The government wrongly thinks removing some non tariff barriers to EU trade would boost UK growth. It is more likely to boost EU exports to us more than our exports to them, subtracting from our GDP. The UK already runs a huge trade deficit with the EU
The government sounds keen to align us with EU food regulations. They have failed to notice we only export 15 bn euro of food and drink, with whisky an important part, whereas the EU sells us Euro 51 bn or more than three times as much. The UK keeps high tariffs on food items we import from the EU which limits our consumer choice and keeps the import prices high. Reinforcing this by forcing us to accept all their new rules on food would reinforce the trend we suffered in the EU of losing food market share as regulations including insufficient milk quota and beef bans left our unprotected market on to a surge of imports.
The idea that the UK should once again give its fish away is a disgraceful proposal. Our fishing grounds gave been overfished for 50 years thanks to EU membership and the decision to put off taking back control of our fish to 2026.We should cut the total quotas allowed next year, ban the foreign ultra large trawlers and allocate more quota to the UK industry. Government should make capital available to build a bigger fishing fleet in UK yards.
We do not want a re set which makes us subservientb to the EU again. We should not accept their laws or out ourselves under European Court jurisdiction. We should not allow freedom of movement for the under 30 s. We should rebuild our food and fish industry as we need to produce more of our own food.
The government should not make May 19 Surrender day.
May 14, 2025
Good morning.
The direction of travel has been to stall, conceded, and then to roll-back what little gains we have made.
But the thing that puzzles me is, why does the UK Government and Establishment feel they need the EU ? If the EU was that great, all the ‘rich’ countries would want to join.
On this I strongly agree. It is time to cut back on licenses and quotas. Making our resource scarce to them will make them want to demand more. This could be used as a bargaining chip to get extra concessions from them.
If only President Trump was leading our negotiations and not these sellouts ?
May 14, 2025
Indeed but “ But the thing that puzzles me is, why does the UK Government and Establishment feel they need the EU ?” Why are you puzzled it is to further subvert what little democracy we have in the UK by giving further powers away to unaccountable bodies. Any so they can prance about on the international stage.
May 14, 2025
I don’t think it is that. They can get rid of democracy without the EU.
May 14, 2025
The government won’t cut back on fishing licences because we’ve been deliberately put in a position relying on EU elecicity imports. The French and Dutch will blackmail us into surrendering
2TK and the civil Serpents see the EU as a stepping stone to well.paid sinecures funded by the hapless taxpaye.
The fact that the EU is failing on every metric doesn’t matter to the establishment as bigger is always better.
May 14, 2025
Ian,
I do not agree that the EU is failing every metric and I would like to see you prove as well. Look at Poland, Scandinavia, Austria and Netherlands
May 14, 2025
There is no such place as ‘Poland’ ‘Scandinavia’ ‘Austria’ or ‘The Netherlands’. They are simply a part of the EU and you can’t have an unfettered part of a fettered whole.
The EU is certainly a failure on every metric.
It’s been failing for a long time, the final collapse is always very sudden and ‘unexpected’.
May 14, 2025
Its sunny & windy today (very sunny & windy) and yet we’re still importing 15% of our energy from Europe ….I wonder how much more we’ll import after the great reset
https://grid.iamkate.com/
May 15, 2025
Correct. The EEC/EU originally created inter-dependence in the essentials for life as, supposedly, a way of preventing future war. But the inter-dependence is now used to threaten, bully and extort.
But the EU hasn’t done this to us …. our Governing Class has.
May 14, 2025
@Mark B; “But the thing that puzzles me is, why does the UK Government and Establishment feel they need the EU ? If the EU was that great, all the ‘rich’ countries would want to join.”
Who said anything about wanting to (re)join, other than those now out of government/influence, but there are plenty of ‘rich’ countries who have, or are willing, to sign up to trade agreements with the EU, or perhaps align regulations to make trade easier, one of those rich nations being Trump’s USA, go-figure…
As for fishing quotas, do as you want, but do not forget to school the fish not to swim out further than our 12 nm territorial waters limit. Pun intended! 😛
May 14, 2025
Trade agreements are one thing.
