There were meant to be four lead speakers on each side. Those proposing belief in the United States of Europe did have four senior people. Two were former UK MEPs, one was the founder and co-President of a pan European party, and one was a fellow in European Politics at LSE.
The Opposition had myself and a Professor  who was sceptical about the feasibility and desirability of the USE. Two able students joined us. I was the only one of the four who thought Brexit a good idea though I had no plans to raise that. The others all wanted to raise Brexit, so that was 7 against 1.
Whilst it was an improvement on the referendum debates that the pro EU side did not deny a United States of Europe is a possible and desirable outcome, I was struck by their lack of detail. There was no blueprint for how the remaining tasks to build  the bigger  budget and larger tax base might  work, how big the army need be, how and  when the EU/USE would take responsibility for its own defence and how and when it would create peace in Europe. There was no exploration of how and when the EU growth plan would work and whether it was impeded at all by member state differences.  There was plenty of hatred for Putin’s  Russia and of a Trump led USA but no diplomatic path for better relations with these powers. The advocates clearly want a USE in Cold war with Russia and with the USA if they do not approve of its President.
Much of the tone of the debate was very narrow in attitude, repeating well known general platitudes about unity, democracy, solidarity with no understanding of how far the current structure is from delivering this.
There was no attempt to respond to the facts and figures I gave them on the huge gap between the US and the EU over growth, per capita  GPD and for the growth of great companies. When I highlighted  the importance of the great US digital corporations it led to hostility to capitalism though all these people do depend on Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Alphabet ,Amazon Web and Nividia to lead their own lives and to get their degrees.  Their approach like the EU is to rely on US companies whilst  condemning them.
Will the new intelligentsia wake up to reality? Europe has a lot of catching up to do. The world does not owe it a living. There is a huge gap between the high ideals they assert and  the reality of what the EU is doing.
February 25, 2024
Letâs hope that those who followed the debate will be inspired by yourself .
.
February 25, 2024
That sums up many remauners
No detail no vision
Just a blind hostility to a self governing UK and a successful USA.
Many of them including my French colleague believe EU regulations are good as he thinks it protects jobs. I do detect a waver from him with the farmers revolting and him being deprived of his gas guzzler.
We really need Trump and a uk version of him to clear our the dross governing us.
February 25, 2024
Carlson interview of Mike Benz very good conversation to listen to. It was enlightening about the social media platforms and links to govt. it is also relevant because of the Brexit vote, proposed EU digital legislation coming through which will control what can or cannot be discussed or listened to. Undoubtedly Sunak will incorporate into domestic law, if not him Starmer.
JR, why is Sunak still implementing EU law into domestic law instead of scrapping 4,000 EU legislation as promised by your party? Why is Sunak still tying UK to EU to act in lock step economically, taxation, environment ie energy, employment etc etc, after we voted leave and it was central to your manifesto to be elected? Why has Sunak not demanded France take enforcement action to prevent boats leaving their waters ie buoys? Is Sunak really taking his fair share of migrant criminals and paying France ÂŁ500 as a hidden subscription because he gets nothing else for our money. Still promoting EU campaign to rid nation states by mass immigration?
As an aside why is the UK taxpayer giving ÂŁ4.25 million for reproduction on women in Gaza? Is this good use of taxpayers money? Cameron and Plebagate love to waste our money, any restraint or just get rid of overseas aid to tick a box no matter what the cause?
Regarding Lee Anderson what an absolute travesty, your party failed to highlight Hoyle to be sacked because he broke HoC rules to help Labours election chances but happy to to make your party even more unelectable! Stupidity seems to run through your govt.
February 25, 2024
@Ian wragg +1 – got in one- its just a protectionist racket. WTO frowns upon tariff barriers, so the unelected unaccountable bureaucrats of the EU created a new type of trade barrier ‘rule, regulation and standards’. well meaning to start, hostile to the World in the end
February 25, 2024
Two articles in a row on on a rather academic subject.
Could have focussed on more newsworthy items.
Perhaps Haleyâs defeat by Trump in her home state and how that impacts on Trumpâs candidacy. Or indeed whether Trump will actually make it that far.
On a more mundane level, the growing online censorship in this country. For example, why canât we read âRussia Todayâ? You can see the headlines if you push it through a paywall breaker, but some of the articles can still not be read – âserver cannot be foundâ when you try.
February 25, 2024
‘Why canât we read âRussia Todayâ? Take Hope’s advice, Peter, and listen to what Michael Benz had to say to Tucker Carlson.
Then you’ll know why, because of who ‘the enemy’ is.
February 25, 2024
Yesterday a very cold day, wind supplying 1.14gw and we were Importing 22% of our electricity. The same week we blithely blew ap another 2gw coal station leaving just one which goes in a few weeks.
Utter madness when some of the redundant equipment is being shipped to Germany for use in their coal fired stations.
February 25, 2024
The lunatics took over Westminster over a decade ago now.
February 25, 2024
Donna,
I think they are particularly flourishing at the moment. Most villages are missing their idiots to Westminister at the moment.
February 25, 2024
So MPs are to get body guards. How ironic as it’s the very same MPs who’ve flooded the country with riff raff from around the world and continue to do so. What about protecting us who pay the bills. Begum has cost the UK taxpayer ÂŁ5 million and counting. She’s married to a Dutch national. How come we have to fund her appeal.
February 25, 2024
Exactly. This Government and Labour have inflicted mass immigration on us against our will and have flooded the country with criminals and now they have the gall to use tax payers money on protection for themselves. What about us? Lee Anderson, one of the few remaining Tory MPs says what we are all thinking and Sunak jumps to Labourâs command and takes away the whip. This madness will only stop if we all have the courage to vote Reform. Richard Tice is right when he says Labour and the Consocialists are two sides of the same coin.
February 25, 2024
I thought at the time Sunak was the wrong person for the job. I said at the time back stabbers are never trusted he is just so weak and compliable. My MP happily voted for him even though I suspect lots of members and supporters wrote in and said no thanks, then the MP promptly resigned. Itâs all just a game and weâre being played, we arenât even the pawns âïž weâre the board with no moves.
