be better off after we vote Leave’)?
Could it be that the responsibility is much closer to home, say the Palace of Westminster, than Geneva, New York or wherever the usual conspiracy theorists want to shed their responsibility?
January 31, 2024
Hef,
You could be right. The politicians do like to follow rather than lead. I think they copy WEF and the like because of group think and outsmarted by civil servants.
The blame squarely lies with JR’s party and rogue parliament.
February 1, 2024
Hef do please remember that the negotiators were hamstrung by a Parliament that did not want to leave so did not give them a walk away position, a pro EU civil service and a pro EU Prime Minister.
Leaving the EU has not been all it could still be due to internal reticence.
January 31, 2024
Vote Reform UK, they may not win at first but we have to start somewhere, and Reform UK will strengthen as we support it and they show their competence!
January 31, 2024
Thanks Boris. And now there’s folks who want him back leading the Tories. There’s none so blind….
January 31, 2024
Yes, we should listen to the DUP and should never have ceded sovereignty in the way we have done.
I suspect that as usual, now the EU has been given most of what it wanted, it will not give up getting more, and its allies in our establishment will be happy to help. Frankly I’m surprised that terrorism hasn’t re-emerged in NI.
January 31, 2024
That may yet happen – many in the DUP (and certainly in more grass-roots unionism) are angered by Donaldson’s volte-face.
January 31, 2024
What I cannot understand is why the negotiators and Ministers on the British side are so incompetent when dealing with people aiming to destroy our country.
Not just with Northern Ireland but also our fishing waters, the foreign trash invading and the organisations like Nato, UN and America.
We need strong people. And a strong population!
January 31, 2024
Sinn Fein believes yesterday’s development brings a united Ireland one step closer to reality and it would be difficult to argue against or disagree with this.
Never underestimate the shameless, criminal duplicity of Tory and Labour insiders who care not one jot for anything of any value.
I note that the state of Utah has passed a bill banning DEI and men using women’s bathrooms. I also note Florida will fine anyone $35000 who denounces another using the term ‘transphobic’. Florida should extend this fine to terms such as racist, misogynist, Islamaphobe and homophobe. These Stalinist and indeed politicised terms are now being used for all sorts of vile purposes simply to destroy others or purge companies, industries, sports and instittutions
January 31, 2024
We the people must be vigilant, as our MP appear asleep
January 31, 2024
It might be better if free speech allowed people to say almost whatever they preferred. Then any bad intent would be evident for all to know and assess them accordingly. Instead, with words being banned, much of the ill will is disguised but hits the intended victims with more force from unknown sources.
It may be impolite to call someone ‘fat’, yet if they are, stating the fact is as clear as telling truth. Using convoluted descriptions to avoid offending oversensitive people is merely translating ‘fat’ into complicated code words to state the same condition.
January 31, 2024
I made a lot of predictions on this blog. All of which have come true and I’ve made predictions about the future. As you know ai believe society has 5 main drivers money, information, justice, votes and DNA. Of those DNA carries the most weight in any prediction whether small or large scale throughout history.
I have made this prediction several times before but I had an insight that is interesting – to say the least.
The recent called by heads of the military and nato to bring back conscription is deeply riven by problems and contradictions.
Russia is exhausted as a military power and couldn’t fight its way out of a wet paper bag. The sheer size of a country with the economy of Italy against the US and EU is ridiculous to suggest. Russia would also be prepared to use tactical nukes as a defence and have stock piled huge amounts of them.
China has never won war. It’s military is riven with corruption. All the Asian pacific countries not caught in Chinas debt-trap democracy have been agreeing to nee military treaties in the past few months. China will be pinned back for decades.
It’s also ridiculous to think that the millions of immigrants would be prepared to be conscripted to fight against Russia or the Middle East. It’s also ridiculous to think that white working class boys would be prepared to fight abroad for politicians who really dislike them.
In the US Biden has enabled open borders and millions of migrants have arrived. Trump meanwhile has promised in an election speech (just the once) that “the largest military deportation in history will start on day one his presidency”. So it’s now on the mandate. Trump is almost certain to win the election.
