Getting on with the neighbours

The EU Treaty contains the following:

 

Artic1e 8.1 The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming
to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of
the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.
2. For the purposes of paragraph 1, the Union may conclude specific agreements with
the countries concerned. These agreements may contain reciprocal rights and
obligations as well as the possibility of undertaking activities jointly. Their
implementation shall be the subject of periodic consultation.”

The EU is very bad at getting on with its neighbours. This is despite the clear legal requirements it has imposed on itself through the Treaties to have good relations with neighbouring countries and to advance free trade with them. The EU has led Turkey and Ukraine to believe they could become full members, enticing them into signing up to very restrictive Association Agreements that have caused them problems. The EU has allowed a lot of fences and walls to b e put up from Ceuta in the west to Hungary  in the east to try to stem the flow of migrants as it struggles to control its own borders.

Since the UK left the EU and its single market the EU has gone out of its way to try to drag the UK back into membership by its excessive and unfair interpretation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. France has taken UK money to assist in stemming the people smuggling across the Channel but delivered limited results. The EU as a whole keeps sending large bills which it claims we still owe even though we are no longer members and no longer receive any money back from their general budget. Many other countries around the world have found it difficult or impossible to negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU.

The UK has been too tolerant of EU behaviour, and needs to be more independent to deliver the Brexit the majority voted for.

380 Comments

  1. David Peddy
    July 22, 2021

    Totally agree with your last statement Sir John
    Make our feelings known in the House please

    1. MiC
      July 22, 2021

      The majority did NOT vote for John’s puritanical, doctrinaire interpretation of brexit.

      The result was highly marginal, and of the Leave voters a good share must have believed the likes of Hannan – and there were plenty on the Leave side – who said that no one was thinking of leaving the SM etc., or that a Norway or Switzerland model was a good bet for us, as Farage himself suggested.

      If they never intended that then they were simply cynical liars.

      Now, what do you think?

      1. UKretired123
        July 22, 2021

        Reply to MiX – you are so up yourself you sound exactly like you are actually in EU HQ Brussels anti-Brexit Propaganda Dept working the night shift and have been since 2016 hoping to be rewarded with a gold-plated pension on top of your over inflated extremely generous salary.
        I have never seen such an arrogant and condescending contribution that tried in vain daily without fail to poison Sir John ( to you ) public discourse.

        1. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          How about at least some attempt to refute my claimed facts?

          1. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            Martin, You’ve lied once too often about what Daniel Hannan said about the EU empire’s single market. It is quite clear from the video that Hannan was specifically talking about continuing to sell into the EU single market, and not remaining in it.

            It is a plain fact that the electorate were offered a binary choice of Leave or Remain. The Leave option did not, and cannot, contain any element of Remain, by definition. Northern Ireland and intra-UK trade remains under the control of the EU. No matter how much you torture the English word ‘leave’, remaining under EU control is not Leave.

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          July 22, 2021

          Oh goodness. Post of the year goes to you UK RETIRED. Brilliantly put and I couldn’t have put it better myself.

        3. DavidJ
          July 22, 2021

          Indeed.

        4. Jim Whitehead
          July 22, 2021

          UK Retired123, +1
          Very good judgement on the tiresome comments of MiC

      2. graham1946
        July 22, 2021

        Leave or remain. That was the question and we voted leave. The other nonsense about meanings of what people wanted are pure Remoaner fantasy. If the result had been Remain, we would have accepted it as we did 40 odd years ago. Remoaners have no honour and wish to do this country down rather than get on with it as they cannot bear to see any UK success to prove them wrong. You are the living proof, finding amusement in anything that harms the UK.

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          July 22, 2021

          Another great post Graham

        2. MFD
          July 24, 2021

          +1 Wellsaid!

      3. Peter2
        July 22, 2021

        Access to the Single Market was what was said by Lord Hannon.
        Same as all the other non EU nations for trade in Europe.
        More facts ignored by you MiC
        And you fail to mention the variety of Remain options that were spoken about during the referendum campaign.

        1. Harvey
          July 24, 2021

          After talking himself out of a job as an EU MEP Hannan as got himself into the Lords- nice work if you can get it – wish I could get it

      4. Lynn
        July 22, 2021

        The majority voted EXACTLY for leaving the EU. What dont you understand? LEAVE as opposed to REMAIN.

      5. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        Actually, Martin, everyone who voted Leave voted for the same thing – to leave the EU. Because the Referendum was strictly a binary choice – to Remain in the EU under the conditions negotiated by Cameron, or to leave the EU entirely. Nobody before the vote doubted what Leave meant – even the Remain campaign knew we would be “quitting” the EU if we voted Leave.

        1. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          You presume a right to define Leave, amongst the countless possible meanings that it could have.

          Parliament is supreme, not you, nor any other member of the public such as me, Nick.

          1. Peter2
            July 22, 2021

            The only party that promised to leave got a huge 80 seat majority.
            Labour had their worst result since 1935
            Seems the public dont agree with you MiC

          2. NickC
            July 22, 2021

            Precisely, Martin. Parliament offered us the choice of Remain, or Leave. Only. Parliament did not offer us a third option of partial Remain.

            Only a Remain could contend that EU control over part of the UK, and EU direction of intra-UK trade, and allowing the EU to plunder our fish, and our continued subjugation to new EU law, was “Leave”.

          3. Ed M
            July 22, 2021

            @Mic

            At end of day, Brexit won. Whether by a hair’s breath. Doesn’t matter. They won. This is a Democrat country and so wrong to oppose the Brexit victory.

        2. Ed M
          July 22, 2021

          @Nick,

          ‘Nobody before the vote doubted what Leave meant – even the Remain campaign knew we would be “quitting” the EU if we voted Leave.’

          – You’re exaggerating. However, I agree with you, Brexit won and Remainers just have to accept it and get on with it.

          1. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            No exaggeration, Ed. Remain did say that Leave meant “quitting” the EU. Legally and in common usage the meaning of leave is clear, and cannot be twisted into partial Remain. Voters reasons, and preferences, don’t alter what was offered. The two issues – what was offered by Parliament, and what voters would have preferred – are quite separate.

      6. K Jig
        July 22, 2021

        What Remainers like you continue to with is the Brexit campaign, often the red bus, What Daniel Hannan said, Single Market, ‘Blah! Blah! Blah! Blah!’

        You will not accept that the vote to Leave was hardly influenced by the Leave campaign if at all. It was decided over many years because the people of the UK were unhappy as members of the EU. We have Sovereignty in our DNA. Being ruled by people we have not voted for and cannot remove, with rules and laws we have not voted for, the ECJ we did not vote for, is what drove Brexit.

        There was not a single British person in the top running the EU. We were just a cash cow.

        Since the Brexit vote and journey, we had Michael Gove sabotage Boris in 2016 and we were stuck with May, who imo, intended to deliver Brino, but finally with a bit of luck she was removed and we got Boris.

        Unfortunately, Boris still thinks the EU leaders are our ‘Amigos and friends’. They are not, never have been and never will be. They are our ruthless competitors!

        1. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          Claim what you like, it is just that – a claim.

          1. NickC
            July 22, 2021

            Well, it’s rather more credible than your claim that continuing EU control over Northern Ireland, intra-UK trade, our fish, etc, is “Leave”, Martin.

