The latest work programme from the EU shows little let up in the manic energy to regulate, legislate and continue its wish to impose its will on most of our government activities and law making.Ā There are 38 proposals in energy, 66 in so called financial stability and many others from everything from competition to agriculture and from fishing to the digital economy. There are no nooks and crannies of our daily lives free from further EU intrusion.
I wish to concentrate on someĀ of the measures in the 39 proposals for Home affairs. The secret is in the name. These matters used to be regarded as central to a member state’s own powers and self definition. The UK used to opt out of all these things, and used to insist on them being undertaken by unanimity to protect state independence and national democratic control. Now under Mrs May and with the active encouragement of Labour and the Lib Dems more and more of our controls over borders, entry requirements, visas, serious crime, terrorism and the movement of people is passing to the EU.
Central to this latest drive to EU control is the issue of migration, refugees and border controls. The EU is waiving visa requirements for Turkey and Ukraine. We have been assured this does not apply to the UK.Ā It does mean however, if more people abuse the visa free system to establish themselves in another EU country theyĀ could Ā become eligible in due course to come to the UK under freedom of movement rules.
Of more concern are the proposals to have an EU wide resettlement systemĀ and the proposed revisions to asylum application processing. Under 2016/Home 078 we are promised “greater international solidarity of the EU towards countries hosting large numbers of refugees”.Ā Is the UK opted out, as it claims to be an EU wide system? Will we see quotas re-emerge? How will people be made to move from one country to another, and how do you require them to stay in the country the EU allocates if they wish to move elsewhere?
The intentions of the EU are obvious. They wish to reimpose common frontiers and move away from all asylum applications taking place in the first country of arrival, as that puts too much stress on Italy and Greece. The EU wants the UK to take part in a sharing of the pressures. The UK government says it has kept out of it, but the work programme is for an EU wide scheme. Even if the UK manages to defends its opt out i n due course, once people have been accepted into the Schengen area they soon qualify for freedom of movement to come to the UK if they wish.
2016/Home 075 states their will be new rules over which country is to handle an application for asylum when a migrant seeks asylum on entering an EU country. The old rule stated they had to seek asylum in the first EU country they reached. This new system impliesĀ “fair sharing” of asylum requests. Again it suggests some kind of quota system.
The EU is taking more and powers over borders and migration. Many of its members wish it to do so. If the UK stays in its position is going to become untenable. Mrs May has given great ground to the EU in other Home affairs surrounding criminal justice. More power could go soon on borders if we do not leave.
May 2, 2016
Indeed it is a top down central control disaster area. There are, as you say no nooks or crannies of our daily lives that will be free from further EU intrusion. All power will be drawn to the anti-democratic, corrupt, incompetent and malignant centre. Major’s “subsidiarity” lie was a total fraud.
It is essential we leave now. There are no sensible or rational reasons to vote to remain. A better deal will follow a Brexit vote anyway, but we should reject that too (if it is anything more than free trade).
If we do manage to escape at all, post a Brexit vote, is another question. The commons is packed with “BBC think”, Libdems who believe in evermore EU, open door EU immigration, hugely exaggerated climate alarmism, expensive & unreliable “green” crap energy, ever more tax borrow and waste, ever more regulation and an ever more bloated state sector. They are wrong on every point.
May 2, 2016
I do not mean real Libdems MPs of course, there idiotic views were hugely rejected by the sensible voters at the last election. But LibDems masquerading as Conservatives and alas still in control of the party. They they are wrong on every substantive issue and must go.
A Brexit vote will have this happy consequence. Hopefully we will also get a sensible chancellor as a further bonus, instead of the current economic illiterate.
Let us also have an Independence Day Bank Holiday, the nearest Monday to 23rd of June. It is a lovely time of year (& nearly the longest day) to have one. We can easily afford it given the huge economic boost we will get from leaving. This through not paying the EU fee, having selective only immigration, far cheaper energy, a bonfire of red tape, lower external tariffs so cheaper goods and a competent, lower taxes, chancellor for a change.
Someone who is really a “low tax conservative a heart” for a change and
someone who thinks companies and employees should fix wages in the market place not government incompetents.
May 2, 2016
” huge economic boost we will get from leaving” – And here’s me thinking you were going to say the “huge economic boost” from Ozzy’s wish to import millions more house-wanting, benefit claiming, NHS using, why bother contributing, foreign spongers.
