The White Paper proposes the UK staying in much of the current EU. White is the colour of the flag of surrender. Much of this White Paper sacrifices the bold idea we voted for, that we wish to be a free and independent country again. It wants us to stick with the European Chemicals Agency, European Aviation Safety Agency and the European Medicines Agency, with Europol and Eurojust, with a joint customs area, continued co-operation on energy and transport, minimum EU regulatory standards in many areas, joint military development and an EU data regime. We offer to pay for all these things!
No, we voted to leave. Leave means leave. It means doing these things for ourselves, not paying the EU to do them and accepting EU rules and controls. The legal format of forcing us into an Association Agreement which bind us to all this through a Treaty is the worst of all possible worlds. We voted to be free, not to be bound in in some new way. The government says we would be able to diverge if we wished, and there would be independent arbitration. If we sign a Treaty we will be told that the people and Parliament are bound by it, and our freedoms will be circumscribed or lost again. We did not vote to come out of one Treaty only to sign up to a watered down version of it instead.
Lets take the case of medicines. The UK has a strong position in the pharma industry, leading research universities in the field, and many experts. We should re establish our own Medicines Agency, and sell its services to third countries who would value our skills and knowledge, and would wish to be associated with our high standards. Our own Agency could be a focus of further work to expand and improve our industry, and the money spent on it will be spent in the UK, not sent to Brussels.
Or lets take the case of Aviation Safety. The UK has very high standards which we wish to preserve and a high proportion of EU air travel, given the dominance of London as an aviation hub. Again our global reach and ambition requires us to establish our own Agency and to work at a global level on high and rising standards.
The language of the government that they will end “vast annual contributions to the EU budget” is not good enough. We voted to stop paying any money to the EU, not just to the EU budget. Offering lots of smaller sums to a range of policies and Agencies, recreates our subservience to the EU and continues the strain on our balance of payments. Where there is regulatory work to be done, lets do it at home with UK experts and administrators.
Why do large parts of the UK establishment so despise us that they do not want us to lead or to adventure for ourselves? Why do they so dislike freedom? Do they really believe the best we can do is to be rule takers, meekly paying the continent danegeld?
July 13, 2018
We’ve been saying that for years. Welcome to the real world.
It has been like a Bollywood movie. We all new the plot before the curtain rose.
July 13, 2018
You missed the bit about industry and government continuing to follow EU procurement rules thus disadvantaging us yet again.
July 13, 2018
Energy and climate change act that prevents our industry being competitive. How could the U.K. Do any trade deal when it could not say what those goods might look like 5 years down the road without a voice or veto! What country would be made enough to do this. All gestures to date were based on being free. May stated not half in half out, not bits of the EU as it would not be leaving. May unilaterally drafted this paper, approved by Merkel and thrust out of the blue to cabinet. She is a liar, underhand and thoroughly untrustworthy. Just like December caught out by the DUP, just like her manifesto. May failed to listen to the ERG letter, debates etc. oust this odious woman who thwarted electoral democracy, 100 years after women got the vote, by this paper. JRM changing policy is for the birds. May does not listen. Leaving is more than just trade and it certainly is not remains in all these other policy ares. That is remaking. May is a liar to say this keeps faith with voters, she has no integrity to say such a clear blatant lie.
July 13, 2018
The outcome we voted for was Leave. We did not ask Parliament to go away and decide for themselves, Parliament asked us! Unless we become independent of the EU, it is not Leave.
UKIP is currently being inundated with new members.
July 13, 2018
We have a national drugs agency, it’s the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They conduct about a third of all EMA procedures.
July 16, 2018
If they do a third. They would have to triple their workload
July 13, 2018
Why would anyone join UKIP? It ruined its chances by ditching Farage in their egoistic power struggles. It’s the same clique at the top of it now.They should rename it Goven Goof Party (GGP ). Anyway we’re leaving the EU at the end of March next year.
July 13, 2018
Indeed, it is totally unacceptable and must be stopped. May must also be stopped from burying the Tory party for many terms (or for ever) in John Major style.
You ask:- Do they really believe the best we can do is to be rule takers, meekly paying the continent danegeld?
It seems so. The blatant, pro-remain bias certainly continues on the BBC. Question Time again had only one Brexit supporter (the sound Charles Moore). The bias continued on QT extra time, The Papers & Newsnight.
Three cheers for Trump trying to explain reality to T May but I suspect he is wasting his time. She is clearly far too thick it seems.
July 13, 2018
Lots of letters in the Telegraph about joining the conservative party to wrench it back from the dire people who lead it now and are clearly going to bury it. Surely this is the way to go (as in a FPTP electoral system UKIP will just split the vote & give us Corbyn/SNP). May’s eviction & a new, competent & sensible leader with a working compass would do wonders for new membership. The compass should point to a clean Brexit, lower taxes, fewer regulations, far less government, more freedom, zero green crap and public services that actually serve the public for a change.
Letters such as this one:-
SIR – I joined the Conservative Party on Tuesday night.
Surely, now is the time for Conservative voters to get our party back and halt this slide towards Christian Democrat neo-socialism.
July 13, 2018
@LL; The Conservative party can have all the members it likes, membership count is not the problem…
July 13, 2018
I’d join the Conservative Party but I can’t afford the clothes.
July 13, 2018
Owen Patterson has a good article in the Telegraph today:-
I cannot vote for the Chequers deal when WTO terms offer a better Brexit
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/07/13/cannot-vote-chequers-deal-wto-terms-offer-better-brexit/?WT.mc_id=tmgliveapp_iosshare_Aq6bDl1FXzK8
I think probably the Conservatives now need to ditch Mrs May, withdraw Article 50 and resubmit it (unless the EU agrees an extension) as it’s clear there has not been sufficient prep made for WTO. All focus then needs to be on WTO prep. If the EU ask for an FTA as an alternative then great, but we should have no expectation of it. This will keep us as full EU members until say Dec 20, but that would be no different (in fact better) than Mrs Mays transition period. The base case would then be going to WTO terms in Jan 21, with full prep made for such things as airline landing rights and customs technical arrangements.
July 13, 2018
Completely agree. WTO needs to be pitched in the country as our get-out-of-jail card and talked UP. But, as you say, A50 would probably have to be suspended to allow for preparations, and I doubt that would be seen as acceptable. A charismatic leader who had the trust of Leave voters might be able to do it…
July 13, 2018
Sorry piglet but that is total tosh (no doubt spread in large doses by Civil (it can’t be done) Servants. As an Engineer reminds me of a tale when Engineers were asked to build a deep water port in a few days capable of berthing large boats, in hostile waters ta boot. Not possible, foolish, never be ready, proclaimed the said usual suspects. They were blown a Mulberry!
We leave on the 29th March, no ifs no buts. We already trade and deal with many more countries than those in the EU. I do not see planes, boats or trucks from countries outside the EU queing up in our skies, in our waters, in our ports or at the Chunnel holdings.
There is no valid reason for us not to abide by Parliaments decision to leave on the 29th March 2019. Unless you are the type that rallies around with the ilk rallying to that Blimp flying over Westminster today (Black Friday!)
July 13, 2018
The charming Mr Verhofstadt has said, though, that reversing A50 will entail our joing the euro. The EU commissioners would inevitably exact a high price if the UK did seek to tread water.
July 13, 2018
The PotUS (whether Trump or Obama) is not entitled to tell the UK what to do. The PotUS is entitled – indeed it is his duty – to tell us what he, and the USA, will do.
July 13, 2018
Claire Perry (famous for mistakenly thinking that the national debt was the same as the national deficit apparently wanting to nationalise all the banks at while at Oxford), reminds me very much of the dreadful T May. Low and behold it seems she is another nice but dim Oxford Geography graduate.
Why would anyone employ her as Minister of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what on earth does she know about Industry or Energy? Are we still importing wood from the US to burn at Drax what complete lunacy.
July 13, 2018
She also mistook the British Lions for our national football team. I ask, how can people who are clearly so ill-informed and so far removed from reality, ever get to become a government minister?
Tad
July 13, 2018
John I suggest you forward your excellent comment to Brandon Lewis, Chairman of the party, who in e mails he is now sending out, claims that that the White Paper secures all that we voted for on the referendum.
Clearly the two views are completely incompatible. Central Office is lying when the extravagant claims made in it bear no relation to reality.
July 13, 2018
I made virtually the same comment yesterday in this blog:
“The details of the white paper are far far worse than the outlines.”
Theresa May will wake up one morning to find over 50% of her MPs have written a letter demanding a vote of no confidence.
July 13, 2018
Except that over 50% of Tory MPs are pro EU socialists like May. They are however pathetic career politicians and T May will clearly bury the party. They need to be made to understand this.
July 13, 2018
Stephen Priest: “Theresa May will wake up one morning to find over 50% of her MPs have written a letter demanding a vote of no confidence.”
I don’t think so. The Tory “Brexiteers” have been comprehensively outmanoeuvred, and are still saying that it’s the policy not the PM.
July 13, 2018
Don’t blame May – whinging is a waste of effort. Focus on the problem.
There are two impediments to Brexit:
Parliamentary Arithmetic
Brussels.
To an extent these are linked. We can’t get past Brussels unless we have the Commons on our side.
We have to convince/target Remain MPs.
Which are the most vulnerable – ideologically – practically, i.e. likely to loose their seats.
List them. There has to be a website somewhere ? ?
We need to overrun their surgeries, infiltrate their support staff and reinforce opposition.
Fix Bayonets!
July 13, 2018
hmmm. Unless over 50% do submit letters, then we are stuffed. Labour will vote with Mrs May in parliament on the ‘Chequers’ withdrawal agreement. Mrs May’s moves have been very carefully calculated (probably by Mr Robbins & his team), including the visit to Mrs Merkel last Thursday. And the proposal to brief Labour MPs on Monday. Tweets from EU people are already indicating that they will approve the proposal, albeit after some more juicy concessions. We need to remember that the EU side is also under time pressure. Accepting this proposal, with some more concessions, is a pretty good deal for the EU – a castrated UK, geopolitically impotent with this proposal, shamed, and doomed to economic withering.
In my view it is LABOUR pro-Brexit voters who need to be expressing their rejection of this proposal. urgently.
(I have written a page and a half why this will happen, but won’t burden our busy host)
July 13, 2018
Another question for T May at PMQ’s ‘.. did the German Chancellor, or anyone else in the German administration, have knowledge of the contents the Chequers Statement or White Paper prior to the Cabinet of HM Government”
July 13, 2018
They haven’t got the nerve. A bunch of subservient children who do as they are told so they belong to the group.
July 13, 2018
NO they will not because they are mostly a bunch of spineless career politicians who are only in it for themselves. They do not care about their constituents. How many MPs represent constituencies that voted LEAVE but will ignore the will of the people and vote with the Govt?
The Conservative party needs to get back to constituencies choosing the candidates, NOT central office.
Unfortunately the MP representing my district is Caroline Lucas . Say no more.
July 13, 2018
When he was housing minister, Lewis was pushing bungalows as the answer- in a country with a severe shortage of building land. Apparently flats with lifts are not what oldies want. It is amazing how people with no sense can rise to the top in politics. He may actually believe that this stinking log is what 17m people voted for.
July 13, 2018
Brandon Lewis sound totally absurd defending the indefensible and saying black is white. He clearly think we are all complete idiots.
July 13, 2018
I received those Brandon Lewis e-mails too, and immediately came to the conclusion this was typical Tory BS. It is sickening when we consider that they are designed to con those who have been most loyal to the party, and have worked tirelessly for it.
To lie to their grassroots shows the level to which the party has sunk, and the urgent need for a new ethos and a wholesale change in personnel, but this isn’t new.
Tad
July 13, 2018
These embarrassing emails give us the chance to reply. Does anyone read them, do you think?
July 13, 2018
Just what is wrong with the PM, can it be said that she is is in good mental health? She seems to have an obsessive blinkered stubborn and treacherous streak which goes beyond reason, to plan such a brazen disregard of our democracy with such convoluted trickery leading to the humiliation of us all.
I would hope that this white paper would be voted down in parliament, but would it not be better to get the letters in, remove the PM and withdraw the documents. Would allowing her to remain and have it voted down be worse for the likely political outcome?
July 13, 2018
Pre-senile dementia has been suggested as a reason when politicians start to lose touch with reality.
July 13, 2018
Like when they give a recorded interview and less than 24 hours later declare it ‘fake news’?
July 13, 2018
Surely it is better to keep T May as PM than to have a competent, remain supporting replacement. She is inept politically, and incapable of taking the country with her. Brexit was always going to be difficult and messy, but the clock can’t be turned back.
