The official UK government wants a deal. Some of the Ministers want to avoid the blame for break down of the talks. As a result the talks continue after we were promised we would be getting ready for a WTO exit. This is holding the UK back, and diverting Whitehall attention from the many wins we can achieve if we just leave.
It is silly to carry on talking just to try to avoid the blame for breakdown. If there is no deal after all the wasted time so far, both sides will blame the other. Most people will lay the blame on the side they oppose, whatever the alleged or actual news background to the final break. I and many Brexiteers have seen enough to know the EU has never negotiated in good faith. It has peppered its statements with making it clear the UK must be seen to lose from exit. It has failed to accept that the UK voted to be free of EU laws, budget demands and their Court. It cannot even accept we will run our own fishery. The EU has never agreed to implement the clear requirement of the EU’s own Treaty to pursue friendly relations with a neighbour based around free trade, nor to implement that part of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political declaration.
I want us to leave on WTO terms. I want us to cut tariffs on imports from non EU countries where we have been made to pay high tariffs on food, but to impose these new lower tariffs on the EU. This will allow us to rebuild our market share of food and fish. If we do not have all the boats to catch as much fish as the EU currently catches in our waters, then let us rebuild our over fished seas with more fish stock whilst we expand our own fishing fleet.
During our time enmeshed in the nets of endless EU red tape we have lost large amounts of market share in food and some manufactures. Let us follow a policy aiming to rebuild our home position with laws, budgets and incentives which suit us.
October 5, 2020
I want us to leave on WTO terms.
Is that really possible under the Withdrawal Agreement. Isn’t it a treaty that lasts indefinitely unless both sides agree to end it?
October 5, 2020
Deal or No Deal; does it really matter now?
The problem for the PM, and PCP. is he’s losing the support of the the voters. But the solution is there to be taken, quite simply it is the return of Sovereignty, complete and unequivocal. And there is no clearer demonstration of this return to self governance than unchallenged control of our Fishing grounds in our EEZ.
The PM needs to deliver, or he and the PCP will gone for a generation.
October 5, 2020
Back in the summer of 2019, before Farage’s capitulation, I believed there was a possibility that a decisive shift in UK politics was in the offing. But since that moment it was all over. The people came out and voted for the same old parties, and they returned a government with the stated policy of implementing the WA, i.e. BRINO. The people have spoken, and they voted to ‘get Brexit done’ in the usual, British, botched fashion.
As for the Tories, it would be quite something were they to win the next election, or the one after, given their cack-handed destruction of the economy. It will be their ‘handling’ of the virus, not Brexit, that does for them.
October 5, 2020
+1
that is all any one was given the option to vote for
October 5, 2020
The UK is near-surrounded by and adjoins the European Union.
Its businesses have, hitherto received hundreds of billions each year from it, an amount of similar order to that from the entire rest of the world. In turn that supports countless jobs, millions.
The UK requires access to its roads, ports, airports, and airspace.
Oh, and there’s some stuff about a few fish too, but that’s pretty trivial in the scheme of things.
The big talk is a good laugh at least though, so thanks for that.
October 5, 2020
Are you seriously suggesting that European nations will stop trading with the UK and blockade roads, ports, airports and airspace to all of us in the UK?
Beyond Project Fear into ridiculous fantasy.
October 5, 2020
it would be fascinating to watch though!
October 5, 2020
Martin suggested no such thing. Your reply is yet another figment of your own Psychosis.
October 6, 2020
I’m not happy with your slur acorn.
Unacceptable use of a mental health condition to attack me personally.
You need to accept people have different opinions.
Very poor.
October 5, 2020
German industry (plus most of Europe, I would suggest) is very scared of a UK WTO nuclear option.
The UK MSM will not present the true picture of trepidation and frustration throughout Europe, should there be no deal?
The biggest fear for the EU “uncontrolled UK competitiveness” Germany in particular does not want an uber industrial competitor in its own backyard or indeed an additional European international competitor, away from the constraints of its own industrial/political policy (as managed and enforced by Brussels), and fears a resurrection of a “British Industrial initiative”
October 5, 2020
You are so deluded that itâs getting beyond a joke.
October 5, 2020
Correct, Sir Patrick. The Withdrawal Agreement – which is Boris’s oven ready deal – lasts indefinitely, and commits the UK to a lot of measures which apply to, and in the case of state aid beyond, Northern Ireland. John Redwood often seems unaware of what he voted for
October 5, 2020
Yet if there is no deal the Withdrawal Agreement doesn’t become effective.
October 5, 2020
Wrong as usual Eddy. The Withdrawal Agreement is a signed and ratified Treaty, which contains no clause that allows for its termination. Not uncommon in International Treaties.
A deal or no deal post the end of the Withdrawal Agreement Treaty allowed transition period, is of no consequence as far as the Treaty is concerned.
Reply We can denounce it given the bad faith of the EU and the sovereignty clause.
October 6, 2020
Wrong acorn.
Just wrong.
October 6, 2020
I think you will find JR that in the “bad faith” department, the EU can cite at least five UK deliberate attempts to renege on the deal.
Your Northern Ireland Secretary having pronounced to the World, that you were deliberately reneging on a International Treaty.
October 7, 2020
If we cannot alter a treaty or an agreement in our democratically elected Parliament,which we know thanks to Gina Miller is supreme, then we are not a free nation.
You are desperately trying to keep the Withdrawal Agreement in full force as a tool to thwart Brexit.
It is so obvious.
October 5, 2020
No Edward, the WA is now law. It is completely unaffected by what happens in the current negotiations. That is the whole point
reply It is domestic law which we can amend as we wish
October 6, 2020
Wrong.
Just wrong.
October 5, 2020
Not true. The Withdrawal Agreement is a legally binding international treaty. It doesnât matter whether the trade talks succeed or not.
October 6, 2020
Wrong
Just wrong.
October 6, 2020
Andy, Any treaty can be abrogated.
October 5, 2020
Wrong! The WA expires, thatâs why it has had to âextendedâ.
October 6, 2020
Unfortunately not. Only the transition period ends this year.
October 5, 2020
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed according to the EU.
Follow that dictum.
October 5, 2020
May and Robbins wrote an oven ready Brino with Metkel and Johnson signed it. The electorate were deceived into believing it was an oven ready Brexit. Parliament is crammed with Remainer MPs who knew this and were selected by the Tory Party with the aim of accepting Brino and fooling the electorate again. The Norwegians were deceived by their politicians and ours think that they will get away with it too.
October 5, 2020
That may be the legal position, I’m not qualified to be definitive, but it clearly isn’t the practical, real world position.
Sovereignty means that whatever the UK government decides to do becomes law and therefore reality.
Short of an invasion to enforce its view of its treaty rights, what could the EU actually do?
October 5, 2020
It is called a ‘Withdrawal Agreement’. Who ever thought that it should last after withdrawal had been accomplished? – presumably May and Robbins in their efforts to give us BRINO. Boris in his haste never took it up. The thing should have had a sunset clause otherwise we can never be truly free, independent and sovereign. No other independent nation has such a thing and I don’t see Japan or Canada doing it. It must be repealed immediately after 1st January 2021 regardless, as item one of business in our new independent parliament. If it isn’t we know who is pulling the strings and that they want to wheedle us back in again by some backdoor method.
October 5, 2020
Maybe you should have read it before you voted for it? The Withdrawal Agreement – a legally binding international treaty – commits us to keep paying our exit (Brexit fee) until the mid 2060s. 2064 to be precise. When Graham1946 will be turning 118 and his grandchildren will be pensioners. They are literally paying for your Brexit folly for their entire adult lives. Still, they will have undone it by then.
Reply The Act contains a sovereignty override which I want us to trigger.
October 6, 2020
Andy, Most countries in the world do not think that independence is folly. Why do you?
October 5, 2020
Well said JR. I fear Johnson will capitulate , his record demonstrates this time and again. He has already capitulated on every date he has given, signed up to May’s vassalage agreement he said he never do. Whiteha; is running rings around him.
Let us not forget the head of the new head of the civil service drafted the N.Ireland protocol! Hardly instils confidence does it! What was Johnson thinking to appoint such a person?
October 5, 2020
. . . and the Government should repeal the Withdrawal Act and Political Declaration before 31st December 2020.
October 5, 2020
đđ you on the booze?
October 5, 2020
No the WA is a temporary Treaty with an expiry date, which has had to be extended several times to appease the Remain establishment. If it is not extended (again) it falls and we trade on the default WTO terms which are the best terms for the U.K. anyway.
October 5, 2020
Lynn Atkinson
can we please have some data and source for this statement and it is not substantiated in amy form as usual
October 6, 2020
It is plain that you and the other ultra remainers are truly desperate for the UK to be tied to the Withdrawal Agreement in perpetuity.
I wonder why?
October 6, 2020
NickC
I have never said tha is teh case nor would I as it is not nescessairly beneficial with a FT agreement. But that has of course never stopped you from making conlcusions on my behalf nor will that ever change
October 5, 2020
The WA is a permanent Treaty. It has no expiry date. It has never been extended, and there is no provision in it allowing for extension. And the UK cannot trade on WTO terms alone, it is bound by the WA. To think Brexiters seem surprised when people say they have no idea what they voted for …
October 6, 2020
Ridiculous concept of perpetual treaties.
Trade based treaties are altered often.
October 6, 2020
Edward 2
I have explained this to you before , all treaaties are often changed over time through mutual negotiati0n and understanding. ( Like DK German border several times)., but not 4 months later by one side only.
October 7, 2020
One side can and have altered and even rejected an agreement and a treaty.
It is what independent democratic nations do on occasions.
October 6, 2020
Tarma, No treaty is permanent. The effects of the WA transition has an expiry date. The expiry date could have been extended under WA Art132. The phrase “on WTO terms alone” is short hand for the UK trading with the world without bilateral trade “deals”. The WA can be abrogated. To think Remains seem surprised when people say they have no idea what they’re talking about . . .
October 7, 2020
NickC
there are usually some deal linked between countries even under WTO if you look it up
October 5, 2020
If the EU don’t want to accept our freedom, what they want is worthless.
October 5, 2020
But it is the UK’s negotiators who want a great amount from the European Union on the one hand, but do not seem to understand that it is not under any obligation whatsoever to grant that on the other.
Simple things, like the right for UK trucks to drive on its roads, and for driving licences to be recognised, for instance, but a great many of these, and far more complex ones too, like regulatory recognition for a very wide range of goods and services.
You just don’t get it, do you?
October 5, 2020
Works both ways.
October 5, 2020
That which costs more than freedom is unwanted.
October 5, 2020
We want nothing! We are not charging them for access to our market, and commitments that their abysmal food standards, for example, are raised to match our own. 33,000 people in the EU die of food poisoning each year! A disgrace!
October 5, 2020
Doesn’t the same apply to the EU? More than two thirds of trucks working between EU and UK are not British but mainly EU. You just don’t get it do you?
October 5, 2020
Driving licences are recognised now, why not after Brexit? Itâs just a choice. Carry on with no disruption or have a load of disruption over something essentially trivial.
We have regulatory recognition now. Why not carry on? Itâs a choice. Sure, new goods or services will need regulator recognition but existing goods and services do not. Itâs a choice. Hard or easy.
Anyone sane, anyone practical, anyone affected by the consequences would choose easy. EU apparatchiks with their guaranteed salaries and pensions are not affected. They should not be allowed to screw things up.
October 6, 2020
Very well said Mike.
October 6, 2020
Yes, Mike has presented excellent points.
Perhaps the EU think drivers’ skills, competence and qualifications would suddenly worsen into risky, solely by their home nation becoming free!
October 5, 2020
On the subject of the be people don’t get…
“the right for UK trucks to drive on its (EU’s) roads, and for driving licences to be recognised”
These aren’t things that the UK “wants” from the EU, these are normal things that neighbouring states do for each other, so that similar courtesies are extended to themselves. They are mutual benefits.
If your argument is that the EU seems reluctant to grant the UK the normal facilities that neighbouring countries provide to each other, then I am in agreement with you.
If your point is that the UK is asking for something exceptional, then you are mistaken.
October 5, 2020
The EU exports to the UK, by value and weight, more than the UK imports, by value and weight, from the EU.
The goods are generally carried by a trucker of the exporting party.
So it is more valuable for the EU that their trucks can drive on UK roads than it is for the UK that their trucks can drive on EU roads.
And that doesn’t even begin to describe the plight of Ireland with most of their exports to the rest of the EU using the UK as a land bridge.
October 5, 2020
Sorry
The EU exports to the UK, by value and weight, more than the UK exports, by value and weight, to the EU.
October 6, 2020
Adam,
Kindly explain and give examples, thank you
October 6, 2020
I believe Adam was saying that freedom is the most valuable commodity.
I’m not surprised that you were unable to understand what he meant.
October 6, 2020
Edward 2
I wish you had better thingks to do
October 7, 2020
Hilarious coming from you.