Agreeing to comply with EU treaties laws rules regulations and directives is a totally different situation.
May 16, 2025
@Sam; Well, best we leave the UN too, after all that collective organization also imposes treaties, laws and regulations upon us. As has the IMF, did you object to the imposition of such rules as part of the IMF’s bailout during the 1976 Sterling crisis?
May 14, 2025
jerry: “As for fishing quotas, do as you want, but do not forget to school the fish not to swim out further than our 12 nm territorial waters limit”.
If the fish can be found equally anywhere, why do the EU demand access to our fishing grounds?
May 14, 2025
@OR; You miss the point, even if the UK were to impose strict access and quotas, we can only police that within our 12nm waters, once “our fish” leave protected waters they are open season for any country with legal access to a disputed 200nm EEZ (which are almost all of the UK EEZs).
As for the the EU demanding access to our fishing grounds, are you suggesting Johnson/Sunak gave away the bilateral agreement that, prior to Brexit, gave UK fishing boats access to EU27 12nm waters?
May 14, 2025
If we are, in answer to your title, then Labour have not read the room. It would seem that Starmer is on a suicde mission of political death by disaster. In days of yore such consorting with a foreign power would have led to the Tower and decapitation. Today it can only bring the implosion closer.
May 14, 2025
@agricola; “a suicide mission of political death by disaster”
Well that very much depends on the real reasons Reform UK are so high in the opinion polls. Many of the same (non Brexit) issues are also playing out inside the EU, there are few truly Euroskeptic political parties in the EU27, even the AfD do not have any real wish for a German exit.
If suicide befalls a UK political party, and it might well not be Labour come 2028/9, it is far more likely to be due to similar issues also currently playing out within the EU, what if the EU27 collectively find solutions but the UK doesn’t, Reform campaigning might by accident become a recruiting Sergent for Rejoin!
May 14, 2025
Wrong on every point.
May 14, 2025
That’s very odd logic Jerry
How do Reform become a “recruiting Sargent for rejoin” ?
Do you think those who currently say in polls that they will vote Reform instead of Conservative, will vote to rejoin by voting instead for Green Lib Dem or Labour.
Seems unlikely to me.
May 14, 2025
@MiB; “How do Reform become a “recruiting Sargent for rejoin” ?”
By highlighting problems here in Brexit UK that the EU27 have found solutions for, solutions that would have applied in the UK were it not for Brexit.
If voters give up on Reform, they will either not vote at all or vote for the parties you cite, my money is they will revert to type, their old party loyalties, Reform are riding high off ex Labour votes currently. The next question being will any one party have a clear majority, whilst a majority Conservative government will likely retain Brexit there is no certainty otherwise, certainly not if we end up with a Lab-LD-SNP coalition.
May 14, 2025
What if, what if, what if ……
Two-Tier can only carry out this betrayal because the Not-a-Conservative-Party refused to actually LEAVE the EU and having delivered a weak Brexit which left us only semi-detached, refused to repeal EU laws (thanks Kemi!) or to take any real advantage from the limited freedom we had. After all, thanks to Sunak we know that “we mustn’t compete with our friends.”
Two-Tier will backtrack on Brexit as much as he possibly can, whilst still claiming to have kept his manifesto “promise” that we will not rejoin. And we will just have to suck it up, for the next few years because there is nothing we can do to stop it.
Farage should make it very clear that if the Reform Party forms the next Government, Two-Tier’s Surrender will be reversed and we will, finally, LEAVE the EU.
May 14, 2025
Succinct and correct.
My hope is Reform members will come out shouting ”All arrangements with the EU will be reviewed and those deemed not beneficial to the UK will be terminated”.
Is Farage dithering…..
May 14, 2025
Surly the Labour party aren’t that stupid to go against the wishes of the people 🤔
May 14, 2025
Yes if he campaigns on Brexit even he will win.
May 14, 2025
On your last sentence, it would be better if Reform and the Tories came together and issued a joint declaration that the EU should not assume that whatever the present government agreed with them now would be allowed to stand after the next general election, and that if any necessary changes could not be agreed by negotiation then the UK could act unilaterally to rectify the position, and those two parties should invite wider public support of their declaration. A reference to Section 38 of the UK Act approving the current withdrawal agreement might help to remind the EU and others that the UK Parliament is sovereign:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/1/section/38
“(1) It is recognised that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sovereign.”
and that one Parliament cannot bind its successors, including on matters of international agreements.
