Author: johnredwood

Mr Tusk’s cry of desperation portrays an EU surrounded by hostile forces, and in danger of subversion from within. He sees Russia as an enemy of the EU. He condemns Islamic terrorism and is clearly worried about several states to the south across the Mediterranean. He dislikes the policy of the new President of the USA. He makes no secret of his worries about China. In other words, he sees the EU as a lonely group of states in a largely hostile world, where the world’s three largest military powers are not in sympathy with the EU or are hostile to it.

What is his remedy? He wants the EU to arm itself and undertake more common defence, with increased defence spending. There is no mention of NATO, Europe’s principal security guarantor. He wants to accelerate European union, to create a more cohesive force in the world with a united foreign policy.

He should ask himself how has the EU got itself into such an impasse with the world’s great powers?

The EU has helped create the rift with Russia. The EU claims cause against Russia for Russia’s illegal military intervention in Crimea. Russia points out the EU helped destabilise the elected President of Ukraine who was just about keeping Ukraine together, to back a new President with a pro EU agenda that the Russian speakers in the country did not support. At the very least we in the west must concede that the EU helped create the conditions for an opportunistic move into Crimea by Russia.  Since then the EU has wished to keep up a tough rhetoric against Russia, and has imposed sanctions. I am no supporter of Russian aggression, but I do want the EU to recognise the need to live alongside Russia and to be careful about the interventions it makes in territories where Russia has influence. Working with Russia in the Middle East is now important given the position Russia has militarily and diplomatically in the region, as successive US Presidents have recognised.  The EU also needs to understand that the surest defence the EU has is from NATO, with the explicit military guarantee for all members.

The EU now seems to want to assert itself against China, though the cause and reason is less clear than with Russia. The EU regularly condemns Islamic terrorism, but is challenged when it comes to defining which rebels and forces on the ground in the complex Middle Eastern civil and religious wars qualify as terrorists and which can be defeated by EU action. In recent days the EU has been keen to indulge in a war of words against the new Trump Presidency, without listening to the concerns of the new Administration in Washington about trade, currencies and migration.

The overriding pessimism of Mr Tusk is sad to read. The lack of any positive forward looking agenda to engage with our ally the USA, or with the powers of China, Russia and the Middle East goes a long way to explaining the EU’s loneliness. If all you offer is fear mixed with the odd threat it is not surprising the EU lacks friends. It was that combination which helped lose the EU one of its major financial contributors, the UK.

 

Mr Tusk has written a letter to the EU 27 saying he disagrees with the views of many voters around the EU “that European integration is beneficial only to the elites, the ordinary people have only suffered as a result”. He should try telling that one to the millions thrown out of work or never able to get a job thanks to the Euro and the EU’s banking and economic policies. The UK was badly damaged by the EU’s Exchange Rate Mechanism.

He thinks that people do not feel secure enough. He urges the EU 27 to unite to undertake “definitive reinforcement of the EU external borders”. Does that mean he now wants to build more walls and fences, as the EU is helping Turkey do already and as some EU countries have done individually?

There is news for the UK, which is not mentioned by name. He tells us “The EU should not abandon its role as a trade superpower, which is open to others”. That sounds like a man who wants to have access to the UK market and accepts we will have access to the EU’s internal market. He clearly does not wish to lose any  European trade.

There is also the curious statement that “the times of European unity have been the best times in all of Europe’s centuries long history”. Is this the idea that the Roman Empire or the Habsburg Empire or the French conquests of the late eighteenth century were some golden age, despite the role of the military and of occupation?

His letter of course sets out exactly what many of us expected to be the EU’s next move – more progress towards a full political and defence union.

This is a written version of a speech I made in Parliament earlier today. It was to be tomorrow’s blog, but I have decided to publish it early in view of the interest. This is not identical to my speech in Parliament which I gave without reference to notes or text.

 

 

UK voters decided to take back control

They decided our once mighty Parliament must be mighty again

After exhaustive debate of the dangers, they voted to leave

Told the EU would bully us on exit,

they voted to stand up to the bully.