February 25, 2024
The coverage of Lee Anderson MP’s comment is the typically one sided response to any criticism of any minority. Out come the -ist and -phobic fortifications. Not one person in the media has been invited on to consider if the comments by Lee Anderson were correct or worthy of discussion. No it’s Islamophobic or racist, end of discussion. White British men apparently look after their own why is it such a stretch to suggest that a Brown Muslim man might look after his own?
It is perfectly acceptable to use “Zionist” as a means to debate or berate Jews and Israel but to suggest that the Muslimsphere and Muslims might have fundamentalist, caliphate seeking members is racist.
Time for the worm to turn, I am fairly easy going if left alone but my patience with minorities and identity politics seeking advantage for their specific ilk is vexing me.
The Conservative party has an opportunity here to keep the Red Wall and the shires which might prevent it from being annihilated in the coming election. Just represent the majority and tell minorities to shut up and conform.
February 25, 2024
It is as well to remember that the main policy (for decades) of the monsters who comprise and control the EU is ‘Eurabia’, just like our monsters though since 1997.
February 25, 2024
+1
February 25, 2024
Her Dutch ISIS warrior is dead, just like the three children she had.
No sympathy for her in my household !
February 25, 2024
+1
February 25, 2024
What about ME?
Iâd quite like to beâŠ
protected too.
Wouldnât you?
February 25, 2024
The remaining coal fired power station still depends on imported coal, when we have loads of the stuff under our feet.
February 25, 2024
The media don’t seem concerned ….but they’re all pro net-zero
February 25, 2024
Indeed.
âThere is a huge gap between the high ideals they assert and the reality of what the EU is doing.â
Indeed much of what you call their âhigh idealsâ are totally impractical and often pure moronic vandalism – as we see now with net zero and their totally impractical attacks on farming and farmers, working time etc. directives, the EURO structures…
February 25, 2024
Well done Lee Anderson for not saying sorry. It is rarely sensible to apologies and he had said nothing particularly wrong or untrue – at the very worse slightly clumsy.
February 25, 2024
Goldsmith said much more in 2016 Mayor election against Khan as pointed out on GB News. Nothing done to him. It shows how it is increasingly difficult to say anything without wild claims of racism. These people will not integrate or accept our values and beliefs.
No protection for MPs, they made us All unsafe suffer like the rest of rest of us. MPs caused the situation through mass immigration of alien cultures and beliefs. How about the poor teacher in Batley still having to hide!! How about the poor young white girls ignored while being sexually abused and trafficked? Their perpetrator still not deported.
Hoyle needs to be sacked both excuses cannot be true. He is meant to speak up and stand up for democracy in parliament. He failed. The latter excuse made up for sympathy. He broke the rules against expert advice, which he originally distanced himself from Bercow, to help Labourâs election prospects knowing the. Option would split Labour MP voting,
February 25, 2024
Our new intelligentsia believe they know best and that for this reason taking power by any means is acceptable. Look at the way our elites operate currently, trampling over the rights of their critics and opponents, using lawfare, cancelling people.
Even worse, many in the managerial class suffer the delusion that if they want something to be true, it must be. From deciding one’s own gender, to Covid vaccines being safe and effective, to Net Zero saving the planet, to the little people owning nothing and being happy.
I’m afraid our universities are moulding a generation of monsters. Ultimately you create people with the certainty and ruthlessness of a Pol Pot.
February 25, 2024
Universities have been doing this for many decades. Fortunately most of their students go on to do something they never do – grow up.
February 25, 2024
The UK is much closer to blackouts than anyone dares to admit
It wonât take an enemy power to overwhelm the National Grid
Ross Clark today in the Telegraph.
Were everyone to shift to EV cars and heat-pumps and at vast expense (heat-pumps that in the UK will need most of their power over just a few weeks in winter) and with everything on electricity we will need grid and generation capacity of at least ten time times and twenty times current. This due to needing 100% back up for when the wind does not blow and the grid capacity to cope with the large winter heat pumps demand that will mainly be on just a few very cold days or weeks in winter. All this extra grid and generating capacity will cost a huge sum but only be used at about 20% at best of capacity for most of the year.
Total lunacy in engineering and economic terms. But then our energy minister rarely have an science beyond GCSE level. Not do they care if it is remotely practical they will be gone and perhaps have vested interests.
February 25, 2024
LL,
+ many.
And yet the Tory party keep going!!
February 25, 2024
We should leave NATO. Our Universities have become captured by the dogma that this country should commit the Army to defend Estonia, which is a member state of the European Union. Much better would be for the country to prioritize the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force so as to guarantee that Russia would never be able to land its forces on these islands.
February 25, 2024
I see Poland is sliding into a potential internecine conflict following the EU’s provocations and eventual usurping of the previous administration. The message is clear, oppose the EU at your peril
I care not one jot about the economic ramifications of any nation’s relationship with the EU but I do care about the EU’s slow and inexorable erosion of national democracies to the point that they become mere vassals of federal centralisation, mass importations and cultural decimation.
I see note Trump as openly declared ‘revenge’ on those who in the last decade or so have declared all out war against the sanctity of our civil world and our freedoms to the point that our very identity, mind and soul it seems belong to the state. This is Cultural Marxism in its purest form. Total realignment without violent revolution
As an aside. It would be remiss of anyone not to reference Lee Anderson. His eventual capitulation was tediously predictable but understandable. The enemy has won again using threats, intimidation and character assassination. It’s downhill from here
February 25, 2024
Cultural Marxism. Exactly, the long slow march to make this a Marxist nation nears completion. Marxists know that to capture a nation it is only necessary to undermine the morale and effectiveness of its armed forces, destroy public faith in their police forces, reduce the standards of the education system e.g. universities and to cause the public to distrust and lose faith in their government.
February 25, 2024
+1
February 25, 2024
Two defensive posts already on the Cambridge debate, you obviously had a very bruising evening. Well, you got your Brexit, and 8 years on a very large majority of Brits now think Leaving was a very bad idea. You Brexiters can expect a lot more bruising encounters as the full extent of your deception of the British people becomes clear
Reply. It was far from bruising. It was not a debate about Brexit. Most of the speakers were not UK citizens. The issue of what half the countries of Europe decide to do over this issue of government is important to how the world evolves.
February 25, 2024
Rather than conduct polls to return the answer they were looking for, how about the Rejoiners calling for the debt to GDP ratio to get back down to 60% so the UK can qualify to rejoin?