May 15, 2025
Simply wrong. Parliament is sovereign inside the UK but not outside it. It cannot change an internatiobal Treaty without the consent of the other party, and it cannot cancel it unilaterally.
May 15, 2025
I have given you the link to an Act of Parliament approving an international treaty:
“An Act to implement, and make other provision in connection with, the agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union which sets out the arrangements for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU.”
which inter alia reasserts the sovereign right of Parliament to repeal that Act .
This reminds me of a past time when it was being falsely claimed by some people that we could not leave the EU because our membership was fixed by treaty and could not be revoked.
May 15, 2025
It can repeal the Act (which is UK law). It cannot repeal the Treaty (which is international law)
May 15, 2025
Without the Act the treaty would have no effect in UK law and so would become a dead letter.
To be polite a letter would be sent saying that the UK no longer consents to be bound by it.
May 14, 2025
We left the EU five years ago. We continue to apply some EU laws not because the EU tells us to – it can’t – but because our Parliament chooses to. You people slavered to leave the EU so Westminster, not Brussels, would decide what laws to choose, but when exactly that happens, you gnash your teeth. You really had no idea what you voted for, and you still don’t
May 14, 2025
The full power of the vote we took in 2016 should be implemented. We need more food production and our fishing industry back in our own hands. Our ancestors fought for our waters and we should have them returned after being in enemy hands for over 50 years. Our marine life has suffered through the large trawlers of the French and Spanish and it is about time this ended. We voted for it in 2016 and it should be given back to us NOW.
May 14, 2025
Imagine the transformation of coastal fishing towns if we actually took advantage of the natural resources instead of giving them to others. If we invested in our own resources and people, then encouraged the use of the resulting products I’m sure fortunes of these depressed towns would reverse. Surely that’s a win-win situation for the country as a whole?
It seems that’s the problem for many in politics, they don’t want us to win at anything.
May 14, 2025
“The government should not make May 19 Surrender day”
But it will ……………
May 14, 2025
This Starmer masterclass in negotiation is different to the India and USA deals in that I can’t see a single benefit no matter how small for the UK in it. We already have a no-tariff no-quota trade deal with the EU, aligning on food standards won’t help UK exporters who already export to EU standards but will greatly help EU exporters with whom we already have a massive trade deficit. Giving away fishing rights benefits the EU at the expense of the UK. Allowing under-30 year olds granted asylum in Germany to come to UK to work full-time in the gig economy is no benefit at all to UK – we have enough of our own – and a few upper-middle-class British students going the other way on a gap year is no benefit to us at all. Putting UK troops under EU control on the off chance a few contracts will be awarded to the UK is wishful thinking. I expect, like Chagos, Starmer will have also agreed to pay the EU an annual fee for all this.
May 14, 2025
I don’t even think we are being prepared. I think they are surrendering to the eu in a very hush-hush way, knowing that this will be unpopular.
The Labour Party are surrending to the eu by stealth. The BBC is dutifully keeping very quiet about it.
May 14, 2025
No. and Yes, the only benefit is to the EU. But let’s not delude ourselves 2TK doesn’t like the UK or its people, he has a track record of wreaking the UK, Chagos, NetZero, tow tier crime and many, many more. His deal with India was a sellout, the arrangement with the USA offered nothing other than a personal grandstanding opportunity.
The UK/EU defence pact is already a sell-out, the UK taxpayer gets clobbered once more and does the hard lifting – the EU gets to take the things they need. NetZero is about malicious punishment and so on.
May 14, 2025
“The UK already runs a huge trade deficit with the EU”
Why might that have come about Sir John?…
“The government sounds keen to align us with EU food regulations.”
As did the more recent Conservative governments, using EU regulations (post Brexit) to protect UK farmers from having to compete in a world market.
“The UK keeps high tariffs on food items we import from the EU which limits our consumer choice and keeps the import prices high.”
