We voted to leave the single market and customs union of the EU

EU representatives still seem to think the UK wants special access to the single market and is desperate to stay in their trading arrangements. They may be fuelled in this mistaken belief by sections of the UK establishment who seem to think the single market is a good construct that we would be wrong to leave.

One of the few things Leave and Remain agreed about in the referendum was leaving the EU meant leaving the single market and customs union. The winners thought this a good thing and the losers thought it was some kind of threat hanging over us. I became a strong critic of the single market when I was the UK’s Single market Minister. I was given the task of supervising the UK’s response to and involvement in the so called “completion of the single market” in the run up to 1992 when they declared it finished.

The endless Council meetings and negotiations were to complete 282 pieces of law making to regulate all sorts of things people trade. Many of these added little or nothing to trade, and many entrenched in law the preferred ways of making and doing things of large continental companies. They stated “1992 will be a pivotal year in the development of the European Community. It marks the final year of the enterprise to complete the single market” and the year when they went on to economic and monetary union.

I lost the main argument within the UK government before when I was the PM’s adviser. I pointed out you do not need a whole lot of common laws to have a free market. The EU already had established the key proposition, that any good of merchandisable quality in one country could be offered freely for sale in another. This was sufficient in itself. It meant companies could get the benefits of scale and trade their goods freely across the whole EU without tariffs and non tariff barriers. Consumers could decide for themselves if they liked the product and the supporting standards of the sponsor country when making a purchase.

The EU was determined to use the excuse of a single market to greatly expand its legislative control over member states. They demanded the end of the veto over all single market legislation to expedite putting through regulations that were against the interests or traditions of individual countries. I advised the government to only surrender the veto for the 282 specified pieces of legislation, and for it to revert thereafter. The government was not even prepared to protect us to that extent, and the UK swallowed the idea of majority voting for huge swathes of legislation. By the time I became Single market Minister I had to construct blocking minorities of countries every time the Commission came up with another damaging or needless proposal.

As I feared the EU had no intention of limiting itself to 282 laws for its single market, but went on year after year long after the so called completion of the single market pushing out many new laws to exert control over many new areas all in the name of the single market. The single market was much better at ensuring tariff and barrier free access to the UK for continental manufacturers and farmers than it was at securing access for UK service providers to the continent.

273 Comments

  1. Andy
    October 18, 2020

    Creating a single market in services is harder than creating a single market in goods. But the EU has still made far more progress in this area than anywhere else on Earth.

    And Brexit undoes nearly all of it.

    Still who needs lawyers and architects and bankers and teachers and accountants and medics when you can have a few more fish that we don’t even eat in this country.

    1. matthu
      October 18, 2020

      Maybe if France had offered the UK the right to go and harvest French grapes in return for a few fish we might have been able to manage a deal?

      1. glen cullen
        October 18, 2020

        Now thats a level playing field

      2. steve
        October 18, 2020

        matthu

        Maybe if France was never allowed to join the EEC…..it would have worked.

    2. Ed M
      October 18, 2020

      @Andy,

      It’s ultimately about PATRIOTISM (being sovereign and free – same for a family and individual) – not fish or services or anything else.

      And patriotism is a Greco-Roman / traditional Judaeo-Christian virtue. You can debate about how to arrive at sovereignty (for the end does not justify the means – both morally AND PRACTICALLY for by messing up on the means, you can ruin the chances of the end goal working) but you can’t argue about the goal / the ideal which is a VIRTUE.

      1. Martin in Cardiff
        October 18, 2020

        Patriotism for some is about the promulgation of the ideas of the country’s great thinkers such as Bacon, Hooke, and Newton.

        For others it is about pride in the bloody imperial oppression and subjugation of other peoples and nations of the world.

        They could not be more different.

        The word is therefore meaningless.

        Without more it can be one of the worst vices, not a virtue at all.

        1. steve
          October 18, 2020

          MiC

          You must surely consider yourself fortunate not to have been on the Normandy beaches, or at the great push during WW1……you would have been shot by your own side.

        2. Edward2
          October 18, 2020

          Who the hell thinks patriotism is about ” pride in the bloody imperial oppression etc…”

          More ridiculous marxist fantasy slurs from you Martin.

        3. Lynn Atkinson
          October 18, 2020

          Well, you have revealed that you don’t understand it – but we all knew that anyway.

        4. Ed M
          October 18, 2020

          @Martin,

          I referenced ‘patriotism’ in the context of our Greco-Roman / Judaeo/Christian heritage.

          St Thomas Aquinas was quite clear about patriotism as a virtue – a virtue which was incorporated into the the theology of The Church of England. St Joan of Arc and St Louis King of France both powerfully embody these Judaeo/Christian virtues.

          It’s quite clear. Yes, people have manipulated this virtue for their own selfish reasons. But that is down to the selfish human nature – not patriotism as an objective virtue. Doesn’t take away from how patriotism is something real / tangible and embodied by people in heroic ways. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don’t fall into the world of nihilism that holds the modern world by the jugular.

      2. glen cullen
        October 18, 2020

        Wise words

      3. DavidJ
        October 18, 2020

        Indeed Ed.

      4. Mike Wilson
        October 18, 2020

        Lawyers.
        I want to sell my house and buy another one. Which lawyer shall I use? A lawyer who practises here, who knows our systems inside out and whose first language is both the same as mine and the same as the laws governing the transaction – or a Spanish or Dutch or Romanian lawyer. Hmmm. Tricky one. A single market in law? Can’t see it myself.

        Architects.
        I want a building designed and built in Britain. Do I use a British architect who is familiar with our planning laws and building regulations or a Danish firm? Again, tricky one.

        Same for bankers, doctors, dentists and pretty much any other professional service.

        A Single Market in services can only work if you have a supra government with one legal system and one way of enforcing laws and standards.

        Even the things you think might work like insurance are drought with problems. Who will you insure your car or house with? A Hungarian firm you’d have no sensible redress against if they refused a claim?

        As you rightly observe, a single market in services is not only much harder than products, it is, in practical terms, impossible.

        So, we won’t be missing anything there. As for products, it’s up to the EU how hard they want to make it. If they make it so hard exports to the UK virtually stop, they will be signing the death warrant of the whole project.

        1. Andy
          October 18, 2020

          If you insure your car with a firm from Hungary and they don’t pay out you can take you claim through the courts. Your contract will be English law anyway so the process would be exactly the same.

          But you highlight the reason why there is not a single market in law – because there can’t be. Mr Redwood uses this as an example of why the single market in services doesn’t work. In fact it works perfectly well for a whole host of industries – architecture, creative arts, banking and finance etc etc etc.

          1. Edward2
            October 18, 2020

            So as you say English contract law is best.

          2. Lynn Atkinson
            October 18, 2020

            Do you think that because we live under British law and they live under Roman Dutch law, there may be a problem? Whereas my nephew is a lawyer in London working for Chambers which are Australian. Their work is Commercial and international. No EU required at all!

      5. margaret howard
        October 18, 2020

        Ed M

        “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson made this famous pronouncement that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel on the evening of April 7, 1775.”

        And still valid today. Especially at the time when it so often becomes jingoism.

        1. SM
          October 18, 2020

          Are you referring to the SNP, Margaret?

          1. Edward2
            October 18, 2020

            Oh it is perfectly fine for every UK nation to be patriotic except England.

          2. Lynn Atkinson
            October 18, 2020

            Or the Germans?

        2. steve
          October 18, 2020

          MH

          So are you telling us you owe your existence to scoundrels ?

        3. Everhopeful
          October 18, 2020

          He was talking about false patriotism.
          Johnson pronounced a great deal on the subject of patriotism and I would imagine that he could be referring to the disgusting politicians who invoke it in order to send men to die in spurious battle or to fight against a virus!!
          Jabberwock.

        4. Dennis Zoff
          October 18, 2020

          margaret howard

          When Samuel Johnson made his famous pronouncement “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” he was not saying, I think, that it was wrong to love your country.

          Indeed, Dr Johnson was renowned for combining robust patriotic enthusiasm with his Enlightenment views and a tender conscience that championed the rights of men and women and even animals worldwide.

        5. Ed M
          October 18, 2020

          I love Samuel Johnson but I think he was profoundly wrong about patriotism.

          ‘Jingoism.’

          The love between husband and wife is a good thing. But it can become bad it if becomes obsessive / extreme like in Wuthering Heights.

          Anything earthly that is good can become bad if people become obsessed by it. Burgandy Red Wine is a great thing as long as you don’t drink in excess. Money can be a great thing as long as you don’t become a Scrooge about it. All good earthly good things can become bad if you become obsessed by them and/or distort them for you own selfish reasons.

          To throw the baby out with the bathwater (i.e. getting rid of patriotism because some people can be jingoistic) is just as bad as being anti-patriotic.

        6. NickC
          October 19, 2020

          Margaret H, Johnson said: “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” as you quote, but you have inverted its meaning – the classic misinterpretation of the poorly educated.

          Johnson regarded patriotism as so obviously a virtue (think about the era in which he lived), that he said you can tell who is a scoundrel because he is not a patriot – that a scoundrel will, when all else fails, invoke patriotism (a virtue) as a last refuge to cover up his dishonourable behaviour (a vice).

        7. Ed M
          October 20, 2020

          Johnson was both a devout Church-of-England Christian and a scholar in Greek and Latin. He more than anyone, therefore, would have known and understood why patriotism is a virtue.

      6. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        +1 it’s why we won the Wars. And why the Germans lost them.

        1. Dennis Zoff
          October 18, 2020

          Germany lost the war in 1945….Great Britain has been losing it since 1945.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            October 19, 2020

            Yes, that is when we lost the right to fight. Fighting is a right because it is preferable to enslavement, which is what we have suffered. But the British people did not realise the was a War. They do now!

        2. bill brown
          October 20, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson

          Kindly expalin yourself about your patrotism comment?

      7. Ed M
        October 18, 2020

        Here’s another way of looking at patriotism:

        When we are free and responsible individuals reaching our full potential we become beautiful (in theological / philosophical / general sense) human beings – like a Faberge Egg!

