Brexit wins

It is most disappointing that the government has not replaced  the EU economic controls with better ones, has not removed or improved much EU law and paid so much to the EU over a long transition. All this has served to hide two large wins that we are now benefitting from.

The main feature of the  EU over the years has been an aggressive law making activity designed to take control of more and more areas of life away from member states into EU hands. To pull off this power transfer in so many areas the EU also often finds new reasons to extend government power over business and people. People find that they have not just experienced a transfer of government power from national government but also an increase in government power. They face ever more laws and regulations in total.

Now we are out this feature stops. We can now control the pace of new laws and subject them to democratic debate  and vote in Parliament. There is more scope to stop a bad or unwanted law in the UK Parliament than one passed by qualified majority pressed through by the Commission in private in the Council.

Since we left we have avoided 71000 new Directives and Regulations  already along with many amendments and decisions that are also binding on members.. That is a big saving in costs and some protection of our freedoms.

We are also now enjoying most of the savings of the annual ÂŁ12 bn tax we had to pay into the EU. We have increased NHS spending by much more than these welcome savings.

Best of all we have ducked any share of the massive new debts the EU has decided to take on now we have left. As they borrow 900 bn euros our share would have been 150 bn.

 

83 Comments

  1. Lynn Atkinson
    May 10, 2024

    We got out in the nick of time. It is bitterly disappointing that Boris Johnson, who had the power to release Britain completely and set us on a new course, ducked the issue.
    That is why so many polls demonstrate that people feel that ‘Brexit has been a disappointment’. Many Brexiteers are disappointed that we do not enjoy the full implementation of National Sovereignty and tick the same box as the Rejoiners.
    So it is very important to keep an eye on the EU and appreciate the disasters and calamity that we have escaped.
    Brexit has arguably been the greatest battle for Britain – ever. Uniquely we started the battle having lost and have had to recover the ground under our feet in the face of courts implementing foreign laws, the State machine and the sapping psycho-ops orchestrated over nearly 70 years.
    In 2016 the British people heroically stopped and turned the tanker around. We need to keep pushing and reestablishment two patriotic political parties so that we can divide on that which is contested but stand together on the massive, firm foundations of all that is uncontested.

    1. Ian wragg
      May 10, 2024

      You’ve really taken charge of immigration. Throwing the doors open to all and sundry
      Just how much are we continuing paying Brussels and for how ling.

      1. majorfrustration
        May 10, 2024

        Agree – interesting to know how much we continue to pay the EU. All under the covers as usual for the UK Civil Service

    2. Lifelogic
      May 10, 2024

      Sort of half out )at best) but Starmer (and Windsor Accord Sunak) will surely realign and go back in all but name.

    3. graham1946
      May 10, 2024

      ‘Brexit a disappointment’ – just as it was designed to be. The Tories are the party of the EU. They took us into the Common Market on a lie, lied during the 1975 referendum on staying in, converted it to the EU on a lie, did not want a referendum and lied continually about it and ever since. The Tories are now a party of liars, not the one I supported most of my life and I hope they will be extinguished this year for the evils they have done.

      1. Hope
        May 11, 2024

        I agree totally. A thoroughly dishonest party that has no morals, soul, direction or values. From their record to date, Pro EU socialists.

      2. Derek
        May 11, 2024

        Slightly inaccurate to say “The Tories are the Party of the EU”. Mrs Thatcher, Conservative PM, tried to get us a better ideal or get out of it, and it was actually a Labour PM who ensured we remained in the 1975 referendum after the treachery of Tory PM Heath pressed us into it (EEC) without any referendum. He thought we did not matter.
        The National Referendum on Brexit was introduced by a Tory PM, (under pressure from UKIP) but a succession of Tory Leaders have been less than slow to actually extract a true Brexit. However, they’ve been aided and abetted by MPs from both Labour and Libdem as well as our own Civil Service.
        However, I will agree that too many so-called Tories are pro-EU and wish to defile the democratic decision of the British citizens in a National Referendum where all Parties told us they would honour the decision of the people. So much for integrity among some Politicos.

      3. Donna
        May 12, 2024

        I agree.

        We voted to LEAVE …. that was the option on the ballot paper, not a stitched-up, semi-detached status which the Establishment will exploit to take us closer and closer again.

        The Treacherous Tories didn’t fail, they refused to implement the instruction they were given.

  2. Mark B
    May 10, 2024

    Good morning.

    But have we really left the EU?

    To me it looks like we have been carefully led to believe we have whilst shadowing many key areas. And as for payments to the EU, my suspicion is that payments are being made but under another guise.

    I do not trust a government, parliament, civil service & Establishment that clearly dragged it’s heals over this issue

    1. Hope
      May 10, 2024

      JR,
      is wrong we are still paying the EU for leaving. It is a disguise to pay EU yearly for nothing in return. Look at your tax bill it is there in black and white.