Indeed, and also bans certain imports from the USA for example, thus impacting consumer choice and the cost of living. So long as there are strict regulations to prevent transferable diseases and consumers know what they are buying where is the problem, if the consumer doesn’t want to buy a ‘Euro sausage’ or beef burgers of US origin, our wholesalers and retailers will not bother offering the items for sale.
Our host appears to be conflating food standards and the CAP. As for fish, and fishing areas, that has more to do with the UN, EEZ’s, and their limitations due to overlapping claims to the 200 nm limit of any EEZ.
“we need to produce more of our own food”
Dig for Victory – but don’t expect much choice when it comes to the menu! And of course the risk is then, as with any closed off market, the British consumer will have to pay whatever the (perhaps inefficient) industry demands, unless price controls are reintroduced. If we do want more food grown perhaps the first thing is to scrape the eco nonsense of set aside and re-wilding, and of course we need willing UK workers to do the fieldwork.
May 14, 2025
“Are we being prepared for a sell out ?”
Simple answer yes.
May 14, 2025
Unfortunately the position we are now in was not helped when those in the Conservative Party failed to support a true Brexit on WTO terms by walking away.
The Conservatives had a majority then, so could have completed the job properly at the time.
Thus failure was not all the oppositions fault at the time.
May 14, 2025
Of course, they are planning to sell us out. The UK government clearly despises the very people it purports to represent. Only 59.7% of the population bothered to vote, of that only 34% voted Labour. Quite a shocking statistic.
May 14, 2025
Sir John
As you suggest it is not a reset there is no such thing, it is pure vindictive surrender that everyone will have to pay and pay big time.
Reciprocal arrangements are all that are required. What other Country that we have trade arrangements with, India, the USA and so on get to have their unelected unaccountable bureaucrats to order us how we govern ourselves – none that is just a EU trait. Then go further the EU comfortably trades with Russia and China are the telling them what to do?
2TK like the majority of Parliament our legitimate legislators are showing themselves to be lazy free-loaders, they want a personal quiet life by bestowing on others the right to dictate and order payments.
May 14, 2025
I think allowing free movement for education and work experience for under 30 in the UK and Europe sounds like a very good idea.
May 14, 2025
US sovereignty is not on the table for US trade deals and neither should ours be.
Our government however is scratching around for trade deals at any cost and they look naive and desperate. Eg we dont see Trump giving away US fishing, freedom of movement and making the US subject to Saudi regulations just to get a trade deal with them. He keeps the criteria to trade and investment only. Our government should be doing the same thing or it’s no deal.
May 14, 2025
@Paul Freedman – well said
May 14, 2025
We have had brexit and the government is now free to set up any trade deals it likes and the country needs – we are still not growing enough of our own food stuff despite being outside of the EU for a number of years and so we have to get it from somewhere – but where else? The fish you talk about amounts to less that one per cent of GDP most of if needs to be sold on continental markets so I am told. We’ll have to get over this fear and obsession with the EU – it is geo-located and is not going to go away. Your final paragraph says it for me where you object to th freedom of movement for the under thirties – this is bordering on another kind of miserable state of mind that I’d prefer not to comment on further.
May 14, 2025
We voted out and out means out.
All we do by rejoining/resetting our EU position is to give up fishing waters, continue with a crazy system called the ECHR,acquire an enormous EU debt which we can’t afford, allow more illegal immigrants rather than stop them,and our ability to self govern goes up in smoke.
Then we’re back to square one again, and in the process spend enormous amounts of parliaments time in resetting when we spent already enormous amounts of time un setting[Brexit].
It’s a case of 3 steps forward and ten steps back
May 14, 2025
If the sell-out happens than the tories and brexit party should refuse to attend parliament …..its that important
May 14, 2025
The EU is allowing us a pass to trade by the back door for which we should be grateful – it is tied up with the upset in Europe over Russian agression and the need for better defence alignment amongst the european nations – it has become clear that where we have a US president with transactional needs only we have to look elsewhere for ourselves. Government is right to align with whomever because our stance with brexit brought us too far out of line all thanks to the great negotiators of the day.
