A small country can be sovereign but not very powerful. A large country can be more powerful but not sovereign, if it is foolish enough to give away its right to self government.
Remain seek to confuse sovereignty with power. The UK they say is more powerful because we “pool” our sovereignty with other countries. What nonsense.
You cannot “pool” sovereignty. You are either sovereign or you are not.
I am sovereign over my bank account. I can spend the money in it as I please.
If I add up my neighbours’ bank accounts they have much more money than I do, so collectively they have more spending power. That does not make me want to share my bank account with them, even though together we would have more money to spend, or more power of the purse.
Why don’t people share bank accounts with their neighbours? Because they do not want to have to agree every purchase and every loan with all the others in the shared scheme. They fear they would end up not being able to spend their own money on their priorities. They fear they might have to carry a disproportionate burden of paying back any overdraft. People are wise not to “pool” their bank accounts.
So why do Remainians think it can work for countries? We now share a lot of our money in a common budget with the rest of the EU. We do not get back anything like what we put in. The handling and admin costs are high as well.
It’s not just the money where this is obvious. Because the UK is in the EU it agrees to “pool” its sovereignty over trade. That means we have given away our unique vote and voice in the World Trade Organisation. We now have to argue with 27 other countries over what the EU representative will say on our joint behalf. Frequently they do not say or vote as we would wish.
All the time the UK stays in the EU we are not sovereign. The European Court overturns Acts of Parliament and controls taxes we have imposed or wish not to impose. The European institutions take over more and more areas for their own decision. We cannot decide how to raise all our tax money, nor decide how to spend it. We cannot make our own laws.
So a once powerful independent country is no longer sovereign.
Earlier this week I was asked by a Japanese tv channel why on earth we were wanting to leave the EU. I told them that I noticed Japan did not enter a similar arrangement with China, and have to agree her laws, and parts of her budgets and taxes with China before making decisions. As they do not do this, why do they think we want to have to agree our laws and taxes with France and Germany?
June 11, 2016
Judging by a recent debate or two between the Remain and our sensible campaign, the Remaindians show us their idea of sovereignty is shouting, to interrupt with personal abuse.. They show their power by standing legs too wide apart as if astride a rocking horse with their shoulders pulled back and upper arms held widely as was the practice with The Rt Hon Mr Blair and his American friend President Bush Jnr. The County Sheriffs have come to town to sort us all out making sure we hand in our guns before entering the saloon. Then shout some more. Pull mean faces. Easy for them.
June 11, 2016
Don’t know if this image of the Remaindian stance on Sovereignty and Power will come out. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkTcTmkW0AAgCVt.jpg
June 11, 2016
Yes, it has. 🙂
June 11, 2016
An excellent means of understanding sovereignty, put in readily understandable terms.
Nigel Farage did an excellent job yesterday evening in explaining the Leave case in various areas highlighted by Andrew Neil. Clear concise, and well backed with fact. Delivered in a way that most people could take on board.
June 11, 2016
People who didn’t see Neil vs Farage would have seen the cleverly edited news version highlighting Farage stuttering and blustering.
The Remain campaign is corrupt. Just like the EU.
Most people I know want to vote out and many are saying they want to use ink rather than pencil – such is the distrust of the count.
They are not paranoid. I seriously wonder what sort of country I live in now.
Expect bags of postal votes to appear from nowhere.
June 12, 2016
‘It’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes’ ??
zorro
June 11, 2016
I agree that Dr Redwood’s analogy is helpful and clear and is useful when trying to convey the essence of the Leave reasoning to a non-believer. It is becoming more and more obvious that the Remain supporters are actually producing no convincing reasons to Remain at all, but are simply reduced to personal abuse and dark threats.
June 11, 2016
I suggest you do a piece sometime setting out how the EU differs fundamentally (as opposed just to by degree) from other international set-ups which Remain would argue also involve pooling of sovereignty such as NAFTA, NATO, ASEAN and perhaps even the WTO, UN etc
June 11, 2016
Britain represents herself on all those organisations, Richard1. She is not represented by a collective of 27 other nations with unelected figureheads.
I can find NOTHING to commend EU membership other than to set an example to free nations of what not to do with their sovereignty.
June 11, 2016
The more the Leave camp make of these simple comparisons, which are not complicated to understand, the more traction they may get with their arguments.
Eventually the penny will drop with those who have so far been confused, or do not yet understand.
Trade negotiations for the EU is like 28 people going to a restaurant, but with only one person given responsibility to choose for all people present the one meal that will hopefully satisfy all.
That is why EU trade deals take so long to be agreed:
Some will like some sort of fish, some will like different types of meat but not others, some may prefer Pasta or Salad.
In the end no one is satisfied.
Far Better to go to the restaurant in a smaller group with all able to choose from the full menu and all pay separately.
June 11, 2016
An excellent example, alan. I posted a similar scenario, in another place, that included Vegan, Vegetarian and Gluten-free (Celiac) requirements. The positive response to it from fellow posters was encouraging.
June 11, 2016
Congratulations on your Jeremy Vine appearance yesterday. I see most comments agreed with you so the subject was quickly changed.
Nigel was very good last night and I think Neil secretly agrees with him.
The remainiacs have no contribution to make and are now concentrating on personal attacks.