I was just trying to be helpful
Lighten up bill.
October 5, 2020
Sir John,
You think and write such common sense. It really is difficult, to those of us who concur with your views, to understand why supposedly great minds that find themselves able to actually deliver what the people told them they wanted, somehow continue to shy from making the obvious decision which will permit the British Nation to move on from these years of uncertainty and worldwide diminution of the UK’s standing.
Scrap the WA, declare, this very day, WTO terms from 1st January 2021 and put everyone out of their misery!
October 5, 2020
Seconded.
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
Declare WTO from the 16th October….the said fixed deadline
October 5, 2020
+1 A famous Tory Lord has today told me that he fears âBoris is out of his depthâ.
October 5, 2020
I fear he might be correct
October 5, 2020
what! only just realised?
October 5, 2020
….make it 21st October.
Then we can rub it in a bit, by raising a glass to both the Admiral, and to having finally left the âŹUSSR.
October 5, 2020
Arrrrr Trafalgar Day – thought we couldn’t celebrate our hero’s anymore
October 5, 2020
I think Boris has agreed an extension of another month. I am devastated. As if 4 years is not long enough to suffer this awful EU. I was so keen that we would walk away on the 16th on WTO. Any deal with the EU will be like shaking hands with the devil. That devil being the ECJ.
October 5, 2020
If he has its the end of trust with the people
October 5, 2020
Every Tory MP worth their salt needs to walk away from this government – they’re not the government of the people
October 5, 2020
Membership of the Single Market and Customs Union are a joy, not a misery, for millions of UK people in businesses, engaged in hundreds of billions worth a year of commerce with the European Union.
Your post is, to be polite, rather fanciful.
October 5, 2020
Countries like South Korea, America and China sell huge amounts into Europe without being part of the Single Market nor Custom Union.
Japan has only had a trade deal with the EU recently yet for decades before sold huge amounts of products into Europe and the UK.
October 5, 2020
Edward 2
yes and s what this is also why they have set operations in the EU to benefit from one big market
October 6, 2020
Fails to answer my point.
Many non EU member nations trade succesfully and in huge volumes in Europe.
And have done for decades.
October 5, 2020
So much so that Japan killed our motorbike and most of the car industry. Remoaners just don’t remember life before the EU and can see no other way of doing things.
October 6, 2020
Graham 1946
This is because netiher the UKauto indusry (BL) or motrbike industry cold compte on quality ,itis called free competition
October 6, 2020
So you agree with both of us that Japan sold huge volumes of goods into Europe and UK for decades.
Despite not being in the EU and its single market, despite not being in its customs union and not even having a trade deal until recently.
October 6, 2020
Edward 2
no it actually answers teh question you asked. Poor response from you as this is exactly why the set up manufacturing operations in the UK and other European countries
October 7, 2020
You have now switched to a different argument bill.
We agree that many nations sell into European markets and have done for decades.
The reasons some companies set up plants in the UK are many and various.
BMW and VAG have big plants in USA for example.
October 5, 2020
âJoyâ, lol
October 5, 2020
Funny that they donât think so! All they see is red tape and taxes, and of course there is no âseamless tradeâ, piles of paperwork and rigging of access to the market by the EU blob.
October 5, 2020
I want to leave on WTO rules as well. Any deal with the EU will have us tied in some way to the ECJ. I was so disappointed that Boris has agreed to extent the talks yet another month. So disappointed. The EU will never respect our sovereignty, never. We must be seen to fail and also to be punished to save the polit bureau in Brussels. Anything else including our success will see other nations wanting to leave. So their objective is our failure and punishment, nothing else. Boris must not let us down on this. He must not. We have waited so long for a proper exit from this awful corrupt and difunctional experiment gone wrong. I think the backlash if he caves in will be enormous.
October 5, 2020
Backlash?
From this government-terrorised, masked population?
Trembling every time anyone sneezes.
The govt. can do as it pleases.
It has done away with Parliament.
And we are trussed up like ÂŁ70, 5kg, no-more-than-six-at-the Christmas-table TURKEYS!
October 5, 2020
I have absolutely no confidence, none at all, that Boris will not cave in. Extending talks is an exceedingly bad omen.
And you are right: the backlash will be enormous, and relaunch the Brexit/Reform Party.
In such a scenario, would our host and other committed, lifelong Brexiteers change horses, I wonder?
October 5, 2020
Good morning
Sir John
We voted to Leave the EU, not for a deal. So how can our government be blamed for not delivering something we were never offered or wanted?
Let us be honest. MP’s, Lords, the Civil Service and the Establishment do not want to Leave the EU. Hence the door dragging and the false narrative that the UK Government and the EU are negotiating a FTA. They are not ! It is an Association Agreement similar to that of Norway. The only difference is the level of control the UK Government is willing to concede. The EU know this and are playing us for fools, treating us with contempt.
Johnson like all those before him have not got the guts to simply say, “Enough is enough, as from mid night tonight we will no longer be holding talks with the EU.” And simply walk. They are much more interested in what is good for their reputation than what is good for the nation. They are weak. The EU and the rEU27 only understand one thing – strength! Look at how Presidents Trump and Putin dealt with them when they thought they could mess them around. The EU will back down, but only if you stand up to them.
You want a FTA ? A real one ? Take my advice. Walk out the door and let them come running to you.
October 5, 2020
I am sure that should A Johnson fail, that will be the end of his reputation and he will take the Conservative party down with him.
October 5, 2020
Absolutely no doubt about that.
+1 Mark B
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
We voted to Leave the EU, not for a deal. So how can our government be blamed for not delivering something we were never offered or wanted?
Those who had pursued leaving the EU for many previous years may have voted to just leave but during the referendum the electorate was promised that a deal would be very easy. That must have prompted more than 1.5 million of them to vote to leave who might otherwise not have. I think your statement above is simplistic.
If we have one month to go, we need the whole country to get behind the negotiators, assume they are working in good faith and accept whatever the result, hard Brexit, soft Brexit or associate membership however unpalatable.
Only then do the negotiators have the leverage to negotiate to their walk away position. The EU has acted as one throughout these negotiations, we must finally do the same.
October 5, 2020
The EU always takes agreements to the wire, which allows fudge and compromise.
Being behind the negotiators as one makes that fudge and compromise more likely to be favourable to us.
October 5, 2020
Well Said!
October 5, 2020
Good post – and your last sentence is key.
October 5, 2020
Absolutely spot on, very well said.
October 5, 2020
Mark B
Nobody is going to come running to anybody.
October 5, 2020
Fabulous! We want the Eu to add ÂŁ13 billion pa to our Governments coffers for access to our lucrative Market!
October 5, 2020
Bill B, Rubbish. We’re already in a better position than Theresa May got us into. It’s just that it is not Leave yet. And don’t come the ‘I don’t understand what Leave means’ propaganda, even you’re not that thick. And don’t whinge about being called thick (or even not thick!) either, since Remain has persistently characterised Leaves as thick since 24 June 2016.
October 5, 2020
NickC
I did not expec a deeper argument or presentation from you , I feel previliged to be gine a name by you .
thank you very much
October 6, 2020
Bill B, I’m still waiting for even half your comments to make sense and contain any referenced facts.
October 6, 2020
NickC
I do not see any of your contributions with references but that is of course asking a lot of you
October 7, 2020
Ditto yourself bill.
October 5, 2020
You may think that – but why don’t we give it a try and see then how willing the EU is ready to proceed with a real deal.
We do not need to give any concessions to the EU because they would be worse off with a WTO exit
October 5, 2020
Re you last sentence – therefore we would be better off. bull is, I believe, German, possibly from Berlin and not a million miles away from Mutti.
October 6, 2020
Lynn Atkinson.
Medicine and Germany?
October 5, 2020
Mark, it is so obvious. It was made clear at the outset the EU would never agree a fare deal, all the rest would leave and see no benefit to the project.
Martin Howe QC has eloquently demonstrated how rotten the WA and PD is and it defies belief other than treachery why May and Robbins would agree to it. It was a bridge to a smooth return to the EU without deviating from its rules or laws.
The current new head of the civl service wrote the N.Ireland PD! A sell out is int he air. Lock down will prevent public outrage.
October 5, 2020
If Mr Trump gets re-elected can we expect Molotov-Ribbentrop 2.0 and the disappearance of the EU?!
October 5, 2020
Well said – and completely accurate
October 5, 2020
The one and only thing the Eu wants is control one way or another of the U.K. something France or Germany could only dream of in the past, so we should leave with no deal if so be it, Iâm sure we will survive without being part of the Eu club we did pre 1970s
October 5, 2020
The UK was on its knees pre 1973 and begged to be admitted repeatedly.
De Gaulle was absolutely correct beforehand to veto its entry, it turns out, its having behaved exactly as he predicted it would, with today’s Tories’ antics almost being a caricature of his very words.
October 5, 2020
Eu good U.K. bad.
October 5, 2020
The âRemainerâ politicians may have begged, the British people certainly did not. They only agreed to a trade agreement!
October 5, 2020
That was grocer Heath, who spun a load of lies about retaining sovereignty and it only being a trading bloc, not the people, who were hoodwinked again in the referendum of 1995 which was won with a total turnout of less than two thirds, and a total of 42 percent for Remain which Andy would say is no mandate at all, yet it was accepted for over 40 years. We never gave permission to join the EU, that was Johnny Major with the Maastricht Treaty in another dodgy ruse. Its the same old same old with Tories. Be prepared for the latest sellout, but the people are watching this time not bamboozled.
October 5, 2020
The WA and PD gives the EU direct effect and sovereignty over UK law after we leave! Only an idiot or remainer would sign up to it or vote for it!
Shame on all those Fake Tory MPs who did so.
Reply. The ACT provides a UK sovereignty override in Cl 38 which we need to use
October 5, 2020
Reply. The ACT provides a UK sovereignty override in Cl 38 which we need to use
Didn’t I read that it does not apply to the WA so it has no effect on a treaty? Am I wrong?
October 5, 2020
Yes you are wrong.
October 5, 2020
Johnson has never highlighted this or indicated that he would use it. If he was sincere about us regaining our sovereignty he would have been pushing this for all it was worth.
October 5, 2020
JR,
At the moment it is not an Act it is a bill! Johnson is already trying to water down for remainers specious claim about international law.
If your manifesto is true and correct there would have been no need for an Internal Market bill!
October 5, 2020
JR is speaking for the Withdrawal Act! Not the internal Market bill.
October 5, 2020
Sounds as if you know we have reached the end of the road with the EU, but are reluctant to actually state it before the government do so officially. The cut off date was 15/10, I read over the weekend that this had stretched to sometime in November. If so it appears to me that we are being played the established game by the EU. My advice would be, if you set a date stick to it. If it is not done and dusted by 15/10 then game over and we have time a plenty to prepare for WTO rules. The realise that it is only new for companies that only trade with the EU. The vast majority of exporter already operate WTO rules with customers outside the EU. As sure as light is day, it will be the EU manufacturing problems if there are any.
Just make sure the Royal Navy is at sea to stop any preemptive illegal fishing. For sure the French will try it on.
October 5, 2020
agricola,
15/10 we have plenty of time to prepare WTO.
Most of UK industry and business have not prepared and 10 weeks to prepare is not enough.
Hae you actually ever worked in a real business?
October 5, 2020
They’ve known for four and a half years what was going to happen, they were led astray by Remoaners who told them it would be BRINO at most.
‘Most of industry and business’ do not deal with the EU except to be told by them what they can and can’t do even if they never have anything to do with the EU – only 10 percent of our business is with the EU, the rest worldwide and many firms trading with the EU also trade worldwide and know exactly what is required. In any event all the problems will go away once the EU see sense and and agree to a FTA.
October 5, 2020
I should, more accurately, have said ‘the rest worldwide and domestic’.
October 6, 2020
Graham
Yes, I kno ou do not produce figures. But the figure for UK businesses is over 200.000 trading with the EU for your information
October 7, 2020
5.82 million businesses in the UK bill.
October 5, 2020
Graham 1946
It is much more than 10% of our businesses involved as sub-suppliers but you probably forgto to count them
October 6, 2020
O.K. Bill, you are always asking people to substantiate what they say – let’s have your figures. I’ll wait, but not in much hope.
October 5, 2020
They will be preparing for the third time and have got it down to a fine art now.
October 6, 2020
rose
this is not whatall the research from people like the UKi seem to indicate I am afraid they have busy with COvid 19
October 6, 2020
You only listen to the pro remain CBI who represent a very small number of companies.
October 5, 2020
Yes I have (and owned them too).
I would have done everything in my power to prepare for any eventuality and have fall back plans in place. I would certainly not be trying to go from full stop to full steam ahead.
Having said that – the Government should stick to its timetable, as constant postponement costs money in both logistics and staff training (even before Covid).
Get on with it and industry will adapt or die. Simples – that’s the way markets (should) work.