      Sunak signed up to EU Horizon paying ÂŁ2.3 billion each year to promote EU interests in the hope the EU might award some of our taxes back! That is idiotic.

      Sunak gave away N.Ireland and put a border down the Irish Sea costing a fortune in checks and regs for goods to travel across our country! Idiot.

      Our fishing waters linked to EU energy supply so we will never regain our territorial waters, traitor and idiot.

      Sunak retained 4,000 EU laws and scrapped the bill to overturn them! Quangos continue to implement EU law, regs and directives ie Environment Agency under EU level playing field. The largest cost Paris Agreement and net stupid linked to Environment level playing field ie UK cannot be more competitive than EU! Sunak declared he will not compete against his neighbours! I doubt he was taught that at Goldman Sachs! The Little Usurper is deliberately destroying our economy and way of life. JR has kindly brought that to our attention by the BOE failing the nation and taxpayer by multiple billions and transferring jobs and manufacturing to India and China!

      Let us not forget Little Usurper also told councils to increase taxes to the maximum, who also gold plate EU directives!

    2. Everhopeful
      May 10, 2024

      Considering the apparent and unlikely ineptitude of this govt. and the huge resultant swing to Labour how about this possible scenario?

      The apparent cluelessness and the probably orchestrated shift left in the tories is all about globalists/the blob etc handing us over to Labour with the express purpose of getting us back into the EU. Once Labour is in there will be no opposition party and the journey back will be seamless.
      Labour will get on board with whomsoever it might take to retain power.
      Democracy has all but gone ( Just Stop Oil just smashed Magna Carta frame’s glass) and no chance ever of regaining ground because globalists have no use for us.

  3. Roy Grainger
    May 10, 2024

    Sunak has done all he can to stay aligned with the EU in all areas, has taken on massive debt of his own, and introduced lots of regulations of his own for example on smoking and Net Zero. Hard to see much benefit in the areas you highlight and there is no real democratic control over this as Labour have exactly the same policies.

    1. Lemming
      May 10, 2024

      Of course he has tried to stay aligned. That is the only way to minimise the huge harm caused by us leaving the biggest and best free market on the planet, the one championed by Mrs Thatcher. Those EU laws you want to repeal, they’re the ones that were the gateway to economic freedom. Now we are all walled up on our island, a market of 60 million instead of 450 million. That’s Brexit for you – little England

      1. Bingle
        May 10, 2024

        With which we had a yearly trading deficit of some ÂŁ90 Bn, so much for a ‘free’ market. That’s the EU for you – Big Brother.

      2. Bloke
        May 10, 2024

        Our market is as big as the attraction of value we offer for sale. If British scientists created and patented the Elixir of Everlasting Life almost the entire world would queue to buy it from us.

      3. miami.mode
        May 10, 2024

        Mrs Thatcher = No. No. No!

      4. Hat man
        May 10, 2024

        Lemming – I quote, if I may, from a pro-EU website (cer.eu): ‘UK exports have been surprisingly robust after Brexit. Goods exports to the EU have tracked those to the rest of the world, despite new trade barriers being imposed on the former but not on the latter. And services exports to both the EU and the rest of the world have been growing at a decent clip since the UK left the single market.’ How can this be, if we are ‘walled up on our island’, as you claim? Isn’t the truth that Brexit has NOT caused the British economy ‘huge harm’, and we are performing well in the sectors where we still have something to offer internationally, especially in the services? You do the pro-EU cause no favours by turning a blind eye to the actual reality of the trade figures, especially now that better informed EU supporters are acknowledging what they say.

      5. Mickey Taking
        May 10, 2024

        If only we could ‘wall’ it up. the ‘best free market’ gave me a bloody good laugh.

      6. Derek
        May 10, 2024

        Wrong. LOL. By leaving behind, the debilitating controls of the EU, we’ve now got a market of 6 BILLION across the globe, and we still sell more to the EU now than we did as a member. Read the official figures, then do the maths again. Then be awakened to our freedom.

      7. Roy Grainger
        May 10, 2024

        Since Brexit our exports to the EU are up, to the rest of the world are up even more, and our services exports are at an all time high. What a disaster !

      8. Sam
        May 10, 2024

        We haven’t left the market in Europe Lemming.
        Trade is up post Brexit not down.
        We are also not “walled up”.
        Trade with the rest of the world post Brexit is also up not down.
        The opposite of your predictions.

      9. Moulton howe
        May 11, 2024

        You don’t seem to know much about the CPTPP little European.

      10. Pominoz
        May 11, 2024

        Lemming,
        What planet are you on?

      11. Donna
        May 12, 2024

        I’m currently in Germany, so we’re hardly “walled up.”

