The EU re set is an ill conceived danger to UK growth and prospects. The government pretends the negotiations are not underway when they are well advanced. They pretend they are not making big sacrifices of money and powers, but they are.
It is all based on lies about what has happened since our half hearted Brexit departure. ONS figures say our trade has risen, yet the re set case is based on the damage they say was done to our trade by leaving. They forget we paid a big price to secure a tariff free trade deal anyway.
Our GDP followed a very similar course to the EU countries that stayed in, well ahead of Germany and a little ahead of France and Italy in growth. That was not surprising as the UK governments stayed fixed to so many laws, rules and taxes from our EU membership, and we continued to pay sums to the EU as some kind of guilt penance. We are now largely free of sending them money which means we now are saving the sums promised on the bus. It’s a good job we are given this government’s propensity to run up huge extra bills and to max out the borrowing.
I have set out here and in the Lords how in the past our joining the EEC slashed our growth rate, and joining the restrictive and costly single market slowed our growth rate further. Why does the government perversely think adopting more EU rules and sending them more tribute money will increase growth? It is bound to be another negative.
MPs who want this re set need to be asked to explain themselves. They also need to be asked
- How much extra money will the UK be expected to send to Brussels when the full re set agreements are revealed? How will this extra cost be raised from taxpayers?
- Joining the EU carbon trading and carbon tariff system will mean dearer energy and dearer imports. How many job losses and closures will this bring?
- Will the UK need to pull out of its trade deals with TPP, India, US, Australia etc as the rules of the single market it will have to adopt makes these Treaties illegal in EU law?
- Why is it acceptable that in important areas the UK will have to adopt whatever laws the EU demands of us with no right to influence, vote on them or reject them?
April 7, 2026
Dreadful state of affairs with Labour just selling out to the EU for no good reason or return – simply unable to think beyond the concept.
Mitigated to at least some extent by the mess the Conservatives made of Brexit and further recently by the behaviour of Trump who drives Labour further in the same direction. Doubly defeating.
We need a fresh approach. Reform.
April 7, 2026
As with net stupid, there’s no logic just ideology driven madness. Starmer can’t even get candidates to stand in the local elections because liebour are so despised but he ploughman’s on with his wanton destruction.
It’s way past the time that the Royal Perogative was ditched to stop these ruinous moves by one man.
Then again if the tories had cancelled EU regulations like they promised this reset would have been nigh on impossible.
April 7, 2026
Is it correct that Starmer will be abe to carryout the ‘Re-Set’ plans without debate or vote, even though it involves substantial payment to the EU?
April 7, 2026
@Peter Wood – of course it is true, just look at what he has done in under 2 years, taking their rules, their laws and paying them vast amounts of hard earned taxpayer money, without a mandate, without seeking validation/approval. 3 More years and the Nation will be unrecognisable, all because the majority of Parliament supports him and they don’t believe in democracy and elections.
We are powerless in 2TK’s World, he has taken the ultimate Marxist Rule and Power and Parliament allows it.
April 7, 2026
Then Reform need to start making the hard choices. Jenrick confirming the Triple Lock has undermined my hopes that they might do so. It reveals a deep misunderstanding of the problems we already have (which will be much worse by the next election) and what needs to be done about them. A simple annual indexing would suffice for most Pensioners. It would also have been a sign of political courage. We didn’t get one.
April 7, 2026
Selling out for no reason? No. Agreeing a deal with the EU which will reduce trade barriers and make the UK more prosperous? Yes
April 7, 2026
Brexit has cost us billions. Vastly reduced trade with the EU, no improvement in trade with the Rest of the World. And exposure to the monster Trump. The reset can’t come soon enough
Reply All lies. ONS figures show good trade growth since 2016
April 7, 2026
Simply not true Joan look at the real figures. plus what do you mean by exposure to the monster Trump? If only Starmer would take Trump’s sensible advice on drill baby drill, spend on decent defences, ditch the net zero hoax and get energy cost down to USA levels about 25% of our. Would you really have preferred the senile Biden or the daft as a brush Kamala Harris?
What is killing the UK’s economy is over taxation, over regulation, rip off energy, far too much government, vast net cost open door immigration, failure to deal with or deter crime & a total lack of confidence in this Doom Loop Labour Government. Also a failure to take full advantage of the new Brexit freedoms.