July 13, 2018
I read yesterday that the whips were asking some MP’s to withdraw their letters in a perverse double bluff that if they submit them now May will win rather than after the summer recess when she has fully capitulated, when she won’t!! I just want my democracy restored and won’t rest until we are out fully, regardless of the traitors deceitful plans to keep us in by the back door. Any treaty signed by them will not be legitimate or in line with the peoples vote!
July 13, 2018
The Prangwizard, It won’t be voted down in Parliament, unless Labour see a way of demolishing the Tory government. My guess is Labour will lock the White paper in mostly, then go for the Tory jugular. Win-win for Labour Remains. All because decent Leave Tories won’t topple Mrs May first.
July 13, 2018
Yes Prangwizard it would be better to get the letters in. Why? Well because this White Paper could well be supported by Kier Starmer and his chums thus bolstering Mrs May to a position well beyond the objections from within her own party. JRM’s strategy if fatally flawed by not covering this base. Indeed although Mr Redwood has unequivocally stated he will not support the White Paper he has nor unequivocally stated that he will Vote Against. I fear this is one big stitch up if all we can expect is abstentions from the Leave contingent on the government side of the house.
Reply There will not be a vote on the White Paper. Why do you doubt my resolve to change this policy? I will of course vote against any proposed laws that give powers away from the UK.
July 13, 2018
It seems that water regulators want everyone to be stopped from watering their gardens and forced to use ugly water butts and grey water system.
What complete idiots we have in charge. Which is more efficient a few more large reservoirs and then using the existing distribution system or millions and million of people investing in amateur water systems? There is no shortage of water in the UK.
Why should some be allowed a large swimming pool and perhaps a ten baths a weeks yet others be prevented from watering their small prized garden occasionally?
Also from the Mail yesterday it seems the NHS are now refusing to do hernia ops (or even refer them) unless they are very serious (or you are female it seems). You pay for year then it is “free at the point of non delivery, incompetence or rationing”. But you still have to pay premium the next year while working with your hernia.
July 13, 2018
Water butts ran dry weeks ago.
July 13, 2018
We didn’t vote for a bold idea.
Most Brexit voters didn’t care about the ECJ, or sovereignty, or trade.
They cared only about immigration.
And it is not even white Christian European immigrants they object to.
The ones they object to mostly don’t come from Europe.
Congratulations Brexiteers – you have made an entirely predictable mess.
And we are laughing at you.
July 13, 2018
So someone who voted Remain once again knows why everyone voted Leave. Let me try: Most Remain voters only did so because they were gullible and truly believed we’d lose 500,000 jobs in the year following a Leave vote like the Treasury said. Yes … it’s easy !
July 13, 2018
Some Remain voters may have been scared about the economics of Brexit. Not me. I am perfectly financially secure whatever happens.
I happen to believe that Brexit will massively harm the economy in the medium and long term – and the facts are proving me right. But I voted Remain not for the economy but for everything else the EU gives.
The high standards of products and foods, strong consumer protections, a commitment to do the right thing for the environment, my human rights enshrined in law and written down, standing up for everyday people against corporate greed and self-interested government, free movement, peace and cooperation. All the stuff the Tory hard-right pensioners want to scrap.
There is zero doubt that Brexit will make all of us economically poorer. But the real catastrophe is everything else your Brexit is taking away from us. It impoverishes our country in every way – socially, politically, diplomatically, constitutionally.
July 14, 2018
Even the most pro EU research body could only manage to get the computer model to show a small reduction in growth over a 15 year look into the future.
Zero doubt you say. Catastrophe you say.
How very sure you are.
Like the doom in the first two years after the vote that never happened.
July 13, 2018
@Roy Grainger; “someone who voted Remain once again knows why everyone else voted Leave”
More filthy pots Mr Kettle…
How is the comment from Andy any different from someone who voted Leave once again and for the umpteenth time telling anyone who’ll listen that they know why everyone else voted Leave?
July 13, 2018
Jerry, There were two choices on the ballot paper: Remain OR Leave. Only. The outcome we voted for was to leave the EU. No other outcome is democratically possible. Every partial leave option fails to conform to what we actually voted for, irrespective of why we voted for it.
July 13, 2018
@NickC; How ever many times you repeat the lie you will always be telling a lie. Either that or you really can not grasp the difference between official and unofficial funding, indeed there was only two groups that received official (tax payer) funding but that doesn’t equate to there only being two ‘manifestos’ presented to the electorate.
The FACTS are, there were 28 septate Brexit groups, plus 19 Remain groups (plus the governments own official guidance), all pushing their own vision as to why people should vote to Leave or Remain, not just the two you keep claiming -if I am wrong and those other 45 groups were all campaigning illegally then the referenda result is null and void…
July 13, 2018
Well true, but Andy always is telling us he knows why everyone voted to leave.
And he thinks it was just about immigration.
It was a reason but one of many.
I don’t see many examples on here being so shrill and certain they know why people voted.
July 13, 2018
Andy: “Most Brexit voters didn’t care about the ECJ, or sovereignty, or trade. They cared only about immigration.”
As long as Remain keep saying this, you are going alienate those of us whose vote was due to those three things: a larger proportion than you seem to think. I tried to debate the trade issues during the run-up to the referendum, only to have the Remain opponent keep trying to bring up immigration and stalling on the fact I agreed with his views, and he knew nothing about the EU causing global trade issues so could not rebut this.
What is amusing is that the PM keeps giving more to the EU, the approval ratings drops, they say they haven’t given enough and give more, the approval rating drops further, they say voters want even softer Brexit, and the ratings drop yet more. If the approval rating is dropping the more they concede, perhaps they should consider that perhaps voters do not want concessions.
July 13, 2018
We objected to the sheer numbers and had assimilated multiracially already.
We were settled before Maastricht.
Then the Biblical scenes from the Med via Shengen routes… they have terrified many here and in Europe.
The EU is on a cultural suicide mission and will impoverish and endanger its own people.
July 13, 2018
Thank you for your honesty. A rare trait in Brexiteers.
The ‘biblical scenes in the Med’ have mostly been desperate people fleeing war, persecution, disease, famine and poverty.
Deal with those issues and your problem goes. Trying to pull up a drawbridge won’t help and won’t work.
July 13, 2018
How about free contraception to help them stop doubling their population every 20 years?
July 14, 2018
Them?
Who are ‘they’? Are you talking about Europeans? No.
Incidentally if you are worried about the birth rate you might want to have a word with Jacob Rees-Mogg.
He has 6 kids and has managed to never change a nappy. Man of the people.
July 13, 2018
Do they need to flee past many safe places to come to the UK?
July 13, 2018
The end of European civilisation and you blame Brexit ?
July 13, 2018
They want to rid the Continent, like our own leaders, of nationalism, patriotism, culture and feelings of belonging. Their master plan is a EU superstate.
Federalists one and all, they just hide and lie about it.
Ken Clarke has openly admitted he wants us with being a region of his beloved EU!
July 13, 2018
The problem isn’t with Brexit or the Brexiteers. The situation we are in has been brought about by an incompetent Prime minister and the rest of the remainer establishment and objectionable trolls like you who won’t accept the referendum result.
July 13, 2018
I think this was a cunning plan hatched with her traitorous remainers politicos and civil serpents with May’s blessing. The replacement white paper replacing the Dept for Exiting the EU’s original at the last moment. The trip to Germany to see Angela and the Dutch PM. To get their approval before her own Brexiteer Cabinet. We know Grieve and Souberry were already briefed and kept on side as Souberry was daft enough to put it in writing to her Constituency lead (Guido). No this was well planned and treacherously implemented including the exact timing before Trumps visit, the world cup distractions and summer recess to take off the heat. To bury bad news and reduce the full impact of their deceit and deception of the Nation. I see Sir Nigels coming back!
July 13, 2018
Well done, Andy. We thought you couldn’t sound even more of a narrow-minded, ill-read, closet-xenophobic NIMBY. You proved us wrong!
Clicking ”like” on Facebook doesn’t make you well-informed, Andy. Better to get back to reading The Grauniad – only one step up from Facebook, admittedly, but it may help you feel a warm glow knowing you’re not the only addlepated remainder with their fingers in their ears. Unfortunately.
July 13, 2018
I wanted to restore some real UK democracy and to be rather more selective over immigration on a non racist basis (rather than racist the EU good/everyone else bad approach of the EU).
July 13, 2018
Andy – this is yet another post from you in which you claim to know the reasons why Leave voters voted the way they did and also the depth of their knowledge on the EU.
Perhaps you could cite the research that you are quoting from?
July 13, 2018
Will you be laughing when your children get signed up to an EU army? If you think the UK is going to be that dire then go and live in the EU. I haven’t seen any movement from you yet. What are you waiting for? If I were as worried about it all as you claim to be I would be getting out now. You and your ilk will not be missed.
July 13, 2018
Andy
We did not vote to Remain because the EU is ever changing, thus not remaining as it was at the time of the referendum.
So pray tell me what the future of the EU will look like.
A clue perhaps is “the Five Presidents report” released by the Eu BEFORE the referendum (have you read it )
July 13, 2018
Andy, The entirely predictable mess is Remain – we’re to remain in the single market for goods and food, we’re remaining in a customs union, we’re to remain in a host of other EU programs. We’re remaining tied to the EU military so your children can be conscripted to fight EU wars. That’s what you wanted, not me.
July 13, 2018
NIckC
What is an EU war ?
July 13, 2018
NickC
“What is an EU war ?”
The one in the Ukraine. Ukrainian Nationalists 1 Russian Nationalists 2
The EU wishes us to go fighting there because the Russian nationalist illegal referendum in Eastern Ukraine..well, they didn’t know what they were voting for did they? You can see the continuing logic of the EU
July 13, 2018
It is not the Brexiteers who have made this mess, it is Mrs May. True, the Brexiteers should have done more to counter the … misleading manipulation of ‘news’, and should have listened to so many posting here, urging the ditching of Mrs May.
July 13, 2018
‘And we are laughing at you’
You have a wonderful sense of irony, Andy.
Quite why you wish this country ill I cannot fathom and I doubt you can enlighten us either. As a ‘business man’ you should surely be trying to make a success, but of course you prefer to just capitulate and sack your poor workers and live in luxury they will not have. Someone who says he runs a multi million pound business, but cannot see any opportunities is a poor businessman indeed. You deserve to go bust. Don’t blame us, look in the mirror.
July 13, 2018
80 bn trade deficit that the EU would lose. Never mentioned.
12 non EU countries already trading with the EU tariff free. Never mentioned.
100 countries ready to sell is better products than the EU’s (Hyundai and Suzuki beating EU cars on value and reliability.) Never mentioned.
Barnier will still reject our offer and force No Deal.
Remainers are the ones who are the jokers here.
Haha ha. Fools !
July 13, 2018
Will those will be the Hyundais and Suzukis currently made in places such as the Czech Republic and Hungary?
July 13, 2018
Or their other non EU plants if ‘fantasy island’ (car seller’s words, not mine) becomes disentangled from the EU.
July 13, 2018
Peter Parsons
Oh for goodness sake when will you people EVER learn about business in the 21st century?
Cars are made all over the world , BMW’s biggest factory is in the USA
The EU doesn’t make anything. Its not necessary and it only exists as a political entity and serves no purpose that couldn’t as easily be served if it didn’t exist
July 14, 2018
‘The EU doesn’t make anything’ yes, absolutely true as is the same of HMG or HoC or HoL. So what is your point?
July 14, 2018
Libertarian, I am fully aware that cars are made all over the world. That’s why Suzuki and Hyundai have plants inside the EU – to service that market. The cars made in those plants can currently be shipped to the UK with no tariff or non-tariff barriers. Will Anonymous be able to get the product he wants imported on the same terms post-Brexit? (He or she certainly won’t be able to get it imported on better terms than the UK currently has.)
I also happen to know about BMW’s plant in the US, a plant which produces about 100,000 more vehicles per year than BMW sell in the USA, something American workers should worry about as the likely effect of Trump’s current actions, as you have previously stated elsewhere, is that manufacturing will move closer to the markets where the output is actually sold and therefore, unless BMW can increase its USA sales significantly, the consequence for American workers is a likely drop in the output from their plant and consequent loss of jobs.
July 13, 2018
“We didn’t vote for a bold idea.”
No, you didn’t. You voted to remain in an abusive relationship.
You voted to ‘keep a hold of nurse /for fear of finding something worse’.
And now your nurse has sedated you into passive acquiescence, and has forced you to make a will in her favour. And still you gurgle with childish delight, and ask her to ‘say that again, but more strictly this time.’
If only you’d learnt some 16c, 17c, 18c and 19c history at school… Now it’s too late for you to catch up.
I have lost all patience with your tedious, one-note moaning.
July 13, 2018
You are WRONG. The sovereignty issue was every bit as big as an issue as immigration. And Boston – that Polish enclave – returned one of the highest votes for Leave.
July 13, 2018
Oh, but we did! WE VOTED TO LEAVE THE EU.