    2. Lifelogic
      May 10, 2024

      Indeed.

      Robert Jenrick asks why on earth Natalie Elphicke has joined the Labour Party when it has policies she despises. When it follows that she has left a Conservative Party which has the same policies she despises but will be out of power for many years. I assume she will end up in the Lords quite soon. Not exactly democracy is it.

      Mr Unequivocally Safe Sunak might like to study this report more details on the Daily Sceptic site:- Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, monitored over 47,500 employees for Covid infections during the first four months of 2024, when the JN.1 virus lineage was dominant. They found that being vaccinated increased infection risk by 46% with two doses, 95% with three doses and 151% with more than three doses, when compared to having zero or one dose.

  4. Lynn Atkinson
    May 10, 2024

    It’s a shame that we have not celebrated VE Day. It is a means of tying present generations to their forefathers and appreciating their inheritance was bought dearly. It’s a means of displaying the fact that there is no ‘white privilege’. Everything is earned. Those who aspire to more must work.

    Our wartime Allies are disappointed in our current ‘elitists’. But they have remembered our Greatest Generation in Moscow yesterday, thanked them and included them in the silence and cheers.

    We have been in the clutches of our wartime (and post wartime) enemies. We must be freed of them and find our own feet again in the free world – which has expanded east.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 10, 2024

      Or EU liberation referendum day 23 June 2016. On one of the nice longest days of the year. 8 years ago and what a mess our dire politicians made of it over those years. Cameron and the government failed to even prepare for a leave outcome in an act of gross negligence and abandoned ship like a child. May behaved appallingly, threw an election and tried to betray the voters with he pretend Brexit & then left us with the total economic amd environmental insanity of net zero. Boris bundled Brexit and got everything about Covid wrong and his wife it seems turned him from a climate realist into a deluded net zero zealot.

      Sunak and Hunt continue the rot with big state socialism.

      Boasting about growth today.

      UK gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 0.6% in Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024, following declines of 0.3% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) and 0.1% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2023. So that is 0.2% in 9 months in growth per cap that is probably negative. Also how much more has government borrowed to “achieve” this great feat?

      So the potty green dope Natalie Bennet wants to restrict barbecues to special occasions. Yet we burn millions of tons of wood (imported on diesel ships) at Drax! What next firework bans, bonfires, garden fire bans


  5. Christine
    May 10, 2024

    I agree. We still introduce many EU rules because Northern Ireland has to because of the ill conceived Windsor Framework. The latest EU rule coming our way is that all new cars have to have a speed limiter fitted from July this year so that cars cannot go over the speed limit. Let’s hope that we don’t need to be rushed to hospital.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 10, 2024

      Suank’s truly appalling Windsor Framework supported fully by Labour.

      A new report from the Centre for Policy Studies, written by former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick MP, former minister Neil O’Brien MP, and CPS Research Director Karl Williams argues that the scale and composition of recent migration have failed to deliver the significant economic and fiscal benefits its advocates promised, while putting enormous pressure on housing, public services and infrastructure.

      https://cps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CPS_TAKING_BACK_CONTROL_PDF.pdf

      The rather states what was blindingly obvious from the outset of this policy that all recent governments have pushed for many years. At least Neil O’Brien (PPE again) is no longer spending his time personally attacking the sensible lockdown and Covid Vaccine sceptics who were clearly right. Excellent people like the very sensible Claire Craig and all the Barrington Declaration people.

    2. Bloke
      May 11, 2024

      Christine:
      Much of EU regulation tends to be daft, but car speed limiters appear sensible. Why allow drivers to break the law and then cause police to chase them at dangerous speeds trying to stop them with Victorian-style spikes to slash their tyres?

  6. DOM
    May 10, 2024

    ‘are’

  7. Kathy
    May 10, 2024

    I quote ‘Now that we are out…’? Are we really? So many different entities conspired (and basically succeeded) to stop us fully leaving the EU which is why we Brexiteers find it difficult to explain the benefits when angry smug red-faced Remainers demand it of us. Thanks to your article, Mr Redwood, I can at least throw these two wins back in their faces. What a pity, almost eight years since the referendum, that it’s only two.

    1. Peter Wood
      May 10, 2024

      Yes, I’m making a ‘hit list’ of Tory Party lies. ‘Now that we are out’ is right up there with ‘Safe and effective’….Next comes ‘we’re a tax cutting party’… the list goes on…
      You see Sir J, the main problem with your Party is you’ve lost or trust.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 10, 2024

        Unequivocally safe, we are stopping the boats, growing the economy, reducing NHS waiting lists, cutting taxes, repaying the debt


      2. Original Richard
        May 10, 2024

        PW :

        The biggest lies have to be “reducing immigration to the tens of thousands” and “Net Zero will give us electricity available at the flick of a switch from abundant, cheap British renewables
.”

