The Remain media seem to think EU membership was just about trading arrangements, and that you cannot trade successfully outside the EU. Both these assumptions are completely wrong.
Leave voters voted to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws. We want the government to set out the enhanced spending plans, the tax cuts we can afford, the better migration policy and the improved laws that being independent will bring. We are the optimists. We think the UK can be better making her own decisions. We want to abolish VAT on domestic fuel and green products, we want to rebuild our fishing industry, and we want a fair migration system which controls numbers without giving preferences to some countries over others.
Remain seem to think sacrificing any of these freedoms is just fine if they can help us recreate the current trading and customs arrangements we have with the EU. Why are they so keen on the high tariff barriers the EU makes us impose on non EU imports? Why so keen on having to give away much of our fishery to foreign vessels? Why so keen to value EU trade more than non EU trade?
I have been sent an extract from official figures to remind me that our trade with the rest of the world, largely conducted under WTO rules with no special Agreements or FTAs, has been growing far faster than trade to the EU. Since 1998 our exports of goods to the EU have grown at just 0.2% a year, whereas our goods export to non EU has grown sixteen times faster at 3.3%. Our services exports have also grown faster to non EU than to EU. Last year we ran an overall deficit of Ā£72 billion with the EU, but a surplus of Ā£42 bn with the rest of the world.
If this single market and customs union is such a great boon to us, how come our goods trade has scarcely grown with it for almost twenty years? And if trading under WTO rules is difficult, how come our non EU trade is bigger than our EU trade and growing much faster?
It isn’t worth paying Ā£39bn to stay in this customs union.
November 12, 2018
I came across an extremely complex dissection of the current state of the RoI’s economy, and its conclusion was that Irish Government statistics were, to put it tactfully, extremely misleading and that in fact the Irish economy was heading for a serious fall.
I read each day of severe economic/financial/employment problems in Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, Spain etc. I read about the rise of harsh protest political parties in Central European countries. M Macron’s initial blaze of glory is inevitably diminishing, and Mrs Merkel appears to have come to the end of her capabilities and is perceived to have done great harm by her foolish open invitation to illegal migrants.
On the other hand, despite Mrs May’s incompetence (being tactful again) – the UK’s economy is apparently growing! I don’t relish other countries’ difficulties, but it suggests to me that the idealogical concept of the European Union has demonstrably failed to live up to its aims, and it’s well beyond the point at which we should disengage.
November 12, 2018
Indeed:- “despite Mrs Mayās incompetence (being tactful again) ā the UKās economy is apparently growing!”
Far too tactful!
Also despite her total lack of a positive Brexit vision, her further increases in red tape, her failure to prepare for a clean Brexit, her being a robotic electoral liability who threw an election with a punishment manifesto, the highest and most complex taxes for 50 years (still increasing), an expensive and totally misguided renewable energy agenda, prices and wages controls, restrictive building and planning controls, the attacks on the self employed, her wanting “to build further on EU workers rights (yet more red tape)” and above all the very real threat of Corbyn/Mc Donnall/SNP trip to Venezuela that May is incubating so well.
November 12, 2018
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Today, the media is reporting that ‘Ministers voiced their Chequers plan doubts in July describing parts of Theresa May’s plan as ‘worrying, disappointing and concerning’ although as we know only two senior cabinet ministers had the courage to resign albeit two days later.
Yesterday, it was reported that the Prime Minister is expected to face anger from cabinet Brexiteers over her exit mechanism plans. Yet cabinet sources suggested that disgruntled ministers would stop short of quitting over the exit mechanism plan. Even if they were bounced into agreeing to the deal, May would still face a serious challenge getting it through the Commons.
Andrea Leadsom said ‘I am working towards getting a deal that does not require the UK to be stuck, trapped in a customs arrangement. Iām sticking in government to make sure thatās where we get to in the end.’
I suggest that some Cabinet ministers are hedging their bets and largely going along with the Prime Minister’s plan secretly hoping that backbench mp’s reject it in the meaningful vote thus doing their dirty work for them and at the same time preserving their precious ministerial careers.
November 12, 2018
I’m annoyed by it all LL. Brexiteers seem to want to play by the rules as though these negotiations were a game of gentlemanly civilised cricket, when the EU and its supporters play Rugby. One is bound to overcome the other unless we compete on equal terms. That means being just as forceful and underhanded as they are.
Somehow, I can’t see Mrs Capitulation who privately wants to remain in the EU anyway, being anything other than a weakling milksop who constantly cedes ground. She’s seems to be living in some kind of parallel universe all of her own where she cannot see how badly these people are treating both her and the people of this nation.
There are lots of bullies around, and for any leader to show they are weak is fatal, because they will get pushed around by every single one of them. Every negotiation thereafter becomes a long drawn-out tedious battle akin to trench warfare.
The Tories have given us this ‘Dud’, and as any soldier in battle will tell us, wars cannot be won with Duds because they make no impression upon the enemy! Take the appointment of Bernard Law Montgomery for instance, and the difference a true fighter made to our fortunes in World War Two.
The Brexiteers really do need to stop pussy-footing around and change the leader, even if it means causing a rift with other so-called ‘Tories’ who would have us belong to the foreign EU. With bravery and foresight, they could actually take the country with them but they don’t appear to have seen that yet.
Tad
November 13, 2018
tad, I used to think as you do but Mrs May has changed. A technocrat by nature she has become during the negotiations a supra-nationalist. She honestly believes this is better for UK than sovereign national parliamentary democracy. For her the big prize is the Federal State of Europe.
It is quite clear that Chequers is not about withdrawal from the EU. It is an accession agreement intended to keep UK as close as possible to the EU so that when the EU completes its economic and monetary union, as intended during the next five year plan following the May 2019 elections, UK will be able to slip effortlessly into what will be by 2025 under new treaties and form the foundations of the Federal State of Europe, which the EU expects to be in place in the next five year plan after that, ie by about 2028-30. This is the destination to which Mrs May and her Remainer colleagues are aiming to steer UK. UK will be in the vanguard of the post democracy era.
This is Mrs May’s vision. We all thought she has no vision. She does. It is just that it is one no British Prime Minister could state openly.
November 13, 2018
I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that point of view Peter, which makes May’s Lancaster House speech seem downright cynical and designed purely to deceive the public. That would suggest even then she had one eye on a General Election. Her words that there wouldn’t be one any time soon must therefore have been false. But that isn’t the first time the Tories have deceived us in pursuance of the pro-EU endgame.
I know what these diabolical people are like. I have had Tory MPs convince me they are truly Eurosceptic, only to find they are pro-EU once the chips are down. They make me sick with their duplicity.
As far as May goes, your comments reinforce the view that her removal is absolutely imperative, but we are not going to do that by taking the ‘softly-softly’ approach. She has to be removed before she can do anymore damage, and the rest of the pro-EU charlatans shown up for what they are. etc ed
I regularly listen to Jacob Rees-Mogg and generally like and agree with what he says, but if what you say is true, then his loyalty to Theresa May is very much misplaced. That troubles me.
Tad
November 12, 2018
SM, There has been too little recognition that the EU is essentially a totalitarian ideology imposed by stealth. The EU is not, as the europhiles/Remains claim, a loose association of friendly neighbouring states merely trading with one another. That has been the biggest Remain lie.
And the truth of the nature of the EU has been revealed in its Brexit negotiations: the desperation to preserve the ideology at all costs, the fake “patriotism”, the naked political power, the hostility, the vindictiveness, but above all the extent to which the UK is locked into the EU.
November 12, 2018
Macron as Sun King(when he’s not Jupiter!):”Une foi,une loi,un roi”
If anyone needs to know how irrelevant the EU is to the future get yourself a copy of Peter Frankopan’s just published book”New Silk Roads”.
November 12, 2018
Don’t worry NickC you’ll be free..free as a bird very soon..free to pick up on all of those overseas new trade deals that were promised. Of course with a crash out there will have to be a hard border in Ireland..no doubt..but that will also mean a hard border at Calais..and no amount of WTO wrangling will get over that reality at least until a satisfactory withdrawal is signed. In the meantime you can follow the pied piper liam fox and JRM to wherever. My guess is the EU crowd have decided that you all need a few years in the wilderness to scratch around until you come to your senses. The last thing they want is to try to accommodate tory party infighting and UKIP delusion. The way I see it
November 12, 2018
Whatabout, Since scratching about in the wilderness is what the rest of the world does, I’m happy with that. And since you’re happy to be a serf to the EU, you’re welcome to that. Off you go . . . .
November 13, 2018
What about
There has ALWAYS been a hard border at Calais !!!
You remainers are just so naive and ignorant about how the world works. No wonder you wish to surrender your freedom and let a nanny state look after you. Pathetic
November 13, 2018
And a hard border at Dover. Don’t forget that.š
November 13, 2018
Indeed but it in a lie old by Mrs May who clearly wants UK to be in pole position to slip effortlessly in to the Federal State of Europe when it is founded – around 2028-30 according to the EU’s current plans. Chequers is the accession/association agreement.
November 13, 2018
As I have been saying for sometime now.
November 12, 2018
The EU Internal Market (SM)’s associated fall in GDP growth rates:
ā¢ Before Single Market (1968-1992) : 2.5% ave GDP growth p.a.