Keep up the good work John.
Reply. Thanks. I would like more invites to get the message across on the media as there is so much to tell people.
June 11, 2016
But why did the (wrong on everything and would be landlord their) Ed Miliband get far longer to talk drivel for remain and with him in the studio whereas you get perhaps less than a quarter of the time and on a crackly phone line? (With a BBC advert for the outdated technology of digital radios in the middle).
You did indeed destroy all his silly arguments very well. Surely the public will not fall for the bogus drivel that remain keeps pushing?
June 11, 2016
Would be landlord thief!
June 11, 2016
Today we have Sir Peter Higgs, who was one of three scientists to predict his particle, and Sir Nurse, who is a biologist who knows all about AGW, warning us to vote remain in case research money dries up. While the protons buzzing around CERN at near c are going in and out of the EU faster than anything invented and the top countries receiving EU science money are Norway, Israel and Iceland. Sir James Dyson only invented Dysons and, being a bit more practical, has concuded otherwise.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/sir-james-dyson-so-if-we-leave-the-eu-no-one-will-trade-with-us/
June 11, 2016
I hope these 13 Nobel prize winners who have urged Remain will be treated with due respect by Leave, it does no good to dismiss highly intelligent people arguing for what they believe is right. The best response would be a very clear statement by Michael Gove & Boris Johnson (since Leave are coming up with Brexit policies) that under no circs would science investment be lower in the future than it would have been had we stayed in the EU.
Reply Personal abuse is the monopoly of the Remain side. Vote Leave is pointing out we will still fund science well out of the EU as they only send us back some of the money we send them in the first place. The UK will continue to collaborate with EU countries as we do with many countries not currently in the EU like the USA.
PS The answer to your previous question is in NATO etc we have a veto whereas in the EU we can often be outvoted and can also be told what to do by the ECJ.
June 11, 2016
Richard1
I agree however it also irks me when the remain side say things like experts like Stephen Hawking says remain. Prof Hawking is a genius theoretical physicist, he’s a rocket scientist and a Customs Union trading block is not about space travel or propulsion. Its about businesses trading with customers, so in fact its a field in which he isn’t an expert at all in fact he probably has very little practical experience. However Sir james Dyson is both an engineer and a businessman so why not listen to him on those topics. Oh and just possessing a nobel prize actually mean nothing any longer even Obama has one just for being elected
June 11, 2016
Yes I agree with that. Also of course it’s no argument to say ‘X says this therefore it must be true’.
June 11, 2016
Richard 1 – It is clearly beyond the intelligence of these scientists to realise that none of their funding comes from the EU. As net contributors to the EU the funding comes from the British taxpayer.
I agree with Dr Redwood that personal abuse is the monopoly of the Remain side.
According to them we’re stupid, racist, insane, phobic…
Hopefully we will get our revenge on the 23rd. If so then the conduct of the Remainers over the years (decades) will be the chief reason why we leave the EU – especially over the issue of ignoring legitimate concerns about uncontrolled migration.
I am disgusted and there are people I will not talk to again over this. So much for the EU being a unifying force.
June 11, 2016
@Richard1
Depends what you mean by intelligent.
People can be very knowledgeable about some things and completely inept on others. Did you read the book “When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management”?
Also, intelligence doesn’t necessarily guarantee probity.
Sometimes intelligent people do things to beneft their own selfish interests without a care for anyone else.
June 11, 2016
Nowadays, you get Nobel prizes for political virtue signalling rather than for genuine achievement. Why would President Obama (after a few weeks in the job) and the EU receive such an award otherwise?
June 11, 2016
Indeed, but what is very clear is that the UK will have far more money available for scientific research. Personally I am all in favour of more sensible scientific research. The remain side should make it very clear they support science research strongly and will increase not decrease funding.
I would also reduce the funding for climate alarmism and trips to outer space and concentrate on areas of science that are less politics and far more based on real science. Also more likely to reward the investment.
June 11, 2016
Thanks for the reply. I imagine the same is true eg of NAFTA? The other key difference would be the ability of the supra-national organisation to make laws to which its members are subject and, in the case of the EU, the existence of a court against which there is no appeal, to interpret those laws.
June 11, 2016
Sir Paul Nurse is also, as one might expect, a climate alarmist. Despite no warming since 1998.
Why can these scientists not understand that if the UK does not pay X to the EU (and get a little of X back with strings attached) then the UK will have rather more available for science research not less. The stronger economy post Brexit, with less red tape, cheaper energy, rid of economic illiterate Osborne etc. will help greatly too.
June 11, 2016
Does each proton have to have a visa to do that?
June 11, 2016
“Because the UK is in the EU it agrees to “pool” its sovereignty over trade.”
But Cameron thinks that’s a good thing, he thinks that it is well worth imposing a tariff on imports of socks from outside of the EU because that means our sock manufacturers do not have to face any tariff when they export their socks to the rest of the EU.
Hence, back in February:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/25/brexit-eu-referendum-more-expensive-flights-holidays-david-cameron
“We’ve also got to think about the issue of the prices in our shops. Being part of a single market keeps our prices down.”
