Today UK democracy is on trial in Parliament.
The people voted, yet a large number of MPs want to deny them the results of their vote.
Some Remain MPs are too clever by half and too clever for the good of Parliament. They argue that Parliament will take back control, as people wanted, but their idea of Parliament taking back control is to return massive powers to the EU or to prevent us leaving EU control in the first place. What an unpleasant irony! They wish to go to war with the people, and deny them the result of the People’s Vote, cynically misrepresenting that as taking back control.
The large Remain side in Parliament never wanted to debate EU matters before the referendum. They told us they were technical, that the EU had little control over us, and that those of us who wanted to talk about the growing power of the EU were wrong and out of touch with the real issues of the day. Now we have voted to leave they want to talk about nothing other than EU membership. They endlessly repeat the arguments that lost them the referendum and carry on hectoring Eurosceptics and trying to terrify us into changing our minds. It is high time we put this debate behind us and left the EU. If we cannot negotiate a good deal in 2 years 9 months before giving the EU what they want, there would be no chance of negotiating a good deal for the future in 21 months more if we have given away the main bargaining advantages we have through the Withdrawal Agreement.
The people made a decision. They were promised by government and Parliament it would be implemented. Today Parliament should vote down the Withdrawal Agreement, which is the stay under EU control agreement. Parliament should also make clear we must now leave on 29 March. The PM should return to the EU to ensure smooth passage out, as it is in their interest as well as the UK’s. She should also offer free trade agreement talks for as soon as we are out. The UK can trade just fine with the rest of the EU under WTO rules. The government should immediately publish our schedule of tariffs for March 30th, which should be lower than the EU schedule and should include zero tariffs on components needed by UK industry and zero tariffs on food we cannot grow or rear for ourselves.
January 15, 2019
Good Morning,
Sir John, its what comes tomorrow and next week that worries me. If stories are true that Mrs. Merkel (Empress who speaks for the EU) offers Mrs. May the removal of the Backstop, as expected, then will all the May deal objections fade away and it gets approved second time around?
Brexiteers, the job requires stamina to win freedom on March 29th.
January 15, 2019
I agree with every word in this article. I hope and expect that the Withdrawal Agreement gets rejected.
That would still be a huge relief. I believe many would use such relief as a first step to soften up the electorate so that Brexit could be denied.
I don’t know what will happen after that. If MPs connive to undo a WTO exit in March then. General Election would be my second preference. It would mean over two years of completely wasted time but it could bring about a much needed swamp draining.
January 15, 2019
When Cabinet Brexiteers are standing alongside Ken Clarke in the voting lobbies on a Brexit vote it’s a sign that all is not well at Westminster.
January 15, 2019
I disagree entirely.
I am not happy that the very same MPs who called for this referendum to be held in the first place are now voting against the Brexit which the government has brought them. They should be supporting the government every step of the way, whether they agree or not.
Also I for one respect the decision of parliament (even if it is No Deal) again uttered through gritted teeth. I believe in parliamentary democracy and want it back and to never have another referendum again.
January 16, 2019
Merlin, And I am not happy that the MPs who agreed to this Referendum are now voting against Leave just because they want to Remain. They should be supporting the government; and the government should be implementing our decision to leave the EU treaties.
January 16, 2019
I agree one hundred percent.
All MPs should be getting behind the government and behind the country.
January 16, 2019
Merlin, But only if the government exits the EU treaties.
January 15, 2019
Spot on common sense by Sir John again today.
The UK now needs a sensible plan for a Proper Brexit. Here are 10 pages of common sense, plus sound references on page 11. https://brexitcentral.com/eurosceptic-tories-react-brexit-deal-defeat-proposals-better-deal-better-future/
“In the wake of the Government’s draft Withdrawal Agreement being overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Commons, more than twenty senior eurosceptic Conservatives have given their support to a document put together by … Steve Baker, seeking to set out what the Government needs to do now.
… has the support of numerous former Cabinet ministers including David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson, David Jones, Lord Lilley, Esther McVey, Priti Patel, Owen Paterson, Dominic Raab, Theresa Villiers and John Whittingdale…”
January 15, 2019
I disagree with the more extreme position this website takes. The UK has failed to unify post referendum and it would never on an extreme position. Was this referendum such a good idea?
In referendum campaigns, just like in other wars, “truth” is the first casualty, and so it proved in 2016. That there was such a lousy 2016 referendum campaign is therefore not surprising, utopia versus armageddon.
The following claim however, that the 2016 referendum was the greatest democratic event ever in the UK, automatically implies a verdict on the quality of your democracy, with the same adjective.
I wish the UK politicians some sanity for the coming days and weeks. Better have an exit or a general election, rather than another referendum, and have (new or current) politicians deal with the complex issues.
January 15, 2019
Peter – not just the greatest democratic event ever for Britain but the most important constitutional event since 1688, when Dutch William came to save us from creeping authoritarianism on the Continental model.
This time the issue is the same, but no saviour comes from overseas and we must save ourselves. Frankly, that is as it should be. True freedom must be taken; it cannot be given. Today is our day to do it. Wish us well.
January 15, 2019
@ eyesore
William (King Billy for the Irish) was not really Dutch. His father, the most senior servant of the Seven Provinces and a scion of a German noble family who called themselves “Prince of Orange”; Orange a defunct Princedom within France) was educated in French and married to a Stuart. He himself married another Stuart (a siter of the later Queen Anne). After the death of his father there was a long period of “Orange-less” government, until a large scale war created an opportunity to become commander in chief of the Republic;’s army where he performed brilliantly. Nevertheless, his attempts at becoming the sovereign failed and when there was an opportunity to interfere in British politucs and together with his wife, he made a move (supported by a ver large loan from the Sephardic business community in Holland) and became the William part of William and Mary, until Mary’s death. Having no issue, his relatives had to wait for a very long time until another Orange (or sorts) became Stadhouder (the Dutch equivalent of the Condottieri of Italian city republics) again, this time with English assistance.
William craved the sort of authoritarianism, could not get it in the Dutch Republic and failed to entrench himself enough to force Britain to his will. He was fiercely autocratic in temperament. Sorry, I hope I did not break your illusions about this man. He was brilliant but as bad as the other European heads of State in his days. The Dutch were happy to be rid of his family but found out that they were in an era where republics were unfeasible internationally.
January 15, 2019
We replaced absolute monarchy with absolute oligarchy interspersed with periods of democracy!
In the wake of Napoleon’s defeat we were blessed with a state visit by Tsar Alexander I(with his glamorous sister,the Grand Duchess Ekaterina,and his client,King Frederick of Prussia, in tow).Tall,handsome,oozing tsarist hauteur from every pore,he was a hot ticket (as we would now say) and had all the society ladies swooning.However,the government of the day was somewhat alarmed by the disdain shown for his host,the Prince Regent(poor Prinny cut an infinitely poorer dash by comparison) and his penchant for seeking out and consorting with members of the Opposition party.
The Tsar’s verdict on the British political system was that :”Despite it’s wealth,England is just another Poland.”
The reference being to the recently defunct Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth whose liberal constitution(far more liberal than ours at the time) and numerically large oligarchy led to an impoverishment of the state and it’s institutions,a biddable(not least by Russia!)political caste and a collapse in the ability of the state to govern or even defend itself effectively with the result that it was partitioned and absorbed by it’s neighbours.
The inference being that it was only a matter of time before we followed Poland.We will shortly know whether the Tsar of All the Russias was correct in his analysis!
January 15, 2019
eeyore
“Dutch William came to save us from creeping authoritarianism on the Continental model.”
So it took a continental to save us from the continentals?
Maybe you Brexiteers should pray for another continental to come forth to save you from yourselves?
January 15, 2019
Peter Van Leeuwen. May I respectfully suggest you concentrate on the problems you have in Holland rather than ours. Our sovereignty is our business, and whether you regard it as extreme or not, we intend to pursue it with vigour, and ultimately to regain it.
etc ed
January 15, 2019
@eeyore: I wish you well if that helps you!
Voting on the basis of fake and lies would not be my idea of a good system, but there you go!
January 15, 2019
You mean like the lie that the European Army was a ‘dangerous fantasy’ ?? There were plenty of lies told by pro-EU fanatics but these don’t seem to count.
January 15, 2019
Unfortunately, many people did by believing the misinformation contained in the Government leaflet. Project fear compounded the nonsense it contained. The £350m on the bus was wrong. It was a lot higher than that. Our membership fee is only 2/3s of the total we send to Brussels. Tariffs and VAT add to the burden.
January 15, 2019
@Excalibur: Actually, may I respectfully suggest that you ARE one of our current problems in Holland.
January 15, 2019
Peter VAN LEEUWEN:
If UK’s pursuit of freedom causes a problem for Holland, something may be wrong there.
January 15, 2019
PvL
“@Excalibur: Actually, may I respectfully suggest that you ARE one of our current problems in Holland.”
Well Peter, you know what you can do then.
January 15, 2019
Er … why do you think he is not British? Many British people have Dutch surnames.
January 15, 2019
Merlin
Well because he has repeatedly told us he is Dutch, lives in Holland and is only interested in us because he has family connections to the UK.
Maybe catching up with posts on this forum before commenting would be a good idea?
January 15, 2019
Excalibur
I agree, we don’t want or need European opinion. It’s our business not theirs.
January 15, 2019
The referendum was a necessary idea and event. It was necessary because voters were lied to in the past – by the Heath and Wilson governments (over the nature of what they were joining) and by Blair (over the implications of the Lisbon treaty and failing to deliver a promised referendum on it).
January 15, 2019
@oldtimer: and you think that the voters are not being lied to now?
It’s worse in the UK than in most other coutries.
And if you have time, have some fun with reading the 667 debunked euromyths which have been peddled in the UK up to now
January 15, 2019
What on earth is extreme about wanting to be a free and democratic county, trading and cooperating with other countries but not governed by them through anti-democratic, centralising and essentially socialist bureaucrats?
January 15, 2019
@Lifelogic: extreme within the range of opinions in your parliament.
January 15, 2019
But exactly where the voters are.
January 15, 2019
What’s extreme about what he said? The campaign wasvpoorly run but that’s not the point.
January 15, 2019
I don’t see the logic of this. No democracy ever ‘unifies’ on virtually any major issue, because people disagree. You can’t unify Jacob Rees Mogg and chukka ummuna, one wants to leave the EU and the other to stay in. It’s true there were bad arguments on both sides – £350m pw for the NHS on the leave side, recession and 1m unemployed on the back of a vote on the Remain side. But the core arguments were fairly clear to people by the time they voted, as they were in other referenda such as those on Scotland and the alternative vote. Of course in each case the losing side claimed they were cheated by lies and want a re-run. Probably the same would have happened on Brexit had Leave lost.
The best solution would have been to agree with the EU that, being out of the euro and not committed to join, the UK was something of a special case and come to a Switzerland type arrangement. Could have done that with Cameron in fact. But the EU has demanded unconditional surrender, and the result is now potentially to be WTO Brexit, surely not in the EUs interest at all?
January 15, 2019
These figures were published by our host in this diary some time ago>
Official HMT and OBR figures for 2016:
Total gross contribution to EU £23.148 bn (£445m/week)
Gross contribution less rebate £17.865 bn (£343m/wek)
Gross contribution less money paid back
through EU programmes £11.73bn (£225m/week)
Gross contributions are comprised of:
Customs revenue £3.347 bn
VAT EU share £3.647 bn
GNI levy £16.154 bn
I don’t have the latest figures I’m afraid.