ā¢ Since Single Market (1993-2017) : 2.2% ave GDP growth p.a.
https://facts4eu.org/news_feb_2018.shtml#sgl
The reason is EU over-regulation. Economists for Free Trade estimate: āthat EU regulation has reduced UK GDP by around 6%; that probably about a third of this can be reversed [without adverse consequence] giving us a projected gain of 2% of GDP, or a growth rate 0.15% per annum faster over the next 15 yearsā http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/08/15/the-reasons-the-pm-gives-to-surrender-our-powers-of-self-government-again-over-the-supply-of-goods/#comment-954904
Now: “In the latest quarter, overall growth in the euro-zone slumped to just 0.2 per cent. That is a third of the British rate. It was dragged down by Italy going all the way down to zero, but even France, the best performing major economy for the quarter, only managed 0.4 per cent. There is not much sign that it will get better any time soon. … With its biggest economy slowing sharply, and with the European Central Bank winding up quantitative easing, there is little chance of acceleration in growth any time soon.” https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/11/could-the-uk-out-grow-the-eu-after-brexit/ https://order-order.com/2018/11/09/eu-experiencing-significant-growth-slowdown/
November 12, 2018
The Irish economic stats are massively distorted by the large capital flows that go through it. Mainly from tax dodging global corporations that are based there to take advantage of its low corporation tax: and, a nice little tax dodge called a “double Irish with a Dutch sandwich”.
You may have read that the UK economy is currently about Ā£40 billion short of where it should be (2% of GDP) since the referendum. That is, slightly more than the infamous Ā£39 billion EU divorce settlement bill. You can work this out from the BoE stats.
Brexiteers, as dedicated “Denialists”, will dismiss the following as remain propaganda. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/tables
Have a look at the first three “Visual Summaries”. The effect of the Referendum is undeniable. Austerity AND Brexit, is a toxic cocktail for the lower 90% of UK income households.
November 12, 2018
Acorn, You know they’re made up? These are figure that have no reality to go with them. Remains say: Oh it must be reality that is wrong – I know I’ll blame the difference on Brexit!!? You are really clutching at straws in your obsession to keep us the serfs of your EU ideology.
November 14, 2018
acorn
Nah mate we are Ā£50 billion better off than where we could be
Just so you know I have a regular meet up with folks from BoE and they admit quite openly that their forecasts are pure guesswork. There are too many unknown and variables in order to model.. was the actual quote
Go and get a job and contribute to the economy theres a good lad
November 12, 2018
Making German Cars and Danish Bacon expensive will not make us richer, it will make us poorer. 90% of our trade is facilitated by trade agreements with the rest of the world with and via the EU.
The promises of the Leave campaign( slotted in amongst the anti immigrant myths) was that we would suffer no economic consequences , no obstructions to trade and and no threat to jobs . In fact they promises an outright bonus .
Not word of this was true . If you take the EU the USA China and Japan that is three quarters of the world`s economy , we are about 2.5%..c. All of Africa is about half of France . There is no wide blue unknown to send Clive of India to investigate even if the idea of of ditching paying customers on the basis of some politicians wibble were not already a poor joke .
On the growth of trade , whilst it is fantastic for Ugandans that they can afford a moped some health care and education 100% more of nearly nothing is still nearly nothing
No-one regrets more than me that the Leave campaign have cost the country Ā£40 billion and more but no-one in government can afford to threaten the EU with theft .
The Doctor who discredited the MMR vaccine was at least disciplined . I wonder why spreading these myths is ok. it will probably do as much damage
November 12, 2018
You confirm exactly John’s observation that you are focussed only on trade.
The Leave campaign said the EU, and German car makers and so on, would be very keen to have a trade agreement with us as they are net exporters – this has turned out to be 100% true and May has offered them exactly what they want: UK to stay in the CU for all time. Leave the CU then they’ll come running for a normal free trade agreement like Canada.
November 12, 2018
Free trade with the EU would indeed be a good thing for both the UK and the EU 27. It seems however that the EU are unwilling to offer this without totally unacceptable controls over all the rules & standards. open door immigration and controls of the UK legal system.
If they remain so obstructive it is not a large problem as we can just switch some EU export production to the home market or to other exports. Multinational already have EU bases. We after all import more from them than the reverse so after adjustment we would be rather better off.
The EU policy of being as unhelpful as possible on Brexit (even when this is not in the economic interests of the 27) to discourage the others from leaving and try to force the UK to remain) is a very foolish plan for the EU bureaucrats. Who would want to remain within a group that behaves in this way people who want to leave? They can after all damage the UK far more if we are in and under the ECJ than if we are cleanly out of it.
Who wants to remain in an expensive club when the only reason for staying is that the other members will hugely mistreat you should you try to leave and mistreat you a bit less (in the short term anyway) if you remain? Clubs should be things you want to join for the benefit you receive, but can leave at any point if these benefits are not worth it. They should not be prisons where you get beaten up if you try to leave.
November 12, 2018
The EU’s proportion of overall global trade is 15% and falling. We need to trade with the rest of the world as their economies are growing. You have highlighted the enormous potential of Africa.
November 12, 2018
You and John Redwood seem unable to understand we can and do trade perfectly well with the rest of the world without giving up all the adantages of being in the EU
November 12, 2018
Are the “advantages” worth Ā£10+ Billion a year?
It seems like 19 Countries in the EU actually pay nothing to trade and actually get a “discount” on their membership fees.
Don’t forget we will be losing Mrs Thatchers rebate soon and when the EU expands to 34 countries further loss of Qualified Majority Voting.
And from the “Five Presidents Report” are you Ok with joining the Euro?
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/five-presidents-report-completing-europes-economic-and-monetary-union_en
November 12, 2018
Philip, We can only trade with the rest of the world whilst the EU allows us to, and on the EU’s terms. We can and will trade perfectly well with the EU without giving up all the adantages of being independent.
November 12, 2018
Yes but we would have to have open door immigration, load of pointless red tape, daft employment laws, expensive energy and no real democracy at all. Plus it would get worse and worse as the socialist super state continues to develop or perhaps explode.
Government by a top down government that we cannot remove. People who do not even live in the UK or have its interests at heart! Not even first language English speakers in the main who may know almost nothing about the UK.
November 12, 2018
You seem unable to understand that we can’t negotiate our own preferential trade deals with the rest of the world as an EU member. The EU aren’t interested in a free trade deal.
November 12, 2018
”Advantages”? Perhaps you could spend a few minutes listing them here. Obviously, you believe some of us need educating. Now’s your chance.
November 12, 2018
About from having given up control of our borders, our laws, immigration, fisheries and having to pay excessive tariff rates, not to mention a Ā£12 billion contribution to EU funds, what other advantages of EU membership can you think of?
November 12, 2018
Nothing prevents us for trading with Africa in the EU . The problem with trading with Africa outside the EU is that the only thing of value we have to offer is to lower agri-business barriers.
I see little prospect of the Conservative Party bankrupting British farming so this is all just waffle
November 12, 2018
Newmania, In the EU, nothing (yet) prevents us trading with Africa, under terms set by the EU. But for how long? Out of the EU we are in control of our own trade policy.
One of those policies will, I hope, make EU stuff more expensive whilst reducing the cost of the same stuff from the rest of the world. What’s not to like?
November 12, 2018
The EU imports green coffee beans from Africa but puts a tariff on roasted beans so German companies can make the profit from the higher value product.
Like the EU we do not grow coffee beans here so we could import green and roasted beans from Africa with no penalty to the African growers, a boost to their economies and no impact at all on our farmers together with potentially cheaper Ethiopian Sidamo or Kenyan roasted beans. We and Africa wins, the EU loses.
The other way round we can offer quite a lot by way of medicinal expertise, education, telecommunications expertise and the like.
The question is if the EU provides us any value at all with it’s extensive trade agreements if they only serves to support German manufacturing and French or Dutch agriculture.
November 12, 2018
We can import fruit and veg that doesn’t grow here and protect British farmers as much as we want.
November 12, 2018
Quite right: how will our farmers compete with North African oranges or Kenyan coffee, tea and tobacco and worst of all they will no longer be subsidised by the EU to grow sugar beet or rapeseed when South African cane sugar and vegetable oils are so much cheaper. Our poor farmers will be forced to produce what they did before we joined the entirely corrupt CAP: the horror. Still the English housewife will be happy.
November 12, 2018
forthurst
“Our poor farmers will be forced to produce what they did before we joined the entirely corrupt CAP”
Not necessarily a bad thing.
“Still the English housewife will be happy.”
Believe it or not, that is essential.
November 12, 2018
No, we replace EU produce with African.
Africans get richer, we have cheaper produce, our farmers carry on as before.
What’s not to like?
November 12, 2018
86.1% of global exports are non-EU
http://facts4eu.org/news_aug_b_2018.shtml#exp2
And just the USAās GDP which is 34% bigger than all the EU27ās GDP. https://facts4eu.org/news_janc_2018.shtml#lie The USA is by some way the UKās largest export market. The USA is also much more of a seamless single market (language, tax, regulation), particularly for Services than the EU27.
November 12, 2018
Yet you state two myths in your own post NM.
Why will German cars and Danish bacon be more expensive?
Why has it cost the UK Ā£40 billion as you stated?
November 12, 2018
…and why do we need German cars and Danish bacon?
November 12, 2018
Because just about the only all British cars are McLarens and you canāt afford one?
November 13, 2018
Silly comment andy.
November 13, 2018
Andy
Theres no such thing as an All any country car. Most German cars source key components and software from UK companies for instance .
The point is we can buy cars from anywhere, Japan, Tokyo, UK, South Korea etc
Now toddle off in your Peugeot back to France
ps I sold my McLaren , nice car but impractical.