That is precisely what they cared about
They cared about the endlessly increasing demands on our infrastructure – housing, roads, schools etc. high house prices and rents and low wages for unskilled work.
Ahh, here come the nauseating insults.
Nothing to do with objecting to immiGRANTS. Everything to do with the population growing at a third of a million a year and the effect that has on wages and housing.
July 13, 2018
Commentators wishing to compare President Obama’s intervention in British politics to that of President Trump and calling it meddling have missed an important point.
Obama tried to influence a vote by threatening a potential outcome. Trump commented on a situation as it is. The two situations are not the same no matter how much professional whiners try to make them so.
July 13, 2018
@NS; There is no difference, what do you not understand about Trump’s comment that if the White Paper becomes the Brexit settlement means that a trade deal with the USA is unlikely, that is no different from Obama saying that the UK will be at the back of the queue come trade deals. Both comments were aimed at changing UK Foreign policy. To say otherwise is to dispute the number of nuns found dancing on a pinhead.
July 13, 2018
@Jerry – Obama tried to influence a referendum result with a threat.
Trump commented on a position taken by the UK government.
I think there is daylight between the number of nuns on that pin head.
July 13, 2018
@NS; “Trump commented on a position taken by the UK government.”
Thus influence any vote in parliament, or at least the how people & politicos consider the White Paper, both should have kept their own council – at least in public.
If a British past or serving PM was to launch into a similar tirade about how supreme court judges should be selected do you think she would be thanked or scolded by politicos in Washington DC.
I do wonder, had Trump come out initially in favour of the White Paper, telling the world that there would be no problem in the UK & USA agreeing trade deals and what ever post Brexit, how many on this site would be so ready to back him this morning or would they be suggesting he should keep out of our affairs….
July 14, 2018
@jerry I think he has no more or less right to openly comment on UK affairs than any other foreign leader (which is not much) but Obama’s intervention in a public referendum was much worse.
July 14, 2018
@NS; No it wasn’t, both interventions were trying to interfere with our democracy, be that a public vote or a parliamentary vote. Do you honestly think either Obama/Clinton or Bush/Trump would stand for Putin intervening on say the Supreme Court nominee process?
You are only supporting President Trump because he said what you want to hear, unlike Obama, that doesn’t change the fact that neither had a right to intervene. Two wrongs do not make one right.
July 13, 2018
Trying influence the electorate in a referendum as a President of another country before the vote is very different to expressing a view to the government about its policy on a matter that affects the other nation.
July 13, 2018
Jerry, Obama told us which way to vote. Trump has told us if we remain in the EU he would be put in the position of having to negotiate with the EU. And, since he is already in dispute with the EU, that’s not likely. The two examples are totally different.
July 13, 2018
@NickC; President Obama did not, he simply stated the then current US policy on how trade agreements were negotiated and how long it would take. I do not remember him telling anyone how to vote.
I also seem to recall Mr Trump (by then a serious Presidential candidate) being very ready to express his opinions on Brexit too.
July 14, 2018
“I do not remember him telling anyone how to vote.”
Interesting how selective your memory is: let me remind you of Obama’s actual words in his speech on Friday 22 April 2016 two months before the referendum: ‘The UK should remain part of the European Union.’ He expanded on that plea for a further three-and-a-half minutes in his speech at a press conference in London with Cameron. Obama even solemnly threatened that war could break out if we left the EU, and that we would lose the partnership of the US.
But for you, naturally, with your remainer mindset, the wheedling and threats don’t constitute telling anyone ‘how to vote’.
July 14, 2018
@mancunius; Interesting how selective your memory is: let me remind you; Mr Trump, as he was then, also made similar comments about Brexit, and did so at the time of the referenda too, also allowing highly publicised meetings with a significant Brexit campaigner/MEP.
Stop peddling your fake news agenda, you are allowing your europhobic mindset to cloud your democratic credentials – not that you likely had any in the first place. 🙁
July 13, 2018
Obama was trying to influence the electorate.
July 13, 2018
@matthu; Whilst Trump is trying to influence Westminster, either directly or via the electorate
July 13, 2018
Obama’s comments were aimed at interfering with the referendum, Trump’s are concerned with a trading relationship, there is quite a difference.
July 13, 2018
Jerry
One was a threat – Obama
The other was a statement of fact, the EU doesn’t allow individual members to have FTAs , this white paper keeps us tied to those rules
July 14, 2018
@Walter; Whilst “we can’t do a trade deal under that sort of Brexit” is any less of a threat?…
Both Presidents simply made a statement of fact, correct at the time; if the UK leaves the EU (with Obama still in office) the UK would have joined the back of the queue; if the UK agrees to Brexit as laid out in the current White Paper the USA can not do a trade deal as its legality might be an issue.
July 13, 2018
Obama intervened on the side of Cameron at the covert request of Cameron and even using words which had been fed to him by Cameron, as suspected at the time because he referred to a British “queue” instead of a more American “line”.
https://news.sky.com/story/cameron-personally-requested-obamas-back-of-the-queue-brexit-warning-11423669
That was utterly despicable on the part of Cameron; for a British Prime Minister to invite a foreign leader to threaten the British people in an attempt to deceive them and get his way shows that he, Cameron, was unfit to hold any public office, and in earlier times could have ended up being executed as a traitor.
While I don’t much like President Trump intervening in the way he has at least he won’t have done it in cahoots with our Prime Minister in a concerted effort to try to pull the wool over our eyes.
July 13, 2018
Obama had been called in Cameron to meddle in our election. He was the dummy to Cameron’s ventriloquist.
July 13, 2018
We all remember Shameron’s grin stood beside when Obama was making direct threats on trade to our Country!
July 13, 2018
I note the outrage from Remain politicians regarding Trump.
I note the lack outrage from Remain politicians in over 2 years of endless insults from Macron, Barnier, Merkel, Tusk, Verhofstadt, Juncker, Varadkar.
July 13, 2018
Unlike all of the above, Trump is chivalrously championing a democratic vote which has already taken place but is being ignored. Obama was menacingly trying to change it beforehand.
July 13, 2018
The revolution is coming which will I fear take no prisoners at the next GE, all these pro Eu loving mps think there safe under the Westminster bubble who’s only interest is there love for money and not the voter, well we are not thick or stupid we will kick the pro Eu loving mps onto the scrap heap, we are the boss and not your mates across the water in Brussels so if you love the Eu more than Great Britain then pack your bags and go live there because you WILL be sacked by your employer the voter at the next GE, the only way to stop this happening is for you to carry out our wish to leave the dreaded Eu with no strings or any chance of us staying in by some under hand dealings or fancy wording
July 13, 2018
The only revolution you will get at the next election is a Corbyn/SNP coalition or a Corbyn government. I see no problem with either. outcome. Generation X and the Millennial generation don’t see the world the way the Boomers see it, and the demographics don’t favour the tories. The Tories have had their chance and mucked it up. I hope that the party in its current form never darkens a ballot paper again. Its last manifesto showed it was not fit for purpose.
The White Paper is a dog’s breakfast because you are thirty years too late. The UK economy is as intricately linked with that of the rest of the EU as much as the economy of Wokingham is linked with that of Reading. And it is likely to get rejected by the EU and the Commons.
The PM is trying to give you what you wanted. She’s trying to carry out economic surgery whilst minimising harm to the patient. You can choose – do you want to have the benign cyst removed from your spine and be paraplegic (the full Brexit you want) or do you just want to have a limp for the rest of your life (the White Paper).
Of course, you could , having reviewed the full list of outcomes with your surgeon , decide not to go under the knife and look for alternative therapies that will improve your condition without resorting to surgery.
Reply Brexit is full of opportunity. I want to spend the £39bn EU leaving gift on us which would be a big boost to our economy
July 13, 2018
Plus 1.
July 13, 2018
+2
July 13, 2018
Yes, but a General Election will come too late to save us from the EU Agreement.
And let nobody be under any illusions – Brussels has been watching Westminster and the feeling in the country very closely, and will ensure that any agreement cannot be altered one iota by any future British government or parliament. So that’s an end to the principle of a government not being tied by the decisions of a previous one. This lot know that they have a free hand to tie us down for ever.
A change of government will make no difference – Labour are even more europhile than the Tories. They will not even risk parking us in the EEA – they will ensure Art. 50 is stopped.
July 13, 2018
Good morning
I must say, I am really rather taken aback by our kind hosts strength of language. This is not his usual restrained moderate self.
Well I have been saying this for quite some time. I may not have the time to research, write and post endlessly about the EU with links to this and that but I know people.
The EU will NEVER offer the UK a FTA whilst we are still in the EU. They will NEVER allow the UK to cherry pick what they want. You are either in the Single Market or not. I am not bothered by the Single Market half as much as I am bothered by the Customs Union. The CU is a nasty construct.
We have allowed the EU to do all that our kind host mentions above. If we wanted to build our own systems, something I am for, it will take time. I do not know if anyone has noticed but, time is a luxury we do not have thanks to the PM’s deliberately policy of running the clock down and having pointless GE’s.
Oh well. EU-LITE it is. Can’t say you were not warned.
July 13, 2018
Mark,
JR probably accepts that the time for niceties have passed. It’s time to take the gloves off. I have more respect for people who fight hard. Better late than never, but very, very late.
Tad
July 13, 2018
Thanks Dr Redwood. I need you and fellow like minded MP’s to get out of this mess.
July 13, 2018
We certainly do. But it is not easy, given all the generally dire, lefty, remainer, LibDim MPs like May and Soubry that we have pretending to be Conservatives for the sake of a career. Perhaps they will all slowly realise that May’s cave in is going to bury the party is she is allowed to continue with this betrayal. The Telegraph & Mail deluged with letters from Tory supporters calling her a Traitor.
Farage perhaps coming back to organise a new surge in UKIP support to spit the Tory vote. After all T May could not even win a majority when UKIP were weak and people thought that to May Brexit meant Brexit rather than sweet FA as is clear now.
July 13, 2018
L/L UKIP will certainly split the vote and on the Labour side too. People from all walks of life and supporters of all parties are sick of this charade. Farage will be like a breath of fresh air because at least when he speaks about the EU you know it is the truth.
July 13, 2018
I’m told thousands of new members this week alone and polls starting to show big increase in support.
July 13, 2018
This is the key question. How can the UK (swiftly, efficiently) escape this mess?
July 13, 2018
Much talk of Mrs May being challenged. Any chance of her resigning?
July 13, 2018
She certainly should and then climb into a deep hole. She was never a Conservative Libdim at best.
July 13, 2018
@eeyore; A change of PM doesn’t change the parliamentary maths, nor the intransigence of the EU.
July 13, 2018
But it would change policy towards the EU and the negotiators.
July 13, 2018
@David Price; Such a change might alter how the EU deals with the UK government but would still not change the UK parliamentary maths, the number of europhile MPs.
Eurosceptics have painted themselves into a corner, short of divine intervention via a variation of ‘walking on water’ I can not see how they can extract themselves for their predicament. I hope I’m wrong. 🙁
July 13, 2018
John, it is a disgrace. For two years we’ve heard ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and this is in no way comes close. We’ve also heard, been told almost weekly at PMQ, ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’… though clearly our PM is unable to identify what constitutes a good deal, so goodness knows how bad it has to become [unless of course it’s a ‘cunning plan’]. If this makes it through the HoC I fear for us as a country. For this will be seen as a far greater betrayal than ever the expenses scandal, and will throw our parliament into disarray for years to come… in itself, a plausible strategy by the EU.
July 13, 2018
Exactly as I predicted yesterday.
If this is driven through, we won’t have left th EU at all.
This morning it looks likes the Remainer Establishment has won.
Mrs May has to go, however you engineer it. Get your letter in to Graham Brady – Now !!!
July 13, 2018
Not yet. There is a chance that she would win a vote, albeit Trump has made it more difficult, and difficult for Boris to throw his hat in so soon after resigning because he would be accused of doing it solely to further his leadership ambitions.
Give her a chance to amend this etc, Parliament will have a summer break and then, I agree, she has to go, to get a new leader in before Christmas.
July 13, 2018
Nig 1, I don’t think there is time to wait until after summer. It’s not just the desirability of Mrs May going, we need someone in charge as soon as possible who is competent, and who will do the job neglected by Mrs May for 2 years.
July 13, 2018
Given May’s awful and appalling record as Home Secretary, and that she was and always will be a remainer, I blame every single Tory MP who thought she could ever make a suitable Prime Minister. Their judgement is at best questionable.
We on these pages have been kicking up about May from day one. How come the Parliamentary Conservative Party couldn’t see what was plain to everyone else?
Are we going to get landed with yet more useless weakling wooly liberal-leading dross after she’s gone?
Tad
July 13, 2018
” I blame every single Tory MP who thought she could ever make a suitable Prime Minister. Their judgement is at best questionable.”