April 7, 2026
So Wes Streetimg has withdrawn an offer of 1,000 new NHS training places for resident doctors following the British Medical Association’s (BMA) decision to continue their strike action. The government set a 48-hour ultimatum, proposing to introduce the additional specialty posts alongside pay offers, which the BMA rejected as insufficient.
Wes mate either these training places make sense for the NHS or they do not. What has the strike go to do with it?
Note that if a doctor qualifies at age 24 with £100k of student debt/costs to qualify (as it typical) plus 7% interest they will need £2,000 PA from their take home pay for 16 years in order to repay this by age 40. In effect this reduces there gross pay by about £3,000 PA. Allowing for this they start on effectively £560 per week take home.
£14 per hour. Quite likely they will be paying half of that in rent, comutting costs or their exam fees and the medical gear they have to buy.
April 7, 2026
“The government pretends the negotiations are not underway when they are well advanced. They pretend they are not making big sacrifices of money and powers, but they are”
Pretending or lying is what the governments generally do. This dire government does little else that and their doom loop destruction of the economy – in every policy.
April 7, 2026
I am still waiting for anyone from NASA, the BBC, Media to come up with some actual value to be delivered from the manned moon flypast. It seems the cost is about the same as below$75 billion. Do we want yet more pictures of the “dark side of the moon” and Earth Rising pictures, or perhaps we should do as suggested below.
Below produces a both a huge financial return of several times the $75 billion invested plus saves circa 7 million lives too. Are these back of the moon pictures in higher resolution really worth it? Are they really worth anything much at all in scientific terms?
So A. tip all the money down the drain or B. millions of lives saves and 4 times your money back too which could do even more good?
https://copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/HowToSpend$75Bn.pdf
Everyone on Any Question and the BBC and their very excited science person seemed to prefer A.
April 7, 2026
Trump compares Starmer to Neville Chamberlain – rather unfair to Neville Chamberlain as he did not get everything wrong!
Also:- In a move to combat severe traffic congestion and pollution, the Maltese government is offering young residents a cash incentive of €25,000 to voluntarily give up their driving licenses for five years.
Have they not considered easing the congestion by more road capacity, underpasses, overpasses, more parking, tunnels, pedestrian bridges and fewer traffic lights – less congestion means people’s journeys use less time on the road and so fewer cars on the road for the same useful no of journeys thus less congestion.
If some give up driving then others taxi drivers or family or friends will drive them. Often this mean more road miles one empty for the pickup then with a passenger and then back empty again or detours for pickups and drop offs. Also as to pollution they keep claiming EV are “zero emissions” not that it is true they are emissions largely elsewhere other than tyre particulates.
April 7, 2026
Give us facts Joan, give us numbers. Don’t give us guesses or estimates. I’m fed up with (so called) experts telling me on TV that Brexit had cost us 4% pa. It’s complete BS and they know it. For a start you cannot seperate Brexit from Covid or Ukraine but even so GDP comparisons with other EU countries show this is wrong. We are doing badly at the moment but blame Reeves and Milliband – far more damaging than Brexit. The Gulf will be used to excuse their blunders of course. Come on, give us some hard facts, not just some anecdotal nonsense!
April 7, 2026
Joan is 100% correct. ONS figures show good trade growth since 2016. Without Brexit, growth would have been much higher. Simple as that. Brexit has introduced new trade barriers, and removed no trade barriers. So of course it has harmed our economy. That is Economics 101.
April 7, 2026
Drivel true the EU have been obstructive but they were obstructive when member of the EU and could be and were even more so!
April 7, 2026
The EUs share of world trade has stagnated since 2016 JB
If we had remained how would we have benefitted?
Simple as that.
Economics 101
April 8, 2026
By benefitting from the biggest single market the world’s ever seen maybe?
April 7, 2026
Joan Marr : “Vastly reduced trade with the EU, no improvement in trade with the Rest of the World”
When we were members of the EU we had a £100bn/YEAR trading DEFICIT with the EU and with no way to halt this economic disaster. We even gave away our fish and continue to do so. Unfortunately we have only had pro EU Parliaments since the EU referendum who have deliberately sabotaged our EU exit and the RoW trade. The purpose of EU membership, like all socialist ideologies, such as the CAGW scam and its de-industrialisation policy of Net Zero, is devised to impoverish as socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor.