        1. Lifelogic
          May 11, 2024

          The UK the Saudi Arabia of wind, we have cut taxes, the Covid vaccines were unequivocally safe


      3. Bloke
        May 11, 2024

        Peter Wood:
        MPs make laws and untruthful claims.
        Judges imprison those who commit perjury.
        MPs are often guilty, not serving their sentences.

    2. glen cullen
      May 10, 2024

      Correct – why did we have to fight parliament so hard for only half a brexit 
it was our right, after the people’s vote 
.we don’t trust you anymore

  8. Rod Evans
    May 10, 2024

    All the small wins are welcomed Sir John.
    What we also want is the scope of EU judicial power removed from our lives. We are still subservient to the ECJ European Court of Justice when questions of conflicting legal right involving the EU are concerned. We are still subject to the iniquitous European Arrest Warrant administered by the ECJ which gives power to any EU country to demand the arrest and transfer of any British subject to the country in the EU that raised the Arrest Warrant, without any evidence of a crime been committed. That power over us must be removed.
    Then we have the ECHR, while not an EU administered legal authority per se, it carries EU support and drives some of the most bizarre attitudes and restricts national freedoms. The recent Swiss grannies ruling being just one recent example.
    We must secede from that unelected unconstitutional body.

    1. Norman
      May 10, 2024

      One must distinguish between what seems the worthwhile 47-member Council for Europe (a Churchill creation of c.1950) and what morphed from the ECSC c.1950 to the EEC 1957 to the EU. Given what’s leaked since 2020 about the EU’s maniacal top-down ambitions, the aim arguably seems an EUSSR, not a US of E.

      Yanis Varoufakis’s book ‘Adults in the room’ on Greece’s horrific experience with being crushed by EU institutions is educative. It nearly led to a ‘Grexit’ even before we had ‘Brexit’.

  9. Des
    May 10, 2024

    Claiming that a government that has been more authoritarian than any other in my lifetime the claim to have saved us from more regulation is laughable. What about repealing all the awful legislation brought in during the last decade? What about repealing all the ridiculous Brussels red tape? Follow Argentina’s lead and start getting rid of the suffocating bureaucracy that has turned Britain from the most dynamic place on the planet to a rapidly decaying has been nation slipping into tyranny and civl war.

  10. matthu
    May 10, 2024

    Getting away from aggressive law-making, are we?

    Well, not according to David Frost in The Telegraph today (Britain is forgetting what it means to be a free country):

    If you doubt me, just look at some recent ideas from the Government. Wages too low? Simple – boost the minimum wage by fiat. Not enough houses? Simple – make tenant eviction largely illegal. Don’t like smoking? Ban it. Childcare too expensive? Subsidise it. No problem is too small. On Friday, Parliament will debate pet theft and make it illegal “to induce a cat to accompany you”.

    The government has replaced rule by EU with rule by civil servant and ECHR.

    1. Wanderer
      May 10, 2024

      Yes, I’ve jut come back from 3 years living and working in the EU, and I see little difference here in terms of suffocating red tape and unnecessary law making. We’re ruled by petty tyrants, the EU by bigger ones.

    2. MFD
      May 10, 2024

      Yes MATTHU, I have long thought the politicians have too much time on their hands when they can think up and implement all these petty laws which could be solved without the heavy hand.
      Perhaps Westminster should meet in short sessions! Possible in the holiday periods of summer and Christmas! Then the MP ‘s could do a proper job and be more productive earning their money!
      I also believe for every law they bring in an existing one should be scrapped!

    3. Sharon
      May 10, 2024

      I was just reading on Daily Sceptics, by a Dr David Bell and co writer, that 100% net zero is enshrined in law, but cannot be changed by any future government. If correct, how can this be?

      I always understood British law, could always be changed by a future government.

    4. Mickey Taking
      May 10, 2024

      If you make eye contact with a cat you run the risk of being charged with attempted kidnap.
      Talking to it will be grooming, stroking will be molesting.
      BEWARE.

  11. agricola
    May 10, 2024

    The regaining of complete sovereignty and a legislative EU lite life for the UK post Brexit is not possible on the current political playing field. The Labour Party aim to work towards a covert reversal of Brexit because being part of european socialism is their aim.

    The misnamed Conservative Party will do so because those that control it also control strictly those who can enter Parliament calling themselves conservative. We know by their actions that they are not, there being a majority of consocialists in their ranks already.

    Our out of control, work from home, Civil Service mourn their loss of legislative post Brexit power and now act as a fifth column working against sovereign government where it sees fit.

    Hundreds of shifting responsibility from minister quangos still act in a pre Brexit pro EU way against the interests of the UK population, farming and SME business base. Current government lost its box of dry matches.