        AND when we are free and responsible families reaching our full potential we become beautiful (in theological / philosophical / general sense) families – like a Faberge Egg ..

        When we are free and responsible as a country reaching our full potential we become a beautiful (in theological / philosophical / general sense) country – like a Faberge Egg ..

        Fully developed, happy individuals are like the building blocks of fully developed, happy families and fully developed, happy countries.

        And although we all have something in common with others as patriots in our family and country we also have something wonderfully unique to offer as well – whatever in field of human activity we’re in and best at: politics, the arts, the army, university, science, business, nature, farming, the law, education, health … whatever, the list is endless. Where we all together become like a wonderful piece of music by Mozart – with uniformity and structure but also mystery and personality.

        Patriotism is so important in Judaeo/Christianity (and Greco-Roman culture) that one if its greatest saints was made a saint for being such a strong patriot – the wonderful Joan of Arc.

    3. Sea_Warrior
      October 18, 2020

      I’m sure that there’s enough work to keep British architects, lawyers and accountants busy in Britain and in the non-EU rest of the world. If some have left these shores for the Continent then I really don’t care.

    4. Roy Grainger
      October 18, 2020

      Andy inviting us to have sympathy for the bankers. And the lawyers. Rather than those lower-class fishermen who don’t live in his part of the Home Counties.

    5. Richard1
      October 18, 2020

      You are wrong on both assertions. All that’s needed for free trade in services is to say that someone who is registered and qualified to provide services in one juridiction may do so in another. With very few exceptions this is what the Australia-NZ deal does.

      1. Qubus
        October 18, 2020

        Yes. But they all speak the same language.

    6. MWB
      October 18, 2020

      I rather like cod and haddock, but I suppose London people like you, just eat jellied eels, cockles or whelks, whilst watching East Enders.

    7. Sir Joe Soap
      October 18, 2020

      Ultimately, France is trying to stop the UK proceeding industrially in precisely the way it itself did over the years through the state propping up industry.

      Look at the example of aluminium, and the history of Pechiney Group as it trundled from 100% state ownership through the 80s to dominate the aluminium market, purchasing overseas companies as it went. In comparison, we had the splinters of foreign owned enterprises, subject to the full costs of energy and market pressure.

      1. Dennis Zoff
        October 18, 2020

        The German and French combined political and economic class were not foolish but somewhat more nefariously astute, unlike their docile UK incompetent counterparts!

        Post-Brexit, the UK should not be angry or envious, but strive to be Politically competent and “aggressively” more commercially competitive!

        “Unleash entrepreneurial Britain whilst negating Political interference!”

        1. IanT
          October 19, 2020

          “more nefariously astute”

          Very good Dennis! 🙂

    8. Original Richard
      October 18, 2020

      Andy :

      “Creating a single market in services is harder than creating a single market in goods. But the EU has still made far more progress in this area than anywhere else on Earth.

      And Brexit undoes nearly all of it.”

      As you admit, there is no EU single market for services, and given this is supposed to be a UK strength, I doubt there ever would have been so long as we were a member of the EU.

      And why would Brexit undo it as far as the EU is concerned? In fact it is now more likely that the EU will achieve this now that we have left.

      “Still who needs lawyers and architects and bankers and teachers and accountants and medics when you can have a few more fish that we don’t even eat in this country.”

      Why would not being a member of the EU’s single market mean we don’t have any “lawyers and architects and bankers and teachers and accountants and medics” in the country?

      Where’s the connection please?

    9. Robert Mcdonald
      October 18, 2020

      I thought the likes of Hong Kong, Singapore, New York do very well in benefiting from their market in services. Yet they are not in the eurocracy , so it isn’t really that far progressed is it.

      1. Dennis Zoff
        October 18, 2020

        Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) top 20: Sept 2020

        1. New York *
        2. London *
        3. Shanghai
        4. Tokio
        13. Edinburgh **
        16. Frankfurt ***
        18. Paris ***

        * Marginal difference
        ** Edinburgh has shot up the table, joining the top 20 Global Financial Centres in 2020
        *** Frankfurt and Paris have dropped 3 places

    10. NickC
      October 18, 2020

      Andy, Fisheries are a resource governed by UNCLoS whereas financial sales are a service traded under the WTO. If the EU empire wants to sell us their goods and services, then they must allow the UK sell our goods and services – that’s what a WTO compliant trade negotiation is.

      1. acorn
        October 18, 2020

        Financial Services are not part of the current negotiations. The EU doesn’t includes them in a trade agreements.

        1. NickC
          October 19, 2020

          Acorn, In a negotiation the EU does not get to decide unilaterally – that’s the point of negotiating. The principle stands: the UK’s EEZ is a resource (a possession) under the UNCLoS agreement, but exports of services – like goods – are sales under WTO rules. If the EU wants to sell us its goods and services, we must insist that the EU accepts UK goods and services on the same basis.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        And the laugh is that In financial services Edinburgh has now overtaken Paris and Frankfurt! But then they are minnows and Continental business is desperate to continue to have access to the City (Of London Andy, though generally you don’t need to qualify).

    11. M Davis
      October 18, 2020

      We do eat fish in this Country and well you know it. We were brought up on fish ‘n’ chips! I eat fish at least four times a week and I love all fish.

  2. kenneth
    October 18, 2020

    I didn’t vote for a “deal”.

    I voted to leave the eu.

    1. Andy
      October 18, 2020

      You left.

      1. Enrico
        October 18, 2020

        In name only until 1st January 2021.

      2. John Hatfield
        October 18, 2020

        One day hopefully.

      3. Mike Wilson
        October 18, 2020

        Doesn’t feel like it. Nothing’s happened. I thought it was going to be a disaster.

      4. NickC
        October 18, 2020

        Andy, If we left on 1st January, as you claim, where are those dreadful food and medicine shortages you kept predicting?

        Where are the 55,000 pen-pushers, and the 400m new forms that you said would be needed now we’ve “left”? Where are all the trucks backed up in Kent which you confidently said would be there after our leaving?

        1. Andy
          October 18, 2020

          You left the EU on 31st January 2020 at 11pm.

          You Brexiteers – not me – signed up to a transition period which ends at the end of this year. Until then the only changes are that: 1) you have legally left the EU and 2) you now have no say.

          The lorry parks will be needed from January onwards. It is the government which has said it needs to hire 50,000 pen pushers. Ministers will not tell us how many they have recruited so far.

          You have your hundreds of millions of new forms to export starting from January, the British government has given an extra six months for the import ones. You will see shortages and supply chain problems from early next year. Whilst retailers and producers will work hard to get around short term shortages the cost increase of your additional bureaucracy will be a permanent change. Prices overall will go up.

          Travelling starts getting harder from January. Extra paperwork is required to do simple things like drive in the EU. Your age group in particular will see insurance costs rocket following the removal of EHIC. Some of you will find the increase prohibitive. Visa waivers will follow, probably in 2022, when you will need to apply in advance – and pay – to be allowed into Europe.

          The rules for people doing business are unclear but they will almost certainly need business visas – a costly and pointlessly bureaucratic process.

          How’s cutting red tape going?

          1. NickC
            October 19, 2020

            Andy, That’s not even a good wriggle, as well as being over long.

            Your statement above is “You left”.

            You have also frequently claimed, as a consequence of our leaving: food and medicine shortages, choked lorry parks and roads, 55,000 extra pen-pushers, 400 million new forms, etc, etc.

            Since we’ve left, where are they all?

            Go on, Andy, have another go.

        2. Lynn Atkinson
          October 18, 2020

          😂😂you are mean NickC. Poor Andy! Is the use of logic allowed in this game?

      5. steve
        October 18, 2020

        In the eyes of the majority who voted leave, Boris Johnson has no mandate to do any deals with the EU. We were not asked, therefore we have not given our permission.

        If there is any deal especially involving any slight concession whatsoever on the UK’s part…..Boris is out and the conservatives are extinct.

        We don’t want a deal, ungrateful Europe can go to the hot place in a hand cart.

        We’d rather rebuild this country from scratch than have anything to do with that rotten ungrateful lot.

        1. Andy
          October 18, 2020

          The reverse is true.

          In 2016 Vote Leave promised a deal better than EU membership. In 2019 Johnson promised an oven ready deal.

          The only person who has offered the public a no deal option was Farage at the 2019 general election. How many seats did he win?

          There is zero mandate for no deal which will make it easier to undo in the unlikely even that we get one.

          1. Edward2
            October 18, 2020

            When did it promise a better deal?

            No deal means actually leaving the EU.

          2. NickC
            October 19, 2020

            Andy, Control is not trade.

          3. Lynn Atkinson
            October 19, 2020

            WTO is a better deal, much!

        2. Lynn Atkinson
          October 18, 2020

          +1

    2. Sharon
      October 18, 2020

      Me too!!

      1. Sharon
        October 18, 2020

        My me too was in response to Kenneth.

    3. Martin in Cardiff
      October 18, 2020

      There are an infinite number of things on which you have not been consulted.

      The post-exit relationship with the European Union – and the UK has indeed left – is just one of them.

      It’s just as silly as your claiming that your vote to Leave were also one against twenty mile-per-hour speed limits.

      1. steve
        October 18, 2020

        MiC

        “The post-exit relationship with the European Union”

        …..we don’t want one.

        “It’s just as silly as your claiming that your vote to Leave were also one against twenty mile-per-hour speed limits.”

        I made no such claim. Why do you lie ?

        But, as it happens over tine we will pressure every government to scrap all laws of EU origin. In any event we won’t be taking any notice of them after 31st December.

      2. NickC
        October 19, 2020

        Martin, But we were consulted on our post-exit relationship with the EU. In the 2016 Referendum. We were offered the option of removing ourselves from under EU control, and merely trading with them instead. We accepted that offer.

        How we traded was the only open ended aspect. But clearly how we trade cannot, by definition, be to continue under EU control in any way – because we voted against EU control. So if the EU refuses an ordinary trade deal (in which the EU does not control the UK), then trade under international WTO rules it must be.