February 25, 2024
The 2024 EU is not the EU we left.
We would be crazy to rejoin, having been put through so much trauma to escape.
Our future lies in making the most of our new relationships around the World, particularly that with the Trans Pacific Partnership and with individual US states. Trade agreements are being made that suit the UK, not the big players in Europe.
The problem is that the Remainers are in control of our civil service and many of the businesses that trade internationally and they are conspiring with many MPs to keep us aligned with Brussels, in the hope that they can make the economy so bad that we rejoin. The terms that would be offered would be so draconian that nobody with any sense would accept them.
February 25, 2024
(:
February 25, 2024
Well said Sir, your patience is amazing. I personally would like to bundle the European fools onto to a ferry out of Great Britain along with the coastal invaders!
February 25, 2024
I’m mystified why our host is wasting his time participating in arcane debates about how the remaining European Member States choose to govern themselves. Hasn’t he got more meaningful constituency or parliamentary matters to which to attend? This country left the European Union four years ago. Debating how politics works there is like debating how politics works in Indonesia, Japan or Peru: interesting if you’re an academic but for the majority it’s totally irrelevant.
Reply It was an evening event after Parliament had adjourned. I was talking to students about how you get growth and hope in the world. They chose the topic.
February 25, 2024
I blame it on the poison the academics are stuffing into our young air heads, I also never forget that Cambridge gave us our Philbies and McCleans?
February 25, 2024
and how many yet to be uncovered? Some of course operate in full sight in the 2 Houses.
February 25, 2024
Some operate at a very high level within the ‘Opposition’. It’s painful for ordinary UK voters who woke up several years ago to what was going on. Surely behaviour of this kind used to be called treason?
February 25, 2024
Cambridge did indeed give us traitors, endless deluded lefty economists and politicians who did vast harm (many in Labour and Conservative Parties) – but lots of decent engineers, physicists, mathematicians and scientists.
February 25, 2024
It has always struck me that Remainers, as a whole, know little about the EU and do not understand how it works. As I recall the main issue for younger people in the referendum was visa free travel and a single currency so that their lives of leisure wandering around Europe could be paperwork free and the difficulty of exchange rates could be avoided (no longer taught maths beyond addition and subtraction). Even now the Remainers/Rejoiners still make the most bizarre and extraordinary claims such as member states are sovereign and the EU is completely democratic. Remainers deny that the goal of ever closer union is the Federal State of Europe. They say EU rule is no different from any treaty between states, for example on trade. They don’t undrstand the difference between EU governance and membership of NATO. They claim EU law does not have primacy, that a country can veto rules it doesn’t like. they don’t understand that national parliaments have no option but to implement EU law, that EU law has primacy whatever the wishes of the national parliament. They don’t understand that the EU parliament is NOT supreme among EU institutions but equal to the Commission and and subordinate to the top layer of the executives, not parliaments, executives of member states. They don’t understand the difference between EU and continental law on the one hand and common law on the other. And so on and so on.
February 25, 2024
Yes we were promised that we could wander around the whole of the EU passportless – the did not mention you had to have an ID to go to Tesco!
February 25, 2024
All member states are sovereign. The EU is democratic – no law is made without approval of its Parliament. The EU exists because of a Treaty, same as any other Treaty. Nobody denies EU law has primacy – thatâs true of all international law, the system can only work by stopping members picking and choosing which bits theyâll comply with. The European Parliament is of course superior to the Commission, the Commission has no lawmaking powers at all. Continental and common law are different but EU law is neither. Apart from that, well done, you know your stuff
February 25, 2024
Total B/S
February 25, 2024
The EU has no âparliamentâ. A Parliament can propose, enact and repeal laws. The EU Parliament can do NONE of those.
February 25, 2024
But no law can be even considered unless the EU commission has proposed it.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/infographic/legislative-procedure/index_en.html
That is the democratic deficit in the EU that we’re well rid of. We have private members’ bills and opposition motions in the Westminster Parliament, thank goodness. Yes, we’ve now got to a stage where MPs just walk out if they don’t want to hear them, but at least the issues are aired, and proposals that our rulers don’t like can be expressed.
February 25, 2024
Peter, young people donât exchange cash when they go abroad like the older generation, half the time they pay on their phone tap now, they donât wander around with travellers cheques anymore they just use their cards which change currency rates automatically. In fact many places no longer take cash in the EU, on a recent trip to Sweden very few places would take cash in their own currency.
Our mistake was allowing so many concessions to EU citizens working in the UK like musicians but not asking for the same in return, so we have an unbalanced field. All this talk about new import controls the EU put them onto us almost immediately, our side was just incompetent so they didnât have to deal fairly.
February 25, 2024
There is a reality gap between the utopian concept, in advocates minds, and the path chosen to achieve the end of a USE. That gap could reasonably be described as a democratic void. A USE dictated, minus the consent of the people is one destined for failure. The fault lines are increasingly manifesting themselves. Nett Zero and dependence on hostile foreign energy is causing an agricultural fault line. Open door Merkel immigration is causing a social unrest fault line and in some countries, specifically in eastern europe, a clearly defined cravasse.
All is not perfect in the USA, where the system of governance has allowed the attempted use of the law to create political outcomes to the benefit of corrupt politicians. The redeeming feature is that the people have a very strong correcting voice and electoral power. They do not as yet in the EU/USE. The correction of the democratic defecit will dictate the outcome for the EU/USE.
Do not complacently think that we do not have precisely the same challenges in the UK. If we start with Brexit, we have suffered that same fault line of a marked divergence between the declared desire of the people and that which we define as the blob, or those whose vested interests are protected by EU membership and socialism. Considerable correction is required in the UK if democracy is to survive. It is at present far too vulnerable to vested interests outside the democratic arena. So at our coming GE , caveat emptor.
February 25, 2024
Iâll just maintain that the EU is a hybrid construction, that is intergovernmental + supranational, with no determined destination.
There should be no fixation on becoming like the USA (or UK) i.e. a âUnited States of Europeâ.
Itâs âfederalâ budget would be minute (1% instead of the 23% USA federal budget).
A union is here no state or superstate but a union.
There is large support for the EU as union, but not as a ESU. I don’t see that happen during my lifetime and maybe it will never happen.