October 5, 2020
Yes they have prepared for WTO. Maybe not in the EU where you live, because they were promised the U.K. would be reduced to rubble. Thatâs why the German Manufacturers are now on the ceiling! WTO with the U.K. is going to cost them ÂŁ130 billion pa. – they say!
October 5, 2020
Lynn Atkinson,
Your continued focus on foreigns there must be a medication you can take to get rid of it.
October 6, 2020
Not answering the point well made by Lynn.
Very poor bill.
October 5, 2020
Bill, it’s abundantly clear that you can never have worked in a real business. Anyone who claims there is not enough time to prepare after 52 months since the referendum, would not have survived in the real business world.
October 5, 2020
Jiminyjim
If, yo had read what I wrote you would not write this nonsense.
October 6, 2020
So 52 months to prepare isnt enough for you bill?
I’m shocked.
I reckon it would be a 2 or 3 month project for one or two people in a decent sized SME business.
October 5, 2020
Most of UK industry is ready for whatever eventually happens, just because you have been sitting on your hands for 4 years doesn’t mean that everybody else has, regardless of what the CBI et al say….
October 6, 2020
Know-Dice
This is what teh businesses tell us not the CBI,it was a survey or more
October 5, 2020
Bill B, Governments and businesses have had over 4 years to prepare. To my knowledge banks had their plans in place by 2018, and were simply waiting for the EU/UK politicians to make their minds up. Have you actually ever worked in a real business?
October 6, 2020
Nick C
I know it is difficult for you to udnerstand but this informaiton is taken from recent surveys of businesses preparednesss,which has been held up by Covid.
Try and follw the actual events and look at the confusion from government ,
Happy to recommend some reading material for you
October 6, 2020
Bill B, Then those businesses – which you don’t list – have not prepared, even though they’ve had 4 years to do so. That is nothing to boast about.
October 5, 2020
They have had years to prepare. If they have been trying to frustrate our clean exit rather than preparing for it then they deserve all they get.
October 6, 2020
DavidJ
You are talking about our future welath and living standards, so stop your perochical nonsense
October 5, 2020
To Bill Brown YES. It was mine and turned over about ÂŁ20,000,000 per annum in it’s latter years. All of it was international trading. Business that has never dealt under WTO rules has had more than enough time, four years in fact, to prepare. The rest are doing it already as the EU is not the only game on the block.
As to most businesses not having prepared, how the hell do you know. If your wishful thinking is correct, they do not deserve to be in business.
October 6, 2020
agricola
this is ofcourse your previlige to thank as you wish on this
October 5, 2020
You’ve not prepared? In a ‘real business’? After all this time?
You’re not a very good manager then, are you?
October 6, 2020
L. Jones
Rea waht I wrote and then answer it correctly
October 5, 2020
I keep reading here that the cut-off’ date has been extended AGAIN, but I can never find it elsewhere. Assuming this is true, what happened to British business requiring several months to prepare for WTO and are our politicians placing us in a progressively weaker position as the EU are allowed to run down the clock to December? I am still expecting an announcement that Boris has ‘asked’ for another transition period and has been ‘forced’ to take two years by the ‘wicked EU’ (of course this wasn’t the plan all along).
October 5, 2020
A deal would involve compromise with the Anti-Brexit EU and would equate to staying attached to and staying within the gravity field of the EU. A UK-EU deal therefore does not guarantee nor deliver independence and sovereignty
The TUC and the CBI both campaigned to keep the UK within the EU. Last month both FEMALE leaders of these two political organisations stood alongside an ex-Thatcherite Tory Chancellor outside No.11. We can see where this is going can’t we.
The UK will NEVER leave the EU or escape from its clutches until both Europhile main parties are replaced by a true conservative party that promotes this nation’s independence, our history, our values and our sense of self
The Tory-Labour partnership since 1990 has ripped this nation apart and all MPs are responsible, culpable and guilty
We have in British party politics today an understanding rather than any defining differences between the two corpses that masquerade as Labour and Tory. Like the new world both main parties are trying to construct, it is and they are utterly contrived, conceited and extremely dangerous to our freedoms
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
+1
All freedoms gone now though.
Aided and abetted by those who should have preserved them.
Traitors.
Serfs had more rights than we do.
October 5, 2020
Dom, The Tory party has moved so far left to the reigning metropolitan, EUphile, woke part of the political spectrum, that there is now no difference between the Tory and Labour parties, except a glimmer of Brexit from the Tories.
And look what happened in 2017 where Brexit was almost non-existent – hard left Corbyn nearly became a coalition PM. Yet when getting Brexit done was the central policy, Boris got an 80 seat majority. Now it looks like we’ll get a dribbled out BINO only marginally better than May’s neo-Remain, but still not Leave.
Now the Brexit “talks” are extended by another month, displaying weakness to the EU, and making it even more difficult for the UK to actually Leave. It is appalling.
October 5, 2020
I agree fully, but how many MPs have the same sensible views as yourself? It is probably in single figures. There is something about the types of people drawn to be MPs that means they get nearly everything wrong. As we saw/see with the climate change act, the EU treaties, the ERM, the EURO, the process of leaving the EU, the reluctance to give the people the referendum, the Paris accord, the net zero carbon agenda, the Millenium Dome, HS2, the endless red tape, tax levels and tax complexity, bonkers employment laws, the war on landlords, all the woke lunacy and so much else.
October 5, 2020
Well put.
October 5, 2020
Yesterday I got a second e mail from my âMPâ.
Only three contacts throughout this whole charade.
One ordering me not to allow any relatives to go into town(???).
And yesterdayâs and tâother banging on about his VIRTUAL MARATHON.
What???
Made me feel sick to read it.
October 5, 2020
Long ago, those who were successful in their chosen careers decided that they would like to give something back to the society that had housed their success. They became councillors, worked for charities and some became members of Parliament. The successful financially in life would never choose Parliament as a career, the pay is abysmal. You are also putting yourself up for daily ridicule.
Parliament now has no prerequisite for success in life, it is for many a career path, school , university, gofer in an MP’s office and eventual ordination as a good chap worthy of a seat. This applies to all political parties of whatever persuasion. Your incredulity of politicians behaviour and incompetence is thus explained. Being an MP today is the icing on their cake rather than the satisfaction of having put something useful back, leaving the institution better than when you joined it.
October 5, 2020
well said.
October 5, 2020
LL, read Martin Howe’s article in Lawyers for Britain. The politicos all knew this gave the EU direct effect and sovereignty over Uk laws after we left! May agreed this!
Johnson just awarded those traitors with titles and extra pension!
October 5, 2020
Indeed.
Sunak sounds more and more like a lefty vicar or a dim primary school teacher addressing 5 year olds. He keeps saying he cannot “protect every job and every business”. Well who on earth ever thought he could do?
He could however do loads of things to make sure plenty of new jobs are available. Lower taxes, simplify taxes, go for early hire and fire, kill red tape all over the place, go for cheap energy and cull all the vast waste in government and pointless jobs. No sign however of any of this from this essentailly socialist government as yet?
October 5, 2020
Ah..but what he means is that it is a forgone conclusion that many jobs and businesses ( maybe those that are not âgreenâ enough) WILL be made to fail.
Why else would the govt. be stress testing the economy like this? Needlessly.
Masks and social distancing are inimical to commerce and it is dying a cruel, lingering death.
Culled!
October 5, 2020
Boris’s lavender list was indeed fairly appalling with the exception of Charles Moore who alas does not want to tackle the dire BBC for personal reasons.
October 5, 2020
The liblabcon does represent the people; they represent those lurking behind the curtain that control the selection of MPs and provide the funding. Things cannot change without a change in the electoral system so that the ‘wasted’ vote ceases to be a stick.
October 5, 2020
I find it very hard to believe that a Prime Minister who signs up to every globalist idea available going really believes in Brexit.
He’s signed up to Climate Change doctrine, such as banning petrol and details vehicles, to the letter.
He’s also not only followed every instruction from the WHO regarding COVID 19 he’s even gone beyond it.
Not exactly “taking back control”.
October 5, 2020
Johnson’s a Tory, Eton boy bullshitter. Always was, always will be. He’s a career Tory politician and will take the line of least resistance to serve his own personal interests.
He’s capitulated to the most vile of hate filled, Marxist organisations namely the existential threat that is BLM. He’s embraced the fascist left’s cultural war to destroy and then rebuild this nation along authoritarian lines and why has he done this? Because he doesn’t give a toss about the UK and its majority population
Vote Labour, vote Tory, get Marxism and subjugation under the Marxist jackboot
We will be forced to submit and they’ll do it using the law
October 5, 2020
And he has the FULL SUPPORT of every member of Parliament.
Otherwise they would have halted the Covid Act.
We have voted in a nest of vipers.
October 5, 2020
+1
EXACTLY!
And note how neatly all Covid orders actually fulfil globalist orders!
ie. âStay at home. Donât travel.â = no cars, no trains, no shops, no cash (aka Agenda 21/30).
Why would a communist psychologist in SAGE be insisting on us wearing masks?
TO PUT US OFF going out if you ask me!
Why would there even BE a communist in SAGE??
October 5, 2020
He is indeed signed up to Climate Change lunacy. Perhaps he just takes orders from his new greenish wife.
Let us hope Trump recovers and wins the election at least he is right on energy and climate.
Radio 4 just now. Roger Harrabin (Catz English Graduate and the BBC’s Energy and Environment Analyst for some reason) said:- “retaining forests is the single most cost effective way to mitigate climate change”.
Where on earth does he get this complete drivel from? Once a forest is fully grown it no longer acts as much of a carbon sink. Anyway atmospheric CO2 is not the huge issue it is claimed to be. Using the wood to build things or burying it and growing new trees would actually capture more carbon anyway.
October 5, 2020
If as has been said recently, although I realise Remainers want to create problems for Boris at this hopefully final stage, that Carrie has infuenced him re any US trade deal not including chlorinated chicken. Might I ask how the couple are sterilising Wilfred’s bottles? Products such as Milton are based on far stronger levels of chlorine than the water out of our taps or washed salads etc.
October 5, 2020
Nor have we “took control” of our borders – when over 400 can arrive in ONE day – and laugh their heads off. Crime certainly DOES pay – if your a migrant heading to the UK.
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
Today it’s reported the Government are flying in illegal migrants from….Greece, under family reunification and they’re proud of this and of their record. Apparently we have more illegals migrated this way in Europe and fifth in the world. This Tory Party is simply nothing more than liberal socialists on the tax payers teat. How’s Priti Useless promise of removal of 750 illegal aliens being housed in 4*Hotels at ÂŁ4 billion going. They cant control dinghies what chance our fish! Who’s representing indigenous heterosexual English people…… no one. Goodbye Tory Party.
October 5, 2020
Of course he does not âbelieve in Brexitâ; heâs a Remainer, but he is PM because he promised Brexit and he knows that! Hoist by his own petard from his point of view. (He believed he would get a trade deal from the EU – they all do!)
October 5, 2020
Yes. I have never seen one once of political courage from him. Get ready for a âsell outâ accompanied my masses of spin. The question is. Do Sir JR and the ERG have the cojones to stand up and be counted?
October 5, 2020
…putting a tinfoil hat on for a moment……. there is always the possibility that we all find ourselves in the position we are today, because the globalists didn’t like the idea of a fractured European Union?
October 5, 2020
Agreed.
October 5, 2020
This country staked it’s future on globalism(aka the American Empire) in 1945.As Lord Curzon pointed out over a century ago,shorn of empire the UK would be like rather like Belgium.
For the avoidance of doubt,I say that as a Brexiteer-smallish countries can have prosperous independent existences provided they avoid geopolitics.So out of the EU,NATO,all the other entanglements;close down Chatham House,RUSI,assorted busy-body NGOs,axe the post-Imperial class who with their sense of entitlement still think the world wants to be lectured to by them and who expect us to keep them in clover whilst they are doing it.Getting rid of that vast cost might even enable us to bring back sound money.
October 5, 2020
I agree with the sentiments here, and am entirely content with leaving under WTO – but you make no mention of the Remainer element on your own benches in the Commons. Nor of the stronger Remainer element in the Lords. So I’d suggest that we keep the theatre going until the very end, sticking to our guns – and leaving the EU’s negotiators with egg on the their faces. (Do our eggs still have that British Lion stamp on them?)
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
Agree with Pominoz, BW and Mark B
Sir John, a question if I may.
Recently I’ve seen a number of articles suggesting that the WA was only ever intended to be for the duration of the transition period and to be replaced by a FTA and future relationship agreement. Surely this is an interpretation from the UK side ? Many of the odious restrictions and unfair commitments will remain after January 1st giving the EU a continuous source of material to regularly make life uncomfortable for the UK for eternity thereby achieving one of their main ( bad faith ) aims. Only by ripping up the WA would we be truly free.