May 14, 2025
It always strikes me that we take the role of the supplicant in negotiations with the EU. On trading basis we should be negotiating from a position of strength given that their exports are far greater than ours.
In food there are so many markets that are more cost effective and want our business.
The impact of ‘improved’ trade terms on much of our exports to the EU will be minimal.
May 14, 2025
Based on what we already know, what we’ve already experienced from PM Starmer, his attempts to impoverish us, deindustralise us while turning the country into a refuge for any foreigner that wants to live off our taxes – do we need to ask:
Expect the worst from a socialist government and you won’t be disappointed.
It all boils down to what he can get away with, but will the uproar, as he denies us our Brexit be enough to stop him in his tracks – VERY UNLIKELY.
This all reminds me of the way David Cameron toured European capitals to try and get a few more scraps for his deal, but it was the cartoon showing him signing the UK over to the EU that really hit the mark and shows that we never had a reciprocal relationship with the EU.
May-19 will cost us dear, one way or another!
May 14, 2025
@Bryan Harris; “May-19 will cost us dear, one way or another!”
I assume you mean that in a political way, not fiscal.
I suspect most businesses had already hedged and ‘insured themselves’ against such a day a week or two before 5th July 2024, given the opinion polls leading up to polling day. Nothing Starmer is likely to do on May 19 is an unknown-unknown, short of announcing an application to join the EFTA/EEA perhaps.
May 15, 2025
Starmer cannot be trusted on any level – as an internationalist he will always see others benefit at our expense.
Yes, I’m expecting both bad political decisions and monetary costs.
It doesn’t matter that we know where Starmer wants to take us – his actions are treacherous and painful.
May 15, 2025
@BH; Thanks for the opinion, the gist of which I agree with, but to in effect call the voters “Traitors” because they dared not vote the way you wished, that is not only hyperbole but shows your utter disdain for democracy. With a parliamentary majority of c. 174 seats, like it or not, Starmer has a mandate, and a manifesto mandate at that, having set out his Brexit Reset aims.
May 14, 2025
Starmer will be waving a white flag not the union jack at the EU
he waves the black flag most times
May 14, 2025
Good morning, Sir.
The “sellout” has been going on for years! I’ve seen nothing beneficial for the country and its people come from successive governments for a very long time.
This latest manoeuvring would simply be another nail in the coffin of a real Brexit. I can’t imagine any good coming from any of it!
A change of government is desperately needed!
May 15, 2025
Rita N: Which will not happen imminently unfortunately but the call for one in the running UK Gov Petition to Parliament, number 700143 continues to rise weekly by thousands which suggests many feel the same. Present number of signatures ( at last look ) in excess of 3.082.040
May 14, 2025
Reform should keep exposing the betrayal of Brexit by these incompetent fellow freeloaders who are playing fast and loose with our finances.
May 14, 2025
@Ukret123; Except if Reform did that they would need to expose their own role (or it would be exposed for them), remember all the warning about how voting Reform UK would mean a Labour government, proved correct and not one ounce of contrition from the party or their devoted and unquestioning followers – yet now they bleat like lost lambs and cry into their pints of pale ale.
May 15, 2025
So Jerry, if people decide to vote for Reform then the Reform party should apologise for people doing that and show many ounces of contrition.
You have a very odd idea of how democracy works and how people have the freedom to vote for whosoever they please.
Quite amazing how you know why everyone voted the way they did and what their motives were.
May 15, 2025
@MiB; It is you who has the very odd ideas of how democracy works.
Vote for whoever you wish, but do not bleat when such votes causes exactly the result you did not want! Votes have consequences, only fools ignore the obvious risks.
As for your last sentence, you mean like how many Leave voters know what was in the minds of those who voted Leave in 2016, there being plenty of diverse groups and campaigns all wanting basically the same but differing in the detail.
May 15, 2025
Sorry Jerry, you are always right.
I forgot that fact.
PS
I don’t bleat.
I’m not a fool.
But thanks for yet another of your waffling posts.
May 16, 2025
@MiB; Facts vs. hyperbole opinion, the facts will always win. 😉
Don’t be so hard on yourself, the art of debate is knowing when not to reply.