November 12, 2018
Amazing rubbish. Making german cars and danish bacon more expensive will make british made cars and bacon more in demand and cheaper. 90% of world demand will come from outside the eu within the next 10 years, source … the eu itself, your “argument” that the uk is an insignificant part of the world economy only verifies that the real opportunities lie outside the eu. Just because developing countries like many in africa are not as big consumers as say France is a condemnation of France’s and the eu’s protectionist approach to trade. Our trade with the rest of the world is done through our own contacts and not through the eu per say.
Its the remoan campaign that is costing us 40 billion and wants to cost us even more by staying in the sclerotic and failing eurocracy.
No mention by you of the devastating effect that going against the referendum result will have on our democracy .. the will of the people means nothing if that happens.
November 12, 2018
Remain told us there would be no EU army.
Well Macron says there will be and that’s enough for me to want to get out.
So trade comes with absorption into a superstate. You don’t mention this, Newmania, which is is bloody BIG omission on your part.
My vote goes down to 1/28 of what it was and gets completely ignored anyway, but I get to eat bacon which is slightly cheaper… until they demand we join the euro and start setting our interest rates.
Yay !
BTW the referendum question by the Remain government was dishonest too. What was really being asked was “Do you want FULL membership of the EU or NO membership ?” Had we voted Remain we would have given a mandate to drop all of our exemptions. We would have been ratcheted into the euro by now.
November 12, 2018
Newmania, If you are going to make your case for the UK to be a province of the EU empire because of your (unfounded) belief we will be richer in the EU, at least get your trade statistics approximately right – see Hans Christian Ivers’ post below.
November 12, 2018
The economist Michael Burrage reviewed the EUās āsingle market in servicesā (SMinS): āIn 2010 the difference between intra- and extra-EU [Services] exports was 0.78%, ā¦ Over the seven years to 2016, the difference declined to 0.63%. Far from widening and deepening therefore, it is fair to conclude, by the Commissionās preferred measure, that the single market in services (SMinS) has been shrinking and subsiding. If present trends continue, it will disappear altogether in a few yearsā time.āā¦.
āThe UK is distinguished from other members in these recent figures by the small proportion of its [Services] exports, just over a third (36%), that go to the EUā¦. Many other countries in the world have offered a higher degree of access”
https://brexitcentral.com/eu-single-market-services-barely-exists-disappearing-2010/
November 12, 2018
Newmania
The USA, China, and Russia are the EU’s 3 biggest markets, all of them trade via WTO as the EU dont have agreements with them, on top of that Macron says the EU needs an Army to defend themselves against its 3 biggest customers
You have to be some kind od deranged fool to want to belong to that.
So far the economic consequences have been IMPROVED FDI, increased exports, a modest growth, improved wages and the creation of 3 million new jobs
Please explain why German cars and Danish bacon will make themselves more expensive in the face of lots of competition
November 14, 2018
Libertarian,
Totally childish and unnecessary remarks from you to Andy
November 14, 2018
hans
1) You can’t even reply on the right thread
2) You make up your own numbers then berate everyone for not believing you
3) You never, ever put up a post with any evidence, facts or analysis
4) Andy is a dim, ignorant, rude and obnoxious troll and if I thought it would pass moderation I would be far ruder to him
5) I couldn’t care less what you think
November 12, 2018
It isnāt worth paying Ā£39bn to stay in this customs union.
You can say that again, I voted leave and that should be carried out no ifs or buts ,we just pay what we owe nothing more, was watching the A May program yesterday with him interviewing Thornberry and that they have had meetings with the Eu about what they would negotiate to leave, these champagne socialist would just roll over onto there backs to have there tummies rub and give every thing the Eu ask for including keeping us in the dreaded Eu
November 12, 2018
The House of Lords said we didn’t owe anything.
”The British government would have no legal obligation to either pay a ā¬60bn (Ā£52bn) Brexit bill mooted by the European commission or honour payments into the EU budget promised by the former prime minister David Cameron, according to analysis by the House of Lords EU financial affairs sub-committee.”
(Grauniad, March 2017)
Perhaps Germany could be reminded of war debt write-off should they wish to argue the point.
November 12, 2018
The House of Lords did not say we owed nothing. It said we had a strong legal case..
Manchester City have a strong chance of winning the Premier League but there is no guarantee they will.
You make the schoolgirl error of treating everything as absolutes. Like most Brexiteers you see the world only in black and white when, actually, it is all a shade of grey.
November 13, 2018
Well then andy show us any EU treaty where it mentions paying to leave the EU.
November 12, 2018
L.Jones
“Perhaps Germany could be reminded of war debt write-off should they wish to argue the point.”
It’s France that should be reminded, not Germany. The French provoked the rise of the nazis with the treaty of Versailles, resulting in WW2.
November 12, 2018
As the EU is a protectionist organisation it is better to have a trading agreement with it than not. Especially to safeguard existing levels of trade.
That said due to an unwillingness to be firm with the EU (and because those still wishing to remain won’t let us) we have not pushed the advantages we have to secure a good deal
Total and utter cock up
November 12, 2018
John,
44% of our trade is with the EU and another 17% is with other countries under trade agreements agreed between the Eu and third countries and that part has grown as you pointed out as well.
So, the view is not quite as simple as you have presented it.
November 12, 2018
Being out of the EU & able to make our own decisions is simpler & better than being entangled within their mess of nonsense.
November 12, 2018
Thatās because they make it so expensive to trade with non-EU nations by imposing punitive tariffs. Utter protectionism that is of no benefit to us at all.
November 12, 2018
Dr Redwood,
Would it be possible for your to reproduce the extract here in your diary? I, for one, would be most interested to see it.
As for your comment Hans, I imagine it is not beyond the realms of possibility for us to sign our own agreements directly with these countries.
Reply What extract?
November 12, 2018
Reply to reply.
My apologies; I obviously didn’t make myself clear. I meant the extract to which you referred: ‘I have been sent an extract from official figures to remind me that our trade with the rest of the world, largely conducted under WTO rules with no special Agreements or FTAs, has been growing far faster than trade to the EU.’
Perhaps the figures you quoted were the complete extract. If so, no more need be said and I apologize again for misunderstanding you.
November 12, 2018
Hans, You need to have a word with your alter ego, Newmania, about his peculiar and imaginary trade statistics. You are nearly right. Your “44%” is actually near 40% when the “Rotterdam Effect” is taken into account (using Pink Book 2018 figures, and the ONS suggestion of about 4% of UK exports via continental ports).
The FTAs and MRAs you quote (I’ll accept your 17% figure for now) merely help our exports by lowering some tariffs and allowing mutual recognition of standards. How much that “help” is, is moot. Certainly we could, and do, trade with other nations without such deals.
So the issue is, as JR rightly intimates, should we lose our independence merely for a claimed (but not proven) minor increase in exports? The political judgement that the majority made in the Referendum was the EU is a Faustian bargain, and we should Leave. That Theresa May’s government has made a dog’s breakfast of implementation does not affect the principle.
November 12, 2018
Another myth from you hans.
80% of trade/gdp is generated inside the UK
20% is externally generated by world trading.
Of that 20% only approx 40% goes into Europe
November 12, 2018
Edward 2
we were talking about external trade
November 12, 2018
You are still wrong with your figures.
November 14, 2018
No I am actually not
November 12, 2018
Nevertheless Hans, there is no reason why we should have to pay a premium to pursue that trade.
November 12, 2018
Correct John.
That trade with Europe leaves us with deficit of over Ā£60 billion a year too.
November 12, 2018
Good morning
Leaving the EU is about governance. But if you ignore those small, but powerful vested interests, then you will have a fight on your hands.
And who are those vested interests ?
The politicalclass. The Civil Service. Big business. Academia. The Public Sector Unions. Small in numbers yes, but powerful. And they seem to be winning.
November 12, 2018
…not forgetting the MSM in the hands of globalist English-haters. That the English should escape from their globalists’ vision of once great European nations being reduced to uniform brown sludge fills them with rage and disbelief and a determination to thwart it by any means. When we get out of the EU, there needs to serious payback.
November 12, 2018
Forthurst
“When we get out of the EU, there needs to serious payback.”
I share the sentiment.
None of these ungrateful countries would exist without Britain. I think the payback should commence with France and Belgium paying us 60 trillion for the last war.
Not letting the EU into our fishing grounds would also help restore sovereignty. Any ramming or attacks on British vessels should be responded to with a confiscation in the very least.
We need to be prepared to respond to the EU’s bullying rapidly and disproportionately. As Israel does when someone has a go at them, they hit back, and they hit back hard.
However, I have a belief that the EU will fragment all by itself when we leave. It’s anyone’s guess as to which country would go next, I suspect maybe Germany, Italy, Greece, Hungary.
Of course none of that will be possible if the Prime Traitor gets her way.
We’ll have to see if MP’s have the guts to give her the bum’s rush, or allow her to sell the country out.
November 15, 2018
Steve
“None of these ungrateful countries would exist without Britain. I think the payback should commence with France and Belgium paying us 60 trillion for the last war.”
I shouldn’t go down this road.
Just think what would happen if all the countries of the former British Empire sued us for the booty we took from them. Or the descendants from the former slave colonies of the empire suing us for compensation.
November 12, 2018
forthurst
What are you really on about, please explain
November 12, 2018
Boris today “My brother is right ā Mrs May’s deal is the biggest statecraft failure since Suez”. He is essentially calling for a Cabinet Mutiny. Just why is May so totally deluded over her idiotic surely undeliverable plan? One that can surely never be pushed through Parliament anyway. Does she really think that her abject (surely criminally negligent) failure to prepare properly for a no deal Brexit will force parliament to accept her “the worse of all worlds” plan?