Could you clarify. What would be the legal, financial implications including possible trade disruption.
Thanks
Colin
October 5, 2020
Until the very end- 31st December they will all be away on their holidays
October 5, 2020
You do not have a mandate for us to leave on what you call âWTO terms.â
You have never asked the public for such a mandate and you wouldnât get one if you did. And you wonât ask because you know youâll lose.
In 2016 Vote Leave narrowly won the referendum by promising we would leave the EU WITH a deal better than EU membership. They said that after we left there would be a new UK / EU treaty (thatâs the posh word for a deal) and that the UK would be a part of a free trade area which stretched from Iceland to Russia. You can still find the manifesto online to remind yourselves what you actually voted for.
Then, in 2019, Johnson won his Parliamentary majority with a minority of the vote – all by promising a deal. So whereâs your mandate for no deal? And, please reminded you only got your referendum in the first place because you claimed general elections were not sufficient to determine our relationship with Europe. Because pro-Europe parties and candidates won 8 successive general elections in a row from 1979 to 2015 and this wasnât sufficient for the Europhobes.
Frankly, I donât mind if there is a deal or not. The trade deal they are discussing now is so lousy it is barely worth having. Itâll save a bit on tariffs but we still get all the masses of bureaucracy, the pointless pen pushers and the dozens of lorry parks your Brexit has always inevitably entailed. Remember when you all promised less red tape too? Chortle chortle.
More than four years on you are all still trying to find some benefit to Brexit and so far, collectively, you have managed marginally cheaper tampons and something about fish. And more plus sides for me to look forward to?
October 5, 2020
1 No deal is better than a bad deal. WTO exit is better than EU membership.
2 In the last election parties (you support) that promised to remain,did very badly and the Conservatives got a huge 80 seat majority.
October 5, 2020
It was always abundantly clear that a deal took two sides to agree. You are correct however that many on the Brexit side were far too sanguine about the ease of the deal – such as David Davisâs silly and glib comment about the easiest deal ever.
Of course there were strong arguments for Brexit which have been set out here and elsewhere repeatedly. As indeed there were also some good arguments for Remain. Which is why over 50% of the electorate voted for it despite the united and loud opposition of virtually the whole political and bureaucratic and much of the business establishment.
But of course you canât see any merit at all on the other side of the argument and can only fling silly insults implying bad faith at those you disagree with. No wonder you lost.
October 5, 2020
I didnât lose – the country did.
I have been asking for four years for demonstrable benefits of Brexit. Mostly I get abuse. Called a traitor or Remoaner or worse. Often I am told to live in my beloved EU – which I canât because you took that right away. So far the only benefit any of you have come up with which I concur with and is demonstrably a benefit is no VAT on tampons. But that is literally all you have. None of you have ever come up with anything else, ever.
It was never suggested at the time of the referendum or indeed for years afterwards that a deal depended on both sides. We were told – by Brexiteers – that this should be the easiest deal in the world, that we held all the cards, that it could be done over a cup of tea, that we would have ten times the amount of trade deals done and ready to go by the time we left. This was all untrue.
It is not my fault that Brexit is a mess. The question you all have to ask yourselves is why you want to force harm upon your country and your children. What is wrong with you all?
October 6, 2020
Andy, The abuse has come from Remain ever since 24 June 2016. And you joined in. Don’t be surprised after years of abusive Remains we occasionally retaliate.
You can still go and live in your beloved EU (actually, why didn’t you after the Referendum before we “left”?) now. The only difference is Italy (etc), have recovered their right to reject you.
Brexit isn’t a mess, and never was. What is a mess is the continuing control of the UK by the EU under your Remain WA. For which you can blame the UK Remain establishment – your friends.
October 6, 2020
No, only over 50% of those who actually voted did, about 37% of the electorate, or a quarter of the population.
When you are stripping away a whole raft of far-reaching rights from all of those people that is an important point to remember.
October 6, 2020
Even less therefore voted to remain in the EU.
October 6, 2020
Check out the figures for the 1975 referendum to stay in. Only 25 percent of the voters voted Remain but it stuck for over 40 years plus the Maastricht Treaty rammed in without consulting the people taking away their sovereignty. People in glass houses need to check facts before spouting their usual old tosh.
October 6, 2020
Martin, The Referendum result was c17.4m for Leave, and c16.1m for Remain. That is a majority for Leave however you twist it. As a result of Leave we have regained rights, not lost any.
October 5, 2020
More to the point there is unfortunately no support for a WTO exit in the House of Commons.
But yes so many more positives to leaving if and when we get some sensible government in place that actually wants to:- Go for far smaller government, lower simpler taxes, selective immigration, cut out all the green crap lunacy, go for cheap on demand energy, get fracking, deliver real freedom and choice and start firing most of those overpaid and over pensioned state sector worker doing little or nothing of value from home. Many clearly doing positive harm.
October 5, 2020
No such promise, no such question asked. The only decision was to have a ‘Clean Break’ from EU Authoritarian Control – nothing else
Remainers keep make things up in the hope the UK will submit retain EU Rule
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
“Authoritarian”?
No European Union institution could ever impose any kind of lockdown on its citizens. The Treaties do not give them such powers.
Only the nations can take such authoritarian measures.
October 6, 2020
Martin, EU laws come from the EU Commission which is a self-appointed authoritarian oligarchy.
October 6, 2020
Iam@Barkham
You do seemto get really caught up in your owncontinuos propaganda.
Wake up to reality and deal with it
October 5, 2020
Andy , I have no problem with you blaming politicians for the elongated exit from the EU. They and others in support have been against leaving from day one, with a few notable exceptions. I do however tend to see you alongside Mystic Meg when it comes to your knowledge of what is going on in these negotiations. The one thing you devalue and are very wrong about is the expressed wish of the people. A majority wanted out in 2016 , and I suspect that even more have come to that opinion over the last four years. Apart from the duplicitous behaviour of our own politicians, the EU has not shown itself to be a desirable lifetime partner. Conversely I find living in Europe among Europeans a delightful experience. The EU is not Europe or Europeans, it is an alien political construct that serves itself rather than the people it purports to serve. And that Andy is putting it very politely.
October 5, 2020
The government has a mandate to leave. That’s all that they need to do, and that required neither deal or no deal. If the eurocracy aren’t prepared to accept that we leave as friends then we will leave as sadly angry competitors. They will be the losers.
October 5, 2020
On the other hand, Remain only narrowly lost because so many people believed the narrative of economic ruin simply by voting to leave. If they had known how false this prediction would turn out to be, maybe many more would have voted to leave.
Whether or not the UK would get an FTA with the EU never entered into my calculation on the vote; I simply wanted an end to EU control in my life.
An FTA makes sense to everyone, except the Brussels set, who want the UK to be seen to suffer for daring to leave their sphere of power.
October 5, 2020
Pro EU Andy hate- laced bile sadly as usual . Must have kept you up all night to be up at 6am unless you live abroad in another time zone!
October 5, 2020
There is no mandate for Marxism either but we’re getting it anyway.
There is a huge anti mandate for mass immigration but we’re still getting that too.
October 5, 2020
The benefit is we dont have to pick up the bill for the failing EU behemoth and its corruption and excesses.
October 5, 2020
Andy – As you voted to Remain and voted against the Conservatives in the 2019 your concern for those who voted against you is touching but worthless. Comments from pro-Brexit pro-Conservative voters that they “didn’t know what they were voting for” would carry much more weight, but I don’t see any. Odd that.
October 5, 2020
@Andy,
Why are you so attached to the EU?
Desiring sovereignty is about loving one’s country. To love one’s country is BOTH a Greco-Roman AND Judeo-Christian VIRTUE (therefore BOTH the secular world and the traditional Christian world support sovereignty – it is NOT either or which is a heresy). The virtue of PATRIOTISM – which is NOT the same as nationalism (nationalism is a heresy).
Patriotism is an extension of love of one’s family which is an extension of love of one self (not in narcissistic sense – but in the sense of being grateful that one – that every individual – is sacred individual and of value). Patriotism leads ultimately to happier healthier citizens in every sense, lower crime, lower tax (because there is less dysfunction in the country and so higher productivity etc) – and just a more peaceful nation in general (and we’ve seen the positives of patriotism happen from one degree over the ages – the incentives that inspired, from one degree to another, St Joan of Arc, the Sir Winston Churchill, St Louis King of France, the RAF Spitfire pilots of WW2, Mozart and Salzburg, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, Worcester Source! And so on.
Nationalism rather is narcissistic. It’s about thinking one’s country superior to others, similar to how the Jones family think they are superior to the Jones down the road, or one individual who thinks he’s superior to another. And it leads ultimately to things like Nazism, world war and Holocaust.
And we must have healthy relations with our geographical neighbours who also share our Greco-Roman / Judaeo-Christian heritage, in particular healthy relations in trade, culture and security. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be governed by The Single Market or European Laws and things like that. We should be SOVEREIGN but with healthy relations with Europe.
We can have a debate about how we achieve sovereignty (and that’s important as the ends do not justify the means – and bad things can happen if we try to – plus having a discussion about how to achieve sovereignty also opens up more people to the idea about what sovereignty and patriotism really are – and why they are such great things).
October 5, 2020
‘But that doesnât mean we shouldnât be governed by The Single Market’ – but that doesn’t mean we should be governed by The Single Market I meant.
October 5, 2020
Eventually, we will all have to face the truth about our country. We will make a success of it with or without the obstructiveness of the EU – or those people who still cling to a belief that somehow we all want to rejoin.
October 5, 2020
The referendum question was :
“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
Voters chose to “leave the European Union” by a clear majority.
The question made no mention of the terms on which we should leave so there is just as much a mandate for leaving on WTO Terms as there is for leaving with a deal.
October 5, 2020
There isnât – because Vote Leaveâs manifesto said there would be a deal. It isnât my fault that you didnât read what you voted for.
October 5, 2020
There may still be a deal.
But if not the deal become the WTO option which over 90% of world trade operates with.
And EU nations are signed up to WTO trading.
October 5, 2020
Eddy. None of the 164 nations that are members of WTO, trade on basic WTO Rules alone. They all have additional agreements with their trading partners for mutual recognition; equalisation of standards and country of origin declarations. Of which the UK-EU has at least a hundred plus of such, with the USA for instance.
October 6, 2020
Yes I realise that acorn.
Having spent decades in businesses that imported and exported.
Many can be rolled over as they are beneficial to both countries.
Many are simple things like labelling of contents or packaging requirements or use of standard forms for both countries to use or TIR agreements.
You worry too much.
October 5, 2020
Andy dear boy you lost! Get over it man up!
Your interpretation is worthless too.
Accept defeat gracefully like any gentleman.
Thank you very much for your views similar to the EU it crystalises why we need Out asap.
October 5, 2020
Andy, you just don’t get it do you ?
I, and 17.4m others, DID read what we were voting for :
We voted to âleave the European Union.â
No ifs, no buts, we just voted to leave.
Personally, I never thought there would be a deal worth having : we know that the EU never negotiates, it just does what previous European dictators have done : it bullies others, like France, Italy and Greece, into submission. No change there, then !
However it has, at last, found a government and people that cannot be bullied.
Those in charge in Brussels and Paris should have paid more attention to their school lessons on 19th and 20th Century history.
October 6, 2020
Andy, VoteLeave did not have a manifesto because it was taking part in a Referendum, not a general election. No, they did not say there “would” be “a deal” – the BBC reported (15 June 2016) that VoteLeave said “a new settlement – including a UK-EU free trade deal – would be possible by May 2020”. “Possible”. Why do you Remains keep misquoting Leaves? Probably because you haven’t got a case unless you do.
October 5, 2020
The Remain campaign, prior to the Referendum, was government-backed. For months the government pointed out on a daily basis that Leave had virtually no âexpertsâ nor major organisations on their side. This was compounded with dire threats of immediate recessions and emergency budgets, massive job losses, property crashes, losing ÂŁ4300 per family, and almost anything else Remain could think of, including the possibility of a third world war.
The key factor was that this mass-propaganda had the authority of the Government. It dissuaded a large number of ordinary voters whose natural inclination would otherwise have been to vote Leave. It made Remain the ‘intelligent’ choice, and Leave became the choice for losers.
The ballot paper said remain or leave. I do not recollect promises of a deal better than EU membership.
October 5, 2020
Retiring your tired old tropes about no deal not having a mandate?
I don’t recall the conditional question on the Brexit referendum ballot paper that you seem to refer to: “Leave the EU only if a deal is reached”.
October 5, 2020
Apparently the EU has trillions invested in bad debts in the Mediterranean countries, so you could look forward to not being dragged down with them when the day of reckoning arrives. This of course depends on our politicians not agreeing to be responsible for EU debts after we have ‘left’.