    4. glen cullen
      October 18, 2020

      Correct – I also didn’t vote for a deal, the wrapping up a deal with leaving under art50 was a con…..and we’re still paying

  3. Ian Wragg
    October 18, 2020

    It is after all a political project.
    The single market being the vehicle for political and economic integration.
    This is why manning the UK establishment don’t want to leave as they see it as a stealthy way to keep us in the EU.
    Out means out.

    1. Mark B
      October 18, 2020

      +1

    2. John Hatfield
      October 18, 2020

      many in?

    3. Original Chris
      October 18, 2020

      +1

    4. Martin in Cardiff
      October 18, 2020

      Wrong – it is neither first and foremost a political nor an economic project.

      It is a moral one.

      1. NickC
        October 19, 2020

        Martin, It is an immoral one. One in which that most treacherous of concepts – “the end justifies the means” – is invoked to fool the amoral.

      2. IanT
        October 19, 2020

        I guess that explains why the CoE Bishops have been getting involved with Bexit recently – I did wonder.

  4. agricola
    October 18, 2020

    Your submission today outlines the mistakes our government made to become entrapped in the single market. The electorate having given permission to remove use from the SM now should be told the detailed facts on how it is to be achieved. We are well past Boris’s deadline date so are we heading for WTO rules or do we have an FTA free of restriction expected in a sovereign state. The media is confusing and contradictory. It is time Parliament and the people were told with no omissions. We do not wish to discover at a later date that the ECJ has a degree of control, or that our government cannot support our industry within WTO rules, or that the price of the deal is continued EU vacuum fishing of our territorial waters. The devil is in the detail so spell it out.

    1. Sharon
      October 18, 2020

      That’s the point isn’t it…even if we leave with no deal, my understanding is that the WA has so much in it that leaves re-joining quite easy for any subsequent PM.

      And there are still enough remainers around to make the job difficult. I’m praying that Frost understands and can ensure Boris does too…

      1. steve
        October 18, 2020

        Sharon

        “my understanding is that the WA has so much in it that leaves re-joining quite easy for any subsequent PM.”

        ….If any future PM was stupid enough to try it, things would get quite nasty.

        “And there are still enough remainers around to make the job difficult. I’m praying that Frost understands and can ensure Boris does too.”

        When we fully leave and make a success of it through hard graft, remoaners will have been left far behind.

    2. glen cullen
      October 18, 2020

      Hear Hear

      After the 31st December I don’t want to be told that we’ve left only to be told that the French can continue fishing, and that the ECJ will have some influence for ten years, and that we’re still paying into EU projects etc BRINO

    3. agricola
      October 18, 2020

      I should add, that if no deal and WTO rules are the outcome then the WA should become null and void following a confirming vote in the HoC, and there being no question of us paying the ÂŁ39 billion divorce settlement. Ongoing payments to the EU should only be our share of any remaining joint ventures.

    4. NickC
      October 18, 2020

      Agricola, After the WA transition phase is over, the WA continues to allow some control over us by the EU, mainly the bribe that Theresa May agreed to pay the EU, and of course the Northern Ireland Protocol (p297 of Oct 2019 draft WA, based on May’s WA, as agreed by Boris Johnson). The WA should be abrogated if Boris is serious about implementing our Leave vote.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        That is what JR is saying must be done, just Housekeeping because there was no FTA. However they need to get a majority therefore ‘remaining open to a FTA.’

      2. steve
        October 18, 2020

        NickC

        “The WA should be abrogated if Boris is serious about implementing our Leave vote.”

        …..Boris needs to go on national TV and tare the thing up. Or hang it on a nail in the No 10 khazi.

  5. Mark B
    October 18, 2020

    Good morning.

    Sir John, I think your first paragraph is the crux of the problem. Those talking to the EU and making the most noise, ie the Remainer minority, are painting a false picture of the situation on the ground. This of course has not been helped by having a Remainer PM, Parliament and Civil Service working against the democratic decision of the British people.

    The Single Market was a naked power grab and overtime EU member countries will slowly subsumed into the proto federal state. It will be centralist in power with Berlin and Paris pulling the strings between them. What politicians, the media and others do not understand is, what Germany and France could not achieved through war and conquest, they will achieve through regulation and block voting.

    1. Mick
      October 18, 2020

      Lords are tomorrow expected to mount opposition to the Government’s Internal Market Bill as it begins its second reading in the House of Lords.
      The Peers along with labour/some Tory’s/libs/snp/greens/plaid Cymru still cannot except the fact that the British public voted democratically to leave the dreaded Eu which we did on January 31st 2020, all that is needed now is the cherry on the top of the cake to leave completely on December 31st 2020, so get over it remoaners if you want to go live in your beloved Europe bye bye you’ll not be missed

    2. Radar
      October 18, 2020

      Your second paragraph is indeed correct and is overlooked/ignored by many.

    3. steve
      October 18, 2020

      Mark B

      “What politicians, the media and others do not understand is, what Germany and France could not achieved through war and conquest, they will achieve through regulation and block voting.”

      I’m sure that is the Franco – German aim, Mark. But ultimately it will be destroyed by mass uprising. Bigger empires have been pulled down, this one is no different.

      My theory is that after we have fully left there will be a bust up between Germany and France…..the ungrateful french will get what’s due. Some other country will vote to leave, probably Italy, Greece or Hungary, followed by either France itself or Germany and the whole lot comes crashing down.

      Whatever, the Franco German alliance isn’t going to last much longer.

    4. Simeon
      October 18, 2020

      To clarify, you’re not suggesting that our present PM is a Remainer, right? Not after he categorically and unequivocally made absolutely clear that there was now no deal to be done with the EU. You might even say such a prospect was “dead in a ditch”. Boris was as “cast iron” as he could have been in what he said. Victory is assured!

      1. Mark B
        October 18, 2020

        Simeon

        I meant his predecessor. Thanks for the pointing that out and allowing me to explain.

        As for the current PM, as I said in another post, I shall wait until the 1st January 2021 to decide.

        Personally. I think this whole thing is a charade and a ‘deal’ will be struck at the 11th hour.

        1. glen cullen
          October 18, 2020

          Agree – don’t trust a Tory with EU

    5. Peter van LEEUWEN
      October 18, 2020

      @Mark B:
      “What politicians, the media and others do not understand is, what Germany and France could not achieved through war and conquest, i.e. PEACE, they will achieve through regulation and block voting.”
      And quite a few countries are voluntarily and enthusiastically participating in that effort, while still lokking after their self-interest as well.

      Thank you for a good description of the continental mindset.

      Britain has a different mindset: Such a powerful country, that it has never been conquered in a 1000 years (oops let’s rewrite the Dutch 1688 invasion to make it sound a British victory) and as it was the major conqueror of WWII, single handedly sacrificing itself for the poor continentals, it can now free itself from interdependency and build on its dream of a Global Great Britain. I hope to be able to look forward to a very prosperous neighbour, because (repeating myself) trade there will always be.

      1. Mark B
        October 18, 2020

        PvL

        Stop being silly.

        The UK has never had any nations in Europe, with the exception of Malta, Cyprus and Gibraltar, under the Empire. We have never set our designs on Europe, and it was Napoleon that forced the British to seek pastures new when he imposed and economic blockade (Customs Union) and forced other countries to not trade with us.

        I have always liked the Dutch. In fact, I like many people from Europe who come to settle here and make it their home. Why can’t you be nice to us in return and accept that we wish to go our own way ?

        1. Fred H
          October 18, 2020

          If they don’t send us flowers, we even buy them!

        2. Peter van LEEUWEN
          October 18, 2020

          @Mark B:
          I AM being nice! Lost your reading glasses???

          1. Mark B
            October 19, 2020

            You say you are being nice and then insult me. Why ?

          2. Peter VAN LEEUWEN
            October 19, 2020

            @Mark B:About losing your reading glasses: it struck me that your reaction didn’t bear too much relevance to what I had written. I didn’t mention a British Empire at all for instance. I apologise for if this were received as insulting.

      2. SM
        October 18, 2020

        With all due respect to the Dutch, that 1688 invasion literally didn’t get very far did it?

        William of Orange was invited to replace his father-in-law, James ll, and of course had to share the monarchy in a unique fashion with his wife – and for various reasons, they did not found their own dynasty.

    6. Martin in Cardiff
      October 18, 2020

      At whom is that aimed?

      The UK has left, and almost no one in the European Union of any note will be reading this site.

      1. IanT
        October 19, 2020

        I imagine it was aimed at you Martin 😉

    7. Lynn Atkinson
      October 19, 2020

      My MP (Monmouth) Peter Thorneycroft explained why: ‘The people must be led slowly and unconsciously into the abandonment of their traditional economic defences.’
      Because consciously they would not have done any such thing!

  6. Nigl
    October 18, 2020

    And in January the first a wall of shame should be constructed to be seen in perpetuity with the names of the quislings determined to give up our independence and deny us what we voted for and it will start with Heath, Major, Heseltine Cameron May.

    All Tories allowed to do,what they did by like minded Tory MPs. Forever a stain on your party but of course the wider establishment as well.

    1. DavidJ
      October 18, 2020

      Excellent idea; maybe at Runnymede?

    2. beresford
      October 18, 2020

      Not to mention Grieve, Letwin and Soubry. Aided by Bercow, Benn (H) and Balls (Y).

    3. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      Nigl in general we remember the heroes, not the rest. A wall at Runnymede with the names of the Brexit heroes is a good idea. I have been maintaining the list. All the way back to the first in the 1960’s.

  7. Ed M
    October 18, 2020

    The EU is ultimately the result of the demise of our Greco-Roman / Judaeo-Christian heritage throughout Europe and the Western World.

    No modern secular philosophy can ever better our Greco-Roman / Judaeo-Christian heritage.

    Our G-R / J-C heritage is focused on each individual, family and country being sovereign / free and ultimately taking RESPONSIBILITY for themselves – instead of passing that responsibility on to others / the state / large group of states and/or ultimately blaming others.

    And one way of returning to our G-R / J-C heritage is to focus more and more on patriotism and the family – whether in politics – or in education, the arts and so on.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 18, 2020

      And how carefully and consistently our enemies have dismantled the building blocks of that civilisation.
      Every vile action wrapped in the weasel words of “equality” and “fairnessâ€đŸ€ź
      I fear that they have been allowed ( by the bleating idiots) to go too far for anyone to recreate what we had and this latest “convenient emergency” is the final coup…well unless they actually have mass slaughter in mind.
      Apparently they are now pursuing the idea of merging all religions!
      And there is no one to stand up and say of it all …”NO! NOT IN MY NAME!”

