Category: Uncategorized

The UK is seeking to join the EU emissions trading scheme. The UK set up a similar one on its own when we left the EU. Our scheme was less penal on power generation and industry than the EU one, giving us a lower carbon price. Our carbon price is now going up to get closer to the EU’s, meaning more costs for the industrial and energy businesses that have  to pay  it.

The UK also wishes to impose a carbon based tariff or border tax on imports just like the EU. That is a tax on UK consumers and businesses. Often we have to import  as so much industry has been closed by high energy prices and taxes. The UK and EU may agree not to levy the new tariff on each other. The UK should make clear to the  EU any attempt by them to levy it would be taken by the UK as a violation of our UK/EU tariff free trade Agreement. There is no need to submit to their carbon schemes to see off the threat of a new charge. The carbon border tax or tariff may well be challenged by other countries through the WTO and may be seen as a provocation by the US.

The UK’s insistence on high energy costs and prices is a main cause of the collapse of petrochemicals, steel, ceramics and other energy intensive industry. Far from boosting growth joining the EU  carbon schemes would hit our industry further.

 

There were precious few wins in the hype. None of them are yet delivered.

Use of egates to speed Uk travellers. Nothing changes before EU technology changes, which will not happen this summer. UK would then have to negotiate egate use with every member state individually!

More exports of UK food products. The UK  has conceded taking EU laws but there is no text saying what will be cut out or when. The UK exports so little meat  and dairy potential wins would be small even if they do make genuine reductions in requirements. Meanwhile  farmers would lose other freedoms to innovate and trade elsewhere.

Youth Experience Scheme. No agreement on limit on numbers or duration of visas. No clear statement on how to prevent it  becoming another entry route for migrants.

Access to bid for defence contracts. Nothing agreed about how many or about a possible charge for allowing this.

Common emissions trading and new carbon tax regime. No text. Just a threat of higher energy taxes and more imports, with EU calling the shots.

Freedom of movement

How many people under  30 will come? Is there any limit?

Where will they all find homes? What increases will there be in public service provision for them?

How will the government make sure they return home at the end of their permitted stay?

What if they become unemployed? Will the UK state assist them? Will they be sent home if they commit a crime?

Erasmus and Turing

How much would  rejoining  Erasmus cost per year? How much of the  money and uni places goes to EU students coming to UK?

Will Turing be scrapped to pay for Erasmus? Will that mean no more help for UK students to go to good US or Commonwealth unis?

Fish

Why does the government give any fish away?

Shouldn’t the  UK with rich fishing waters run its own marine and fish conservation policy, cancelling big quotas to EU boats and banning their environment damaging supertrawlers?

Why not help rebuild a bigger UK fleet, encouraging onshore  food processing.

Food rules

The UK and other advanced countries we trade with has high safety and quality standards  for food. The Uk has been lifting standards of animal welfare since Brexit. Why make us follow EU standards which might impede  innovation and better trade with non EU countries?

The EU sells us more than 3 times as much food and drink as we sell them. Extra sales of meat and dairy to the  EU would be small, and might be more than offset by bigger imports from the EU

The UK voted to be an independent country.EU dictating laws  to us takes away our independence.

UK contributing to EU defence

Isnt this best done through NATO which has command structures and procedures to construct coalitions of the willing and capable?

Surely UK companies that are part of multinational consortia as with the Typhoon programme are free to bid to see to EU governments when they buy weapons?

Why wouldn’t  the EU buy from the UK if we have the best product at the best price. It would self harm not to.

Energy and carbon taxes

How much extra will we have to pay in emissions and carbon costs on our energy?

Why out a big extra  carbon border  tax on to make consumers poorer and companies less competitive?

Why make us more rely  on importing energy with more sub sea pipes and wires? Why not go for greater energy security?

Economic impact

How much do the total give aways cost UK taxpayers? How much will this boost imports?

How can this silly surrender boost UK growth given the costs and risks involved?

 

Years of being in the Common Fishery Policy saw the UK move from being self sufficient and a net exporter of fish to being an importer. Our fushing fleet was greatly reduced and a majority of the quotas to catch the main controlled species were given to continental boats.

There was no agreement over fishing post Brexit so the two lartiesagreed to a so called Transition guaranteeing continental boats the rights to fish they enjoyed in the EU. The idea was transition to the UK taking control in 2026, presumably to restore a good sized Uk fishing industry. Coastal states who are no members of EU have yearly discussion when awarding quota and rights to fish to foreign fleets.

The UK should now take back control of our waters. The government should back a big expansion of our fleet with grants and loans for people to buy boats. It should  promote industrial use in coastal town to process fish and add value to food.

The pro EU lobby say the fish in our waters are nit our fish as they can swim to EU waters. In that case why doesn’t the EU catch them closer to home instead of wanting to come into our fishing grounds?

The UK has a large coastline , generous fishing grounds and a long tradition of seafaring.It us crazy to give away our fish on such a huge scale and end up importing.

Our food trade with the EU is tariff free. This helps EU exporters compete in our market. They sell us 3.4 times as much as we sell them in the wider food and drink category. Whisky is our biggest export. Our sales of meat, dairy, fruit, vegetables and cereals are low. Years in the CAP with small milk quotas, beef bans and grants to remove orchards led to substantial reductions in UK farms home market share. We cannot now produce nearly enough temperate food to meet our own needs.

Some now argue we need to adopt again all the rules and controls the EU places on farms and food producers so we could export more to the EU without some of the border frictions the EU imposes . So what could we produce more and what would they buy?  Our sales did not fall post Brexit.

