The IMF expects the EU to carry on underperforming the US by a big margin, as it has done all this century to date. It expects the UK despite the bad budget, the high taxes and the net zero madness to grow a little faster than the Eurozone and to beat Germany, France and Italy this year.
The pro EU cheer leaders in the UK wrongly projected a recession, rising unemployment and falling house prices to follow immediately we had voted to leave. The opposite happened.
They then claimed our growth over the first fifteen years of Brexit would be 4% less, or 0.25% lower . They based this on the bizarre assumptions that productivity growth would slow as we lost trade activity with the EU.
They said you can only trade successfully with nearby countries, ignoring the surge in EU and UK trade with China and India and the fact that the US is our largest national export market.
There is another obvious fallacy in their spin. Our trade with the EU is in heavy deficit. Imports do not add to GDP, and are subtracted in the accounting to work out GDP. Importing more from the EU will not help us grow or be better off. If instead we embarked on import substitution, growing and making more of the things we need and importing less from the EU, that would boost our GDP well.
The UK thanks to its crazy net zero policies is busily de industrialising so we have fewer goods to sell. We are however very good at services and are boosting our exports rapidly. These mainly go to non EU English speaking and common law countries. We are now signing trade deals which help promote this trade, thanks to Brexit.
July 31, 2025
Good morning.
Services really only benefit a small section of the country and sector. Most jobs would come from industry but as stated, we are de-industrialising.
What concerns me most is the increase in Public Sector workers over Private Sector. More and more people are relying on the State for their money, something I think is deliberate. The government is also keen to introduce a wealth tax. Since this would, initially, target the higher end and more mobile wealthy I do not believe this will succeed. When it was tried in France it led to less tax being taken as the wealthy all left, and I can see a similar thing happening here.
With less money moving around I can only see growth (GDP) coming in the form of MASS IMMIGRATION to fiddle the figures further. This will not end well.
July 31, 2025
Indeed, Reeves anti-growth doom loop economics will certainly not end well. Even if she does do a Growth Growth Growth rain dance as she pushed he anti-growth agenda.
Nearly all politicians and comentators lie not merely “distort”. Trumps told Keir what to do. Stop 99% the immigration, ditch net zero, cut energy costs to 30% of current, cut taxes, cut red tape, deter crime, stop the wars on farmers, drivers, small business… alas Two Tier Kier has the reverse agenda as largely does Kemi still!
July 31, 2025
So one person found guilty of assualt of the police at Manchester Airport after they were eventually forced rather reluctantly to bring charges. What will the sentence be? 31 months for Lucy Connolly for a tweet she removed very quickly, a first offence, loads of mitigating factors, children, pleeded guilty early… so on this scale it must be at least ten times worse so 25 years or so? Let us see what our Two Tier justice, judge and sentencing council make of it!
July 31, 2025
Today Andrew McIntyre was jailed for seven and a half years in January for encouraging violent disorder and criminal damage and possession of a knife (29th July Southport) https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/southport-wake-up-taxi-driver-32174756
He got 7.5 years, I wonder what the two at manchester airport will get ?
July 31, 2025
Yes. Hubris and denial, key requirements.
July 31, 2025
@Lifelogic – we mustn’t forget this is happening because more than 50% of our legislators, elected and unelected egotist, are nurturing and encouraging the wreaking of the Country. You could take that to mean they are wreaking everything in hope of getting the unelected, unaccountable back in charge to dictate things once more?
July 31, 2025
Seems so.
July 31, 2025
St Donald. Yeah, right ..
July 31, 2025
The French so called Zucman tax of 2% on wealth above €100 m has never been applied as it was voted down by the French Senate.
As for the IFI (Impôt sur la Fortune Immobilière) applied since 2018 on global real estate assets over €1.3 m there are so many exemptions that only 250,000 people pay on average €5k, ie a rate of about 0.4%. Interestingly enough (and contrary to what the UK’s Investors Chronicle said) a study by the French Tax Office concluded that practically no HNWIs had left the country since that particular tax based on real estate, which was replacing the ISF (Impôt de Solidarité sur la Fortune), was considered much more relevant and had less impact on people investing in business or on the French Stock Exchange, a consideration of Macron’s Governments since 2017.
July 31, 2025
I think Mark B. was talking about the tax on wealth that existed 10 or 20 years ago in France, before Macron came to power. I’m looking at a report by Novalfi Patrimoine which says that from 2003 onwards there was a sharp increase in people subject to wealth tax emigrating from France: “The figures show a clear increase in emigration by rich taxpayers, those with a taxable income exceeding €300,000” (my translation). This was checked around 2012, when the government raised the tax threshold. Mark’s point seems to have been correct.