        2. hefner
          July 22, 2021

          So, just looking at the last ten years before the referendum you define Catherine Ashton (Foreign Affairs & Security, and Vice President 02/2010-10/2014), Jonathan Hill (Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets) and Julian King (Security) as ectoplasms.

          Difficult not to consider your comment in the same way, ectoplasmic.

          1. K Jig
            July 23, 2021

            Hardly at the top were they!

        3. Fedupsoutherner
          July 22, 2021

          Too bloody right K Jig

        4. DavidJ
          July 22, 2021

          +1

        5. Ed M
          July 22, 2021

          The EU served the UK well in terms of helping to get Europe back on its feet, to a degree, after WW2. A crippled Europe back them, because of WW2, also adversely affected the UK.
          But I certainly agree with Brexiters that the EU no longer properly benefits the UK.
          But at end of day, doesn’t really matter anymore. What matters is that Brexit won.
          (I just wish people on BOTH sides would stop exaggerating. There’s no nobility in ‘winning’ an argument by exaggeration. Let’s just accept Brexit won, UNITE, and get on with it).

          1. Ed M
            July 22, 2021

            ‘There’s no nobility in ‘winning’ an argument by exaggeration’

            – Nor in snarky, bad-tempered exchange. There’s been faaar to much of that over the last few years in this GREAT country of ours in general – from pubs across the country to Parliament. It’s got to stop. It’s boring and destroys any dignity Brexit has after winning the referendum (and equally destroy any dignity of the arguments of those who are pro Remain).

          2. Know-Dice
            July 23, 2021

            I thought it was “The Marshall Plan” of which France, West Germany and Great Britain were its largest beneficiaries that got Europe back on its feet.

            The EEC & subsequently the EU were late comers to that…

        6. Harvey
          July 24, 2021

          Mess with the International Treaty the WA and Protocol and others are sure to mess with other longer standing treaties – like Uthrecht 1713 think Gibraltar – Boris’s’ choice

      7. steve
        July 22, 2021

        MiC

        “The majority did NOT vote for John’s puritanical, doctrinaire interpretation of brexit.”

        So they must have voted for your rainbow coloured puritanical version, eh? You lost fair and square get over it.

        I believe you would do yourself a favour by not casting such slur against a highly educated, highly qualified, fair and reasonable man. Your attempts to do so simply won’t wash with us.

      8. David Peddy
        July 23, 2021

        If I understood what on earth you were talking about I might be able to comment

      9. dixie
        July 23, 2021

        What facts?
        – you do not know nor can prove what the majority of referendum voters voted for
        – a simple majority was enough and it was 1m votes so not marginal
        – you do not know what share of voters even knew of Hannan let alone believed what he and his cohorts were saying in fact the earliest poll identified that a large proportion had made their minds up long before the referendum.
        – the offer was Leave or Stay, neither Norway or Sweden were offered
        – neither of those you name were in government or parliament then or after so had no basis to make any offer, only offer opinions, so not ‘liars’

        You like to act as though you are a legal expert, a constitutional expert and business expert.

        The only thing you prove time and again is that you are no such thing and you are an arrogant and bitter remainiac who insults all and sundry.

    2. Peter
      July 22, 2021

      Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is isolating while Lord Frost is left to handle the instant rejection on his Northern Ireland protocol proposals. Summer will be another reason for Boris to disappear.

      At some stage, this issue will require action not more talking.

      The EU organisation believe Boris Johnson is a weak leader. It easy to see why.

      1. steve
        July 22, 2021

        Peter

        +1 Totally correct Sir.

        ‘Doing one’ ….is Johnson’s nature. Face masks for example – removing the legal requirement but doing nothing beyond that to ensure people are not forced to wear them by supermarkets and terrified employers. In this way he gets someone else blamed for unpopular policy.

        As for Northern Ireland well I’m not surprised, frankly. Trust me on this: if Johnson is not removed pretty soon and replaced with a real man of guts, responsibility and patriotism, there will be revolt in the province and it will get very ugly very quickly, however Johnson will have been tipped off just before and will do his usual just before it kicks off.

        Migrants sent here with the assistance of the French Government…..Johnson’s tactic? Put simply is: “We have given our friends in France some more bribe money, so if migrants still come across the Channel it isn’t my fault.”

        Self Isolating?……yeah I bet he is.

        1. Hat man
          July 22, 2021

          No supermarket has forced me to wear a mask, Steve. In fact, even the local Sainsbury has put up a sign saying it’s a matter of personal choice.

          But I agree with you that Johnson must go, and soon. Trouble is, do we want Gove instead? Almost every front bench Tory is implicated in this grim business as far as I can see. To me, Rishi Sunak is the only one who has shown signs he may be capable of leading the country into better times.

          1. steve
            July 22, 2021

            Hat Man

            “even the local Sainsbury has put up a sign saying it’s a matter of personal choice.”

            We have a local Sainsburys too, but ours is insistant on face masks.

            That said, we do have many Polish shops ( Thank God ) and none of them require face masks. But they do have a man at the door who politely greets you as ‘Sir’….and sanitises your hands for you.

      2. X-Tory
        July 22, 2021

        Yes, in the past Boris would have been perfect for one of those travelling freak shows: “Roll up, roll up to see the Amazing Human Jelly! The only man born without a spine! Rotten eggs to throw – a penny each!”

    3. Robert McDonald
      July 22, 2021

      I can only add my strong support for your request.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        YeaH, and mine. Can we include MIC and Andy please?

    4. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      Except we haven’t left, David. The EU continues to plunder our fish. The EU continues to facilitate illegal migrants to travel to “treasure island”. The EU continues to administer part of the UK, Northern Ireland. The EU continues to control intra-UK trade. The UK continues to be subject to new EU law.

      We are still an EU “colony”. So the EU can, and will, behave as it pleases. And “Jelly Roll” Johnson will continue to employ the same propaganda technique he uses for the illegal migrant problem: promising “crack-downs” that never happen. Rinse, and repeat for the next news cycle, hoping we won’t notice.

      1. MiC
        July 22, 2021

        Those are all the effects of economic and geographical fact which cannot be changed, of the post-exit arrangements negotiated by your government, and of your now-finished brexit, not of any malice on the part of the European Union.

        We tried to explain these inevitabilities, but like most Leave voters’ teachers too, we were apparently wasting our time.

        You’ll hear far, far more about the European Union from now on than you ever did when the UK was a member, as we also advised.

        1. NickC
          July 22, 2021

          Well, Martin, insofar as it is “my” government it is also “your” government. And when I, and many many others, said we should walk away from your EU empire you argued frantically against such a move. We are where we are – BINO – for a variety of reasons: Theresa May; the Remain Parliaments of 2016-2019; a Remain establishment horrified by our vote; and silly Remains like you shrieking that we would be doomed if we actually left.

          1. bill brown
            July 23, 2021

            Nick C

            unnecssary use of the word silly

          2. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            Bill Brown, I have been called angry, xenophobic, thick, uneducated, racist, etc, etc. If a Remain makes a silly point, I reserve the right to call him silly. And the Remain project fear was really very silly.

          3. Blandell
            July 24, 2021

            No we are not BINO we are real world true blue brexits diverging away by ourselves and looking for some alternative trade deals with countries far away – Liz Truss – so far away in fact that these countries are on the other side of the world – NZ OZ China and SE Asia- and we havn’t even got a Merchant Navy anymore – wow lucky us!