January 15, 2019
@Richard1:
Did you know that about a year ago, the EU proposed to you to go for a Canada deal (as the result of the respected UK red lines) , which belatedly was now embraced by the ERG group?
The Eu is not interested in surrender, let alone unconditional surrender. The EU comprises of a complex set of rules and laws with a large variety to be inside or outside but related to it. All a set of rules and laws could and can do is is show the consequences of national choices within this complex.
What has been lacking and is still lacking is the UK unifying on what it actually wants. If everybode tonight votes on “no deal”, then “no deal” it will be.
The delusion that the UK has overpowering leverage over the EU is still believed in, in some UK circles. Sad.
January 16, 2019
PvL, What tosh! The EU has a surfeit of rules. But as Juncker implied when he said that you have to lie when things get serious, the EU breaks its own rules when things get serious (from Selmayr to the Euro).
Of course the UK does not have “overpowering leverage over the EU” – who on here has said so? It is precisely because we don’t that I have said we should just walk away (using international, non-EU, agreements for technical deals).
Any election is divisive – that’s the purpose of of the election/referendum – to count who wins. No one seriously expected Remains to be happy with a Leave win. But for the sake of democracy we do expect Remains to stand to one side so we can damn well leave the EU treaties.
January 16, 2019
Yes but required the UK to surrender Northern Ireland against the wishes of its people.
January 15, 2019
@Richard1 You are still posting this lie -‘£350m pw for the NHS’ The bus poster said nothing of the sort.
January 16, 2019
Dennis
“The Leave campaign today launched its ‘battle bus’ to tour the country making the case for Brexit, with former London mayor Boris Johnson in the driver’s seat.
A message printed on the bus reads:
‘We send the EU £350 million a week
let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave.’
Reply And your problem is what?
January 16, 2019
Reply And your problem is what?
Not mine – Dennis’s
January 15, 2019
Is it really an “extreme position” to want the referendum result to be implemented?
“This is your decision, we will implement what you decide”
January 15, 2019
Then they got the shock of their lives.
January 15, 2019
Indeed William
We dared to vote leave even after the tidal wave of Project Fear nonsense.
The new rich elite professional political class and their pals in big business, in the quangos and in the charity sector were shocked.
January 15, 2019
Edward2
“This is your decision, we will implement what you decide”
And as it turned out that was one great big fat LIE !
January 15, 2019
There was nothing wrong with the referendum, as you would have seen if you had watched all the debates and received the leaflet. What is wrong is the arrogant, dim, obstructive politician, academics and big international business. They wish to keep their privileges and do little except implement the laws that they lobby for. Some Norwegians warned us about the likely outcome, as their politicians had stopped them really leaving.
Presumably, there will have to be a huge shed in Tilbury when we leave where a customs inspection will be made of all Dutch flowers arriving daily. Or, perhaps you could persuade the Commission to be sensible and allow Dutch flowers and N.Irish cows to cross borders unchecked.
January 15, 2019
@Stred: We’ll send you dried flowers from now on 🙂
January 15, 2019
Thanks. It will save me a fortune.
January 15, 2019
As long as your price is competitive! (What do dried tulips look like?)
January 15, 2019
Well if you won’t send fresh flowers we’ll find some elsewhere.
Remember the Berlin Airlift?
January 16, 2019
PvL, We’ll get them from Kenya, thanks!
January 16, 2019
Plus a few extra air miles? And unstable backgrounds?
January 15, 2019
The conflict in UK politics is a consequence of the poison injected into European politics by the EU and its undemocratic pursuit of an almost totalitarian imperial superstate.
The rank dishonesty and contempt for the wellbeing of its constituent nations that lies at the heart of the EU is causing Brexit like conflicts across Europe.
January 15, 2019
Yes, that is correct.
January 16, 2019
Dr C K Wright
” causing Brexit like conflicts across Europe”
Where exactly?
January 16, 2019
Hungary Cyprus Italy Greece France just as a few examples margaret.
The focus by the EU elite on their plan has impoverished many member nations.
January 16, 2019
Edward2
“The focus by the EU elite on their plan has impoverished many member nations.”
So how did they manage to turn a continent in rubble into the world’s most successful trading bloc? With countries lining up to join and in the case of Greece willing to cheat to get admitted?
January 17, 2019
You live in fantasy world where anything good that happens is because of the EU and anything bad is the fault of the individual member nations.
Look at today’s Eurozone nations.
PS
The reason some want to join is for the handouts.
If they were paying in like Germany and Holland and UK that would be nice but they are not.
Soon with planned expansion the EU will be 8 paying in and over 30 taking out.
January 15, 2019
The whole problem is that pro EU people do not believe in a vote when it does not go their way.
52:48 Remain would have been just fine for them, however. In fact we’d have been going the whole hog Schengen and euro on the back of it by now.
January 15, 2019
@Anonymous: I think that the remain side would have been won over if right after the referendum serious efforts had been undertaken to bridge the divide.
Instead the post referendum process was played as a “winner takes all”.
I suggest that this decision would have deserved better than a “winner takes all” approach. To me, that would have been a wiser democratic approach.
January 15, 2019
Well it was the EU which has cherry picked our pockets, and not those of other 26 members these past few years, bit denied us cherry picking our terms of membership. Be gone!
January 16, 2019
Sir Joe Soap
“Well it was the EU which has cherry picked our pockets, and not those of other 26 members these past few years”
How exactly? and its 27 other members.
January 15, 2019
“Winner takes all”? Have you read the Draft Withdrawal Agreement? If it hadn’t contained so many concessions to the pro-EU side as to represent continued membership in all but name, it might have stood a chance of being accepted by Parliament. If nothing else, had the EU, with the collusion of our own government, not tried to make the question of the Irish border seem more difficult and complicated than it actually is in a clear attempt to discredit the entire process, it would have enjoyed the support of the DUP.
Our government has bent over backwards to accomodate the minority who voted to remain, and that’s the problem. Back in 2016, many of us, myself included, wanted an orderly withdrawal. We were happy to work with the EU to allay the fears of our compatriots who didn’t want to leave. But this Agreement – drafted, let’s not forget, in secret, without the knowledge of the Minister and Department for Exiting the EU – with its commitment to continued acceptance of new EU law and its utterly unique and novel waiver of our right to independent arbitration of disputes, is abject surrender.
Far from “winner takes all”, our government went into these negotiations trying to alter as little of the status quo as it possibly could.
January 15, 2019
A serious effort was made to bridge the divide.
It has just been rejected by a Parliament made up largely of Remainers !
Far from being a “winner takes all” situation Leave voters are still waiting after 2 1/2 years since ‘winning’.
January 15, 2019
False. Nobody suggested joining Schengen.
However you seem to think the opposite is true.
That 52:48 is a mandate for complete amputation.
This despite the fact that millions were denied a vote – mainly Remainers of course.
And the fact that Vote Leave lied and cheated.
And the fact that the hard Brexit you seek was rejected at the 2017 General Election.
January 15, 2019
Andy
How can you possibly know the voting intentions of people who either were not entitled to vote or who couldn’t be bothered to go out and vote.
For all you know they could have all been leave supporters.
January 15, 2019
Andy
Maybe you lost and continue to lose because You keep telling lies ?
January 15, 2019
Andy
What ballot slip did you use during the referendum ? Mine was quite clear and various Remain advocates explained that “amputation” is what it was.
Only since you lost do you want to change the agreed pass mark and that is profoundly dishonest of you. What gives you the right to question anyone else’s integrity ?
January 15, 2019
“This despite the fact that millions were denied a vote – mainly Remainers of course.”
I recall that for a half hour shut-down the registration period was held open for a further 48hrs while officials appealed to younger voters to get their act together – mainly to the advantage of Remain.
January 16, 2019
Andy, VoteLeave neither lied nor cheated, unlike the even falsely named Britain Stronger In which lied and lied by turning dodgy forecasts into its supposed “facts”. Not least because the EU is a rotten ideology. The UK is either subject to EU rules (however few) or not – no half way house is possible. We’re either in, or out. That’s the choice Parliament in its wisdom gave us. MPs can’t take it back now.
January 15, 2019
I thought the 2016 referendum campaign was of a decent quality and aired most of the issues.
The BBC behaved itself (unlike now) as it had a legal obligation to do so.
The only complaint I had was the unfairness of using taxpayers’ money to send out a one-sided leaflet to every home.
There has been much propaganda that the quality of debate was poor but that is not my recollection.
January 16, 2019
Kenneth, I agree that all the arguments from both sides appeared to be adequately debated. The problem with the Remain campaign propaganda was they majored on their trashy “forecasts”. Also for example their leaflet (I still have it) which claimed that for every £1 we put into the EU we got back nearly £10. Even the Remain leafleter looked sheepish about that one!
January 15, 2019
A simple question with a simple answer has been made complicated by politicians who didn’t like the amswer.
January 15, 2019
In referendum campaigns, just like in other wars, “truth” is the first casualty, and so it proved in 2016. That there was such a lousy 2016 referendum campaign is therefore not surprising, utopia versus armageddon.
>
In my opinion the Referendum campaign was deliberately sabotaged by those hoping to be future PMs and pretending to support Brexit thus enabling you to push your narrative.
January 15, 2019
Peter, the country would have unified behind a leader with true belief and a vision for our country, and the will and determination to communicate the vision.
January 15, 2019
PvL
If you find us too extremist, why do you come here ?
I agree about the quality of debate in the referendum, but it did not sway my decision. I know what the EU is and where it is heading. Stay on the train if you must, but we are Leaving – hopefully.
January 15, 2019
Of course the referendum was a good idea. Proven by the fact that it showed that the country was not happy with EU membership and voted to leave despite all the false Project Fear predictions and all the ruling and establishment elites in favour of remaining.
If our Parliament had acted democratically and correctly at each new treaty by asking the people through a referendum whether or not we were prepared to lose more of our sovereignty the UK would not be in the position it is now.
I also suspect the EU would have been a better organisation for it too.
January 15, 2019
I repeat once again that if there was no Brexit, as threatened by Theresa May, then that could only be because she as Prime Minister had instigated steps to prevent Brexit. Not because of any backbench plotting, with or without the Speaker, but because Theresa May had taken the opportunity to instigate steps to do what she really wants to do, prevent Brexit.
January 15, 2019
Nonsense. If there is no Brexit, it will be because the many false claims about what Brexit would mean that were made in 2016 have finally been revealed, and the people will, in a 2nd referendum, have expressed their democratic will to remain in the EU.
January 15, 2019
Helena, I doubt very much that the second referendum will be fair – it will offer a choice of two Remains. That’s the unfairness you want because you are so besotted by the EU ideology. However we shall then campaign for a third referendum.
January 16, 2019
NickC
” However we shall then campaign for a third referendum.”
“In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it.”
January 15, 2019
How would that repeat referendum come about? Perhaps you weren’t paying attention when the Tories under David Cameron undertook the PR exercise of trying to get an EU referendum through Private Members’ Bills.
January 15, 2019
There’s a lot of talk about May wanting to prevent Brexit, but I don’t see it that way. It seems to me she has just disregarded her first cabinet colleagues and has been persuaded by the civil service advisers. She doesn’t have the imagination to see it through with her own EU scepticism.
January 15, 2019
Dave Andrews, Please read Chequers and the draft Withdrawal Agreement. Both show we will be locked into the EU, perhaps not in an identical fashion as now, but thoroughly and over policies as diverse as N.I., military, diplomacy, fishing and the SM/CU.