October 5, 2020
We have a mandate to leave. Nothing parties say on the hustings has any effect. What was on the ballot paper is what counts – Leave or Remain. The votes were cast and Leave won. Since then we have had a Remoaner Parliament trying to thwart the will of the people and many of those MP’s paid the price including your favourite MP for your area. The Remaining Remoaners should learn the lesson or they will find out at the next election what we think of their shenanigans if Brexit is not fulfilled in its entirety. You are free then to campaign to go back in if you want to.
October 5, 2020
The referendum question wasnât implied it was implicit â leave or remain, it didnât suggest any deal or how to leave or remain â it was a briary question. The Tory government took it upon themselves to invent the WA & PD
Utter disgrace of democracy
October 5, 2020
I gave such a mandate in 2016. Of course you did not. No-one is pretending you did.
October 5, 2020
This has gone on for 4years not because of Brexit. It has gone on because remainers could not accept the vote, and still cannot. Put that with a remain government under May and Remain speaker all trying to undermine the U.K. at every turn. Throw in the SNP stabbing the UK in the back at every opportunity, ex Prime Ministers with their sneaky meetings with their Brussels mates to undermine our position. Just to name a few things that have delayed our departure. Donât blame Brexit. I hope Boris no gets us out on WTO terms, and regains our sovereignty.
October 5, 2020
Yes they have.
52% : 48% on 23rd June 2016.
October 5, 2020
Yes on a 73 per cent turnout. as against 63 percent in the 1975 referendum which 42 percent for Remain won. Perhaps we could have Andy’s great wisdom on democracy about that one?
October 5, 2020
The UK absolutely has a mandate to leave on WTO terms. Perhaps I should remind you of the question on the ballot paper:
“Leave the European Union”; no conditions specified.
“Leaving” in name only on some deal which leaves the EU with any control over us is not truly leaving.
October 5, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
Andy : âAnd more plus sides for me to look forward to?â
Yes there is.
UK voters will continue to be able to influence their laws and policies (trade, fiscal, taxation, energy, environmental, foreign, military, immigration etc.) through retaining the right to elect and remove those who make these decisions.
The UK will be able to control its trade and tariffs so it can protect itself against EU unfair trade through reduced workersâ rights (such as lower minimum wages than the UK for instance) and continuous state aid starting with the CAP.
The UK taxpayers will no longer be paying for other EU countriesâ infrastructure projects and general aid packages and neither for the subsidising of corporates to move their factories out of the UK.
October 5, 2020
I have posted these many times before and I think probably specifically in answer to you, at the time of the referendum we were told it was Leave or the deal Cameron had agreed with the EU. At the last PMQs before the referendum he was asked what Leave would mean and told the British People, the House of Lords and all those MPs there at the time:
“The Prime Minister.
I am very happy to agree with my hon. Friend. âInâ means we remain in a reformed EU; âoutâ means we come out. As the leave campaigners and others have said, âoutâ means out of the EU, out of the European single market, out of the Council of Ministersâout of all those thingsâand will then mean a process of delivering on it, which will take at least two years, and then delivering a trade deal, which could take as many as seven years…”
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-06-15/debates/56D0B8A3-7371-4214-94B3-239B3B6E078A/OralAnswersToQuestions (column 1759)
It is also available live 36 minutes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BjtP00IRPA
The Prime Minister at the time also defined what Leave would mean in a Sky Q&A and interview programme specifically broadcast to inform voters what they would be voting for, “David Cameron !!28 TIMES!! “Leave Single Market” (June 2016)” he said Leave was WTO see 1.12 minutes in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNnh-KhiLm0
October 5, 2020
Ps: From the other side there is also this “EU referendum: Juncker in ‘out is out’ warning to UK”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36599300
October 5, 2020
Andy
“You have never asked the public for such a mandate [WTO] and you wouldnât get one if you did. And you wonât ask because you know youâll lose.”
Want to put that to the test ?
October 5, 2020
The difference in tone of comments coming out of the UK-EU negotiations set against those from other FTA discussions is striking. In all other cases of trade deals between countries around the world the objectice is a win-win deal. Which is easy as the more comprehensive and liberal a free trade deal is, the better for everyone, and indeed the whole world.
The problem with the UK-EU deal is the EU’s unique additional political objective that the deal must be seen to be bad for the UK. We’ve seen this clearly in many statements such as that by the former EU functionary Mr Selamyr, who was reported as saying “northern Ireland must be the price of Brexit”. It is very difficult to have sensible negotiations with a counter- party behaving like that.
We see this attitude also from a small but voluable minority of shrill Continuity Remain types – one or two of whom post here. They rant alternately about the risks of ‘no deal’ which they think the wicked Boris is trying to bring about, and assure us that the UK will “cave in” to an unsatisfactory deal.
To me it feels like one will get done albeit at the last minute.
October 5, 2020
There is some hope however and there are signs that the new president of the EC Mrs von der Leyen and such other figures as Mr Rutte of the Netherlands do not take this silly approach.
October 5, 2020
Richard1
It’s because they know that ‘no deal’ is being caused by Macron.
I hope to God there is no deal, because that will leave France alone in the room with a mightily pissed Germany.
October 5, 2020
Yes Mr Johnson is correct that UK can prosper , but he like his predecessors keeps having his date bluffs called so the country does not get fully ready. The latest bluff of the 15th October will go by, or he will accept something he shouldn’t, for which he has prior.
October 5, 2020
So avoiding blame is more important than getting us out. God I detest these people.
October 6, 2020
So do I. Such vanity.
October 5, 2020
Incidentally Mr Redwood you have just said you want Brexit to mean higher food prices.
Most of our food imports come from the EU and are currently tariff and bureaucracy free. And you want to impose new tariffs on these. That means higher prices for your constituents.
That is not the Brexit you promised.
You also say you want to cut tariffs on some non EU imports where tariffs are high. Oranges is an example Brexiteers like to give. Saving me a fraction of a penny on the 5 oranges I buy a year will not make up for the additional amount I will spend on everything else.
So when are you going to be honest and admit that your Brexit will have the effect of making most of your constituents and countrymen poorer?
You are so proud of this Brexit and you are not prepared to admit this economic truth about it. Why is that? Are you frit?
Reply I wish to cut tariffs on non EU food and grow more at home!
October 5, 2020
Andy
“Saving me a fraction of a penny on the 5 oranges I buy a year will not make up for the additional amount I will spend on everything else.”
Most of the oranges you eat don’t come from the EU anyway.
October 6, 2020
Andy, Most of our food imports came from the EU (whilst we were subject to the EU) precisely because of the high EU food tariffs. Out of the EU, we will be able to import food cheaper from the rest of the world. When are you going to be honest and admit that independence allows us to set our own favourable policies?
October 5, 2020
Your second paragraph says it all Sir John. We must stop wasting time and get on with implementing WTO rules and regs’ so we are ready on day 1 of our freedom.
Those ministers trying to avoid blame are wasting time and money and are illustrating their complete lack of business experience.
Boris’s chat with the EU president on Saturday did nothing to progress Brexit and will most like extend this useless charade.
October 5, 2020
Hear, hear, Mr Redwood!! I wholeheartedly agree with all you say.
Knowing that being blamed by some, is guaranteed, a case of damned if you do, damned if you donât…expect it and just leave anyway in WTO. Rip up the WA and depart with our heads held high!
Let the remainers scream and shout!!
October 5, 2020
Totally unacceptable. Why would we swop one set of unaccountable officials for another, we should go nowhere near this shadowy WTO. Who voted for the people in charge at the WTO?
October 5, 2020
Same people who voted for the EU Commissioners.
October 5, 2020
What you write today is so important for the country and democracy that it must not be followed up by a post, in a couple of months, that includes a line such as the following:
“I voted for the [insert name of ‘deal’ here] on the understanding that the Conservative Party leadership would keep its promise to review it every three years to determine its impact on the UK’s sovereign interests.”
October 5, 2020
This all has a very nasty dÄjĂ vu feeling!
The country in chaos, Parliament all but defunct and a less than truthful PM wringing his/her poor, little, helpless hands. Or rather grinning behind them!
Brexit? âOperation Moonshotâ will finish off the country so the EU technocrats ( or whoever) can march in and take over.
Has anyone thought through the implications of âOperation Moonshotâ assuming it is a reality? Dereliction and destitution to mention but two.
U.K. has no future.
October 5, 2020
Boris got his 80 seat majority in large part so he would take us out of the EU. So why the pusillanimous fear of being blamed for the talks breaking down? The majority of those who voted for him will applaud him for getting on with it, and simply canât understand the damaging foot-dragging.
October 5, 2020
These silly talks have done more damage to the UK economy than Corvid-19, yet this not to logical thinking Government still keeps dancing to the EU tune. Clearly the EU is enjoying messing with the heads of those whose asperation is to disrespect the will of the UK People
October 5, 2020
Agreeing to extending talks already means that Boris has given ground.
The Eu want an extension as it gives them time to try and tease and dig out a few more concessions from us.
Guarantee a fishing deal will be won by the EU in some form because we have no vessels to stop them fishing in our waters at the moment, good grief we cannot even stop rubber dinghies full of who knows who.
October 5, 2020
No Deal is the only clean form of Brexit.
Best to do it that way, then at least we will find out in the medium to long term if Brexit is a good or a bad thing.
I say “medium to long term” because virtually everybody who voted for Brexit accepts there will be a short term hit but expects decent benefits beyond both the short term and what we might have expected had we stayed in the EU.
It is largely Remainers who are obsessed with the short term.
Any fudging, which is what prolonging these pointless “negotiations” will surely lead to, will just blur matters and leave us none the wiser.
October 5, 2020
Looks like the phrases such as “should be easiest deal in history”, “we hold all the cards”, “countries are lining up to make a deal with us” have all flown out the window.
In away good.
They were just drivel and nonsense from the beginning.
October 6, 2020
Billy Elliot, The phrase “should be” the easiest deal, was clearly dependent on the EU acting civilly. I am glad that at last Remains are waking up to how vindictive the EU is. The Remain government 2017-2019 threw away all our cards. And why should other countries believe in us when our Remain establishment doesn’t? We’ll get trade deals when we show the world that we deserve them.
October 5, 2020
Your last sentence rather gives the game away: â laws, budgets and incentives that suit USâ (my emphasis). This âusâ is the right wing of the Tory party and its funders from Russia and related tax dodging offshore asset strippers. The losers are manufacturing areas of the UK, farmers, Scotland, N Ireland and many other ordinary Brits.
October 5, 2020
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
The EU wants to cause difficulties for the UK when we leave. For them the worst possible outcome is a free and thriving UK. They know such an outcome will be the catalyst for other countries to seek to leave the iron grip of the EU.
October 6, 2020
Old Albion, Exactly so.
October 5, 2020
Sir John has always made it clear that in his view WTO was fine. Should he turn out to have been talking nonsense those who lose jobs and businesses can blame him. The cuts backs to schools and health that would have been avoidable, again, can be blamed on him. The Debts that our children acquire to pay for his present comfort…can be blamed on him.
Its not all bad news; makers of sanitising gels, are rubbing their hands with glee ,and I foresee a busy trade selling pitch-forks on line
October 5, 2020
WTO works for over 90% of world trade.
It isn’t an untried system.
It has been operating successfully to help develop international trade for decades.
Just more Project Fear from you.
October 6, 2020
Newmania, Even after nearly half a century of being tied to the EU (EEC), we still only derive about one eighth of our GDP from exports to the EU. Honestly, the EU is not that important to us – it’s not nothing, but there is no reason for the EU to control our entire economy for just an eighth.
October 6, 2020
You would be surprised ( clearly ) how important an eighth can be – its roughly the proportion of your body that is your head.
I think you might miss your brain even if no-one else would
October 5, 2020
We already have a trade deal; it’s called trading on WTO terms and it comes with an “oven-ready” genuinely independent tribunal panel to police both sides ensuring they adhere to its terms. It’s an acceptable deal, if not ideal, so why have we spent months negotiating to surrender something we hold by right, leaving us with something even less beneficial?
Bi-lateral deals with the few European countries we actually trade with would have been far simpler to achieve, which suggests it’s the lumbering EU itself that’s the greatest roadblock to progress. It also implies that the negotiations have been more about saving the EU from its own failed 20th century, feet-set-in-concrete economic model and its desperation to win every argument, whatever the cost, to justify its own existence. It’s not only foolhardy for the government to adopt a position that supports an EU ethos firmly rejected at the last GE, but arrogant to presume they hold the power to save Europe from its own political class…….again. It’s surely kinder to both sides for us to follow our own clear path leaving strategic doors open, which allows Europe to decide whether it’s in their interests to step across the threshold. It’s what we voted for.
October 5, 2020
Good Morning Sir John
Straying slightly off topic, but not completely.
It was announced last week that this Government is to give UK taxpayer money to the Chinese company Geely to develop electric vehicles. That under Chinese Law that mean the Chineseâs State is the beneficiary. I have to ask why not support UK Industry to the same extent.