May 2, 2016
About 60% of them are earning close to the minimum wage and so pay very little tax and NI. Yet might need school place, in work benefits, housing, medical care, policing, roads and the rest. Perhaps bring elderly relatives over too.
The lower earners are clearly a net financial liability to the state.
May 2, 2016
JR, even when the EU rules do not apply Cameron applies them. We did not have to pay towards Turkey’s immigration problem we are exempt, Cameron told us it was ‘rock solid’. He still paid Ā£259 million of our taxes to the EU to help! He told us we were not part of the bail out of EU countries, he still loaned Ireland Ā£7 billion of our taxes. He later was told he only had a political agreement and the U.K. was on the hook to Greece for Ā£859 million. He would not pay the extra Ā£1.7 billion EU contribution, he did and will pay the same this year! He has sold your manifesto and changed the Union bill for Ā£1.6 millionth the unions to help keep the UK as a cash cow for the EU. It demonstrates his lack of integrity to keep making rock solid cast iron guarantees when it is now clear he is lying. He had continually entwined the UK to the EU since 2010. He originally used the Lib Dems as the excuse. The EAW is a draconian dust asteroid UK citizens. When Turkey and Ukraine join we could end up in one of heir jails for telling Jokes, literally! Turkish PM already silences critical journalists and his opposition. Cameron supports their entry even with a land border to Syria, Iran and Iraq! Safer in the EU, utter lies.
May 2, 2016
Watching Question Time last week, as it had been slightly even handed recently, there were two business people coping very wel for brexit and three politicians, Alax Salmond, Greg Clarke (con) and Andy Burnham, the x Labour health minister who oversaw S.Staffs NHS. The two English politicians were almost indistinguisable in views and very pro EU. I looked Greg Clarke up. MP for Tun Wells career SDLP and Conservative. I wonder how many voters in Tun Wells knew he was ex SDLP?
May 2, 2016
He clearly is right up Cameron’s street, indeed he still is essentially a Libdem/SDLP lefty. In reality yet another Career Politician with the usual wrong, wrong, wrong, “BBC think” views. Far worse than say David Owen, who is now fairly sound.
Essentially a sort of male Shirley Williams. Pleasant enough superficially like the BBC, but wrong on every seriousness substantive issue.
May 2, 2016
David Owen has not been on the airwaves for a while. He spoke very well and persuasively for Brexit two or three weeks ago on the Today programme, and my guess is that the BBC don’t want a repeat and therefore are not inviting him.
May 2, 2016
DFiD give away over Ā£51000 to pay Serbians to travel to the UK to get work experience! The idiocy of Cameron defies belief or understanding for someone who received the most expensive education and off shore monetary gifts! Cameron is literally wasting our hard earned taxes (allegation removed ed) It is utterly despicable.mhow he or anyone else would want him as PM after this referendum is mind boggling. Such low standards of behaviour should be excluded from any public office. In fact he ought to read the standards applied to those in public service, the Nolan standards. He needs to be sacked ASAP.
May 2, 2016
Yet still the betting odds are 5/2 on a Brexit vote, surely the voters are more sensible than this having been denied any say for 40+ years? The UK will be treated with total and utter contempt by the EU (even more so) should they vote for more of this anti-democratic serfdom.
Has the really UK come to this pathetic state?
May 2, 2016
Has BBC propaganda really reduced people to this pathetic state of fear? With UK voters even preferring to abandon democracy and opt for mere serfdom under the EU? This even after all seeing all the disasters of CAP, fishing, the expensive energy policy, the EURO, the open door non selective immigration, the ERM, the hugely stretched public services, the shortage of housing ……
May 2, 2016
Peoples lives are comfortable, so why rock the boat ? Once this referendum is out the way, many I am sure, will come to regret it.
May 2, 2016
Watch the EU debate organised by the Spectator and spread it far and wide. Hannan was brilliant, Clegg abysmal with the usual cliches without substance. Shot down and buried by Hannan.
We are not closing the door on European countries, we want to trade and be friends. What we do not want is to be a region of an EU Superstate where we do not have any say over where our taxes are spent or what laws will be imposed upon us. This is why we had a civil war. We also do not need failed politicians that we do not want to elect i.e. Kinnocks, Mandelson to impose laws on us via the back door and given an income for life because of the likes of Blaire! We voted to get rid of them not to be allowed via the back door to impose their vile ideology.