Quite clearly Leave means leaving the EU treaties and not signing similar treaties. Theresa May has: authorised duplicate White Papers (one in secret); trashed the Leave WP; given Chequers to the EU before her cabinet; produced the Remain DWA – and none of that was accomplished in less than a year. Yes, Mrs May knows what she’s doing – and it is Remain.
January 15, 2019
+1 with applause.
She was a plant.
January 15, 2019
She’s just had a dose of weedkiller in the HoC. It is a pity that Corbyn’s opportunist vote of no confidence may let the PM off the hook regarding coming back with an alternative plan. However, I expect the Government to survive the vote by a whisker.
January 15, 2019
Indeed it will only happen if Mother Theresa goes along with this betraying of the voters. Anything but a clean WTO leave (and negotiate later) is clearly not remotely close to respecting the vote.
January 15, 2019
“The people made a decision. They were promised by government and Parliament it would be implemented.” You are so right! Do come back to us once you Leavers have sorted out the easy frictionless trade deal with the EU you promised us, the trade deals with the US, Australia, India etc that you promised us would have been agreed months ago, the money for the NHS, etc etc. In the meantime stop trying to blame Mrs May for promises to the people which YOU made and which were never deliverable
January 15, 2019
As you should be aware, one of the major complaints about Teresa May’s leadership is that she promised the EU she would not negotiate these deals until after Britain left. This despite having deals on the table from the US, New Zealand, and a number of Africa countries to name just a few.
I completely agree that May’s failure to negotiate these, along with failing to publish a default WTO tariff schedule, is appalling.
January 15, 2019
Could you please give further reference for the trade “deals on the table”? Thanks in advance.
January 15, 2019
Many nations have said they want to continue the same trade arrangements with the UK they currently have.
Australia Canada Singapore S Korea USA and others.
None can be signed until we leave the EU
January 16, 2019
Edward2
But we deal with them now.
January 16, 2019
You are quite right.
Whilst the media gets obsessed with trade agreements, international trade carries merrily on between nations.
Even nations not in the EU trade happily with the EU without formal trade agreements.
January 15, 2019
A better PM would have made better decisions & acted efficiently from the outset. Theresa May has steered to what now prevails & is its cause.
January 15, 2019
what he said ….
January 15, 2019
We’ll never know.
Remainer obstructionism is what is going to make you and me very poor now.
You can argue the other until you’re blue in the face. I’m not listening and it doesn’t much matter whose right now anyway.
January 15, 2019
If my argument is that your paper mache wings will not work, there is a sense in which , having flung yourself off a cliff ,the argument no longer matters .
There is another sense in which it matters considerably more. We have endured terrible mistakes before but this time those responsible are not getting away with it
January 15, 2019
Newmania:
Imagining paper mache wings on a cliff envisions worthless argument.
However, if that is your thought process, sensible planners fix a fence at the top instead of ambulances remaining at the bottom.
January 15, 2019
We blame each other then. I think you are equally wrong and blind to the catastrophic failings of the EU.
We are irreconcilably divided.
January 16, 2019
Newmania, Why is being as independent as New Zealand the same as flinging ourselves off a cliff? Seriously, you Remains have got to come out with better propaganda than that if you want to win the second referendum (assuming the question isn’t Remain rigged). Then you have the nerve to say “Leave lied . . . Blub . . Gnash . . . Wail”
January 15, 2019
May and Hammond delayed the frictionlessly trade, the deal with the US by keeping us in EU rules, and blew the money for the NHS by giving fsr more to the EU to allow them to sell more to us than we sell to them. May and Hammond are Remainers.
January 15, 2019
There was nothing wrong with the referendum, as you would have seen if you had watched all the debates and received the leaflet. What is wrong is the arrogant, dim, obstructive politician, academics and big international business. They wish to keep their privileges and do little except implement the laws that they lobby for. Some Norwegians warned us about the likely outcome, as their politicians had stopped them really leaving.
Presumably, there will have to be a huge shed in Tilbury when we leave where a customs inspection will be made of all Dutch flowers arriving daily. Or, perhaps you could persuade the Commission to be sensible and allow Dutch flowers and N.Irish cows to cross borders unchecked.
January 15, 2019
Capcha is not working properly and delays putting up posts and double posts.
January 15, 2019
What about a problem with your connection speed?
January 15, 2019
We’re on expensive cable fibre. Not that thid means that it works.
January 15, 2019
And the threats that ”you remainers” made? What about them? Did they come to pass? These were part of dishonourable attempts to thwart Brexit and and render these promises ”undeliverable”. We are told time and again that trade deals can’t be made while we’re shackled to your much-revered EU.
However, we’re not there yet – let’s wait and see which promises are delivered once we have honourable people at the helm and we are free again – then perhaps you’ll get back to us and eat your words.
January 15, 2019
In the meantime stop trying to blame Mrs May for promises to the people which YOU made and which were never deliverable
They were deliverable. They became far more difficult to deliver when opposition parties (plus some Tory MPs) insisted that “No Deal” was not an option. From that point on the UK were on the back foot. You can’t enter negotiations and hope for a successful outcome when the other side know you must have a deal at all costs.
Recently the EU has been congratulating itself on negotiating FTAs with Canada and Japan . The EU exports 10 TIMES as much to the UK as it does to Canada and 5 TIMES as much to the UK as it does to Japan.
January 15, 2019
In the referendum I voted for the UK to regain it’s sovereignty, for us to take back the control that Parliament and government had given away. I did not vote for Parliamentary sovereignty, simply to enable those focused on other loyalties to sell us down the river yet again.
We need a way to protect our society and democracy from those with confused and conflicting loyalties and goals.
January 15, 2019
@David Price; You voted to give sovereignty back to (the UK) parliament but now bleat when that freshly elected (in 2017) sovereign parliament fails to do as you wish…
Stop trying to have it both ways, you either support a sovereign parliament or you do not!
“We need a way to protect our society and democracy from those with confused and conflicting loyalties and goals.”
Indeed, that is why the final decision must lie with Govt. and parliament, good or bad, not those with perhaps confused and conflicting loyalties and their true unspoken goals -be they on the hard left or hard right.
January 15, 2019
They are welcome to our sovereignty after they have carried out the voters’ instruction from 23rd June 2016. It wasn’t a vague suggestion or a maybe. David Cameron made a promise on behalf of the Government, including the current PM. If she had no intention of keeping that promise then she should not have stood in the leadership/PM contest.
January 15, 2019
Jerry, You beg the question – can a sovereign Parliament give its sovereignty away to a foreign power. The answer clearly must be NO because such a move negates its own sovereignty. In any case the ground for your point is incorrect. The people are sovereign in a democracy (demos=people, kratos=power), so Parliament derives its sovereignty from the people.
January 15, 2019
Jerry, You don’t get to dictate to people what they voted for, what they think and what they believe.
Do not put words in my mouth, I voted in the referendum for the UK to regain it’s sovereignty, there were no two ways about it..
I do not support a Parliament that gives our sovereignty away, they deserve neither respect nor trust nor authority.
January 15, 2019
@Jagman84, @Nick C; @David Price; We voted to Leave, that was the only instruction given. David Cameron was very careful not to give away anything more specific and Brexiteers were to desperate to dare seek anything more for fear of loosing even that! Thus both the How and When questions went unasked, constitutionally both remained with parliament, indeed even that result was only advisory – we will be leaving, assuming there is no GE and a changed mandate from the people, what you do not like is that we might not leave how most on this site wish.
Sorry NickC but you misunderstand the constitutional settlement. Sovereignty resides with the monarch, but the Crown has ceded every day control of that to Parliament, not the people. Indeed it took until the Reform Act of 1832 for the people to even start having any real say in who became MPs, and the HoC starting to become the primary chamber, rather than the HoL.
January 16, 2019
Jerry, The electorate’s instruction in the legal national 2016 Referendum was to Leave the EU treaties. The government stated that the “How?” was via Article 50 TEU. The “When?” is specified in Art50. Don’t you even know that?
We have a constitutional monarch, who has no political power. The electorate chooses who is to represent them in Parliament every few years in democratic elections – despite the trappings of yesteryear. The practical conclusion is that sovereignty resides with the people, as it must in a democracy (demos=people, kratos=power).
January 16, 2019
@NickC; “The government stated that the “How?” was via Article 50 TEU.”
I think you mean A50 of the Lisbon Treaty, not the Maastricht Treaty!…
The only thing A50 specifies (via paragraph 3) is the latest leaving date, but even then it allows for the bring forward or the extension of that date, meaning both the How and When were not, could not, be specified by the UK govt. before the referendum, just the process.
Sovereignty resides with the monarch, that is why the Mace (representing the monarch) has to be present during HoC sittings [1], if Sovereignty resided with the people the UK would be a (federal) republic.
I fear you are getting confused between Sovereignty and Democracy, the two are not the same, nor interchangeable. Members of the Armed Forces & MPs etc swear allegiance to the monarch, not to the people.
[1] either on or below the table that the dispatch boxes sit
January 15, 2019
We voted to give self determination and sovereignty back to the electorate, to be exercised by our representatives in Parliament. The 2017 GE underlined that decision as the 2 major parties campaigned on honouring the People’s vote 2016. Virtually every MP from Labour and the Tories campaigned on their respective party lines. Since 2017, the majority of MP’s have worked to take exiting the EU out of the options available and the present chaos is due entirely to the efforts of a Remainer PM aided and abetted by a Remainer cabinet and a Remainer civil service. The electorate has been largely ignored by the remote elitists in Parliament, and if Parliament continues to ignore the electorate there will be a reckoning.
January 15, 2019
David Price ,
There is a common remainer lie that Leavers want the Westminster Parliament to be sovereign and are therefore hypocritical when they criticise parliament for refusing to implement the referendum result .
That is bullshit .
The people are sovereign .
This is readily apparent when a General Election is called . Parliament are required to hand the power the people have entrusted them with since the previous G.E. back to the people . It must be handed back INTACT .
This obviously has not been happening as our fifth column of quisling MP’s have been handing power to the EU .
January 15, 2019
Agreed.
January 15, 2019
David, that’s right. I voted to leave and was promised that is what would happen. Somehow we now have the final vote with MP’s and not the people. Cameron’s promises mean nothing. We may as well have asked parliament in the first place and we all know what the answer would be. I said on the day we heard that Leave won, we wouldn’t be allowed to leave and I was right. As many people are saying, what’s the point in voting for anything? It is meaningless.
January 15, 2019
@ David Price
Very well said David
January 15, 2019
It is all too evident that the continuing arguments over Brexit are poisoning political debate in the UK. It has the potential to destroy it entirely. For this Mrs May must carry much but not all responsibility because of her conduct of negotiations for the UK’s withdrawal. Would be wreckers of withdrawal carry some and Brexit supporting MPs too for failing to put forward a candidate when Cameron resigned.
The sooner this mayhem ends the better. That can be achieved by rejection of May’s WA and departure on WTO terms on 29 March, modified by such side agreements as can be reached with the EU to ease the process for mutual benefit. It leaves one significant issue – the future of Mrs May. Will she attempt to stay, will she decide to resign or will she be forced out by Cabinet pressure (as was Mrs Thatcher)? One way or another she needs to go and be replaced by someone who actually believes in Brexit.
January 15, 2019
We know May is mendacious, manipulative and Machiavellian. She has proved that by secretly plotting her own deal while pretending that David Davis and his staff were conducting the negotiations. Since she is so secretive it is difficult to know whether she is also mainly incompetent or whether she has been acting to deny Brexit all along.
I don’t think Brexiteers can be blamed for not getting Brexit Prime Minister. You have to look at the parliamentary arithmetic.
I don’t believe May would resign. She is completely lacking in principles.