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          July 22, 2021

          Yeah MIC to the point that we could throw up listening to your anti UK rhetoric.

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        Good post Nick.

      3. K Jig
        July 22, 2021

        Very well said!

    5. Nota#
      July 22, 2021

      @David Peddy – agreed we the electorate had one question to answer stay or leave. We voted leave, no preconditions no caveats – just leave and return to trying to achieve democracy

    6. Iron Mike
      July 22, 2021

      Yes, it is just dreadful that the EU agreed to exactly the deal that Boris proposed. Even worse that the EU now seems to want the UK to implement the deal that the UK asked for, agreed , signed and accepted in the House of Commons

    7. Sandra Pearce
      July 22, 2021

      With respect the majority had no idea what Brexit they voted for.

  2. Mark B
    July 22, 2021

    Good morning.

    So where do we take them to court ? Because if we cannot impose this upon them then it simply isn’t worth the paper it is written on and a complete waste of time discussing. As Switzerland, Russia and others have shown, the EU and its members, especially Germany, only understand one thing – Strength ! And given that we have a Jellyfish as PM and a Parliament that wants others to do its job for them, we are not going to get the EU and its members to do diddly squat for us.

    1. lifelogic
      July 22, 2021

      Exactly right.

      You say France “has delivered limited results” rather an understatement. They have actually been actively assisting the migrant crossings. But then the more that cross the channel the move of our money Priti seems to give them so why would they not do?

      1. steve
        July 22, 2021

        LL

        “They [French] have actually been actively assisting the migrant crossings. ”

        Indeed so. Just the other day Johnson allowed a French warship into British territorial water to ensure migrants successful landing on our shores.

        He then gave the French some more of our money, while some Britons don’t even know where the next meal will come from.

        You could’nt make it up. Johnson & Patel are just taking the piss now, both the shysters have to go.

        1. DavidJ
          July 22, 2021

          Johnson and Patel; surely the enemy within. We need and deserve better, far better.

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          July 22, 2021

          Steve, I couldn’t agree more.

    2. MiC
      July 22, 2021

      Look up “privity of contract”.

      1. Micky Taking
        July 22, 2021

        no. – you explain your point.

        1. MiC
          July 23, 2021

          Go on Micky.

          You might learn something.

          1. Micky Taking
            July 23, 2021

            Well several countries’ leaders complained about AZ ‘contractual terms’ (defining best endeavours concerning delivery dates/quantities) which they should not have been privy too, and certainly did not sign the contract. They would benefit from, but were not customer nor supplier.

    3. Nig l
      July 22, 2021

      +1

    4. Peter Wood
      July 22, 2021

      Brilliant summary of our position! (I keep hoping for a brilliant and cunning plan to appear from No. 10, to really remove EU influence and cost, but I’m perhaps too optimistic)

    5. Micky Taking
      July 22, 2021

      but jellyfish have a sting. Where is it?

      1. graham1946
        July 22, 2021

        Most just float around doing nothing much, just being pushed around without any idea what to do. Remind you of anyone?

      2. Everhopeful
        July 22, 2021

        Well
did you hear about the vaccine passports ? You know 
the thing they said they’d never bring in. Now a reality
and it looks as if they think they’ll get the bill through.
        That’s the sting of all these miserable months. The nasty, sneaky, mendacious sting at the end of the jellyfish’s tail.
        Boris has probably been ordered to drop using the carrot and pick up the stick.
        Forced medical intervention is coercion and isn’t that against international law ( which they usually obey slavishly)?

    6. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      The UK hasn’t the strength of purpose of Switzerland, Russia, etc, Mark B. Our establishment sneers at patriotism. So, we know what will happen here – there will be tears, hand-wringing, and “ultimatums” to the EU. Then when the news-cycle moves on, rinse and repeat the next time the EU empire flexes its power over us. Just like the propaganda cycle of “crackdowns” to deal with the illegal migrant problem. Another triumph of waffle over substance by Jelly Roll Johnson.

      1. bill brown
        July 23, 2021

        Nick C

        what empire are you talking about?

        1. NickC
          July 23, 2021

          The EU empire, Bill. Duh . . .

    7. Nota#
      July 22, 2021

      @David Peddy. The EU Commission only recognises their own Court. This Court is then lead to interpret their findings on what they are told by their master on the ‘Day’ – the rules, terms and conditions are as required by the Commission.

  3. Nig l
    July 22, 2021

    Once again our negotiators continuing to cry Wolf have forgotten the essential of negotiation. The side that can walk away wins. The EU know this and we are all mouth and no trousers so sits tight and nothing happens.

    The Treaty gives us the right to take unilateral action. The government needs to find some cojones.

    Sign seen in a shop window under Lost and Found.

    Lost one backbone. If found return to No 10 Downing Street. A large reward offered by Conservative voters.

    And in other news the truth, exposing HMGs amnesiac dissembling is out about how many people died in care homes, hundred and thousands of cancer patients waiting up to 9 months for a diagnosis, so more unnecessary deaths on the government’s hands and the meaningless Test and Trace is bringing the economy to a standstill.

    Aren’t you meant to be protecting the public. Looks like a lot of failure from where I am sitting.

    1. MiC
      July 22, 2021

      The NIP expressly does not give the UK an unconditional or absolute right to take unilateral action at all, but only in the case of what by reasonable international standards are “serious” problems.

      A load of hysterical froth, hyped up by right-wing teeth-grinders – over a few sausages for goodness sake – would not satisfy that, I doubt.

      1. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        So, nothing to see here, move along please – eh, Martin?

        1. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          Not my opinion but of the European Union, US, New Zealand, etc., it seems, eh, Nick?

          1. NickC
            July 22, 2021

            What, “serious problems” like a hissy-fit over vaccines, Martin? Those “opinions”?

      2. graham1946
        July 22, 2021

        I’m sure the big supermarkets who cannot service their stores as they wish will be comforted by the barrack room lawyer’s opinion.

      3. Peter2
        July 22, 2021

        No treaty is fixed in eternity.
        There are provisions in the Protocol for change and for leaving it.
        They have been spoken about at length on here MiC

        1. hefner
          July 22, 2021

          They might have been spoken at length here, but the only person who could have some influence is Sir John as a MP. This is a talk shop with a lot of rather un- or mis-informed Talking Heads (BTW, the band if the same name has a great song: Road to Nowhere).

          1. Peter2
            July 23, 2021

            Bit pedantic heffy.
            MiC cannot keep pretending there is no information in the articles by Sir John and some excellent posts on here which undermine his arguments about the NIP.
            PS
            If this is how you feel about this site, why are you on here every day?

          2. hefner
            July 23, 2021

            Collecting information on various strange behaviours within the human race for a future PhD on ‘How Brexit made them mad’.

          3. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            Just copy n paste andys, bills, MiC and acorns posts and you will have more than enough for a dissertation hef.

      4. steve
        July 22, 2021

        Fair to say; Johnson & Patel are probably the most disliked figures in the country right now. Not looking good for the Conservatives Sir Redwood. I think you would be forgiven for getting out now and going independent, or joining with a patriotic party – if there truly is one.

        It’d be a crying shame if you went down with Johnson’s lot. They’re no good Mr Redwood and I believe you could do so much more for our country if you were’nt saddled to them.

    2. J Bush
      July 22, 2021

      +10
      No amount of hand-wringing about ‘our friends and neighbours’ can disguise the fact Johnson & Co are deliberately ignoring the referendum result.