May 2, 2016
Link ?
May 2, 2016
Reply to Know Dice:
Leave won. It goes without saying that another absolutely key speaker for the Leave side was on top form, as usual.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/live-from-the-london-palladium-the-spectators-brexit-debate/
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/watch-the-spectators-brexit-debate/
May 2, 2016
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/watch-the-spectators-brexit-debate/
May 2, 2016
It’s not just BBC propaganda; as I’ve said before Sky, Channel 4 and ITV are just as bad. However the unwelcome fact is that we are losing the economic argument. I’m not paying much attention to polls about voting intentions but this one probes a bit more deeply and comes up with 38% believing the UK economy would do better if we stay in the EU against 29% who think the opposite:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/30/referendum-poll-boost-remain-campaign-economic-argument
You may see all those disasters, and we may feel sure that we would be better off out, but the voters are not convinced.
May 2, 2016
Indeed, well they are being fed endless lies using their own taxes and the remain side have the BBC and the government to help deceive them.
I still do not see it going for remain, but perhaps I am just an optimist. Then again I did predict a Cameron overall majority thanks to the dreadful vision of an Ed Miliband dog wagged by an SNP tail.
Prof. Patrick MINFORD has an excellent record of being right and will is right again on the benefits of leaving.
May 3, 2016
Prof. Minford is keen on “rational expectations”: Economic actors are completely rational in the long term, so the free market is always the best solution implying zero involvement in the economy, as there will not be asymmetries of information nor trade barriers.
Unfortunately this is not how the real economy has ever been behaving. So Prof. Minford’s economic argument for Brexit is to the least open to questioning.
May 3, 2016
“Over time, if we left the EU, it seems likely that we would mostly eliminate manufacturing, leaving mainly industries such as design, marketing and high tech. But this shouldn’t scare us(Prof. Patrick Minford, The Sun, 16/03/2016).
May 4, 2016
LL,
“Prof. Patrick Minford has an excellent record of being right and will be right again on the benefits of leaving”.
Have you checked any of his papers? Most of them are based on non-linear computer modelling, starting with some initial conditions and assumptions, with equations to define the behaviour of various societal actors.
So I can conclude from your text you believe in such modelling. Funny as being a staunch Conservative makes an economist, even a modeller, right for you.
I would have expected a bit more distance and scrutiny from a scientist/engineer like you, the same as you claim to show to climate computer modelling.
May 2, 2016
“If we do manage to escape at all, post a Brexit vote, is another question.”
That will remain a hypothetical question unless we win the referendum.
May 2, 2016
You say:- This new system implies āfair sharingā of asylum requests. Again it suggests some kind of quota system.
They will go where they choose to within the EU anyway in due course. The idea that the EU can impose quotas and tell these people where to live clearly cannot work for any length of time with open EU borders. Like almost everything the EU comes up with it will not and cannot work.
May 2, 2016
Well reported again Mr Redwood but you can bet your bottom dollar this isn’t going to be broadcast on the bias BBC/ Sky/channel 4
May 2, 2016
Look.. If the EU controls mist of our policies and kaws, why do we continue to need people like May? Maybe we need a clear-out! Save ourselves some money to clear our debts.
May 2, 2016
Theresa May looks absurd, balancing on the fence as she is, in her silly shoes. The logic of her statements are that she should be for leave. But she must think there are some advantages for her in being on what she expects will be the winning remain side.
Another professional politician, she is surely mistaken in both assumptions.
Simon Heffer in the Telegraph today has it about right on the subject.
May 2, 2016
If citizens of Turkey and Ukraine will no longer require visas to enter the EU, will there be further pressure on jobs in EU countries? We already see people from Spain, Portugal and other countries coming here to work because of unemployment or other job related issues in their own countries, so what’s to stop things getting worse?
May 2, 2016
The EU may never become a communist state but it does come close it has not regressed to being one like the USSR but it certainly has considerable similarities to the communism of China. It is not quite as authoritarian some civil liberties have been retained although the progressives are working hard on rectifying that. Soon we will have three superstates that are socialist in character; China, the USA and the EU.
It appears to be what the people want and they are going to have it. They are not going to vote to leave the EU so choice of ideology , what policies and practices government implements will no longer be in their hands. As they say voters get what they deserve and in the end they often regret making the choice they did. Before mistakes could be rectified by changing government at the ballot box in the EU that is not going to be possible.