Geely is the same company that has removed battery electric vehicle technology from Jaguar Land Rover and Williams F1 that they produced for both all F1 teams and the E Series race cars.
Add into that the Government allowing ARM to reduce commitment in the UK getting UK technology traded off once more. Then the Galileo project just ÂŁ1 billion of taxpayer money down the drain, removed from the UK with no benefit being returned. Not to mention HS2 ÂŁ109Billion, for the most part heading to Japan, while the rest of the infrastructure crumbles through lack of capacity.
You have to ask why government plays so fast and loose with taxpayer money, yet they mumble away about increasing our taxes. Just who does the UK Government work for? 4 years on we havenât left the EU under the terms we voted for. Taxpayer money gets spread around everywhere like loose change. All this government is good at saying is âgive me moreâ
The big part of leaving the EU was also having a normal democratic government whose first duty was to ensure it was a Government for the People by the People. i.e. putting the People in control, UK laws, rules and regulations made, amended and repealed by UK People for the benefit of all, we werenât expecting to trade one Authoritarian Government for another of the same complexion.
Just give us back our Country and let the People get on with real Freedoms
October 5, 2020
It has been clear for the last 4 years that WTO is the only way to go (and once left, to then negotiate any trade deal we might still want from a position of total independence). When will this government do what the people voted for and, instead of dragging its feet, with pride, just leave?
October 5, 2020
The EU has never agreed to make good on all the promises you made.
17mm British voters do not get to change the rules for 450mm europeans simply because it suits them.
October 5, 2020
Strange the EU prefers tariffs to a free trade deal.
October 5, 2020
Not asking for Rule change in the EU, simply the same treatment they have already given Canada.
October 6, 2020
Have you noticed that the UK is not Canada ?
For starter, the Canadian government is not in thralls to Canadians MPs whose objective is to destroy the EU.
That in itself makes a big difference.
October 7, 2020
Who in the Government have said they want to destroy the EU
Name them.
October 5, 2020
Come on Sir John, this is your attempt to head off the blame for the failure of Brexit to deliver anything of use.
You must be well aware that WTO terms are no panacea and if worth anything at all must be coupled with extensive (long and slow) agreements with other nations. Far too late for that, the sums never added up and you failed to make your case to Mr Johnson’s team.
You must take your share of the blame, the project was never likely to succeed and Parliament has made a mess of it.
October 5, 2020
Good morning Sir John,
Thank you for highlighting this unacceptable situation.
The prize now is clearly WTO exit and not the pipe dream of FTA.
The EU and their remainer fifth column in the UK media and Parliament are continuing FTA negotiations with the sole intention of scuppering preparation for a WTO exit.
They are being accommodated by the UK government, who will agree a compromised exit at the eleventh hour.
October 5, 2020
Correct â WTO is now the only democratic option, the FTA route is tainted with treaty, deals and backroom negotiations
October 5, 2020
A very relevant topic now we learn that Boris has agreed a further delay with Mrs Fonda- Lying.
I do wonder if âblameâ has anything at all to do with it though.
I get a sense that the government is just not prepared to walk away on WTO terms. It will simply take the best it can get and try to put a âvictoryâ spin on it
The Withdrawal Agreement should be torn up and we leave. Boris does not seem prepared to do that.
October 5, 2020
Are you suggesting that the deadline of the 15th October has been extended ?
October 6, 2020
Apparently the 15th October deadline has indeed been extended for another month.
October 5, 2020
Entrapment is the real aim of Brussels.
Any legal agreement will be disputed as infinitum in future rules by ECJ.
As Einstein perfected :
Simplicity is the ultimate goal in many areas.
Leave means simply leave.
October 5, 2020
Doughnuts mean doughnuts.
October 6, 2020
Martin, Since you evidently don’t understand what Leave means I doubt you understand what a doughnut is either.
October 6, 2020
Martin in Confusion
Sour-dough?
October 5, 2020
A direct quote from a large EU customer that told us on Friday they were changing suppliers: “uncertainty related to a potential no-deal Brexit led to a local recommendation to replace UK suppliers if a comparable EU based alternative is possible”. Also, stated as a matter of fact not opinion, in our post Brexit planning we now know that 1) we will have to appoint an EU based representative at a cost of around 8,000 per year as we are in a tightly regulated field and the UK has stated it will not accept compliance with EU standards and 2) the new UK standards we will have to follow have not yet been published but it will require us to follow both the new UK rules and EU standards with duplicate regulatory audits and new, mixed labelling as the CE mark no longer applies in the UK which will increase cost and bureaucracy 3) as a minimum, even with a deal, there will be extra paperwork on the raw material imports we make from the EU. I am not aware of any benefits in our industry, nor are any of the other managers I meet at business conferences. Your response might be that there are winners and losers in the Brexit game and we are unlucky. Perhaps so. Bad luck then for small manufacturing businesses employing over 100 people in this sector. But whilst the downside is clear, the sunlit uplands remain speculative and you will need to deliver very quickly to offset the negatives.
October 6, 2020
Villaking, Isn’t it odd how EU vindictiveness is blamed on Leave? It’s almost as though you don’t realise what you’re saying.
October 5, 2020
…and I thought we had a strong united cabinet
Cameron surely showed how too much compromising was not good for our nation — That Boris is also edging away from imposing a strong British exit from the EU is indeed worrying.
JR – Please reiterate for all of those weak kneed ministers just why we cannot do anything but benefit from a WTO exit… Now is not the time to be cowed by the media nor those who work to deny us our freedom from EU despotism
October 5, 2020
The odds are fully on a crap deal.
October 5, 2020
SAD
October 5, 2020
The seas around the British Isle are a major asset. I want the UK to leave with out a deal.
While our fishing industry rebuilds its self ,the fishing grounds and sea creatures ,can recover from 40 years of mismanagement.
October 5, 2020
Agree
October 6, 2020
Not just British Isles, we have other EEZs as well.
October 5, 2020
Is deal spelt S – E – L – L O – U – T ?
October 5, 2020
It also spells T-H-E-E-N-D-O-F-T-O-R-Y-G-O-V-T
October 5, 2020
The European Commission are happy for the UK to leave on WTO terms as they will benefit from the 80% they receive from import tariffs.
October 5, 2020
The EU will be paying the UK some ÂŁ13 billion pa because they sell ÂŁ90 billion more to us than we to them. Our Govt can reimburse our exporters to the EU and tariffs they have to pay, thus we sell freely inTo the EU funded by them!
October 5, 2020
We must control fishing because the EU fished out their waters with super trawlers. The Dutch have one Australia will not permit.
Its not just about money its about preserving the fish in our oceans. The inshore fleets are particularly good at it.
October 5, 2020
Ps off topic, but current. We now read that the Covid figure was seriously inaccurate because an excel spreadsheet couldnât be updated and now instead of all apologising and resigning because they are incompetent they are looking to blame each other.
How can you continue to support this absolute shambles with such serious consequences for our personal health and future well being?
October 5, 2020
I broadly agree with your piece this morning but would further intensify preparations starting today while publically announcing that we are allowing exactly another month with the PM declaring a final, final date by which a deal must be in place otherwise we walk.
At the same time Boris should publish in full detail, the terms of the deal we have put on the table, including the three-year period for changing fishing quotas as agreed with Norway. Hold nothing back so everyone can see what is on offer.
I would wager that 20 of the 27 EU member states have no idea how good the terms of the FTA we have offered are, and could well be very angry with Barnier, the Commission and Macron for making a deal so hard to achieve. Barnier may be a difficult Frenchman to deal with, but in reality, he is no more than a puppet with the puppetmaster in Paris pulling is strings. Merkel should have reigned Macron in months ago.
October 5, 2020
Ps it should not be rocket science to find out who created this spreadsheet and maintains it. They are taking us for fools yet again.
October 5, 2020
Apparently it comes down to the most basic of spreadsheet errors
Databases on Excel are ALWAYS handled in rows not columns
Except it seems on our world laughing stock T&T system
You couldnât make it up
October 5, 2020
There are times in life when you have to take a deep breath, calm yourself and just ******g do it. If it all goes pear shape you accept responsibility and accountability. Yes it tough on those against leaving but the vote was cast. They do not realise the damage they are doing not only to this country but Al’s their beloved Europe. In truth all they really care about is themselves and their money.
Enough of this madness get us out. Out being the operative word. Thousands of us have more faith and belief in this country to make the success happen.
Stand up from the table say thank you no deal and walk away. Is our leader and his cabinet big and brave enough to do it? Deliver it or resign on mass never to darken the walls of Westminster again.
October 5, 2020
So, why don’t Brexiteers; that is the original ERG 62 at least, put forward a Substantive Motion to shut down any further negotiation under Article 50 TEU? Who knows, the Speaker may even allow it to be debated. Brexiteers could move that leaving on WTO terms preparations should be set to max.
Does leaving on WTO terms mean no reciprocity with the EU no-deal Contingency Action plan, which is primarily just a shock absorber for the EU27?
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0324&from=EN
October 5, 2020
Sir JR,
Interesting and rather one -sided perspective. From where I am sitting there has been bad faith on both sides.
As the majority of British industry and business (CBI and number of other surveys), wish us to make a del with the Eu, I believe it is rihgt by the government and Whitehall to continue negotiating. The optimistic and rather naive forecasts by the ERG of the great things which will happen if we leave on WTO tems have not been proven and have not been tested either as you forecast.
October 5, 2020
In other words cave in and stay – without a say.
October 5, 2020
Where are you sitting Bull? Frankfurt?
October 5, 2020
Lynn – – -Sitting Bull sounds about right.
October 5, 2020
Slight correction there. The CBI is primarily and organisation of foreign companies(Predominantly EU based) with an interest in the UK. The greater majority of UK based industry is not represented. The majority of UK business does not deal with the EU
The EU wants a deal were they define UK law and use their Courts as the adjudicators – that’s the ‘bad faith’ bit. The refusal of the EU to accept the UK referendum or permit the UK to be outside of the EU control. Or as the EU negotiators said with the WA the UK is now a EU colony. Is disrespectful and Bad Faith
No other Country in the World has to accept their rule, laws, regulations just to trade with the EU. I would suggest that is bad faith on there part. The EU’s stated so-called redline is that the UK must take their Laws, their Rules, their Regulations, ‘before’ talks on trade begin. Yet the UK would have no say in them. That is Bad faith on the EU’s part.
There is nothing to compromise on when the EU says we the EU stay in control of your internal and external affairs.
October 5, 2020
We have negotiated and negotiated, extended and extended. We all want a fair and sensible deal, but the EU wants to punish us for leaving. Every extension makes us look weaker in the eyes of the world and encourages Remainers to think that the process can continue indefinitely until we are forced back into the EU. If we want anyone to take us seriously we must walk in mid-October.
October 5, 2020
What if it is nothing to do with punishment and everything to do with acting?
At the moment I donât believe there is a single U.K. politician who wants to leave the EU.
The Punch and Judy stuff is all to make us believe the U.K. govt. is actually trying to leave.
And the EU is helping the U.K. govt. by appearing obstinate and obstructive.
This 100%-in-favour-of-masking-and-imprisonment govt. does not want our freedom!
October 5, 2020
Bill B, There is no reason why the EU should control our entire economy simply because an eighth of our GDP is earned from exports to the EU; business special pleading notwithstanding. Therefore WTO trade with the EU is better for us overall because it avoids EU empire interference in the majority of our economy.
October 5, 2020
Indeed. This articles chooses not to acknowledge that if, as the likes of Michael Gove have publically stated recently, the UK wishes to continue trading with the EU27 on a tariff-free, quota-free basis, then such an arrangement will come with certain requirements and obligations.
Anyone advocating a WTO exit needs to explain in detail how they will, in 10 weeks, handle the Irish border situation, and do so in a way which ensures that the UK is fully compliant with WTO non-discrimination requirements. Requiring goods coming in via Dover, Folkestone, Harwich and Immingham to be subject to full checks while not having the same requirement at the Irish border will leave the UK exposed to non-discrimination claims from other WTO members.
October 5, 2020
It is up to the Republic of Ireland to decide what checks they want on goods moving from the North of Ireland into their nation.
October 6, 2020
I see you completely failed to answer the question about how the UK avoids non-discrimination. Or maybe you have no answer?
October 6, 2020
You keep asking that WTO question and I am getting bored repeatedly answering it Peter.
I note you have completely failed to answer my point on Ireland.
Or maybe you have no answer.
October 6, 2020
How will the EU avoid non-discrimination?
October 5, 2020
I understand.
The WA and PD gives the EU laws & regulation changes direct effect. The UK could obviously change the law, but until then EU law would be supreme.
Even after we leave.
Best to completely revoke all EU laws with direct effect immediately.
Forgiveness for “legal oversights” and deception will be unlikely.
October 6, 2020
Peter Parsons, “Full checks”?? That’s not how imports are handled. Normally checks are small scale and random, unless intelligence based. Full checks of all imports don’t happen. The NI/Eire border imports can be handled exactly the same way. What the EU does the other way is up to them.