 

Told the economy would plunge into recession this winter and suffer early damage

They vote to leave because they did not believe the experts

It is good news the experts were wrong

Voters want this Parliament to decide our laws, control our borders, spend our money on our priorities –

and  answer directly to the voters for how we do it

The people have proved they have more courage, more vision, more belief in freedom than their recent Parliaments

 

If the referendum vote had gone the other way I would not have sought election again

I have had enough of belonging to a puppet Parliament,

Of having to support endless European laws and decisions we are instructed to accept

or acting as the permanent rebel, out of sorts with the ruling follies of the EU accepted by both front benches

Had we stayed, the only future I saw for these great buildings

Was as a mausoleum to our dead democracy

A  museum to a once powerful Parliament,

A history lesson of how we used to be self governing

 

Instead, today, thanks to the people

This is now the once and future sovereign Parliament of the UK

 

When we have swept aside the power of the Commission and extinguished the sovereignty of the European Court

We will at last control our own destiny as a nation

 

The day we leave the EU will be a day for celebration

It will be the day everything changes and nothing changes

It will be the day we take back control

 

From that day onwards we can change any law, reverse any EU decision we opposed, spend any money we collect as we choose

It will be the day when all current EU laws are confirmed as UK law so there is no disruption or lack of clarity

 

I will vote for this Bill with more enthusiasm and more conviction than any other measure brought before us in recent years

It is time to do what the people demand

It is time to recreate their sovereign Parliament

The Parliament they can support or alter at their will.

 

 

 

Last year I drew attention to the big work programme highlighted on the EU website to strengthen Turkey’s borders as part of its Visa Liberalisation programme with the EU.  The officials wrote that they needed “ditch excavation, lighting, wire entanglement, trellis fence, road maintenance and construction and modular wall construction” along the extended  Turkish  border with Syria and Iraq. It would be good to have an update on how far they have got with their 900 km Syria/Turkey wall.

I raise it again because many in the EU are hostile to Mrs Trump’s proposal to extend the already substantial USA/Mexico wall. I wonder why they apply different standards to this wall than to the ones the EU is helping finance and design closer to home. I invite proponents of the EU to tell us why they think these two walls are different, and why they support the Turkish one which is part of the EU/Turkey Agreement.

The EU approved border controls including ones along EU borders can incorporate watch towers, constant camera surveillance and plenty of “guards” to deal with any problems at crossing points. The 10th action point in the 72 point “Visa Liberalisation Roadmap”  is to ensure sufficient well trained guards and surveillance equipment at crossing points.   The 33rd point in the 72 point “Visa Liberalisation roadmap” agreed with Turkey by the EU is to “ensure effective expulsion of illegally residing 3rd country nationals.”

If it is moral to oppose border walls and barriers in Mexico, surely it is similarly necessary to oppose them in Europe and Middle East?

In confirmation that the rise in western inflation is mainly to do with rising commodity prices, especially oil, German CPI inflation today hit 1.9% compared to the UK’s 1.6%. It confirms that inflation in the UK is not special to UK and  has not been  caused by sterling weakness and Brexit.

A country needs good allies, some friendly countries and many trade partners. Theresa May is doing a good job renewing our networks, and showing she has influence with allies.

A country cannot run its allies or control their governments. It can try to influence them, and work to common standards. I think the USA is a strong enough democracy to sort out the concerns about the temporary travel ban. It has already been modified following court and political action. The Vice President himself called the original version unconstitutional. The UK has established it does not apply to UK nationals flying from the UK.

It is   not feasible for a country to provide a permanent running commentary on all the decisions and views of all its allies and certainly not of all its trading partners. There are many features of undemocratic regimes we do not like, yet we carry on trading with them. Some of us  did not like the USA’s use of Guantanamo Bay for detention without charge or trial, but we kept our stance as an ally of Mr Obama’s USA. A UK company has recently signed a contract to supply arms to Turkey, a NATO ally. Are we happy with all Turkey’s policies?  The EU has been helping Turkey build frontier walls . Are we content with that? That after all is being done our money and in our name as an EU member.

Today many say we have to take a further view on Mr Trump’s policies. What do you think the UK should say and do?

There are some on the continent who seem to think the UK will have to pay to leave the EU, based around negotiations over how much of the continuing liabilities of the EU the UK must pay. This is all nonsense.