May 2, 2016
1984 – just a bit late.
May 2, 2016
But a lot worse, Neil.
May 2, 2016
At last we have Ed Miliband (taming up with Liz Truss, the Environment Secretary) reveal the *real* reason we need to stay shackled to the EU: it is to save the planet!
Those campaigning for a Brexit are now to be exposed as “extreme and outdated” climate change deniers who show a “cavalier ignorance” about the potential impact. Collective action is the only solution to rising seas and rising temperatures and the European Union is apparently central to both these challenges.
What these hapless politicians do not realise is that by opening up yet another front they simply hasten their sad demise.
What we need is a photo collage of Cameron, Obama, Miliband, Heseltine, Mandelson, Clegg, Huhne, Clarke, Kinnock, Blair and Corbyn. And of course Juncker.
Even the British public would grasp the significance of a bunch of failed politicians when they see them all high-fiving and congratulating each other in front of an EU flag.
With a broken wind turbine in the background.
May 2, 2016
Mattu, a bloody great big hear, hear to that!!
May 2, 2016
Indeed, but no one denies that the Climate Changes, it always has and always will. Catastrophic, run away, man made, global warming however is clearly just another bogus religion promoted by governments as an excuse for more taxation, interference and parasitic jobs.
May 3, 2016
You may be quite wrong on the climate. If you don’t believe the figures from IPCC, check out what NASA is saying. If they could get to the moon in 1969, they can possibly be relied upon to get the trend in the climate right too.
http://climate.nasa.gov
As you regard scientific evidence as a bogus religion, you may care to consider Pascal’s Wager as a potential escape route from your exposed position.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
May 2, 2016
The weakness and subservience of the Cameron government to the EU is frankly terrifying.
You would never appoint any of the Europhile contingent to play for your life, they’re muesli-eating surrender monkeys. Why is it that the British government alone obeys every single befehl that emerges from the EU? Merkel rips up any order she doesn’t like and does what suits her. The fact the the German volk are now in open revolt against her government is another matter. It seems we are not alone in detesting the EU, and one can only see the resistance growing in size and strength across Europe.
By the end of this year, the political map of Europe may be starting to look very different, with the emergence of national governments actively hostile to the EU. Something to look forward to.
May 2, 2016
Subsidiarity has taken a back seat. Or perhaps more accurately its seat has been removed altogether leaving no room for subsidiarity at all. That, it seems to me, is part of the reason for the rise of national opposition to the EU and to the Eurocracy. The Eurocracy has only itself to blame.
What might or will be dangerous for Europe is the character that this national opposition will take. The idea that the EU has put an end to internal conflict within its boundaries is as complacent as it is unlikely.
Not entirely off topic, the New Yorker has published this long article on the rise of and implications of Donald Trump. (Link not working ed)
Although written in the context of contemporary US politics it offers useful insights that apply this side of the Atlantic too.
May 2, 2016
Of immediate dissonance: EU citizens voting in our local ( but nevertheless National in the purist sense ) elections three days from now on May 5th.
Not many of we naturally occurring beings in the UK will be voting in the local elections of Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia…the list goes on, the point is made.
I wonder how many Leave campaigners also standing in local elections on May 5th look at the names, and the “G” code indicating a “European citizen”, on their electoral lists and think it as economically viable pushing expensive election material through their letterboxes as through others.
Odd, to some, but many are fiercely against the EU. But I am persuasive. They tell me or rather ask, “How would you feel if you had to leave your kids, wife or girlfriend, lover and go and work in a foreign land because you can’t get any kind of work in the UK? ”
I’m not being sexist when I report females ( mothers ) grit their teeth and narrow their eyes when they say it.
The EU is the architect of hate
May 2, 2016
“The EU is waiving visa requirements for Turkey and Ukraine.”
Reading the news media about the talks with Turkey, it seems that it is Mrs Merkel who is waiving the visa requirements. Has it been discussed by the Heads of State or the powerless EU “Parliament”? Seems that Germany is now running the EU.
May 2, 2016
English Pensioner,Yes, since when did we have to do what the Germans tell us? Totally shambolic and with nobody at the helm talking any sense at all.
May 2, 2016
German EU citizens already can get in to Turkey without needing a visa, so the reverse from Frau Merkel is not surprising….