It may seem counter-intuitive that the imposition of EU tariffs on socks imported from the rest of the world actually lowers the price of socks in our shops, and we would have to pay more for our socks if we left the EU and removed the tariffs we are presently compelled to apply to cheaper socks produced by the 93% of the world’s population which lives outside the EU, but I’m sure that in the mind of our Prime Minister it is perfectly logical.
In any case tariffs all around the world have fallen by about two thirds on average since the EEC was set up in 1958, and while one can certainly pick out specific examples where they are still high on average the EU’s common external tariff is now calculated to be in the range 1% to 4%, depending on how the precise details of the calculation.
June 11, 2016
re Air fares- it’s interesting that the average fare to say Australia (perhaps £900), a distance of around 20,000 miles return, gives a price of 22 miles to a £. This includes high long distance taxes.
A cheap European trip to say Rome (about 1600 miles return) at £100 gives 16 miles for every £. So the much vaunted cheap fares to E.U. countries, so dear to the young voter, are actually more expensive proportionally than the long-haul trip to our distant cousins. And my calculations do not include the meals provided long-haul.
June 11, 2016
re scientists comment
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/06/10/13-nobel-laureates-urge-britain-to-stay-in-european-union/
June 11, 2016
“Science thrives on permeability of ideas and people, and flourishes in environments that pool intelligence, minimise barriers, and are open to free exchange and collaboration.
The EU provides such an environment and scientists value it highly.”
Was it the paper which didn’t print why the scientists thought that this wouldn’t still apply after leave or do the scientists not know? What a useless piece of writing or reporting.
June 11, 2016
Slightly off topic or is it ?
I see it is reported in the Press this morning that many of the bosses of Companies who have spoken up for Remain, have found themselves on this years Honours list.
Well what a co-incidence, I did suggest this would happen in an earlier post at the start of the week.
No I did not have inside knowledge, but just a simple logic that many people on the Remain side were being given/offered some sort of incentive to do so.
You may also in many months time find Government contracts have also been placed, purely by chance of course, with the same Companies, or perhaps withdrawn from Companies who have spoken for Leave.
I wonder how many Mp’s have been told they could have a golden Future with the present Government ?
John, you must be very disappointed at the way the Prime Minister and the Government is conducting this Referendum.
Far from being fair, democratic and standing above it all, he seems to be conducting himself like the boss of a Banana Republic.
The citizens of this Country are not fools, he or your Party will get payback, if not in this Referendum then at the next General Election.
I know Cameron will not be in charge in 4 years time (I hope sooner) but the hangers on will suffer at the ballot box rest assured.
June 11, 2016
Whatever the result, it would be a very weak career decision to trim your vote with an eye to preferment. People don’t forget.
June 11, 2016
Good article in the paper today comparing what Cameron wrote and said as a backbencher and in opposition against what he is saying now. This needs to be put on mainstream TV.
An example being how he was so against the EAW that Labour was proposing! How a former judge held for over 5 years in an Italian jail! Now listen to him.
June 11, 2016
“many people on the Remain side were being given/offered some sort of incentive to do so.”
As in bought?
June 11, 2016
.”That does NOT make me want to share” !!
June 11, 2016
The answers to the sovereignty question on the debate were indeed far stronger from Leave than from Remain.
Sovereignty is quite simple in my view:
We can invite 20 million immigrants a year to the country and give 98% of GDP away in Foreign Aid, but the decision to do so must be OURS.
June 11, 2016
Exactly.
Just one of many deliberate confusions such as confusing delightful Europe with the totally dire EU.
I see that some top scientists are coming out in favour of the EU in order to protect their grants. One might have thought that these bright people would have worked out that the country would have far money money for science post Brexit as we will have no fee to pay and will have a much stronger economy.
June 11, 2016
I see that the honours list is rather biased in favour of “remainers”. Alas it is the usual list of TV personalities and lefty lovies, time serving state bureaucrats and second rate toe the line people, liars and spinners.
Vote Leave has accused David Cameron of “abusing the honours system” – pointing out 22 prominent supporters of the campaign to remain in the EU are on the list. Well what did they expect of Cameron? He has abused almost every other lever that he can touch. Such is character of the rather contemptible serial ratter. About to do another U turn on Heathrow if he is still in office I see, rightly this time for once.
I wonder if he has worked out yet that he has backed the wrong horse on this referendum?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-brexit-leave-campaign-10-point-lead-remain-boris-johnson-nigel-farage-david-a7075131.html
I estimate that perhaps 10%-20% are actually richly deserved.
June 11, 2016
If Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP lot get their way after Brexit, break away from the UK, and then Scots suddenly finding themselves bereft both of country, power, sovereignty, and self-respect in the bowels of the EU authoritarian mega-state, we will asked to provide sanctuary to her, give her asylum lest her countryfolk get their hands on her. If such happens, despite not being part of the EU we should nevertheless honour to the full the European arrest warrant issued by Edinburgh for her to be repatriated.
June 11, 2016
Shame on you for intending to comply with the Evil Empire’s edicts when we will no longer be obliged to do so.
No, the better course (and in keeping with tradition) surely is to let Nicola stay at Fotheringhay Castle.
June 11, 2016
Touché 🙂
June 11, 2016
Tory voters are polling 62 to 38. Inexplicable why Cameron and Osborne are leaders of the Party. Farage was positively brilliant last night.
June 11, 2016
Precisely.