True but I was for Leadsom as PM and she’s proved to be just as treacherous as the remainers telling us how good the white paper is. She’s completely changed her tune now she has a Ministerial car.
July 14, 2018
I come back to my oft repeated remark about thirty pieces of silver Jools. Some of us would never dream of compromising our beliefs and principles for advancement or material gain.
Tad
July 13, 2018
Does anyone think that it just case of getting rid of MAY anymore with most Tory sign up to this surrender? even it falls through and there is a no deal, could you live with them not what they are going to do next to try to sell you out, thinking all the time, are they doing something behind my back I do not know about.
July 13, 2018
This gets to the heart of the matter.
The Parliamentary parties (both Conservatives and Labour ) favour staying in so as a country we are screwed.
July 13, 2018
So now you get it! I didn’t vote for them as I KNEW their deceit, lies and treachery going back decades on all things that matter to us, mostly our sovereign democracy and right to make our own laws by people we elect!!!
July 13, 2018
I have always advocated voting for single issue parties or spoiling your paper.
It is the only way to actual register that we need a change.
July 13, 2018
Narrow Shoulders and Ian, A very valid point. This is not just a bad Remain White paper, it is a constitutional crisis. We voted for a Leave outcome and we’re being given a Remain outcome. What more underhand tricks will they try next?
July 13, 2018
Not getting what the majority voted for is business as usual in the UK.
No single party government in my lifetime has been voted for by the majority. The only government which did have the majority of votes was the 2010 coalition.
July 13, 2018
That is how the people voted.
If they wanted a different result they would vote differently.
A government with a big majority doesn’t always govern better nor behave with greater respect for the opinions of others.
July 16, 2018
In the UK, voting differently doesn’t produce either the result intended or any change at all.
For example, the 2017 general election is considered by many to have been a poor one for the Conservative party, yet the Conservative share of vote increased from 36.9% to 42.4%, an increase in share of 5.5%. That increase is (or should be) regarded as a success (but it isn’t) and surely, in any sane and rational system, doing better should deliver a better outcome, not a worse one.
I’d also point out that 68% of those who did vote in 2017 played no role in determining the outcome, and if those 68% had all voted differently (or not voted at all) there would have been no difference in the outcome. The idea that, in the UK, voting differently makes any difference at all is, for the majority, a fallacy.
July 13, 2018
Indeed. Trust and democracy have been destroyed by May and her cohorts this week. How could anyone ever vote and believe in the Tory party ever again!
July 13, 2018
I have an idea.
Why not support a political party whose raison d’être is UK independence.
#radical
July 13, 2018
I just did, more in hope than certainty.
Meanwhile, I shall continue to take the pills which will, I am assured, fend off feeling like a prophet of doom….
July 13, 2018
Bob
Er because that party is run by a bunch of tossers
July 13, 2018
@Ian. ‘ are they doing something behind my back I do not know about.’
I would think they are always doing something behind our backs. This is just highlighting what goes on all the time.
July 13, 2018
Like agreeing mass immigration from everywhere whilst claiming a target. Health and public services, housing, congestion, A&E crisis all point to the real issue they WONT address. Why is May even considering a separate immigration status for EU people? One tough rule for all! Freedom of movement renamed mobility clause!! Really Mrs May like we’d fall for that!
July 13, 2018
“Do they really believe the best we can do is to be rule takers, meekly paying the continent danegeld?” – quislings have no shame, so perhaps they do or perhaps they are awaiting the moment when they can say if leaving means so little, shall we now opt to Remain?
The betrayal of the British people by the May government is unforgivable. Will May be booed off stage at the party conference?
July 13, 2018
This is unacceptable John. What on earth does Mrs May think she is signing us up to? Trump will think she has a screw loose. We will be tethered to the EU for eternity. Its not good enough and something has to be done. Surely there are enough good MPs to see what is happening and have the bottle to intervene.
July 13, 2018
@Fedupsoutherner
I haven’t seen any evidence of such. The Tory Party is infested with entryists.
July 13, 2018
We need to clear the swamp! Legacies do not represent the people of England.
July 13, 2018
I see Donald Trump has given the lazy Theresa May a well deserved kick up the backside.
It’s a tragedy when we have to rely on foreign politicians to do a better job than our own home fattened politicians.
July 13, 2018
She will, unfortunately need rather more than a kick up the backside. She can never perform, she is out of her depth, robotic, not remotely a Conservative and is a huge electoral liability. She really must be replaced by a real “low tax at heart” Conservative and Brexit supporter as soon as possible. Someone in tune with the country and the party membership. Basically the complete opposite of Theresa May.
What Trump said of the Checkers agreement is true. It is a complete betrayal of Brexit and the voters.
July 13, 2018
Surely Mrs May is a classic case of “Peter principle”?
i.e. she has risen to her “level of incompetence”, I would probably suggest that she achieved that previously at the Home Office….and as Prime Minister is “one step beyond”…
July 13, 2018
Dear John–Mrs May says she is not just honouring the Referendum result but absolutely honouring it. One of us must be mad.
July 13, 2018
Ditto…
July 13, 2018
May is clearly mad. Her change the name and pretend deception will not work no one is fooled.
July 13, 2018
My thoughts exactly…
July 13, 2018
Thank goodness, you, the rest of the ERG are on it. We knew this is how it would pan out, despite the weasal words, it was just a question of how long before TM and her cronies were exposed. No wonder she kept it under wraps for as long as possible.
I would add to your last paragraph, did she think that she could bully, con her MPs to stay silent and worst of all, is the extension of ‘the voters didn’t know what they are voting for’ arguement, once again treating us as too thick to understand.
So what happens next? Is the White Paper voted down in its entirety, or is it dissected line for line with umpteen amendments voted on with her having to rely on Opposition votes to get it through? If the latter, I cannot see her surviving, even more so now after Trumps alleged humiliation. Can it be stopped, will the turmoil mean that it will be used as an excuse to somehow extend our membership post 2019 through some arcane legal device?
I still fear that it will end up on the Statute Book because that is what the Establishment does.
July 13, 2018
You are correct, of course.
Things just get worse and worse for the government. Raab’s speech being delayed so MPs could actually get copies of the white paper being the least of them. Trump has hit the nail on the head in his own plain speaking fashion.
I watch all this pan out and wonder how it will all end.
July 13, 2018
Dominic Raab’s disgraceful delaying of MP’s getting copies of the white paper yesterday shows just how low this Government has sunk under May. I really don’t think it can get much lower. We deserve better.
July 13, 2018
To be fair the delay was not Dominic Raab’s fault, he had to wait for the translation to be completed before printing the MP’s copies.
July 13, 2018
From German?
July 13, 2018
…………and printed in Brussels.
July 13, 2018
Nothing to do with Mrs May, it is one of those ancient, never challenged “conventions” of this two centuries out of date UK, so called, democratic system.
How often have you heard the phrase “I thank the Minister for an advance copy of his/her statement? How long do you think “advance” is?
July 13, 2018
I am grateful to acorn for drawing attention to this pantomime. I watched from a few minutes before to witness a typical example of members engaging in ridiculous pc nonsense about ‘travellers’, in fact the House is infested with otiose pc idiots; no wonder it is not fit for purpose.
We do not have democracy in this country when 68% of votes at the last election did not affect the result and Tory supporters found themselves voting for a remainer parachuted in by Central Office. We know there is a majority to leave the EU; the way to reflect this in the HoC is to adopt PR and give control to the people and away from party paymasters. Talk about removing May when the majority of Tories in the HoC are remainers is an exercise in innumeracy.
July 13, 2018
We all know our voting system is broken. Its only purpose is to favour the legacies in fptp.
July 13, 2018
May and her unelected officials have been collaborating with the German leader to keep us paying for the pleasure of buying more from Germany than we sell them. It’s called treason.
July 13, 2018
To think you mocked UKIP all the way through as being the wrong way to achieve all this!!
Laugh? I almost cried!
July 13, 2018
I agree.
To criticise people who ostensibly hold the same view and have the same objective does seem odd, but with Tories, party loyalty always comes first before all else.
Nigel Farage would have been a good Tory leader, but he saw through them, as indeed did I – eventually. They have a large back catalogue of deception, duplicity and inventive ways of getting out of what was promised. Yet the warnings that this latest subterfuge was going to turn around and bite pro-Brexit MPs went unheeded. Now, they have got to sort it out, and quick!
Tad
July 13, 2018
Strong polling for UKIP is probably the only factor that will change the opinions of Remainer Tory MPs in marginal seats.
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” (Dr. Johnson)
Once YouGov etc publishes UKIP’s support approaching double figures, May is toast. So it’s always worthwhile telling pollsters one would vote for Ukip in a GE, whether it is the literal truth or not.
It was Ukip’s polling advance in 2013 that persuaded Cameron’s advisers to tell him he would have to call the referendum he’d once promised and then reneged on. The rest is history.
July 13, 2018
We need UKIP now, especially Nigel Farage. We stupidly kicked them into touch at the last election because we and they foolishly put our/their trust in all those Tory MPs who supported Brexit by not standing against them . Big mistake. The only party now who can be trusted to deliver the Brexit we voted for is UKIP.
July 13, 2018
Alas they can be trusted only to let Corbyn/SNP in. Hopefully the Tories will come back to sanity and get a new leader with a working compass.
July 13, 2018
Rubicon is crossed. It’s now worth the risk of Corbyn. Look at the pros and cons. Any Conservatives which by now haven’t declared themselves anti- this deal should be targeted and ousted, either by their Associations before an election, or by strong UKIP candidates in an election.
My MP, who came out with a mealy-mouthed non-committal e-mail reply, (I haven’t seen the white paper yet, decisions can’t be made in haste, Parliamentary arithmetic all wrong, blah de blah), has already been served notice.
July 13, 2018
Recreating all these institutions lacking the advantages of scale could be expensive, especially when doing them overnight. I also see no scope for the UK dealing with the US on equal terms. Does becoming a de-facto US colony and rule taker trump being a prominent European nation???
I suspect a lot of EU-antipathy here.
July 13, 2018
Yes Peter because the EU is noted for its frugality when setting up administration and oversight agencies.
The two parliaments? Jean Claude’s lunches? Did you see him swaying after lunch the other day? You must be so proud.
July 13, 2018
@Narrow Shoulders: The EU (500 million people) is administered by a civil service of 46,356 (2015) as you can find on the internet yourself. The staff of Birmingham City council stood at 48,049 (2011, may more now?) Als compared to the half million UK civil service the EU doesn’t do too badly.
Obviously you must be very proud of all these British politicians, keep it up!
July 13, 2018
You are comparing two very different things Hans.
National civil servants have to administer education welfare prisons hospitals roads energy collection of taxes and much more.
Practical things which affect the main processes in the day to day work of a nation.
Same at Local Council level.
But the EU is just a logical construct above this.
Passing laws directives and regulations down for those below to do the practical implementation.
Once we all lived in Europe without the EU
Now they need huge offices in two separate cities and nearly 50,000 people and a budget of billions just to exist.
July 13, 2018
Sorry…meant to write Peter.
July 13, 2018
I think you are getting a bit mixed up there. All the EU has to do is make regulations and move people from one parliament to another every month. Hardly comparable with actually delivering services. You know, visiting old people, dressing and feeding them, collecting rubbish, mowing the grass in parks, running a planning department, looking after the allotments and the thousand and one other things that a council actually does – week in, week out.
July 13, 2018
Compare the average salary of those employees please Peter. Or the pension entitlements that we are paying £39 billion to cover.
And I am not often proud of the UK politicians but they are rarely (obviously) drunk on duty.
July 13, 2018
Peter,
I think you should sit down quietly and ask yourself why so many of us in UK feel EU-antipathy despite liking and respecting the people of European countries inside and outside the EU.
July 13, 2018
@Henry Rogers: Does post-imperial-stress-disorder (“once we were important”) ring a bell? Probably not. Still, it is the one thing (apart from being an island like Ireland) which distinguishes you from the continent.
(John Cleese mentions an extra distinction in his recent interview: an untrustworthy tabloid press, which seeks to brainwash its readers.
July 13, 2018
Peter,
You are a serious contributor and your comment above is not worthy of you. If you yourself think the EU as it has developed is an acceptable interpretation of democracy that’s fine. I wouldn’t dream of throwing insults in your direction for your choice.
In the same way you need to accept that many people in UK, and possibly elsewhere too, take a different view. It appears to us that the EU is developing instead into an autocracy which shows dangerous signs of becoming, in time, anything but benevolent. Democracy certainly has faults, and these have been discussed in detail for a couple of thousand years or more, but so too does autocratic rule.
July 13, 2018
What a pathetic taunt. I doubt anyone commenting here has any experience of an imperial past, I certainly don’t.