      Re: the virus, Johnson’s with his dictatorial declarations along with his fear mongering control freak cohorts have probably killed more than this, claimed, ‘pandemic’.

      The man is a menace and needs to go.

    3. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      Nig1, In sorrow, I agree with you.

    4. Grey Friar
      July 22, 2021

      AS ever you Brexiters try to find someone else to blame for the unfolding catastrophe of your pet project. It was the EU, Remainers, judges, civil servants -now it’s Boris. But of course it’s never you Brexiters and your undeliverable fantasies

      1. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        Why do you suppose that Brexit is “undeliverable”, Grey? Aren’t the rest of the world’s 165 countries also outside your EU empire? Or is that fact supposed to be a fantasy too in your opinion?

        1. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          They weren’t starting from the position of having a large part of their economies intricately interwoven with that of the European Union’s other twenty-seven countries, Nick, and trying to unpick that.

          THAT is the difference, and it is rather a big one.

          1. NickC
            July 22, 2021

            Martin, Only about 10% of UK GDP is dependent on exports to the EU. It’s perfectly possible to trade with the sub-states of the EU empire without being part of it. Most of the world does. And we trade more with the USA than we do with Germany – and without even a bi-lateral trade treaty!

          2. MiC
            July 22, 2021

            So why are you so bothered about a mere 0.7% going on aid then, if 10% – it’s more actually, even Farage admits 12% – doesn’t bother you?

          3. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            Martin, Turnover is vanity; profit is sanity. Sales to the EU are turnover; foreign aid comes out of profits (ie taxes).

            The amount of UK sales to the EU varies, has been dropping for about 20 years, and has been much affected by the untargeted national lockdowns. Hence why I said about 10% UK GDP.

            I am bothered about the c10% UK GDP derived from UK sales to the EU. But less bothered than the other nearly 90%. Moreover I was putting in context your claim that “a large part of” the UK economy was entangled with the EU. It isn’t.

      2. steve
        July 22, 2021

        Grey Friar

        “AS ever you Brexiters try to find someone else to blame for the unfolding catastrophe of your pet project.”

        Well we could blame you, if you’re feeling left out. After all your lot resorted to infiltration & sabbotage the rather than fight fair and square.

        However since you clearly have your man in No 10, you are in a way being blamed. We associate Johnson with your anti-British idology.

    5. DavidJ
      July 22, 2021

      +1

  4. Sea_Warrior
    July 22, 2021

    I agree, Sir John. But let’s not forget Gibraltar.

    1. MiC
      July 22, 2021

      No, let’s not at all.

    2. jerry
      July 22, 2021

      @S_W; Indeed, we must not forget about our Naval bases…

      1. Sea_Warrior
        July 22, 2021

        I’m interested to see how the importance of bases is being re-learned. Gibraltar’s naval base is a shadow of its former self but the docks remain, as a commercial operation, and Gib benefits from location, location, location. We now have a proper base in Bahrain, named after the one we closed in the Seventies. And there’s recent talk of basing in the Indian Ocean. The Royal Navy never fully divested itself of its facilities in Singapore. I wonder if I’ll live to see a meaningful naval presence based there again.

    3. steve
      July 22, 2021

      Sea Warrior

      But don’t forget Gibraltarians voted by a massive majority to remain in the EU. I think their vote should be respected – hand Gibraltar over to Spain.

      Besides we don’t need to be involved in the Med now we are ‘allegedly’ out of the EU. Let France and Turkey look after the Med, which would be rather amusing.

      Similarly remainers here who persist in denying our majority leave vote should also have theirs respected – and ‘offered incentive’ to go and permanantly live in their beloved Europe.

      1. Sea_Warrior
        July 22, 2021

        Yes, 99%, or so, of Gibraltarians voted to remain in the EU – but they would vote, by a similar proportion, to stay British.

      2. glen cullen
        July 22, 2021

        Why hand over Gibraltar to Spain
        Allow Gibraltar to decide if its wants to be a self-governing state nation with its own sovereignty and self-determination

        1. MiC
          July 25, 2021

          It would probably say yes – no doubt the research has been done but I don’t have it to hand – and also then to to be in the European Union.

          That would be an ENORMOUS loss of face for the Tories.

      3. MiC
        July 22, 2021

        Love your last sentence to bits, Stevie.

        So who would be left after all the scientists, musicians, artists, teachers, engineers, designers, most of the young, writers etc. had gone then?

        A country of cash-in-hand tax-dodging traders, retired folk, football hooligans, and ex-squaddies?

        Good luck with that 😆

        1. Peter2
          July 22, 2021

          There is 17.2 million voters who will not vote Labour again.
          They see you MiC and loads more revealing what they think of these potential voters as your last sentence delightfully shows.
          That’s why Labour lost the last election with their worst result since 1935.
          And that’s why they will fail again at the next election.
          Keep up the good work.

          1. MiC
            July 22, 2021

            Perhaps John will supply us with the readership of this site?

            Reply As published

        2. NickC
          July 22, 2021

          All, Martin? All the scientists, musicians, artists, teachers, engineers, designers, writers, etc? You sure about that? Got any proof? Or are you just shrieking, as Remains are wont to do?

      4. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        I wonder why they don’t? Could it be it’s not as great as they think it is? I got tired of EU laws being blatantly ignored while living in Spain. We had no drinkable water frim our hone which was not on its own in tge middle of nowhere. The developer liked the money he got top much ftom the dodgy water meters he installed. It took a total of 11 years to get decent water on the urbanisation.

      5. jerry
        July 22, 2021

        @steve; Wow, and I thought I had a sharp, vitriolic, tongue…

        But you have a point, and on the bases that what is good for the Goose is also good for the Gander; why couldn’t those who so disliked the 1975 result/settlement in the 40 odd years before the 2016 referendum have simply gone and lived in countries that better suited their politics, those on the left could have gone to eastern Europe whilst those in the right could have gone to the USA, Australia or NZ? 😈

        1. NickC
          July 22, 2021

          Jerry, The point is that those of us who did not like the 1975 EEC referendum outcome did not try to stop its result being implemented.

          1. jerry
            July 22, 2021

            @NickC; There was no result to implement after the 1975 referendum, nothing to stop. The problem was, some (not all) carried on fighting for ‘Brexit’, whilst the UK did not leave the EEC those eurosceptics who could gain the ear of, or cause trouble for, the PM of the day did so when it came to European issues.

            Nothing was ever settled by the ’75 referendum at all, not even within the labour party, as Tony Benn commented during a TV interview given in the 1990s, he regarded loosing the 1975 referendum in the same way as loosing an election or policy argument, the fight goes on, better luck next time; there is no doubt certain eurosceptics/europhobes on the right also took that view too.

          2. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            Jerry, The result of the 1975 referendum was implemented and no-one tried to stop it. We did not have disgraceful scenes in Parliament, nor unconstitutional antics by the Speaker, nor special new anti-remain laws, from 1975 to 1979, in an attempt to overturn the 1975 result. This is quite a separate matter from eurosceptics continuing to oppose our membership. Just as Remains continuing to voice opposition to Brexit is fine, as long as it stops short of preventing or delaying the implementation of Leave.

          3. jerry
            July 23, 2021

            @NickC; As usual you’re, twisting history, and what I said again.