The EU elections might put the anti immigrant parties in power for the first time. If not this year in 4 years.
So what is going on. You might find this chilling. My prediction is that the US, UK and European military are preparing for conscription because they are preparing for mass deportation of illegal immigrants (at least in the US) and need white working class men to support any conflict. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.
Talk of conscription to fight the Russians is highly improbable at best (95% in the US) are the reason for the talk of conscription.
January 31, 2024
Wasn’t the ‘Windsor’ frame Sunak at his finest?
Does he have any sense of what a nation, this nation in particular, is? Another one who has ££/$$ signs in his eyes and follows the money around the globe.
I would say get rid of him, but as is so obvious now the Conservatives would only wheel in another Labour/Globalist stooge off the production line to replace him, so we’d be no further forward.
January 31, 2024
There is talk of conscription, ready for a war with Russia and yet the UK was afraid of the EU in negotiations with it ?
or
The Northern Ireland protocol and the Windsor Framework were fully intended by the UK and were acts of treason ?
The sooner the current Government is replaced by a Conservative Government, the better.
January 31, 2024
Agree
January 31, 2024
I Too want to see the detail of the relationship between NI and the UK, version three. If it is in the course of being drafted I would advise the DUP to compare what they have been told with what ends up as law because HMG and their scribes are not to be trusted. You put it more politely than me, who looks upon their implementation of Brexit as total deceipt. HMG and their 5th column of scribes entered into a negotiation over Brexit as supplicants, big mistake for which I hold the traiterous Mrs May totally responsible. Her scribe got a K for his duplicity. You were correct, it should have been WTO rules with no negotiation, which on duty exchange alone would have left us, from memory, £5Bn PA better off. If they, the EU, could not accept an open NI border then cease trading with the Republic.
Proof will be in the pudding, in this case Irish Stew.
January 31, 2024
Yes, I’m afraid we’ve had too much “Good News” recently – that on closer examination proved to be not quite as ‘good’ as it first appeared…
January 31, 2024
The problem was, if you remember, that all those in Parliament (minus our kind host and a few others) conspired in such a way as to make it illegal for the UK Government to LEAVE the EU without a so called ‘Deal’. In effect, we were bound to accept that which the EU offered as we surrendered our negotiating position and the ability to simply walkaway, something they, the EU, feared most.
We were betrayed !!!
January 31, 2024
This is the most crucial issue for me. The IRA seem to be under the impression that this is Mrs May’s plan reinstated.
If that is so Sunak will end up as Mr 6% and we will have to recover our country as the ancient, unrecognised people of the Donbas have done.
The only reason I am not actually on the ceiling is because, thank God, the EU and the USA are in their death throws. Both forced Unions – so unlike the U.K. where the people of Scotland, Ireland and Wales vote every general election to send representation to Westminster and thereby reconfirm The Act of Union and other legislation.
January 31, 2024
‘Came yo o’er frae france?
Came yo down by Lunnon?
Saw ye Geordie Whelps
And his bonny woman?
Were ye at the place
Ca’d the Kittle Housie?
Saw ye Geordie’s grace
Riding on a goosie?’
(Trad. 18th c.)
January 31, 2024
A sensible, principled position, Sir John. I’ll be watching the Commons statement with close interest.
January 31, 2024
If this is the grand solution it is professed to be why have no details been made public? Why the delay?
January 31, 2024
It should be fine because Sunak doesn’t want to diverge from EU rules anyway and neither will Starmer.
On the overall EU FTA – UK goods exports to the EU are at the highest level since records began but UK imports from the EU have increased even faster so the trade deficit is higher. But anyway it is not what the Remainiacs told us would happen, they said our exports to the EU would collapse.