We have direct experience of EU imperialism though.
July 13, 2018
Because you haven’t taken the time to find out what the EU really does. You have believed the hard right, the hard left, and the newspaper lies without bothering to question them. And you probably don’t like foreigners.
July 13, 2018
And there it is AGAIN. You have no argument so you resort to personal slurs. It’s pathetic.
July 13, 2018
It is what people do when they know their arguments are poor.
They resort first to abuse then to violence.
July 13, 2018
Andy, We are trying to save Europe from yet another rancid centralist ideology, this time round it’s called the EU.
July 13, 2018
Andy,
I wasn’t quite sure whether your post was replying to mine.
It’s hard to avoid seeing what the EU actually does now and where it’s leadership would like to take it in future. Whether you want all that is a political choice, but I don’t think ‘hard left’ or ‘hard right’ have much to do with it.
I have been lucky enough to live and travel quite widely in Europe and beyond during my lifetime and have good friends from all over so I’m not too bothered by accusations of xenophobia.
July 13, 2018
Much better aligned to the democratic USA than tied to the rotting corpse of the undemocratic EU.
Mrs May makes much of her being a vicars daughter when in fact she is an out and out liar.
The fact she went to Merkel to be advised should ensure she finishes up in the Tower.
July 13, 2018
The EU is actually quite democratic, be it a bit distant from ordinary citizens. Even the head of the civil service , our Mr Humphrey, was elected (as a Spitzen kandidate).
Regurgitating “undemocratic” has become a bit outdated, why not regurgitate all this “democratic” interference by the US president, just to get used to your new master? 🙂
July 13, 2018
If you, and a majority of your countrymen, don’t like the EU as a supra-government, can you vote it out?
No!
July 13, 2018
@Mike Wilson: One UK constituency cannot vote out a whole UK government. European Parliaments (i.e. our directly elected representatives) have sent individual and also all European Commissioners home at times.
What we cannot do is vote out a whole European Council, but we are able to vote out our own representative in that European Council. If you were to vote out Theresa May next week, that would be one such an example. The supra aspect of the European Council, or Council of the European Union (ministers) which sometimes votes by QMV would stillcontinue. But if it were to become too much we could leave the EU by invoking article 50. England, Cornwall or London cannot just leave the UK by some article 50. I imagine quite a few Londoners wouldn’t mind leaving the UK and staying in the EU. I feel for them.
July 13, 2018
PvL< When did I have a vote on your Mr Humphrey?
July 13, 2018
We wouldn’t be paying or accepting US law to trade with them. How are your boys enjoying fighting in the German army?
July 13, 2018
@Stred: I suppose just as much as the German soldiers serving under Dutch command. Something you may not have known, but which has been operational for quite a few years already.
July 13, 2018
The Germans may not like being told to run away, as in Yugoslavia.
July 14, 2018
Stred,
Unnecessary comment and you know it
July 13, 2018
PvL, What about paying or accepting US law just to trade with them?
July 14, 2018
NickC
Unnecessary
July 13, 2018
As usual, when you cannot unpick the detail of the argument, go for the perjorative generalisation, racist, anti European etc. Having just returned from two months in Portugal and spending every break I can get on the continent, I find your accusations insulting.
If you want antipathy about Europe I suggest you look closer to home, in fact across much of the mainland.
I was in SW France when we took the original decision and to a person they all congratulated me on it and wished their politicians were as brave.
July 13, 2018
@Nig l: Could it be the people with whom you mingle on the continent? I know many many Brits, living in the UK, who like the EU a lot! . . . . But not on this particular website, that is why I wrote: “I suspect a lot of EU-antipathy here”, which I still maintain, even if you were the exception.
What is pejorative about that?
July 13, 2018
PvL, Your worrying that we might become “a de-facto US colony” is excruciatingly funny. Perhaps you ought to worry more that your country is a de facto colony of the EU.
July 13, 2018
@NickC: We ARE the EU, one of the 27! You simply understand more about cricket or rugby than about EU workings.
July 13, 2018
PvL, You say you “ARE the EU”; and Hans says “the Netherlands … are one of the less supportive of the EU”. I’ll allow you to go away together for a conflab, and maybe you’ll come back with something rational.
It would be better economically, and much more democratic, for the UK to be the 51st state of the USA, than the 28th state of the USE. Of course it would be better still if we were independent.
July 13, 2018
NckC
If you know enough about the Netherlands you would not write this sort of rubbish, they are one of the less supportive of the EU populations around
July 13, 2018
We know but their votes don’t count. Remember the referendum on Ukraine free movement……………….ignored. Next!
July 13, 2018
it was not ignored
July 13, 2018
A prominent? European nation? In what way prominent PVL? Chief Donor? Nothing has ever been said about what the (cough cough ) donations would be to the EU in future if she has signed us up to stay in? What will TM have signed up to hand over in return for her place at the top Brussels table? Has she handed over use of OUR new taxpayer funded fighters as well? Or are we the first European country to be totally swamped by the EU organised mass invasion from 3rd world Asia and Africa?
July 13, 2018
@bigneil: As a Dutchman I’m a larger donor than you, understanding that an organisation needs a small amount (1% of GDP) to function. For NATO you’ll be happy to donate 4%?
July 13, 2018
PvL, As you ought to know the EU control many policy areas (“competences”) which are actually administered at the vassal state level. So the costs are higher than just the cost of the policy makers in Brussels. Paatrick Minford has suggested the real cost of the EU is nearer £200bn a year (11% GDP) for the UK.
July 13, 2018
Plus a % of all VAT collections, EU tariffs @ 80% and a number of other indirect costs like billions in our fishing industry or subsidising French farmers whilst supporting German exports with a false undervalued currency for them and legislating to their advantage (Dyson) , oh, and your Country as well!…………..and on and on……we’re just the cash cow taking the EU’s unemployed minimum wage workers!
July 14, 2018
Timaction,
never has one said so much rubbish in such a short time
July 13, 2018
NATO has a use.
July 13, 2018
‘I see no scope………’
And therein lies the key to it. Just because one person doesn’t see a way forwards, doesn’t mean a way does not exist or cannot be found.
It depends on having the right people with the right calibre, and I’m confident my fellow countrymen have the ability to see us through, even if our present crop of politicians are so woefully inadequate, they cannot.
Tad
July 13, 2018
Errr, Peter, look at the map and the statistics: we are a prominent European nation, and we do not need to be in the EU for that.
As for ‘a fortnight’ – we have the rest of time to restore, build and perfect our nationhood. The temporary blips are something our understanding of history enables us to take in our stride.
Like many others, I have a deep affection for the people of a great many (though not all) European nations. But my affection for the French and the Germans, say, has nothing to do with the oceanic depthy of my distrust for Macron, Merkel, Barnier, Juncker, Tusk, Selmayr, and the entire EU Commission and EU Parliament, whose democratic deficit is an unbridgeable chasm.
Peter, you are like a child who has got into daddy’s car and turned the steering wheel to and fro, and you think that means you are driving it. But you are not.
July 13, 2018
The USA wouldn’t demand we went into political union with them in exchange for a trade arrangement. Nor would they impose Freedom of Movement. And I very much doubt they would insist on receiving transfers of billions of pounds and subjecting us to the Supreme Court. They would probably allow us to run our own fishing and farming policies too, without stealing the fish.
July 13, 2018
@rose: You can have all that when you leave and become like Canada. But any FTA with the US would be rather asymetric I think, especially under this “America First” president,
July 14, 2018
I don’t see why we need TAs. Businessmen can fulfil the requirements of their customers without governments getting in the way. Our businesses which export to the EU can comply with EU rules but there is no need for the rest of business to. Ditto for the USA.
July 13, 2018
Problem is the UK establishment has little time now for antiquated phraseology like, freedom, taking back control or rule taking..and the world has moved on and is forming up now into bigger economic blocs overtaking nation states..thus President Trump with John Bolton at his side is out there trying to wreck as many of the good old world institutions he can, like soon to be wrecked, WTO and UN and maybe even NATO- they would also like to wreck the EU and the UK itself if they could and bring the Tariff war with China down on our heads..to do all of this, if he could, in order to build up everything again from the ruins in the new Trump style and image and so to totally suit American interests..and then look again, with outriders like Bolton and our own Farage in tow he has a very good chance of success-
There is a serious game being played here now when an American President can stroll onto the UK stage and openly insult our PM..doesn’t matter who He or She is..here we have a world leader, a US President, gratuitously insulting the British nation…so there has to be a dangerous game being played out..and we should be very careful now about how we move.
July 13, 2018
@Jack Snell. ‘a US President, gratuitously insulting the British nation’
Don’t you mean we have a US President telling it like it really is? He can see how pathetic this white paper is and how hopeless Mrs May and her remainers have been in negotiating. We should have just told them we were leaving. We have gone about it the wrong way falling over ourselves to please Merkel. Trump is spot on and unlike many of our politicians he does not hide away but speaks openly and honestly. We need a bit more of this.
July 13, 2018
Trump is a political giant among pygmies in European governments. When it is too late people like will wake up to the fact that the EU is an undemocratic and financial shambles.
July 14, 2018
A. Sedwick
Financial shambles, please, explain?
July 13, 2018
Just to take issue with one of your last paragraph, Mr Snell : ”… a US President, gratuitously insulting the British nation…” No he wasn’t.
Don’t you feel the least bit ashamed of some people’s insults towards said President, a guest in our country? Do you feel proud of those silly, ”nail a teddy bear to a tree” protesters who act as if they speak for all of us? Do you think it wise that our own PM should not have made it more clear that we’d prefer a ”special relationship” with the US rather than the execrable EU? That is what the majority of us would prefer – see the referendum result.
Don’t you think that Obama ”strolled onto the UK stage” in an attempt to influence a UK decision? What sort of serious game was THAT?
July 13, 2018
Trump has spoken his own mind. I have no problem with that whatever. His job is to look after the interests of the USA…not the general good of other countries. I wish our rulers understood their job is to do the same for the UK….not contract it out to the EU…or more to the point, Germany.
July 13, 2018
Oddly enough I don’t feel at all insulted by the US President, neither personally nor on behalf of our Prime Minister. However I do feel insulted by that Prime Minister, who is utterly betraying the trust I was prepared to repose in her.
July 13, 2018
Jack Snell, PotUS Trump, unlike PotUS Obama hasn’t told us what to do, he’s told us what he will do. Your view that freedom is just “antiquated phraseology” is telling. You are an EU shill, with no arguments in its favour other than the fact that the EU is bigger than the UK.
July 13, 2018
Our economy being the 5th largest in the world is equivalent to 19, yes 19, of the smallest economies in the EU!!!
July 13, 2018
Trump-Putin ….Molotov-Ribbentrop 2.0 ?!
And if they destroy the EU,I’m all for it;Russian hegemony over Europe is infinitely better than a German superstate.
July 13, 2018
@jack Snell
If you feel insulted by hearing the truth, then it says more about you than President Trump.
July 13, 2018
The devil is always in the detail, just as it has been for decades with countless budgets, laws, regulations, and a host of other Government so called initiatives.
The spin lasts but just a few day’s, until the whole script is read.
Our Government and Prime Minister should hang their heads in shame, if this is supposed to be our best starting position.
The process of dragging out capitulation, is not negotiation.
Not much more to say really, other than I am simply disgusted that this is even thought of as a realistic option.
Why is it that many of our politicians do not want the responsibility to Govern our own Country, but are willing to be controlled by a foreign unelected power..
July 13, 2018
@Alan Jutson
If that is the case then they should stand aside and make way for those that do.
July 13, 2018
Bob
I agree with you, but many of our Mp’s and I exclude our host, love the idea of power but not the responsibility that goes with it, hence the illusion that they have power and a significant position is enough for them.
We have to get back locally chosen candidates, with a right to re-call.
July 13, 2018
It is difficult not to conclude that May has plotted this all along in concert with the Remain establishment and even, possibly, in collusion with the EU Commission. That is why she appointed Robbins to her staff and removed him from DexEU.
July 13, 2018
Oldtimer, It was plotted all along. Witness the “Kit-Kat” civil servants chortling with their colleagues in the EU about deceiving Leave voters.
July 13, 2018
Agreed oldtimer
July 13, 2018
Indeed it clearly was.
July 13, 2018
Unfortunately Parliament is full of Remainiacs who cannot or will not respect the decision of the people. The people whom they are supposed to serve.
July 13, 2018
Quite.
What happened to the right of recall?
July 13, 2018
NS,
Another Tory promise that came to nothing! All these things stack up over time and eventually these chickens come home to roost. People are mad to trust the bulk of Westminster politicians.
Tad
July 13, 2018
Cameron cheated us yet again. What about the £1 million each IHT threshold Osborne promised then ratted on and Hammond still rats on it.
July 13, 2018
Did the PM understand/read the white paper (presumably by Olly Robbins)?