July 31, 2025
PP
Yes many of the wealthy came from France to the UK at that time.
They will probably return back to France in due course, taking their money and employment prospects with them.
Trying to tax the wealthy never works, so Labour now think those who own their own home, and have a private pension are now a better target, more of them and more difficult for them to leave.
Problem is that our Sons, Daughters and Grandchildren, now think about moving out of the UK because what is the point in trying to make a better life for yourself here when you take all the risks, and the Government want a bigger share than you get yourself.
July 31, 2025
I did a quick search on the Internet asking about French tax exiles.
You should too hefner.
Just one example of many said France was third in the list countries with the biggest outflow of millionaires.
42,000 left between 2000 and 2014, with many more since.
July 31, 2025
If Sam had read what I have written it was all about what had happened since 2017.
But Sam never misses the opportunity to look #£@&, doesn’t he.
July 31, 2025
If you took the time to read what I actually said before rushing off a response and being gratuitously rude hefner, I said ” with many more since”
I note you haven’t looked on line where there are many articles about post 2017 tax exiles.
July 31, 2025
hefner.
Mark B never gave a period of years for saying the wealth tax in France reduced tax take.
So why in your reply did you only talk about recent events?
We’re you trying to switch the argument.
What do they call it…oh I know..a red herring
July 31, 2025
Martin
Many thanks.
I took my information from a ‘trusted source’ that did not give a time period. Hence why I repeated it. If it was from Auntie then I would have checked the information further.
July 31, 2025
That’s fine and understood Mark B .
hefner is our long term resident lefty liberal and will regularly disagree, often rudely, with posts that point out the failure of ever higher taxes, the failure of ever bigger State, the need for reasonable immigration control and the benefits of competition for consumers.
July 31, 2025
I hope you feel better MiB … having been able to characterise me so beautifully.
July 31, 2025
EU fanatics are in the same camp and people who have DTS. They are so convinced of their infallabilty they will lie and cheat to further their aims
Nothing and nobody can help them even when the facts are against them
It’s a religion just like the obsession with removing plant food from the atmosphere
The uniparty must be annihilated.
July 31, 2025
+1
July 31, 2025
You have to distort reality when selling xnake oil. Belonging to the EU avoids the onus of making decisions and taking respinsibility for government. It is an easy ride to hell in a handcart.
July 31, 2025
“Belonging to the EU…..”
Indeed it is the ultimate blame game, always someone else’s fault, nothing to do with me Gov.
July 31, 2025
Love the “typo” gov not guv – or did I miss the point???
July 31, 2025
both apply, the guv is hell bent on allowing the GOV to determine mad policies with sheep blindly following.
July 31, 2025
@agricola – yup the rejection of responsibility and accountability.
July 31, 2025
It is normal for the political class and those that seek to influence it (NGOs and think tanks) to distort reality. Such distortions, especially using fear as the motivator, are the tools of persuasion to get people to accept or not oppose their distorted view. It often works until the distortion becomes blindingly obvious to the public or those targeted for persuasion. We see it now in the decline of both Labour and Conservative parties in opinion polls and in elections. They have been rumbled.
July 31, 2025
The EU is the Brussels bureaucracy (I include the associated ministers/Council), which works for itself and not the member states. It uses deception and bullying whenever needed to protect its interests and assure its expansion of powers.
Such tactics are needed, daily. Ask Hungary, which is paying €1m day in fines. Actually I think the EU is deducting the money from payment it should make to Hungary, as the Hungarians refused to pay the fine. So add seizure of assets to the EU’s modus operandi. Lying is par for the course.
July 31, 2025
Because the main justification for the EU isn’t trade: it’s about controlling nation-states via rules, regulations and bureaucracy. People who like telling others how to live their lives (ie most of the British Establishment) like to order others around and tell them what they may, and may not do, say and think.
And then there are Corporations who make a very pretty penny from the rules and regulations and use them to prevent competition from new challenger companies.
The EU is about Control. Pro EU politicians and bureaucrats in the UK and international organisations like the IMF want the UK to be kept within the EU’s control.
July 31, 2025
@Donna – you should have added the unelected, unaccountable.
July 31, 2025
Are you a London black cab driver?! Or Nigel Farage in his armchair in the pub with a pint of London Pride.