The more “niche” or specialised our businesses become, where we differentiate ourselves from German/French businesses, the less those businesses are protected by the EU, and the more we can better protect them ourselves. The EU trade system encourages a “me too” business attitude rather then a competing one.
June 11, 2016
Indeed John.
Slightly off topic:
I understand the German Finance Minister has opined on our referendum.
My response was to (not believe it ed).
June 11, 2016
This is a very good analogy, John.
One I shall doubtless use many times over the next few days.
June 11, 2016
This strange disdain for democratic sovereignty concept has a logical end-point. But no user of the concept will take ownership of that logic.
If the concept of sovereignty and the tassels and paraphernalia which surround it are a tedious and arcane sideshow, then fine.
STOP VOTING.
There is no logic to possess parallel opinions of not caring (yes – this almost by definition is ‘not caring’) how your country is overseen with your own tax money, and simultaneously voting to identify the nature of the authority in which name that tax money is disbursed; or the identity of the Government which will make decisions in your own name. Decisions you will be paying for.
Similarly ‘Vote for me as your representative, I’ll fight to make sure someone you have never heard of nor can vote out ends up representing you’ isn’t very catchy but is the more honest version of ‘Sovereignty is Overrated’. (Edwina Currie)
It’s the only logical conclusion, if the individual really finds the nature of democratic representation an academic exercise which can stand endless dilution, then participation in the process which confirms the matter of leadership and governance is wasted effort.
June 11, 2016
I am glad you posted on this subject today John. The following is what a friend of mine emailed me today and this is what we are up against. Some people just think that the Leave campaign is full of uncertainty.
“If GB can’t control its Borders now what exactly will it do to control
Them on Britexit?. Do tell me . Have watched TV debate same old hot air
and no specifics . Frankfurt will take over from City of London financial sector for definite or has somebody got a magic formulae to prevent this? Again somebody needs to be specific on this one as the financial sector is 45% of our so called exports or are we making super widgets that EEC can’t do without that I don’t know about . Our balance of trade deficit now continues to grow . If the Uk can’t sell more than it does now to 500 Million people on our doorstep how’s it going to sell more on Britexit to the 6 Billion in the rest of the world who are mostly broke and guard their own interests very tightly? Have we some kind of Supersalesmen waiting in the Wings who will come on stage and increase dramatically and sell these unknown Superwidgets?
Faith Hope and Charity is what we won’t get .
My vote has been posted several days ago.”
Well, from that, you can guess which way he voted!! It seems to me that people’s view of global trade is very small.
June 11, 2016
You should tell him to not waste your time telling him as it clearly makes no difference as he has already voted ? ….. Frankfurt taking over from the City of London like it did when we didn’t join the Euro ?….
zorro
June 11, 2016
“If the Uk can’t sell more than it does now to 500 Million people on our doorstep how’s it going to sell more on Britexit to the 6 Billion in the rest of the world who are mostly broke and guard their own interests very tightly?”
I suppose he could have asked the car makers how they do it.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/abs/annual-business-survey/car-production/sty-car.html
In 2014, the value of exports of cars to the rest of the EU was about £11 billion, while the value of imports of cars from the rest of the EU was about £31 billion, deficit £20 billion.
However we ended up with an overall deficit of only £5 billion thanks to the £15 billion surplus with the rest of the world outside the EU, with exports worth £18 billion, nearly twice the exports to the other EU countries.
It’s odd that Cameron quite often talks about the importance of our exports of cars to the rest of the EU but he never mentions that it works both ways and we import three times as much as we export.
June 11, 2016
Democratic self government is easier to understand and clear in its meaning. The remain camp will use weasel words to interpret and dilute the meaning of sovereignty. You need to make it absolutely clear in simple plain words that the EU has control over our laws and imposes taxes which the UK. Manga Carta, habeous corpus are terms which a lot of people will not understand, transpose into easily understood terms. Lord Denning was correct to say that you attract a wider audience with plain language, his peer group used fanciful grand language which only a few understood (and many could find alternatively interpretations). He could transform the complex to easy to understand language, he was devastatingly intelligent.
We had a civil war to prevent the king from having ultimate control over us without right to redress from the people.
June 11, 2016
Farage makes unarguable, simple statements that are the height of effectiveness. His emphasis on 88% not being exported to the EU was a case in point. References the other way round, to 12%, don’t bring the point home in the same way. That said, how can it be that we are engaged in all this palaver when only 12% goes to the EU? It’s not as if that 12% would stop, nor even close, as witness ask any other country in the world. The worst case is a 2.5 % increase in tariffs–BFD when compared with the freedom of rejoining the rest of the world and striking our own deals with countries that are growing and growing fast– for which understand just about anywhere except the sclerotic and broken and dangerous EU.
June 11, 2016
And of course Brexit is helped by Remain’s having the misfortune to have liar Cameron on their side. My mind still boggles from the way he has spoken, and somehow continues to speak, out of both sides of his mouth at once on Turkey. And as regards Security who would want Brussels (words left out ed) watching their back? Cannot forget during the Falklands when Belgium wouldn’t sell, never mind give, us ammunition at a time of our urgent need. They had a perfect right to take that view but it just showed that we are not on the same planet as them and that Remainiacs should stop pretending that we are.