    2. Mike Stallard
      October 18, 2020

      Have you ever read Dominion by Tom Harris?

      1. Ed M
        October 19, 2020

        Tom Holland?

        Just looked it up – looks really interesting. Thanks for recc ..

  8. Everhopeful
    October 18, 2020

    Meanwhile we are all imprisoned, masked, isolated and dispossessed by the same govt. that is obviously pulling yet another scam! “ Get Brexit Done”. Haha! Oh Yeah!
    The utter nastiness of it all. It literally makes me feel sick.
    And BTW how come the same ghastly govt. is spending even more ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁsquillions on UNCONSCIOUS BIAS aversion therapy for civil servants when every govt. since at least Blair, has increasingly and proudly exhibited absolutely CONSCIOUS BIAS with affirmative action and preferential treatment for newcomers??
    Scared we might upset the global golden apple cart?

    PS I guess everyone knows that local councils are closing roads apace…just blocking them overnight….with the govt.’s blessing? Agenda 21 is now undeniable surely?

    1. Everhopeful
      October 18, 2020

      And how about those people who have just splashed out on an EV and now can’t get out of their road nor get an electric supply?
      The EU was a benign God compared to this.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      Don’t listen to the BBC etc. Negotiations are over. We go WTO. Rejoice!
      I would remain in my bed for the rest of my life to attain that. Forget the lockdown for the moment, it’s irrelevant. We can sort out all those little things anytime so long as we get our clean Brexit.
      Don’t let the BBC use you to get rid of Boris and replace him with someone who will snatch that from us. Just wait. One Christmas in exchange for all the rest! Cheap!

      1. bill brown
        October 18, 2020

        Lynn Atkinson,

        Your predictins on the negotiations is actually not what Boris is saying. Just stick to the facts for a change

        1. Edward2
          October 18, 2020

          I suggest you read the PM’s recent speech which is available on the government website.

        2. Lynn Atkinson
          October 18, 2020

          Bull you never let me down. Allways Bull**** just because ‘from where you sit’ and ‘as far as I am concerned’.
          Tell Mutti that you don’t have the stomach to face the facts.

          1. bill brown
            October 20, 2020

            Lynn

            You need to take your medicine and operate with the facts

      2. Everhopeful
        October 18, 2020

        I NEVER listen to the BBC..it is banned here.
        I would be more grateful for small mercies from Boris if he had not imprisoned us with no hope of parole.

    3. Sharon
      October 18, 2020

      Re the road blocks…with enough people complaining I understand most have been unblocked now. They have where I live… but everywhere is slowly going to 20mph.

      Isn’t that more polluting because of more breaking etc? And the road blocks means driving further than usual, so longer on the road. As with most of the green initiatives, ill thought out.

      1. Everhopeful
        October 18, 2020

        I’m not certain that they have all gone. I read that in some places those metal bollards have been erected and people have been buying keys to get them down. The bollards were stopping emergency vehicles.
        BUT it shows terrifying intent = no more cars!

        Yes..very polluting…speed bumps did the same.

    4. Original Chris
      October 18, 2020

      You are right, I fear, Everhopeful. The Great Reset is being effected using Covid as the mechanism/justification. See the Klaus Schwab paper on COVID-19 and The Great Reset. K S is WEF founder and executive chairman.. Hancock is an avid supporter of Klaus Schwab and has been “proud to be on the same platform as KS” promoting The Fourth Industrial Revolution which is part of The Great Reset.

      If you read KS’s views they are frightening, almost that of a zealot, in my view, and it is quite clear that he has an agenda which Covid is enabling him and other globalists to push through swiftly.

      1. Everhopeful
        October 18, 2020

        Agreed.
        In 2017 as Minister for Digital. Hancock was addressing an All Parliamentary Group on The Fourth Industrial Revolution’s Autumn reception.
        So they all knew!

    5. forthurst
      October 18, 2020

      I would propose Ch4 for unconscious bias training; also a geography lesson explaining that the UK is not somewhere in darkest Africa.

  9. DOM
    October 18, 2020

    A deal is not Brexit simply because a deal would involve compromise on our sovereignty and independence. The EU desires we compromise because by not capitulating it means we achieve full independence allowing us to adopt aggressive tax and liberalisation policies that the EU-Germany find so threatening

    The German government are adamant the UK must not be allowed to flourish outside of the EU.

    I am still of the opinion that a PM that bends to the will of Marxist Labour, racist groups and Marxist insurgents will bend to the will of Merkel and Macron.

    This non-Tory PM leading a party that betrayed this nation decades ago will not deliver Brexit because he doesn’t believe in it

    Both rancid main parties have deliberately for different reasons destroyed our country and our freedoms. The EU have only been to happy to help them in this most heinous of periods of our country’s history

    1. Everhopeful
      October 18, 2020

      +1
      Hear! Hear!

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      Stop doing the enemy’s work. You are going to throw away a Great Victory which we have because the media are scaring Leavers with lies again, saying it is NOT Brexit so we throw out the source of Brexit which will be replaced with an overt Remainer.
      Don’t be like Nigel. Sorry that the race is over even though we won. He has nothing but the race, the rest of us won’t the race over so we can start recovering the country we love – huge work.

      1. Mark B
        October 18, 2020

        Lynn

        Should we actually Leave on 1st January 2021, it will almost have taken as long for the UK to peacefully Leave the EU, than it took the British Empire & the United States of America to free Western Europe by force. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh achieved independence in half that time. So you can well understand the skepticism.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          October 18, 2020

          Mark to win a massive victory takes a lot of everything, including time. I still say that throwing it away at this point would be a problem. I don’t have the ‘bandwidth’ to fight this issue for another 37 years (daily)!

    3. Simeon
      October 18, 2020

      But, but, but… Boris said negotiations are over. When Barnier comes a-knocking on Monday, there will be nobody at home. Boris said it’s over. There just wasn’t quite enough time to explain exactly how and why before 4.30pm on Friday. I’m sure all will become clear on Monday, right Sir John? Why don’t you trust the Tories??

      1. Mark B
        October 18, 2020

        He also said he would never sign the WA and would rather be dead in a ditch. In fact, if you look over the entirety of the man’s life, it is full of contradictions.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          October 18, 2020

          He was forced to because otherwise the Rabble Remain Parliament would have repealed Article 50 and returned us to the EU!

          1. Mark B
            October 19, 2020

            You cannot repeal Art.50, you can only reapply. I suggest you read it.

          2. miami.mode
            October 19, 2020

            You’re wrong Mark B. The fount of all knowledge! (the BBC) reported that the ECJ would accept revocation of Article 50.

            https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47668466

    4. fedupsoutherner
      October 18, 2020

      +1

    5. DavidJ
      October 18, 2020

      Indeed Dom: “Leave the European Union”, no shady deal on the ballot paper.

      1. Martin in Cardiff
        October 19, 2020

        So you claim that a vote for a single thing on a ballot paper is a vote against the infinity of things which are not on it.

        Interesting – so a vote for a given MP, say, is a vote against, oh, repeats of Dad’s Army on the BBC, and against maypole dancing on village greens?

    6. Original Chris
      October 18, 2020

      Johnson should have ditched the May WA right at the beginning, and Tory Brexiteer MPs should have made it clear to Johnson that he would only get their support if he honoured the referendum result and tore up the WA, which was a recipe for vassal state UK. That they did not, speaks volumes about their true commitment to leaving the EU.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        They were in a tiny minority. The Remain MPs made it clear that they would repeal the whole thing, and Bercow would allow them to put that proposition.
        You forget the circumstances!

        1. Mark B
          October 19, 2020

          Not true !

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            October 19, 2020

            That was exactly the threat. The reversal of Article 50. And the feral Remain Parliament with Bercow breaking all the rules would have done it! They would have written the letter themselves (and the EU would have accepted it).

  10. Alan Jutson
    October 18, 2020

    The Eu will continue to exert more and more control over member countries because that is the plan.
    Slowly, slowly, bit by bit, the Eu will suffocate national rules, taxation systems, welfare, etc, just wait and see.
    Total Control by thousands of regulations, by which time a nations ability to ever control its own affairs will be completely lost because all of its own systems will have been lost.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      It’s done! Greece, Italy, even France – destroyed.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        Those are precisely the words we all used 30 or 40 years ago – and were laughed out of court. Read Enoch books on the Common Market. The great Prophet – and derided in his own land all these years. He needs a plinth in Trafalgar Sq when we recover control from the Marxists.

        1. Mark B
          October 18, 2020

          True Lynn, he was much maligned.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            October 18, 2020

            He IS much maligned. So is Norris McWhirter, etc etc. JR is not exactly treated with the respect he deserves. And the rest of us are derided as unwashed, uneducated and barbaric northern morons – the low class indoctrinated-in-red-brick-uni toadies can’t think of more damning words.

    2. BJC
      October 18, 2020

      Soul-destroying, isn’t it, AJ? However, this is what the governments of Europe have willingly signed their people up to with the insidious Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties. Yet again, they’re a conquered people and we can only look on in despair as the EU juggernaut ploughs on. As always, we’ll be there when they come to their senses and reject the EU, although I do have to wonder at Europe’s penchant for autocracies!

    3. Lifelogic
      October 18, 2020

      Indeed, unless the members resist strongly that is what will happen. Hence the EU desire not to accommodate the UK’s reasonable demands lest others sensibly rush to join the queue to leave.

    4. Sea_Warrior
      October 18, 2020

      I remember seeing a very powerful political advert – from Norway, I think. It featured a man running up a mountain, enthusiastically waving an EU flag. A little further up the mountain, the flag, in the gusts of wind, started flicking the man in the face. The further up the mountain he went, the worse the flicking became. By the time he reached the top, the flag had enveloped him completely, squeezing the life out of him. Very effective advertising.