If we’re going to get serious about making Brexit, got to stop blame game.
(How many people are TRULY patriotic?)
July 31, 2025
Not yet awake
‘The pro EU cheer leaders in the UK wrongly projected a recession’ I missed read that, and saw ‘The pro EU cheer leaders in the UK wrongly protect a recession’
I feel I got it right in the first place
July 31, 2025
“The pro EU cheer leaders in the UK wrongly projected a recession, rising unemployment and falling house prices to follow immediately we had voted to leave.”
Now we have a pro EU Labour government determined to deliver it to prove themselves right nearly a decade after the event. I’m waiting for them to blame Brexit for it rather than their own inept management.
July 31, 2025
Any dip in the UK’s growth can 100% be hung around the knocks of those that have deindustrialised the country. Those that have exported UK jobs. Those that think all NetZero production facilities and requirements should come from imports subsidised by the Taxpayer – exporting wealth. Those that think Foreign Governments should own more of the UK’s energy supply, than the UK Government. Then to cap it all those that think spending, just spending, is a ‘budget’ and that removing money from the economy does not affect the economy’s growth.
This century has seen the wreakers, dominating our legislators all the pretending it is the not actually them it is the independent bodies, forgetting it is who pays the bills, who owns the purse strings that are making all the mistakes.
Will a real UK Government, a government for the people by the people please step up!
July 31, 2025
Our total exports to the EU, goods+services, are at a record all time high. They don’t mention that either.
July 31, 2025
Decades ago politicians were clever with their words and explanations, now they do not bother to justify anything, they just simply tell Lies.
You only have to look and listen to the interview Questions and answers from the recent open question 90 minute interview in Scotland with Trump, to see the difference between Trump and Starmer.
One comfortable and in complete control of their explanations, the other looked like a terrified (not a clue) apprentice in front of his Master.
July 31, 2025
Every one sees the situation for what it is its just that we have had our power robbed from us, by what Trump would call ‘Nasty’ people
JD Vance: Europe is engaging in civilisational suicide – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/07/30/jd-vance-europe-is-engaging-in-civilisational-suicide/
Just as importantly the comments section, is highlighting the situation.
We have been captured and the fight continue to assimilate us into this World of the Socialist WEF Globalism
July 31, 2025
We have an anti-UK Government backed by an anti-UK Parliament that are all still fighting the people and Brexit
Newcleo: A nuclear start-up is quitting the UK in frustration after ministers, including Ed Miliband, failed to support the project. – Newcleo plans to build new facility in France after frustration with Labour’s indecision, it was suspending a £4bn proposal to build a fleet of mini nuclear reactors in Britain.
The UK must buy all its power that is controlled by the whims of others
July 31, 2025
The really absurd bit in that story is that Nucleo were offering to build a fuel reprocessing facility to use the stocks at Sellafield that Miliband wants to bury. Meanwhile there is a ruckus because it gasbeen discovered that Framatome have been supplying Sizewell B with fuel manufactured in Russia.
July 31, 2025
The New Zealand government has voted to reverse its ban on new oil and gas exploration
July 31, 2025
As my mother would say – you can say it until you are blue in the face but they are never going to listen.
It is the same about Margaret Thatcher – for many she will always be the Wicked Witch, however much we think her policies and actions changed the world for the better.
July 31, 2025
Est 900 criminals were illicitly shipped, into the UK yesterday on the 30th July from France……
July 31, 2025
Most given French supportive escorting to the mid-Channel where the Brits were expected to manage the chaos.
French craft waving ‘adieu not au revoir’…
At them approaching that point we should have turned and hit the fast pedal to head home.
July 31, 2025
Actual – 898 illegal economic immigrants
August 1, 2025
GC – 898 : The last 15 days 17 JUL to 31 JUL inclusive total is: 2932 people crossed in 45 boats. ( Official figures ) That must have increased significantly the number of hotels required. With Not to mention the 2522 having crossed between 01 JUL & 16 JUL incl. – the July total illegally crossed & requiring beds : 5454. Mind boggling.
July 31, 2025
They don’t want this invasion to stop, do they?
July 31, 2025
All politicians distort reality, it is their only skill. You got your Brexit and err nothing happened, no economic boom, no rise to economic superpower status, the immigrants kept on coming. Overall no difference except some nuisances over travel and goods movement.