    However much SJR may offer solutions, the present political incumbents are not listening. The only, and I mean only political party with solutions more aligned to SJR’s expressed thinking are Reform UK. They need to spread the gospel as widely as they can afford, and the electorate need to realise there are better solutions than the two party same old.

    1. JoolsB
      May 10, 2024

      +1 REFORM are our only hope.

    2. Planner
      May 10, 2024

      You make a very good point in your second paragraph Agricola. I would urge all true Conservative voters to look closely at their prospective candidates for the GE. If they are true conservatives with a good track record then vote for them, if not then vote Reform. The Conservatives are not going to win the next election and Labour are almost certainly going to gain power. We need an opposition that can hold labour’s feet to the fire and this will only happen if right wing individuals get elected. Staying at home or voting Lib Dem will mean Labour will do far more damage.

  12. Lifelogic
    May 10, 2024

    Lord Frost today in the Telegraph today.

    “If you doubt me, just look at some recent ideas from the Government. Wages too low? Simple – boost the minimum wage by fiat. Not enough houses? Simple – make tenant eviction largely illegal. Don’t like smoking? Ban it. Childcare too expensive? Subsidise it. No problem is too small. On Friday, Parliament will debate pet theft and make it illegal “to induce a cat to accompany you”.

    It’s easy, fun, and necessary, to knock this nanny statism. But it isn’t enough in itself. We have a nanny state, not just because most voters want it, but because most politicians do, too. State action gives power and influence to government MPs and a sense of purpose to the opposition.”

    Even worse evils to come from Starmer’s Labour in just a few months.

  13. RDM
    May 10, 2024

    Are we really? Well, action speak louder then words, prove us wrong!

    How about some Supply-side Reforms, de-regulation, and abolish some Quangos?

    Dare I suggest repealing Devolution, Majors, PCC, and shin down Councils, Government Overheads!

    We could regain some freedoms by removing some EU designed, aligned, Laws (4000)?

    And, Please be brave; Appeal Net Zero, Carbon Pricing, and all subsidies!

    I think this list meets the expectations of real Conservative supporters (One Nation Tory’s aka Labour Party, need do apply)!

    Lots to do, before next GE, good luck!

    BR

    RDM

  14. Narrow Shoulders
    May 10, 2024

    Only most of the savings? We voted to leave 8 years ago and since 2021 we have been in a new budget cycle so can not have incurred any new cost.

    How much are we still paying for pensions (public sector pensions!)

    1. agricola
      May 10, 2024

      NS
      Not made easy to define. However as far as one can ascertain 20% of the Rate Bill is used to pay local government employee pensions. I would advocate that all pension contributions become the reslonsibility of the individual, paralleling the situation for all our Self Employed.

  15. Nigl,
    May 10, 2024

    Sunak lacked the courage/intent so sold out NI and we read Cameron is looking to do the same with Gibraltar so no surprise in your comments.

    These are part of the wealthy liberal elite establishment living gilded lives looking down on the rest of us, ‘swivel eyed loons’

    I am ashamed to say I despise both for what they have done to this country.

    Ignoring Dom Cummings foreign affairs view, his assessment of domestic politics in the DT this morning spot on and will resonate with (many) of the alienated Tory voters. Inevitably the BBC etc will pile in labelling him a ‘right wing extremist.

    And in other news Claire Coutinho is cancelling the hydrogen experiment forcing towns/villages to trial its use for heating.

    Can there be a better example of how utterly out of touch these net zero fanatics are in government that they thought they could ‘force’ it through. Their response pushed the same old saw about heat pumps so still in denial about them.

  16. Old Albion
    May 10, 2024

    “It is most disappointing that the government has not replaced the EU economic controls with better one”
    The understatement of the year. Who’s surprised though? Parliament is stuffed full of rejoiners wishing to covertly override the will of the people.

  17. R.Grange
    May 10, 2024

    I believe nearly 90% of EU directives are still in force, called retained EU law. And civil servants have told the government they don’t want to go into the office and work on removing any more of them. So that’s it. Except that from now on they’re changing the label from ‘retained EU law’ to ‘assimilated law’. Pathetic.

  18. Bloke
    May 10, 2024

    Being free from the EU is refreshing. We should have taken our freedom much earlier. John Major’s signing of the dreaded Maastricht Treaty was a further betrayal and should have been avoided much earlier.
    It’s more than disappointing that the present government has not used our freedom more effectively. It causes major bungles and does very little of value anyway, yet pretty soon we can vote Reform to be free of them too.