January 31, 2024
Indeed, Mrs May’s aim after her Florence speech committing UK to supporting the European Project of ever closer union, was BRINO and to that end she made the border in Ireland her weapon of choice to shoot down any proposals that would actually work such as mutual enforcement proposed by several trade expert groups and people and mentioned above by Sir John. Once the EU had been allowed to get a grappling hook into Northern ireland, there was no way it would ever let it go. Then we had the Benn Act by the Rogue Remainer Parliament – both Labour and Tory – which prevented Boris doing more than fiddling with the Withdrawal Agreement. At least he won the clauses on Democratic consent and that is the next milestone for the EU to win. No doubt Sunak, being committed to his Framework will do all he can to ensure it stays in place and the NI Assembly votes to keep the NIP. He is a technocrat himself and really sees little point in independent national sovereignty and would be quite content to keep EU rule in NI. Rejection of the NIP in the NI Assembly would be a rejection of his Framework and finish his career. I hope this will be the result for the good of all UK.
January 31, 2024
we still need a mechanism to stop people who cannot get visas to enter the UK simply flying into Dublin, crossing the land border, and entering mainland UK on a ferry. this little trick is massively abused, and adding to the out of control immigration England is suffering.
January 31, 2024
Correct except for the notion that immigration is ‘out of control’. It is being controlled, just not as you or I would wish it. The UN wants a population of 180 million on these islands, and the indigenous people will have been ousted from political control long before this number is reached. Of course if the loophole you mention is blocked the migrants could become Irish citizens and then enter under the Common Travel Area, just as they could from all over the EU if we resumed free movement of people.
January 31, 2024
Yes, I’ve have wondered why you would pay £5000 on a risky Channel crossing when a ferry from Cherbourg to Dublin is much safer and a lot cheaper…
January 31, 2024
You say NI has no representation regarding the EU laws imposed upon it. But isn’t that true of everyone in the EU?
January 31, 2024
Let us face it John, we are in the first stages of a united Ireland,.
I certainly do not expect any significant change to any agreement, as there have been no talks (as far as the media are aware) with the EU on this subject, since the Prime Ministers so called Windsor agreement.
January 31, 2024
If this agreement has Donaldson’s support, it’s probably OK as it will have mitigated his and the Unionist’s concerns over the UK internal market. Sinn Fein will sell it to their supporters by claimimg it brings a united Ireland closer. Apparently, the EU and Eire have also approved it
For the first time, thanks to Sinn Fein winning more votes at the last NI election than either of the Unionist parties, they will now nominate Michelle O’Neill as First Minister. This is a seismic step for Donaldson and the Unionists and should be recognised as such.
Chris Heaton-Harris and others involved in these negotiations deserve recognition
January 31, 2024
The N.I. Situation and the Brexit agreement are both a sad commentary on the calibre of most of our MPs and the House of Lords.
Why did the UK not claim a share of the EU assets, in relation to the size of the EU when they were funded? What is the EU building in Brussels worth, for example? Why have we accepted an EU Ambassador when all the EU countries already have Ambassadors in the UK?
Why have we not cut taxes, cut the size of the Government, gotten rid of all EU laws, replaced by UK laws only when strictly necessary, and released the spirit of the people of the UK? The UK succeeds in spite of the government, not because of it. Net Zero being the latest blind alley our MPs are going down!
January 31, 2024
Sir John
“I would have preferred to leave the EU on WTO terms” That is what we voted for, nothing else, it was the only option on the Ballot …. the Conservative Government and seemingly Parliament refused the will of the people and instead have chosen to fight the people.
The HoC has become a house of disrepute, no longer serving the people but serving foreign unaccountable powers and personal self interest.
If that is their attitude to the people that they ask to vote, empower, and pay them should we not have the right to clear out the lot out and start over?
January 31, 2024
I wish to see that paragon of Brexit Steve Baker come out of hiding and present to the Commons on the virtues of this latest agreement. To think that even Nigel Lawson once said Baker was one of the finest politicians of his generation.
January 31, 2024
The Windsor Framework – The Stormont Brake
60. We recognise,…..The consent vote happens only every four or eight years
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63fccf07e90e0740d3cd6ed6/The_Windsor_Framework_a_new_way_forward.pdf
Let the people of NI decide
January 31, 2024
I wonder what Mo would have thought.