April 7, 2026
+1
April 7, 2026
JM,
Trump is getting even more crazy.
Many overlooked his foibles when he stuck to the MAGA manifesto.
He is now looking to replace that with a cult following of Trump loyalists.
April 7, 2026
@Joan Marr – the UK’s growth in trade with the EU since we are supposed to have left contridicts evertthing you have suggested. It would appear that you have been lied too.
April 7, 2026
MPs who want this re set need to be asked to explain themselves. They also need to be asked
Do you think honestly that the 17.4 million who voted out will except it, the hell we will, then there’s the Scottish vote on independence do you think for one minute that the SNP won’t be shouting for a revote on independence you can bet you sweet nelly they will
April 7, 2026
@Mick – there is no one in the UK Parliament that needs and explanation, they, the majority agree. They see the only challenge as doing it without it being able to be reversed. The don’t do elections so have 3 years to get it sorted.
April 7, 2026
The results of both Referendums be in the same with an increased majority.
MPs who vote to rerun these Referenda MUST BE MADE TO PAY FOR THE PERSONALLY BY FACING OLD FASHIONED BANKRUPTCY (not time limited) which must include their pension pot, family home, the lot!
April 7, 2026
Good morning.
It was the plan all along since day one of the Glorious Referendum of 2016.
1. Try and stop it or, slow down the process.
2. limit the scope of departure / divergence.
3. Stay closely aligned as possible to minimise impact against (5).
4. Flood the UK with immigrants to reduce opposition.
5. Re-join in all but name.
6. Say that, since re-joining we are paying in with no say and that we need to re-join fully.
7. Adopt the Euro locking the UK into the EU forever.
April 7, 2026
I agree, except I think the Establishment is aiming for Associate Membership …. outside the Eurozone.
April 7, 2026
Seems so!
April 7, 2026
Yes but it wouldn’t end there Donna…
April 7, 2026
What is Associate Membership ? There’s no cherry-picking you know, in means in and out means out.
We’ve got to remember we are not going to get some special deal, because if we did, everyone else in the EU would demand the same thing.
I have a horrid suspicion that associate membership might mean joining the Customs Union, and paying for the privilege.
April 7, 2026
Starmer and his cronies don’t care about the economic damage – or even any economic benefits – the whole ruse is simply another part of the sinister globalist Trotskyite plan to create a world government. He’s quite happy to lie about anything to fulfil the agenda.
April 7, 2026
The biggest danger of the EU reset is to our so-called Democracy. In the biggest democratic vote the country has ever held, a clear majority voted to LEAVE. They did not vote to be semi-detached, which is what the deal made by the pro-EU Establishment has stitched us up with. Sunak then set the ground for us to be steadily re-attached with the Windsor Treachery, and Two-Tier is now advancing the project to make us as Associate Member.
The clearly expressed wishes of the majority are being ignored by an arrogant Establishment and it is a clear demonstration that they (just like the EU) consider democracy to be an inconvenience.
Two-Tier/Labour will not answer the questions put by Lord Redwood. It isn’t an economic project, it is a political / ideological one.
Since we know the Not-a-Conservative-Party will never LEAVE the EU, we must hope that Reform is elected and Farage does it.
April 7, 2026
@Donna +1, again well said.
April 7, 2026
If proof that our vote is ignored is given in this way, then The Sovereigns, whilst in a majority, will find other means of pressing their case.
I see Trump made a mess of sending Arms to the Persian population. I expect lessons have been learned.