May 14, 2025
The Civil Service want elitism, not populism. Our current PM’s “negotiations” with the EU give them the opportunity to acquire more power by reducing sovereignty and democracy whilst increasing dependence upon the EU. Increased importation, particularly agricutural products which are the hardest to decarbonise, reduced economic activity and hence consumption will all assist in their Net Zero goal. The Youth Molibity cheme will be used to “take our fair share” of fake asylum seekers who will no doubt be given Euro passports to enable them to have free access to the UK’s health, social care and housing. Fortunately as we are technically out of the EU and a sovereign nation an incoming administration can tear up this Civil Service deal with the EU.
May 14, 2025
The civil service DON’T want elitism because all the civil service and political class will fail to qualify. They are elitists which is very different from being the elite.
May 14, 2025
@LA; “They are elitists which is very different from being the elite.”
Try running that past us again, this time checking your OED perhaps, given the context.
elitist: Someone who believes in or is perceived as believing in rule by an elite group.
elite: Representing the choicest or most select of a group.
May 15, 2025
Nice to see you own a dictionary Jerry
May 15, 2025
I hope you are right, we badly need the 4% increase in GDP that EU alignment would bring us
May 14, 2025
The reset/sell-out has already been agreed by UK/EU ….its now about the spin
May 14, 2025
Declare our exclusive economic zone being for our exclusive use; ban all foreign owned boats from our waters even if they have purchased British fishing businesses and then shut down the Environment Agency.
At the moment, foreign trawlers are stealing our fish and taking them to their home ports with Environment Agency officials turning a blind eye, whereas British trawlers have their catches examined and weighed and are fined for catching the ‘wrong’ species or catching over quota. There are more Environment Agency jobsworths involved in monitoring fishing than actual fishermen.
Give grants or cheap loans to British fishermen to acquire trawlers to build up our industry so it has the capacity to catch all our fish. Foreigners claim that they would refuse to buy our fish if they can’t steal them; that would make them even more unpopular with their governments than they are now.
May 14, 2025
Why should we want to get closer to this? We have enough of our own problems of this kind:
https://euobserver.com/rule-of-law/ar038e6ec2
“The EU Commission’s drift towards authoritarianism”
“The democratic credentials of the European Commission have always been weak. The formal retort to this is that the EU is not a state, nor is the commission a government. It leads with expertise and promotes the European interest. Hence, there would be little point to broad democratic debate or citizen involvement.
But as part of an ever-deeper Union, the commission keeps gathering powers that reach ever deeper into national policy making.
Being a supranational executive is no excuse. It is a reason to do your utmost to remain transparent, to remain accountable to the people that you claim to serve. “
May 14, 2025
Sir John, you have been around enough civil servants to know how in thrall they are to the EU.
My limited interactions with them has shown me how blinkered their views are so you must be aware yourself.
Call me Dave was going to roll back Lisbon until he get into power and was influenced by the civil servants who had access to him.
Thus is where the clear out needs to start. Civil servants need a new viewpoint.
May 15, 2025
I don’t believe David Cameron ever had any intention of rolling back Lisbon, and nor do I believe that the present Tory leader would seek to reverse any concessions to the EU made by the present government.
May 14, 2025
Gins worn off.
Cant read Letts article in Mail on Powell ( Paywall)
Only 1 comment on Operation Fernbridge in comments.
If it’s on there then it’s allowed in order to gauge public reaction.
The machinations remind me of those big wartime maps of the world flat on a table
with operators tentatively pushing ideas/plans forward with long wooden sticks.
May 14, 2025
In answer to your headline, yes, we are! After 2 TK’s attempts to overturn the Brexit referendum result, it is no surprise that he will do anything to get us totally subservient to the EU.
But as well as next Monday’s sell out, what more is being done behind the scenes to tie us to the EU in ways we are not told about.
Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch should state publicly that any agreements made with the EU will be cancelled at the next General Election.
Reply Kemi has and I guess Nigel will
May 14, 2025
If they were really working for the people and democracy the tories & brexit should join a pact to resign, on mass, from the commons and demand a new election
May 14, 2025
We desperately need a government that will stand up for our country rather than surrender to others.