May 2, 2016
So in a nutshell, a country on the periphery of the EU could allow in migrants in the knowledge that the unaccountable, dysfunctional, failing and more and more resembling the Bolshevik Empire, Brussels regime would reassign them to whichever country it believed was in line for a good dose of multiculturalism to destroy its identity further. Furthermore, Turkey, in order to rid itself of those who have entered either as opportunists, who are in the clear majority, or to avoid becoming, further, the victims of malignant neocon warmongering in which the unEnglish unpatriotic CMD is a conspirator, would simply dish them out with passports which could then even be withdrawn once they had become the responsibility of Merkel and the other multiculturisers who infest the new Bolshevik Empire whose capital is Brussels.
We have but a few remaining weeks to educate those of low inductive capacity that the Brussels regime is not the benign organisation that they have been groomed by the BBC to believe.
May 2, 2016
You had only to watch Owen Paterson’s speech to see that.
What infuriates me is that VOTE LEAVE seems to be so ignorant as to appear to want to lose the referendum despite having Ā£7 million to spend and wants to stay IN. Does the Electoral Commission receive huge funds from the EU ? and if so is that why they chose the most incompetent and ill-informed group to head the OUT ?
The Bruges Group leaflets are the only ones with honest information to persuade us to leave.
May 2, 2016
UK “BBC Parliament” broadcasts regularly. Aside from teasing, the sentence constructions of the vast majority of MPs indicate great education.
Naturally enough, some and some genuinely would interpret part of the data you produce JR, in a different way. However, none can be blind or deaf to the erosion of Representative Democracy ( with all its impatient and frustrating faults ).
Like has been said of Capitalism and as Churchill said of Democracy and I collectively paraphrase:-
“It ( Capitalism/ Democracy ) is grossly unfair, mean, nasty, inhumane and terribly cruel. But all the other systems are infinitely worse. ”
So, many MPs, are on visual and audible record, unlike ever before in UK and world history.
They cannot claim at any future point in time as politicians sometimes did, that they were unaware of the facts and their interpretation,- through lack of education and documented facts.
Some of them can claim however that their professional and personal CVs were pretty scant and devoid of any real experience a year prior to presenting themselves in a certain leadership contest where Gandalf won and that indicates their utter ignorance of fighting the Remainian Cause.
Unfortunately the “truth” of their education and numerous accomplishments at such young ages lands them head down in it because of CVs and Bios on the internet JUST PRIOR to the aforesaid leadership contest. Why they are not all going to Stockholm Sweden to be presented with some Nobel prize is a wonderment. Then not.
May 2, 2016
What are vote.leave up to?
They do not have any clear plans for leaving the EU, one could almost think they are back to Elliott’s old idea of changing our terms of membership within the EU.
But then we have Cameron’s big lie (repeated time and tome again) ‘I have reformed the EU’ – ‘We have the best of both worlds’.
He is taking the Public for fools.
On trading outside the EU, they cannot take away agreements made through other bodies or by the UK with other Governments.
Cameron is an odd man, acts like a Social Democrat in charge of the Conservative Party. He has every one confused including the DT editorial.
Mr Cameronās willingness to misuse Government resources and transduce his own colleagues in pursuit of a referendum victory is increasingly apparent, but this is worse still (pandering to Unions). He risks looking like a man so hell-bent on referendum victory he is forgetting the party he leads and what it stands for.
When Boris Johnson said Cameron got ātwo thirds of diddly squatā in his pre-referendum negotiations with Brussels, he was being over generous. What was it the PM said those three years ago ā the EU is not working and we will change it.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the current European Commission president, admitted that āone of the reasons that European citizens are stepping away from the European project is that we are interfering in too many domains of their private lives. And too many domains where the member states are better placed to take action and pass legislation.ā But there is little chance of him doing much to fix the problem.
The former Luxembourg premier said, āToday we are facing very tough times. We have the global refugee crisis, we have attacks on our free societies, all of our institutions are under immense pressure today and sometimes are really pushed to their limits.ā
In this context, the idea that EU Treaties, Institutions and Representation have been āreformedā or that the UK has been excluded from āever closer unionā. Political integration is a āsalami-slicingā process that occurs day by day with the passage of new EU legislation and ECJ court judgements. The only way to opt-out of āever closer unionā is to leave the EU.