  19. glen cullen
    May 10, 2024

    Whats disappointing is that we’ve only achieved partial brexit and not the full brexit expected by referendum voters 
.we still can’t change VAT due to level playing field in NI, we’re still sending billions to the EU and we haven’t repealed EU laws

  20. IanT
    May 10, 2024

    Whilst I believe Net Zero to be a form of CO2 accounting fraud and that the forced adoption of EVs is a mistake given that we don’t have the infrastructure (or need) at this time, there are other technologies that are developing very rapidly. The recent media focus has been on the use of AI but I was very interested to see the range of humanoid robots shown at Nvidia 2024 in March. Robot ‘tech’ is developing very rapidly and largely unnoticed by the public. There is a very interesting YT just released by ‘The Electric Viking’ that talks about Tony Seba’s predictions in this area.
    Seba is predicting a very (very!) rapid transition to robotic labour, entirely replacing human labour in many areas with huge reductions in cost of ‘man-hours’ that will upend many existing economic assumptions. A huge disruption in fact. If Seba is only half right, then this is going to give Governments (of any colour) tremendous social challenges, as well as enormous opportunities. How will a Labour Government (in hock to the Unions) react to a rapid adoption of robotics for instance? No need to import low cost labour either – robots will be cheaper, don’t sleep, don’t get sick and don’t strike. Highly recommend everyone take a look at this YouTube. Unlike EVs and Net Zero – much of the ‘Robot’ logic presented there actually seems to make sense. I do wonder if it will be a blessing or a curse though.

    The Electric Viking – “Tony Seba just revealed why Elon Musk is no longer interested in EVs”

  21. Sir Joe Soap
    May 10, 2024

    Moving out was a mess and it didn’t need to have been.

    Having failed to negotiate advantageously, Cameron could have put a firm plan to the country, having prepared the country and galvanised the party behind him and negotiated from strength with the EU. Lazy guy cried off.

    Having taken over without a plan, May could have done what Cameron failed to do. Hopeless and feckless with a band of remainer sycophants was NOT the way to go.

    Johnson signing a pig in a poke.

    Sunak partitioning NI

    It’s been a litany of failure, where we could have demonstrated strength. Tory party deserves the end it gets.

  22. Ian B
    May 10, 2024

    If you appoint Bureaucrats to make decisions, laws, rules and regulations without democratic over-site and the same that should be with a country’s parliament its legislators, the first thing these people do is ring fence themselves to protect their position. Therefore, they create empires, to justify those empires they then go into every minutia and fiddle with everything needed or not – just to say look at me I am doing something. Once they feel protected, they manipulate so as only the voices that agree with them can be heard.
    An example of this stupidity would be what some call ‘Human Rights’. Most people no longer comprehend democracy, the nuance between dictatorship and the elected representatives. How can you grant a ‘right’ unless in the first place you removed it? It’s impossible. Who authorised the removal in the first place – certainly not the people. In a Bureaucratic Dictatorship all ‘rights’ of the Citizen are removed and everything takes place with permissions being granted by those unelected unaccountable authoritarians – ‘rights’ are then conferred to make then feel warm and cuddly. That is not Democracy. In a Democracy ‘rights’ are only removed if your democratically elected representatives deem it is necessary, even then they can be also amended or repealed through the same channel. It’s a subtly no longer understood, particularly by those in our Parliament.
    The UN, WHO, the EU and now our Parliament thanks to this Conservative Government have eroded democracy and handed control to the unelected unaccountable. We are not moving forward because we are NOT a Democracy. Brexit will not be done or succeed all the time those we send to Parliament to represent us hand ‘their’ position as our sole legislators away.

  23. Iago
    May 10, 2024

    And as Foreign Secretary we have a remainer, who in the last day has demonstrated his moral bankruptcy by attempting to ensure that Israel cannot win its war for survival.

  24. Ian B
    May 10, 2024

    This Government, this Parliament fails because it refuses to work with the people of this Country. Banning, cancelling etc. along with removing democratic responsibilities and handing them to the unaccountable – is not our legislators working for and on behalf of the people or the electorate. It’s the very refusal of Democracy
    Having administrators telling Government and Parliament they can’t do things is dictatorship of the worst kind. The treasury blocks reductions in tax but invent new ways to grab more – who gave them that license? Mrs. Mays stupid ill-thought-out Net-Zero laws that the real world doesn’t have are the Conservative Government allowing the Country to be crippled on a virtue-signal.
    We need elected representatives that become government for the people by the people, people that will work with not against those that empower and pay them

  25. Mick
    May 10, 2024

    Mob descends on bus taking migrants to Bibby Stockholm
    To stop these lefty unwashed from stopping the police from carrying out the wishes of the people the protesters should be charged then asked if they have a spare room and if found to have then force them to house a migrant till deportation day, guarantee this would cut back all these demos by the lefty unwashed then find them work picking crops

  26. Bryan Harris
    May 10, 2024

    Having the EU still pulling our strings after all this time is inexcusable.
    Are we still paying them money?
    When will we get our fishing grounds back?