April 8, 2026
Simply untrue. We voted to leave. We’ve left. You don’t like the terms? Tough. The terms weren’t on the ballot. You were warned you’d hate the terms because the EU is bigger and stronger than us, but you voted Leave anyway. Stop moaning, you won, get over it
April 7, 2026
Ten years ago at the time of the vote many had their sights set on a new beginning with for instance that great trade deal with the US being uppermost in their minds but there was also expectations of a worldwide renewal of trade deals with old commonwealth friends but unfortunately since then wars and other events have taken hold so that even the WTO is now wilting away. Looking back we can see how things have changed – how we have long since swapped out our skills and zest for long distance commerce with merchant shipping largely depleted and ports turned into yacht marinas – some allowed to silt up. Next the disappointment with the Administration in the US leaves us cold however we still have Canada as a friend, and despite everything most European countries are still very well disposed towards us and that is something we shouldn’t easily dismiss . Logistics and geographical circumstance alone with defence matters should also tell us there is need for a re-think in all of this and knowing that there are some no matter what who are guided by ideological objection to things EU it cannot be denied that it is there – an economy with consumer base of 450 million just twenty miles away – Government is right to explore every avenue to seek to get us back on track
April 7, 2026
James4
Many nations in the world trade happily with European nations without being members of the European Union.
They value their independence, as the UK should.
Mutually beneficial trade agreements between nations are very different to being in the EU.
Canada doesn’t allow America to make them follow its laws.
New Zealand doesn’t allow Australia to make them follow its laws.
April 8, 2026
Canada doesn’t allow America to make them follow its laws. New Zealand doesn’t allow Australia to make them follow its law. Correct. And Germany doesn’t allow France to make them follow its laws. Italy doesn’t allow Latvia to make them follow its law. In the EU all members agree the rules in common and apply them in common. And they can trade and be better off as a result. No force, no compulsion. Just co-operation. We had all those benefits of co-operation once, and I hope soon we’ll get them back. It’s what most Britons want, now they’ve seen the harm done by Brexit
Reply What nonsense. The UK ended up with many costly and crippling laws we did not want and rules that damaged trade with non EU
April 7, 2026
“Back on track” James? A track that takes us back into the EU? No, that way lies oblivion for this country.
We have everything we need to survive already, we just need to realise that there are no easy solutions. Let me summarise what Lord John has been explining to you. Forty years of EU membrtship and a complete lack of guts from our “Leaders” has seen gradual but ongoing decline in our ability to be a free and self sufficient nation. This Labour Government is the culmination of that process after voters finally gave up on the Consrrvatives and allowed these morons into power. Look around you, watch people walk out of shops without paying, feral kids in Clapham & Milton Keynes, millions with “mental health” issues and babies at full term be murdered. Rejoining the EU isn’t going to fix these things or our trade and defence problems. In fact more regulation and “law” is the last thing we need need. We need good sensible (and tough) governence here, not in Brussels. If people can’t understand that, then they understand nothing.
April 7, 2026
Many facts never change. The Continental powers default politics is either Communist or Fascist. When Stalin and Hitler signed their accord neither could tell the difference between the two. Effectively the difference is that there are two competing leaderships each wanting unfettered power. The fate of the ruled is sealed in both cases. They are authoritarian by nature and have a ‘peasant class’. They hate both Democracy and Capitalism because the People, aka the Market, control it. Hitler called it ‘The English System’.
On the opposite side of this political circle is the British with their annoyingly prosperous ways. We have prospered because we reject Authoritarian control in all it’s forms. We are singularly incapable of treating with Continental Europe. Even Africa defaults to capitalism, with people naturally making things, growing things and selling them. We are better suited to treating with Africa than to Europe. We have a ‘working class’, we don’t have a underclass or a peasant class.
Our Dominions have been captured by the WEF. Ardern argued in the UN that ‘free speech is a weapon of war’ and wants it removed so that people like her can ‘protect free speech’. She is right free speech is a weapon against the lies, scams, manipulations, misinformations, misdirections and malfeasance committed by people like her, Macron, Carney, Trudeau, Starmer and other WEF ‘graduates’.
The British people have given their verdict on the EU. If we do have another referendum it should be on leaving the UN, the Commonwealth and other corrupt international bodies who hate and wish to destroy the nations and races. The era of the British Empire shines like a lantern in the dark, no slaves, no racism because we want the races to exist, I still do, it’s those who wish to destroy the races who are truly racist!
What a world we made on principles that can never be altered unless you are prepared to enter the darkness, possibly forever.
April 7, 2026
We got back on track by voting to leave an organization we never voted to join (the EU). Any attempt to force us back into serfdom under Brussels will trigger a civil war.
2029 will nullify all the feverish attempts to chain us to the doorstep of the EU.
April 7, 2026
Lies have become the new ‘norm’. The political class lie to gain office then lie once they get there.