We have seen this over the Chagos islands and we can be sure that we are heading for an abject surrender to the EU over Defence, fishing, food,and much else besides.
Why can’t we play to our strengths : The EU needs us to contribute to its defence. We should be demanding that in return there should be no question of us paying for the priviledge of allowing EU NATO members to buy our defence equipment. Nor should we be excluded from the Defence part of Galileo which we designed and built here in the UK ! There are many more examples like this.
Then there is fishing : Macron is absolutely desperate to continue to have access to our fishing grounds from next year. Why are we not telling him that there will be no renewal of fishing licences unless he stops the boats leaving his beaches and takes back the ones that make it to British waters ?
Then there is food : The EU sells us four times the amount of food than we buy from its member countries.
Why is 2TK prepared to toe the line on EU food regulations in these circumstances ?
I am sure that a Reform-led government would take a completely different approach. Why do we have to wait until 2028-29 to have a government that will stand up for the UK ?
May 16, 2025
– oceandesk.org 16/05/2025 ‘Russian supertrawlers off Scottish coast rings alarm bells for UK marine life’.
– greenpeace.org.uk 11/03/2025 ‘Supertrawlers spent 7,380 hours fishing in UK Marine Protected Areas each year since Brexit’
The really ‘funny’ bit from Table 2 accessible from this report is that there is no French supertrawler, as everybody should know since at least 2016 the French fleet is mainly active as small fishing boats in La Manche and the South of the North Sea.
Finally ukfisheries.net ‘Key facts about northern Atlantic fishing’.
But I am sure this will not prevent the usual @#£&s from saying that ‘les grenouillles’ are again at it stealing our British fish. Tough that after 959 years the ‘Anglo-Saxons’(cough, cough) have not yet digested being taken over by the Normans.
May 16, 2025
With regards to the Defence part of the Galileo satellite system the UK Government pulled out of the programme in 2018 on security grounds having spent £1.2 bn (out of a budget of £10 bn) and rejoined the US GPS (Global Positioning System).
It then spent (the idea of) a UK Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) from 2018 to 2020 (a project at the time estimated at £5 bn).
Then in 09/2020 this project was abandoned and replaced by the UK Space Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Programme (SBPNT) with a budget of … £90 m.
gov.uk 22/04/2021 ‘Space Based PNT Programme’.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk ‘Space Based PNT Technical Concepts’.
parliament.uk 18/10/2023 ‘Government Policy Framework for Greater Position, Navigation, Timing (PNT) Resilience’
And then on npl.co.uk 26/04/2024 ‘NPL and ESA collaborate to develop the next generation of Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) technologies’. (NPL: UK National Physical Laboratory, ESA: European Space Agency).
So draw your own conclusions on how the UK satellite industry can rely on the ‘long-term ‘thinking’’ within the UK Government(s).
May 14, 2025
John, why didn’t your government lower or reduce altogether tariffs on EU produce that we don’t make ourselves in the UK? How much would it have cost you per year in lost tariffs?
We will be realigned, tied into knots, then Starmer will retire into some big global post like Blair about 12-18 months before the next election. I suspect he’ll make tons of money for his sell-out, a fat book deal and tour, and the public will have a bright new labour leader who’ll promise to be different and protect our jobs and industries blah blah blah.
Reply It was not my government and it did not implement many of my proposals. It did remove tariffs from things we do not produce and from intermediates
May 14, 2025
“We should not allow freedom of movement for the under 30 s.”
The UK already has Youth Mobility Visa agreements with countries like Japan, Uruguay, Australia and Canada. Yet you oppose the exact same thing with France and Germany.
If you want to understand why the Conservatives are polling at about 8% with the under 30s, look no further than attitudes such as this.
May 15, 2025
No, we don’t object to a Youth Mobility scheme with France and Germany. That’s not on offer.
We object to a Youth Mobility scheme with 27 other countries, many of which are considerably poorer than the UK AND have a significant youth unemployment problem AND in some cases have a large number of “new” citizens who have arrived since Merkel opened the floodgates and have not assimilated.