January 15, 2019
it is difficult to know whether she is also mainly incompetent or whether she has been acting to deny Brexit all along.
…
She is trying to get the best possible deal for the EU and that has been her job from the start.
January 15, 2019
It is quite clearly the latter. If you read the disgusting Withdrawal Agreement that is perfectly clear. This is all about ‘Brexit in Name Only’ creating the conditions for the UK to rejoin the EU at the earliest opportunity. By rights Mrs May should be rotting in a damp cell in The Tower.
January 15, 2019
“I don’t believe May would resign. She is completely lacking in principles.”
I agree.
January 15, 2019
Good article here by Peter Gardner which goes a long way to answer your question.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/has-may-been-plotting-a-return-to-the-eu-all-along/
January 15, 2019
The “side agreements” are at “no-deal” Contingency Action Plan”. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-6851_en.htm
These fourteen EU27 parachutes are contingent on the UK reciprocating.
January 15, 2019
Thanks for that helpful link. If the WA is defeated it would make sense for the UK government to state it will reciprocate the measures listed by the EU. This would provide practical assistance and some reassurance to those affected. Whether May will do so is another matter.
January 15, 2019
Parachutes with “strings”… but certainly makes 29th March a gentle dip not a cliff edge…
January 15, 2019
Agreed.
January 15, 2019
Oldtimer ,
If a parliament cannot tackle tough subjects better than this then it is not fit for purpose .
I’m glad we had the referendum and it had got the divisions out in the open and also showed what ordinary people are up against .
We saw once and for all the true extent of the establishment ; Westminster , Whitehall , supposed “non political” charities , academia , quangos , BBC and all other TV channels , all newspapers with not one exception , C.O.E. , Catholic Church , non-conformists etc etc .
Even the Trade Unions have shown they are part of the establishment and therefore useless as far as the real working class is concerned .
The whole thing has been a real eye opener .
January 15, 2019
Good morning
Assuming that the WA is voted down, what happens then ?
Personally I want a GE. I want a GE based on a vision of a future UK out of the EU and making its own way in the world. Those MP’s who are wedded to the EU must declare that, either they support this vision or, no stand in the GE and allow a pro-UK candidate to stand instead. What we do no want is MP’s in the HoC carrying on the fight to Remain in the EU by trying to rejoin it. These Ball and Chains must go !
Any MP that then tries to circumvent the will of the people must have the Whip withdrawn, we cannot go on like this.
Finally. May I say a big thank you to our kind host for all his efforts. Today is indeed a big day and marks the point in which the future direction of our country lies. God Speed.
January 15, 2019
@Mark B; “Those MP’s who are wedded to the EU must declare that, either they support this vision or, no stand in the GE and allow a pro-UK candidate to stand instead.”
Cough. So you want to nobble the GE, just like some did in the 1930s, decent can not be allowed, the master plan must not be thwarted, for the sake of and in the name of democracy…
January 15, 2019
You do know what parliament is, don’t you ? And you do know what the EU is, don’t you ? Because if the answer to both is, “yes” then you know you cannot have both.
If we choose to Leave the EU proper we can only have those committed to a sovereign UK in Parliament. Otherwise we will be right back where we started further down the line.
January 15, 2019
Like the August 1921 Purges in the Soviet Russia-all communist party members were subpoenaed in front of purge commissions and forced to justify their credentials as revolutionaries or faced being dubbed as a “class enemies” or “careerists”(someone who joined the Party only after it became clear it was winning).Around a quarter of members were deemed “unworthy” as a result.
Sometimes the only way is Lenin’s way!
January 15, 2019
Mark B. You are absolutely correct in what you say. It won’t matter who is in power, unless they get the whole of parliament with them nothing can happen. It was supposed to be a people’s vote and not an MP’s vote but that is what has happened and so we have this mess.
January 15, 2019
@Mark B; My reply was to do with your idea that those with opinions you do not like should be prevented from stand for parliament. The one thing you can’t say about the EU is they prevent dissenters from standing for election to their parliament, even if the bone called democracy does sometimes stick in their throats. Had the EC adopted your ‘democratic ideals’, UKIP, indeed some Tory MEPs, would have been busted flushes before they even chance to sit at the poker table.
“Otherwise we will be right back where we started further down the line.”
Unfortunately that is the price of living in a democracy. Do you even understand the meaning of the word, I strongly suspect not, judged by the utter bilge you have written in your two comments above. 🙁
I detest the SNP, them wishing to break up the Union of GB&NI, doing far more damage than the EU could ever do to our four nations, but I would never suggest they or their individual members should be -in effect- Proscribed. I might verdantly disagree with their peaceful cause but I would stand side by side to protect their right, and do so with to last fluid ounce of my blood.
January 15, 2019
Jerry, Obviously not. What MarkB says is we must have clarity and honesty from candidates so that we know who and what we are voting for. About two thirds of constituencies voted Leave but there are only about 100 Leave MPs in a Parliament of 650. That can’t be right, or fair, or honest, or honourable.
January 15, 2019
When Mrs May loses the vote today she should invite David Davis, Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson back into the cabinet into DexEU and charge them with renotisting the deal. She must give them carte blanche including leaving on WTO terms as a third country while negotiating the subsequent FTA. While we are negotiating an FTA there is no need for a border in Ireland and our business can continue as before.
This will send the message to the EU that we are at the end game.
January 15, 2019
Chatge them with renegotiating the deal
January 15, 2019
I don’t understand you. The three people you mention have all had a go already, and walked out when the going got tough.
January 15, 2019
They were undermined and sidelined by number 10.
It became impossible for them to stay.
January 15, 2019
More likely when they finally realised what a micro managing “back stabber” Mrs May is…
January 15, 2019
Resigned when they were deceived by May while she was working on her Brino capitulation.
January 15, 2019
Balderdash!
They were all undermined by Theresa May’s pet civil servant and resigned as a matter of honour as their positions had become untenable given the circumstances she had created.
May was badly advised by said civil servant who has no direct responsibility towards the British people via the ballot box. That poses two questions – if she knew that was bound to happen, she is just another EU quisling intent on conning both the public and parliament. If on the other hand she didn’t know, she is absolutely incompetent. On either count, she should be removed from office, one she was sickeningly given on a plate when others were far better qualified to do the job.
January 15, 2019
They walked as they weren’t allowed to negotiate their way ie to leave. Theresa May always tied one hand behind their backs.
If they were given carte blanche we could well see progress. But we must be prepared to walk away. This has hampered our progress to date.
January 15, 2019
Because Mrs May chucked each and all under the proverbial bus. If she had left the negotiations to those people instead of secretly going behind their backs and undermining them we wouldn’t be where we are today.
January 15, 2019
As you well know, they were undermined by May and Robbins. They were sent on a fool’s errand, whilst plotting to keep us in the EU with her abortion of a deal. The EU is a cancer, eating away at the heart of the Government and Civil Service. It is clear where they take their instruction from. Our host’s description of Westminster being a puppet parliament is undoubtedly a correct one.
January 15, 2019
The problem is that what most MPs say at elections has little or no connection with their actions after it. Cameron said he was a low ‘tax at heart’ Conservative and a Cast Iron promise Eurosceptic! He was the complete opposite.
They nearly all promise lower taxes and better public services but give us higher and higher taxes, give powers away to foreign powers and deliver dross for the public as services.
January 15, 2019
Then we must campaign to change the system to one where they do do as we say.
January 16, 2019
Indeed, but easier said than done.
January 15, 2019
I think you and others should vote for the deal today irrespective of what you think of it, the alternative could be a labour government which nobody wants , just get us out with any deal as with Mr Chamberlain in 1938 agreements can be ripped up , so bite the bullet and vote for it , it’s not the case of leaving on WTO terms in March but being out of the dictatorship of the Eu full stop, I’m sure when we are out we can negotiate a better deal for all concerned but out we must be that’s what your employer said so just do it the alternative isn’t worth taking the risk
January 15, 2019
Mick, first of all a substantial number of voters DO want a Labour Government, even if — by some miracle – the latest poll indicates a small majority for the Conservatives.
Secondly, the WA terms are such that ‘ripping it up’ would take far more cojones than are currently on display in Westminster.
January 15, 2019
@Mick; Except the WA gives us dictate from Brussels, without MEPs, without a seat in the EC – No, give me a labour government, give my no Brexit, any day compared to becoming a vessel state.
As I and others have said before, what ever damage a UK elected govt does, it can be undone by the next, on the other hand becoming a vessel state of the EU we can never undo damage done by Brussels based eurocrats.
January 15, 2019
Your views are so clear and so patently correct, that it is something of a mystery as to why so many MPs have difficulty agreeing with them or even grasping them. What is crystal clear is that a lot of MPs need to be either deselected or voted out at the next election, or a Means found to make the “wrong” MPs do the “right” thing.
January 15, 2019
Exactly James, if and when there is a GE I can only hope that there is as much coverage by the mainstream media to let the voter know who is a true believer in Great Britain and not there beloved Europe, I’m sick to the back teeth of seeing and hearing these snivelling Eu loving mps backing there remain stance so hopefully they can all be sent packing off to the job centre after a GE and Westminster filled with GB loving patriots
January 16, 2019
Mick
” Westminster filled with GB loving patriots”
Not GB – just a rump England left.
Ireland and Scotland will have become independent EU members.
Hundreds of years of sweat and blood thrown away by just one generation of ‘patriots’!
Unbelievable.
January 15, 2019
What is crystal clear is that a lot of MPs need to be either deselected or voted out at the next election, or a Means found to make the “wrong” MPs do the “right” thing.
…………
Why dont they all move to some uninhabited artic island and rename it ‘Nanny State Land’, then they can all happily pass laws on each other while avoiding getting a real job and leave the rest of us alone.
There is too often something wrong with the mindset of those who seek to be MPs etc,
January 15, 2019
This Parliament has demonstrated that humans cannot be trusted to be MPs and they need to be replaced by AI.
January 15, 2019
There are some unused facilities in Magadan and Kamchatka.Perhaps if we asked Mr Putin nicely he could re-open them for us.
The more intemperate remainers could “cool down” a little whilst being taught how to think correctly.
January 15, 2019
James, Mick’s views are patently incorrect. Because the draft Withdrawal Agreement is Remain by other methods.
January 15, 2019
It’s Sir JR’s views that are correct, not Nick’s views.
January 16, 2019
James, You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. JR has stated he will vote against Mrs May’s draft Withdrawal Agreement. And I agree with him. It was Mick that said the dWA should be supported.
January 15, 2019
Mick.
I may be wrong, but I always thought that ‘your employer’ was the electorate.
January 15, 2019
You mean Mick, to maintain the tories in power, after all the deceptions and lies, while tying us even closer to the EU than ever before, with no powers to even vote against EU proposals.
I don’t think so MP’s have to stand up and be counted.
Yes, labour are a threat to our country, but with the tories now emulating Blair, having moved too far left, what kind of future will we have any way. May is intent on surrender, and what resources we still have, what abilities and independence we have, will soon be given away to the EU.
January 15, 2019
@Bryan Harris; “but with the tories now emulating Blair, having moved too far left”
Bryan, your comment tells us nothing, once again, other than just how far to the right your personal politics are.
Blair moved the Labour Party to the right (out with the Red flag, in with the pink rose, out with The Internationale in with Auld Lang Syne or was it Jerusalem?…), the Tories not wanting to appear soft socialist followed this lead by moving even further to the right, hence why the Tories lost three elections in a row before Cameron started to move the Tories back towards the centre.