Its the ‘dead cat’ syndrome of deflection that got out of hand to then become a falsehood and a lie. They don’t even challenge one another in case it comes back on them personally. ‘breast enlargement hypnosis claim’ made by one of Parliaments brethren, not challenged so must be true – then the more gullibly youngster out there have to be banned from finding out, because they have lazy parents. Everyone else always gets the blame.
Parliament has lost all creditability at every level, they want control, they want to manipulate, that want a population in their own personal image, then when it all goes wrong ‘its not me gov – honest’
All the rest of us want is a consistent framework to reach potential and move forward. Parliament to a Man/Woman wants to manipulate, indoctrinate in their own personal image. People the electorate are all different have different likes and needs trying to make them like ‘Me’ is what hypocrites do.
April 7, 2026
It is clear the Labour Party are drinking in the last chance saloon. Starmer believes he has one chance to re-establish the UK as an integral part of EU territory. The costs and negatives associated with that are of no concern to him, just as the costs and negatives associated with mass migration is of no concern to him either.
Starmer knows he will not be PM in 2030. He knows the damage he has done and continues to do to the UK security and energy availability will be for others to sort out, because he will be gone.
The increasing numbers leaving the UK among the young 24 to 40 age group along with the would be wealth creators in the same age group is telling a story.
Sadly it is a tale Starmer if too blind and too deaf to see or even understand.
The decimation of our high streets and the abandonment of infrastructure maintenance revealed by pot holes in the road and sewerage in our rivers is not improving it is getting worse. Labour is bribing its target voters hoping the 20.4% who voted for them will stay around to vote again. The bad news for Labour is they will be around but they will be voting Green. Let us hope we can persuade enough of the near 40% of none voters to get into the polling stations and vote the next time of asking. Let us also hope they vote for a centre right party that believes in making the UK a better place to live not worse.
April 7, 2026
This borders on treason when it will be more detrimental to the UK than any perceived benefits.
No doubt Starmer will choose to announce his betrayal on a busy news day with a few soundbites and no substantial text, and make it very hard to involve parliament in any decision making.
How can we force him to reveal the full details of the agreements before they are signed? There must be a way!
It must be challenged via international law, surely there is something that should prevent a hyper-EU enthusiast giving away our authority when it took a national referendum for Brexit.
April 7, 2026
This worst of both worlds outcome which they are working towards with the EU was an entirely predictable result of a Labour government. Until mid-2022 a Labour government looked very unlikely. Unfortunately, when Boris Johnson crashed and burned over the ludicrous episode of the cake in the meeting room which made some event a ‘party’ under absurd blob-inspired rules, the ‘right’ of the Conservative Party opted for the obviously inadequate Liz Truss over the relatively competent Sunak. Imagine if Sunak had been elected in 2022 and we had never had the Truss budget debacle. It might not have been that inspiring, but the blob would never have seized control as it did after the mini-budget and we would not now have a Labour government. If we get another leftwing govt in 28 or 29 it will be game over for the Leave vision of Brexit. It might be better at that point to go back in at least to the single market, using the 1970s line of argument that the EEC as was limited the damage a socialist govt could do.
April 7, 2026
The ‘Big’ lie is in the wording of ‘reset’. There is no such thing, its just betrayal, of a lazy Parliament and Establishment that don’t want to manage, just do something. Instead it is this perverse idea that they want need to take orders from the unelected unaccountable in a Foreign land, not serve their electorate or the nation that pays them. The UK Parliament and Establishment can dress that up anyway the want but they have been doing exactly that for the last two years.
April 7, 2026
Then again the UK Parliament doesn’t do facts…
“North Sea natural gas has been found to have saved Britain billions last year, increasing pressure on the Government to boost production during the Iran war.”
“Tapping into its own resources of offshore gas instead of paying for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments saved the UK about £2.5bn last year, according to analysis from investment bank Stifel.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/04/07/cheap-north-sea-gas-saves-britain-billions-of-pounds-a-year/
They(the UK Parliament) do ideology and destruction
April 7, 2026
The PM and Chancellor have been deceiving parliament by saying that Brexit had a bad impact on our economy when it was far from the truth – can they be made responsible for misconduct.
Who will challenge these rogues with the real data to stop an EU takeover?