The “honour” the vote narrative feels heavily scripted, reminiscent of the “chaos” narrative of the last GE. Hopefully she will recognise the advice of the POTUS if not of her ex-cabinet members.
Leave means leave, i.e. Follow not honour the vote.
Rebalance the economy means less London and less EU centricity
Democracy means democracy.
July 13, 2018
Oily Robbins and his ilk have a lot to answer for. I wonder if they ever will personally answer for their perfidy.
July 13, 2018
“Drain the swamp” I believe is the expression.
We need a new PM and fast. Each civil service department head should be told to prepare properly for March 2019. Failure to do so should be considered gross misconduct, with resulting loss of pension.
July 13, 2018
“We voted to stop paying any money to the EU, not just to the EU budget” – I must have had a different ballot paper because I definitely didn’t see this on the list I had to vote on.
July 13, 2018
Total severance from the EU would naturally trigger this. Mr Cameron’s helpful guidebook stated this and many other consequences of voting to leave. Did you not read it? Or were you too smug to imagine such an outcome? HMG certainly were!
July 13, 2018
Andrew, I must have had a different ballot paper from you because I definitely didn’t see continuing to pay the EU on the list I had to vote on.
July 13, 2018
That is the actual words were Remain in the EU, or Leave the EU, without a long explanation. And as Jagman84 states, paying or not paying are the consequence respectively of Remain or Leave.
July 13, 2018
My ballot paper stated:
Should the UK remain a member of the EU or leave the EU.
Why would we continue to pay if we leave the EU?
July 13, 2018
I think the problem is that I had a ballot paper with two choices – Leave or Remain. Mrs May’s paper had three choices – the third one being Leave and Remain.
July 13, 2018
It came under “Leave”.
July 13, 2018
And now we have Trump rightly saying a trade deal with America is less lightly because we will still be bound by EU rules. For God’s sake John, get your colleagues together and get rid of May and Hammond immediately. She is a liability to the party and worse a liability and a embarrassment to the country. If it means a general election, then so be it. I truly believe the country will vote for the party that offers a true Brexit which is not Labour, nor the Conservatives at the moment but could be under a true Conservative Government under Boris.
July 13, 2018
Boris is nothing more than a true Boris-he has his uses in campaigning but if you think he is the answer you are not asking the right question.The paucity of talent in British politics is truly alarming but sadly mirrors the general degeneration of the country.
July 13, 2018
Mitchel
I think most MPs are extremely intelligent. They put together very complex sentences at times. I marvel at Mrs May or anyone answering PM Questions in such thoroughness. That’s one reason I despise the Labour Party. They could not possibly genuinely hold those views unless they were village idiots. They are not.
July 15, 2018
I think most MPs are extremely intelligent
>
They are the most unintelligent stupid people you could ever meet. All of them believe myths, all of them are controlled by the Media Narrative and those who control the Media narrative control them. And they dont even know it, most of them. Blind blind bline, or indifferent.
July 13, 2018
Sadly such appeals are misplaced as Mr Redwood supports the PM and has not sent a letter. It is others who ought to be working on him.
July 13, 2018
Compared to our gracious host’s usual calm, measured, academic articles, I think this may be considered a transcribed Braveheart Moment.
Magnificent.
Onward!
July 13, 2018
Agreed, Horatio.
July 13, 2018
Braveheart?…well as William Wallace was betrayed,capturede and then hanged,drawn and quartered for High Treason,let’s hope not.Much better if it was a storming of the Winter Palace moment.
July 13, 2018
It’s getting close to that moment when people will have to take action against this Government if they sign this rubbish in our name!
July 13, 2018
A wholesale sell out the people dreams who voted for leave by the majority MPs in parliament, as I have been telling you for a long time parties cannot be trusted to look after you and your families and country, voting for independent MPs that you pick yourselves from your own areas is the only answers to stop you from being sold out all the time for some dream most MPs have of how you live and take orders from them, if you do not stand up to them yourselves and get rid of them you are finished as a nation people and there will be no going back.
July 13, 2018
When are Tory MP’s going to depose the remainer May and Hammond?
July 13, 2018
@Andrew
Don’t you do maths?
The bulk of Tories are of the same mind as , Nicky Morgan, Sarah Woolaston, Theresa May, Amber Rudd and Anna Soubry It is a party of EUrophiles.
July 13, 2018
Too many fake Tories for that to happen. I can now understand why (a number of years ago) so many local authority employees were given deferred powers of entry and criminal caution. I can see it was intended for times like this, where the risk of outbreaks of civil disobedience is high.
July 13, 2018
Thank you JR for turning 100 pages into 6 concise paragraphs None of which did we vote for.
May took advice from her advisors and cocked up the election big time. She has done it again taking advice from the civil servants in No10. The first mistake can be corrected but the second one could destroy this country.
That White Paper has to be voted OUT and she should follow straight afterwards.
July 13, 2018
Why do you lot keep asking John to do something about all of this, when he just one person with one vote, he, not a magical person who just waves hands and all disappears while you sit back and do nothing but keep voting these people into parliament to vote against him.
You’re asking too much and not doing anything yourselves but watching your nation go down and blame everybody else but yourselves.
July 13, 2018
@ian
A very good point well made.
July 13, 2018
Because he can write a letter to the Chairman of the 1922. We can’t.
Mrs May is useless and a stupid woman. She is destroying not only Brexit but her own party which will split.
July 13, 2018
The government has landed Conservative MPs in the mire and MPs will now need to start to put this right because the executive are useless and infiltrated with socialists
July 13, 2018
Sure we can be independent on all those things that Redwood blathers on about. At a great cost. Redwood might have mentioned that we have a huge deficit, so don’t have a lot of money (or time until departure from the EU) to put all these fantasies that he has in place. I assume that Redwood is now cheering on the EU to reject the May White Paper. So if the EU does reject this “plan” from May then then I assume we will see a follow up blog from Redwood about how much he admires the EU.
Given the hysterical temper tantrum that the Little Englanders threw when Obama made the mildest intervention in the Brexit debate, I wait with eagerness the triply hysterical temper tantrum that the Little Englanders will throw over the latest Trump intervention in UK internal affairs. Oh wait, the Little Englanders are in thrall to Trump and the American oligarchs (and/or in thrall to Putin and the Russian oligarchs) so I guess they won’t say anything. When they said “take back control” they meant give control to the US and/or Russia.
July 13, 2018
Obama tried to influence the electorate just before the referendum in a foreign country.
That is always regarded as unacceptable.
Trump was commenting on his opinion on uk government policy.
And how it might affect America
Two very different things.
July 13, 2018
Well done to TM and her merry band of remainers, they are succeeding in killing off the Conservative party by giving away our once great country and risk alienating our American friends (and no doubt others) which can only result in the gradual destruction of the UK.
Well done you’ve shafted over 17 million voters who will remember your treacherous actions for decades to come.
July 13, 2018
Trump is pretty much spot on
Shame the liberal elite cannot see it
July 13, 2018
Defence of the Realm is the first duty of Government.
Conservative MPs, if you support UK citizens’ freedom:
Take Back Control from Theresa May & implement Brexit!
July 13, 2018
Defence of the Realm, indeed. On many levels. If there is no effective defence, then what is the point of having a Realm?
(I think that Enoch Powell said something about this, and far more cleverly and concisely than I ever could.)
July 13, 2018
Does this White Flag Paper include any provisions for cancelling the treaty when it finally does not work ? Are their any proposals for independent arbitration in case of dispute?
Or is it a case of ‘Everything is under EU control: nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong………..’
As it stands we are shackled to the EU for evermore, long after May and the Conservatives have been destroyed by an angry electorate.
July 13, 2018
Fake brexit has prevailed.
July 13, 2018
So no trade with the USA. That’s us dead in the water then.
July 13, 2018
Say not the struggle nought availeth, FedUp. Surely there will be SOMEONE who can save the day at the eleventh hour?
Cometh the hour, cometh the man – or woman, perhaps? And it seems now it is NOT Mrs May, sadly and disappointingly, after everything.
”Just for a handful of silver, (s)he left us, Just for a ribband to stick on his(her) coat….”
July 13, 2018
So far most MPs in Parliament have shown contempt for the referendum result and in most cases the election manifesto on which they were elected. Mrs May excels in mendacity and duplicity. She has spent two years capitulating to the EU whilst lying to the people that she was implementing the referendum result. This has been clear to many of us for a very long time but makes it no less concerning. The future for your party and our democracy are in very great peril. Mrs May must be replaced by someone with confidence in this country, its people and our future outside the control of the EU.
July 13, 2018
Funny how some contributors here would seem happy to exchange a EU yoke for a Trump yoke. Poor UK.
July 13, 2018
Oh, Puffer. You have a lot to learn. And not from Facebook, please.
July 13, 2018
Puffer Fish
It is a pity after World War II, it wasn’t and still isn’t the Art of the Possible for us becoming an integral state of the United States of America. They speak the same language. Unlike the EU, they are democratic. We would now be far far richer. But we are proud nationalists. There is a price to pay for our freedom. But we perform better, work better, think better, under our own flag.
July 13, 2018
She has another bargaining chip to persuade Brussels to accept.
She can offer the EU our place in the UN security council and one of the Carriers for the new defence force she is so keen to join.
July 13, 2018
Now is the time for Conservative Leaver MPs to put their letters in and try to get rid of this disastrous PM. If those MPs who are Remainers whose constituents voted to Leave expect to be re-elected they should think again. If the PM cannot be brought down this Government should be, if necessary by Corbyn playing politics. It is inconceivable that she could lead the Conservatives into the next election.
July 13, 2018
The White Paper says very little about financial services and the City, other than suggesting that a deeper version of regulatory equivalence could be achieved with ongoing, treaty based processes. This means that practically, UK based banks will loose the unfettered access to EU markets necessary to maintain London’s position as a leading global financial centre and much of the current business will move to Frankfurt.
Catherine McGuiness, policy chairperson for the City of London Corporation is reported to have said “with looser ties to Europe the financial and related professional services sector will be less able to create jobs, generate tax and support growth”
May has been holding out for an agreement based on mutual recognition of each others’ financial regulations – which would involve little or no disruption to the status quo. The Germans however, smelling a huge transfer of business to Frankfurt repeat their position that this is unacceptable as the UK will not stick to the “rules” of the single market – i.e. we will be able to win business globally, away from the EU.
EU regulators have made it clear that they expect UK based banks to establish full scale stand-alone operations inside the trading block ASAP and key staff are already moving to Frankfurt.
The lobby group TheCityUK estimates that the financial services industry contributed about £174b to the UK economy in 2016 – about 10% of gdp and employing 2.3m people. The White Paper is effectively selling these jobs down the river to Frankfurt.
What this means if that effectively the White Paper presents a de facto hard brexit for financial services. So why bother with the rest?
July 13, 2018
So, other than writing in your blog, what are you going to do about it?
July 13, 2018
Well said, Mr Redwood. Let’s look at Aviation: we are, if my memory serves me right, the largest Aviation ‘market’ in Europe and the second-largest in the World. And yet this spineless, timid, incompetent government thinks we cannot stand on our own two feet and must rely on a Germay-based organ of the EU for adult supervision. Trump has made a number of strong points – some bluster – in his interview with The Sun but what caught my eye was his comment that May wouldn’t take his negotiating advice. Had she, we wouldn’t be in the situation of having some 70% of the British public thinking that she’s making a right pig’s ear of the negotiations. She has to go!
July 13, 2018
The die is cast. The very fact that Jacob Rees Mogg has tabled amendments (only) indicates overall implicit acceptance. Sad to see so many leading Brexiters now are Remainers in all but name – messrs Raab, Grayling, Hannan – who thinks the Chequers statement is fine – and of course Ms Leadsom. I think the EC will seek a bit more ‘clarity’ but will endorse Mrs May’s plan. One thing’s for sure the legal text of the eventual new Agreement/Treaty will contain binding/non exit conditions and enable the gradual ramping up of UK financial contributions over time. So much for taking back control.
Reply The amendments we have tabled are not to the White Paper! They are to pre existing draft legislation needed to run an independent trade policy. We oppose the White Paper.
July 13, 2018
Thank you for clarifying Mr Redwood. All your efforts continue to be greatly appreciated.
July 13, 2018
Sir, you refer to a line in the white paper: “The language of the government that they will end “vast annual contributions to the EU budget””
Don’t forget that the white paper is deliberately worded ambiguously to permit business as usual. Take the above statement about ending “vast annual contributions” – such contributions can still be made on any frequency other than annually, and will be consistent with the wording of the white paper.
I genuinely fear for the future of our Nation if this white paper is accepted by Parliament.