  11. Richard1
    October 18, 2020

    The EU has declined to include financial services – the only real area in which there is a single market in services – in a deal. What is your view on the denial of immediate permanent ‘’equivalence’ to the U.K. financial sector by the EU, and indeed given we don’t have that is it even worth having a deal at all?

    1. Tony Sharp
      October 18, 2020

      The UK Financial Sector and the EU based companies selling ‘retail’ products to private consumers, have already opened offices in each others territories, London having registered over a thousand EU FS Cos in the last two years.So that looks after equivalence.
      However, the UK FS services are ‘wholesale’ to do with coprporate finance,IPO, major loans and ForEx . These are purchased within the UK by overseas buyers and therefore really are not’sold abroad’ at all hence they are ‘invisible Exports’. The EU would struggle to raise EUroBond Sales within the tiny Paris or Frankfurt markets and they can’t insure anywhere else either. How the EU would stop this without some massive and crippling tax on the charges for such services withotu crucifying their own banking and FS sector is well nigh impossible.
      As usual with the EU it is all bluster and no substance.

    2. Tabulazero
      October 18, 2020

      Ireland and Luxembourg are the main beneficiaries of this. Why do you think the EU would grant equivalence ?

      1. Edward2
        October 18, 2020

        Because EU member nations find the financial services offered by the UK useful to them.

        1. Tabulazero
          October 18, 2020

          Which over time can be replicated somewhere else inside the EU.

          What is so special about Bornmouth compared to Dublin when it comes to locating your middle-office ?

          1. Edward2
            October 18, 2020

            I dont think that will happen for decades.

            Frankfurt is a decent financial centre but it is dwarfed by Wall Street and the City of London.

            Hundreds of years of development and hundreds of thousands of expert staff.
            Not easily replicated.

            But I’m sure competition is all for the good.

          2. Lynn Atkinson
            October 18, 2020

            Well explain why Edinburgh has overtaken Frankfurt and Paris in financial services? The difference between Bournemouth and Dublin, BTW is that one is in the capitalist UK and the other is about to be destroyed (again) financially by the EU.

    3. Andy
      October 18, 2020

      There is a single market in many services. Aviation for example. Airlines can fly from any EU country to any other EU country. Architecture. Qualifications are mutually recognised.

      Haulage. Drivers qualifications are recognised as well as vehicle standards. And companies – and people – can work between EU countries.

      A Polish engineer can jump on a plane to Spain in the morning and head to a German owned factory to fix a French built machine making products destined for Portugal because of a single market for workers – free movement.

      A British qualified ski instructor can work in France because his qualifications are recognised.

      A band can travel from Italy to Denmark to perform – visa and paperwork free because of that single market. And an orchestra can do it in reverse.

      None of this will apply to Britons from January. Our bands will need visas and permits – some of them quite costly – to gig in Europe.

      Our architects qualifications will not be recognised. Nor will our ski instructors. Our engineers cannot just jump on planes anymore to work in Europe. They will need business visas with the extra cost and hassle that entails.

      Our planes cannot fly between EU countries anymore. And our hauliers face perhaps the gravest challenge of all. As there are now not enough permits for them all.

      But, hey, here’s some mackerel.

      1. Edward2
        October 18, 2020

        Works both ways if the EU want to play up.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        Oh they can jump on a plane going in the opposite direction to the USA where they can speak English, earn much more and be welcomed.
        No problem! PS, I love mackerel, skate, shrimps, etc.

        1. bill brown
          October 19, 2020

          Lynn

          There are actually more employed in fiancial services in Frankfurt than in Edinburgh, but you wolud not know.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            October 20, 2020

            Less productivity so.

        2. bill brown
          October 20, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson

          What do you actually know about productivity in the French financial sector?

  12. kenneth
    October 18, 2020

    The ultimate destination of the eu’s “single market” was consolidation to the point that everything would be codified meaning that markets and competition would be pointless and redundant.

    The end of the road for such a system is the Soviet Union mark II.

    I am glad we are getting out of it

  13. Everhopeful
    October 18, 2020

    I imagine that everyone is aware that WEF is suggesting that businesses have a role to play in the mythical Covid vaccination programme?
    As in ENCOURAGING their workforce to have the vaccine ( if it ever appears).
    Can you keep your job WITHOUT having the vaccine is probably more the question.

    Just wait for the “immunity Passports”.
    But I guess when they have blocked all the roads …we just won’t need them!
    Historically has there ever been any regime as cruel as this one??

    1. M Davis
      October 18, 2020

      A good article yesterday on Conservative Woman on Covid, if Sir John does not mind a link –

      https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/what-sage-has-got-wrong/

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      Oh don’t panic, in Africa nobody bothers about trying to pass a driving test, they just pay for a license. We will be offered very convincing ‘immunity passports’ along with any number of NI numbers from Karachi for a few £.
      The Govt prefers the way foreigners operate – hey! We can do that! No problem.

      1. Everhopeful
        October 18, 2020

        đŸ€—

  14. middle ground
    October 18, 2020

    If the Single Market is such a disaster why are 27 independent democratic countries of Europe happy to remain within it. We voted to leave by a slim majority and we have left. How about focusing on the small and limited advantages that leaving provides- so far we haven’t seen much evidence other than a trade deal with Japan that tidies up a few details of the EU/Japan deal and provides some additional guidance in the rapidly changing digital economy.

    1. Fred H
      October 18, 2020

      ‘ independent’ ? – – hilarious.
      I think you mean imprisoned by 2 of them?

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      If they are so happy to remain why will Macron not offer a Referendum? He said France would vote to Leave – that’s why?

  15. Sharon
    October 18, 2020

    JR

    I’ve read of others who came to have dealings working in or with Brussels…and like you all said the same- too much bureaucracy and power grabbing . This was the point they too became EU Sceptics.

    I notice in the Express that both France and Italy are becoming more and more sceptical. Interesting that it’s two more of the original six members who have become disillusioned.

    1. bill brown
      October 18, 2020

      Sharon,

      Thre is still a majority of the population in both France and Italy taht support the EU.
      (EIU) statistics) so it is not about to fall apart.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        Oh yes we believe EU produced stats! 😂😂 Macron contradicted you and said France would vote to Leave.

        1. bill brown
          October 19, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson

          The EIU is a Brisith company, so you are showing your total lack of understanding facts onece more. Stop showing you know nothing.

          1. Edward2
            October 20, 2020

            It produces statistics for the EU and is funded by the EU.

        2. bill brown
          October 20, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson

          Just because Macron sys something does not make it a fact

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      Yes Sir Richard Body was one of the first. He was very enthusiastic supporter of the Common Market, so enthusiastic that on a visit, they told him the objective. Then he scams the Richard Body you all remember – dead against!

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        Sorry correction … he became the Richard Body you all remember …

  16. Bryan Harris
    October 18, 2020

    That was when Major reigned. He has a lot to answer for.
    I can see why it was impossible to to support him.

    At the time, we heard very little about what was going on behind the scenes — If our MSM had been up to the job they would have alerted us to all of this nonsense, but they failed us then, and they continue to fail us…

    ….while some of those politicians that hid the truth of where the EU was going were no innocents, and should be treated as traitors

  17. Lifelogic
    October 18, 2020

    Exactly right.

    Dan Hannan in the Telegraph Today:-

    I assumed that, when it came to it, the EU would prioritise the economic interests of its 27 members. I was wrong. By sticking to a number of deliberately absurd positions – including demanding British fish as a sort of leaving fee – Brussels has effectively collapsed the talks.

    Plus “MINISTERS have spent more than £400,000 on “unconscious bias” training, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal, including from a consultancy that has previously used Disney characters to highlight issues”.

    Much of government spending does real harm this a surely yet another good example.

    1. Norman
      October 18, 2020

      This comes from the detestable ‘deep state’ culture in HR circles, and the like. Anyone who opposes is deemed de-facto especially ripe for it! It is thoroughly pernicious. But then, if we neglect our cultural roots, something else will be sure to take over – in our case, it is this ‘progressive’ cultural Marxism. Earlier today, my wife and I watched an excellent documentary: ‘Blitz on Britain’ (screened by ‘Talking Pictures TV’). Very moving, to see all the players in that epic struggle, the likes of whom we still remember from our childhood, now virtually all gone, and destruction of a different kind now so advanced. All children should see such films.

    2. miami.mode
      October 18, 2020

      …but surely, LL, Disney with its cartoon characters is quite appropriate for some ministers

    3. Original Richard
      October 18, 2020

      It’s impossible for the EU to “prioritise the economic interests of its 27 members”.

      Amongst the 27 there will always be winners and losers in any policy or decision or trade deal.

      This is why it takes the EU so long to negotiate a trade deal – and it will get worse as the EU expands further to 34 or more countries with very different economies – unless and until the EU becomes a fully fledged state with financial transfers flowing between the member countries (or regions by then) to equalise the effects of any particular trade deal.

      So a major benefit for the UK leaving the EU is firstly that we will be able to make trade deals much more quickly and secondly they will be to our benefit and not to the benefit of other countries. For instance, I could always see that the EU would offer our NHS up for sale in return for reduced tariffs on German cars and French food and wine.

    4. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      Dan is so wrong! Finances and ‘pragmatism’ (putting a price on your country) is entirely the wrong thing to do! I never thought the EU would put money above country. It’s OUTRAGEOUS that British politicians did that. They have no moral grounding and know the VALUE of nothing! (Our host excluded).

  18. Rodney Atkinsin
    October 18, 2020

    As many of us like Sir John pointed out in the late 80s the Single Market was a
    POLITICAL construct and nothing to do with
    market economics and free trade.
    Like Sir John we were unable to penetrate the thick
    skulls of the British political class!

    1. Lifelogic
      October 18, 2020

      It was pointed out at the time we joined and yet again during the Wilson referendum.

  19. Martin in Cardiff
    October 18, 2020

    What an extraordinary claim – there was never any vote on the post-exit relationship between the UK and the European Union.

    The UK has now left, and so that is what is being considered.

    No doubt there are a range of views amongst Leave voters as to what that should be, and since the win was highly marginal, there is only a vanishingly small chance – non-existent – that there is an overall majority amongst voters in the country for the obsessive, puritanical interpretation of exit that the ERG preposterously claim that there is.