January 31, 2024
I see it being reported that Brexiteer Andrea Leadsom has said that the new import border checks that the UK has (finally got) implemented with all the associated additional costs and delays that will occur are just a “price you pay” for Brexit.
No, Andrea, it’s a price we all pay. Those costs get passed on to us as consumers.
January 31, 2024
So, from today, imports of foodstuffs from the EU will be subject to checks and origin certificates. Good. The EU have been doing this to us from day one and finally our sclerotic government is acting. They have sent us dodgy stuff in the past (the horse meat scandal). The Remoaners say it will increase food prices from the EU and cause shortages. Good. Perhaps our farmers will not be so badly undercut as they are now and we may see a fall in EU imports. As someone who makes every effort not to buy EU stuff I am fully supportive of anything we can do to reduce imports from our ‘friends’ in the EU. What goes around comes around, so its about time we got one back on them.
January 31, 2024
We are being sold down the river. The legislation will prevent divergence without stormont sign off or something similar.
It is ridiculous for a supposedly Brexit government. It is packaging up the reasons for rejoining in due course and putting a bow on them.
An approach more likely to push another 3% of Tory voters to Reform is hard to think of.
Will this be the issue that pushes Reform ahead of the Tories?
January 31, 2024
The Windsor Framework, clearly, was lacking. It defies common sense and comprehension that our PM would agree to a border between NI and mainland Britain. So it became a wonderful win for the EU but an embarrassing outcome for GB AND NI.
Did no one ask or understand nor accept the protestations of the NI representatives? Those whose constituents would be directly affect by the EU win? Or were they just another irritation, much like us in mainland Britain?
Let’s hope this time, there are very competent and tough people running this show, for our country has already shown the world just how pathetic and weak we’ve become.
Until I know differently, I still believe the British Europhiles still control these so-called “agreements” with Brussels. How and why do they still get away with it? Seven years after our democratic decision to Leave the EU!
January 31, 2024
Sir John,
I seem to recall that Johnson proposed the border in the Sea?
January 31, 2024
As I see it, the scenario is this: as the EU has refused to alter a jot or tittle of the Protocol now hardened into an ‘Agreement’, the government has promised to align all trade and legislation with the EU, and to let the remainer civil service clandestinely police it.
This is a resurrection of the so-called backstop (Sections 44 and 45 of the May-Robbins ‘Joint Agreement’ in December 2017, whose breath-taking enormity took pro-brexit MPs by surprise.
Sunak’s new ‘legislation’ will not be more than briefly debated, as it will be introduced via SIS – because it is (or will be claimed to be) part of the existing treaty.
The DUP will be content, as they will now be allowed to send and receive goods freely to and from mainland UK.
The plan is to set brexiteer Conservative MPs who resist the backstop and permanent EU law against DUP MPs who will see it as a pragmatic gain (plus the 3 billion).
Meaning you will have been outflanked and scuppered. The only chance would be to cancel the TCA, or bring a case that will end in a renewed judgment that Art. 6 of the Act of Union is still not restored (as indeed it is not).
January 31, 2024
Btw, for all his limitations, Boris Johnson has oday identified what is going on here: the return of the Chequers Agreement.
January 31, 2024
Slightly off topic but if Sunak and your colleagues think it is so wonderful that the NI Assembly is up and running again, why do they all insist on ignoring the elephant in the room, ie. the fact that England has no devolved Assembly at all and is still governed by Scots, Welsh & NI MPs. Don’t the idiots in charge realise that if they addressed the English/West Lothian Question, then there is much less chance of England having a Labour Government foist on it sometime this year and them being out on their ear.
Yes the incompetent lily livered numpties have let NI down by refusing to stand up to the EU but that also applies to England which is being deliberately divided up into competing regions on the orders of the EU and your party and the even more anti English Labour Party are only too happy to comply.