Author: johnredwood

During the first quarter of 2016,  224,000 EU migrants got jobs in the UK. Just 5000 migrants from elsewhere in the world were added to the UK workforce, whilst 185,000 British people got jobs.

David Davis MP yesterday made an important speech setting out more of the details of these numbers. He said the EU has created a Job transfer mechanism. The UK generates plenty of jobs, but many of them go to people from other EU countries. All the time the Euro austerity scheme keeps unemployment high in large parts of the Eurozone, so there will be people seeking work in the UK and Germany where there are more jobs. Lower wages and worse conditions in some of the eastern parts of the EU also drives more people to come to the UK in search of better paid work.

Over the last year to March 2016 630,000 National Insurance numbers were issued to EU citizens coming to the UK. The government says that some of these people only came for a short stay and so that does not mean there are 630,000 more EU migrants in the year. It is likely to be the case that some stayed here for less than a year, but the government does not know how many or for how long. It does means their official migration figures based on passenger surveys look too low.

The other crucial point is the impact so many people have on public services, wages and homes, even if they do not stay for as long as a year. Whilst here working people need proper housing, access to GPs, school places for their children and a range of other services. We need to expand phone networks, water supply and electricity generation. We need more reliable figures so we can plan provision better.

Out of the EU we could impose sensible controls on EU migration to match controls on non EU migration. On the Out side we don’t want to stop all migration. We want a fair system, that has the same rules for the EU and the rest of the world. It should aim to cut the numbers considerably overall, to relieve pressure on houses, wages and public services. It should welcome people of talent, people with good qualifications, people wanting to invest and build businesses here, and people wishing to study here. Our young people would like better wages and cheaper house prices and rents. The pressure of large scale migration serves to depress lower wages and raise house prices.

Out of the EU we will still be free to travel in Europe , study in any university or College that offers them a place and do business in Europe as we did before we joined and as non EU countries like the USA and Canada can do today from outside the EU.

There is one thing the IFS and I agree about. When we leave we will be able to spend the money we send to the EU and don’t get back on our priorities. That will boost the UK economy by around 0.6% (they say 0.5%). We can hire more doctors and nurses, create more jobs, pay more incomes in the UK. Will the Treasury now admit there will be a boost to our economy when we spend our own money?

On leaving the EU  wages should go up a bit for the lower paid. We will be able to take control of our own borders and limit the numbers of people coming in from the rest of the EU to take lower paid jobs. The Chairman of the Remain campaign himself, Lord Rose, has stated wages should go up when we leave and put in a fair and sensible migration policy.

Some on the pro EU side delight in selling the UK short and forecasting a worse outcome for us if we leave. The one thing the forecasts of the Treasury and the other international bodies have in common is they all think that we will better off in five and in fifteen years time if we leave  than we are today. They just think we be even better off if we stay in. Those of us on the Leave side think we should be a little  bit better off if we leave than if we stay. After all, we know we can spend our own money on making more people in the UK better off  by providing them with decent jobs with better public services.

So the argument is not over whether individuals will still have a job or not. It is not even over whether individuals will get a pay rise or not. The argument is will you get a bigger pay rise under Brexit or by staying in?

If we cut the numbers of potential workers coming here, that will help wages rise. If we create more jobs here by spending our own money on our own priorities that will advance our prosperity.

So why are there several pessimistic forecasts? Some say we will lose out on trade if we leave. I don’t see that happening. The rest of the EU sells us much more than we sell them, so they won’t want to impose new barriers and tariffs in the way of our trade with them. They have five million jobs on the continent making goods and services for us.

Anyway we and the rest of the EU are members of the World Trade Organisation. Bound by its rules, the rest of the EU would not be able to increase tariffs on most things under WTO controls. It is true the WTO would allow a 10% tariff on cars, but Germany has made very clear that’s the last thing they want given how many VWs, BMWs and Mercedes they sell here.

Out of the EU we will be able to rebuild our fishing industry, We will be able to generate our own power and develop our own energy reserves in ways we wish without having to be part of a common energy policy.