To give one example, if Blair had actually moved to the left, from where Kinnock/Smith were at the time, Blair would have further endorsed Clause 4, not scrapped it!
January 15, 2019
Jerry – I really don’t know why you bother to try an annoy….. You need to try harder to understand what’s written
Of course blair moved labour to the right – What I’m saying just so it’s clear to you, is that May now wants to take the position blair attempted to take….
blair however can never be described as anything but socialist
January 16, 2019
@Bryan Harris; Touchy… Sorry I read what you type, if there is any misunderstanding it is caused by your choice of words, nor do I see any glaring typos, either! If it quacks, if it waddles, if it loves water, it almost certainly is a Duck!
Take your last paragraph above; “blair however can never be described as anything but socialist”
Blair was a long was from being a Socialist, unless you are attempting to redefine the accepted definition of the word here in the UK, as I said, if Blair was a Socialist he would have further endorsed Clause 4 (perhaps by renationalisations, he had the majority, HMT had the funds), scrapped 1980s era Trade Union reform laws, not allowed further PFI, preferring direct on-book State financing etc. He did none.
There is probably more commonality between Blair and say Ken Clark than there was between Blair and say Tony Benn, does that make Clark a “Socialist” too, perhaps it does in your world… Blair is a Social Democrat, not Socialist.
January 15, 2019
“the Tories not wanting to appear soft socialist followed this lead by moving even further to the right”.
If you really believe that then you are more deluded that I ever imagined. If anything, Corbyn was elected leader by the grass roots membership, to restore the divide between the parties, caused by the Tory lurch to the left. That’s why there are 2 distinct camps in the current Labour party. Have you forgotten the local difficulty Corbyn had, trying to form his shadow cabinet. The Starmer (Blair) wing gracefully declined his offers to try to unify the party.
January 16, 2019
@Jagman84; Try actually reading what I said, rather than being abusive, in your haste to pen your ‘Disgusted of Tonbridge’ reply you obviously failed to read on to were I said;
Not sure why you bring Corbyn into a debate about past leaders, but have it your own way, there are also two factions to the current Tory party, one clinging to eurosceptic, low tax, small state Thatcherism; the other very much in the image of the changes Cameron made.
January 15, 2019
Voting for this appalling deal will destroy the Conservatives, revive UKIP and surely give us Labour. What would be hugely popular is a proper low tax Conservative Party that believes in (and delivers) a clean and competitive Brexit. Restoring UK democracy.
This rather than tax to death, pro EU Libdems just pretending to be Conservative and leading the county into an appalling and hugely expensive EU trap. May’s deal is absolutely appalling even without the back stop. I and very many voters will never vote for any MP who has supported this vassal state & endless servitude proposal.
January 15, 2019
@Lifelogic – Yes, the tories are going to suffer, whatever happens… and it’s high time we had a viable tax system.
libdems and greens are as socialist as labour, so please don’t waste a vote on them – the only altrrnative is UKIP or Independent.
Any MP’s that cause us to become a vassal state will be dispised for ever.
January 15, 2019
Trouble is it isn’t a deal. It isn’t even a withdrawal agreement as it does not withdraw us (the backstop sees to that) and there has been no agreement – the EU dictated and TM submitted. You are right though that we need to be out in order to negotiate a deal – my understanding is that EU rules prevent us negotiating trade deals with anyone whilst we are in the Customs Union.
A Labour government would probably tear itself apart in fairly short order. Being half in and half out of the EU would leave us utterly helpless far into the future.
January 15, 2019
Peter R: fully agree with first two sentences. However on the “EU rules” this is what Article 50 actually says:
2.A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.
I cannot see how separating the withdrawal agreement from the future relationship is in accord with this. Yet this is what our negotiating team agreed to before they even started !
January 15, 2019
UK negotiators were incompetent from the outset.
January 15, 2019
Those Remain MPs that voted for legislation affording the British people a referenda on our membership of the EU and who now choose to reject the result of the 2016 referendum that they themselves voted for are quite simply a moral aberration.
Any MP who chooses EU authoritarianism over the democratic will of the British people is unfit to inhabit the hallowed space of the British parliament
In 2016 the British people gave each MP their direction of travel regarding our membership of the EU. Those who choose to defy a vote that they themselves sanctioned into law are not only betraying their own position but betraying British democracy
January 15, 2019
Dominic, That is so, and it is shameful.
January 15, 2019
We are witnessing an attempted coup d’etat by our political elite who do not believe in popular sovereignty and are seizing powers that do not belong to them in order to take away the rights and decisions made by the people they are supposed to represent.
A remain dominated Conservative Party elected a remainer PM with the instructions to produce such a terrible WA that Parliament is being given a false choice between remaining in the EU as a full member (including membership of the Euro, Schenghen and the military) or vassal status where we are ruled by the EU but without representation, where we will even have to submit to rules and regulations not applicable to EU members and from which there is no exit.
The fact that over 100 Conservative MPs can be considering to vote for this WA shows just how many have lied to their constituents over their pro-EU beliefs as the Conservative membership is not in favour of the WA agreement or remaining in the EU. It was not part of the Conservative Party’s 2017 election manifesto.
No leave voter should ever vote for these MPs ever again because to do so, expecting them to act differently in the future, would be insanity.
January 15, 2019
The sovereignty of the country belongs to the people.
While the Brexit debate overwhelms the main news, the EU Military Unification is quietly proceeding at a pace. The UK is deeply involved in this exercise. Anne-Marie Trevelyan is one of the few MPs to question this on the floor of the HOC.
France and Germany are now close to signing and ratifying the draft Aachen Treaty uniting the sovereignty of the two countries.
President Macron has had nine weeks of protest from the Yellow Vests to deal with. This protest is not going to go away. Wait until the German police or military are on the streets of Paris, and see to whom the sovereignty belongs.
January 15, 2019
OP, Given the UK leaving the EU in less than three months, and the present uncertainty brought by President Trump regarding the working of NATO, isn’t it reasonable for France, Germany and some of the other EU27 to consider the question of the future defence of the European continent? And frankly speaking, why should the UK bother about it after 29/03/2019?
We will be sovereign, that should also mean stopping interfering in other people’s business, shouldn’t it?
January 15, 2019
All they need to do is to pay into NATO the same budget that USA and UK pay in.
(prortionate to their GDP perhaps)
January 16, 2019
@Hefner
I agree totally with your response, but the reality is that the UK is well advanced on the road EU Military Unification. This is happening outside of and without the scrutiny of parliament.
Think about it, two aircraft carriers without the support ships (and aircraft) to form a battle group, and a seriously undermanned armed forces. The command and control structure means the EU can command our armed forces. One of the two C&C centres is actually located in the UK.
Please watch the independent UK Column News podcast of 14 January 2019 for more detailed information.
January 15, 2019
If either May’s WA or a Corbyn negotiated CU are the outcome of MPs’ childish and uninformed behaviour then it will be an economic blow to the UK. Being in a CU, especially with no say, will limit future opportunities for the UK, destroying income and innovation.Any issues about cross border trade are rapidly changing due to blockchain in SCM and Regtech, the CU approach is last century and must be avoided.
Yes to Sovereignty. No to a CU.
January 15, 2019
Caterpillar, I fully agree with you.
January 15, 2019
I fear we may be denied brexit. That would anger most of those who voted for it and perhaps some who didn’t. Some of them may be homicidally angered. We have seen the beginnings of a very unpleasant reaction to the attempt of some MP’s to thwart brexit. Witness the attacks on Ms Soubry and Mr Grieve. The latter has stated he received death threats as a result of his amendment. Much as I detest both those traitors and would like to see them deselected, threats of violence have no place in our politics. I hope MPs will consider the consequences of thwarting the referendum. I believe the consequences could be dire. I also think it could put the Tories into the wilderness for a generation. Mrs May’s deal is obviously a dead duck and rightly so. WTO is the way to go.
January 15, 2019
Intemperate words lead some to desperate deeds.
I think all the talk of betrayal and lies on this blog shows the frustration and anger that many understandably feel, but are probably inaccurate and, in the end, counterproductive.
I know from personal experience that ‘EU-speak’ is a system of thought that has pervaded post-war Europe for decades – it is a hugely powerful and persuasive ideology, in the same manner as Communism or National Socialism were, Its devotees not so much lie, as are themselves deceived, and go on to deceive others, without even realizing it.
National freedom, on the other hand, is a flower of true Christian culture, as vulnerable and hard-won as any good thing, in an otherwise untoward world.
I hope we shall see no more desperate deeds to harm the Brexit cause.
January 16, 2019
I agree. They too make me angry but threatening them and calling them names demeans our position.
January 15, 2019
As every day goes by, more and more traitorous MP’s inside the House of Commons, find more and more ways to subvert Democracy.
We now will get either; not leaving the EU because the May WA gets through.
The WA falls and May resigns or loses a vote of confidence.
Thus a general election where the Tories are punished by Leavers and Socialists/Communists led by the terrorists friend.
The distinct possibility of a Corbyn gov. that will of course rescind Article 50
So, almost three years later, millions of MP hours and vast sums of money wasted. We remain in the EU as if nothing ever happened.
The end of Democracy in the (dis)UK as we become a pathetic laughing stock equal to the best Banana Republics in days gone by.
January 15, 2019
If those like my MP Gove REALLY think that they can vote for the PM’s deal and then reform the EU afterwards they must have been asleep for the last twenty years. Cameron tried it. How did that pan out? Out means out that is what I voted for.
January 15, 2019
BTW, that’s not what M.Gove said.
January 15, 2019
Sir John
Your words, though stirring, will carry little weight within Parliament which has a majority to remain. I hear this morning that one of your party’s own MPs is to put a bill before Parliament to change the law and the date of our exit.
Your government and the ERG have failed to win the propaganda war which should have been an open goal. It is hugely disspiriting.
Recently I have been learning towards voting none of the above in the future but maybe I will just look for the more extreme single issue parties in order to make my point.
This whole “we know best” attitude from Parliament demonstrates how someone like Donald Trump or Emmanuelle Macron or indeed Barrack Obsma can come from nowhere by promising political change. Parliament needs to be careful about what it creates.
January 15, 2019
It is indeed ironic that Parliament is showing what a strong legislative tool it can be in order to pass its powers back to a supra-national entity
January 15, 2019
The PM’s ‘returning to the EU to ensure we get a smooth passage out’ must in no circumstances be Mrs May as you suggest. It ought to be blindingly obvious by now that May is not to be trusted to act in our best interests and is completely the wrong person to do such a job; can anyone honestly have any confidence in her? She is a master of double talk and simply the EU’s lapdog. It is she who has brought us to this sorry state and she clearly wishes us to be sacrificed to the EU in one way or another. She will again allow the EU to dictate terms.
If she has any decent feelings or honour May should resign, or be pushed, after she loses today’s vote.
January 15, 2019
Agreed…
January 15, 2019
Completely agree, and what you say horrifyingly applies to all her present policies, defence, free speech, the justice system, sexual and other propaganda in schools, the vast level of immigration, the whole boiling lot. There is no area in which she will not betray this country.
January 15, 2019
After 40 odd years of simply taking EU orders I am afraid to say many Politicians have forgotten what real political freedom and sovereign power is like.
Its time they grew up and fully accepted the responsibility that has been given to them by the people to govern in their name, not to simply pass it on to others because it is too difficult.
The people voted to take back complete control from the EU, so just get on with it and plan our own future.
This withdrawal agreement must be voted down, simply because it ties us to the EU for at least another two years, and locks us in under their control during that time..
We have had uncertainty for now nearly 3 years with pointless discussions, what is the point of extending that further.