My brother is right ā Mrs May’s deal is the biggest statecraft failure since Suez
Meanwhile the EU is pushing still for more “level playing field controls” on UK regulations, green issues and the like. No, no, no we do not want a level playing field with the moribund, uncompetitive, strangled by red tape, greencrap and bloated government EU.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/11/11/brother-right-mrs-mays-deal-biggest-statecraft-failure-since/
November 12, 2018
It is not about the customs union.
It is about the EEA.
The EEA is a supra national institution which controls European trade. It is based on inspection of goods before send-off, integrated control of standards through Directives which are nodded through parliament automatically and a court to handle breaches of the agreement.
It has two columns – the Free Traders whom we have already declared out of bounds and the EU which we are leaving on 30/3/19.
Until we leave the EEA, we cannot negotiate any free trade deals with other countries – or the EU.
When, as is now inevitable, we crash out, trade with Europe will crash too. the EU/EEA has seen to that. And terrible things will happen. They have seen to that too. (It is called the Advice to Stakeholders which nobody seems to have read.)
meanwhile Mrs May has had to cancel successive Cabinet meetings as you very well know because she is at her wit’s end.
Delete this by all means. But please do reflect on it.
November 13, 2018
It is truly frightening that you have fallen for the propaganda and believe all of that nonsense. At least you understand that EEA membership will prevent us from actually leaving the EU so itās a start, I suppose……
November 13, 2018
Mike, I often agree and defend you but, when you come out with:
Which is untrue as Norway, Iceland and Liechtebstein are members of the EEA but not the EU and hsve negotiated their own seperate trade deals. The EEA does not cover as many areas as full EU membership does.
November 12, 2018
Any action that clips the wings of governments and politicians is to be applauded. Leaving the political and politicised construct that is the EU is a huge endorsement of sovereign and direct democracy
Remainers are the political class’s useful idiots. Brexiters have a healthy contempt for the political class. Brexiters are realists. We hold our noses when we come into contact with the political class. The actions of the person who currently occupies the position of PM is evidence enough that my decision to vote leave and hopefully strengthen our grip over politicians and quasi-politicians was the right one
May’s actions has shown us all the depth of deceit to which politicians, unhindered and arrogant, will sink to achieve their aims.
May holds us all in total contempt. That’s very dangerous, dangerous indeed. She thinks she can ride roughshod over our democracy like it’s a dispensable. How dare she.
This is BRITISH DEMOCRACY. The people want to take it back from the political class. It is our insurance policy against Marxist authoritarianism and liberal left authoritarianism
This is the Tories one FINAL chance to take back control from the EU-fanatics. You must seize it for this chance will never happen again.
Get us out of the EU and if May stands in the way we look to Eurosceptics to cast her aside like the dispensable she is
November 12, 2018
Absurd claims that the Ā£ would halve in value should we leave without a deal on Any Answers.
It is currently only about 10% down on the EURO since the referendum at about 1.14 Euros and has been rising slightly. Despite the current abysmal government and threat of Corbyn.
Corbyn/Mc Donnall/SNP is the real threat to the economy not a no deal Brexit. A threat that May makes more likely every day she continues with her totally idiotic Checkers agenda.
November 12, 2018
Lifelogic, That is indeed the case. The UK government can damage 100% of our economy but exports to the EU only amount to about 12% of UK GDP.
November 12, 2018
The threat of Corbyn is much higher the main threat
November 13, 2018
Richard1
No actually I dont think it is . Being locked into this insane May deal for ever more is a far worse long term threat than a Corbyn govt. With Corbyn we will have 18 months to 2 years of hell before the general strikes and collapse of the jobs market forces Corbyn out of office .
If we allow May to stay in office we will have consigned the country to a backwater of Europe in perpetuity
November 12, 2018
JR writes: “Remain seem to think sacrificing any of these freedoms is just fine if they can help us recreate the current trading and customs arrangements we have with the EU.”
Evidently, Theresa May cannot manage change. On this showing, if she had been faced with the Y2K problem, her solution would have been to defer the Millennium for eighteen years and counting. Britain alone would still be partying like it’s 1999.
November 12, 2018
I do not understand why we are even contemplating paying Ā£39bn to the EU. The are not going to offer us anything which is worth anywhere near Ā£39bn. We need the money at home to help sort out our public services, in particular social care and policing.
November 12, 2018
If instead, the EU offered us Ā£39bn to stay, many of us would prefer to reject it in favour of our freedom as a nation. Freedom has values beyond what mere money can reach.
The UK has no obligation to pay if we just leave. However, if some sensible folk were found who could deliver a faster efficient Brexit at Ā£39bn for Christmas, numerous UK citizens would happily pay more than their share, & add a grateful performance bonus with a cherry on top.
Peace & goodwill toward men (other genders are available, & welcome to share the goodness).
November 12, 2018
It’s the threats to manufacturing here, controlled by foreign inward investors that bother the retainers. They fear that the car manufacturers will move production to the continent , costing us jobs and foreign currency.
Years of selling off the family silver in the form of critical infrastructure assets etc that has put us in this position. The sale to. Japanese company a couple of years ago of the chip designer ARM is a good example if there’s one thing I would want to see post Brexit, it’s government support for entrepreneurs and manufacturing generally. Let’s go back into shipbuilding, start an electric vehicle company, rebuild steelworks etc
November 12, 2018
Remember, Ford moved Transit production even with us in the EU and CU, so just being in there doesn’t mean a lot. There are more secure arrangements available i.e. making our own rules.
November 13, 2018
Sakara gold
Well unless you nationalise those industries how do you propose to stop shareholders selling their shares when offered a premium ?
The Tory government hate with a vengeance entrepreneurs, small businesses and the self employed.
November 12, 2018
I think most people agree that there were misleading statements on both sides of the discussion prior to the vote. I don’t think there’s any point in claiming one side was misleading without accepting the other side was too. The government’s pro EU leaflet was not exactly accurate, certainly not in terms of what would happen immediately after the vote. No point is served in going over all that again.
I am certainly one who voted leave because I wanted to regain control of money, borders and laws. I expect us to be better off, possibly not immediately but eventually. However, I care much less about that than about regaining control. If we are worse off, for a while or for ever, so be it.
November 12, 2018
BCL – āI am certainly one who voted leave because I wanted to regain control of money, borders and laws. I expect us to be better off, possibly not immediately but eventually. However, I care much less about that than about regaining control. If we are worse off, for a while or for ever, so be it.ā
Exactly so and why I voted leave BCL .
November 12, 2018
Agreed.
November 12, 2018
BCL. I agree with your comments totally. I feel the same way. I cannot believe how our lot have just rolled over for the EU to dictate terms most probably for ever more. Just what has this country become? Have none of our ministers any backbone? If not, then get the hell out of it and let someone else have a go.
November 12, 2018
“It isnāt worth paying Ā£39bn to stay in this customs union. “ – indeed, and you do not need to tell us, rather a government that some two and a half years on from the referendum result that it promised to implement still seems unsure!
November 12, 2018
The truth is John few people realise how EU controls have spread like a cancer through our entire Government system.
It is easy to compare trade figures of past and present years, but it is almost impossible to calculate the number of rules regulations, legislation and other controls which we have just accepted over 40 years.
Our Civil Service have long ago accepted that they simply have to rubber stamp all things EU, and our Politicians have forgotten how to Govern, and accept the responsibility that goes with running a sovereign Country.
As you say, Leavers want us to take back control, Remainers want us to effectively allow more to be given away.
It is far, far more than just trade, but trade is easier to understand, although few realise how huge some tariffs can be when importing goods from outside of the EU.
Remainers talk about free trade, but the EU is one of the most protectionist areas in the World.
November 13, 2018
The best post so far. Well said.
November 12, 2018
You are quite right, and clear as ever.
The Johnsons are understating the case: this is not the worst failure of British statecraft since Suez. It is much, much worse, and there has been nothing like it in our history. When the Normans defeated us, Harold really fought, first in the North and then immediately afterwards in the South. It was a valiant fight which he lost.
This token woman and her civil servant are not resisting in any way. Has the civil servant ever negotiated before? I read somewhere he hadn’t.
November 13, 2018
And the defeated Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Danes who would not submit carried on the fight by joining the Byzantine Emperor’s armies in the -ultimately successful-fight against the Normans of Sicily.
November 12, 2018
Insurance Passporting
Btw Allow me to update you on the consequences of passporting ending for Insurance . As decisions have to be made the picture is clearer. A large A rated Company can establish a UK or EU capitalised entity by moving some of its money.
This would be quite minimal as the bulk of capacity can be provided by Reinsurance of itself by its UK capacity (Lloyds of London has set up such a vehicle ) . (Really large Companies , like Aviva already have a presence in the EU )
So with R/I exempt and, most retail accommodated you might suppose the damage was minimal
In the short terms the figures will show this. What they will not show is that for the fast moving London market EU facing business now has prodigious costs and start-ups with sub A rated security have no access either way .Their RI cannot be offset against capital requirements, they will not use capital simply to mirror the same function for the benefit of the UK
That means London is effectively sidlined from the growing on line fluid capacity market for the future and in the long term this is fatal. My hunch is that a lot of the issues will fall into this pattern .A way will be found to skin the cat for now but the future is one of structural weakness we may start to have a problem with emigration.
What young person really wants to spend their lives in a dull backwater , ask the Scots .
November 13, 2018
Newmania
Oh dear, the only UK firms potentially affected by the withdrawal of passporting in the insurance market as small brokers and a vanishingly small number of them have ever done any business in the EU .
It seems that insurance is another thing you claim expertise in but dont understand
You might want to actually do some research into the underlying infrastructure and technology of financial markets and how they operate in practice .
The London insurance market is the biggest in the world currently doing insurance business in more than 200 countries, territories and sub regions.