Indeed it would be very surprising indeed if Britain had powered ahead of is European neighbours Brexit or not. We don’t have any intellectual monopoly, we are small and militarily weak. Outsourcing has been the mantra from right and left wing think tanks since the ’70s with no thought as to what would replace those vulgar industries. Services are not good mass employment industries – especially for those bolshie souls oop north. Indeed France, Germany and the rest have suffered the same problems, they are unavoidable in a global economy. We are still little different to France or Germany or our EU neighbours, Brexit made no difference to reality.
Some aver that if we had a ‘proper’ conservative government all would be well. Our problems being due to weak kneed politicians. If only we had such people we would be just like America. The US has outstripped Europe and the UK for the last 150 years. The reasons are many but being very big and running a social bear garden are two. You are welcome to completely privatise the NHS – a real election winner. Where I will find the medical fees – heaven knows.
Even now we see the US economy is fraying at the edges. Still very big and wonderful if you are in the elite. But a fading beauty nonetheless and running up huge debt. This can go on for another century or so but Donald and friends can see the writing on the wall and are jacking up the price. The ghost of Fu Manchu stalks Wall Street.
July 31, 2025
The UK really could power ahead. The problem lies not with politicians but the electorate who choose the wrong people to govern.
If British people were allowed to start up and develop their enterprises, rather than being stifled with legislation and taxes, the UK could really succeed. To do this though the British people also need to elect politicians with vision, but instead we have elected numpties.
The NHS doesn’t need to be completely privatised, just partially. We could have insurance schemes for companies to allow employees to opt in to private healthcare, insurance schemes for old age care, sports and either insurance or crowd-funding to treat lifestyle diseases. Retain the socialist element of the NHS for children, A&E and those whose genuine illnesses and disabilities prevent them from earning a decent income. Private healthcare and the NHS would compete for doctors and nurses, so we won’t have strikes over pay because their market value would be clearly defined.
July 31, 2025
Question is how many politicians – left, right and centre – are true patriots? That’s a genuine question. How many are just in it for the kudos, money they can indirectly get out of politics, the thrill and drama of political power, and just being the centre of things: look at me, aren’t I great?!
July 31, 2025
We have a number of patriots in the HoC right now, except their allegiance is to a foreign country.
July 31, 2025
…..Imports do not add to GDP, and are subtracted in the accounting…..
Why doesn’t somebody explain this to the Chancellor because those such as Miliband are actively working against her insisting we use imports in lieu of home production.
July 31, 2025
The NHS does not need to be privatised, although private elective surgery and other services could be fiscally encouraged, but it could be split into 3 entities each with a budget the size of Tesco’s to provide some sort of competition not only for patients but also, very importantly, for staff.
July 31, 2025
Once we have reduced or zeroed our territorial emissions by de-industrialising and importing instead CBAM will be introduced to make imports more expensive and to reduce our consumption emissions. The Net Zero 2050 plan is for demand to match supply using rolling blackouts when the renewables, aka DSR (Demand Side Management), fail at peak times. Our resulting energy bills will be reduced simply because our electricity will be rationed. But the CCC, DESNZ and NESO et al tell us they will use this transition to clean energy to design for us a fair and equitable energy system.
July 31, 2025
Only the People get the really big decisions right. We got Brexit right. The politicians better become afraid of us as they continue to defy us.
We will put the asylum scam right too, without a Referendum if necessary.
Hitchens calls the police ‘the armed wing of Social Services’. He’s right. The employees of the state had better consider their interests. I see the GP are threatening strikes. Maybe those we see as the client state will bring it down?
July 31, 2025
The Roman senate threw bread to the ‘people’ and offered them cruel games in the Circus Maximus to keep them quiet. Not sure I trust the mob any more than politicians but at least we have democracy (in some shape or form). So why I fully support Brexit after the (narrow) ref result (although I 100% support full sovereignty as long as it is properly handled).
July 31, 2025
Sir John, I agree that we should be growing more of the things we need. But what has actually happened, according to Farming Today (31/3/25), is that tens of thousands of hectares of farmland in regions around urban areas have disappeared in the last 15 years. They cut food miles, and contributed £3.3 billion annually to the economy. With their loss, we now have less food-growing land, and thanks to increased population, more mouths to feed. This is nowhere more evident than in your former constituency of Wokingham. Both in ‘Strategic Development Locations’ and elsewhere, farmland has been concreted over regardless of residents’ and local councillors’ wishes. This has been entirely down to policy by central government. Perhaps future devolution plans will stop the insane destruction of the agricultural economy, and take destructive powers away from Westminster, but that remains to be seen.