June 11, 2016
The French were not particularly helpful either, selling arms to Argentina which blew up our ships. The US was a reluctant ally.
June 11, 2016
I believe our sovereignty has been hard won, and many lives lost to gain and protect it. Please correct me if I am wrong about this. If this is the case, we should not ‘pool’ our sovereignty with anyone. I think whoever suggested this is out of order !
June 11, 2016
Not wrong Cheshire. The EU does nothing for the European proletariat. The only people who benefit from EU membership are those who benefit from the cheap labour the single market provides. No doubt tariff-free trade works well for the big internationals.
Not sure that it does much good for our local butcher.
June 11, 2016
Off topic, I note that the Telegraph is running this piece today; ‘Panicked’ Remain camp plans to ‘take out Boris’ as opinion polls swing in Brexit campaign’s favour
Well good for them, I’m no fan of Boris [1] and wouldn’t loose much sleep if he was ‘taken out’ (of the campaign, I assume…), but I’ll still be voting Leave!
What is more quite a few other leading Brexit or Vote Leave personalities could also fall by the wayside, one way or another, and it would not change my opinion on our EU membership. What do these BSE strategists not realise, it’s not personalities who are driving Brexit but the raw facts, that is why their “Project Fear” has failed too.
[1] and if he does become the next Conservative party leader than I will not be voting Conservative all the time he is
June 11, 2016
“It’s immigration, stupid !”
Middle/upper class Remainers do not understand (nor feel) the impact of mass immigration on the working class.
It’s no good having a booming economy if every time we have one millions arrive and crowd the market out – even worse if they come in a downturn.
We are importing poverty as far as the working class are concerned. And they are absolutely right.
It’s no good trying to scare people with Project Fear when – on a personal level – the worst is already being done to them.
More posh people pedalling Project Fear lies please. More of Eddie Izzard please (overrated, overpaid idiot) More posh Remainers calling us racists, xenophobes, Europhobes and little Englanders please.
They’re doing a wonderful job for Brexit !
June 11, 2016
Great post anonymous
June 11, 2016
Excellent comment anymouse.
June 11, 2016
@Anonymous; Well it’s just a pity that the “working class” you talk of couldn’t have got of their backsides and done the sort of work eastern Europeans migrants are doing, and for the market rate, before these migrants arrived (often by invention/advert).
What we are hearing today is the same sort of claptrap that was common in the late 1960s and into the 1970s when the economy had started to downturn, previously because the post war economic boom British people had a pick of jobs but when boom started to turn to bust and people could no longer walk out of one job at 1pm and into a better paid one at 2pm, or worse found they were out of work at 5pm, they started to expect to have the right to walk in and take over those lower paid or unsocial jobs they would have passed-by before, leaving them to the economic migrants of the time.
June 11, 2016
Off topic but there is a seriously good featured article in last week’s New Statesman(June 2,free to view on their website) – “The Next Balkan Wars”,examining the vacuum left after the US lost interest,the utter mess the EU has made of filling that vacuum,the ethno-religious tensions,the fragmenting of the fragments of Yugoslavia,the possibility of borders being reconfigured to create Greater Serbia and Greater Albania and Russian influence flooding back into the Orthodox countries.
The eternal potential for conflict in the Balkans must be one of the reasons the EU wants it’s own army(Bismarck would be spinning in his grave…again!).
Required reading,I would have said, for anyone interested in the troubled/troubling geopolitics of this region,the constituents of which have virtually all had the EU’s welcome mat laid out.
June 12, 2016
Nicely managing to insult every single unemployed person and all wage earners at the same time Jerry.
It is tough for those currently struggling with fierce labour market competition and the reducing wages or min wage jobs or short term contracts of most of the jobs on offer.
June 12, 2016
@Edward2; I guess the truth hurts you.
As I said the other week, Lord Tebbit was correct back in the 1980s and his words are as true today as they ever were then or in the 1930s.
June 12, 2016
Jerry
What a bizarre comment. “I guess the truth hurts you”
I just find your generalisation that all UK people who are unemployed are lazy compared to new arrivals as insulting to millions of people.
Once you use the word “all” as a label when describing a paricular group of people you are plainly wrong and getting close to being offensive.
June 12, 2016
@Edward2; Perhaps if you could actually explained why the vast majority of migrants seem able to find work once they arrive in the UK (if not before…) but those who you constantly make excuses for can not, even though they live in the locality of the work, or at least the same country.
The idea that the NMW is the problem is a red herring as the NMW is more than JSA (by the time in-work benefits etc. are considered). I’m not even suggesting that such work is suitable to all, but employers do not seem able to find very many suitable British people at all, and often when they do take British people on they do not last, sometimes not even seeing the first week out, either they stop turning up, if they do turn up they turn up late or -in the case of food factories- not in compliance with hygiene regulations etc.
As for my use of “all”, it refers to those who spend their time trying find scapegoats rather than trying to find work, not all those who are unemployed.
Sorry Edward2, either these home truths hurt you or you simply don’t have a clue as to what you are trying to argue about, I suspect the latter.
June 11, 2016
The fifth paragraph should surely read “That does NOT want me to share….”
June 11, 2016
A very good analogy John – why should anyone want to share their hard earned living with anyone else ? .