These are  of the reasons I am voting to leave. I could not recommend something which I thought would make people here worse off. I also want to restore our democracy and regain the right to make our own laws and set our own taxes. It is time to take back control.

I am very positive about what the UK can achieve once we are an independent country again. I think we need to remind our fellow countrymen and women just what we have achieved in the past, when as a country we were both much smaller and poorer than today. This is my list. I would like to hear your suggestions of what else we should include.

1. Magna Carta 1215 – setting out why every man should be free under the law, innocent until proven guilty, and why the King should have to take advice from others.
2. 1533 Statute in restraint of Appeals. England peacefully shakes off foreign legal controls and jurisdiction by Act of Parliament, asserting independence
3. 1588 Defeat of Spanish Armada England stands up to the European bully power of the age and wins despite large imbalance in populations and wealth
4.1623 Publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio – colossal literary and cultural achievement
5. 1688/9  Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights – Parliament establishes proper controls over executive government and the King
6. 1805 The UK defeats France and Spain at Trafalgar, starting to lift the threat of domination of the continent by force of arms by the allied powers.
7. 1837 The UK abolishes slavery and offers the example to the rest of the world. (Act of Parliament 1833)
8. 1851 The Great Exhibition demonstrates the brilliance of the UK industrial revolution
9. 1928 Equal votes for all women and men
10. 1940 A lonely UK wins the battle of Britain which starts the liberation of Europe from Nazi domination.

With a history like this surely we should stay true to the struggles of our ancestors who fashioned a free people and fought to keep us free.

Under the last Labour government the pound collapsed within the EU – far more than the latest ridiculous Treasury forecasts of possible future falls.
In July 2008 the pound bought $2. By January 2009 it was under $1.40, a fall of 30%.
In July 2007 the pound bought 250 yen. By January 2009 that was down to just 122. It had halved.

Better stewardship of the UK economy and events elsewhere since has brought the pound back up to $1.45 and to 160 yen.
I do not recall the Treasury forecasting the huge falls in sterling we experienced towards the end of the last decade.
If they were unable to forecast the pound accurately then when such a big change was about to happen, why should we believe their latest forecast?

The Remainians want it every which way. If economic figures disappoint, they claim that is the result of Brexit fears. If the numbers fail to disappoint, they claim that is because people think Remain will win!

Their most consistent claim is the pound will go down if we leave. It’s as good a guess as any. You have a fifty fifty chance of being right. The pound has often gone down whilst we have been in the EU. With a colossal balance of payments current account deficit we are currently running thanks to our lop sided trade with the EU and all those EU contributions we have to send abroad, it is quite possible it will go down again. Just to make it more likely the Chancellor has weighted the dice. He has imposed higher taxes on foreigners buying property in the UK. He has just toughened the anti money laundering rules to deter dubious foreign cash from continuing to come. He has toughened the rules against tax avoidance, to put people off using once normal offshore schemes into London from abroad. That ought to lower the pound.

It is therefore curious that since the end of February, as the referendum campaign has come to prominence, the pound has gone up a bit against the dollar. It serves to remind anyone interested in the truth rather than the mindless and often misleading slogans that the pound is part of a much larger currency turmoil where the dollar has been slipping at last against the other main currencies of the world , unlike last year which was a year of dollar strength.

This year has also brought the surprise that the yen and the euro have strengthened a bit despite the large amounts of these currencies being created as part of their exotic money policies. Both the Euro area and the yen area are running large current account surpluses, so helping to underpin the currency values.

The Chancellor also forecasts that Brexit will slash house prices. Many see this as a good thing, so it might backfire as a political trick. However, the Chancellor should be reminded that he wants to get house prices down so they are more affordable. That is why he set more penal Stamp duties at the top end against foreign purchases, and why he has sought to stop some foreigners buying by new rules and regulations. So many house prices in Central London have already fallen, no thanks to Brexit, but thanks to a deliberate policy of trying to get them down set out by the government itself.

Recent retail sales figures have been strong, undermining the government’s view that fears of Brexit are damaging the economy. The main investors in the UK motor industry have all said they are staying and will continue to invest if we leave, and HSBC has completed its review and decided to stay in London before knowing the result of the Brexit vote. There is simply not enough bad news around to underpin the government’s pathetic wish to talk us down and to force us to stay for fear of worse, when out of the EU we will be better off. We will spend our own money on our own priorities, which brings a modest 0.5% boost to our National Income once we do it.