Reply Not entirely due to government. Current Wokingham Council has brought forward land for housing and is trying to risk taxpayers money on a solar farm.
July 31, 2025
reply to reply…
The Planning Portal was used to assess Labour’s First Year in office regarding new builds in Wokingham.
Government requirement was 1336, previous average was 1044 during period 2012 – 2024.
The EPCs produced were 519, before that in 2024 was 238.
Planning applications gratnted was 77%, across England was 74%.
July 31, 2025
Politicians love to brag about GDP. ‘Mines bigger than yours’ etc. Apart from pandering to the jingoistic amongst us it has zero relevance to the quality of my day to day life, no doubt the nerds can make a link but frankly the weather and my health contributes more.
Actually I am fed up with the obsessives on all sides of the argument and wish they would move on.
Traveling in Europe a fair bit their quality of life looks pretty good to me, indeed looking at their roads, health services, trains etc so instead of bragging Sir JR I suggest the discussion should be along the lines of ‘if we are allegedly doing so well, why are the major EU countries making us look second class?’
Reply You must be going to the posh bits.
July 31, 2025
Have you travelled by train in Germany lately? You used to be able to set your watch by the trains, but now you can’t rely on the train turning up at all. Ah the joys of diversity and inclusion.
July 31, 2025
and we found ourselves in a train with no areas for suitcases – only old fashioned luggage racks above bench seating!!
Carriage rocking and rolling, strange halts for no particular reason advised…no announcements.
July 31, 2025
Indeed one tends to go to the posher bits when on holiday – often I find I bump in the friends doing the same in Paris, Milan, Rome, London in the summer. But yes plenty of very poor very bits of the EU – even large parts of Italy/Sicily can be.
July 31, 2025
Did you forget to mention the fifty percent lower trade levies the UK now enjoys with the USA compared to what the EU levy is set at? That would never have been possible if we had remained in the EU.
July 31, 2025
Indeed but Starmer is signing up to insane dynamic alignments and does not want energy at 30% of current cost as could easily be done at Trump suggests.
July 31, 2025
Brexit had to be seen to fail at any cost. The UK had to be made an example of to deter other countries from leaving; otherwise, the entire EU project would fall apart. Unfortunately, our governments over the last 40 years have betrayed our country. Apart from a few Brexiteers like Sir John, the majority should hang their heads in shame.
July 31, 2025
Correct since Ted Heath & right through (50 odd years) to Boris who delivered a dire half Brexit and then Kier who is clearly undoing even that. The newer scams are Net Zero which Trump correctly points out is another rip off con-trick! Also the lab leak (after gain of function experimentation) Covid virus and even worse the net harm ineffective Covid “vaccines” and moronic lockdowns.
July 31, 2025
By far the biggest “distortion of reality” is that we have a climate crisis when the UN IPCC Working Group 1 (“The Science”)’s report shows in Table 12 in Chapter 12 that there are no signals for climate change for precipitation, droughts or storms and only some mild warming leading to some loss of ice and snow. This mild warming is, according to UAH satellite data, measured to be 0.14 degrees C per decade for the lower troposphere. So we are being gaslighted a lie so big and so often that many people are still believing it despite seeing with their own eyes that the oceans are not “boiling” as described by Al Gore, nor that we are in an “era of global boiling” as described by the UN Secretary General. The first half of 2025 (January to June) has seen the fewest number of deaths from climate and weather disasters of any first half year this century. In fact since it is the poles and upper latitudes which warm rather than the equator this reduces the temperature difference which then reduces the energy for (extreme) weather. The Civil Service department, the Met Office, cannot be relied upon for climate change information. Three quarters of their weather stations are classed by the WMO as 4 and 5 (+- 2 and 5 degrees C respectively) and a third simply do not exist at all. A warming world with increasing levels of plant food, CO2, is beneficial to all life on the planet.
July 31, 2025
A new government should mirror the work done by the red team at the EPA that has just reported its conclusion that the endangerment finding is wrong by critiquing the work of the Climate Change Committee. That would allow a halt to be called to further pursuit of net zero.
Then the process of unwinding can begin: it will not be easy, with many regulations, grid codes, contracts and assets on the ground (or now missing) to be whipped into shape while keeping the lights on.
July 31, 2025
Mark :
Correct and absolutely necessary before we’re bankrupted and electricity is rationed by rolling blackouts necessitated by the need for demand to match supply as required NESO’s FES 2025’s 2050 plan. Gone is Boris Johnson’s Net Zero Strategy – Build Back Greener plan that “British renewables would give us cheap abundant electricity at the flick of a switch” (P19).