Well You, Andy, Helena and the rest of your troll army seem content to belong to an EU that seeks to close the internet, stop innovative businesses and allow German manufacturers to cheat on things like cars and hoovers
November 12, 2018
On the contrary.
As a passionate Remainer I have constantly said that, for me, trade and economics are just about the least worst thing about Brexit.
Donāt get me wrong. The huge traffic jams, extra bureaucracy and increased prices your Brexit will bring are bad. But, selfishly, I can afford them – and many of those who voted it canāt.
For me the worst parts of Brexit are the other things you are taking away. Our European citizenship. Our right to free movement. Our right to frictionless travel. Workers rights. Consumer rights. Environmental protections.
It is perfectly clear that the Tories want to take all of these things away from young and hopeful people to try to appease unappeasable angry pensioners.
Reply Not so
November 12, 2018
Andy, The EU is a totalitarian ideology without a patria or a demos. It has no “rights” of its own. The “rights” you complain you will “lose” have been stolen by the EU from its constituent states.
For example, your “freedom of movement” is at the expense of the hapless recipient country’s loss of the right to determine who visits and for how long. You may not have noticed but that was one of the main issues in the Referendum.
November 12, 2018
I imagine you will only be happy with 150 million living in the UK, 98% on the breadline.
November 12, 2018
Just in case you missed it, Andy. I notice that you posted at 10.51 on Armistice Day yesterday to lecture us on sacrifice and peace. So either you were texting during the sermon or you didn’t bother to go to a Remembrance service.
You really are full of it.
November 12, 2018
Are you still here? Why haven’t you migrated to the rEU while you have the chance, seeing you like it so much? Nothing to stop you taking citizenship in an EU country if you’re worried about your status post leaving. After all, hundreds of thousands of EU citizens have made the trip here, so isn’t it time you did your bit to return the compliment?
Try Ireland if you’re one of the majority UK citizens who don’t speak a foreign language.
November 12, 2018
I daresay that as a liberal leftie, Andy, you’ll be pleased when a law is brought in against ”ageism”, along with all the other ”hate crimes” that are being devised at present. How will you insult seniors then?
Can we have your word that we may expect you to come and speak your words of wisdom once we are out of the EU and NOT experiencing ”huge traffic jams, extra bureaucracy, increased prices” etc (though most of us consider these would be a very small price to pay for being rid of EU shackles). They’re obviously stuff of YOUR nightmares – perhaps your bubble is getting a little too small for you. Better go out and start earning money for those children of yours, who will soon be coming to you with their hands out, as that seems to be the philosophy you’re bringing them up on. Then see how you like your lifetime of hard work going to enrich someone else.
Never mind, though – look on the bright side. Perhaps the Baby Boomer who seems to have offended you by not subsidising your lifestyle will die off soon!
November 12, 2018
Andy
Total drivel as usual
What traffic jams? Why?
Even the EU admit they place a huge burden on business with THEIR regulations
Nothing stopping you becoming a European citizen ( what ever that is)
You can go where ever you want. Travel won’t change, you have to show a passport now, you will have to show a passport on Brexit
Workers rights are enshrined in UK law, Consumer rights are enshrined in UK law, what environmental protection?
November 12, 2018
Andy
“to try to appease unappeasable angry pensioners.”
Without these pensioners, you would not have the freedom to come on here criticising them.
European citizenship – we who voted leave don’t necessarily want to be Europeans, the vote was democratic, you lost, get over it, or move across the Channel where I think you’d be happier anyway.
Our right to free movement – we are free to move about. It’s one of the reasons why this country stood up to Hitler. The right to free movement is not a Brussels concept.
Our right to frictionless travel – you don’t have the right to frictionless travel. Lots of things can go wrong when you travel and often does. Why do you expect a right to have nothing go wrong ?
Workers rights – are not an EU idea. They were achieved by British and American workers before you and the EEC were born.
Consumer rights – British trading standards and consumers rights were in existence first, even when there was no EEC. By hundreds of years in fact.
Environmental protections – is a con trick lobbied in Brussels by big business to charge consumers more for watered down and less, and to make their highly expensive inventions mandatory .
November 12, 2018
Yawn.
The angry pensioners fought for nothing. They are not the WW2 generation.
They are the Baby Boomers – the most selfish generation in history.
The are mostly ranting old men.
November 13, 2018
I agree. It sickens me to hear people in their 60s and 70s ranting about the war when the closest they got to the war was reading Biggles
November 13, 2018
You and andy seem to define a rant as anything anyone says or writes that you happen to disagree with.
November 14, 2018
Andy
Despite your lies and propaganda hostilities didn’t end at WW2 , there has been conflict all over the world since then, in Europe since 1948 there have been more than 35 wars, coups, revolutions, insurrections and separatist guerrilla conflicts.
Baby Boomers invented and developed just about everything you depend on. Baby Boomers paid the largest amount of tax into the public sector in the history of this country. Baby Boomers campaigned for and got accepted all the workers rights and protections you now harp on about.
Meanwhile you personally have contributed nothing other than sacking 35 people in a temper tantrum about losing the vote
Philip
What sickens me is hearing the French President & the German Chancellor state that they want to create an EU army to fight America, China and Russia .
Still I guess if you are happy to be conscripted into the EU army and sent to the Russian front who am I to stop you
ps could you find a place for Andy too.
November 12, 2018
You must be very young. Since WW11 we have always had the right to free travel. OK, complicated perhaps by currency exchanges across borders but not a real problem. Similarly friction-less travel – not a problem and one that I experienced without issue. worker rights? The UK unions mainly ensured that those were in the public sight. Consumer right? UK Law was m ore rigid in most respects than the EU regulations. Environmental protection? The UK was way ahead of the EU in common-sense regulation than the EU. Do you know which body has the largest fleet of bottom-trawling, destructive methods of fishing? The EU, that’s who. Who wants – and has regulated against it – the elimination of killing fish by elctro-shock trawling methods wish to be tied to for ever. Please grow up…….
November 13, 2018
Andy
Another one bites the dust
EU commission confirm that visa free travel in the EU will continue for UK citizens
You must feel really stupid being lied to and not knowing you were voting for an EU Army , and in their own words the construction of a EU Empire
November 13, 2018
I was not born as a European citizen and do want it wished on to me. The European citizenship that has been forced on me gives me no rights I would not otherwise have as a British citizen.
As for workers’ rights, consumer and environmental protection, I can have all or none of those by voting for the government of my choice in elections. I do not need the EU to legislate on my behalf.
November 12, 2018
To answer your question…No.
I am pretty disgusted to hear the on the news this morning about how many Cabinet Ministers expressed their doubts about Chequers , but bar the three who resigned, did nothing about it , they went along with Mrs May, and as such are complicit for the mess we are in. They are the vegetables that Spitting Image made fun off all those years ago.
November 12, 2018
From our supplicant application to join, the UK was a patsy member, a net contributor vital to its future.
More dodgy or hidden data from Government/Civil Service I read that senior vets are disputing the effectiveness of badger culls – no surprise there.
November 12, 2018
39 billion is for past debts. Mrs May has agreed it. You are being dishonest when you say it is payment for a customs union
Re[ply The bulk of it is a payment to stay in after March 2019 when I want us to leave!
November 12, 2018
Where is this written in article 50 ?
Even the House of Lords, a hardened bunch of remainers, said that the UK owes the EU nothing upon withdrawal.
November 12, 2018
Terry, The UK owes some money – financial commitments entered into in the past certainly. But whether we owe our part of the MFF – which is only an outline budget and not financial commitments – is moot. Even if we did it would only be about Ā£18bn (Mar 2019 – Dec 2020). Set against that the EU owes the UK some money. Depending on assumptions the net is probably about Ā£0bn. The Ā£39bn is a bribe
November 12, 2018
Ā£39bn isn’t for past debts, it’s a made up number.
Absolutely agree that the UK should be good for its debts, for which the courts are open to the EU to make any claim.
They will of course have to settle their debts to us as well.
November 12, 2018
Terry
Whoops didn’t you get the memo from Troll central ?
Ask Newmania he told us that we DO NOT owe Ā£39 billion, this is an amount we have to find in order to be allowed to stay in.
November 12, 2018
Just so. gthere is an article on Conservative Home by Amber Rudd and Andrew percy that completely misses the pint of Brexit in the way to describe here.
Just one example: a Canada style agreement is not in UK’s interests, “First, it could be economically damaging. A Canada-style deal is not an extension of the status-quo, “””
Oone despairs. No, Amber and Andrew. that is becaue the Vote was to leave the status quo. We don;t wnt the status quo.
Is there something in the air in westminster that translates plain english into remain speak for Remainers?
if they re-phrased it to read “First, it could be economically damaging. Brexit is not an extension of the status-quo, ” we could at least start from a common understanding, albeit a blinding glimpse of the obvious.
Then we should explain gently to these jelly brained people that recreating the status quo as much as possible should not be the objective of a Brexit delivering negotiation with the EU on the future relationship because it runs utterly counter to the referendum result. that is what Mrs May is doing. that is why it is a mess. the EU is right to be asking Mrs May’s government does it really want to leave because it has difficulty understanding her position.
I can imagine Barnier asking Mrs May, “Why if you are implementing Brexit, the vote to leave the single market and customs union, are you asking for UK to remain in a customs union and most of the single market? I don’t understand how I can help. I cold help a third country. We can be quite flexible about relationships with third countries but if you are asking for these things why are you leaving? Please, please explain quickly because time is running out.”