            Strange how some people appear think we joined the EEC as a result of the ’75 referendum, I’ll say again, there was nothing for the UK govt to implement post that years referendum result, a country can not join something it is already a member of!…

            Had the eurosceptics/europhobes accepted the 1975 result as the end of the debate there would have been no 1994 “Keep the Pound” Referendum Party, nor UKIP that followed, even the Maastricht rebels might never have been. Our EEC/EU membership would have been as solid as that of France, Germany & Luxenbourg etc were in ’75, or as strong as say the Czech Republic more recently.

          4. jerry
            July 23, 2021

            @NickC; Your comment about the “unconstitutional antics by the Speaker” does nothing but show up your own contempt for democracy, nothing the then Speaker did was illegal, nor against the Standing Orders of our Parliament, much of it was actually trying to prevent what turned out to be very questionable activity by the Executive at the time (some of it as taken before the Supreme Court).

            It was (some on) the Leave side who refused to accept the actual mandate given by the people in 2016 referendum, as I have said before, if you wanted a more narrow mandate upon which to instruct the govt there needed to be a second referendum to ask the ‘HOW’ question, but of course that was the last thing some on the Leave side wanted as you knew full well the risks of Brexit being shafted by way of a EEA/EFTA membership instruction!

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          July 22, 2021

          Yes Jerry, I would love to go to Oz, NZ or USA but entry is very difficult and my husband was too old even with a City and Guilds. They are particular who they take.

          1. jerry
            July 23, 2021

            @FUS; The UK joined the EEC in 1973, the treaty of Rome says the same today as it said back then, and (regardless of what some Brexiteers say) Ted Heath was clear that there would be ever closer integration between EEC members, even openly talking about a common currency and integration etc. in a TV interview given in Jan 1972 [1]. Back then emigration to Australia was still retentively easy, nor was emigration to the USA.

            [1] BBC Panorama, 24 Jan 1972.

      6. acorn
        July 22, 2021

        You should have a read of https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/gibraltar_recomm_com411_en.pdf This is the detail that was left out of the Withdrawal Agreement Protocol on Gibraltar, so as to get Brexit done. If you are using a “find in page” tool, you are looking for “Schengen area” and “Customs Union”

        For instance:- “To ensure a full protection of the Schengen area, external border control and surveillance would take place at Gibraltar port, airport and waters carried out by Spain applying the
        relevant EU rules. […] In case of alerts, including refusal of entry and arrest, Spain would take follow up actions and – if necessary – UK authorities in respect of Gibraltar would assist and facilitate the implementation of the alert, such as the transfer of the person or object concerned to the authorities of Spain.”

        Think on this. Take this substantive Protocol on Gibraltar and swap some words. Remove “Spain” and replace with “Republic of Ireland”. Then remove “Gibraltar” and replace with “Northern Ireland”. Remember, both voted to remain in the EU and the EU knows that.

        1. Peter2
          July 22, 2021

          About 10,000 Spanish people commute every day into Gibraltar for work.
          Another example of the EU wrecking jobs.

        2. NickC
          July 22, 2021

          No, Acorn, they both didn’t vote to remain in the EU. The 2016 Referendum was a legal, national, binary, simple majority vote, referendum set up by the UK Parliament for the entire UK, with rules accepted by both sides (prior to the vote). Remember?

          1. MiC
            July 22, 2021

            Go and say that in a pub in a republican area of Belfast, Nick!

          2. jerry
            July 23, 2021

            @NickC; If you are going to about ‘democracy’ you need to remember an NI Boarder poll will also be a “legal, national, binary, simple majority vote, referendum”, allowed for under the 1921 Irish settlement…

          3. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            Martin, In June 2008, 53.4% of Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty, against 46.6% who supported it. Are you so sure that Irish republicans are as enamoured with the EU as you are?

          4. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            Jerry, I am quite clear that self-determination is one of the most fundamental human rights. That applies to the southern Irish, northern Irish, Scots, Welsh. And the English. In the meantime the 2016 Referendum was a UK national vote.

          5. jerry
            July 25, 2021

            @NickC; As usual you totally missed the point and again show you have little if any clue as to what democracy is and is not. Nothing is ever set in stone, not the Irish boarder, not even Brexit, how ever much you and others with to claim otherwise.

            The 2016 referendum was not a once in a generation ballot, it was just a moment in time, it is only fate that has resulted in Brexit and its aftermath (good, bad or indifferent) being guaranteed a full five year election cycle to play-out, thank Mrs May, Mr Corbyn and Mr Bercow for that! But who knows what will happen after the next general election, what if a party where to stand at that GE on a manifesto pledge to hold another referenda, or a pledge to simply rejoin (perhaps at any sovereign cost), and they win a working or better majority -after all, as you said yourself, self-determination is one of the most fundamental human rights…

  5. Ian Wragg
    July 22, 2021

    The government has no spine. Other coumust be laughing at our once proud nation being humiliated by a bunch of crooks.

    1. Ian Wragg
      July 22, 2021

      Countries

    2. steve
      July 22, 2021

      Ian Wragg

      “The government has no spine.”

      More the case that Johnson’s an EU quisling and republican sympathiser, and the rest of ’em don’t have the spine to kick him out.

      1. Nota#
        July 22, 2021

        @steve – with respect it is the majority of the HoC that is in fear of making a decision and for the most part the reason we find ourselves in this mess. The people voted leave, the HoC much preferred stay – under the EU someone else told them what to do and they just jumped to attention carried and out the directives(Not me ‘Guv’ attitude) as being ruled was a better option than governing.

        1. steve
          July 22, 2021

          Nota

          Of course you are right, however Johnson clearly does as he likes anyway, and is known to have ridden roughshod over Parliament a number of times. Just a shame he won’t do so in the defence of British sovereignty because that would be justified. But then he would’nt because he’s not one of us, and neither was his predecessor.

    3. lifelogic
      July 22, 2021

      Boris seems both spineless and has a compass 180 degrees out. Carrie seem to be the duff compass now rather than the old libertarian, climate realists, no ID cards Boris. Thank goodness Starmer as finally come out against vaccine passports for nightclubs. It must be stopped and the disaster of the test and trace ping-pandemic also must be killed off.

      1. Micky Taking
        July 22, 2021

        I think the Government, or better, an organisation we can trust (two different things?) , should publish the weekly number of ‘pings’ and the subsequent results of Covid tests -both LFTs & PCRs on those same pings.
        This might lead us to deduce that something like one in ten (a wild guess) actually confirming Covid ought to result in a reduction of the range of Bluetooth adjacency used to communicate a nearby possible infection. Lots of speculation on this but bluetooth picked up the other side of walls as an example makes possible nonsense of the flag of risk to another.

        1. Micky Taking
          July 22, 2021

          More than 600,000 people using the NHS Covid-19 app in England and Wales were sent self-isolation alerts in the week between 8 and 15 July. Data shows 618,903 alerts were sent.

      2. steve
        July 22, 2021

        LL

        “no ID cards Boris.”

        Ha Ha, like “let’s get brexit done”

        These vaccine passports will be made mandatory, and then sneakily morphed into full blown ID cards…..because big american biometric data corps want it, and Johnson is happy to oblige as he feels that we should be living in some quasi – facsist state where we have to show papers to acquire authorisation to cross the road or buy a loaf of bread. (assuming the crappy EV he’s made you get into crippling debt for actually gets you to the shops and back )

  6. Newmania
    July 22, 2021

    Your prediction that the EU would be sugar and spice and all things nice turned out to be wrong then. On the on-going financial obligations to the EU ; we told you they were due, they are due and they will be paid as you know perfectly well. There was a ramp on . there is an equivalent ramp off, its really quite simple .