Take back control on March 29th, and set our own course.
Thank you for your efforts John, keep up the good work.
This agreement must not pass.
January 15, 2019
There is a very interesting piece in an academic blog ‘Briefings for Brexit’ which spells out some rather frightening implications of the Withdrawal ‘Agreement’ (WA) for the City in the shape of a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT). Apparently, France and Germany , immediately following the signing off of the WA tabled a new FTT proposal which was discussed by finance ministers on 3rd December and more talks are scheduled for early 2019.
An FTT would be bound to drive swathes of our profitable City out of the country or vastly increase the £39bn sum quoted as being the cost of the WA as forecast by our host in his HoC speech last week.
January 15, 2019
I agree with you 100%.
Thank you.
January 15, 2019
Whatever happens with ‘The Vote’ – we can be sure of one thing. The war between the right and left wings of the Tory party will be over… and the left will have won
We can expect the Tory left to consolidate their position, while the Tory right will be urged to go quietly into the night.
Should the JPD be rejected, then we will see a period of waiting while May does what she can to avoid a WTO exit, then we will enter a limbo, which will probably remain with us for a very long time….But one thing is sure, the right wing Tories either have to break away or be condemned with the left wing… and no, we will never see the likes of Boris or JR as a Tory PM again. The Tories have chosen to move to the dark side, and right wingers can expect to be purged.
January 15, 2019
It is not a question of “left” and “right” for Conservative MPs but whether or not they respect the democratic choice of the people to leave the EU.
Those Conservative MPs who have been shown to be lying to their constituents for years, pretending to be Eurosceptic while all along supporting EU legislation, and now trying to overturn the referendum result, will be found out and either purged from the Party or, failing that, losing at the next GE through lack of Conservative support.
January 15, 2019
It’s always been about the 2 wings of the tory party – and it must be clear to all concerned that the europhiles, in power, dominate, and pursue left wing policies.
Those few on the right of the Tory party – like JR – try to get open, honest and decent policies implemented that will give us more freedoms.
Just look at the way May’s left wing has governed, with their high taxes and socialist policies, and tell me they are not too far left of centre
January 15, 2019
Bryan Harris
“The Tories have chosen to move to the dark side, and right wingers can expect to be purged.”
I think it will go ‘guerilla warfare’ or the right wing of the tories will form their own party.
Either way we will be coming out of the EU, though things will get pretty nasty in interim.
January 16, 2019
Hope you are right on that Steve – to come out…
I fear it will be less gang warfare and more on the lines of a communist purge
January 15, 2019
“They argue that Parliament will take back control, as people wanted”
…subject to the express will of the people as revealed in a referendum or a general election.
If, for example, the people vote Labour at the next election, does Parliament claim the right to ignore that result too?
January 15, 2019
No. But if the civil service can ignore the Leave result it can jolly well ignore a Marxist in No 10 too.
Nothing to fear by not turning out on election day.
Democracy doesn’t exist anyway.
January 15, 2019
Democracy is under threat. The power establishment do not like it because it limits their activity. The senior civil service don’t like it because it is working against the financjal benefits of many of them who have worked within the EU. The same can be said for many ex and current politicians. In one case a whole family of them. There is a level of arrogance among many current politicians summed up as mother knows best. The referendum of 2016 was one of the few times the opinion of the electorate was sought. The ruling establishment, elected or not did not like the answer and have fought against it tooth and nail while lying through their teeth to the effect that they respected the vote. They respected their own self interest, end of story.
The whole process of the last two years so called negotiation has been the most unprofessional shambles anyone could imagine. The end game camel that started as a desire for a horse. It happened because the individuals including the PM did not believe in it. They just capitulated to an EU agenda. I hope she gets her comupance tonight and has the grace to go.
January 15, 2019
Freedom is priceless but requires eternal vigilance and effort.
In the first half of the 20th century we had UK citizens who would have preferred if the country was run by the USSR. And even some who thought that rule by Germany was preferable to war.
From the second half of the 20th century until today we have UK citizens, and now a majority in Parliament, who believe our country should not be sovereign and free but prefer it was run by the EU, even as a vassal state without representation.
If our ruling elites had not constantly promoted Project Fear and continually lied about the aims of the EU to become an authoritarian super-state with scant democratic controls, lied about its true costs upon the UK (£100bn/year trading deficit, £10bn/year membership fee and damaging asymmetric FoM) then leave would be nearer 80%.
If Parliament has its way and seizes control to either cancel Brexit or turn the UK into a permanent vassal state of the EU, then the last meaningful vote of any UK elector will be that of the 2016 EU referendum.
January 15, 2019
Whatever the outcome of all of this, it is clear that Parliament is in need of major surgery.
January 15, 2019
Oldwulf – With respect, it is not at all clear. Parliament is doing its job as the national forum. Individual MPs may have difficulties with the concept of popular sovereignty as expressed in referendums (not surprising as it is constitutionally a grey area) but that does not mean Parliament itself is sick.
When Brexit is over and the dust has settled, I expect business as usual. The great parties will need to examine themselves closely: their shortcomings are painful and glaring. The Speakership is in a wretched state, but that is a question of one individual. Government has taken a terrible but well-deserved beating. Everyone is bruised and gasping but no one is killed, metaphorically or literally.
Am I alone in thinking this a remarkable achievement? We will have effected a profound constitutional change without violence or bloodshed. How many countries (outside the Anglosphere) could do the same? We only have to look across the Channel to see how others solve their problems. It’s not an attractive option.
January 16, 2019
I am glad that more and more people are coming round to this view.
January 15, 2019
The answer to your question is an overwhelming YES John. Parliament is trying to overturn the will of the people and we must not let them get away with it. I hear one remain MP after the other saying we must put it to the people with a three way choice, May’s deal, no deal or remain. Not only are they traitors to the people of this country but like May with her surrender deal, they are taking us for idiots thinking we don’t see their cunning plan for what it is – splitting the leave vote in two.
I am also sick of May saying her deal protects her ‘precious’ union. I would say it does exactly the opposite but then when did England’s concerns matter to this anti-English Government except when they want their votes and their cash. Whilst she has had numerous talks with the First Ministers of the devolved nations over Brexit, once again England has been totally ignored. It was England which predominately voted leave, the same England which when polled by the BBC, 62% said they identified as English rather than British because they were fed up of England as always being ignored by UK Governments of all colours. England with no voice and no representation takes in 95% of all immigrants yet whilst it is England’s services which are at breaking point Hammond and this Tory Government have cut them to the bone whilst conveniently finding billions extra (English taxpayers’ money) in every budget for the devolved nations on top of their already over generous block grants compared to England.
England has spoken in the only way they have been allowed by the anti-English establishment John and yet still parliament is determined to ignore their will. Woe betide them if Brexit doesn’t go through. This might just be what it takes to make the lion roar. Then lets see what happens to May’s precious so called union.
January 16, 2019
It’s a disgrace John that this has sat in moderation for over 24 hours. And this from someone who purports to speak for England .
January 15, 2019
Most MPs have shown that they care nothing for honouring the result of the referendum or upholding our democracy. Most can’t accept they lost the referendum and satill want to keep us in the EU. Most seem incapable of being legislators without receiving their instructions from a foreign organisation called the EU. The EU has little, if any, regard for democracy so in that respect if their disciples in Westminster get their way and keep us in the EU they will have achieved a double success, by having destroyed UK democracy in the process. Mrs May has deliberately brought us to this place.
January 15, 2019
It is rapidly becoming Parliament v the People.
January 15, 2019
On reflection, it really is a quite remarkable achievement that Mrs May has managed to get diametrically opposite parties, namely substantial numbers of both Leavers and Remainers in every political party, to unite in opposition to her Withdrawal Agreement.
January 15, 2019
The answer to the question Sir John
YES
January 15, 2019
It seems that the country’s decision for the “UK to take back control from the EU” is now about to be changed by Parliament to “Parliament seizing power from the British people and using it to give our sovereignty away to the EU”.
January 15, 2019
The chance of Mrs. May organising a smooth WTO exit are effectively nil.
Has the scale of change to the UK with Brexit overwhelmed her and made her deluded or is she a closet Remoaner?
The 200 MPs who voted to keep her as leader could also be classified in the same way and as a few of the contributors here rail on about – grandchildren could suffer badly but because of the dreadful May and her cohorts not Brexit.
January 15, 2019
Sir
We are in danger of losing Brexit and I call on all leave-voting Britons to stand up and be counted. We all know how often in the past 2.5 years politicians have agreed to deliver Brexit but we now know far too many of them were lying through their teeth and they have worked tirelessly to frighten us into abandoning our hoped-for success. When that didn’t work, disgracefully, they have even had to change the rules of parliament to try to get their way. It is time all leavers sent the strongest possible message to their elected representatives that unless they deliver what we voted for, i.e. to leave the E.U., deal or no deal, they will be deselected. We have the power to make these hypocrites hurt where it hurts them most, in their jobs. On the matter of Brexit there can be no negotiating. We voted for it and we want it.
We have nothing to fear by leaving without a deal but, actually, the E.U. does. In the 45 years we have been members, we have contributed, including trade deficits, a staggering 4 trillion Euros, that’s 4 million million Euros to support French farmers, German manufacturers, Spanish high speed rail projects, Polish and Irish Republic roads and other infrastructure projects, etc. It is time we spent our money here in the U.K. on our own hospitals, schools, housing, roads and railways. There is no doubt the E.U. will seriously miss the massive contribution the U.K. has made to their project and nor will French farmers, German industrialists, etc want to lose their customers even if unelected E.U. representatives, enjoying living the life of Riley on the E.U. gravy-train decide to try to make a point. The strength, including the money, is all on our side. We succeeded before the E.U. and we can and will succeed after the E.U.
Write to your representative, ring him or her or go directly to speak to them, but go and make your point loud and clear. There is no time to waste.
Bernard38
January 15, 2019
I gave myself the answer “yes” when reading your headline. Parliament’s trial is likely to see a guilty verdict of course, to corrode to destruction the body politic.
Otherwise, does T. May have no conception of how silly and false she sounds when exhorting people to follow her ill-conceived and damaging path, as repudiated by just about everyone but her cabal?
January 15, 2019
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Those MP’s who continually raise objections to an independent United Kingdom, who assert that the UK could not flourish as an independent trading nation, who say that everything would come crashing down to earth overnight, could easily see their wishes come true by allowing the UK to leave on a WTO No Deal Brexit.
Since they are so confident of the UK’s inability to thrive outside the EU then as soon as the economy began to crumble they could point to their predictions, say that they were right all along and demand the UK rejoins the EU. If this turned out to be the case the British people would demand EU re-admittance.
But they dare not. They are terrified that the UK would continue to grow and prosper. Some MP’s give the impression they would rather see the UK fail and falter such is their love for all things EU.
The EU is also terrified of the UK becoming a success and wishes the UK harm so that its example is not repeated by other member states and the Euro Project unravels.
If and when the withdrawal agreement is defeated I want to see Plan B. The Chancellor gave a hint of this some time ago when he talked about changing the financial model of the UK should we be denied fair access to EU markets.
He said the UK, “Would not lie down and we would do whatever we have to do to remain competitive”. Now I do not want to see’ a race to the bottom’ as some like to put it but I do expect our leaders to show the EU that we will not be pushed around or sign up to any old deal.
Plan B? I just hope that the Prime Minister has spent some time working on one.
January 15, 2019
Here is some advice. As a lot of people are confused.
Only the PM can initiate primary legislation related to treaty law. Only the Queen can sign off on a Treaty change. I assume she has already signed off on Art 50 !!