Fun-fact: The most powerful institution of the EU, the European Council, didn’t exist and wasn’t even planned in the treaties. It just happened over time by accident! (the empty chair period when The Gaule didn’t join the talking club of goverment leaders)
Reply The Commission is the most powerful institution . Council members are bound by an increasingly complex and comprehensive array of EU laws and Treaty requirements restraining their actions
February 25, 2024
Arch EU propagandist PvL pops his head up from time to time to furnish us with the attributes of EU membership. No word on the growing revolt of the peasantry or the Islamification of France
The EU is sinking in its own Web of legislation and contradiction. The sooner it’s gone, the better.
February 25, 2024
@Ian wragg: there are far too many topics to talk about Ian, and it would make me “cackling like a headless chicken” đ
At least I’m polite enough refraining from national issues in Britain.
February 25, 2024
Reply to reply: I’m sorry to say you are mistaken here. The 27 heads of government may VOLUNTARILY have signed the treaties, but collectively they determine the tasks for the Commission to focus on.
It is expressed as “The European Council is the EU institution that sets the general political policies and priorities of the European Union.”
Reply It is all subject to the Treaty and EU law . The Council agenda is reactive to Commission proposals in the main.
February 25, 2024
PvL what have the EU Council set as the priority for 2024? Iâm intrigued. Do they also decide what budget there is to achieve each thing they desire or are they just a wish list?
February 25, 2024
What about you reading consilium.europa.eu âEU Strategic Agenda 2024-2029â 03/01/2024.,
February 25, 2024
Hef,
What input did you or any other member of the public have?
February 25, 2024
@Tracy: As hefner also told you, this is available on the internet.
@ Hope: that document also has a section about the process to arrive at this strategic agenda. My representative in the European Council is my prime-minister, and in our country, prime-ministers head a democracy and don’t operate in a vacume but receive public input through their parliaments, NGO’s etc. That must be the same in Britain I guess. The various EU summits already have conclusions which help shape this strategic agenda. It is all publically available, also for outsiders like Britain, so do feel free to study it.
February 26, 2024
No it is not. It is an authoritarian dictatorship. Scrap it no need of extra tiers above national govt. Agreements and treaties can still be agreed like the rest of the world.
March 1, 2024
Gosh, it is so big. I’m sad that you both couldn’t summarise it for me.
The existing agenda:
“Agenda for 2019-2024. We set four priorities for the Union: protecting citizens and freedoms; developing a strong and vibrant economic base; building a climate-neutral, green, fair and social Europe; and promoting European interests and values on the global stage. ”
On Enlargement
“The new geopolitical context has put enlargement back at the centre of our debates. We need to consider the enlargement process and our absorption capacity. At our meeting in June 2022, we reaffirmed the need to take account of the EU’s capacity to absorb new members, as set out in Copenhagen in 1993, when deciding on each future enlargement. This requires us to reflect on the implications of enlargement for the EU’s various policies and their financing, as well as on our decision-making methods.”
Strong & Resilient EU
“From the global COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic fallout to Russiaâs war of aggression against Ukraine, the EU has taken decisive action that has strengthened its strategic capabilities while also protecting its citizens and economies.”
“EU leaders committed to strengthening the EUâs defence readiness and further developing its technological and industrial base. To this end, they will focus on:
military mobility
resilience in space
countering cyber and hybrid threats
countering foreign information manipulation”
“EU leaders are committed to strengthening the EUâs resilience and long-term competitiveness and to making the EUâs single market more cohesive, innovation-driven and interconnected.”
The EU is committed to a rules-based international order with the United Nations at its core, and to bringing more fairness to the multilateral system.
EU leaders discussed migration. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, stressed in a declaration that irregular migration needs to be addressed immediately in a resolute manner.
We will not allow smugglers to decide who enters the EU!
February 25, 2024
Peter you need to read the Treaty of Rome. You are in for a shock.
February 25, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson: Were you in for a shock.
Without having it read from cover to cover I have taken note of the Treaty of Rome and subsequent treaties. I wasn’t shocked.
February 25, 2024
The Commission cannot make law. It is by far the weakest EU institution
February 25, 2024
ONLY the commission can propose always and they are deemed to have been passed unless they are voted down by a majority of all MEPs – not just those who vote.
February 25, 2024
@LYNN ATKINSON: proposals still go through long processes of dialogue, trialogue, negotioans and amendments, before they are put to the vote in the plenary 700+ parliament.
February 25, 2024
@Peter+van+LEEUWEN – the EU project falls down in that Democracy isn’t permitted. This side of the channel it is supposed to be the people through their democratically elected representatives, that create, amend and repeal all the laws, rules and regulation that apply to how we are governed inside the Country. The EU Parliament has none of those functions yet the EU un-elected unaccountable bureaucrats get to rule as lord and masters over EU Citizens.
You should not confuse the peoples of Europe’s wish to get on, work in harmony to everyone’s mutual benefit – with having bureaucrats at the helm that dictate rather be subject to democratic over-site – a dictatorship. The US States have more independence, enjoy more democratic over-site on things that affect them going about their business than EU Countries.
February 25, 2024
I agree. I only woke up to this reality in about 2020.
The rather lame joke is that the EU has become not a US of E but rather an EUSSR. It doesn’t seem to understand states’ rights, or checks and balances. It only understands dirigiste top-down control, a bit like Soviet bureaucrats.
Meanwhile, in the middle of the continent, Switzerland never joined the EEC. It had a referendum on it but people rejected the advice of the political class. Seeing the UK’s peripheral location, I can’t understand why it needs control from Brussels when Switzerland does fine without it.
February 25, 2024
@Ian B: You are totally misinformed about democracy in the EU.
We don’t need to correct your misgivings, you are nog part of the EU.
Reply You supporters of the EU are so touchy. You love criticising the Uk and the US but think we have no right to discuss the EU! Clearly no democracy without scrutiny.
February 26, 2024
reply to reply: I’m sorry but there is just too much slogan based “criticism” which is basically just repeating and repeating misgivings until people start believing them. Even these days you couldn’t use the word “commission” without adding the adjective non-elected. You seem to think, that when it is not like Britain ( I reluctantly had to explain to you that the UK government as well is not directly elected and that there are “democratic” failings in the UK as well). Normally I avoid criticising the UK . I’m quite ok with the UK being outside the EU, but I don’t see much in the UK systems that I would ever like the EU to strive for.