The Conservative Manifesto in 2015 could not have been clearer. It said we will “reclaim power from Brussels on your behalf and safeguard British interests in the single market”. It went on to say “No to ever closer union. No to a constant flow of power to Brussels. No to unnecessary interference”. I agreed with all that.

I now seek to implement it. It means not voting for Directives and regulations, as each one of those transfers more power to Brussels. It means opposing judgements of the European Court, like the one that will force us to put VAT up on green products. It means opposing the anticipated Treaty of Political Union in its entirety.

Because Mr Cameron’s renegotiation succeeded in getting no important power back from Brussels, surely it also means voting to leave the EU. I don’t see how voting to stay is compatible with the clear statement that we must get powers back and stop unnecessary interference. Mr Cameron did not even wrestle back the power to choose our own welfare policies, let alone the power to control our own borders and implement our crucial pledge on migration numbers.

I and a good number of my colleagues have stayed true to our Manifesto, by opposing a succession of EU measures. We will continue to do so all the time we remain in the EU. We do now need to leave the EU to do the democratic job properly which we promised at the last election.

We have a few more days left to explain to more voters just how much power has already gone and why it matters.When I write to constituents and explain that Westminster cannot right wrongs they suffer because we no longer have the power, they often express surprise. All those in government and the media who over the years have refused to talk about the EU and refuse to cover the stories of the huge transfer of powers have left the public debate denuded of important information now needed to help people make up their minds about how they wish to be governed In the future?
It is difficult to understand how Ministers can support the very truncated powers many of them now enjoyl

A number of Conservative MPs tabled an Amendment to the Queen’s speech . This is an unusual but available means to require the government to do something that Parliament wants but the government has omitted from its programme. It could also be used to seek to drop something from the programme.

The amendment Peter Lilley proposed requires the UK government to protect the NHS from the EU’s proposed trade with the USA, the so called TTIP. Many think the present version of the TTIP would allow overseas healthcare companies to come in and compete against the NHS, and many disagree with such a development. The government seeks to assure them that this will not be the case. The Labour opposition and the Conservative MPs moving the amendment point out that if the government has already secured the objective there can be no harm to them in accepting the amendment. It looked as if the government took this line and accepted it, but subsequently it appears the government would prefer the Conservative sponsors to drop it. They are unlikely to do so. Maybe the government wants to resist the amendment because they know it is not in their power to deliver what is asked.

This is a rare and important development. Because Conservatives were prepared to pick up a Labour worry about something from the EU, itself an exceptionally rare event to find a Labour EU disagreement, there is at last some debate about an important matter which is an EU matter and no longer in the power of the UK Parliament. As I pointed out yesterday, the UK has moved from being governed by a fanatically pro EU Labour government for 13 years who rarely disagreed or stood up against EU proposals, to being governed by a grand coalition of Labour, Lib Dems and Conservative Ministers on all matters EU. This grouping has sought to carry on rushing everything the EU wants through the Commons without proper debate or explanation. They have been successful in taking the oxygen of publicity away from those MPs who have regularly turned up and opposed important EU driven matters. Because Eurosceptic Conservatives have rarely had enough votes to threaten the EU consensus, most media and journalists have chosen to ignore what we have been saying.

Now we have united to offer a referendum to voters we are having to compress the missing 18 years of lost debate on all matters EU into a few weeks. Too many voters have no idea of just how much power and sway the EU has over us, because the mainstream parties and much of the media have conspired to tell us little power has passed and the UK can still govern herself. Now people are at last realising that we do not control many of our laws, taxes, budgets, foreign policies and the rest.

Vote leave is always being challenged to set out why Out is better. That is an easy task, and this site has done a lot of that in recent weeks. More difficult is we also have to explain just how undemocratic and unfair things currently are for UK people, and just how much worse they can get if we vote to remain in a thoroughly undemocratic, expensive and often wrong headed organisation.