October 6, 2020
So how will you implement small scale and random checks at the Northern Ireland border, Nick? What infrastructure do you see being needed to implement that? How will you ensure that goods coming in from Dover and goods crossing from Monaghan to Armagh are treated in the same non-discriminatory way (and be able to prove that)?
October 7, 2020
They already happen now.
Nick is right.
If you are a company and you lie on customs declarations there are severe penalties.
October 6, 2020
Think of the sea.
Easy Solution.
Southern Ireland could maintain a border with the EU and free movement for goods etc in Ireland. Lets face it they will probably leave in a year or so, if it doesnt implode.
Eire from now on will be significant contributor, recession, covid, or not.
October 5, 2020
Wrong again as usual. It is not the majority of British business and industry, just the big corporate globalists. The majority of British business do no trade with the EU at all.
October 5, 2020
Dear Mr. Redwood,
If you have not already done so, you could try reminding your colleagues in government that a failure to take back control of our laws, borders, money and fishing would finally confirm to those who voted for the Conservatives at the last general election, that the Party can no longer be trusted and is not worth voting for in the future.
Having given away UK fishing grounds in order to join the European project, it would not be a good look for the Conservatives to fail to take them back again or to allow the EU any say in the future when the UK leaves.
The EU also wants to tie the UK into its state aid rules and yet has its own EU scheme created in 2017 which allows them to bypass EU state aid rules as so-called Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), where it channels hundreds of millions if not billions of Euros into special projects such as a car battery plant (source: Daily Telegraph 04/10/20). State Aid must be an area for the UK to decide upon and not sacrificed for some thin trade deal.
Mr. Farage and the Brexit Party would have a field day. Betrayal would be too gentler a word to describe the feelings of people who put their faith and trust in Mr. Johnson and his party.
The Conservatives would be finished and deservedly so.
October 5, 2020
I have no recollection of anyone voting in either the EU referendum or subsequent General Elections being ask to give any party a mandate to leave without a deal that would not be better than the deal we had then within the EU.
JR, you wrote before the referendum that “Public opinion and elections will be able to change policies and governments instead of having to accept many laws and spending requirements because the EU demands”.
It no longer applies that public opinion is able to ‘change policies’ now that we are no longer members of the EU. Was that just another of those fanciful desires that we all believed would become part of our reality? All part of the pre-referendum misinformation? To what extent has the government sought public opinion about the dreaded deal or no-deal fiasco, and listened to it?
It’s all a theatre, with government and parliament performers on stage conning the public, hoping that the electorate won’t notice what’s being done behind closed doors. Pantomime Season is not postponed after all.
October 5, 2020
Discontinue talks now and accept WTO rules. The EU will be knocking on our door for a deal immediately, if they have any sense!
October 5, 2020
They don’t have any sense- they are very much rules based so sense doesn’t come into it as far as they are concerned
October 5, 2020
Indeed; just ignore the Remoaners whose real objective remains to keep us tied to the EU.
October 5, 2020
JR, here is an issue which has mystified me ever since Brexit day 1:
It is the role of the ECJ.
I am not referring to the issue of sovereignity, but to assertions about different approaches to the interpretstion of laws and regulations.
My limited understanding is that whereas in the UK legislation and regulations are judicially interpreted based on long-established objective principles, ECJ interpretations of EU laws and regulations may be similarly based but with an overriding (or primary?) principle of protecting the EU structure and furthering the project of EU integration.
I am not confident that my understanding reflects the EU position, and it would therefore be appreciated if you could examine the issue in a future Newsletter.
Many thanks
Peter Anderson
October 5, 2020
Peter
“…ECJ interpretations of EU laws and regulations may be similarly based but with an overriding (or primary?) principle of protecting the EU structure and furthering the project of EU integration.”
In layman’s terms : Protecting French interests.
October 5, 2020
Agree with your statement. Your third paragraph should be shouted from the rooftops and posted on every government and public sector wall, though we need to rebuild market share in many other sectors as well.
As long as EU seek to punish or disrupt us they should not be treated as “friends”, though in reality they never have been,
October 5, 2020
Thank you.
About those ministers who want to avoid blame for a break-down of the talks, firstly, those ministers should be putting country first. The SNP and SNP government (and their so-called gardening section) will shout and scream very loudly whether or not there is a deal. They work by playing grievance politics. That will be true whether or not there is a deal. I think the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster might be worried about this. He should be more worried about the many many thousands of jobs that will be lost if the UK and Scotland cannot apply state aid freely, particularly in post-Covid times.
October 5, 2020
“…the EU has never negotiated in good faith. “ – making it all the more absurd that the UK does other than see the Evil Empire for the hostile power that it is.
October 5, 2020
And we are going to have to use it big time.
Nearly every clause gives the EU freedom to interfere with UK law.
The WA was written by a remainer as a way of keeping us under the jurisdiction of the ECJ.
This gives us colonial status which suits the EU fine.
October 5, 2020
No point in complaining we were always going to end up in the pocket of the EU or the US. Personally I’d rather be under the EU jurisdiction for resolving disagreement than the crazy US
October 5, 2020
Nothing to add.
October 5, 2020
With all my heart I wish this statement had eminated from nr 10.
âNo nation, no electorate, no democracy can be bound by treaties signed by treasonous leaders. John Major and Theresa May both signed treaties with the European Union which overturned critical pillars of the British Constitution and put the British people and economy in peril. Even after they were thrown out by the true British sovereigns (the voters) they continue today to defend those treaties and their treasonous contents, putting Brexit itself at risk. Treason is not a political swear word it is a specifically defined term in statutes, common law and convention going back 800 years. What the EU is demanding after the UK leaves (in the Withdrawal Agreement) is even more constitutionally aggressive than the rights we surrendered while a member state. Even worse than contraventions of UK law are terms and behaviour which contradict international treaty law â in particular the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Here we have the ultimate attack on international law which states that no trade agreement can put in jeopardy a signatoryâs internal law and trade between different parts of its sovereign territory. â Rodney Atkinson
October 5, 2020
And we could also offer soft loans for our fishing communities to buy those foreign boats that aren’t going to be fishing in our seas any longer.
October 5, 2020
Macron is concerned about French Fishermen turning against him if he gives way on this matter.
I’m sure that Boris knows that the folk who voted for him recently also have a ‘red line’ where UK fishing is concerned. Whatever Boris may be tempted to do – I suspect he knows full well that this would kill his remaining support stone dead. Political suicide probably isn’t one of Boris’s ambitions.
Let’s hope that German Car Manufacturers trump French Fishermen when push comes to shove.
October 5, 2020
Ian T
“Macron is concerned about French Fishermen turning against him if he gives way on this matter.”
There be the cause of the negotiations failure.
“Whatever Boris may be tempted to do â I suspect he knows full well that this would kill his remaining support stone dead. ”
He gives way on any one of these issues – Fishing, Immigration, ECJ, State Aid….and it’s the end of the conservatives.
October 5, 2020
Well said Sir!
October 5, 2020
“the many wins we can achieve if we just leave” – but where where? I just don’t see it- I don’t see Liz Truss riding over the hill with the cavalry- surely by now we should have had some positive news or indication about the way we are going- we havn’t even got a British owned Merchant Navy any more for God’s sake. The rest of the world is wrestling with Covid and the US is in a shambles and nobody knows how it’s going to work out? and here we have our host talking about the many wins we can achieve if we leave to WTO rules- it’s hardly real world stuff
“the EU has never negotiated in good faith” – here say’s one who is a Tory MP a member of the party that is out to renege on an International Treaty the WA that was signed only less than a year ago- good faith- kettle black
October 5, 2020
The WA has an expiration date. It expires end of this year, it will be dead. There is nothing to overturn!
October 5, 2020
blake
“renege on an International Treaty”
YAWN ! Not this old remain tripe again. Give it a rest for Gawds sake.
The UK is not braking international treaty.
1) It isn’t a treaty it was an agreement.
2) The EU didn’t participate in good faith.
October 5, 2020
Dear Sir John, well said again.
We did not vote for a deal We voted out, so why PM making heavy weather about it.
WTO and The PM should do as he promised Out now.
This whole business has shone a light on this Parliament and that other waste of space , the Lords.
No more scarring just get us out some body please ?
October 5, 2020
Barnier has stated there is an opening for a deal in November. If EU Parliament refuses to pass a negotiated trade deal after end October it will be back to negotiating table and handing control of negotiating to EU.
It suits the EU to extend talks to 31 December when they would be able to blackmail Britain into conceding on its red line issues.
If Boris does not keep his statement to end discussions if no agreement by 15 October he will cause unrepairable damage to the Conservative party
October 5, 2020
John Payne
“Barnier has stated there is an opening for a deal in November.”
Yep, there’s the rub. Slimy, aren’t they ?
“If Boris does not keep his statement to end discussions if no agreement by 15 October he will cause unrepairable damage to the Conservative party”
Damage ? People will smell a rat and it’ll be game over.
October 5, 2020
JR, Absolutely first class analysis. It is such a pity that our establishment lacks both self confidence and confidence in us, the people of the UK. Most of the world pays little attention to the EU apart from a bit of trade. Indeed, even after nearly half a century in the EU, the UK’s GDP is over 87% non-EU, so the EU isn’t that important to us either. We should simply re-join the rest of the world.
October 5, 2020
Hear Hear.
Such clarity.
Keep it simple.
The EU keeps proving why we were right to leave.
We need no complicated deals with ambiguities and traps leading to years of wrangling.
Bin the WA – an instructive example of a one-sided deal to avoid.
Remainer MPs and Peers need to remember they are not representative of the majority UK view, and they should stop representing the EU against UK interests.
October 5, 2020
Thank you Sir Redwood.
The internal market bill was a great leap forwards by the government.
What we needed to have done some months ago is tell the country that the talks seem to be bogged down on the insistence of the EU, on the big three NO’s (fishing ECJ and level playing field) and that the country MUST prepare for a WTO exit.
Continue talking, not much harm there, while DOING all we need to do for our extremely likely WTO exit.
October 5, 2020
I agree with all you say and I cannot see why any blame should be attached to failing to strike a deal with negotiators who appear to have some other purpose than the best interests of those on whose behalf they are acting.
October 5, 2020
I agree, I never for one moment thought the EU would approach this pragmatically, So WTO is not only the only option but in many ways always the best option.
October 5, 2020
The ‘blame’ lies firmly with the âŹU Commissioners.
Everything they have done (since Cameron announced that there would be a referendum), are doing, and will do has been aimed squarely at preventing the first member state from leaving the âŹuropean Union.
They have used every event (each incarnation of Theresa May’s WAB; 29th March 2019; 11th April/22nd May 2019; 12th December 2019) as a ‘reset’ and claimed that it is ‘impossible to do a deal in the time remaining’ – well chaps and chapesses, you’ve had over FOUR YEARS to sort this out and have prevaricated and frustrated the process at every turn. Wiping the slate clean of everything you had previously discussed is an obvious dummy-spitting tantrum. Grow up.
The âŹU have never wanted a deal (despite their protestations) because FOR there to BE a deal, is an acknowledgement that the first member state IS leaving. That must be avoided at all costs, because it would herald the failure of their project, as other member states would follow.
The further means by which they could seek to avoid that situation, was to make an example of that member state, by following a campaign of misinformation, disinformation, threats (to their ‘friends’) in regard to sanctions and tariffs, taking them to court etc etc, – all designed to ruin that nation’s economy. And they were doing quite well on that front all by themselves, until we shot ourselves in the foot over CV19.
Even now, Ursula von der Leyen is taking us (her/their ‘friends’) to court? B.S.
They are AFRAID that the UK will make a go of going alone, and that our trade with the rest of the world will blossom at their expense. They continue to try to make an example of us ‘pour encourager les autres’. That’s why they steadfastly refuse to consider a similar deal to that which they have struck with other nations outside of the âŹU.
No, the âŹU Commission are a bunch of bullies, and the only thing a bully respects and fears is strength. The UK Gov website declares that ‘we have left the European Union’. All we are waiting for is 31st December 2020 for the end of the ‘transition period’.
The âŹU Commission will be stepping-up a gear in their efforts to further frustrate the process in arriving at a deal before the end of the year. As Boris alluded yesterday, the ball really is in their court. If there’s ‘no deal’ (something which I and many others have known would be the case from the start) then the âŹU lose any rights to fish in our waters. And I really don’t give a flying f@rt whether Barnier thinks all the Herring and Mackerel have pink passports or not.
Friends do not bully their friends. The âŹU Commission are nobody’s friend but their own.
Do not back down, do not send any representatives from the UK to Brussels or Strasbourg. If they want to talk, then let them come and see us (after 14 days quarantine, at their own expense, at LHR hotel of their choosing, of course).