    In all of this HMG has been inept, if not criminal, in taking us out of the EU with so many penalties and tie-ins to the evil empire.

    When are we going to stand up as a nation and finally get the EU out of our hair and out of our system?

  27. Bert+Young
    May 10, 2024

    There are traces left following our exit from the EU – the ECHR is one of them . If we only had a different leadership other than the Sunak/Hunt one , things might be even better . The EU is still full of un-elected bodies in its management system and we are still stuck with 2 major ones – the BoE is the one main drawback . Stimulation is the principal ingredient in any development programme and we are still sadly lacking in this respect . Yesterday fingers were crossed that interest rates were going to fall marginally – millions would have benefitted but no , it did not happen . Why put up with unnecessary suffering when the signs are that critical illness is over ?.

  28. Fishknife
    May 10, 2024

    With the greatest respect ,Sir John, I think you have proved the exact opposite. The 70% of Remain MPs have wiped the floor with you and there is no prospect of you turning the tables. The playing field is rigged against you.
    Blair took away your responsibility and gave it to Quangos, we saw that with PPE. Even the laws you make are “interpreted” by the Courts.
    Strangely MPs like pay without having to earn it, pre Brexit they could blame the EU.
    The mechanics of rising population density pushes for an increase of ‘rules’ and a move to the left, see Labour City Mayors, this is followed by a demand for de-centralisation, and a further left twist.
    You have six months to break away and start anew, cross the floor and join the DUP ? because there is no Conservative Party just a Remain rump.

  29. Keith Murray-Jenkins
    May 10, 2024

    ‘Despite Brexit’ happening, I feel as if I – along with millions of other UK citizens – are not reaping all the benefits this reclaiming independence as a nation should have brought with it. Without going into the various restrictions (including that of a certain court of judges which holds sway over rights and stymies at every turn actions the UK would like to take), one feels short-changed. Should I be feeling like this, Sir John? I would gladly be told by such as yourself that I’m imagining things..be given a pat on the head and told to go home and ‘Rejoice’. Whether it’s my imagination playing up..I just don’t feel reassured that – after all these years of so-called national independence – we couldn’t be freer. Smile. Are we indeed ‘out’ but still a bit ‘in’? And if so, why is this still the case? And when shall we have full sovereignty..in your opinion?

  30. Ian B
    May 10, 2024

    From the Media
    Labour would scrap Rwanda scheme ‘straight away’, says Starmer
    “I think it is a mistake to think that it is the international instruments such as the European Convention on Human Rights that are the problem. I don’t.”

    He is misleading the people of the UK like a lot in Parliament always do – the ECHR is not international in the way it is being suggested, i.e. Global. It is limited to a small bunch of Countries that are not democracies allowing bureaucrats to make(make-up) their laws, then use illegitimate Courts to administer them. There is nothing contained in the ECHR that legitimate democracies wouldn’t create if their democratic legislators felt the need and then their independent courts couldn’t administer.

    When the UK used to be a proper democracy, what we had as laws and a constitution evolved as society changed, because we had democratically elected legislators. We don’t need unelected unaccountable bureaucrats internally or external defining laws and rules that suit what can only be described as their own personal choice.

    The first requirement of a legitimate democratic government is to keep their people safe & secure – the ECHR and the EU, denies that right to the Countries that have signed up to their diktats.

  31. Ian B
    May 10, 2024

    ‘Britain is forgetting what it means to be a free country
    By downgrading freedom as a value, we’re choosing a false promise of ‘stability’ over dynamism and growth – David Frost in the Telegraph’
    The notion of freedoms and democracy has been hounded out of society by the self-appointed personal views of the unelected unaccountable bureaucrats that have been allowed and promoted by this Conservative Government to be this Countries rulers

    1. Ian B
      May 10, 2024

      All around the fault lines are being exposed, we just need government for the people by the people – democracy!
      “If you doubt me, just look at some recent ideas from the Government. Wages too low? Simple – boost the minimum wage by fiat. Not enough houses? Simple – make tenant eviction largely illegal. Don’t like smoking? Ban it. Childcare too expensive? Subsidise it. No problem is too small. On Friday, Parliament will debate pet theft and make it illegal “to induce a cat to accompany you”.

      “It’s easy, fun, and necessary, to knock this nanny statism. But it isn’t enough in itself. We have a nanny state, not just because most voters want it, but because most politicians do, too. State action gives power and influence to government MPs and a sense of purpose to the opposition.”

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/09/britain-forgetting-what-it-means-to-be-free-country/

      Again, someone else is suggesting that those we empower and pay, our MPs are the problem, instead of working for those that elect them, they are fighting them tooth and nail to hold them back and hold them down. MP’s and this Conservative Government appear to believe its personal self-gratification that is their purpose.