“Ah, I see. It’s a subterfuge. What you really want is an accession agreement!! Now I understand. Yes. By 2025 we will have completed economic and monetary union and in the five years after that we expect to found the Federal State of Europe. Yes, yes, we must have UK as a full member. Now I understand. Yes, we just need to keep UK aligned as much as possible, specific deviations don’t really matter so long as UK cannot realise independence from either the customs union or the single market without the EU’s blessing. That is paramount. Otherwise we will have great difficulty in 2023-25 trying to lever UK into our newly completed union.”
God help us.
November 12, 2018
A majority (64:36) of Parliamentary constituencies voted for freedom – that is the freedom to elect and remove those who set our tax and spending plans, decide the policy on immigration and foreign affairs etc..
Freedom is priceless.
The economy was clearly not the top concern as we were warned in no uncertain terms by the PM, the Chancellor, the Governor of the BoE, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the CBI, the IMF, the corporates, the POTUS, the EU, the hedge funds etc. that a vote to leave would bring disaster but a majority still voted to leave.
This is in addition to our being fleeced by the EU :
Paying Ā£20bn/year (Ā£15bn loss of control, Ā£10bn net) for the EU membership fee which goes to assist other countries with their industry and infrastructure and goes to subsidise corporates moving their factories out of the UK.
Belonging in a SM/CU which brings an Ā£80bn/year trading deficit and subsidises other countriesā farmers whilst paying higher prices for food.
Sharing our fishing waters with an unfair allocation of resources and allowing pulse fishing by foreign vessels in our waters, a practice deemed illegal by the EU.
Accepting unlimited immigration when England is the most densely populated major country in Europe and consequently the UK is struggling to build the houses, schools, hospitals, courts, prisons, roads and other infrastructure to accommodate the massive increases in population.
Allowing the corporates to bring in unskilled, low wage workers from the EU to increase profits, avoiding the need to invest in machinery and technology and at the same time reducing the tax base.
Giving away control of our military.
November 12, 2018
I have just heard National Socialism called “Radical Nationalism” on the BBC! This is reminiscent of the recent assertions that the EU defeated Hitler.
November 12, 2018
Interesting, Rose! I wonder how many more EUphemisms will pop up as the EU becomes more and more political.
‘Trading organisation’, my foot.
November 12, 2018
Incidentally, on a recent Battlefield Tour in France, we were disgusted to see how many EU flags were flying alongside those of the allies at war memorials. How they’d love to re-write history, rather than just manipulating it a little.
November 12, 2018
Good, clear and sensible comments from you this morning in your interview on Radio Berkshire this morning John.
Wonder if the PM was listening ?
November 12, 2018
Brexit voters or as I call them the ‘defenders of democracy’ are no longer interested in the arguments surrounding the gains and losses of EU or indeed non-EU membership.
We want our nation, its Parliament and its governance taken back from the forces of EU autocracy. We want the reassertion of direct democracy. We want the reassertion of British sovereignty and the destruction of ECJ jurisdiction over the UK’s laws
We want to be able to hold to account the executive and Parliament itself for the decisions it takes on our behalf
The political centralisation of the UK-EU con-trick cannot be tolerated any longer
I know that if the Tories elect a Eurosceptic leader and promise a UK independence we can destroy Labour in its heartlands but we must also explain to Labour’s core vote that this Labour party is no longer the party of Attlee which some of them still think it is.
Labour is dead and the Tories need to explain that. Do this with brutally simple language and with daily consistency and we can hammer them. We can take back control from their liberal left client state
we should not adhere to the old rules of politics any longer. No more pandering to minority rights activist aligned with Labour
An assertion of the individual must be celebrated. Cut through the identity and pc politics of May. The moral majority are sick and tired of being told what they can say and what they can do
November 12, 2018
The thing is, you do not really know what they trying to negotiate, there seem to be two negotiations going on at the same time, one run by Mr Raab call chequers and another by Mrs May call chequers plus, both have gone nowhere so far, fishing has now been thrown in on top of the 39 billion for something the UK already has ie CU and SM.
I think you would have to go back to Mr Cameron first negotiation with the EU and he came back with nothing and called for a ref which he should have won, he didn’t call a ref to stay in the EU on the same terms, he wanted to win the ref and renegotiate better terms and have a service agreement for the elite ie banking, insurance, accounting, financials, and law firms and so on, that why the elite are not saying much about chequers, you do not see any complaints from them about chequers being a bad deal, there was never a deal on the table for the people, there was only ever chequers plus for the elite from the start with Mr Cameron.
Goods are 10% of the economy and services are 80%, goods to the EU 4 to 5 per cent lol, so far the elite after over 40 years in the EU have only less than 10% of their banking business in the EU and the rest of the UK service businesses even less, they would be doing the same amount of business with the EU today if they never of joining the EU in the first place, in other words, UK services businesses have been a total loss and that was the reason the elite wanted to join the EU in the first place SERVICES, they destroyed manufacturing and done everything the EU wanted them to do but were still locked out of services into the EU and they are still battle on with a few weeks to go, over the last 40 years they have tipped the whole country and it people down the drain for agreement on services over the years, they even signed up to the worst climate change agreement of any country in the world to show the EU that manufacturing in this country is never coming back. They have thrown the Kitchen sink at it and came up with nothing over the years.
November 12, 2018
Redwood evidently missed the lesson in primary school which began “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. Brexiters are always keen on jam tomorrow. They are rich, so will not suffer the consequences of their half-baked policy prescriptions.
Brexiters are not “optimists”, they are fantasists. Then again, 95% of our MPs seem to be fantasists (i.e. that we can end up with a better deal with the EU out of the EU than in the EU).
Presumably Redwood, like the other Brexiter jihadists, wants zero tariffs on imported food, so that our farmers can go bust. Or does he want our food and environmental standards to drop to zero, in his fantasy deregulated paradise, so that our farmers can compete with the worst of the worst.
Of course our trade with the rest of the world has been increasing faster. Much of the rest of the world (e.g. Asia) started from a very low base. The fact that Redwood thinks this is worth commenting on tells you all you need to know about Brexiters. The EU has never stopped anyone from trading with the rest of the world. The Brexiters want us to become an offshore tax and regulation free haven beholden to US, Russian and Chinese oligarchs. I’m sure the citizens of the UK will be happy to end up as slaves to the oligarchs.
We are already much poorer as a nation, relative to where we would have been, since the referendum, and we haven’t even left the EU yet. There is no Ā£39 bn saving, that is another fantasy which the Brexiters are clinging to like demented rats.
Reply Wrong on all counts. I have set out what I want on tariffs – lower average tariffs with sensible protection for UK farms. The Ā£39bn clearly worries Remainers – why are you so keen to give it to the EU when we do not owe it to them?
November 12, 2018
wab
“A bird in the hand….”
At the moment we are birds in a cage !
All we want is the ability to fly and be free.
November 12, 2018
Wab, Do you think you will persuade any ordinary Leave, or even win an argument, with such a litany of rudeness, fake news and mere vehemence? Like other unthinking Remains you are incapable of (rationally) explaining why the the EU must rule the UK. It is not “fantasy” to want to be as independent as New Zealand.
November 12, 2018
Wab, you sound like Lord Haw-haw. You and he aren’t related are you?
November 12, 2018
wab:
Your primary school lesson is out of date. It was changed in the 1970s to ‘A bird in the bush is worth two on the phone’.
November 12, 2018
wab
You and the likes of Andy are not worth a rub.
You are all about envy and easy money. Play the system and be an order taker. One day you will have worked your time and paid your taxes and seen and experienced the cock ups of politicians, but you know if nothing else the power of the ballot box, it is what got rid of them. You would have any faceless unaccountable politician rule us and keep us paying in the lions share and controlling our defences, The EU is in the early stages of imploding and as more countries start to keep the traces over it will happen, and it will happen sooner than you think. When Merkel goes and Macron fails the dominoes will all fall down.
All the leavers I know and I live in Scotland wanted to be free off the EU not for any other reason but to be free to make our own decisions but more importantly we have a say on who controls us and what laws they pass.
November 12, 2018
An odd post.
Asia isn’t worth worrying about, and the Commonwealth is so “yesterday”? It sounds as though you’ve stepped out of 1964.
While we’re on numbers, how will replacing EU food with cheaper produce from the Commonwealth and Africa, helping to raise it out of poverty, make our farmers go bust? We can easily protect our farmers if that’s justified (out of the EU).
November 12, 2018
wab
Time for bed said zebedee
November 12, 2018
It’s much too late now to be making these arguments. Mrs May and team are in the tunnel and when they come out with whatever deal they come up with, it will be rejected by all sides.
So with 137 days to go the die is cast, the EU is hardening it’s position and by this time next year we’ll know all about the in’s and out’s of leaving with no deal- therefore there’s nothing more to be said
November 12, 2018
We hope!
All will be fine with no deal. We should be out already anyway, if Cameron had kept his word on what we voted for.
November 12, 2018
Parliament will never vote for no deal so we will roll over and stay in or have another referendum with more threats from the EU to make us vote the right way.
November 12, 2018
I will repeat now two and half years after the referendum what I had been saying for a long time before I voted to leave in the referendum: that the overall economic impact of our EU membership has been no more than marginal, seen in the context of the natural growth of the UK economy, and quite possibly negative rather than positive.
If necessary I can call in EU Commissioners, including Michel Barnier, and the German government, and another German research institute, and Open Europe, and various other commentators, to support the general conclusion that as far as our overall economy is concerned it will matter little one way or the other that we have left the EU – if we do in fact leave the EU, and without remaining entangled in the mesh of its laws through new treaties as the traitor Theresa May wants – but on balance it is more likely to be slightly beneficial in the long term.
