Author: johnredwood

Proponents of staying in just have one set of scares to push, related to trade. They begin by telling us more than half our trade is with the rest of the EU.This is not so.

They commit two statistical errors in saying this that are reasonably well known. The first is they are only talking about trade in goods, not trade in services as well where the EU share is lower. Second, they do not adjust the EU figures for the Rotterdam and Amsterdam effects, where we export goods there which are shipped on to export markets outside the EU.

There is a third error. They amalgamate imports with exports, but talk about the consequences as if the figure was our export figure. As we import so much more than we export, it gives a very misleading result.

According to Bank of England figures the EU accounts for 44% of our exports of goods (unadjusted for re export) but 53% of our imports of goods.
If you turn to the definitive figures in the Pink Book published annually by ONS that shows in 2014 the EU accounted for 42% of all the credits to our current account, and 51% of all the debits. It meant the EU accounted for more than 100% of the deficit.

The figure the trade worriers should concentrate on is the 42%, not the more than half which is more imports than exports. If you adjust for re-exports it is under 40%. My recent discussions with the representatives of the German government have confirmed again that Germany has no wish to face new tariffs and barriers to her trade with us should we vote the leave the EU, and would be very keen to find alternative arrangements that allowed her to carry on exporting so much on favourable terms. I reassured them that Vote Leave is not seeking to impose new restrictions on UK/EU trade, nor would we be paying any contribution to the EU which we had just left as some kind of payment to keep the imports flowing!

I was pleased to see over the week-end that the CBI is toning down its position and beginning to recognise that it undermines its own wish to see a successful renegotiation to say they want to stay in come what may. What we need to know now is what renegotiation does the CBI wish to see? What reforms do they want, as they usually say they wish to stay in a reformed EU.

Today we remember.

We remember the bravery and endurance of the many who fought two long wars in the twentieth century.
We are grateful for their success, in ensuring our peace and freedom.
We mourn the loss of so many young lives.
We grieve at the injuries sustained and the hopes ruined in so many personal tragedies.

Out of the ashes of a burning Europe has emerged a number of peace loving democracies.
Out of the destruction of war has arisen a much more prosperous group of nations.

We owe it to them, to ourselves and to our children to see that by our current words and deeds we work for peace.
War is what happens when politics fails and diplomacy breaks down.
War is the result of nations intruding too far on other nations in disagreement and antagonism.
War may be the product of fear as well as of greed and hatred.

When wars end diplomacy and politics have to resume.
When wars end victors do sit down with vanquished.
When wars end both victors and vanquished need to rediscover the toleration and mutual respect of peace.

As I lay wreaths at War Memorials in my constituency I will remember.
I will remember the stories of how my family members fought and survived in those dangerous times.
I will think of all those families that might have been, dashed by the death of young men who never became fathers.
I will think of how in future we can learn from the tragic ways so many conflicts between nations, peoples and religions became bitter wars.

Now I have had chance to read the lengthy Bank of England Report on EU membership I have been struck by the lack of evidence to support its one positive conclusion for staying in the EU. The Bank claims that membership has helped the “dynamism” of the UK economy.

They do see the need to define and prove this vague statement. They do so by saying the EU has made the UK a much more open economy, and this can be seen in the growth of trade resulting from this greater openness. Yet when you turn to the Annex to see the figures, you find in Annex 3 that the UK’s openness as measured by increased trade has advanced less quickly than that of the OECD as a whole. It is true they only give the figures for the period 1999-2014, not our whole membership. However, the last 15 years is the most relevant, as it is only in the last fifteen years that the EU has become so much more integrated and intrusive. Their figures show both trade in services and trade in goods increasing more rapidly for the OECD as a whole than for the UK.

The Bank of England is more in line with reality with the negatives they cite. They are right that the “UK economy was materially affected by the euro-area crisis” , which could of course recur. They are also right that “the impact of EU membership on financial stability is more challenging”.

It is difficult to argue that the single market increases our dynamism, when it weighs business down with dear energy, complex product rules, high VAT rates, an expensive overarching bureaucracy at EU and national level to implement it all, and a failure to negotiate free trade deals with much of the rest of the world. The EU seems to favour a limited number of large companies in each sector at the expense of challengers and small businesses.

The government is engaged in an important defence review. It is tine indeed that we discussed what threats our nation faces, how we should protect ourselves, and what contribution we should make to NATO and the UN. Listening to many experts in this field I am struck by the extent of muddled and jargon laden thinking that passes for strategy.

Let me this morning suggest three roles for our defence establishment to carry out.