July 31, 2025
O/T Is this blog subject to the Online Safety Act 2023?
July 31, 2025
The Head of the CPS should never be allowed to become an MP let alone the PM. We are now seeing the danger to democracy by Parliament, the Civil Service and the judiciary all acting as one with no ‘separation of powers’.
July 31, 2025
The root of the problem is the refusal to accept Brexit by MPs, Lords, Civil Servants and the media, most of all the BBC. They will not accept good news about Brexit, 10% import tax on our exports to the US versus 15% import tax for the EU, for example. There is a deliberate strategy to talk down Brexit and refuse to acknowledge any benefit.
We needed giants to lead us out of the EU and we got pygmies!
Off topic – Is Keir Starmer the thickest and most stupid PM we have ever had?
Does he not know that five times Hamas have refused a two-state solution, because they want one state with Israel wiped out?
Does he not know that twenty years ago, Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip and handed it to the Palestine Authority? Look how that has worked out!
Does he not know that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east and is fighting for survival against religious fanatics whose stated aim is to kill all jews worldwide?
Keir Starmer is making the UK look weak, pathetic, and an unreliable ally in perilous times.
July 31, 2025
Gaza was never Israel’s to ‘hand’ to anybody. As the then Israeli PM Ariel Sharon said: ‘We cannot hold on to Gaza forever.’ It’s still true. Macron and Starmer may be giving the Israeli government the off-ramp it needs. International disapproval could allow it to withdraw now without too much loss of face. Especially if Hamas’s backers force it to simultaneously give up its remaining power.
July 31, 2025
Despite Brexit we still have a £100bn/YEAR trading deficit with the EU.
July 31, 2025
Problem is BOTH sides being dishonest with themselves and now we are in the worst of both worlds: out of Europe in a Brexit that is not working. No-one happy.
We need to persuade people why sovereignty makes sense and a good and noble thing. But why we also need strong leadership (which excludes blame game) to implement Brexit, a proper business-like plan from the politicians (not civil servants) how to carry out, and the finance in place (strong economy with a lot saved up) to pay for the smooth transition from being in the EU to properly sovereign.
August 1, 2025
Ed, how long will it take for the penny to drop: the politicians refuse to carry out Brexit because it is not in their personal career interests.
July 31, 2025
National Crime Agency officers have worked with Bulgarian law enforcement partners to seize a consignment of 25 boats that was due to be transported across Europe for use by people smugglers in the English Channel.
The inflatables were found in a lorry which had just crossed the Bulgarian border at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint on 26 July. The seizure was made as part of an NCA operation, supported by Home Office International Operations (HOIO), targeting supplies of small boat equipment moving into Europe, which generated intelligence leading Bulgarian customs officers to intercept the lorry and discover the consignment. The boats were 8m long and previously when used held 50+ illegals.
July 31, 2025
An injuried teenager from Gaza, arrived at London’s Heathrow airport on a flight from Cairo, with his mother, brother and little sister to receive surgery
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgn6979n59o
There are a great many great hospitals in the middle east gulf states, so why the UK, is it because afterwards they wont go back
August 1, 2025
Have the BBC been reporting on Germany’s economic performance recently?
August 1, 2025
One of the attempted slight-of-hand rhetorical tricks of the pro-EU lobby is to constantly bang on about the EU being our ‘neighbours’, as if it were logical to ‘trade with our nearest neighbours’.
But we don’t trade with our neighbours. If you were forced to, you’d object at the illogical restriction of having sell your wares next door and buy food from them.
You might also be unwilling to trade with neighbours who behaved towards you with the aggressive animosity and contempt of France and the Republic of Ireland, Luxemburg, or Malta (for example).
Nor do continental countries treat each other in a neighbourly fashion. Greece and North Macedonia? Greece and Bulgaria? Italy and Austria? The EU is really there to prevent them (and France/Germany) from beating the living daylights out of each other by deliberately eroding the borders. Erode them a bit further, and see what will happen then…
Trade is most effective when used to buy what we do not produce from countries with different climates and industrial specialisms. There is no point at all in buying veg, dairy or industrial products from a country with an almost identical climate and where wages and methods are virtually the same (or more expensive), such as Benelux, Germany, or Scandinavia, and where manufacturing has been globalized in exactly the same way as the UK.