This week I have been angered by the news that MPs might want to use a majority vote in the Commons to fudge away the outcome of the referendum if the result is “Brexit” . This would drive a wedge between the voters and their representatives and destroy democracy .
We are already exposed to the EU over-ruling our own decisions making a mockery of our laws , it has accelerated our move to get out ; if our MPs take part in similar tactics , it is likely to result in mutiny and riots in the streets .
I have lost complete faith in the Political leadership of this country and I now wish to see change ; I no longer want young inexperienced boys deciding and pressing the buttons on my behalf , I want valued judgement individuals who have had a chunk of successful life under their belts before they assume a role in Parliament .
June 11, 2016
Totally agree, these are the same bunch who mocked the Leave side when someone mentioned a two referendum strategy.
German Finance minister has however shot that fox! He says no access to the single market if we leave the EU.
June 11, 2016
“So a once powerful independent country is no longer sovereign.” Fortunately, even as a legislator MP, you can’t make a “sovereign” declaration on the sovereignty; that is, the “legal personality” of the UK. If the UK is no longer a “sovereign state”, then we can’t remain a member of the United Nations.
There again, the EU gained international “legal personality” in the Lisbon Treaty, to qualify to join the ECHR, which subsequently back-fired at the ECJ over external jurisdiction of EU sovereign state laws. So, I am guessing that we are still part of a sovereign state called the EU; or possibly er … not.
June 11, 2016
The hand of destiny is upon the UK. Brexit, will not be the end of the EU; but, it may be the beginning of the end of the EU; and the Eurozone; and TTIP; and NATO in East European, ex-Soviet States. The latter now designated as “first strike expendables” (cannon fodder) by US Neo-Cons. I am not sure that the good citizens of Romania; Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, got the email about being in the cross-hairs of ww3. Brexit will do the world a very big favour.
June 11, 2016
John, this point really angers me. It is a bare-faced lie, and it is never questioned by our state broadcaster, which deliberately overlooks all our rights meekly surrendered to the EU.
June 11, 2016
John, just watching the Trooping of the Colour on BBC (about one programme lately worth watching) and have to say that for me, this is what sovereignty is all about. I feel so proud watching our troops parading to perfection and so proud to be doing so. Our Queen is Head of State and not some pompous, unelected nobody in Brussels. I’ve had a lump in my throat several times this morning perhaps because I had two brothers serving in the forces. One in the RAF and one in the Parachute regiment. One gave his life in the Falklands so taking back control of OUR country and our laws is very close to my heart and to many others I am certain. This is what our nation is about. Traditions, and laws passed down through the centuries and we cannot see it disappear into the ether. Long live the Queen and our heritage.
June 11, 2016
I was so proud too. So much so, that I posted on my Facebook page:
‘ As I watch the Trooping of the Colour, I ask myself – is this the country that is told that we can’t stand alone!’
For me that is what it is all about – pride in our Nation and for those who sacrificed so much to gain our freedom. We must guard the precious gifts that we inherited from them.
June 11, 2016
Well said both of you.
In our subservience to the EU over the last few years we have forgotten just what a wonderful powerful people we are in the United Kingdom.
I hope and believe when vote to take back control we will rediscover just how Great, Britain can be.
June 11, 2016
The Germans didn’t manage to take control of us twice before. This time they are taking the slow and steady approach, but we have become aware of what result THEY want – and it is only a WIN for them.
June 11, 2016
Your words (cogent, concise and powerful) need to be heard by the likes of the Prime Minister’s new mouthy friend Yasmin and by the myopic Vicky Spratt (she of an astonishingly naive Spectator article supposedly speaking for young persons) ( http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/brexit-debate-luxury-many-young-people-cant-afford/ ).
I would, however, love it, just love it if following a Remain victory the forthcoming EU army introduced conscription. No amount of howling by Millenials and younger to the UK Parliament would prevent them being marched off of course although after the grind of basic training let us hope they might get a respite to reflect upon sovereignty.
June 11, 2016
Why does Germany want to always control Europe?
June 11, 2016
An insecurity complex arising from multiple land borders perhaps?
June 11, 2016
So, as leave moves well ahead in the polls, what has Cameron got planned for “Project, lies, smears, slope the pitch & fear for the next 12 days? Can he perhaps make the BBC even more biased than it is already? Can he somehow use the football in France to advance his hopeless cause?
The problem he has is that voters are not as daft as he takes them for. They can see a bogus any duff argument when they hear one from him or Osborne, May, Hammond, Hague and the rest of them. Remain has nothing but bogus and duff argument to put.
Anyone who claims we have control of our borders within the EU (through Schengen) or says “no if no but to the tens of thousands” – knowing they cannot deliver is clearly a total fraud.
Anyone who pretends open door EU immigration without any quality control is all good (but that non EU must have huge quality restrictions) is clearly supporting a racist immigration policy rather than one based on merit and needs.
Likewise anyone who pretends we are safer in the EU with open borders.
Anyone who think the endless red tape and absurd CAP, fishing, energy policy,the ERM, the EURO, the power of toasters policy and the rest of the drivel from the EU is good for business and prosperity is clearly deluded.
Doubtless we will get some last minute offers and lies from the EU and Cameron over then next few days, we should ignore them all and leave.