The first overriding requirement is to concentrate sufficient force in the UK so that no power would consider mounting a seaborne or airborne invasion. Whilst there is currently no enemy in sight who would seek to do that, history warns us that is the ultimate danger. France carried out one successful invasion in 1066 and failed in the early nineteenth century. Spain failed in 1588 and Germany failed in 1940. he Dutch succeeded by agreement with the powers that be in GB in 1688.

The second requirement is to make our contribution to NATO, and to work with NATO to act as a credible deterrent to aggression towards any NATO member.

The third requirement is to have an expeditionary ability so that we can contribute to UN tasks around the world, and can help defend our own friends and associated territories.

Much of modern thinking is based on collaboration and mutual dependence with allies. History reminds us that we have not always been able to rely on allies. We needed to have our own forces to recapture the Falklands, as allies did not agree with expelling the invader by force. In 1940 we had to stand alone against Germany. This suggests to me that when it comes to defending these islands we need to have the ships and planes in our own military that could do the job.

I will turn to a more detailed consideration later, along with thoughts on countering cyber attacks and modern asymmetric conflicts with terrorism.

This week the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee published a good report. They concluded that UK bombing in Syria would not be a good idea. They recommended diplomatic intervention and the start of a difficult peace process.

Meanwhile the international community is edging towards a similar conclusion. The long war has shown that the main combatants are unable to win. The Assad regime has killed many of its own citizens but still cannot exert its control over large parts of the country. ISIL has limited forces on the ground terrorising locals into acquiescence. The Kurds have established some presence in the north but do not wish to extend their military power over the whole country, recognising this would be impossible and undesirable. Other opposition forces have also proved unable even with western assistance to forge a winning force.

Peace talks will be far from easy. There are several important regional powers to involve as well as the USA and Russia. Many of those interested and powerful in the region do not have a preferred outcome for a new Syria which is feasible. Anyone seeking to rule the whole of Syria has to have great powers of persuasion that they can be fair to different religious and ethnic groupings in the country.

Many in Parliament have decided that Syria is not short of bombs and violence. The UK would not be able or willing to make a large contribution to any western alliance intervention. The West’s Commander in Chief, the US President, is uncertain about committing much force to this continuous civil war. I am glad the PM continues to say he would only bring a proposal to bomb Syria to the Commons if there were a consensus in favour of such action. As the Select Committee has just demonstrated, there is no such consensus.

When I was working with the BBC on the Analysis programme about single currencies (to be broadcast again on Sunday at 9.30pm), I could find no-one well known in the UK political world to defend the Euro. The BBC asked on my behalf various senior Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians to come on the programme. They explained that we were looking for someone who would either defend the Euro as it is currently structured, or who would say what reforms they thought the EU should make to create their ideal Euro. These were not trick questions. It was not an invitation to an unfair or unpleasant party political debate. It was a chance for a well know EU enthusiast UK politician to tell us what they like about the modern Euro.

Their refusal sums up all that is wrong about the EU debate in the UK. There are no well known advocate who will ever come on and make an honest case for the UK being properly involved in the complete and true European project. There was not even anyone prepared to defend what much of the rest of the EU wishes to do together without us. As the Euro is now at the heart of the EU project it is difficult to keep defending the EU without acknowledging the prime role of the Euro and at least arguing it is right for those in it. They will not acknowledge that you need to belong to the Euro if you are part of the aims and ambitions of the EU. They do not wish to talk about political union, though it is a major topic for our partners. Some go so far as to deny that ever closer union means just that, and confine themselves to saying we are not going to join the Euro. They of course wanted to do just that not so long ago.

Many of the defenders of the EU are also strong critics of austerity policies who believe in large state transfer payments. It is curious that they lose their principles and their tongue when it comes to the harsh austerity policies visited on Greece, Spain, Portugal and others as part of their Euro discipline. It is also curious that there are few voices of condemnation of the mass unemployment and the high youth unemployment in the south of the EU, and no remedies ventured within EU and Euro rules on how to right those wrongs.

I tried again in the Commons yesterday to encourage the parties who favour our continued unchanged membership of the EU to defend the institutions of the EU and the policies being followed in the Eurozone. No-one even tried.

You can listen to ‘Currencies and Countries’ here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mcfdp.

I have worked with Radio 4 Analysis to produce a half hour programme arguing that a successful single currency needs a country to love and back it. This will be transmitted at 9.30 pm on Sunday 8th November. It is also already available on to listen to through the BBC Radio 4 Analysis part of the BBC website.