  32. Derek
    May 10, 2024

    The lack of actually getting “Brexit done” is a good reason why the Red wall is abandoning the Tory Party.
    I cannot believe such related inefficiencies would have existed under Mrs Thatcher, who really wanted to ‘get Brexit done’ but failed because of the creeping liberal democrat influences which were under development within her Party at the time. Alas, now they have taken root, with the majority of the Conservative Cabinet being ‘Remainers’.
    Furthermore, why has it taken this prominent backbencher to broadcast the achievements and savings made because of Brexit? Is it forbidden? Mrs T also seemed to lack the urge to involve good PR, especially over the so-called ‘Poll Tax’ idea, which was a far more equitable way of paying local Council Taxes.
    It’s probably too late, but the PM should order up a list of current Party achievements and publish them before the next election, It might be the only chance he’s got, and it is by sound marketing and good selling points to now try and convince the general public that his Government is not as bad as it may appear.
    After all, Labour will not do what is required to turn us around, for they are more hard socialists than the existing government.
    I fear, under Starmer, we will again become the “sick man of Europe” and the die-hard Remainers will rejoice that “Brexit” has failed.

  33. Fishknife
    May 10, 2024

    By which I mean : when you’re going down in “Pyrrhic defeat” you don’t go down with the ship, you change the rules, just as Blair did.

    Please put your very considerable intellect into making Brexit mean something other than . . . .

  34. forthurst
    May 10, 2024

    Whilst the Tory party is seeing off the threat of Russia occupying lands which have always been occupied by Russians since before the Bolsheviks ensconced them within the artificial Ukraine state by donating billions of pounds worth of war materiel to them, alien investment companies have been instituting de facto laws on British companies in pursuit of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion very much to the detriment of those companies and their employees and even against the interests of the investors who have placed their money with these investment funds for custody.
    The government has also been shrugging its shoulders whilst our best companies have been snaffled one by one by their foreign rivals who then have a free hand to take those companies’ Intellectual Property, to set up plants abroad and make profits which would have previously returned to the British market. Not of course those businesses which make weapons for killing people who have not threatened us; these represent our essential national interest although they cannot be used for deterring those who pour into our country from the third world whose presence was neither welcomed nor called for by the British people.

  35. Blazes
    May 10, 2024

    I don’t think Lord Frost was ever elected by anyone – there are no wins with brexit – the people were horribly lied to by these charlatans

    1. glen cullen
      May 11, 2024

      Sir Oliver Robbins KCMG CB

  36. Original Richard
    May 10, 2024

    Surely the main Brexit “win” was to be able to legislate for the banning of the sales of new ices to be 5 years earlier than the EU’s requirement that new ices are to run on e-fuels by 2035?

    1. Original Richard
      May 10, 2024

      PS :

      Oh, and that we will have completely decarbonised electricity by 2035 (apart from all the electricity imported) whilst the EU Commission has decided that power plants burning natural gas can be considered generators of green energy alongside nuclear.

      This has to be a really big Brexit win. I can’t wait for 2035.

  37. glen cullen
    May 10, 2024

    211 boat people yesterday …..the threat of Rwanda isn’t working

    1. Diane
      May 11, 2024

      Glen … Pah! We can beat that. 221 the day after ( i.e. yesterday 10/5 )
      All official figures.
      Last 2 weeks – 27/4 to 10/5 = Total 2450 / 48 boats
      ( 27/4 to 03/5 – 1470 / 30 boats )
      ( 04/05 to 10/5 – 980 / 18 boats )
      Where are they now.

  38. Richard1
    May 10, 2024

    It looks like we will have a sort of permanent Brexit limbo. Formally out but not really. Brexiteers furious that more advantage isn’t being taken of the opportunities, remainers blaming every ill on not being a proper member. In the meantime the U.K. continuing with the EU-social democrat model of ever increasing govt, ever higher taxes, wokery, net zero etc. we may have avoided 71,000 new EU laws and regs but how many new U.K. laws and regs have there been? And is there by chance any passing resemblance between the new U.K. laws and regs to the EU ones? (Plot spoiler: yes). In the financial services sector, e.g, the years since Brexit have seen an avalanche of new home grown U.K. regulation – it’s now worse on many levels than that in the EU.

    Assuming Starmer wins I think we will have to try for a formalised Norway style arrangement and regroup on the right around that, accepting its constraints and do the best we can. The clean Brexit vision died with the selection of Liz truss as Tory leader, as that’s what ensured we will now get 2 terms (at least) of Labour.

  39. Sea_Warrior
    May 11, 2024

    I am still waiting for a ‘State of Brexit Speech’ by the PM. There’s a good story to tell.

  40. Pominoz
    May 11, 2024

    Lemming,
    What planet are you on?

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