It is a recipe for hundreds of thousands coming to the UK and a very small number going the other way since few Brits aged 18-30 have the necessary language skills.
May 15, 2025
The youth unemployment rate in Uruguay is one of the highest in the world, yet the UK has an agreement with them (and did so under the previous Conservative governments as well).
May 14, 2025
292 criminals were smuggled into the UK yesterday; and escorted from the safe country of France…
May 14, 2025
GC :
There’s no “smuggling”. The Home Office is brazenly and openly collecting these criminals off the coast of France (or taken off the hands of the French mid Channel) and brings them to the UK to give them free 4 star hotel (or house) accomodation, £40/week pocket money, free health and social care and the complete freedom to roam our streets unhindered (even lurking around schools) or take black market jobs. Why are they doing this?
May 14, 2025
Smuggled onto the boats, than escorted by french authorities mid channel and then received & escorted by UK authorities the remain half way ….you’re correct Richard, they all know and allow it
May 14, 2025
I’d recommend readers to see the David Attenborough film “Ocean” to see how bottom trawling wrecks the sea bed and devastates all life there. Of course, DA has damaged his own credibility by going along with the NZ nonsense, but please don’t let that obscure what should be a criminal activity that our leaders actively encourage.
May 14, 2025
From the Telegraph
EU offers Britain truce in ‘sausage war’ – but it comes at a cost!
Deal will end ban on exports to the EU in return for long-term access to UK fishing waters as part of Brexit reset – in return for long-term access to UK fishing waters. So free access to UK resources which they will not be paying for in return they may or may not buy something from the UK. They the EU still ban UK fish unless its is stolen by themselves.
For this to happen Brussels has demanded the UK aligns with EU plant and animal health rules. Also it means abiding by European Court of Justice decisions on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) rules.
So in a nutshell we will ‘take’ from you but you must obey our orders in your own country.
EU sources expect a deal to be done in principle in time for Sir Keir Starmer’s summit with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. So in political double speak 2TK has done the deal. The man hates the UK and its People, it his ego first
This is not a deal it is surrender, no other country that deals with the EU is treated in this way with such disrespect and hatred. What Laws does China have to obey inside its own territory, does the ECJ dictate to China, yet China is the EU’s largest importer by a long way.
May 15, 2025
+1
May 14, 2025
Here is my comment on this new Telegraph article:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/14/eu-offers-britain-truce-in-sausage-war/
“EU offers Britain truce in ‘sausage war’ – but it comes at a cost”
“If the eurocrats genuinely believe that the UK products are unsafe then let them produce the objective scientific evidence upon which they base that belief. If their evidence is sufficiently convincing we might even decide to change our rules for the sake of the many people consuming those pr1oducts in the UK, quite apart from the much smaller number consuming them in the EU. If on the other hand these products are safe now then they will not be made safer by changing to the EU rules and the EU should not be demanding that. We could perhaps have authorised exporters to the EU of these products who would ne under a legal obligation to follow the EU rules while companies who choose not to export to the EU would not be under that obligation.”
May 14, 2025
@Denis Cooper – what they are saying is that UK food sold in the UK has come under EU and ECJ jurisdiction. Yet we will now accept US beef and the US will accept UK beef and neither party is imposing thier own legal jurisdiction on what happens in their own domains…
May 15, 2025
I am old enough to remember you Brexiters telling us we hold all the cards
May 15, 2025
You never heard me say that. We had a strong hand, until Theresa May threw away some of our best cards.
May 16, 2025
Actually it was Guy Verhofstadt who told the Parliamentary Committee on the EU that UK holds a very strong hand. It just didn’t know it, or how to play it
May 16, 2025
Starmer’s gang of socialists and communists do not believe in the nation state because to them socialism demands that all people should have the same beliefs and societies should all be ordered similarly. For a century and a half they have sought The International. Having failed to win the argument for socialism in open debate, they see the EU as a means of by-passing inconvenenient democracy to overcome the obduracy of the dumb people, the unenlightened, the conservatives, the gamons. Socialsts despise and fear the populace. They seek support among their own kind in the international, so Starmer’s Gang seek support and comfort in the EU technocracy, shielded from accountabiity to people they despise.