Who is going to confront him with the fact that Reforming the EU requires a Treaty change which applies to all 28 Member States. The supposed Brussels deal (is not a done deal) was not a Treaty change and has in fact not been presented to the EU Parliament nor is it guaranteed to be passed by that body.
Graf Lambsdorff, a Vice-President of the European Parliament and an MEP with the liberal ALDE group said he would vote against it and was sure many in his group, as well as his colleagues in the EPP and S&D group would do the same.
May 2, 2016
Just how many of these probosals are covered in the media – particularly the TV and radio- which have large UK parliamentary commentators and in BBC’s case a huge number of journalists? Conversely the main news outlets have a European editor with maybe one or two correspondents. EU Commission law making is simply not covered – no wonder so many people say they do not know enough about the EU. Is this a deliberate attempt to hide the fact that so many laws are made undemocratically by a few unchallenged bureacrats – a fact they presumably support? The BBC has more people covering the Wales “parliament” than the EU government. Even newspapers do not pay enough attention to the EU Commission proposals only complain about them once law.
May 2, 2016
“Ever closer union” is exactly what is said and implied . We do not want it , we are fools if we go along with it . We cannot absorb the numbers – we are the most densely populated country in Europe .
The dysfunctional EU can continue on its path of self destruction ; Germany’s wealth is not enough to be spread around to make all of the EU countries equal . In any event , the Germans would not agree to it .
The UK must stand alone and not be dragged into the EU mire of bureaucracy gone mad .
May 2, 2016
No car-crash of UK history the unwelcome forces of Anti-Democracy, Anti-Parliamentarianism, should eventually form a “knot” or “focus” in a vehicle such as “Remain Campaign”.
The course of the Remaindians predominantly in the Labour Party both so-called “Left” and “Right”, their attacks on democracy, always had an Internationalist agenda since The First International in London in 1864.
The Labour Party and British Trades Unions could have gone on a path of Representative Democracy but with inflated ego due to their new “importance” favoured the institution of elites or cliques within their structures paying lip service to the ballot but always engineering structurally and perpetuating valueless clones of themselves.
It is with wide-awake fully conscious activity our Remainian opponents try to persuade everyone to abandon democracy.
Ironically, should they be in their terms successful, it is the Internationalist East European and Baltic forces with their historically recent experience of Rule From Above who could very well stab to death the heart of the EU by unilaterally and without “appropriate” warning withdraw their countries from something quite nasty: the EU.
Then the Remainians can retreat to their rightful diverse and multi-nation Cloud Cuckoo Land
May 2, 2016
“I have an “impossibility theorem” for the global economy […]. It says that democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration, are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full.” (Prof Rodrik, Harvard 2007.)
http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/06/the-inescapable.html
The EU’s single currency integration, has certainly proved that theorem. The process of globalisation and the uncontrolled movement of capital from one currency / tax area to another; has proved it across the planet with the last three decades of laissez faire financialization, deregulation, privatization and economic neo-liberalization.
May 2, 2016
As the new Bolshevik Empire was inaugurated for the very purpose of surpressing democracy and national sovereignty and to prevent trade with free nations, I cannot see how Prof Rodrik’s theorem has been verified in this case; ‘free trade’ with the USA under TTIP demostrates simply that the new Bolshevik Empire was founded to enable the freedom lovers across the pond to deprecate ours as well as to poison ourselves and our lands, as the regime change in Ukraine was a manifestation of the Brzezinski Doctrine. The new Bolshevik Empire much prefers to trade only with those whom it has phagocytically absorbed into its Free movement of Persons (Single Market).
May 3, 2016
“The conclusion is unavoidable that Americaās wars have not protected our liberty but, instead, destroyed liberty. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, āA state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.ā Why War Is Inevitable ā Paul Craig Roberts. Worth a read forthurst, but you probably have already š
May 2, 2016
Somehow I doubt that many of those proposals will come up over the horizon before our referendum is out of the way. And if we vote to stay in the EU then it will still be quite a long time before it becomes clear that they will apply to us whatever opt-outs we may have on paper, with or without the agreement of the UK government.