July 13, 2018
“Or lets take the case of Aviation Safety. The UK has very high standards which we wish to preserve and a high proportion of EU air travel, given the dominance of London as an aviation hub. Again our global reach and ambition requires us to establish our own Agency and to work at a global level on high and rising standards.”
Interesting. When I raised the question of how UK-manufactured aircraft components would obtain their safety certifications after 30th March last year on another thread, you mentioned nothing about the UK having to replicate all the structures it currently utilises, from scratch, in a little over 6 months.
How much will this cost compared to the current arrangements (where we share these costs with 27 other countries)? Will the UK be able to set up such an agency from nothing, fully staff it and get all the necessary agreements in place by 30th March next year? What are the implications for the likes of Airbus if the UK fails to deliver this?
July 13, 2018
Quality certification bodies already exist in the UK as do agencies which monitor aircraft safety and certification.
They would need little change to take over the parts which the EU currently does.
Quite an opportunity to gain extra revenue and employment for UK companies as well.
July 13, 2018
Peter Parsons, You need to have a word with Peter van Leeuwen. He has patronisingly explained that the EU has less than 50,000 administrators, which is true, without telling the whole truth that the EU makes the rules and the vassal nations actually do the work. We can therefore still do the work after we Leave.
July 13, 2018
We should re establish our own Medicines Agency, and sell its services to third countries who would value our skills and knowledge, and would wish to be associated with our high standards.
============
No. We should have no medicines agency.
We should do what the EU has done in the past. Leach.
We just say, if the EU approves it, you can use it in the UK.
Why do we even need to pay and create another Quango?
July 13, 2018
A GP that doesn’t know about the MHRA? Why would be want to follow the EMA’s lead for approvals of medicinal products when we already assess them ourselves? What about drug safety?
July 13, 2018
What happens if (say) the US creates an innovative drug, cheaper, more effective, safer than any available in the EU. But the EU fails to certify this drug (for whatever reason) …
July 13, 2018
It is Theresa May’s vision of the UK in a federal Europe. Or, rather, the vision of whoever is pulling her strings behind the scenes. The ‘Civil Serpents’ really are in charge and the Westminster Parliament is a smokescreen. This is not going to end well….
July 13, 2018
They have got their claws into us and want us to become part of the federal Europe where we will speak Nuspeak and do as we are told . The elite and the controllers will be the ones with trillions, not the brightest and best ( unless they too have trillions) . We will have our lives mapped out for us and those trying to elevate themselves from billions to trillions will get the heavy boot on them . If we don’t stand up to them now there will be generations of serfs.
July 13, 2018
”Elite”?? Surely not, Margaret!
Don’t keep calling them that – they already have far too high an opinion of themselves. Don’t reinforce it!
July 13, 2018
At the heart of the European Union is the currency ; the Euro. I suspect that the Euro is headed for collapse. If such is the case the fallout will be immense and this White Paper will shackle us to a corpse.
July 13, 2018
So what did you really think? Brexiteers getting their hard brexit and 48 % to be totally ignored? Still born idea. You must be aware that politics is about compromises. Just accept the fact. That been said don’t fall into despair my dear brexiteers.
Mays deal is not too good (for UK) from EU perspective so – alas- there are still good chances that your beloved no deal will happen. I am trying to accept that facet even though it is tuff.
July 13, 2018
You really don’t understand democracy or basic maths do you?
July 14, 2018
Sure he does.
Leave won a small majority for permanent and profound change based on a series of poorly defined promises which have all turned out to be untrue.
Mrs May attempted to define those promises as hard Brexit in the June 2017 general election. She lost. The people said no.
What part of democracy do you not understand?
July 14, 2018
So if remain had won the referendum concessions would be given to the leave side, I think not.
July 13, 2018
It’s time for the conservative party to split. The last week has shown, yet again, that there are factions within the party that are unable to do anything but speak over each others heads. It’s time for you to go your own ways.
Whether it is your faction that leaves or the other lot matters not. Why are you all so afraid of embracing freedom and of making the case on your own?
For what it’s worth I was a remain voter but am perfectly willing to accept that the end point should be a hard brexit with a straight and simple free trade deal.
What I am unwilling to accept is the assertion that the process to get us there can be terribly simple and carries no risks for our economy and that the reason it isn’t is a establishment plot.
The Chequers plan should be viewed by you – a stepping stone to get you where you ultimately want us to be, it need not be the end point
July 13, 2018
Brilliant comments from JR today. A breath of fresh air in a media full of trolls, lies and spin.
For example Andy on this thread telling us we voted for Brexit because of immigration (implying we we are narrow xenophobes and racists).
I love Europe and its nations. My wife is French.
Andy, I voted for sovereignty and to restore democracy above all else and having seen how the EU has disrespected the UK since the vote and done everything it can to weaken and humiliate the UK in the farce of negotiations, I want out out out of the EU trap as fast as possible.
I want to express my gratitute to JR and others like him for his unwavering support of the people of this country. Too many people (like Andy here for example) are craven and self loathing but the brexit vote proves they are in the minority.
July 13, 2018
Non – voting Membership of EASA is available through Article 66 as a temporary measure.
Our leaving the EU and the ECAA presents major problems for the continuing operation and funding of EASA.
The CEO of EASA is not allowed to be party to negotiations concerning our leaving. The CEO talks about stakeholders being affected, but fails to mention that over the years the UK CAA has been a 40% stakeholder. The EU only contributes about 20% of the cost of running EASA, but rules the roost.
One should be asking how the rest of the World manage their Civil Aviation Authorities. We are still responsible for administering the rules which we have a hand in formulating. The UK was entirely responsible for Airworthiness requirements and then in partnership in JAA. It appears that by Act of the European Parliament the Commission dissolved the Partnership.
July 13, 2018
Makes no difference..none of this white paper will be acceptable to the EU side not even as a start to negogiate with..theres too much about ‘cake and cherry picking..the EU not entertain any of its construct being compromised or watered down
July 13, 2018
JR
Danegeld, White Flag, Surrender, all very strong superlatives used by you on the White Paper, not that I agree but it would be nice if you could come up with a real alternative, which is much stronger than your proposed WTO solution, which is just not good enough for UK business.
July 13, 2018
Hans, It’s good enough for our exporters to the rest of the world.
July 13, 2018
yes but most of them have separate deals with the Eu already as well
July 14, 2018
You had this answer before, but just ignored it:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/06/03/trade-wars-3/#comment-938449
“Well, we have no special trade deal with US but still manage to trade with them, as acknowledged by Labour’s Emily Thornberry in January:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/14011801.pdf
“Thirdly, we have been trading perfectly successfully with the United States for a very long time, they are our biggest trading partner outside the EU without a trading deal anyway.””
July 13, 2018
I do not think there is any likelihood of May and Hammond backing down on this: it is what they have been aiming for all along and one has to say for Hammond, he has been reasonably honest about his views. You cannot say the same for Mrs May.
Have you got any plan as to how to stop the proposal? Or is there any chance that Corbyn, seeing the possibility of defeating the Government resoundingly, will suddenly be converted back to his earlier euroscepticism?
July 13, 2018
Donald Trump has been absolutely right in his negotiation strategies with the EU and NATO.
No previous US president has had any success in getting European countries to spend more on defence until The Donald started to get tough, particularly with Merkel.
It’s a breath of fresh air to hear a leader say what he thinks, even if you don’t agree with everything he says. The EU leaders hate him for it which is always a good sign.
I wonder what he would say if he was shown that video of Juncker leaving the………. NATO Gala dinner having to be held upright by a couple of Prime Ministers ?
July 13, 2018
The white paper must go
We need to change the direction of the PM before this ends in disaster
For us All
July 13, 2018
May must be dumped….but nobody has the guts to do it so the country is stuck with her and her proposals. .
July 13, 2018
You’re way ahead of me, JR, I’m still trying to make out the Robbins Customs Plan.
I reflect that throughout history it must have been a fairly frequent occurrence that some goods were to be sent from country A to country B but not directly, they would travel via country C, or maybe even via countries C, D, E ….
And whereas in the old days the King of A might have demanded a nice bribe from the merchants just to allow them to take the goods out of his country, and the Sultan of C might have extracted his toll when they unloaded their ship in his port and put the goods on camels, and the Prince of A might have imposed another customs duty when the goods finally arrived in his landlocked country, I would have thought that in modern times there must be established international conventions to minimise such rather arbitrary multiple imposts and so cut the costs of trade, which is generally agreed to be a good thing.
So what would we do now, for instance, if a ship arrived in a port in the UK, while we are still in the EU, carrying a cargo from Egypt, outside the EU, part of which cargo being intended for consumption in the UK or another EU country, but the remainder to be transferred to another vessel bound for Canada, also outside the EU?
Would we demand payments of the EU’s external tariffs on the whole cargo on behalf of the EU, or would we say that the part of the cargo which is merely passing through on its way to Canada does not attract the EU’s tariffs, and if the latter would we offer to collect the appropriate Canadian tariffs on behalf of the Canadians?
July 13, 2018
I meant the Prince of B, the final destination of the goods.
July 13, 2018
Everything you predicted has not come true. You told us the EU would fall over itself to offer us a great deal – not at all. You told us the Americans, the Australians, the Indians etc would shower us with great trade deals – not at all. Mrs May is trying to make the best of the bad job you inflicted on the UK. Don’t you think a period of silence from you would be welcome, Mr Redwood?
Reply Don’t Lie. I said we could leave without a deal and it would be fine, and it is in their interests to offer us a free trade deal. We still haven’t asked for one! US/Australia etc keen to have a deal, but can only do that it we actually leave!
July 13, 2018
White is the colour of the flag of surrender..what awful bunkum you write..but you know, hard brexit wouldn’t be at all so bad if we only knew where we were going..but to just leave something like an economic bloc the size of the EU and with no apparant alternative plan would be foolhardy to say the least. However looking at the content of this white paper it now looks very like it won’t be acceptable to the EU on many levels anyway and therefore we are going to be faced with the choice of staying in under some CU and SM agreement or else crashing out..but there is another choice as well we could just stay where we are for as long as it takes, subject to the agreement of the EU27, ..and until we come to our senses about what kind of future we really want..bear in mind we are really deciding things for the next and future generations
July 13, 2018
Well said John.
July 13, 2018
How that changing the party from within working out? Seems to be getting worse. Anti-English and pro-EU.
July 13, 2018
Mrs May’s proposals look to have done nothing much other than to displease each side of the debate in equal measure.
The choice for the UK is ultimately going to be to join the EU 100% (euro, Schengen, no opt outs etc) as will be required in the United States of Europe that is coming, or be out 100%. There needs to be a USE to make the euro function properly. Otherwise the strains will tear the EU apart. Emmanuel Macron is quite right about that.
I know which option the UK population will choose. It makes no sense to try to kick the proverbial can down the road will some horrible fudge now.
July 13, 2018
I am with John Cleese on this and leave you thick numitys to it and obvious from a distant.
What beat me is that have asked all the time, what happens next and what everything means.
July 13, 2018
I mean distance, I might not be the best written but do understand what goes on.
July 13, 2018
John, Just make sure that when May goes, she is not replaced by another wolf in sheep’s clothing.
I was flabbergasted by Raab’s t**d polishing in Parliament yesterday. The man was excoriating the EU only recently. Now he wants to live permanently shackled to Brussels and thinks the Chequers plan allows us to leave the EU!
He is either a fool or a knave.
July 13, 2018
The Conservative Party has landed us with a 2nd rate Prime Minister and a socialist government, itself governed by an increasingly neo-Marxist civil service.
This needs to be put right pronto.
If not, Mr Farage is waiting in the wings and this time I suggest you join him Mr Redwood
July 13, 2018
Chequers is much worse than EFTA membership. At least EFTA does not drag us into the common external tariff, nor would it require a transition period, or a withdrawal agreement with a Trojan horse Irish backstop.
Chequers purports to involve taking back control of borders, but that is going to be fudged, so far better to admit we are compromising there, than concede so much to the EU in order that we can fool ourselves.
The EU27 have a massive surplus with the UK in manufactured goods. We don’t need to offer them any concessions in return for that status quo. EFTA at least covers services, in which the UK runs a surplus.
July 13, 2018
We have shown the EU, no lover of democracy, that we will completely extinguish democracy in our country, if that is what it takes to take even the menial status of vassal state.
We, the population, have shown that we will accept that. Being Tories, there will be no marching in the streets, threats of violence and promises to withhold taxes, as Socialists did with the poll tax.
Labour exists only to provide a platform of hate against Tories. Socialists despise England and only want to see it suffer. The Germans can see all this and will want to grind our country into the dust. And Mrs May and the elite have invited them to get stuck in.
July 13, 2018
So we voted to become a colony and protectorate of Germany? We are worse off now than being in the EU. This is a disgrace.
July 13, 2018
Well put John. I particularly empathise with your last paragraph.