If we manage to get out then is debatable though. There is clearly no reason at all to vote remain in this first referendum, even for people who actually want to for some bizarre reason.
Has Cameron, the government, Corbyn and Labour come out for leave and had the BBC been balanced and fair it would have been an overwhelmingly a Brexit vote. Perhaps even 70/30 or so, as it is it will only be more like 55/45 for Brexit. But quite enough.
Corbyn clearly is a leaver at heart anyway.
June 11, 2016
Project Fear cannot scare people when the worst is already being done to them.
(The ill effects of mass immigration on the working classes)
June 11, 2016
You are obviously very busy spreading the Brexit gospel today. The media has awoken to the Tax Harmonisation (TH) plans of the EU at last.
This EU planned TH should be seen as a business opportunity for the UK on Brexit. Offering competitive Corporate Tax for example at 10% would be very attractive to the World’s business thinking about investing in the UK/Europe.
We would continue to avoid VAT on food, as a feature of Brexit. Low personal tax would continue to attract the brightest and the best to our economy.
The lesson that the EU have not yet learnt from the experience of the Euro is that one size does not fit all. The economic challenges vary considerably country to country in the EU and require varying responses. I do not see TH as an answer to their problems, it is just a socialist mantra. A failed bureaucrats answer as to how to sell oranges from a barrow on a wet Saturday afternoon.
June 11, 2016
Off Topic: Quiz!
In whose Cabinet, Parliamentary Committee, Constituency Party Meeting, District Party Meeting, Local Branch Party Meeting, Local Authority Councillor Meeting, Lower 6th School Debating Society Meeting, Local Pub Darts Club Committee Meeting, is it not just a mark of impoliteness but a definite sackable offence to say and, in a meeting open to the public, ” So-and-so, (of opposite or even same gender to oneself ) is the life and soul of the Party but don’t drive home with him (her )?
The Remain Campaign is dross
June 11, 2016
That depends who says it. Some favoured people have a free pass on all matters PC, others will be pilloried relentlessly if they dare to voice some unwelcome truth.
June 11, 2016
It all boils down to Sovereignty – the Sovereignty of Parliament. Frankly I am appalled at how the political class has just given away large chunks of Parliamentary Sovereignty seeming without considering that it wasn’t theirs to give away in the first place -IT IS OURS. I have no objection whatsoever to cooperation between nation states, but I strongly object to Laws etc being imposed upon us without the explicit consent of Parliament, and ultimately without OUR consent. And this lies at the heart of what is wrong with the EU.
June 11, 2016
Well done to whoever is organising the Remaniacs for us.
They think it is a good idea for us to be lectured by Toxic Tony surely one of the most despised politicians in the UK. Then did you all see Eddie Izzard on Questiontime? More assured votes for Leave.
Who will they wheel out next? Russell Brand with a tablet of stone?
June 11, 2016
Indeed what a dire list.
Major, Izzard, Bliar, Farron, Clegg and his wife, Huhne, Natalie Bennett, May, Hammond even the “skeptic” Hague ……
June 11, 2016
As I have said before ;no one can see the truth due to sophistry. The EU wants to swallow us up and make us humble … nothing else ..jealous dictators do that.
June 11, 2016
“Brexit could break up the EU” per Sweden’s FM. Is that, as they say, a threat or a promise? And besides she and they should have given a bit more consideration to that when being so dismissive of our desire for reform, of which latter, save in Cameron’s dreams, we got none
June 11, 2016
It seems that our media have somewhat distorted what Schäuble said:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-interview-with-wolfgang-schaeuble-on-brexit-a-1096999.html
I notice he says:
“If the British do actually vote to leave the EU, it will be important to remain calm and offer the markets some orientation on which way the road will lead. Then we would have to say: “We now have a decision that we did not want, but let’s make the best of it”.”
That is a bit different from the accounts given in the UK mass media designed to either scare people into voting to stay in the EU, or enrage them against the Germans and stir them up to vote to leave the EU.
He mentions Napoleon and Hitler, which got Boris Johnson into a spot of bother.
June 11, 2016
Anyone interested in the EU/TTIP phenomenon see http://www.bilaterals.org/?-TTIP- a website on all sorts of stuff on world negotiations with an eye on corporate shenanigans – well worth a look.
June 11, 2016
Perhaps of interest:-The EU plans to raise the pressure on six African countries to implement controversial free trade agreements by putting an end to their preferential access to the EU market.
For full article :- http://www.bilaterals.org/?brussels-to-end-preferential-trade
June 11, 2016
An interesting article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/08/britains-defiant-judges-fight-back-against-europes-imperial-cour/
“Britain’s defiant judges fight back against Europe’s imperial court”
Illustrated by an image of the Bill of Rights, but not ours …
June 11, 2016
Beware:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/why-eu-leaders-are-not-speaking-out-about-brexit-a-1094261.html
“Muzzling Brussels: Why EU Leaders Aren’t Debating Brexit”
“Juncker only managed to convince Cameron to give him a small loophole: If Brexit supporters have a clear lead in polls in the week prior to the June 23 referendum, the Commission president will be allowed to make his voice heard.”
June 11, 2016
Excellent analogy, John
June 11, 2016
So David Cameron has been told to take a back seat because he has become toxic (he has.)
The Boris supporters need to be aware of this.