October 6, 2020
Over 24 hrs in moderation…. any movement there? If there’s anything libelous, please advise and I’ll rewrite it!
October 5, 2020
Good article Sir John. Hopefully you can remind Boris that he will be politically “dead in a ditch” if he lets us down, quite possibly taking your party with him.
October 5, 2020
Heâs in the ditch already, if he wants to draw another breath, no delay!
October 5, 2020
As so often over the years, Sir John, your comments are spot on.
In tomorrow’s edition of Facts4EU.Org we are publishing an article about the small number of businesses which might be affected by a no deal exit. It will surprise many people.
We end by suggesting three tasks for the Government. We doubt you will disagree with any of them.
October 5, 2020
I hope Johnson takes note.
It seems as though he has his own agenda and is mostly concerned at spinning the outcome in his favour.
October 5, 2020
Yes, if you count every self-employed contractor as a “business”, then the number of them in the UK runs into millions.
You are giving equal weight to a roofer in Bolton and a car manufacturer, to a window cleaner and a steel producer.
It’s what we expect from Leave campaigners though.
October 6, 2020
The vast majority of people in the UK are employed by small businesses.
October 6, 2020
The ‘weight’ lies in the total of GDP and employment. Small businesses employ the huge majority of those employed and 90 percent of the GDP is not supplied by the big corporations, many of whom send their profits overseas, whereas the small ones spend their money here.
October 5, 2020
Reported elsewhere “16,000 Coronavirus cases had been missed off the daily figures due to an âIT errorâ, however details have now come to light that the IT error in question was as simple as the central Excel spreadsheet reaching its maximum file size:” .
This simply shows why I said Government should have capable robust systems and not DIY Civil Service and Quango outfits inventing their own.
A database should have been set up by now centrally by competent technical staff years ago but CS Departments would fight to control it like a political football sadly. Also the Data Security and Data Privacy leaks would not trust them to make it failsafe.
October 5, 2020
They are NOT cases they are âpositive testsâ on hooky testing equipment that was NEVER intended to be diagnostic.
The more they test ..the more âpositivesâ they find. In Tanzania they tested goats and paw paw and got âpositiveâ results!
And when Operation Moonshot is rolled out they will get millions of âpositivesâ and we will finally go under when those totally healthy millions are locked up.
October 5, 2020
probably created by Prof Ferguson – you know the guy who missed the ‘Excel for Dummies’ course?
October 5, 2020
It wasn’t the DIY civil service which the government makes you think. It was outsourced to private companies as is usual with the Tories, just like the handling of the illegal immigrants being put up in hotels at our expense by one big private firm which seems to get all the cream.
October 5, 2020
Yes and no, the error was simply using a version of Excel from 1987 (.xls) file instead of the more recent (but not that much more clever) 2007 version (.xlsx).
Anyway anybody having to deal and process really huge amounts of data knows that one does not do that with Microsoft products.
I just hope that the genius advisor to the PM so keen on âbig dataâ knows that.
In that instance I can only agree with the comment that PHE looks rather clueless.
October 5, 2020
âWe have lost large amounts of market share in food and other manufacturesâ.
Yes, yet we hear only today that the Hovis brand is under attack from a takeover bid from Italy. Another EU country intent on becoming a huge competitor at our expense. Why does it so rarely work the other way? Do we have any large, still UK-owned, manufacturers who could absorb foreign companies? Weâve had 4o-odd years of being asset-stripped, many household name companies manufacture in Eastern Europe, jobs exported sometimes with EU grants. Many of those same companies are owned by Indian, US or Chinese conglomerates. Some of our airports are run by Spain, our electricity by France, some power stations built by China, our train operating companies by Germany. Am I alone in all this making me feel distinctly uncomfortable Sir John? Arenât we incredibly vulnerable now as a trading nation, so reliant on financial services?
October 5, 2020
Other European countries are far more protectionist of their industries.
In the U.K. chancers out to make a fast buck have been indulged at the expense of the common good.
So European car manufacturers still have a strong home base, regardless of the product they offer. In the U.K. – instead of protectionism – the car industry was allowed to be decimated. All that remains are UK outposts of foreign (mostly Japanese) companies.
Itâs not just car manufacturers either. An American company was allowed to destroy the Cadbury chocolate operation in this country.
October 6, 2020
And anyone who has been around the last sixty odd years would know how much people like Sir John have contributed, directly or indirectly, from the 70s, to this state of affairs.
Interestingly, an alternative Redwood could be seen in the FT on 30/09/2020 âGreen revolution set to shake up investing furtherâ.
So take your pick, Sir Johnâs blog or Redwoodâs views on investments.
Reply Exactly the same analysis in the article. Try reading it. It talks about the scarring and damage to the motor and energy industries
October 6, 2020
“Scarring and damage to the motor and energy industries” indeed, but otherwise a much more balanced view of the world’s situation in particular by the absence of rather loaded statements on the respective positions of the EU and UK. Jekyll & Hyde.
October 5, 2020
Sir John,
I totally agree with your statement âThe blame game over the EUâ. I am sure that the people that voted to leave the EU along with others, a majority, would also agree with you. Please use your very best endeavours to pursue your fine argument so that we may ditch this wretched Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration, trade on WTO terms and move on.
October 5, 2020
Not very sensible thing to advocate- if we renege on the WA not alone will we be ostracised from trading with European countries but we will be treated as a pariah throughout the world and for all time
October 5, 2020
This nation has become a nation of mouthers , complainers , downers , find something to put them outers ,bloated bluffers , non practising equity perpetuaters ; how do expect to find a
sensible thinker with rational views amongst them and go forward . I have heard laughs amongst certain sets of people on how they can bring the UK down !!! They still say we are dinosaurs . Its a buffoons trend!
October 5, 2020
We have already left the EU so no point in talking about blame game- it’s like we have an obsession
October 5, 2020
It would be nice to force the EU into withdrawing. The IMB might have been such an occasion but it has fought back with an “infraction” proceeding. (I presume the EU is relying on the dispute resolution within the WA as we are no longer a member state.) It is clear that if we go on negotiating it will be UK which will be offering up items. I am therefore despondent that this extension of the negotiating period has taken place. I see the hand of the FCO ,whose normal method of negotiating is to see what has to be given up in order to get an agreement. I say this as a genuine observation on practice. Once you start extending there is no deadline. It is a weakness. Walking out in this situation however is not good enough, because it just leaves the WA continuing provisions such as those for NI in place binding the UK. The only way ending the negotiations and win a gain is to denounce the WA as a result of the bad faith of the EU.
October 5, 2020
What you still want is to have your cake and eat it. By this time the German car workers should have banged down the door to Mrs Merkel IDS promised but it hasn’t happened- it was to be the easiest deal ever from Fox- again nonsense. Then all of the old sloganeering and BS trotted out over the past four year like- they always settle for a deal at the last moment- from DD that great negotiator and SAS man..well very soon we’re going to see if we have taken back control and if we have what kind of control
October 5, 2020
The latest story about fisheries is that the UK is proposing a 3 year transition period where the EU’s take of fish from our waters is gradually reduced. This was rejected by Barnier. Whoever proposed this arrangement should definitely be booted out of whichever position he has in our government. This arrangement would suit the EU as there would be very little change in the CFP. If an arrangement like this happens, I think Boris will patently have failed to take back control.
October 5, 2020
If the main concern of ministers is to avoid the blame for breakdown of the talks then they’re playing the wrong game – they will be blamed if there is any hint of EU say over our laws when the so-called transition period is over.
So compromising to get a deal is absolutely the worst thing they could do. Some politicians just don’t seem to be very savvy.
I also hope for WTO. Partly because I want nothing more to do with the EU, but mainly because it is the only way they can do a sensible deal. Once the heat goes out of the negotiations, they can quietly sign up to sensible terms.
October 6, 2020
+1
October 5, 2020
O/t, but I have seen the following reported:
âDid you know that the UK Government have removed Form 5 of the Cremation Certificate for deaths relating to Covid-19 under the Coronavirus Act which is the form that the relative who registers the death must be given as it enables them to see and query the death certificate before cremation.
So basically if your loved one dies of or with Covid19 they can have their death certified and cremation certified by the same medical practitioner and sent for cremation within hours and the government have removed your right to see or query that decision before the cremation takes place which in turn removes your right to request a coroners report or second opinion. â
This gets more sinister by the minute …
October 5, 2020
Never mind the blame game John- you’ve got what you wanted- it’s almost there- WTO by any other name.
Question is what are you going to do with it now?
October 6, 2020
Trade with the world.
October 5, 2020
The Daily Telegraph reports that both Toyota and Nissan are asking the taxpayer to pay any tariffs imposed on car exports. Would our host think this to be a price worth (us all) paying for a No Deal outcome?
October 5, 2020
Surely No Deal gives many advantages â
1. With SNP wanting to join the EU, an independent Scotland would have to face having tariffs exporting to the rest of the UK, and with %90 of its exports is with the UK surely this would dampen any arguments they have.
2. Letâs formalize CANZUK (an organization -giving a name to the idea to promote â trade and free movement of people, education, and unfettered access between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK) . This would allow CANZUK to mitigate Chinaâs divide and isolate policies and make CANZUK an icon for democracy, trade, and rule of law. All this without the need for ECJ and showing that the four friendly peoples cooperating amongst ourselves in the same way as Australia and New Zealand makes the world take note due to the combined size.
3. Ireland: let us invite Ireland to leave the EU and join CANZUK. This would solve the border and historical issues. There are voices in Ireland wanting to leave the EU and understand the great cultural connections with the CANZUK peoples. We share so much in terms of the type of economy, language, democracy, and the rule of law. Negotiating a free trade deal between the US and CANZUK would mean Ireland would need to think again very hard about where it should give its allegiance.
We must stand firm and be bold in our vision and realize Chinaâs belt and road policy must be dealt with in Africa and around the world. CANZUK and the Commonwealth must do more.
CANZUK – its time has come – Its combined size is greater than the EU, China, or Russia.
October 5, 2020
Good article JR, with which I agree.
These negotiations, if you can call them that, have failed because of an ungrateful napoleonic little pissant throwing spanners in the works at every opportunity. This same individual is on record as telling French fishermen that, quote: “The UK will have to give up fishing grounds or face being broken up”
This is why the negotiations have failed: because the french can’t get their own way.
The problem is France, as it always is. The EU would work, if France wasn’t in it.
I don’t know why on earth we’re still talking to that ungrateful cabal……just walk away, we’ve had enough of their sh**te quite frankly.
October 5, 2020
Completely agree John but there are very few patriotic Conservatives left in the Tory Party & even less who understand these issues. At the conference all the ministers chuck us voters/members a few morsels of red meat & then go back to being soft left weak wet woke globalist idiots…. see Boris/Priti etc…
I know your party is going to sell out our fisherman. You wont like the consequences.
October 5, 2020
Was the ÂŁ38 billion exit payment we made to the EU conditional upon a free-trade agreement? If so, should that payment not be looked at again? I remember Barnier saying, many times, “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
October 6, 2020
9 days to go, or is it ? Seems like the tide is turning: Mood has been positive: PM’s domestic difficulties with Covid make it more likely BJ does a deal: News afoot of Boris’s softening: Talks have been postponed for one month: Emergence of scary numbers from the LSE: Offering of 3year Fisheries ‘transition’: Highly likely the EU Parliament will vote down any deal: We are 90% there on technical issues, remaining 10% political: A deal is there to be had …… I’ll finish that one, yes, of course it is if the UK caves in and sells out: A robust settlement mechanism is called for: Significant differences still remain, particularly Fisheries ( and State Aid ? ): Progress has been made on State Aid. Just a few of the many morsels gleaned from recent output. Stop this infantile blame game. What was there ‘to take stock of’ during Saturday’s chat between our two leaders. How many times do we have to be told what the EU wants, demands & will allow. Which MP was it who said many moons ago that should we sign the Withdrawal Agreement we will live to regret it ( probably Mrs May’s version at the time admittedly ) All the time this is going on the UK is falling behind on so much. To quote Anne Widdecombe recently – Don’t use Covid as an excuse for useless. Exactly.
October 6, 2020
I agree with all you say, however I would go further and repeal the act that set up the devolved assemblies. They were an eu pushed scam to weaken Great Britain with the help if the modern traitor of our time Tony Blair.
October 7, 2020
What is missing is any sign the EU takes the UK seriously in intending to leave on WTO terms. It is therefore imperative the Finance Bill be introduced showing them there will be no EU tariffs on GB-NI trade and that the U.K. will not pay the ÂŁ40bn exit charge. There are so many more useful ways that enormous sum can be used than giving it to Brussels in exchange for bad faith talks about a will of the wisp trade deal. This Finance Bill needs to be introduced ASAP ; the EU will squeal but if they are not squealing they are not taking seriously the prospect of losing tariff free access to the U.K. market and the implications for fishermen in french ports in the year before a french election.