To me, the question is ‘what are you going to do about it’
Good Luck – there seem so many wanting to undermine the referendum result!
July 13, 2018
Mr. Redwood – do you feel strongly enough about this to resign from the Conservative Party and become Independent?
Reply I feel strongly enough about this to speak and vote for it to be Conservative and national policy, as I thought it was from the Manifesto.
July 13, 2018
We the public suffered listening about Reagan then George Wya, then we got the good for nothing Obama for two terms and now Trump..will we ever get back to a time of a Roosevelt or a Carter, an Eisenhower or a Nixon even.. Jeez
Am afraid the special relationship so often talked about is now dead as a dodo
The depiction of Trump as the blow up doll in the nappy is the correct one
The real heroes of this time are the cave divers- but no red carpet for them
July 13, 2018
The divergence from what we (thought we) voted for is clear. How much more treachery will it take for MPs to stop protecting their backs and the Tory party and realise that the only way to sort this out is to replace Theresa May?
July 13, 2018
I voted to leave and would do again, but remaining in the E.U. now seems to be a better deal than that described in this White Paper.
July 13, 2018
That’s exactly what they are aiming for. Surely you realise that.
July 13, 2018
Has any one else had a personal email from Theresa May regarding the white paper ?
Clearly project Con as opposed to project Fear. The link to the White Paper does not take you to the actual white paper just a fairy tale version of it. Perhaps we should become a US state rather than a EU state as we are now, might have a bit more freedom. I am sure Trump and the Queen can work something out. Our PM might end up in the Tower (looking after the Ravens). PS. don’t forget Trump is entitled to a British passport even if US law would bar him.
July 13, 2018
Tory members got a message from TM this am and prior to this one from Brandon Lewis. I told him what I thought of his email and how 17.4m voters were being fobbed off with alternative words and descriptions that crop up in the paper. The actual paper is downloadable from yesterday. We now have to await the outcome of ERG and back benchers so we can evaluate the next steps in what may occur before the recess. Monday/Tuesday will be interesting…
July 13, 2018
Dear Mr. Redwood,
The liberal elite and the establishment are certainly responsible for much of what has gone wrong with the UK’s referendum decision to exit the EU. But so are the majority of MP’s.
Having delegated the decision to the British People, many did not like the result it produced, including perhaps 2/3rds or more of conservative MP’s so in true EU fashion they set out to thwart it in several ways.
So cocksure of an IN vote, MP’s thought it would be a good idea to not bother with any preparations for leaving.
They declared the British people too thick to understand the issues. They blamed outside interference and worst of all they deliberately complicated the issue by saying that the vote did not say how we should leave the EU.
I suggest the majority of people knew exactly what they were voting for, i.e. IN or OUT.
IN meaning a continuation of the relationship with the EU and OUT meaning OUT -completely OUT.
Now matters are worse. The PM has no majority in the Commons to get her EU deal through without Opposition support. That would split the Tory Party and alienate so many conservative voters as to inflict a major defeat at the next general election.
There is no majority in the House to leave without a deal as the vast majority of MP’s are Remainers.
There is no majority in the House to leave on WTO or FTA terms.
If the UK should crash out with No Deal, what preparations have been done? A token gesture from the PM that preparedness be accelerated. Who believes that?
Never have our MP’s, with notable exceptions, been so out of touch with the views of their electorates. If they had abided by the simple IN or OUT result as the referendum was designed and intended to produce then we would not be in this situation. But convinced of their moral superiority they meddled. And conspired. Against the wishes of the People.
The chances of a general election surely increase. But I do not hold out much hope that newly-elected MP’s would act in any way different.
July 13, 2018
I look forward to the day, hopefully very soon, when Mrs May stands down. No doubt she will find a well paid non job in Brussels like for example a certain Mr Kinnock.
July 13, 2018
Membership of Euratom should not be a problem, Israel and Switzerland participate. It is not really an EU agency and was set up to monitor isotopes. Interpol is also not an EU agency and was set up before it existed. At present, information is exchanges between heads of national police and it is not safe to trust countries with ex -communist officials in high places. The air safety legislation should be adopted into British law under the recently passed Act. We simply adopt the regulations we used before and badge it British. If they don’t like it, then use somebody else’s airspace. They will come round. Medicines agency- just copy the old one and adapt it later if new drugs appear and we disagree. T
There must be civil servants somewhere that can make things work. The head of customs was one until his boss found everything incredibly expensive and difficult.
July 13, 2018
Given his vast experience working in UK business, industry and merchant banking, John Redwood’s comments and vague generalisations beggar belief. They feed the fixed, unthinking mindset beloved of Brexiteers with scant, if any, reference to the facts. I’d like to reply to three points raised.
Medicines. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is moving its London headquarters to Amsterdam. This in itself is bad enough. The EMA oversees medicines regulation in Europe and it will be a sad loss for the UK, far more than the number of jobs lost directly. A new medicine, once approved by the EMA, is granted a single marketing authorisation, making it immediately available throughout Europe. Post Brexit, we shall have to establish our own approvals organisation. As in so many areas now under consideration, this will be a total waste of time, money, expertise and other resources. The UK needs to retain its links with the EMA. Otherwise it risks, as Switzerland (another global leader in pharmaceuticals) discovered, critical delays in gaining approval for use of these new medicines: six months or longer. This is because manufacturers prefer to have their products approved for the big markets – the USA and the EU – first. Lives will be literally threatened. The UK will be at the back of the queue (to use former President Obama’s phrase) for new medicines, losing control over this key sector of our economy.
Aviation safety. The UK needs to remain within the EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency). Otherwise, it risks increased certification costs for airlines and manufacturers. EASA requires airlines to comply with common sense safety rules. It certifies aerospace products – critical to Airbus plants in the UK. The EU and the USA have a bilateral agreement: CAA (UK) and FAA (USA) rules are very similar, keeping costs and barriers to a minimum – for example, ensuring maintenance facilities in the EU meet FAA standards. All vital to keep Airbus aircraft flying in the USA, and Boeing aircraft in Europe. To expect the CAA, the UK’s own regulatory authority, to take on the EASA role, is again simply needless duplication. Some say this would take five to ten years to achieve.
Cost of EU membership. The world is becoming less safe, less stable. Some say we owe seventy years of peace in Europe to NATO, largely true until now. But with Russia flexing its muscles, and President Trump threatening trade wars, ending the hard-won nuclear pact with Iran, and suggestions of a reduced USA commitment to NATO, the UK must remain closely aligned with Europe. The EU is not only about trade: it’s closely aligned with NATO. Broadly speaking, EU members have similar policies on defence and security, much of which is shared. So what’s the point in the UK going it alone? The cost of EU membership is not expensive: the UK’s net contribution to the EU budget is just half of one percent of GDP, a bargain in return for the peace dividend.
So at least let’s have a People’s Vote on the final deal. We deserve nothing less.
Reply My proposals are thought through and based on years of study of how we got into this EU mess. You underestimate the strength of the UK’s position in aviation and medicines, where we are big players with a lot to contribute. Aviation is regulated globally, not by the EU. We have the critical mass of expertise to have a very credible Medicines Agency, as we did until the EU took it over.
July 14, 2018
Strange how America Australia Canada Middle Eastern and Far Eastern nations manage to have aircraft and medicines without being members of the EU, nor being in the Single Market, the Customs Union nor being in any EU industry specific quangos.
Your argument is that only the EU can do everything for us.
Yet over 160 nations carry on happily without EU membership.
July 13, 2018
If the idea is to wear down those who voted for Brexit – to offer a much worse deal than being in – well, as far as I am concerned, they have almost done it. I give up. I’ve argued for Brexit for years. I’ve lost count of the number of posts I have made on various newspaper web sites arguing the case for Brexit. I passionately believe we would be better off – in every way – out.
But, I give up. Your party is giving us the worst of all world. A bad deal that is worse than no deal. So, give it up. Take back Article 50. Bend over and accept our role as a region of the EU government.
July 13, 2018
Why do I get the feeling that by leaving without the up sides of brexit the ground is being laid for a second referendum to take us back in?
July 13, 2018
That would be a fatal miscalculation. UKIP is yet to have its finest hour, and even the remain mob won’t tolerate their PM misleading parliament.
There are certain things the British electorate will absolutely not tolerate, and the tories are failing to grasp this.
I think because they’ve not acted quickly enough the only thing that would save them now is to put May on trial for collusion against the state. Anything less than May’s head on a spike ASAP is going to finish the conservatives for the rest of time.
July 13, 2018
It is essential that the British government never puts forward (let alone gets into negotiating) the White Paper/Chequers proposals to the European Union because the proposals are so favourable to them (achieving their two objectives- i.e. extracting large amounts of money from us and exacting terms so bad for us as to be a deterrent to other countries that might ever contemplate leaving the E.U.) that they are likely to agree to them. Of course they will try for yet more concessions but even if they can’t get more – as when I was negotiating my latest property acquisition – they are likely, as I ended up doing with that property, to climb down and accept the original proposal because the deal is too good to lose out on!
So we cannot afford to even table this proposal.
Therefore it is essential that Theresa May’s leadership be challenged now (as really it should have been immediately after last year’s General Election as she made such an enormous mess of that campaign) and the requisite 48 letters go in by next Monday. Then Conservative M.P.s will have to consider not only whether she is the right person to conduct Brexit negotiations but also whether she is electorally the right person to lead the Conservative Party at the next General Election : the answer to both questions must surely be No.
July 13, 2018
Is this too much like grown up reading to get moderated.
July 13, 2018
John – I quoted ”The Lost Leader” by Browning in one of my comments… I’ve just read it through again (after a few years!) and – isn’t it strangely appropriate?
July 13, 2018
Our media stuck in a disgusting interview with Corbyn during our wait for Trump to arrive and see HM The Queen. He relished “Trump has not been able to go to many places here” smiling broadly.
Even if, Corbyn was acting a political part, it shows how our traditional British values have been violated.
Whatever it takes I will leave this country if Corbyn ever gets into power…and I am poor. He and his followers are not part of the United Kingdom I was born into at the time of PM Macmillan…and even PM Harold Wilson.
It is to be hoped after Brexit, England will be England once again, and if that is a “Little England” attitude as Diane Abbott has it, then little is beautiful in deed.
July 13, 2018
The EU has already warned it’s member countries to prepare for UK leaving with a No Deal.
What has been put forward in the white paper will not be acceptable- not even as a starting point- as we will hear from the Barnier side next week..so no need to worry we will be going out..only thing to do now is complete the divorce settlement in October
July 13, 2018
So what are you all going to do now Mr Redwood because this is far more important than loyalty to the party.
July 13, 2018
Exactly.
Dr Redwood, you state the situation very clearly.
On top of all her other muddled ideas and free concessions to the EU, it is very troubling that Mrs May’s white paper seems to be the result of collusion with Mrs Merkel.
I do not understand why Mrs May is still Prime Minister.
July 13, 2018
“it is very troubling that Mrs May’s white paper seems to be the result of collusion with Mrs Merkel.”
That’s because it is. Everyone knows this.
“I do not understand why Mrs May is still Prime Minister”
Because the tories seem to think we’re stupid enough to forget her treachery and return them to office at the next general election.
July 13, 2018
“Ken Clarke has openly admitted he wants us with being a region of his beloved EU!”
Clarke can go to hell in a hand cart. Can’t stand the man, reminds me of filthy tweed, cigars, whisky & horse manure.
July 13, 2018
Can you clarify whether we will be paying the “exit fee” then continue to a lot of money in addition to remain part of these agencies?
July 13, 2018
Peter Lilley who is now in the Lords and also one of the advisory team to Liam Fox told everybody that on Brexit Day we already would have complete regulatory alignment. Hence we could offer tariff free trade to the EU and the deal would then take ten minutes. And he peddled this absurd nonsense very aggressively and very rudely to Sir Ivan Rogers during a Select Committee Hearing.
So Mr Redwood as I ask you every few days: How is your quick / simple Brexit going now ?
And if you read the EUs own guidance to the MS on the emergency plans they need to implement for a no deal you will see your “Go WTO” is complete fantasy which will be immensely harmful to the economy. Do not expect anyone to vote for you after that. I can not think how you get away with peddling such dangerous and mendacious information.
Reply We will have a simple quick Brexit if we just leave without a deal
July 14, 2018
If WTO only is so good why is no responsible adult in favour of it?
July 14, 2018
Complete nonsense Simon.
Millions of “responsible adults” in businesses all around the world trade using WTO trading arrangements.
July 14, 2018
Simon
Why will WTO trade be “immensely harmful to the economy”?
Currently over 90% of world trade carries on using WTO rules.
July 14, 2018
No it does not. That is an absolute out and out lie.
July 16, 2018
You are wrong
Look it up
July 16, 2018
Actually you were right it’s not 90%
It’s 96.6% of world trade.