The main reason the EU wants more controls over UK farming is  their wish to keep out cheaper non EU food from competing with their exports to the UK.They also want to block innovation in the UK that could lead the UK to cheaper and better food at home. They veto genetic modification.

The EU has been pressing the UK to accept a Youth Mobility Scheme. They want anyone under the age of 30 in any  of the 27 member states to have a right to come to the UK for up to four years  to work, study or travel. The UK would automatically grant them a visa for entry.

The UK so far has turned this down, pointing out that is effectively freedom of movement for a large number of people. It is not clear how the UK could force people to leave at the end of the four years. It is suggested they would not be entitled to benefits but they would presumably receive  NHS treatment when needed and might need other types of state assistance.

Where the last government said No, the current government is exploring options. They are looking at a lesser  time period and at some limitations on what kind of work they could take. It is difficult to see how even a lesser scheme is compatible with the government’s  aim of a major reduction in legal migration.

The EU also wants the UK to subsidise the fees charged continental students in UK universities. It would like to revive UK membership of Erasmus. That would mean we had pay for the  full fees for continental students to attend UK universities as well as pay for some UK students to study in the EU. When we were in Erasmus there were many more continental students coming to the UK than UK students going to Europe.

The post Brexit UK Turing scheme spends the money all on UK students going abroad. It gives UK students the choice from many Universities all round the world. It would be wrong to cut our support to UK students and to prevent  them studying in places. like the US and Australia.

Ten months on a government with a large majority presides over record levels of illegal migration by small boat. They watch as if powerless observers as thousands more chance their lives to get here on illegal dangerous overloaded small craft. Why?

They scrapped the Rwanda plan which was starting to deter illegal travellers. They have offered friendship and money to France only to see the French accompany boats to the middle of the Channel . In France migrants survive in tents, freely talk of getting an illegal boat to England and make contact with the people smugglers.GB News showed all this on Tuesday in good reporting.

The UK offering to rescue people at sea and to ferry them to hotels, often leading on to their establishing  a right to stay even though they came here illegally encourages this evil trade.

Why doesn’t the UK arrest and prosecute the men who organise and steer the boats  to the UK?  Why don’t officials mystery shop for boat transport so they know where and when boats will leave? Why cant they find out who takes the money? Why cant the French authorities stop boats putting to sea? Why hasn’t France traced the supply of new boats to the traders?

Why are the standards of accommodation and treatment for illegal migrants so different in the two countries? How can France be abiding by the same Human Rights law which demands much higher standards in England?

Why does France tolerate so many illegals near the coast, and  allow so many small boats to launch? It must be quite obvious which inflatable is an illegal people smuggling boat by the number of people assembling to go on it.

The government wrongly thinks removing some non tariff barriers to EU trade would boost UK growth. It is more likely to boost  EU exports to us more than our exports to them, subtracting from our GDP. The UK already runs a huge trade deficit with the EU

The government sounds keen to align us with EU food regulations. They have failed to notice we only export 15 bn euro of food and drink, with whisky an important part, whereas the  EU sells us Euro 51 bn or more than three times as much. The UK keeps high tariffs on food items we import from the EU which limits our consumer choice and keeps the import prices high. Reinforcing this by forcing us to accept all their new rules on food would reinforce the trend we suffered in the EU of losing food market share as regulations including insufficient milk quota and beef bans left our unprotected market on to a surge of imports.

The idea that the UK should once again give its fish away is a disgraceful proposal. Our fishing grounds gave been overfished for 50 years thanks to EU membership and the decision to put off taking back control of our fish to 2026.We should cut the total quotas allowed next year, ban the foreign  ultra large trawlers and allocate more quota  to the  UK industry. Government should make capital available to build a bigger fishing fleet in UK yards.

We do not want a re set which makes us subservientb to the  EU again. We should not accept their laws  or out ourselves under European Court jurisdiction. We should  not  allow freedom of movement for the under 30 s. We should rebuild  our food and fish industry as we need to produce more of our own food.

The government should not make May 19 Surrender day.

 

 

 

 

We are getting close to May 19, the date of the UK/EU summit. The UK has asked for too little in a re set and is likely to give away too much.

There is talk of a Defence partnership.       This would entail sending our forces into EU wars when they asked. So few EU countries have sufficient defence so of course they would like us to help out. We already offer this to NATO members who are under an obligation to spend more and to look after their own defence. Some new EU legal structure to erode our control of our own military is a bad idea. Anything that undercuts or seeks to supplant NATO is also abad idea, as US membership of NATO is crucial to its forces and credibility.

There is talk of the UK government giving money to secure access for UK defence contractors to the planned Euro 150 bn borrowed fund to boost EU country armaments. There is no need for the UK to pay anything. The EU will need our defence contractors  where they have the best kit or are part of existing European. consortia. Any extra money we have for defence must be spent on our own forces, where it will generate orders for UK defence companies.

There is also suggestion the government will give away our fish, open our borders  to the under 30 s and  align us with EU rules. All bad ideas.

Such a deal would be a humiliating surrender

Today we are promised a paper from the Home Secretary to reduce migration. She has the advantage that last year the Conservative government raised the amount you needed to earn to get a work permit and cut back on student dependents.

The two largest categories of migrants remain people getting work permits and students. The numbers get swollen by allowing dependents,  by granting students a transfer to a work visa, and. y people failing to return home when their visa runs out.

We hear the government might ask for a degree level qualification, cutting out lower pay and lower skilled jobs. There might be an A level requirement for English. These changes are unlikely to make much difference to numbers. Las t year brought a net increase of 728,000. It would be good to get net numbers down to near zero to relieve pressures on homes and public services. It is going to take tougher controls than are likely from this Home Secretary.