May 2, 2016
I wonder if the Remainders really think this kind of thing helps their case?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3568772/Leaving-EU-endanger-Earth-says-Miliband-Former-Labour-leader-issues-extraordinary-warning-global-habitat-suffer-Britain-leaves.html
“Leaving EU would endanger Earth, says Miliband”
May 2, 2016
Worth a check, but our Great Britain implemented environmental controls to reduce air pollution in our cities to the late 1800/early 1900 way before the EU was even a glint in Jean Monnet’s eye…
So, anyone who says we need the EU in-order to implement climate change legislation is talking rubbish and unless to make these “rules” global you are “just moving the deck chairs”…
May 2, 2016
I’m still waiting to see where our Ā£7 million is going with VoteLeave the official Westminster inspired Trojan Horse of a leave organisation.
None of the points you so succinctly address are even mentioned by VoteLeave. Only Farage is making it public.
Why is no one in Parliament asking questions about the intentions of the EU post the referendum.
When is the Remainiacs going to enlighten us as too what the EU will look like in say 5 years.
Hopefully it will have imploded.
May 2, 2016
Vote.Leave has refused point blank, with breath-taking arrogance, to work with any other of the leave groups, despite other groups offering repeatedly to work with them in order to achieve a common objective. I, too, suspect that some of the Vote.Leave hierarchy do not really want to leave, but to negotiate a better deal for a UK still inside the EU. Dominic Cummins has even said he would not invoke Art. 50, which is the only legal way we can extract ourselves. So what is his real agenda?
May 2, 2016
Why are the BREXIT campaigners not getting the immigration issue to the fore in the media, and hammering it home again and again and again. If the BBC and other mainstream media won’t run these items, then surely someone of influence in the BREXIT camp can get right to the top and cause a row.
Sovereignty and immigration/over population are the most important reasons for leaving the EI, in my opinion, and far more important than any transient economic problems that might occur.
May 2, 2016
Maybe because
– EU workers make up 6% of UK employees (FT, 02/05/2016)
– 80% of EU nationals are in work, with only 75% of UK nationals are in work
(https://fullfact.org > eu-migration-and-eu )
May 2, 2016
M.Browne
The counter argument to “we’ll starve if we leave the EU” is “we’ll starve if we remain”
Because another 127 million poor people people will be able to come here and eat our food, drink our water, take our homes, take our jobs and use our hospitals if they please.
Crudely put. Playing into the hand of those who like to mock Brexiteers – but the brutal fact is that it’s true.
May 2, 2016
Keith Taylor MEP sent me, and many others of course an email which also says:
‘With the EU referendum approaching, I wanted to get back in touch with you to set out why I believe, on the 23rd June, a vote for our continued membership of the EU is our best chance of defeating anti-democratic trade agreements.’
‘ The UK government fully supports TTIP and CETA and, as my fellow British Green MEP, Molly Scott Cato, outlined in this article for New Statesman at the end of last year; Cameron’s government has been a cheerleader for TTIP since its inception. Indeed, it was one of the Conservatives’ General Election Manifesto pledges.
We should therefore be under no illusions as to who will be setting the agenda in a post-Brexit UK. With our broken electoral system it will not be the compassionate left; it will remain in the hands of a government that has already proposed a recent trade deal with Ethiopia and a harmful deal with Colombia, that demonstrates their eagerness for damaging trade deals above and beyond TTIP or CETA.’
Any comments JR?
May 2, 2016
John, you talk of Mrs May transferring powers to the EU but I see Cameron’s guiding hand in all this.
May 2, 2016
Greenpeace has leaked 248 pages of the latest negotiating text of a trade deal between the U.S. and the European Union, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. Greenpeace says the documents show the U.S. is pressuring European countries to loosen environmental and consumer protection, and include provisions to give corporations, (names removed ed)more power during trade talks.
Do you know anything about this JR?
May 2, 2016
The French anthem for Euro 2016 is “I Was Made for Lovinā You” (in English!)
The Welsh anthem for Euro 2016 is apparently “Together Stronger” (also in English?)
Not to be confused with Eurovision … but the motives seem a little transparent?
May 5, 2016
Even when the UK will have Brexiteed, the working language of the EU will still be English.
And nowadays the pidgin English spoken in a lot of countries might be more influenced by American English than by English English.
And why not? It might not be easier but certainly more distributed than Esperanto.
As for Euro 2016, a song with English text is more likely to spread than one in (… choose whatever non-English language …)
May 2, 2016
I wonder if Brexit would really give us the benefits that the Leave campaign thinks will come the nations’ way if the No vote wins. The arguments seem to me to be mainly financial, coupled with the dislike of EU regulations imposed upon us from Brussels.