However for political reasons the unscrupulous liars in our government will carry on spreading the same misinformation as they have been spreading for decades now, vastly exaggerating the economic benefits of EU membership while discounting the disbenefits, and even though during her African tour Theresa May suggested that Philip Hammond’s economic studies were still ongoing she knows that he will carry on with the same lies and will give him her full support and encouragement to do that and get new editions of the Treasury’s doomladen predictions “leaked” to the media.
Take away the false prospect of catastrophe if we leave the EU without any special or preferential trade deal, defaulting to the terms of the existing WTO treaties, and that immediately shifts the balance of power over the “problem” of the Irish border; but of course that is precisely what Theresa May does not want, she does not want to be the Alexander who takes a sword to that Gordian knot:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/11/10/be-realistic-about-what-our-armed-forces-can-do/#comment-972278
“1. The UK government to make a unilateral public declaration that it intends to make no changes whatsoever at the Irish land border … ”
“4. The UK government to inform the EU that for the time being it intends to default to the terms of the existing WTO trade treaties … “
November 12, 2018
Why are the Prime Minister and her friends happy to support the 6% of multinationals to the detriment of the other 94% of UK businesses?
I have heard that the Tories are in the pockets of big business but it seems that May is willing to trash the country for the sake of these few. Madness.
November 12, 2018
Not enough is made of the fact that Ford moved its Transit production to Turkey, and now we’re importing tariff-free vehicles from that plant. Whatever Nissan and Co do post-Brexit, we at least have control over being able to slap tariffs on imports thereafter.
November 12, 2018
So Starmer says if the PMs deal is rejected then labour will push for a GE, and turkeys would vote for Christmas, under which rock do the labour front bench live under, if there was a GE soon do these labour muppets really think they would come out triumphant which planet do they live on, a lot of labour mps along with all the remoaner Tory mps will be consign to history because we the public now know who are true patriots of GB, I wouldnāt trust labour to run a bath let alone run OUR country , also I see the Politics live programme are still filling the panel with remoaners today topping it with Mr Benn , donāt they ever give up we are leaving get use to it
November 12, 2018
An excellent summary JR. Facts always win arguments unless we have amongst us those who are so blind they will not see and those so deaf they will not listen.
These are the die-hard Remainers who would defy British democracy just to keep us tied to their sinking ship The EU. Why would they do that? Only ‘vested interests’ as the answer comes to mind. And there is a name for those that would practice such a policy. Perhaps a pity then, that such a person is no longer hanged for the offence.
November 12, 2018
Trade is very important indeed but there is so much more to Brexit which you have spelt out many times. We need to get rid of the spectre of a ‘peoples vote’ or second referendum and here is suggestion as to how it might be done which I put into a letter to the Dailey Telegraph on Saturday afternoon
Dear Sir,
The events that have surrounded Brexit in the past two days have highlighted that those ardent remainers pressing for a second vote are disingenuous and the Prime Minister and her No 10 negotiating team are missing a trick.
It has become increasingly evident over recent months that the EU has absolutely no intention whatsoever of agreeing any sort of deal and President Macron, a federalist to his finger tips, is determined to punish the UK for voting to leave. We are being used as an example to deter Denmark, Holland, Poland, Italy et al from even thinking about leaving.
Those Remainers pressing for a second referendum are trying to persuade us that a ”yes” vote would return us to EU membership on exactly the same terms that existed prior March 2017 and before Article 50 was triggered. It would NOT and all the rebates and opt-outs negotiated over the past 40 years would be stripped away.
So now is the time for the PM and her team to swing the negotiations 180 degrees and get the EU to set down the exact terms under which we would return as a member. They should be able to do that within a few weeks and after that we will see very clearly how we a viewed by the EU. They will have no excuse to procrastinate as they have been pushing for this since the outset.
This will get rid of Chequers and allow us to plan an orderly exit under WTO rules.
Yours faithfully
The other complication is that the EU know full well that we will make a huge success of leaving and our trade will flourish through out the world
November 12, 2018
The only conclusion I can come to reading several sources is that we need to be tied to the EU as closely as possible in an extended transition for a long enough period to allow for the change of a governement and national mood so that we eventually we will be begging to come back in.
This no doubt is with the complicit help of a number of officals and ex leaders giving EU negotiators all the leverage they need to achieve this.
Am I right or am I talknig nonsense?
November 12, 2018
That was the general plan formed on the Friday when they knew they had lost the vote held on the Thursday. They would have put in their applications for judicial review the day after that, except the courts were closed until the Monday … I have just turned on Sky to see the news, and the same Gordon Brown who refused to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was saying how it would be a democratic travesty if we did not have a repeat referendum of whether to stay in the EU … these people are (wrong ed).
November 12, 2018
You’re talking nonsense. The national mood is hardening against the anti-democrats.
November 12, 2018
Many of the more productive of us will have left the country if that happens.
November 12, 2018
I’ve never heard of any Referendum voters who focused on these obscure technicalities of trade and the Customs Union.
I don’t remember the Customs Union being mentioned by anyone apart from Farage, and only then even rarely. When he did mention it in passing, he never discussed it, or was asked anything searching interviewers.
I don’t think this (alleged) Ā£350 Million a week for the NHS played any part either. It was a nice stick for Leavers to wave around, but I don’t know of anyone who’s vote was swayed by it.
I certainly didn’t believe it, and don’t want any more money spend on the NHS until it puts its’ house in order. But I still voted Leave.
The only practical comprehensible policy which WAS a factor in the Referendum was migration. But it might still have been less of one than we might think. I didn’t vote Leave because of migration either.
I have a degree in economics, and have been following this all my life but even I don’t dwell on these ‘trade’ issues. We want to get them as right as we can, but none of us knows all.
For better or worse the Leave vote was an assertion of national sovereignty and a rebellion against ‘liberal’ elites.
It’s for these reasons that it’s wholly inappropriate to have a Referendum on the ‘Deal’. The public (including me) are let alone collectively, hopelessly unqualified to advise Parliament whether a ‘Trade Deal’ is any good or not, or whether rejecting it might result in a better one and whether we should risk no deal at all.
Most MPs are not qualified either but at least we can hold them to account and demand that they do what we’re paying them 80 Grand a year each for , and take the decision for us.
Referenda are only (if ever) appropriate when there are much more fundamental issues than the technicalities of Trade Deals to be determined, and only then when it’s impossible to arrive at decisions one way or the other by voting for parliamentary candidates.
November 12, 2018
The plan by our remainer PM and Parliament is to ask the EU to make a “no deal” (WTO terms) and a bad deal (vassal status) so terrible that Paliament says they must overturn the referendum result for the good of the country.
November 12, 2018
JR
“Leave voters voted to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws.”
We don’t belong to the euro currency so have total control over our (shrinking) pound.
We don’t belong to Schengen so have total control over our borders.
And the EU laws are to do with membership of the union, not general national law.
All red herrings to bamboozle the voters with.
November 12, 2018
We would soon have to take the euro if we remianed in the EU
Open borders give us no conrol over immigration from the EU
EU laws directives and regulations form the majority of rules impacting on the UK
But margaret…why are you apologising, surely you know these are facts and you obviously agree with these policies.
November 12, 2018
Jo Johnson has one thing right : Mrs May’s handling of Brexit has been worse than the Suez debacle so it has to rate as the very worst example of a governmental project since the Second World War.
Regrettably, there is only one person responsible for this chaos, and that is Mrs May herself. She has been duplicitous in working with Robbins behind the backs of the cabinet and in particularly she has deliberately sidelined her own Brexit Secretary.
Despite numerous warnings, she has continued headlong down a course that almost nobody supports and it very much looks like she is about to pay the price for this catastrophic error.
I cannot see how she can continue.
November 12, 2018
DOESN’T BBC FAKE NEWS MAKE YOU SICK?
The main banner headline on the BBC Business News website at 13.35 on November 12th is:-
‘Pound falls as Brexit uncertainty rises’
In fact Sterling is 2% HIGHER against the Euro than it was two weeks ago, on both October 26th and 30th and is only 2% below its’ highest level against the Euro for over two years.
None of this is in the biased ant Brexit, anti British, News Report
Today’s ‘fall’ is 0.2% against the Euro, which is well within a typical day’s fluctuation range against the Euro. And we do NOT want the pound overvalued against the Euro.
The correct news today is the US Dollar which has risen by up to 1% against other currencies.
And it’s perfectly normal for currencies to experience the biggest movements on Mondays, because they have the whole weekend’s business news to catch up with.
This is NOT a noticeable Sterling shift. It’s a Dollar rise.
I’m not predicting it, but it’s such small movement against the Euro, that it could well end the day UP against the Euro.
At which point we’ll hear nothing from the BBC
November 12, 2018
Gobblygook..the same old sloganeering nonsense..tell me this JR..just who exactly is going to have the control we’re taking back..for whoever it is it won’t be the backbenchers in the HoC, considering that it doesn’t matter one iota what they say because government just goes ahead anyway and does as it wants..so no chance for democracy here..the country is bunched. The country is bunched because parliamentry decision making is bunched..we need a complete overhaul and change about the way we do politics here.. First past the post has had it’s day
November 12, 2018
During the last 2 years of Brexit debate I have felt that insufficient comment has been made about the Euro. The Euro is at the heart of the European Union. If the E.U. is to succeed then the Euro must prove to be a sound and dependable currency. Will it prove to be such ? I am afraid that I very much doubt it. I view it not so much as a ticking clock but as a ticking time bomb. It would appear that I am not alone in this opinion. Otmar Issing a central figure in the original development of monetary union has talked of the Euro system muddling through but stated that this can not go on endlessly ; ” one day the house of cards will collapse ” he has been quoted as saying. The next major test for the stability of the Euro may well be what happens in Italy. Watch this space.