    This relationship will be a dynamic, evolving thing, by no means fixed, and it will – quite properly – be a matter for competing manifestoes at elections as to how it might change.

    The referendum was not a settling of issues to do with Europe. Quite the reverse – it was the opening of a long period of constant turmoil.

    1. Edward2
      October 18, 2020

      I realise this is what you hope it will be.
      My opinion is that you are going to be disappointed.

      1. bill brown
        October 20, 2020

        Edward 2

        The EIU is an independent consultancy, political, economic and market research company, taht works for lots of institutions around the world.
        It also works for the Eu but it is not funded by the EU, taht would make it part of it set budget and it is not.
        Get you rfacts right

    2. NickC
      October 19, 2020

      Martin, Of course there was a vote on the post-exit relationship between the UK and the EU. It was called the Referendum. You know – where we decided that EU control over the UK must cease. Trade, yes; control, no. It’s that simple.

  20. Sea_Warrior
    October 18, 2020

    Off thread, a little, but I woke up to a news report of a fisheries dispute in Canada. I spent some time researching the matter. I couldn’t find any mention of the EU demanding fishing rights as part of CETA – but I did discover that the EU puts Canadian fish exporters through predictable and intrusive administrative hoops. It even has the gall – or is it gaul? – to demand that the fish exporters prove that their products are ‘sustainable’. I’m tempted to suggest one way in which we could satisfy Brussels as to the sustainability of our stocks in the future but I’m sure that our host on this site is already ahead of me.

    1. Fred H
      October 18, 2020

      sustainable? – – how do you persuade wild fish to breed?

      1. Sea_Warrior
        October 18, 2020

        Soft lighting, some alcohol and Dean Martin piped through on underwater speakers?

        1. glen cullen
          October 18, 2020

          I was going to say put lipstick on one

      2. gregory martin
        October 18, 2020

        Its not so difficult as you suppose. Restraint from fishing at certain times of year.Selection of species by discriminate capture, such as long lining. Use only certain sizes, returning alive adult mature specimens. Prevent marine destruction by bottom ploughing gear. Monitor for populations and food chain balance. Ban vacuum fishing and electrostun methods. Restrict explotation for fishmeal and oil production. Reduce pollution and nitrate excesses in river run-off.

        1. Fred H
          October 18, 2020

          ‘fish exporters’ have to do all that?

          Not a country – – exporters!!
          I think we will decide the fish are all ours – Japan, China etc can buy they won’t demand all that nonsense – – they want to ‘just eat’.

      3. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        Well not killing them en mass and not even landing them would be a start, not catching sprats would be a good idea. Not raking the sea bed with chain would be an idea. I think our fishermen, who have maintained British waters for thousands of years might be the ones to consult.

  21. Peter Parsons
    October 18, 2020

    To quote from a speech by Michael Gove in April 2016:

    “There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will remain in this zone.

    “The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and the Ukraine would stay part of this free trade area – and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus – is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker joining UKIP.

    “Agreeing to maintain this continental free trade zone is the simple course and emphatically in everyone’s interests.”

    I wonder how Mr. Juncker’s UKIP application is coming along.

    1. Sea_Warrior
      October 18, 2020

      Didn’t BSE also promise us WW3 if we left the EU?

  22. ukretired123
    October 18, 2020

    In summary this complicated red tape was a ruse to create an army of pen pushers adding to the perception of power like a House of Cards deception benefiting France and Germany and disadvantaged Britain. Nice for the EU not the UK.
    As you said this has been ongoing since 1992 which seems the pivotal moment when the European Community was hijacked by the European Union – deliberate words chosen too!
    Someone will correct that date but the hidden agenda leaves no doubt about its intention and as usual “Not for us but for them”.

    1. Mark B
      October 18, 2020

      There was no hijacking, this has long been the plan.

      1. ukretired123
        October 18, 2020

        Agreed but the original European Free Trade Area EFTA was the ideal situation for Britain.The hidden agenda of EUSSR became openly public later.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          October 18, 2020

          EFTA was the UKs idea, nothing to do with the EU and it’s predecessors.

          1. ukretired123
            October 19, 2020

            Thank you – even better !

        2. bill brown
          October 19, 2020

          ukretired123
          If, you had read the original Rome treaty you would know whant you are saying is actually not the case

          1. Edward2
            October 20, 2020

            Just because the treaty of Rome spoke about ever closer union doesn’t justify the current dream of the United States of Europe.
            Closer union was said to be about there being more cooperation more mutually beneficial trading, higher living standards for people, more democracy and less regulation over people’s lives.

  23. ChrisS
    October 18, 2020

    An interesting insider’s view of what happened in the early years of the single market. The direction of travel must have become increasingly obvious to you. It’s a pity that the rest of the Conservative party and Labour didn’t take it seriously enough.

    I think Brussels’ refusal to negotiate in an equitable manner means that we are now past the point where we can continue to discuss their “level playing field.” It’s been very obvious for more than a year that the kind of controls they wish to place on the development of UK trade policy will severely restrict our freedom of action.

    Politicians need to remember that the restrictions would apply to every business in the UK but will give us limited access for what is only 40% of our international trade.
    95% of British businesses do not even trade with Europe.

    A comprehensive trade deal should have been easy to do, but I never thought the EU would give us one. The Europhile elite in charge of the EU are far too frightened that an independent Britain will be conspicuously successful. They are worried that member states would then demand a loosening of control from Brussels, even if none of them actually opt to follow us out. So it has turned out.

    Thanks to Teresa May and her naive attempt to appeal to the EU’s mythical good nature, we have wasted four years and more than ÂŁ40bn in additional net contributions to the EU budget, only to finally leave on the same WTO terms that were available in 2016.

  24. A.Sedgwick
    October 18, 2020

    Again the PM did not keep his word, his comments were mealy mouthed. He should have ceased all contact with Brussels until 01/01/21.

    The EEC/EU hardliners recognised the danger the UK was and were hell bent on destroying our Union and they may have succeeded. Brussels approach is soft Kremlin. Useful idiots have abounded over the decades and at all levels. I could not be more pessimistic about the UK’s future. As previously suggested we need a grand federal plan which will cement the Union and remove the deep state and Establishment.

  25. Lifelogic
    October 18, 2020

    Germany still performing far better than the UK on Covid. This despite their rather circa 23% higher population. New cases in Germany only about 1/3 of those in the UK and also deaths even per new case in the UK are nearly double.

    So why is the UK government not learning the lessons from Gernmany and why is the state monopoly NHS performing so poorly? I suspect their relative performance on non covid deaths is even worse.

    1. Norman
      October 18, 2020

      But have you seen the video by by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, a consumer protection trial lawyer and a member of the German Corona Investigative Committee and International Network of Lawyers? He is an international lawyer with scientific research to back up his claims, and discusses the legal aspects of the worldwide Corona policies., in a You Tube video entitled ‘Crimes Against Humanity’. I would not like to take sides in this debate, except to say that there’s been something sinister in the disproportionate way most governments seem to have reacted to what now appears to be an exaggerated risk.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        +1

    2. Bill B.
      October 18, 2020

      The only lesson the UK government has learned is this: the worse the figures it presents are, the more people will fear, and beg to be locked down.

      It’s working, so why should Boris change a winning policy?

      As Lord Sumption says in the Mail, he’ll probably avoid blame for lockdown-caused excess deaths from cancer, suicide, heart attacks etc etc, because — they won’t be presented on the same graph.

  26. Billy Elliot
    October 18, 2020

    Sir, would you be able to provide examples for this statement?

    “The single market was much better at ensuring tariff and barrier free access to the UK for continental manufacturers and farmers than it was at securing access for UK service providers to the continent.”

  27. Mike Stallard
    October 18, 2020

    Tariffs – yes.
    What the EU is really after though is bringing up Balkan and other backward economies to the standards of the Northern European one. It plans to do this by inspectors, authorised by the EU, who can ensure quality meets required standards. Once these are agreed, then the EU is quite happy that these goods can be traded within the EU freely. If not, not.
    It makes perfect sense. I do not want Greek wine laced with anti freeze or “beef” taken from a dying horse. There are a lot of Borats around – and the Mafia too.

    Without regular, approved inspectors, the whole thing falls to pieces. It is not that the EU are being stubborn: they cannot give us a deal. And, yes, we are going to leave as we have to now after the election. I want that – the rest of the world is waiting for us.

    But it will demand sacrifice. And it will demand firm handling of the very angry French fishermen who are used to revolting.

  28. Norman
    October 18, 2020

    I remember the implementation of the Single Market well! The inexorable logic, the ruthless efficiency, the seemingly laudable aims of a singe regulatory standard for all: it was an impressive edifice, behind which was an army of ultra-obedient civil servants!
    (Seeing how willing people are now to espouse the destructive, pseudo-scientific Covid legislation, and all the ‘cancel-culture’ stuff, I doubt much has changed!)
    For me, it was not the methodology that was at fault, but the sinister anti-Reformation spirit of Babel: the dictates of Rome versus the Gospel of grace. Born free as a British and Commonwealth citizen, I instinctively knew the EU was spiritually alien. And the 2016 referendum showed that the hallowed instincts of ‘Britishness’ were still alive among our people. This was paralleled in Trump’s America, where the battle lines are identical.
    Events during the four subsequent years have amply borne out the real nature of the conflict – and the urgent need for us all (in the words of an old hymn) to take refuge in the ‘ROCK OF AGES,’ before it is too late: ‘I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work’ (John 9:4).

  29. William Long
    October 18, 2020

    And it was Conservative Government that refused your request to keep the veto alive! I remember being completely staggered that Enoch Powell should urge people to vote Labour, the Labour party then being Eurosceptic, to keep us out of the Common Market, but how right he was, as in so many things. One of the great political mishaps of the postwar era was his assumption that people were as well educated as he was, and would understand the context of his reference to ‘The River Tiber foaming with much blood’ instead of using it as a weapon to marginalise him and deprive us of the services of a great politician.

    Reply Labour wanted to give up the veto on SM matters and went on to sacrifice hundreds of vetoes when in government with us Conservatives opposing all the surrenders at Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon.