There is no power in the EU Treaties to impose an additional one off levy on a state as it leaves the EU. Nor is there any power in the Treaty to demand any continuing budget contributions after departure. This is wise, as of course once a state leaves it leaves behind the judicial authority of the EU which would be the means of enforcing any such payment. Article 50 is clear. Once the state leaves  it has  no further rights and benefits, and no further duties or obligations.

It is of course true the Treaty does not prevent the EU accepting a payment volunteered by a departing state if it wished to pay one. However, the UK could not make such a payment legally under our own law and system for controlling public spending. Ministers can only authorise spending and sign cheques for approved expenditure under UK legislation and with Parliamentary authority for the budget provision that covers the payments. Ministers have proper authority to make the annual contribution payments to the EU, required by the Treaty as incorporated into UK law by the European Communities Act.  They have absolutely no authority to make one off additional payments to the EU, and would have no authority to make contributions after we have left and have repealed the 1972 Act.

They will also find that if they wanted to make a payment as overseas aid to the EU it would not qualify under our Aid budget criteria, as the EU as a whole is too rich. The only way UK Ministers could authorise a leaving payment would be to put through an Act of Parliament specifically authorising such an ex gratia  payment. I can’t see many Conservative MPs wanting to vote for that.

Being in the EU is a bit like being a student in a College. All the time you belong to the College you have to pay fees. You have to obey all the rules of the institution. When you depart you have no further financial obligations, and you no longer have to obey their rules and accept their discipline. If you liked the College rules you can still apply them to yourself voluntarily. The College does not on your departure say we have borrowed money to improve the College while you were her so you will have a continuing bill for servicing the College debts. It does not say we failed to make proper provision for the future pensions of the people who taught you, so we will send you additional bills for their pensions. All your rights to reside and learn at the College cease, and all your duties to pay and obey cease. So it is with a country’s membership of the EU.

One of the most disappointing things about the high strategy of the EU has been its approach to Eastern Europe. Today there remain substantial problems on the eastern frontier of the Union.

In Turkey the President is seeking referendum endorsement for more centralised power. The President wants more control over the appointment of Judges, the ending of the office of Prime Minister and general rights to run the country as he sees fit. The EU clashed with the President over the recent coup attempt and they have been critical of his record on human rights. It looks as if after years of offering Turkey the prospect of membership of the EU, Germany and the others are cooling on the idea. Last year’s promise of accelerated progress in achieving Turkish accession has been replaced by a distinct distancing. Instead of it being possible to get over the obstacles, EU sources seem more inclined now to play up the difficulties in the way of membership.

On the one hand Mrs Merkel and some of the other leaders seeking re election at home may find it convenient to distance  themselves from their previous decision to speed up Turkish membership. On the other hand they face a big problem anyway, thanks to the EU/Turkey Association Agreement. This creates freer movement of people from Turkey into the Schengen area of the EU. The Turks are becoming unhappy about the lack of EU support for them in their task as acting host to more than 3 million refugees from the Middle East. Were they to encourage many of those people to head westwards into the EU Mrs Merkel would have a major problem on her hands.

In Serbia the EU has also been negotiating possible membership. Last week Serbia was to initiate a new train service into Kosovo, which had emerged from the various talks with the EU over how there could be some rapprochement between Serbia and Kosovo after their separation in 2008. The decision of the Serbian authorities to implement this idea with a train that had painted prominently down its sides the message ” Kosovo belongs to Serbia”  led to a furious exchange with Kosovo. Serbia had to  accept  the train would not be allowed over the frontier. Clinton and Blair are remembered fondly in Kosovo for assistance in their struggle with Serbia. What is the EU going to do about the tensions that have flared again between these two?

We have often discussed the EU’s approach to Ukraine and their role in the run up to the illegal annexation of Crimea by a Russia which both saw an opportunity and felt a threat to its naval presence in Crimea. There are no signs of any resolution of this dispute either.

The EU has to be careful not to overstretch. Its long and weak eastern frontier is the source of instability, at a time when the western countries are wanting to turn their backs on migrant flows and the problems of the Middle East for electoral reasons. I was interested to see that meanwhile, out of Schengen and soon out of the EU, the UK is seeking to build a good trade relationship with Turkey for after our exit.