It may require many years before mult language Europe with its still fragmented service sector will have as large service providers as the US. But as a small country within the EU we’re not unhappy with companies like ASML and BESI, proving healthy innovations.
February 26, 2024
EU is a dodo, no use to anyone. Govtâs represent their people and nation. Scrap bureaucratic EU. It has No value to taxpayers.
February 25, 2024
Nothing happens in the eu by accident! You must think we will believe any rubbish
February 25, 2024
@MFD: you obviously don’t know the history of the EU, including the story of the empty chair.
Having no particular role the 6 heads of states thought it good to informally meet up. The Gaule thought it a waste of time (thus –> empty chair) but later on started to regret his absence. An empty chair means: no influence. So he decided to join again, after which this talking shop evolved into a formal institutions which later (especially through crises) grew into the most powerful indtitution in the EU.
February 25, 2024
Seven on the panel were opposed to Brexit v one in favour. How very BBC of them.
The USA was created voluntarily by democratic means, but even that took a civil war to keep together. The EU hasn’t been created by democratic means and when national Demos have objected (ie French, Dutch and Irish voting against the proposed EU Constitution) they have been ignored and the federalists steamed ahead anyway.
Those who support the EU becoming a USE either haven’t got the brains to realise that what they are really creating is a USSR, or that is their real objective.
February 25, 2024
On the opposition to the motion, there was Alan Sked a founder of UKIP, Pia Kiarscaard a politician from the Danish Peopleâs Party (opposed to the Euro), Prof Marta Lorimer the author of âEurope as Ideological Resource: European Integration and Far Right Legitimation in France and Italyâ and Sir John as ⊠Sir John.
Not obvious to me that the other three on the opposition side were pro-EU. Please listen to the full 1h45 debate on YouTube. Make your own mind.
Reply 2 of those scheduled to appear in Opposition did not turn up
February 25, 2024
they probably tried to drive there, got lost, motorist fined in Oxford, then headed out again to find a Park and Ride, before they finally decided ‘Sod it! I’m going home’?
February 25, 2024
Details are the things too-down 5 year plans miss out on. Itâs just ideology.
Thatâs the whole point of being right wing is that all the details self calibrate themselves within a correctly designed structure. A correctly designed structure is not what the EU is because all the degrees of freedom are nailed down and calibration is not allowed to succeed.
DNA Inside nature
Money – Inside free market economies
Information – Inside Peer Reviews
Legal Behaviour – Inside Law
Votes – Inside a democracy
Consciousness – Inside a brain
The last thing here is the most important. Consciousness is the thing that decides on calibrating all the other things. Individual humans must be at the centre of a well designed right wing society. Itâs the âGestaltsâ in consciousness that enable humans to see âgoodâ choices. Whether is good theories, good behaviours or good governments.
February 25, 2024
We are currently going through a fifth European revolution. The first one was based on monarchy, the second on science, the third on markets, but we have had two anti-revolutions based on ownership and now identities. Right wing revolutions are continuous bottom up evolution of the system. Left wing anti-revolutions are top down and effectively revert back to a top-down system.
The only revolutions that succeed for society are the right-wing ones that allow âself-calibrationâ to happen. Right wing societies lifted people out of poverty, created wealth and health. For example in the monarchy revolution top-down control was replaced with democracy and democracy allows a society to self calibrate. Another example is markets where free markets produced wealth.
We also have two anti-revolutions. The first is communism, which is âantiâ because it tried to revert from a right-wing democratic market economy to a top-down citizen-monarchy type of rule that failed. Because Russia was so far behind it was really a mishmash of over throwing a monarchical top down system, skipping democracy and starting a citizen led top-down system.
Today we are entering an identity type of anti-revolution that again tries to enter an anti right wing process of top down promotion through sex, race and gender. Whereas before it was the Russian serfs and Chinese indentured farmers who were oppressed today it is the women and certain races. The same top down monarchical controls are being imposed.
A key way the identity revolution works is 50% of voters are women. So if you can convince them to go woke and then add on the other racial identities then you can win an election. This is the âfightâ that is used to defeat the ability of democracy to calibrate society. The woke fight leverages off the back of feminism.
So the key to defeating woke is to convince women and the world that it is not in their own interests to promote women. It is only by publishing western menâs achievements that you can defeat woke.
February 25, 2024
Mrs Gold, who voted Remain in the referendum, observes that a USE is probably inevitable – as a majority of European young people identify as European first, and nationality second.
The fact that this issue is still being actively debated here suggests that Brexit is still not yet settled. Many of those constituencies which voted Leave now intend to vote Labour at the next election. Is this because Labour apparently supports a closer relationship with our European neighbours?
February 25, 2024
SG :
I wouldnât advise Mrs. Gold, or any female in fact to vote for Labour, unless they want to experience a government dominated by a medieval misogynistic culture that we see in ME countries such as Afghanistan.
February 25, 2024
No to the last question. Many will vote Labour because itâs not Tory. Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party are pro-EU.
February 25, 2024
No
February 25, 2024
SK where has Labour said or written that they are supporting a closer relationship with the EU and what have they said that means going back into the SM, CU or just conjoining us?
February 25, 2024
On what can you claim ‘the majority of European young people’ ?
Wild guess at best – your credibility down the pan.
February 25, 2024
How interesting, how much ideology plays it’s part. But also a nievity or lack of understanding. As to how ideas / plans are costed & implemented. Maybe because most of the other 7 have little business knowledge or skill?
Have to say I find their view of the world rather scary.
February 25, 2024
This morning electricity generation:
11.6 GW – Gas
3.8 GW – Nuclear
1.1 GW – Solar (massive subsidies)
2.2 GW – Wind (massive subsidies)
2.3 GW – Biomass (trees, cut, chipped and shipped from the USA – very expensive)
7.5 GW – France, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands (which we’re paying a small fortune for)
And the conclusion reached by the Eco Nutters in Westminster and Whitehall? We obviously need more solar, wind and biomass and to pay our continental neighbours for their extremely expensive energy.
No wonder we have the highest energy prices in the G20 ….. and what remains of our traditional manufacturing base is being destroyed, along with the personal finances of most British people.