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      July 22, 2021

      So you admit the EU is a nasty piece of work then? We told you so.

    2. SM
      July 22, 2021

      There is a difference between ‘would’ and ‘could’, as I assume you know.

      Brussels could have behaved sensibly towards the UK, without fighting over every dot and comma, and would have gained respect, instead it chooses to quarrel and fight (oh, as long as the fighting takes place within the working hours laid down by the ECJ – much to M Macron’s disgust….).

    3. Sir Joe Soap
      July 22, 2021

      Yet you want to be part of this press gang?

    4. Narrow Shoulders
      July 22, 2021

      That prediction was preceded by the statement that the EU had as much to lose as us.

      Unless we show strength, the EU has nothing to lose and so has no need to be all things nice and can indeed be frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails.

      The thrust of the article is about the need to show strength and not capitulate.

    5. steve
      July 22, 2021

      Newmania

      This country should not be paying anything to the ungrateful EU. In fact they be should be paying us. Without England the EU would not exist, be speaking German, or Russian.

      ……and then there’s the protection afforded them during the cold war, by us, and for which we received no thanks.

      Oh, and there’s also all the money and machine tooling given to France and Germany free of charge after WW2, while our own industry had to make do with clapped out machinery built during the great war.

      Oh, and speaking of the EU interfering with food supply to sovereign British territory – did we charge money for the Berlin Airlift operation ?

      This country owes Europe nothing….it owes us !

      1. Alan Jutson
        July 22, 2021

        Unfortunately Steve memories are short on both sides, one side still keeps on giving, the other side still wants to continue to take.

        You get no thanks for past help, thats done and dusted, but we can resolve our future if we have a mind to.
        The population gave the answer to the question, the politicians once again have, and are still failing to catch up.
        It is so sad, when it could have been so simple even if it would have meant perhaps some very short term pain, for some shortish, medium, and long term gain.
        Another opportunity wasted .

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        So true Steve. Brilliant post yet again.

      3. Mitchel
        July 22, 2021

        We only had to make do with clapped out machinery because we wasted the Marshall Aid money (of which we were the biggest recipient) on posturing as a great Imperial power with global reach(even though our strength had ebbed away) and prioritizing the establishment of the NHS.

        Stalin had expected that the next great conflict after WWII would be between the USA and the British Empire for capitalist supremacy;he was surprised that we collapsed into US vassalage without a struggle.

        1. steve
          July 22, 2021

          Mitchel

          “Stalin had expected that the next great conflict after WWII would be between the USA and the British Empire for capitalist supremacy;he was surprised that we collapsed into US vassalage without a struggle.”

          How very true. Then again I suppose history will show that given the reigns, America made a right pigs ear of it all.

    6. lifelogic
      July 22, 2021

      JR never said that and no one sensible ever though it was going to be “sugar and spice”. We should however just have left and should never have agreed to any leaving fee. I blame abandon ship Cameron, the fixed term parliament act, Appeaser May, Speaker John (now enjoying his £1m + pension) Bercow and the appalling Ben Act traitors and the dire remoaners in the Commons and Lords.

      1. lifelogic
        July 22, 2021

        Cameron his government and his top civil servants are surely all guilty of goss negligence in failing to prepare for both a leave or remain referendum outcome as they were both quite likely.

        A military leader in war would surely have been shot for far less negligence than this.

        1. Alan Jutson
          July 22, 2021

          +1

          Agree, a man who looked the part, talked the part, but failed the test.

          No Courage, no backbone, no fight, eventually no truth.

          1. Fedupsoutherner
            July 22, 2021

            Alan, doesn’t your last sentence describe our present government?

    7. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      That’s rather selective, Newmania. The whole point about euroscepticism was the EU’s nastiness as it exercised its lust for (undemocratic) power. Forgotten about that, or just fibbing?

      1. hefner
        July 23, 2021

        Hot in the collar, NickC? With these temperatures, I can understand.

        BTW, how are your ‘libertarian’ impulses catered for by the present 80-majority
        (Hi, P2) Government?

        1. NickC
          July 23, 2021

          No, I’m used to Remains attempting to re-write history, by now.

    8. No Longer Anonymous
      July 22, 2021

      A small concession on Freedom of Movement. That’s all the EU had to give, Newmania.

      1. MiC
        July 23, 2021

        Preventing Europeans from moving freely about the European Union would be just as “small” a thing as preventing those of the British nations from moving freely around the UK.

        That is, quite some matter, actually.

        I doubt that you see it that way because perhaps to you “they” are all the same, but different from “us”.

        That is, “they” are foreign and “we” are not.

        1. NickC
          July 23, 2021

          Oh really, Martin? Just the same? Despite your insistence that the EU isn’t a single state or country (according to you)? And the EU isn’t Europe.

    9. No Longer Anonymous
      July 22, 2021

      Off topic, if I may Newmania (I wish I’d thought of this when you made the point this week.)

      You are an enthusiast for vaccinating children against CV-19.

      I find it interesting that those who might object to chlorinated chicken and GM food are keen to get an experimental GM vaccine in the veins of small children who are at vanishingly low risk of a disease and who will still be able to pass it on after inoculation anyway.

      The difficulties of Brexit are entirely the fault of those wrong headed Remainers who took hold of it.

      Their main characteristic is that they fling insults around with abandon … which they did before the referendum… which is why we got Brexit in the first place… Exquisite !

    10. steve
      July 22, 2021

      Newmania

      “Your prediction that the EU would be sugar and spice and all things nice turned out to be wrong then. ”

      Not sure who you address that too, Newmania, but I certainly don’t know of any leave voter who thought for one minute the EU with it’s French Led commission was going to be a bed of roses post brexit.

      The EU is run by our historical enemies, and we all knew there would be bad behaviour and extortion esp from France. Thing is; we’re up for a fight, but we have a PM who is’nt, mostly because he’s half – Belgian and a practising catholic.

      In other words he’s a quisling and a republican sympathiser.

      1. NickC
        July 23, 2021

        Steve, Exactly so.

  7. Richard1
    July 22, 2021

    I suggest a strategy of firmness and clarity but friendliness and patience. We have to accept that a successful Brexit is seen by the EU’s federalist core as an existential threat to the Project. Of course they would have done better to try to cook up some Switzerland-type fudge with Cameron, or even quickly after the referendum. But they’ve chosen to go down the road of doing everything they can to ensure Brexit is seen to fail.

    In a sense they’ve done us a favour. If there had been a quick, friendly deal they would have been able to hold over the U.K. the constant threat of its removal – the strategy they use eg with Switzerland. The fact that the deal is minimal and there are constant provocations – but these don’t really do any damage – should stiffen spines in the U.K. to take a robust but friendly line. In the case of NI, if the EU continues to breach the spirit and letter of protocol and the GFA as they are now doing, article 16 must be invoked. But the U.K. should then ensure that unauthorised goods do indeed not get into the EU single market – legislation and new penalties may be needed to enforce that. The EU will then impose protectionism and sanctions and use aggressive language. But the U.K. should not respond in kind. We should focus on good neighbourliness and free trade, even if the EU, unfortunately, will not.