May’s only options are to (1) continue as is with WTO (2) Pull Art 50 (3) Pull out the EU overnight.
Art 50 cannot be extended as it is treaty law and would require a referendum in some EU countries. There is not time to do this.
The EU could offer more concessions but it is my strong belief if they cared they would have offered far more than they already have and would have set up a potential last minute treaty change.
Art 50 was designed to push a country out the EU and the EU would have been greasing the slippery slope. The UK is leaving on its own accord and the EU are looking after their own interests and punishing the UK.
The Gov have been preparing for WTO. Transit arrangements, residency etc has all been passed or planned. So there is no cliff edge.
If May pulls Art 50’she will destroy the Conservative Party and plunge the country into political crisis. Corbyn will get in. Corbyn could legally and morally pull the UK out the EU at a moments notice to nationalise industry. Corbyn does not need Art 50 to pull out the EU. May’s efforts will be in vain.
Conclusion the UK will leave on WTO.
January 15, 2019
Long live Occam’s Razor. Out of all the permutations the simplest is No Deal.
January 15, 2019
When her level of treachery is finally revealed can we have a National Holiday? ( If the EU allows it ) We can call it Demockracy Day. We can even have a song about it -with apologies to Don McLean.
” So bye bye Miss Democracy pie
Sold my country to the EU and now England will die
Them bad EU boys drinking Champagne on high
Singing This will be the day England dies
This will be the day that they die
January 15, 2019
Mrs Soubry typifies our average sub standard MP.
2011 : I believe the EU has become a huge over costly bureaucratic organisation lacking in democracy and accountability.
Sept 2015 : We are trusting the people. We will go to the people and let the people decide whether or not to stay in the EU
November 2016 : I backed the Referendum only because I though we would win. obviously I wouldn’t have if I thought we would lose.
February 2016 : John Pienaar..Couldn’t Britain prosper and thrive outside the EU ?
Soubry….No I don’t think it could.
January 2017 : You can’t vote for a Referendum and then renege on delivering the result because you don’t like the result.
I want a General Election. I want to see these dreadful people sacked.
January 15, 2019
Mrs Soubry only had a majority of 863 in 2017, so this is probably her last shout…
January 16, 2019
Again. I am very happy that more and more people are coming to this view.
January 15, 2019
Any high moral ground in this matter is entirely occupied by Leave.
We have been lied to by europhiles since 1973 when we entered the European Community.
The Leave Bus fuss was a Remain lie since no claim was made that the NHS would receive every penny of the EU funding. Quite simply…one needs to read the words on the bus.
Now the utter depravity of Remain is apparent in the behaviour of those in Parliament. Why are they prepared to go to such extremes ( extremists every one of them) to stay in the EU?
Well..power and wealth or maybe because working for the EU is all they understand. UK-Brussels politics no longer attracts people of calibre ( vis May’s “negotiating skills”) and the europhile MPs we have are scared to death of change!
January 15, 2019
As outlined earlier in the Week the WTO regime does not solve any of the fundamental challenges currently being done through the Eu.
So leaving just on WTO terms with the EU, will not solve the long-term economic challenges we have in this country, including at least five years for lots of different trade deals across the World.
January 15, 2019
Neither will the EU solve the UKs long term economic challenges.
Whilst nations like Canada Japan and others spent years trying to get a trade deal trade between them and Europe teade carried merrily on.
January 15, 2019
We do not have 27 disparate interests to cater for. Add in the EU wishing to dictate and not negotiate then waiting 5 years to conclude a deal is hardly surprising. We already have countless nations waiting for our exit to either carry over current terms or improve on them. May refused their overtures as she didn’t want the UK to have an advantage over the EU. She really needs to go, ASAP. Hopefully this evening’s commons defeat will hasten her exit.
January 16, 2019
Hans, Unless you are claiming that the EU will economically support us, our wealth is up to us in or out of the EU. And you make the (deliberate?) Remain mistake of assuming that the RTAs (trade deals) replace the WTO system. They do no such thing. The RTAs are merely minor modifiers of the international WTO framework.
January 15, 2019
Dear Mr. Redwood,
In answer to my own question ‘where is Plan B?’ it would be typical of this useless government for its Plan B ‘to read ‘see Plan A’.
January 15, 2019
‘Taking back control to Parliament’, is a step too short. In a democracy, the ‘control’, must always be with the People. “Control”, resting with Parliament, is not democracy. Which, sadly, is where we are at present.
It is clear that the European Union is run unilaterally, by the European Commission. It is also clear that NONE of the 27 Foreign Commissioners are elected to their positions by The People, the citizens of Europe and NONE of these Commissioners have to answer to nor ever account themselves to those same European People. NEVER, EVER.
Such a Political ‘arrangement’ is known as an Autocracy and because The Commission take no notice of The People’s opinions or wishes, they become a Dictatorship. Furthermore, their meetings, debates and minutes are held in secret, and thus form a “Cabal”, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is ” A secret political clique or faction”.
The British people do not like secret assemblies, especially those that then set their Laws – the main reason why most of them voted to Leave the EU.
Those Members of Parliament who seek to revoke or distort the decision made in the 2016 People’s Referendum, align themselves with the Brussels Cabal rather than to British democracy.
For that reason they must be declared ‘unfit for purpose’ and removed from their positions at the earliest opportunity.
I had hoped there was a protective clause in British Law that ensured the People’s representatives in Parliament always abide by the decisions of their electorate or suffered a By-Election.
Alas there is no such protection for retaining and ensuring British democracy which would have certainly made it easier for the Country to Leave the EU, as decided two and a half years ago in OUR democratic Referendum. I live in hope such legislation will be raised soon after March 29th.
January 15, 2019
Sir John,
Well the majority will again be delighted with what you say.
We are up against some simply terrible people, who have chosen to deny this Nation our bid for Freedom, the first real chance we have had in 45 years.
No matter which way this goes today, the population of this once great Country.
These disgraceful people are some how able to destroy exactly what was our Parliament.
With what appears to be impunity, More is the pity I say.
This is a massive crime which will , it seems go un punished.
Except at the ballot box, I sincerely hope that If nothing else they get public ridicule, and all seen for just exactly what they are, Treacherous, dissgracefull individuals
Wishing all Brexiteer s good luck.
January 15, 2019
The ERG must assist Labour to remove May who has split the parliamentary Party and destroyed grass roots support all be her self
Otherwise we will never get to the end of this process , no matter how large the defeat tonight – she is still talking of just stringing out negotiations with the EU forever and a day – which is fine if you do not BeLeavEU!
The problem is May/Hammond/Treasury who cooked up this PWA assuming they would get it through Parliament by a cross party coalition of Remainers. Remainers don’t want it as they can see we are better off Remaining without this, there is no point to the PWA.
Even heading to WTO Brexit May will continue to sabotage Leave, sh will statr negotiating away whatever advantages are precieved by the EU and claw it back to offer the EU again without any reciprocation.
Only supporting a Vote of No Confidence in May will change the Tory Leadership, the ERG must sit on their hands on this. It does not mean a General Election follows – May has to resign as she no longer can get business through and the DUP will no onger support her. The Queen needs to be advised as to which Conservative Leaver can mend the majority in the Commons, probably Davis who negotiated comprehensively a workable set of Deals before he was sabotaged by May/Hammnd / teasury.
January 15, 2019
“The PM should return to the EU to ensure smooth passage out”
Of course she should – but she is pretending to ignore her duties in this regard, presumably in the hope of terrifying the population about the prospect of an unprepared WTO exit.
It has to be said that a no-deal exit with a government that has failed to negotiate MRAs (mutual recognition agreements) would be extremely harmful. This is where a parliament with any sense would force her to put the UK’s interests first and get on with preparing for exit on 29 March, or speedily replace her with a leader who will work with a will.
Like many politicians, May does not have any ‘willpower’ – merely stubborn vanity, and behind it all, a sly intent to keep us locked into the EU so she can feature in their ‘history books’.
January 15, 2019
The Parliamentary Conservative Party is in danger of being out of power for many years to come.
Mrs May please, please, please do not forget that the democratic majority voted “Leave”. On the 2016 ballot paper, “Brexit” was not an option.
Your deal is not “Leaving”. “Remain” lost. Another referendum is the fantasy of the EU which has form for allowing any number of votes until it gets the answer it wants.
Mrs May, the future of the Conservative Party is in your hands.
January 15, 2019
It seems clear that the answer to this question from a great many members of Parliament, in both Houses, is ‘Yes!’
January 15, 2019
I would never describe these people as clever as we the people can see through what they say and can see their real motives. For too long politicians have duped the people with their weasel words but they have now been revealed for the self-centred and duplicitous people they really are. One thing the referendum has done is to engage the public in politics. Pandora’s Box has been opened and if democracy is denied then big changes will take place. The same thing is happening throughout the EU countries. I see big trouble ahead. Thank goodness we have patriotic and honest politicians like yourself to fight for the people of this country.
January 15, 2019
* The WA will be voted down tonight by parliament
* There is no plan B other than leave on WTO
* No deal WTO will be blocked by parliament
* Art50 will be postponed (or revoked by parliament by a change in the law)
* A second referendum will be forced on the gov by parliament
January 15, 2019
I’ve been following the debate, and judging from the present mood of the House, there is no appetite at all for any pro-government arguments (by the Attorney General and other tame ministers) supporting the WA.
The defeat should be gratfiyingly heavy. Mr Corbyn will then of course try on his vote of no confidence. I’d guess it’s unlikely to succeed, although if I were a DUP member I’d be tempted to vote no confidence, so as to remove May as PM, allow her Tory successor to win the ensuing vote of confidence within the next two weeks, and avoid a General Election that would put Corbyn in power.
Just now I heard Grieve, in a petulant moment of resentment. sneeringly referring to Cox as a ‘criminal defence lawyer’ – strongly implying he was unfit to decide on treaty interpretation. One might well riposte to Grieve that it is most curious to have a French citizen as an MP in a British parliament attempting to thwart the democratic will of the people’s vote to leave the EU.
January 15, 2019
I had to catch an early train this morning and arrived at the station approach just as a some local Remoaner had finished hanging up his large banner asking:
“Brexit: is it worth it?”
So that question having been posed I mildly gave my answer: “Yes, it is worth it”.
Which instantly unleashed a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse, following me half way up the path to the station entrance. And at one point I thought he might be about to hit me with a length of two by two that he picked up …
Over the past twenty years or so I’ve been on quite a lot of anti-EU demonstrations and there have been a few occasions when I’ve been embarrassed by rude behaviour on the part of fellow protesters, but nothing like this.
January 15, 2019
As far as I can see it would make no difference who was PM or what party was in. The MP’s will not get a majority in a vote on Brexit unless we are tied by our apron strings to the EU or remain. MP’s have got to accept the fact that the people voted to leave and so this is what should have happened two years ago. There is no other way around this. If this goes to another referendum there must be either remain or leave again. If Leave wins then that’s that. No fannying around like they have this time. Just leave. We don’t want a three way split. If Labour win another election then they will have the same problems so really they just need to accept that we just leave. Get on with it and stop mucking the people around.
January 15, 2019
There’s something else going on here- for the PM to run off to Brussels again tonight following a defeat of the WA? you’d have to wonder why?
Whatever concessions she might belatedly get, it will never be enough to satisfy the ERG types and in turn the House and the EU know this, therefore what they offer will be minimal and only window dressing at best, purely for the historians
Looks like our PM is out to run the country into the ground to prove a point like being a most bloody difficult woman..and she also knows whatever happens she cannot lose because she is just delivering what the people voted for. Something else going on here
January 15, 2019
When Remain MPs and their trolls laugh in my face and say ‘well, you should be pleased, you wanted Parliament to take back control’ I feel such a burning rage and I’m afraid, hatred.