February 25, 2024
Yet our host is one of the only MPs to challenge the green/net zero nonsense being inflicted upon us.
February 26, 2024
…and yet there is a pro tory net-zero group but not an anti net-zero group
Reply There is a sceptical group re net zero policies
February 25, 2024
The true cost of net-zero
February 25, 2024
@Donna – you forgot to add the high UK tax on energy, high environmental & social obligation costs(Social Engineering) . This Conservative Government has disadvantaged our industrial base at every turn, all the UK’s competitors pay less and have less of a burden. The Government makes out it is the market place that is responsible for the costs – it isn’t it is their personal need to Social Engineer(straight out of the hard core socialist playbook)
February 25, 2024
As at 11:00hrs 25th Feb we are importing 25% of our energy from Europe via the interconnectors
February 25, 2024
âWill the new intelligentsia wake up to reality? Europe has a lot of catching up to do. The world does not owe it a living. There is a huge gap between the high ideals they assert and the reality of what the EU is doing.â
The ânew intelligentsiaâ, aka, the communists in control have no intention of Europe âcatching upâ, if fact quite the reverse, as evidenced by the twin policies of Net Zero to destroy the industries and economies of Europe bringing impoverishment and dependence and mass immigration to destroy our culture and democracy.
Not that the UK is any different for in addition to Net Zero and mass immigration we are now also ruled by an unelected HoL pro-EU bureaucrat, making it the third reason why I cannot vote Conservative at the next GE.
Note that Labour is even more intent to pursue Net Zero and mass immigration and in addition our laws will dominated by those who wish to see a return to Medieval laws and culture.
February 25, 2024
To Original Richard,
Wonderful comment and horrible reality. But many people here are in a stupor. I wonder if the intelligentsia’s vaccinations have removed their intellect.
February 25, 2024
Don’t know about the EU but when I look at the food banks and closed up shops in my area I find it terribly depressing then to read such jingo nonsense put out by our political leaders about other places – how dare they? and where are the sunny uplands we were long time promised – taking back control indeed
February 25, 2024
There are food banks in the EU J4
And poverty and unemployment.
February 25, 2024
Sir John, I think the word you use in your last paragraph is apt.
To me, âIntelligentsiaâ is the product of state education, extended into âfurther educationâ. It is also the product of those who have had this experience, having access to mass media and applying their âeducationâ more extensively and to a wider audience.
These people form a large minority with a disproportionate influence on the rest of us because they often are given high profile roles in the public sector, charities, the legal profession, politics or the media.
The kind of education they receive is largely theoretical and is short on experience and even facts (as you found out in your debate). This kind of education does not produce wisdom.
If you substitute the word âeducationâ in this context with âbrainwashingâ you may conclude that they are not very clever at all.
I find those who avoid the news on the media and did not pay attention at school possess far greater wisdom as their brains are cleaner despite having never been washed.
Some who have been through further education have been able to withstand the brainwashing. They are often seen by the brainwashed as âmavericksâ.
Education comes in many form. Most of us get the bulk of our education at work or down the pub. Thatâs the majority.
Hence the hatred by the âIntelligentsiaâ of âpopulistsâ.
I hope and expect the wisdom of the masses to prevail as it did with the Brexit vote. It may take time but we will get there in the end.
February 25, 2024
Afraid the virtually rigged, because that is what it is, debate you outline, is now common in the form of discussion in very many places now, not just Universities.
Freedom of speech and democracy is failing all over the World now, with policies, arguments, and debates being rigged to try and confirm the required result, wanted and expected by those in charge of such matters.
Afraid so many of the 1950’s left wing idealists who have grown into the very high positions of politics and education, and the very fabric of our society, are now rapidly changing the way we are being allowed to live.
Those past students have now got such a great grip on the power and influence of our Universities and politics, that it will require decades to even stop the light fingered communism (because that is what it really is) that the State needs and should be responsible for the planning and running of our lives.
The sheep like following of towing the Party line used as an excuse not to object, is failing Parliament.
Politics and Universities, in my view have never been at such a low level, producing little in return for the colossal amount of money they take to run, and are run poorly.
Mp’s are voted in as individuals to Parliament, we do not vote for a Prime Minister, and our Mp’s should remember that fact.
Thank goodness we still have some politicians who can think for themselves and argue with passion accordingly.
February 25, 2024
Gosh the Cambridge Union made a mistake inviting you! Probably will not do that again. How will they achieve their âuniversal desire of the British people to return into the warm embrace of the fascist EUâ if they keep allowing a patriotic voice to be heard?
We the people cottoned onto the fact that this is not cricket. The rules are made up as they go along – gerrymandered.
If thatâs the game, Iâm prepared to play it.
First thing is to deprive all politicians of personal security. They have created âSwedish conditionsâ in the U.K. against the clearly expressed demands of the native British people. Next all those Green Tories/Monarachs/Labour/etc need to live on vegetables and heat pumps. Letâs see them lead by example, and all those who want to âdestroy the Russian Federationâ need to send their sons – oh and daughters – because there is no difference between the sexes is there?
Iâm really cottoning on, soon I will be a very modern person – is person allowed or does that set humans aside from the rest?
February 25, 2024
Seven against one is a weak force when the one is right.
A million or more against one would seem more convincing, but no number of them could break the truth of the one who is right.
February 25, 2024
And when the one has more brains in their little finger than the seven combined.
February 25, 2024
‘Will the new intelligentsia wake up to reality?’
Nope.âYour comment readers may enjoy Hayek’s brief paper from 1947, ‘The Intellectuals and Socialism’.âHe defines the term, how they come into positions of influence, why they align their views, how they centre on collectivist ideals, how to combat this, âŠâAll in a short paper which oozes succinct analysis.âThe language is last century but the concepts resonate today and deserve to be more widely known.âBritainâs IEA make it available for free as a PDF at the end of their abridged âThe road to serfdomâ. https://iea.org.uk/publications/research/the-road-to-serfdom
Lionel Shriver’s excellent novel ‘The Mandibles’ shows how befuddled and bereft the intelligentsia become when their world view ceases to be shored up by the ever-rising tide of fiat money.âBut even that is not enough to wake some.