Far better the two women who appeared with him on the debating panel, Michael Gove, or John Redwood.
The Remainers have nothing as regards argument and EVERYTHING as regards establishment and broadcast media support. Thank heavens for social media. The public are getting to see through it.
June 12, 2016
Foreign Office Denials Over Proposals For Turkish Free Visa Access To The UK
Farmers, at least, know that you only reap what you sow : nobody on either side of the referendum argument is going to believe a word of this weekend’s denials from Cameron, Osborne or May over visa free access for a large group of Turkish citizens.
Support for Turkish accession has been FCO policy for years and actively pushed by Blair and Cameron throughout their time in office. This may have been a cynical policy devised by the FCO to curry favour with the Turks in the knowledge that it would be at least the length of a couple of parliaments before they would ever be ready. By then everyone involved would have moved on and it would inevitably be someone else’s problem.
Nothing has changed except, perhaps, that Remain ministers have finally realised that they cannot ignore the wishes of the electorate on immigration indefinitely without there being an inevitable backlash.
It is no surprise that we are seeing this reaction all over Europe :
Merkel made an in-considered announcement without consulting the other 25 members of the Schengen Area and at a stroke changed the rules on migration for every one of those countries.
Any organisation of supposedly Sovereign States is fatally flawed if there are any circumstances where this can possibly be allowed to happen. One can only speculate at the utter contempt she must be held in within the corridors of power in every other member state including the UK. I doubt whether Junckers is too chuffed either !
Cameron, of course, has other axes to grind : it is largely Merkel he has to blame for his utter humiliation over his laughable “Renegotiation”.
If the country does Vote to Leave, it will be largely down to Brussels and Merkel’s intransigence for offering CMD precious little and him asking for even less.
I’m still fuming over the first and most obvious lie of the referendum campaign when, Chamberlain-like, he returned clutching his piece of paper and announced “Would I Join the EU on these terms ? You bet I would”
It’s been downhill from that point on and now nobody believes a word he says on anything.
June 12, 2016
Sovereignty lost and inevitably: standards decline.
The ‘single market’ is no such thing, there is no free market in the EU. However, it is a trade bloc and customs union where across the EU and indeed the EEA – all produce and manufactured goods have to adhere to the standard that is, the CE mark aka La Comforité Européenne.
Here, we can talk about supranational treaties and international organizations and standards till we are blue in the face but the thing which exercises us all, in the UK is, the CE. Pooling sovereignty on standards, clearly does not benefit the individual consumer but where it greatly assists the producer, more especially those producers given to malpractice and selling inferior wares through deception.
We lost the British standard – our ‘Kitemark’ and threw our lot in with the CE, suffice to say, nothing which the EU touches – where bigger indubitably means a degradation – down to the lowest common denominator and the consequential miasma of more obscure committees oversight (or lack of it more like) a tick box culture of paperwork/bureaucracy enables dodgy goods to be sold as ‘kosher’ so long as it bears the bog standard of ‘CE’ recall if you will the silicone implants scare highlights a scandal and emphasizes just why sovereign nations should oversee ‘product standards’ and with the care in mind only to protecting its own citizens.
And then, there is this (below) and think now about the car emissions scandal and diesel fumes being way more deleterious to lungs its cardio-pulmonary system, health than are ‘mere’ CO2 emissions, but then we do live in the EU – don’t we?
EU economic policy is driven by the interests of the ERT – the group of European global conglomerates with an inside track on policy making and with an influential hold over all new Commission initiatives. Emission standards for outboard motors? Airworthiness licenses for model aircraft? Any lunatic initiative you can think of that comes out of Brussels has been over the desks of the ERT gatekeepers. And is geared to give them economic advantage – and sod the interests of SMEs, local firms, Mom and Pop enterprises and the Mittelstand.
In fact, it is very hard not to conclude that, the very last thing on the minds of the EU Burghers and the ERT are, the concerns of the people who through unhappy circumstance (we were dragooned into Europe) live within the bounds of the EU.
I beg, in all conscience, are we really better off inside this sclerotic and endlessly bureaucratic indeed corrupt organization? A bloated monster, which exists – seemingly to benefit only the elite, those – senior unelected paperclip assessors and grease the wheels effecting vast profits of the giants of the corporate world?
Britain, For all our sakes, for the sake of our health, the nations health – we’ve got to get out of the Brussels federal superstate, take the opportunity on the 23rd: to vote out.
June 13, 2016
I’ve had a fair bit of success when using an analogy of sovereignty over ones own household (the nation) in relation to all of the households in the street (The EU).
When I point out that all the people in the street could have free access to your house, they recoil in horror.
Perhaps you could expand on this better than I could
June 16, 2016
Readers may be interested viewing ‘The Biblical Case for Brexit’, a booklet by Pastor Peter Simpson. I must confess, as a Christian, I had previously no idea that the Bible had anything to say about this. It tackles issues of Sovereignty, Surety and God given National Boundaries among the 6 points. Similarity drawn between the EU and the ‘Tower of Babel! This booklet can be obtained from Penn Free Methodist Church. As time is short, interested parties may also order it from Amazon or download it to a kindle.
Are we about to throw our God given National privileges and identity completely away?
We have already squandered so much of our heritage already. 2 Chronicles 7 v 14.