  8. Duyfken
    July 22, 2021

    Not “more independent”, just independent.

    1. Nota#
      July 22, 2021

      @Duyfken +1. If only our elected representatives understood the differenc

  9. Andy
    July 22, 2021

    More than half of the people in this country get on perfectly well with the EU. And we are embarrassed at the appalling behaviour of the Brexit voting angry Tory pensioners – lashing out because they do not like the consequences of their Brexit.

    What on Earth did you all think a border was for? Has the EU been such a success that in just a few decades you have forgotten what a pointless faff borders create? Why on Earth are you so cross that there’s a border when you wanted borders? It really is bizarre. This should not be a surprise for you. You were warned.

    The problem is that the fantasy unicorn Brexit you all voted for in 2016 – where you have all of the many benefits of EU membership and none of the responsibilities – does not exist. It has never existed. We told you this 5 years ago. You didn’t believe us -and you still pretend otherwise.

    There may, of course, be some small benefits to Brexit. But they will be massively outweighed by the massive negatives. Brexitists have never come to terms with the downsides of their project. It doesn’t help your cause when you STILL pretend these downsides don’t exist.

    Sometimes you can become too close to a problem to see it rationally. This is when it pays to consider what others, far removed, think. Our friends and allies around the world – the US, Canada, Australia, NZ and many more – think Brexitists are completely mad. In the words of Mr Cummings perhaps you all do have a ‘screw loose.’ Maybe the EU isn’t the problem. Maybe the problem is all of you?

    1. Peter2
      July 22, 2021

      As usual you are getting confused between the EU and Europe andy.

    2. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      Clearly, the EU doesn’t know what borders are for, Andy. At least, other people’s borders. Otherwise it wouldn’t be interfering within our borders. And if your peculiar theory that we must be doomed outside the EU, why doesn’t that apply to all the rest of the planet? Switzerland, for example?

    3. graham1946
      July 22, 2021

      The USA think we are mad to put up with the crap the EU have heaped on us. Trump was very pro Brexit as are those Republicans who know anything about it, admittedly most Americans are so insular they could not point to Europe on a map. The anti Brexit people in the US are the fans of the geriatric Biden who has trouble with putting two sentences together and falling up Airforce One’s steps. So don’t do your usual of saying all USA is anti Brexit, it is just in your small mind.

  10. Fedupsoutherner
    July 22, 2021

    We are simply too soft or should I say those that are supposedly in charge are too soft. Its all just a lot of hot air coming out of Downing Street lately.

    1. lifelogic
      July 22, 2021

      Hot air and many totally misguided policies in practical, economic and political terms. Things like HS2, the net zero lunacy, endless tax and regulatory increases, ever bigger government, eat out to help out, virtual state monopolies in education and healthcare 
 Nothing but hot air and tax payer Dane-geld for the French from Patel over controlling the migrants. How many today 500? A huge terrorist risk and a serious crime risk. Especially as the UK police have given up on most crimes anyway and have largely become woke social workers. Has Ms. Dick been fired yet?

  11. Alan Jutson
    July 22, 2021

    Did I see a quote a few years ago saying “Take Back Control”

    To get it, you have to do it !

    If the person in charge is too timid, then get someone who can !

  12. MiC
    July 22, 2021

    Oh, I don’t know.

    Putin was content to discuss Ukraine – to very good ends – with Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Macron, but declined UK involvement.

    I think that this is rather stronger evidence than the claims of an English ERG MP.

    In any case, Treaty terms are only enforceable by parties to that Treaty – it’s the age-old principle of Privity Of Contract.

    The UK is no longer a party, thanks to John et al. So that’s that.

    The wider world including the US and New Zealand would appear to think that it is the UK which is the more antagonistic one too.

    1. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      Rubbish, Martin. The UK is a party to both the WA (of which the NIP is part) and the T&CA. As is the EU. On the EU side its treaties “should” conform to its own laws. But we all know the EU makes it up as it goes along, like it did bailing out the Euro. It’s odd that you should boast of it, though. It’s just another example of ‘EU good – UK bad’ Remain propaganda.

      1. MiC
        July 22, 2021

        You can’t do a blind thing about whether the European Union conforms to your interpretation of its treaties or not, and neither can John any more.

        That goes for the Dublin protocol too.

        Reply No, but we can take control of our own country and internal trade

        1. graham1946
          July 22, 2021

          Nor could we when we were members – one of the biggest contributors to the budget, damn all influence.

        2. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          Bit of a pyrrhic victory, if the only effect of this control freakery over every minute detail is to damage severely trade per se, isn’t it?

          Isn’t that why grown-up nations have got together over uncontroversial things like food safety, environmental standards and the like?

          1. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            Martin, The UK can also agree uncontroversial things like food safety. Without having a dirigiste government in Brussels ruling over us.

      2. bill brown
        July 23, 2021

        Nick C

        Actually the ECB bailed out the EURO not the EU

        1. NickC
          July 23, 2021

          Cracking one, Bill. I’ll remember that – “the ECB bailed out the Euro, not the EU”!

    2. Micky Taking
      July 22, 2021

      Putin loves the idea, now becoming fact, that he can control so many aspects of economic life in Germany and France – and hence the wider EU.

      1. graham1946
        July 22, 2021

        He will have the EU by the short and curlies with his gas – i.e. Germany. The rest don’t count for much.

      2. hefner
        July 22, 2021

        MT, could you please a proper list of the many aspects of economic life in Germany and France that Putin can control. For Germany I can see one related to Nordstream 2 and the gas it will deliver. What are the others? And what are the many bits of French economic life going overboard? And if you have any references for all those aspects going under Russian command, the better.
        I always want to learn from specialists.

        1. NickC
          July 23, 2021

          What, you mean like the EU controlling Northern Ireland, Hefner? I don’t think it’s gone that far yet, but being able to turn off the gas is the thin end of the wedge.

      3. Mitchel
        July 23, 2021

        It is Russia’s destiny to save Europe,going back to the mantle assumed from the fallen Byzantine Empire-“the Universal Empire of Christ”-via Dostoevsky!

  13. agricola
    July 22, 2021

    I have lost patience with your papering over the cracks with oh so reasonable explanations. You failed to moderate yesterdays submission because it probably came too close to the truth. We are not an unintelligent flock of sheep you can feed pap when events tell us the opposite. You need an injection of reality and cease taking us for fools. In the above case the EU do not like us, act accordingly, they are not Europe.

    1. agricola
      July 22, 2021

      Thanks to the Daily Mail this morning the complete structure of the illegal immigrant problem the UK suffers has been blown wide open. Now do not dare tell me that the DGS, MI6 MI5, and GCHQ are totally unaware of the detail and have been for a very long time. This means that the governments of the UK, France, and the EU are aware of every detail of this operation. I conclude that they must all be complicit in it. If not why have they not rolled it up long ago. Perhaps you would like to reply explaining in your view why this has not happened long ago.

  14. Andy
    July 22, 2021

    I was in my local supermarket yesterday and it is clear that, thanks to Tory pensioner Brexit, supermarkets are facing massive shortages.

    Because of Brexit many workers in the food sectors have “gone home”. The elderly Brexitists who said they would ‘dig for England’ failed to show up. As a result fruit & veg is rotting in fields, sandwiches are not being made, stock is not being delivered.