  30. villaking
    October 18, 2020

    Sir John, you rewrite commonly understood history – although you were there and I wasn’t so maybe you could comment. I had it that Mrs Thatcher, frustrated at the numerous non tariff trade barriers being used to limit trade and growth sent Lord Cockfield to the Commission to initiate changes resulting in the lowering of trade barriers and greater economic growth. The true Single Market was a Thatcher achievement it is said.
    Speaking as someone in industry, I assure you that you do need to adopt common rules for unhindered access and leaving the SM will mean greater cost and bureaucracy. It seems silly to suggest you don’t need a common framework, that was surely what lay behind (then) Mrs Thatchers initiative.
    It is also not true that we all agreed Leave meant leaving the SM and CU. The referendum question did not specify. The government leaflet laid out the benefits of the SM without stating we would leave it. It made no mention of the CU. Leave promised the exact same benefits. The least worst option would be to stay in the SM having left the EU but I know this will not happen. Instead we will have a sort of trade deal but greater barriers to trade with the SM with resultant detriment to British industry

    Reply I was Single Market Minister 1989 to 1992. Thatcher did appoint Cockfield in the early 80s. The SM was always an EU project designed by the Commission.

    1. miami.mode
      October 18, 2020

      vk, you are wrong about leaving the SM and CU. Both sides in the referendum campaign, including David Cameron and George Osborne, stressed on television on many occasions that leaving the EU would mean leaving the SM and CU. If you missed it then you were not listening.

  31. No Longer Anonymous
    October 18, 2020

    I really don’t think it matters anymore. Everyone needs to read Peter Hitchens today.

    Deaths caused by the panic regards CV-19 are to outstrip those caused by the disease itself by a huge number.

    I know two who have died young of preventable diseases because the NHS was only dealing with CV-19. And those dying are often screaming in excruciating pain.

    I pray to God I don’t get a lump on my balls or a mole – Boris/Hancock seem determined I should die writhing in agony from them.

    World GDP was down 0.1% in the 2008/9 crash – today it is down 4.5%. 45x as bad. Let that sink in.

    Indeed, CV-19 must be eradicated at *all* costs. Let that sink in too. MILLIONS are already starving because of the West’s reaction to CV-19 which is to shutter up our economies rather than target the vulnerable.

    A cultural and economic dark age is upon us and who is in charge of our country ? A blundering and chaotic buffoon who couldn’t even balance his own financial and domestic affairs.

    1. miami.mode
      October 18, 2020

      So, NLA, what’s his solution? Leave the CV-19 sufferers to die in excruciating pain and look after the rest?

    2. Peter D Gardner
      October 19, 2020

      Rubbish. Look at EuroMOMO. Covid deaths feature as a humongous spike in excess deaths from all causes. Since early July excess deaths have been normal or below normal. There has been no increase above normal in non-Covid deaths whatsoever.

  32. Shire Tory
    October 18, 2020

    Perhaps EU representatives think the UK wants special access because that is what Mr Frost is asking for. He wants no tariffs, a special deal on cabotage, passports for financial services, recognising qualificatiobs, etc etc. Didn’t you know?

    1. Sea_Warrior
      October 18, 2020

      He is, presumably, offering the EU exactly the same in return. One would have thought that the EU would have shown some gratitude for the several hundreds of billions given over the course of our membership, rather than their wanting to give us a worse ‘deal’ than it gives to those who haven’t given tuppence.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      No that is what Mrs May asked for when she rejected the FTA.

    3. Robert Mcdonald
      October 18, 2020

      Frost, and the government, want no more than Canada have agreed.

  33. rose
    October 18, 2020

    I am so grateful you have given this first hand account. We need to hear more of your experiences as Single Market Minister and also as adviser before that. This is a story not told and one which needs to be known or succeeding generations will be fed ever more golden propaganda about the lost nirvana that was the the UK in the EU.

  34. The Prangwizard
    October 18, 2020

    Mr Gove is talking about significant percentages there could be a deal.

    As usual Boris was doing his double talk routine the other day. He will betray us with a last minute stitch up. If this was not on his mind why did he not just end the talks definitively?

    Maybe he wants to be considered for the rest of his life as a trickster, even worse than Blair.

  35. XYXY
    October 18, 2020

    A sorry tale, but good to be made aware of that piece of history.

    The other big issue with the so-called Single Market is that it requires some members to pay in while others take out. I have never heard of a club where that happens. Imagine a golf club where the richer members were asked to pay a large membership fee while other people were allowed to be members and could take away some of the rich people’s fees. Even the crazed, illogical socialists we have here don’t suggest anything like that.
    The SM is socialism on steroids.

    Also, the idea that a government should pay for tariffs to be reduced is another socialisation of costs. The 7% of UK companies that trade with the EU are able to sell their goods tariff-free, funded by all taxpayers.

    Looking at the amounts we are paying, are we really seeing value for all those billions in terms of cheap goods from the EU?

    And when you also consider that many of the companies that do trade with the EU are multinationals that have no allegiance to the UK and often minimise the tax they pay in the UK, or up sticks and move their HQ whenever it suits them… we are being taken for fools.

    Any FTA with the EU is of much more benefit to them, or more specifically to their companies, since the balance of trade is ÂŁ107bn in our favour (they sell us more than we sell them).

    So whenever I hear all this talk of the “single market” as a good thing… I have to remind myself that it is utter hogwash, which only survives because people are so uninformed as to what is actually going on.

    1. Peter D Gardner
      October 19, 2020

      The concept of the rich paying for poorer members is central to the United Kingdom. The point is that the UK is a political union and so is the EU. However it is not yet a complete state as is UK, but that is its intention: the Federal State of Europe. Equally that is why in the EU politics trumps balance of trade arguments. The question is what unites them to enable the rich to be content to pay for poorer members. Both the UK and the EU face that question. On that the UK seems to be going backwards. The EU forwards but not if UK is successful outside the EU so it is supremely important to the EU that UK fails to make a success of Brexit. It is fighting for its survival.

  36. No Longer Anonymous
    October 18, 2020

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8851695/MAIL-SUNDAY-COMMENT-Powerful-voices-argue-nuanced-approach-Covid-19.html

    It’s coming. A huge revolt against this blundering, arse covering government. The Barrington Declaration is not from some fringe of uneducated loonies but from far more usefully educated and disciplined people than the oaf in office.

    The damage to the mental and physical health of the nation that Boris/Hancock/Whitty/SAGE/BBC is inflicting is huge.

    I now have to wear a mask at least four hours a day at work. For what ? I work shifts and the only social respite I had was at work – the banter, the conversations… these basic and important pleasures gone.

    This was only meant to be a couple of weeks.

    LET US BE A HUMAN BEINGS AGAIN !

    Then we can get on with repairing the incalculable economic damage this government has done. My beautiful town now looking like a 1980s pit town.

    I’m bereft and aghast at what is happening.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 18, 2020

      Me too…me too!

    2. Barbara
      October 18, 2020

      +1

    3. Philip P.
      October 18, 2020

      Ordinary MPs won’t make that happen, I’m afraid.

      The oaf in office will probably be removed by the men in grey suits, once Brexit is out of the way and can be hailed as his ‘historic achievement’.

      Then there may be a chance for a new start.

    4. Peter D Gardner
      October 19, 2020

      So having to wear a mask is damage to the mental and physical health of the nation. Poor diddums. You wouldn’t cut it even in today’s soft Armed Services.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 19, 2020

        Breathing is important!

    5. Mike Durrans
      October 19, 2020

      +1

  37. Tony Sharp
    October 18, 2020

    As Sir John points out it is the ‘regualtionary’ regime that Brussels demands rather than anything of practical use for consumers. Indeed such regulation is designed to actually suffocate innovation as ‘non-complaint’ . We have found with Dyson products how one set of regulations about energy use are used to ban innovatory technology – the real reason being to avoid what innovation creates which is competition.
    The ‘Single Market’ is not a true market of offering competing goods to consumers for their choice but an anti-competitve arrangement to maintain high prices of limited alternatives of the same kind to the benefit of producers and manufacturers. What the SM cannot do in this regard to stop competition from outside is constrained by the EU tariff regime of the Customs Union.
    This is why the EU economy, even pre-CV19 Recession, was slipping in World rankings.
    There is no benefit to the UK economy belonging to either especuially as we are net importers from the EU because of these mechanisms.

  38. Billy Elliot
    October 18, 2020

    Sligthly off topic if allowed Sir, but this is from todays Financial Times.
    Emmanuel seems to softening a bit.

    Mr Macron acknowledged that life will indeed have to change for France’s fishing fleet. “Will the situation be the same as today? No, for sure, our fishermen know it, we know and we will be at their side,” he said. “Can we accept a Brexit that sacrifices our fishermen? No, equally not.”

    France’s leader said he knew that access “will not be of the same nature, it will not be as ambitious as now”. 
    “It will be doubtless be with conditions, perhaps with a fee. But it must be long-term because we must give each other visibility,” he said. 

    1. Mark B
      October 18, 2020

      Told ya !

  39. Len Peel
    October 18, 2020

    It is just wrong to claim a good of merchandisable quality in one country can be freely sold in another. EU states have different rules on eg safety, and they can apply them – until the EU legislates a common rule. Sad but revealing that you never even understood how the EU works

    1. Edward2
      October 18, 2020

      Obviously wrong Len.
      Manufacturing companies from all over the world make products which meet all the requirements of the markets they sell into.
      If your product meets those standards then it can be legally sold.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        Sadly France often requires that the items are insured in a particular manner available only to French products.

        1. Edward2
          October 18, 2020

          Not my trading experience but if they did that it would be contrary to WTO rules on trade.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            October 19, 2020

            They do do that. The EU are often in breach of WTO rules. Standard stuff!

        2. bill brown
          October 19, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson

          The French insurance issue is simple not true

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            October 20, 2020

            I have absolute proof.

    2. miami.mode
      October 18, 2020

      Len Peel, what an inane comment. Bearing in mind the recent events in the clothing industry in Leicester, in the EU we could not even check on the safety of our own manufacturers let alone those in other parts of the EU.