April 7, 2026
@Steve Bullion – the problem the majority of those we pay and empower to do as you would hope actualy wants us back under the EU yoke. It allows them to sit on thier hands once more take the money and recieve orders from the unelected & unacountable working for a foriegn state
April 7, 2026
To reset with the EU is a stupid decision made by a stupid PM and his equally stupid team of Ministers.
The EU is a market of 450 million people, bogged down in rules and regulations, which will gradually sink into lower and lower growth and eventually break up!
The world has 7.6. billion people as a market for the UK.
Why are this Labour Government and previous governments so frightened of independence and sovereignty that they can’t see the big picture?
April 7, 2026
+ 1
April 7, 2026
We the public are not going to be given much meaningful info in advance, I think we can be sure of that. HMG, as usual, states that they “are not going to give a running commentary” etc.,
I know little of Statutory Instruments / delegated legislation, used all the time of course, but I gather they are to be used in this case. Two points to be found & read on the subject however are, for example: (1) For as long as delegated legislation has existed there have been concerns about the way it is used. Sometimes the government leaves difficult and controversial matters of policy to Statutory Instruments so that the government can avoid the difficulties of having to pass a law through both Houses of Parliament. (2) Another problem is that unlike primary legislation SIs are almost never debated on the floor of the House of Commons and less than 0.001 of Sis have ever been voted down by Parliament. Should this concern us ? In addition we already know that “ Brussels officials are wary of previous British attempts to cherry pick the benefits of the EU while shirking the obligations of membership” and according to Politico 30/3 Keir Starmer’s pick-and-choose Brexit deal faces uphill battle
April 7, 2026
All the time Starmer remains PM, he will edge us further back into the EU. He is a fifth columnist.
April 7, 2026
We have given much land away over the years. We have given away our power. We now struggle between aligning GB ,between Europe and America,who are two very different people.We cannot make it on our own.We have witnessed the slow destruction of our power base as exemplified by the state,which has changed into a laughable non entity.Private concerns and allowing immigrants to take key roles in police,NHS,Law and even controlling petrol have put us in such a vulnerable position that we will never rise again.
Focusing on the smaller concerns simply blinds us to the central problems.
I can’t say we in England are powerful.I can’t say that The Church of England informs our children of British standards.
I can’t say anymore that there’s an implicit ethic of considering others,telling the truth,working hard,saving a little weekly,not borrowing, cleanliness , tidiness,self control.We see dirty, lazy slovenly,bad mannered, competitive individuals who we can’t progress with as all truths are turned around , without guilt and winning in every aspect of conversation and life is the only way they can get high on testosterone.
Europe or America. We are nothing now.
April 7, 2026
So-called Associate Membership will almost certainly mean joining the EU customs union.
This will immediately negate our CPTPP agreement, along with all our other recent trade agreements around the world.
Before they have even got off the ground.
Think of the reputational loss from that.
Being in the customs union means that imports from outside the EEA are charged the tariffs decided in Brussels.
April 7, 2026
If Starmer wants to rejoin he should put it to the country not push us back in and then put in his manifestor (if he is still with us) in 2029 (if they last that long). What a deceitful man he is. What will we find out about him when we get rid of him I wonder.
April 8, 2026
The most frustrating issue for me was the failure of the Tories to reduce the burden of EU regulation. As a management consultant I have conducted similar exercises at state and national level in Australia so I know that by working with industry the first step of identifying the required changes can be completed in a matter of months. It seemed to me that Kemi Badenoch had the right approach but she was sat upon by more senior members of government and party who just wanted a general abolition of EU regulation regardless of the consequences and only so they could trumpet a great “bonfire of EU regulation”. It is not unfair to describe the their approach, which prevailed, as bovinely stupid. So here we are ten years later still strangled with EU regulation. Worse, so much of EU regulation remains that the impact of rejoining or re-aligning with the EU would requie only minor changes thus encouraging thebRemainers in all political parties.
A change such as leaving a long standing political and regulatory regime can succeed only if gains can be demonstrated in short order. This wasn’t done.
April 9, 2026
The problem with this is, I recall during the campaign Leavers being asked repeatedly, what “red tape” exactly would you repeal?
They were asked exactly which EU regulations they would repeal, but they could never list any !