November 12, 2018
Yes, it’s been a bumpy ride on the old euro-train.
In 2000, the euro was only worth an average of 61p. Now its worth around 87p, a 40% appreciation against the Ā£.
It is a similar outstanding success now being the largest reserve currency after the US$ with 90% of world total (the Ā£ accounts for just 3.0% after being the primary reserve currency of much of the world in the 19th century and first half of the 20th cent.)
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the euro could replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency. It was “absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the US dollar as reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important reserve currency.”
November 12, 2018
So what?
Whilst in the EU the pound rose and fell against the dollar from near parity to near two to the pound.
And against the euro it rose to 1.70 and fell to near parity.
Well before Brexit
Why did these variations happen?
November 14, 2018
margaret howard
fibbing about the numbers gain I see. I already corrected you once on world trade numbers in Euros ( 20% NOT 90%)
Dear oh dear , if you have to spread fake news to make your scheme palatable its not much of a scheme is it?
Now about his EU army thats never going to happen ( cf MR Clegg) , do you think you may have young relatives conscripted to fight on the Russian front, or helping the Verhofstaad Rangers invade the USA ?
November 12, 2018
I recommend an excellent legal analysis of May’s planned surrender of UK sovereignty that Martin Howe QC published yesterday, on
https://lawyersforbritain.org/legal-advice-to-the-cabinet-on-the-northern-irish-backstop
November 12, 2018
Since the referendum the politicians who campaigned for leave have been told by remainers that they are not representative of the 17.4 million people who voted to leave. Mrs May was urged to ignore the “swivel eyed idealogues” and go for the softest of soft brexits. Now they have the cheek to say we must have a second referendum because the deal is not going to look like what the leave side promised. The truth is that many remain politicians would rather see UK laws made in Brussels by unelected people with the same liberal world view as them than risk putting democratic control in the hands of their own “ignorant” compatriots. The economic argument is always brought out by those in power to try to thwart greater democracy – think Great Reform Act, female suffrage – the only difference here is that it is the liberal elite trying to stop democracy not the reactionary forces.
November 12, 2018
Having read on this blog some ritual German bashing yesterday and the day before, I see that the Corbett Report Episode 347 – The World War One Conspiracy, contains a rather better exposition than the usual collection of non sequiturs when a decision to go to war had long preceded the purported casus belli.
November 12, 2018
forthurst – that account is the wildest fantasy.
November 12, 2018
THE BBC’S FAKE NEWS FACTORY COMES A CROPPER
Earlier today I posted here that the BBC was promoting ‘Fake News’ Headlines on its’ Business News Website about the pound having ‘fallen’ today owing ‘Brexit uncertainty’.
Bear in mind that this wasn’t merely an innocuous thumbnail. It was the BBC’s main Banner Headline.
I pointed out that what had really happened was a sharp rise in the Dollar, that the Pound was still 2% up against the Euro from 2 weeks ago, and within about 2% of its 2 Ā½ year high.
I also pointed out that the movement in the value of the Pound today was a typical fluctuation for a Monday and the shift was so tiny it might easily change to a rise by the end of the day.
The London Market has now closed and the Pound is in fact UP 0.17% on the day against the Euro
The BBC’s reaction?:-
They’ve changed the headline to ”Volatile pound regains SOME ground”.
In fact it’s gained double, the miniscule ‘fall’ against the Euro that the BBC earlier was pretending to be concerned about.
The BBC Report also now says it’s still, ‘Fragile’ and it was saved by the intervention of Michel Barnier making positive mood noises about an EU ‘Deal’.
In fact however, of the three currencies, the value of the Pound changed the least today.
Unlike the Euro which was down against both the Dollar and the Pound, Sterling was up against the Euro, and in the past two or three weeks of attempts by various political nonentities and the BBC to stir up up ‘Brexit uncertainty’, it’s consistently strengthened
The BBC promotes Fake News like this all the time. But curiously, only to the advantage of Remainers.
And bear in mind that unlike political ‘news’, business news of this nature, consists of easily checkable facts.
Yet the BBC still brazenly carries on like this.
So does anyone seriously believe that what they tell us about Politics, the Brexit Negotiations, Universal Credit etc etc etc, is anything other than lies and propaganda?
BBC News should be shut down and Sky, ITN or a new independent operator contracted to provide the 24 Hour News.
November 12, 2018
Roger Scruton is a hero and a slayer of the totalitarian fascist left
This PM can certainly play the liberal left fascist card against her own kind. It’s time the Tory party stands up is counted on free speech and tells May where to get off
Scruton is the very anti-thesis of May…a brave warrior for freedom and debate whereas May embraces hate crime politics and the targeting of free speech
When May refers to tolerance what she actually means is self-censorship and silence
May is the enemy of what Tories stand for
November 12, 2018
Why is Brexit Britain being led by a Remainer PM, a Remainer Chancellor and a mostly Remainer Cabinet? Not to mention a Remainer Governor at the Bank of England.
What would people have said if Sir Mosely had been put in charge of the War Cabinet in 1940?
November 12, 2018
There are plenty of Brexiteers in Cabinet and in Parliament.
And the one thing they all have in common is that they are all incompetent.
November 12, 2018
I presume you think all remainers are competent.
You are ridiculous andy
November 14, 2018
Andy
“And the one thing they all have in common is that they are all incompetent.”
Says the man who boasted about sacking 35 staff and closing his “multimillion” pound company because his side lost the vote
Andy is the Dave Spart of the middle-class liberal tendency
November 12, 2018
It was quite a close thing. If Halifax had become PM in 1940 – as he nearly was, for he was Chamberlain’s preferred successor – there would not even have been a War Cabinet, as he would immediately have made peace with Germany. Mosley (with whom Halifax had much sympathy) might well then have been given a cabinet post with – e.g. a job as personal emissary to the Reichskanzler.
Even as it was, there was great pressure to free Mosley and his wife from internment; Halifax was one of the principal intermediaries pleading with the government to free Mosley. Eventually Churchill gave way and allowed the Mosleys, first a special ‘luxury’ wing (with servants) inside Holloway Prison, then house arrest at their farm in Oxforshire.
November 12, 2018
Re Mr Hancock and his idea to increase taxes for those over 40, can you please tell him where to go? especially as many still have young kids or aged parents to support.
Especially as he has stopped treatments for that age group, such as hemaroid and trigger finger ops by dictat from NHS England top down. Especially as many treatments are being rationed to those in their 20’s and younger only in many CCG’s (continuous blood sugar monitoring for those who need it for example). NHS rationing against this age group but wanting more taxes can go and take a jump. How many of the core vote can the Conservatives cheese off?
November 12, 2018
A Labour MP on Iain Dales LBC program called for the British government to provide safe sanctuary to Asia Bibi and her family after she was acquitted of blasphemy.
I’m surprised it’s even in doubt, but then I remember who is running our country.
[This comment has been heavily self censored]
November 12, 2018
In all this one must not forget the simple point that the referendum voting paper of 2016 said nothing about withdrawal from the EU being contingent on any sort of trade deal with the EU. It was (correctly) a straight in-out question. It would self-evidently have been absurd to link exit from the EU with a deal which, for obvious political reasons, Brussels would be so reluctant to give.
Many people simply want the result of the 2016 referendum to be implemented. If we leave after making a reasonable trade deal with the EU thatās OK. If we leave without one and revert to WTO rules thatās also OK and many people are beginning to see that the latter may well be the better solution. It would certainly save us a lot of money. At all events it is quite shameful to use protracted negotiations on a trade deal to trigger a referendum to try to overturn the result of one which has just been held.
November 12, 2018
Stephen Berry, You are completely right. We were offered In or Out. We chose Out, having been told by both campaigns and the Prime Minister that our choice would implemented. And leaving, we were also told repeatedly, meant exiting the EU’s treaties and competences including the single market, CFP, CAP, CCP, etc, etc.
November 12, 2018
How about a competition? A new post-Brexit name for Madrid based British Airways.
When they said āGlobal Britainā who knew that the Brexiteers meant our jobs, businssses and prosperity moving overseas?
November 12, 2018
Andy, British Airways became Madrid based after the merger with Iberia in 2010. Whilst we were in the EU. Duh . . .
November 13, 2018
JR, why is my comment still in moderation while eurofanatic trolls are given free rein to post their ill-informed tripe day after day?
November 13, 2018
Not sure of he answer but in my experience if you utilise stats, JR will have them checked.
November 12, 2018
It is false that it is better for our trade that the UK belongs to the EUās Customs Union.
Firstly because it is far more difficult to make trade deals with 3rd countries as part of a large group of individual nations (28 in the case of the EU and soon to be 34) all of whom need to be satisfied and all of whom have completely differing economies and hence ideas for want they want and don’t want in any trade deal.
Secondly because it is most likely that any EU negotiated trade deal would be of more benefit to Germany (cars) and France (agriculture) than the UK (services) as well as paying more for our imported food to protect EU farmers.
And thirdly because we have an Ā£80bn/year trading deficit with the EU with no means to rectify this asymmetric trade as long as we reamain in the EU’s institutions.
November 13, 2018
I recall that for several years John Redwood said that there was no need to vote UKIP because the Conservatives were a Eurosceptic Party. Would JR care to update that message? Possibly by discriminating between Conservative Europsceptics (who do not control the Party) and Remoaners (who do).
Reply I correctly said only the Conservatives coukd secure a majority to put through a referendum act, which we did