February 25, 2024
“the huge gap between the US and the EU” Sir John I know you lead into something else, but, there should have also been the question of the Democracy deficit. Even in the UK our lords and masters have problems with even the concept of democracy nowadays – but the EU!. In the US the individual States have more power over how they run them selves, than do EU States. After the first 100 days even POTUS is left with just the one real power that is to declare war, the rest of their asperations – they are neutralized on.
February 25, 2024
Reflections on democracy â
The tories ignored the people on the referendum, brexit & the windsor agreement
The tories ignored the members on supporting Liz
The tories will ignore their red-wall MPs and Lee Anderson
The tories have and continue to ignore our Christian communities, culture & way of life
February 25, 2024
Itâs always strange how many strong supporters of the EU know nothing about whatâs actually happening in the EU and in the member states and have no interest at all in finding out. They seem wedded to a fantasy view of the EU in which everything is automatically better than in UK. I wonder if this will persist as several EU countries move politically to the right.
February 25, 2024
You should know by now John that many academics live in their closed community, more interested in how many articles and books they have to their credit than the real world.Theory and practice are two different things.
February 25, 2024
No doubt he will throw this down the nearest drain instead of doing something useful like tax cuts or investing in our flagging economy.
He should be interrogated on this.
February 25, 2024
Political unions are rarely created without bloody conflicts. The UK, the USA, Germany, Italy immediately come to mind. They required some very determined, well-resourced personalities to make them happen. Given the historical context of European states the creation of a USE would be no different except bloodier.
February 25, 2024
Comment of the day?
Karl Popper:
“The paradox of tolerance states that if a society’s practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them.”
Seem familiar?
The UK is lacking in the democracy and free speech corner. A lot of what is out there seems bitter and twisted, I would condemn a lot of it, but then I would be vilified – how weird. The powers that be the majority of the HoC, their controlling ‘Blob’ and overseas masters practice discrimination of the highest order, then cloak it the self-serving message of a virtue signal to ingratiate a minority who would never vote, support or believe in the freedoms of democracy. In fact, they are fighting for the opposite conclusion. When will our MPs wake up and stop sleep walking the Country into obscurity?
Remainers donât know what they mean themselves when they support the EU, they forget that we are safer in a Democracy than a Dictatorship, they forget that the EU has nothing, zilch, not a bean to do with peoples working and moving forward for mutual benefit.
February 25, 2024
It’s clear that the lefties start off with a concept, then push for its acceptance. Having gained acceptance, they then, and only then, decide how it should be implemented.
To their ‘surprising’ horror, they discover that it’s all but impossible to implement but refuse to scrap their idea lest they lose face. And loss of face to a lefty is worse than a death sentence. Look no further than the Red Orient to see that in full flow.
And nearer to home, look no further than the HS2 project, the OTT lockdown orders from Number 10 and the Health Secretary and soon-to-follow, Net Zero.
Why can’t Government, local and National pretend it’s a Private Sector Corp? And adopt the principles that keep these companies afloat for decades and beyond. Everything is thoroughly pre-planned before the project is agreed. If not, the company goes the same way as government. DOWN! Maybe one day?
February 25, 2024
Today the Tory party has reached a new low. When someone as loathsome as Khan can dictate who can and who cannot be a Tory MP then it’s time to close down the shop and go home
February 25, 2024
Is it not time the Electoral Commission investigated the system used to elect a Mayor? Detailed studies in the USA have revealed fraudulent votes by the thousands. Postal voting is especially vulnerable to fraud.
February 25, 2024
very true
February 25, 2024
Off topic
I see a report in the Mail on Sunday by Adele Cooke highlights the prolonged failure of the Probate system, as a number of contributors reported in their postings last week !
Many beneficiaries and relatives now having to pay inheritance tax out of their own money (or borrow it to do so) before they even inherit, due to lack of Probate being gained.
This is just madness John why on earth cannot HMRC and the probate office work together with an agreed timescale, and why cannot the Chancellor recognise that to pay tax on something you have not even received is wrong.
Why not change the rules so that inheritance tax needs to be paid on the final date when distribution of the estate is made, not before and at present where it is within 6 months of death. !
Houses often take more than 6 months to sell and complete, and given many organisations want proof of Probate before they will even discuss matters with Executors, the present delayed system is an absolute shambles.
February 25, 2024
every case I heard about in recent years has meant the inheritors had to fund the Tax due some time before Probate achieved. Crazy!
February 25, 2024
Off Topic – but of increasing importance IMO.
I’d like a very simple question answered-
When Police decided they had to close Tower Bridge yesterday for an hour due to pro-Palestinian demonstrators letting off flares and blocking traffic – how many were arrested and carted off for prosecution?
In fact I’d like another question answered:
If the laser-show on Big-Ben had been drawing attention to the mass murders, tortures and rapes of the Israeli settlers – instead of Gaza, would the Police also have done nothing about it and comment that there is no law against it?
just like to know where we stand.
February 25, 2024
Mickey Taking, where we stand is, you are next for the full October 7th.
February 25, 2024
MT – you aint gonna get answers. It is all part of the globalist Establishment take over. Beware the TROJAN HORSE. They are everywhere for a reason.
February 25, 2024
The laser light on Big Ben was contrary to the Public Order Act despite the Met tweet or whatever it was. The police have lost their purpose and role in society. The chiefs council needs to be scrapped, these same chief constables created the mess of the police we have today.
At least Blaire had a strategy for change to infest public sector with institutionalised socialism, retired chief constables replaced with very young chief constables selected by psychometric testing to suite the values of his socialism. Tory party have been in power for 14 years and have failed in every public sector to change the selections procedures back and rid civil service of the politicisation Blaire brought in. Same for Judiciary etc etc.
Sunak recently reinforced this by implementing EU equality law into domestic legislation. Is he thick, not a Tory, betrayed nation on Brexit or all of the above?
February 25, 2024
The assumption that any USE would be benevolent and better government than the UK is naĂŻve but never gets challenged.
The EU has proven itself to be a dictatorship in several confrontations with its members which is not prepared to compromise.
Strong man governance is not OK in Hungary or Argentina but fine when it is the EU. The principle is either good or it’s not.
February 25, 2024
The full 1h45 of the Cambridge Union debate is available on YouTube âThis house believes in a United States of Europeâ with Francesca Romana Dantuond, Brendan Donnelly, Julie Ward for the proposition, and Alan Sked, Pia Kiarscaard, Prof. Marta Lorimer, Sir John for the opposition.