This is their doing, when they choose the EU over democracy.
January 15, 2019
At last the mystery has been solved.
It has been argued that the UK government has said that it will not erect any hard border on the island of Ireland, and that has been enshrined in UK law; and the Irish government has taken its public opposition to a hard border to absurd, extreme and intransigent levels and has said that it has no plans to instal one; and the EU has said there should be no hard border; so how then could a hard border “re-emerge”, by spontaneously arising out of the ground without any human agency?
No, Theresa May made it clear yesterday, in an answer to Owen Paterson:
http://bit.ly/2TOyjKX
“May I also say to my hon. Friend that it is not the case that the European Union has said that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland? The no-deal plans published by the European Commission in December make it clear that there will be no flexibility on border checks in no deal, so the Irish Government will be expected to apply EU checks in full.”
So there we have it: on Theresa May’s account the real purpose of the backstop is not to stop the UK deploying grim-faced British customs officers at the border, as per the widely circulated Irish nationalist propaganda images, but rather to stop the EU pursuing its inflexible course and forcing the Irish to erect a hard border so that EU checks can be applied in full on the trickle of goods crossing from the north.
Goods which for the past quarter of a century have conformed to EU Single Market standards because UK law has said that all goods in the UK must conform to those standards, and which will continue to conform for the foreseeable future even after we have left the EU, unless and until the UK changes the standards laid down by its law, and which could continue to conform even if UK law started to allow different standards for goods within the UK, but still prohibited any divergence from EU standards for goods carried across the land border into the Republic and the EU Single Market.
And far from criticising the EU for its inflexibility over this – an inflexibility which defies its obligations under the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, as well as commitments in its own treaties – Theresa May supinely agrees that the solution is for the whole of the UK to remain under swathes of EU laws in perpetuity.
But then that is what she wanted to do anyway, to placate the CBI …
January 15, 2019
Yes..parliament wants to deny the peoples wish for brexit. By defeating the WA tonight will leave the way open for a soft brexit with red line removed or maybe no brexit..so the answer to the question is yes parliament is going to deny the people
January 15, 2019
The government should also take lessons urgently from President Trump’s economic policy. Yet another huge success flagged up yesterday:
President Trump: “Volkswagen will be spending 800 million dollars in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They will be making Electric Cars. Congratulations to Chattanooga and Tennessee on a job well done. A big win!” (Also 1000 jobs).
January 15, 2019
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Advice to Nick Boles MP
Dear Mr. Boles,
Following Dominic Raab’s contribution to the Withdrawal Agreement debate you took to Twitter to post the following comment:
“Did anyone else just hear someone launch his campaign for the Conservative leadership?”
Did you mean this in a humorous way? It actually comes across as rather churlish or perhaps even envious. Perhaps, the threat of deselection is preying on your mind?
The House could also afford you the opportunity to set out your own leadership campaign should you have the guile to disguise it as something else; the Norway for Now Plan, for example.
And, of course, if you consider yourself Prime Ministerial material.
January 15, 2019
“Did anyone else just hear someone launch his campaign for the Conservative leadership?”
Oh, if only someone would…
January 15, 2019
Today is the easy bit: the deal will not pass. It’s preventing the legislation we have to leave with no capitulation agreement on 29th March from being undermined that will be the difficult bit.
January 15, 2019
The Attorney General has said today in the HoC that he believes the Robbins/Selmayr WA is a good deal because it enable us to control 40% of our laws (not defined) !
January 15, 2019
Wanted. A British PM who believes in the UK, its people and who will defend to their last breath its democracy against the liberal left fascists and EU zealots
January 15, 2019
Been watching the clowns live on the telly, I have to say; I don’t believe I’ve ever laughed so much.
Tickles me pink even at this stage they still don’t get it.
The truth is coming out…our government, all 600+ of them, do not represent us. They represent big business which is terrified of ‘no deal’
January 15, 2019
432/202 Theresa May will go down in history as one of the worst PMs of the last few centuries. I just hope that the EU27 will not bulge so that we go smoothly to the WTO deal and from 30 March we will have the Brexiteers leading us as promised to the sunny uplands. Rejoice …
January 15, 2019
glad to see one more remainer has seen the light.
January 16, 2019
You must be extra-clairvoyant to know how I voted, assuming I voted at all … LoL.
January 16, 2019
I just read what you wrote above.
January 18, 2019
Truly inspirational understanding.
January 15, 2019
The Toothache Vote
Theresa May has lost her fight & lost her bite.
230, as in tooth hurtie shall cause her extraction.
January 15, 2019
Why on earth would a woman put her unborn baby at risk in a bid for media attention in making a political point? And how can a Speaker and other MPs encourage that? It is also disgusting that he tried to pin the blame for this extraordinary order of priorities on the Leader of the House.
January 15, 2019
With a massive loss by 230 votes surely Mrs May must consider her position ?
She has wasted 2 years on a deal that she was told 6 months ago her own side would not support.
After seeing off Corbyn’s pathetic no confidence vote she should give way to a genuine Brexiteer to get us out on March 29th. It should be Rabb or Davis without a co
ntest
January 15, 2019
The EU are clear unlike our side. Boris was on again thinks thd WA can be reopened. With a defeat of 230 nothing will be renegotiated now
January 15, 2019
Give us another vote and we will make a more informed decision.
January 15, 2019
Assuming the confidence vote is won by the gover nment the next step is to itemise all those aspects of the WA that are unacceptable to the conservative party and DUP.
Armed with such a list we can inform the EU of the need to change to the WA or alternativly we confirm that we are leaving on 29th March under WTO rules.
Under art. 24 of these WTO rules trading arrangements should remain as they are at present until such time as we have a new trade agreement.
Under a no deal scenario we should tell the EU which aspects of the WA we are prepared to operate with or without their agreement.
Under no circumstances should May or Robbins be allowed back in Brussels. They must be replaced by a confirmed Brexit oriented team. More of the last two years is unacceptable.
January 15, 2019
1924 -Thumping Gov defeat and George & Ira Gershwin’s musical “Lady Be Good” premieres in NYC
January 15, 2019
Can we have a public inquiry into how TM became PM and why we cant get rid of her?
January 15, 2019
Much cheaper option: go to your nearest library (or bookstore) and get “All out War” and “Fall Out” by Tim Shipman. All details, I would think, are provided there. It is easy reading and much more interesting than this the C4 bit of a movie shown last week.
January 15, 2019
Tusk is saying it is not possible to leave the EU, indirectly, he is saying tonight that a deal is impossible and no one wants no deal so the only alternative is we stay in the EU.
January 15, 2019
The decision to leave the EU is a decision solely for the British people. Tusk can go and stand in front of a speeding train. The arrogance and nauseating temerity of this fool that he thinks he can dictate to us, the people of this nation about the direction in which we should take our nation
Depose May NOW.
Elect a ardent Eurosceptic
Call a GE
Go north and destroy Labour
Privatise the liberal left cancer that is the BBC
January 15, 2019
Was the Raab-Davis-Foster alternative WA ever checked to be acceptable to the Conservatives and DUP, or did it also have problems? Something agreeable with true red lines would need to be found quickly, if not be clear and transparent on what has been prepared for ‘no deal’ and prepare further.
January 15, 2019
The banks were stopping individuals moving more than ten grand abroad today, currency controls real but unannounced.
Hope the press wake up to this.
January 15, 2019
May says “this vote tells us nothing about what the house supports”. Well the house should support what the people voted for by good majority. Leave! No customs union, no single market, no ECJ, no Euro Army, no ceded border control, taking back control of fishing etc etc. No divorce payment.
The house isn’t there to reinterpret what the people voted! The referendum question was clearly stated, clearly understood and clearly decided.
January 15, 2019
Andrew, just what I think too. We were told it’s our decision so how come parliament is taking that away?
January 15, 2019
Well said, Andrew.
January 15, 2019
My understanding of WTO rules is that States who are in the process of negotiating a FTA can set their tariffs in expectation of a successful outcome (i.e outside of Most Favoured Nation parameters).
That means that we can set our tariffs to be exactly as they are now if we so wish.
January 16, 2019
Yes they do …..the elite were never going to let this happen us leaving the EU. I’m just surprised so many people thought it would happen.
England will be broken up into the 9 European Regions. Regions will report directly to the unelected EU Commission, not to Westminster, effectively eliminating the nation of England.
Why do we need 650 MPs and 845 Lords when they want this country to be ruled over by unelected foreigners like Juncker and Tusk. Do you ever remember voting for them?
January 16, 2019
David Cameron a PM from one of the top 5 contributing members of the EU voted against Juncker and they still elected him President. DC chose a man Jonathan Hill that no-one had heard of nor had he been elected by the people to be the European Commissioner Nov.2014, he quit June 2016 and he didn’t get replaced why? He was a previous advisor to John Major and Ken Clarke which tells you everything you need to know about his loyalties.
Prime Ministers John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown all gave in to Brussels, signing away more powers than they had the mandate to give is Theresa May aided by the Labour Party about to do the same?
January 16, 2019
Self serving guff!
You and the rest of the commons need to get out of broadcast mode and your bubble of waffle and finger pointing and collectively take some responsibility to find a solution which the country can unite around.
Enjoy the pantomime in the commons today with the rest of the children, don’t forget to cheer and boo at the right times. We are collectively sick of the lot of you, you are all truly pathetic.
We should have an election, with the proviso than none of the current crop of self serving, ego driven incompetents who sit in the commons should be allowed to stand.
January 16, 2019
The polls show Conservatives ahead by 6 points.
So if you are hoping for a Labour victory you might be disappointed.
Some ardent remainer MPs in marginal constituency areas that voted to leave the EU and vice versa might lose their seats but my guess is we would have another close election result.
I’m sure the government could come up with a deal that we the people might like but the EU has said repeatedly that the WA was the only offer they are making.
January 16, 2019
The polls show Conservatives ahead by 6 points.
So if you are hoping for a Labour victory you might be disappointed.
Some ardent remainer MPs in marginal constituency areas that voted to leave the EU and vice versa might lose their seats but my guess is we would have another close election result.
I’m sure the government could come up with a some new ideas that we the people might like but the EU has said repeatedly that the WA was the only offer they are making.
January 16, 2019
It must be clear to most of the world that the UK prime minister has demonstarted time and time again that she is indeed guilty of high treason.
It’s of interest, I think, that this well educated population doesn’t seem to have woken up and seen through the continuous barrage of propaganda. This country will probably sleep walk away from its own independence and sovereignty without knowing it has been tricked – by a disrespecting administration.
I’m ashamed of my fellow countrymen’s gullibility and lack of fight.
As I’ve maintained from the start, this whole thing is theatre. Nothing has changed my mind.
Most likely it’ll be kick the can down the road, replace Corbyn with a young promising Blaire psychopath and let the Labour Party win…. Or have another referendum – like the Irish were allowed to have, so that they could have their fair chance to make the correct decision, after having so much stinking manure dumped on them via the media that they capitulated.
I can feel my parents turning in their grave.
Good luck – I think I’ll go and live in some other country!
January 17, 2019
You may not read this since it is at the very bottom of a comments list but …
What do you think would happen if Parliament broke the social contract such that we became a Luttwak Nation State?
(A Luttwak Nation State is one that has no connection to its underlying Nations. These were/are quite common in post colonial Africa, for example).