      Does horse meat ring any bells?

  40. Newmania
    October 18, 2020

    One of the few things Leave and Remain agreed about in the referendum was leaving the EU meant leaving the single market and customs union

    Remain warned that there was a danger of falling out of the single market and have been proven right . The seer of Wokingham on the other hand assured us “ Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy – the UK holds most of the cards in any negotiation
”
    In fact Leave were vague until the last 2 weeks when they finally admitted their anti immigrant positions entailed leaving the single market. The truth is that referendum been limited to those with the slightest idea what it is, Remain would have won .
    The City values free access to the single market ,exporters value it as do importers , Insurers value it every reputable authority predicted an on going cost
    Many if these people are so deluded as to suppose they know their own jobs better than Sir John Redwood.

    1. Mike Wilson
      October 18, 2020

      Nonsense. Many Remainers, including the then Prime Minister, made it crystal clear that a vote to leave the EU was a vote to leave the Single Market – as if this was the ultimate unthinkable consequence for Leavers which would scare them into voting to remain. All 17.4 million of us knew what we were voting for.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 18, 2020

        And the PM also assured us that the ‘letter’ Triggering our 1 year transition would be ‘sent the following day’.
        Pretty quick, pretty easy. Even a dolt like Cameron got it, no need to match the Seer of Wokingham (few can aspire to that).

  41. NickC
    October 18, 2020

    The EU can only be trusted to expand its own power.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 18, 2020

      Oh no. The EU can be trusted to push its luck until there is nothing but ashes.

  42. Mike Wilson
    October 18, 2020

    Mr. Redwood, as someone who is close to the actions d familiar with the whole situation, could you give us a heads-up on how our little lives will be affected after January 1st 2021.

    1) in the case of us having whatever deal (Canada?) seems most likely

    2) in the case of no deal

    Is there anything I should be worried about?

    1. Fred H
      October 18, 2020

      ‘Is there anything I should be worried about?’

      Don’t get taken ill while in the EU countries.

    2. villaking
      October 19, 2020

      It depends on whether or not you work for an international business or if you are retired / public sector / working in a domestic enterprise. Sir John hasn’t been at the sharp end of British industry for a while and is not the person to ask. I run an international manufacturing business and deal or no deal, we will face extra cost and bureaucracy

  43. David Peddy
    October 18, 2020

    And we saw all of this in action with the limitations imposed by the EU ( for the benefit of Bosch & Braun ) on the power of vacuum cleaners, being limited ( for entirely spurious ‘environmental’ reasons ) to 1600W and then again imposing completely unnecessary biodiversity and electro-mechanical tests on medical devices that had long been in general use ,for the benefit of Siemens, Aesculap/B.Braun and others , when the FDA had sensibly introduced the Grandfather provisions to waive through such equipment in general use prior to 1975

  44. Fred H
    October 18, 2020

    the continuing illegal traffic:-
    BBC website.
    Twelve boats carried 170 migrants across the English Channel as choppy conditions at sea improved on Saturday. A further 222 people were stopped from making the “perilous” journey by French authorities, the Home Office said. Six migrants on two kayaks tied together were rescued by the French navy off the coast of Calais.
    The body of a man in a lifejacket, believed to be a migrant, was found on a beach near the French port earlier, according to the AFP news agency.

    1. glen cullen
      October 18, 2020

      Its a daily event – therefore the media are no longer interested – result this government doesn’t have to do anything

    2. glen cullen
      October 18, 2020

      I wonder how many of them don’t like our school teaching methods or ourschool teachers

  45. Jacob
    October 18, 2020

    Your opening sentence say’s it all- but we do want access to the single market but on our own terms- the EU side call it cherry picking or having our cake and eating it. We are not dealing with amateurs here and M Gove’s spin on Marr and Sophie this morning is not going to help things either- they the Barnier side remember him in front of the red bus back in 2016 and the promises he made to the British people and have his card well and truly marked- they know his form.

    Let’s face it we are one country of 65 million they are one union of 27 countries but with over 450 million people- if we really want access we are going to have to agree to the level playing field as regards competition- thereafter fisheries will need to be compromised and there will have to be a mechanism for to sort trade disputes- so am thinking that we will have taken back control but with some proviso’s- if we don’t want that then there’s alway’s WTO rules and we take our chances- as Gove say’s Australian style- whatever that means but personally I wouldn’t believe a word from him..so that’s the way we have to go now if we want access and otherwise it’s no deal and to WTO rules

    1. Mark B
      October 18, 2020

      Why ? No other country does !

      1. Terry
        October 19, 2020

        we are not any other country and apart from having a land frontier with them we are geographically located right on their doorstep- if we want to ignore these realities then so be it but the consequences for everyone will be immense- until we come to our senses.

    2. Robert Mcdonald
      October 18, 2020

      We dont need any better access to the “single market” than China, Korea, Australia, America, New Zealand, I could go on, have. The EU is not one union of 670 million, it is 27 nations following 2 leading nations, maybe only 1 now France is struggling so greatly.

    3. Sir Joe Soap
      October 18, 2020

      How about if they want to sell to us they obey our rules?

  46. bill brown
    October 18, 2020

    Sir JR

    What is all this positioning about, the negotiations will continue and some solution will be found. Why, do we need all this circus every time a crises arises thre will be more before we are finished and yes, you did make yourself a reputation in Brusels in particualr with some of your Scandinavian and Dutch counter-parts

    1. Edward2
      October 18, 2020

      We all hope for a sensible solution bill.
      But it isn’t looking obvious that a deal will eventually happen.

      1. bill brown
        October 19, 2020

        Edward 2

        totally agree thank you

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 19, 2020

        After 6 years of negotiations!

  47. Norman
    October 18, 2020

    When all is said and done, it would be nice to operate under an understanding that each side in this negotiation will of course assiduously, not to say ruthlessly, pursue its own agenda. That is a given. But it should not stop us from arriving at an amicable relationship. Indeed, in the end, it is essential that we do, for everyone’s sake. That is a not position of weakness, but of realism and strength. In the end, it all comes down to a mature, sensible judgement – a commodity that appears to be seriously lacking these days, although I wish Boris well, for all our sakes!

  48. Alpipp
    October 18, 2020

    Walk away. EU countries have trashed there economies with lockdowns. So has UK. So has USA. So now is the time to ignore health socialist fascists. That is what the west is now….

  49. Lindsay McDougall
    October 18, 2020

    Good, but follow the argument where it leads. It is in our interest to destroy European Union as it is currently being constructed, obviously not by military means but by exploiting current divisions between the Member States. Have you any ideas on how to pursue such diplomacy?

  50. No Longer Anonymous
    October 18, 2020

    https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1349158/coronavirus-nhs-treatment-hospitals-full-shield-vulnerable

    Sir John.

    Your government really is going to have to stamp down on the press.

    I fear you’re all going to be pitch-forked out of office (quite literally) before next summer.

    Bit by bit Project Covid Fear is falling apart.

    Please tell Prime Minister Whitty.

  51. Peter D Gardner
    October 18, 2020

    “They may be fuelled in this mistaken belief by sections of the UK establishment who seem to think the single market is a good construct that we would be wrong to leave.”

    A single market would be perfect for UK if it were not run by the EU. Fortunately there is an alternative: the enormous and dynamic market of the rest of the world that is evolving toward a single market under the auspices of the WTO and other agencies. That is the better choice for UK in the long term.

  52. Peter D Gardner
    October 19, 2020

    Regulation is the principle lever of the EU’s imperial power. In every deal or agreement with states and organisations outside the EU it seeks to make the other parties subject to its regulation. It is required in co-operation and accession agreements and the EU tries to include it in trade deals.
    The EU understands very well that a prosperous independent UK would be an existential threat to ever closer union, perhaps to the EU even as it stands now. So, obviously, it seeks by any means possible to impose EU jurisdiction and regulation on UK to ensure that threat does not materialise. This is not vindictive, nor mean minded, nor stupid. The UK might well agree. Since the UK Government is still at pains to refer to the EU as partners and friends, of course they are encouraged to persist with their demands. On the other hand it is not in UK’s interests to declare that it acknowledges that it will be a threat because doing so would invite the question, well what exactly are your intentions? Indeed it already has. The answer is that, yes UK does indeed intend to become that threat. It was not the purpose of Brexit but is the inevitable consequence of a successful Brexit.
    Given the EU’s protective mindset its response will be protection. It will shut out UK even if that causes itself some economic harm, because it must survive as a political project. It never was an economic project. Politics is supreme and the aim of its politics now is to form a Federal State of Europe that challenges the hegemony of the United States of America. By undermining ever closer union, an independent UK would, through no fault of its own, kill that ambition.
    A good deal that is fair to the UK would not remove that threat but enhance it.
    The problem the EU has is how to ensure that if UK does not accede, ie we have No Deal, UK is in the wrong in the eyes of the member states and other countries. If UK can be shown to tear up the Withdrawal Agreement Treaty without good reason as defined in the Vienna Convention, the EU aims to ensure UK is seen as untrustworthy and thus isolated from the world outside the EU in which it seeks to live and do business.
    One is reminded of the ‘lay waste’ policy of the retreating German army in 1918.
    For the EU the stakes could not be higher. It really is existential for the EU and there is no reason to expect it to be other than utterly ruthless.

  53. Peter D Gardner
    October 19, 2020

    PS to my previous comment. One should also not expect anything other than the EU exploiting every division in UK, especially Scottish nationalism, Northern Ireland and the relationship with Ireland, to weaken UK. Breaking up UK is very much in the EU’s interests. Economics, as I said, is secondary. Pace Macron, this is war by politics. UK needs to understand this and also to build a decent Fishery Protection force capable of fending off attacks on British fishermen. We need many strong hulls, net cutting equipment, none of which we have. At present all Uk can do is to use extremely expensive airborne surveillance designed for high tech warfare to compile a perfect picture of UK’s fishing grounds being exploited illegally and our own fishermen being attacked by force in our own EEZ. All UK can do is watch the battle and mayhem from the air.

  54. Unblocked
    October 24, 2020

    Very energetic post, I liked that bit. Will there be a part 2?

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