February 25, 2024
As my son often remarks, usually after watching a televised football match ‘that’s 2 hours wasted of my life I’ll never get back’.
So excuse me if I ‘Pass!’ on spending nearly 2 hours on it.
February 25, 2024
“There was plenty of hatred for Putinâs Russia and of a Trump led USA but no diplomatic path for better relations with these powers”.
As long and this mad man and his cronies are in power in Russia and war in Ukraine is raging there is no need to have any better relations with Russia. I suprised of this comment. I thought only continental politicians are weak on this issue.
With USA we and EU have always been able to co-operate albeit not on optimal level when Trump was Potus.
February 25, 2024
No need to worry, Billy. Russia has given up trying for better relations with our mad Westerm governments for the time being. When they’ve run of money to pour down the Ukraine black hole, they’ll need Russian gas and oil all the more, to restore their failing economies. But will Russia still want to trade with them? will Russia even need to? Perhaps, if they finally admit that regime change hasn’t worked and won’t work. All that NATO/EU has done is strengthen Russia. With the sort of politicians we have running Western countries, no surprise at how stupid and short-sighted that failed project has been, I suppose.
February 25, 2024
‘Will the new ‘intelligentsia’ wake up to reality?….There is a huge gap between the high ideals they assert and the reality’ (of what happens).
The fundamental problem is politics, especially so-called ‘political thought’, is usually within the realm of unreality dominated, as almost always by an unintelligent, so-called ‘intelligentsia’. Those who don’t work in the practical economic world such as students and teachers and often politicians are usually keenest on an idealistic, unreal world, though even for others ‘pontification about politics’ is somewhat detached from the real world.
I believe fundamentally in political realism, as trying to force unrealistic ideas into the real world just leads to extra poverty, bureaucracy, social problems and reduced freedom for people.
However I warn that embracing the real world can shatter people’s long held beloved notions (such as Socialism) and produce uncomfortable results (such as Sunak and the Treasury are unsuited to their jobs) or seeing a divided, troubled society (as Suella Braverman does) that cannot be corrected by mere pious platitudes.
At the end of the day politics based on realism would look to use our advanced technology well and deal with human nature by harnessing and accommodating it where it is beneficial (as in encouraging the economic inequality of personal incentives and the free market) and mitigating it as best one can where it is most harmful (as with most people’s natural propensity to prejudices based on tribalism).
February 25, 2024
Lastly, Trump represents the worst values of sh*t-hole, dysfunctional, shopping-mall America. As bad as the WOKE socialism of the EU.
Why can’t we just be British and be unique and different and entrepreneurial and protect our wonderful British CULTURE and values – instead of sucking up to Trump / Trump’s or the EU – that are destroying British culture and identity (along with the Islamists – and others).
February 25, 2024
WEF has persuaded enough influential idiots to join destroying being ‘British and be unique and different and entrepreneurial and protect our wonderful British CULTURE and values’.
February 25, 2024
Where is this country going? So few people in the next generation seem able to think clearly. We are not allowed to question the status quo. Anybody who spells out the obvious is expelled from the Party – witness Andrew Bridgen or Lee Anderson. You seem to be fighting a losing battle, and we admire you for it.
February 25, 2024
and so iy starts ….GB News reporting 290 illegals crossing the channel today ….just in time to vote in the Rochdale by-election
February 25, 2024
I’m astonished that Alan Sked didn’t think Brexit (a proper Brexit, not the BRINO they dished up) would be a good idea. He was the one who founded the Anti-Federal League before the 1992 election, because all the main parties wanted to sign the Maastricht Agreement, thereby surrendering our national sovereignty. That was why the Tories ditched Mrs. T, because she was standing against it, but the globalists had other ideas and the blind Tories allowed themselves to be taken for a ride. A long ride as it turns out, because most of them are still sleeping through all the stop signs and before long we will be plunging over the cliff with fatal consequences. I remember that election well. I was told, by a then Tory MP who has since left the House that by canvassing for the AFL I could have lost the Tories the election. Obviously I am very powerful if I can single-handedly lose the Tories a national election! Would that the AFL had won – but I didn’t have that power.
Reply. Sked did not turn up!
February 25, 2024
Off Topic.
It was the puddles of green sludge left by the tires of massive tractors in western Belgiumâs industrial farmlands that drew the attention of biological engineer Ineke Maes.
The slime was destructive algae, the result of the excess of chemicals used by farmers to boost their crops, but at a high cost to nature. Maes had hoped the European Unionâs environmental policies would start to make a fundamental difference by improving exhausted soils.
In recent weeks, some of those tractors moved off the land and onto the roads, blocking major cities and economic lifelines from Warsaw to Madrid and from Athens to Brussels. Farmers were demanding the reversal of some of the most progressive measures in the world to counter climate change and protect biodiversity, arguing that the rules were harming their livelihoods and strangling them with red tape. And the impact has been stunning.
The farmers’ protests affected the daily lives of people across the 27-nation bloc, costing businesses tens of millions of euros in transportation delays. The disruption triggered knee jerk reactions from politicians at national and EU level: they committed to rolling back policies, some of them years in the making, on everything from the use of pesticides to limiting the amount of manure that could be spread on fields.
Farmers in the Czech Republic are protesting against European Union.
Hundreds of tractors roll into Prague as farmers protest against EU policy.
To environmentalists like Maes, who works for the Belgian Better Environment Federation umbrella group, it would almost be laughable if it were not so depressing.
February 26, 2024
I forgot to credit the journalist who wrote this – and now I can’t find it.
February 26, 2024
TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU, ESPECIALLY YOUR FINAL PARAGRAPH.
February 26, 2024
After sacking Suella and meekly following instructions from Labour to sack Lee Anderson, Sunak has proved he has no political nous whatsoever. Millions of voters think that Mr Anderson and Ms Braveman were exactly right in their descriptions of what is going on.
How the Prime Minister can sit in No 10 and do nothing while watching islamic supporters close Tower Bridge, fire off flares, and repeatedly disrupt the city with their hateful chanting, I cannot imagine. The projection onto the Elizabeth Tower was the last straw. The perpetrators are laughing at us.