The major problems that we as a country should address have little to do with the EU….what sould be done about South Yorkshire Police after Orgreave, Rotherham and now Hillsborough? Why is the Goddard Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse having to wrestle with redacted documents from the Home Office concerning Saville and other VIP paedophiles? How much longer should the nation see billions of taxpayer money disappear into the maw of the MoD, wasted by incompetence and with little in the way of military hardware to show for it? Will the Chilcott Report identify the single, lying source from Iraq who apparently persuaded Dearlove that Saddam Hussein had mobile anthrax labs and other WMD when it was all bull***t? As our civil liberties, right to privacy of communication and now website surfing habits are being collected, analysed and stored by the spooks and now our armed militia called the Police Service, (words left out ed) how can we blame the EU when our domestic, nameless civil servants have apparently decided to subject taxpayers to mass surveillance? Come on, lets get our priorities right – the Brexit campaying is merely distracting us from a Ā£1.7trillion national debt, which has nearly doubled under Chancellor Osbourne’s watch.
Reply The defence of civil liberty will be easier out of the EU. The EU does not help us run an open democracy.
May 2, 2016
Does an asylum-seeker have to become a naturalised citizen of an EEA country before they can exercise their right of free movement? Does this take the official 5-10 years (varying between countries, we are 5, I think) or is it being speeded up?
Andrew
May 2, 2016
The Turkish visa crisis is manna from Heaven, Dr JR. No single act of the EU could be more likely to sway undecided voters in favour of Leave. Of course, the news will be suppressed and misrepresented as being no threat by the agencies of Remain, principally the BBC. What’s not to like about a fresh impetus in the campaign to impose total multiculti?
But in adjoining houses in Downing Street the news will be greeted with horror. The whole EU referendum campaign has already morphed into a vote on Cameron’s fitness to hold office. Leave means Cameron leaves, the parliamentary Conservative Party will have it no other way. What to do? Well what follows is highly speculative.
It will be recalled that prior to his failed renegotiations, Cameron did play an unexpected card, going so far as to say he would advocate Leave if the terms achieved were not good enough. The terms were pathetic but it seems other voices, such as the US, have demanded Remain. But if you have achieved greatness and your career and reputation are on the line, so that a carefully planned retirement in 2020 suddenly looks like being next month, desperate measures are both required and entirely justified.
It follows that a complete reversal of policy must be considered in order to secure one’s career and indeed one’s legacy, nothing else matters in the cause of retaining power. Clearly this cannot be done overnight, as such fickle behaviour is in itself evidence of irresponsibility and incompetence. No, a casus belli must be found and a case must be carefully built for the idea to be sold. Time is of the essence, but six weeks is a very long time indeed in politics. The Turkish Question is the ideal catalyst for policy reversal, forget the recent advocacy of Turkish accession to the EU.
One can suggest the British government mandated focus groups will shortly go into over-drive, analysing voter concerns. The best minds will be drafted to war-game the strategic reversal and prepare the press campaign to influence opinion. A particular joy would be to steal Boris Johnson’s clothes.
Meanwhile it’s quiet, Dr JR, damned quiet. I don’t like it. Something’s up.
May 2, 2016
As had been predicted by many, it has now been revealed that Ukip has not been invited to take part in any televised debate about Britain’s EU referendum.
So, instead we might be privileged to watch Conservative v Conservative.
What a stitch-up.
May 2, 2016
Greenpeace has leaked 248 pages of the latest negotiating text of a trade deal between the U.S. and the European Union, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. Greenpeace says the documents show the U.S. is pressuring European countries to loosen environmental and consumer protection, and include provisions to give corporations, such as (names removed ed), more power during trade talks.
Have you seen this JR?
May 3, 2016
I say it with greater brevity: if we Remain, that (woman ed) in Berlin will determine our immigration policy.
May 3, 2016
Stitch up indeed, the remainers are terrified about the possibility of having to debate Mr Farage. Being a cynic, I do wonder if Vote Leave is a government plant and have been ordered to campaign as little as possible. I think our glorious leader is capable of using any means to keep us in his beloved EU.
Reply Certainly not. Vote leave is campaigning and publishing strenuously on our behalf. Mr Farage has his own outfit which is also free to do what it wants.