    Of course the epic Tory failure over Covid hasn’t helped. But this is mostly about Brexit. We are the only country in Europe with such huge problems.

    Shortages lead to riots. Riots led to revolution. Revolution leads to a new government. A new government leads to Brexitists in prison. Keep those shortages coming.

    1. lifelogic
      July 22, 2021

      Rather more to do with the idiotic pingdemic of the moronic test and trace app. Never in the field of apps has so much money been spend by so few, so quickly to do such huge economic damage.

    2. Peter2
      July 22, 2021

      Andy doing his Dave Spart impersonation again.
      To the barricades comrades says wealthy middle class, middle aged andy.

    3. graham1946
      July 22, 2021

      Nothing to do with Covid or Test and Trace app then Andy, all down to Brexit. Everything in the EU is fine and dandy then? No youth unemployment. No shortages of anything at all? Your ideas get more bonkers by the day. Haven’t seen any shortages in my supermarkets, but some in NI I understand due to the EU trying to get us back in as they need our money.

    4. Sea_Warrior
      July 22, 2021

      The Pingdemic – not Brexit – is at the heart of the supermarket shortages problem. BTW, my local Tesco remains fully-stocked apart from an inexplicable, year-long absence of brown, liquid shoe-polish.

    5. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      That’s straining it, even for you, Andy. You know as well as I do that the shortages are due to the “pingdemic” and your own clamour for ever harsher untargeted national lockdowns.

    6. Beecee
      July 22, 2021

      And do not forget the shortage of tripe – except from you

    7. matthu
      July 22, 2021

      You are inciting riots.

    8. MiC
      July 22, 2021

      Arguably revolutionary movements in Europe did bring about change during the 1960s, 70s and 80s because they demonstrated that they had both the means and the resolve to cause real problems for the powerful if they were ignored.

      However, outside agencies such as Gaddafi’s Libya and the Eastern Bloc are no longer there to arm such groups, and so British Conservatives and some others are behaving as if they fear nothing.

      However that blitheness may yet turn out to be a misjudgement, Andy.

      1. Peter2
        July 22, 2021

        Gosh you want revolution too MiC just like your pal Andy.
        Wales not left wing enough for you?

        1. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          Nah, not really, Pete, but the fear of it in reactionaries can be highly beneficial, as we have seen throughout history.

          1. Peter2
            July 22, 2021

            So you are deliberately posting things on here that you know are untrue and that you don’t believe in.
            What an admission.

          2. NickC
            July 22, 2021

            So, rather like the Leave revolution then, Martin?

          3. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            Resignation is only a brilliant career move if you have a far better position to which to move, Nick.

            So what is it for the UK, then?

          4. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            So you’re saying the EU was our employer? How odd. I think the globe is a better place than the EU.

    9. Micky Taking
      July 22, 2021

      Rather like sandwiches not being made, sausages not crossing borders — how on earth will us Brexit wanters possibly manage. I’m at my wits end. Do I give in and plead for rejoining, or end it all?

    10. dixie
      July 22, 2021

      Come the revolution be sure to wear your remainer-rejoiner phrygian cap with pride – makes for an easier target.
      But you won’t be on the barricades will you, risk and danger is for the peasants while you have much more important work firing what you think are tweety barbs from your mum’s basement. Though … are you still not talking to her?

    11. Glenn Vaughan
      July 22, 2021

      “Shortages lead to riots. Riots led to revolution.” etc. Andy
      Persistent irrational ranting leads to committal. Continue with the ranting.

    12. No Longer Anonymous
      July 22, 2021

      You owe the RNLI ÂŁ40 a month, Andy.

      Why you weren’t paying it before yesterday’s little spat, I don’t know.

      A win win for me. I get to do my little protest (which really hurt me to do)… the RNLI gets more money !

      And not once has Andy said “Well done on you giving the RNLI ÂŁ20 pounds a month through thick and thin. What a decent chap.” Instead I was subject to abuse yesterday for saying that I did not like something – this happens to be the very same reason you got Brexit.

      I see PLENTY of Tory pensioners out driving buses, working tills, loading shelves and the like. UK people used to pick the fields, in case you didn’t know (my own family members did) but the welfare system was set up in a way that caused people a shortfall if they took the work.

    13. Fedupsoutherner
      July 22, 2021

      Even the biased, moronic BBC say the shortages are due to ‘pings’ and Covid. Keep up Andy.

  15. Denis Cooper
    July 22, 2021

    I watched both Brandon Lewis and Lord Frost in Parliament yesterday and they were pathetic.

    They kept referring to the “core problems” with the protocol but apparently they cannot grasp what should be a blindingly obvious fact: that since we have left the EU it no longer any legitimate interest in the nature of the goods that are entering Northern Ireland – or for that matter, the nature of the goods that are being produced in Northern Ireland, and more generally the goods that are legally circulating in Northern Ireland or any other part of the UK – but only in the goods entering its own territory.

    Therefore we should never have accepted any plan for EU checks and controls on goods imported into Northern Ireland, and nor should we now be pleading for special exemptions for the 97% (?) of those goods which will stay in and be used in Northern Ireland*, because that is no longer any of the EU’s business.

    As previously stated ad nauseam, all that is needed to protect the EU Single Market is a UK system of export licenses to regulate the carriage of goods across the land border into the Irish Republic.

    * According to Sammy Wilson:

    https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2021-07-15b.587.0

    “The British Government argue that the protocol was meant to deal with only those goods that could be at risk of going into the EU through the Irish Republic; any other goods were not at risk. The EU takes the view that we must prove that goods are not at risk before we can avoid the checks. In other words, 97% of goods that are currently being checked do not need to be checked. They do not go any further than Northern Ireland. Yet the EU is insisting that there is a risk that they might go into the Irish Republic. That is why we have such a high level of checks.”

    1. lifelogic
      July 22, 2021

      +1

    2. Leslie Singleton
      July 22, 2021

      Dear Denis–You were going great till you spelt licences (noun) in the ghastly American way. More seriously when did the term “hard”come in to universal use with all its current connotations? Maybe a bit OTT as any “hardness” would originate from EU/Eire. We are talking trade, right?

      1. Denis Cooper
        July 22, 2021

        Alas, my spellchecker still prefers “licenses”, but they could equally well be “export licences” to do the job of controlling what goods could be carried across the border.

        Linguistically the good news in the other direction is that the transatlantic popularity of Peppa Pig is teaching their children to speak with a British accent …

        We are talking trade, and specifically we are addressing the massive risk that the trickle of goods across the Irish land border could pollute the whole of the EU Single Market with non-compliant goods.

        For reasons which he does not explain Lord Frost accepts that we have a “share of responsibility” in helping the EU to protect its single market, much the same fatal error as that made by Theresa May:

        https://www.politico.eu/article/frost-says-article-16-threshold-met/

        but he does not suggest that perhaps the EU might care to reciprocate and help protect our internal market.

        Meanwhile:

        https://www.gambling.com/news/what-are-the-latest-odds-on-a-united-ireland-2597000

        “United Ireland Odds Cut Further Amid UK/EU Trade Fiasco”

        thanks to our “Conservative and Unionist” Prime Minister.

    3. MiC
      July 23, 2021

      People can agree to do whatever they like, as long as it’s not criminal.

  16. jerry
    July 22, 2021

    re Artic1e 8.1 “~prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.” [my emphasis]

    Some important operative words there, few people make friends, never mind close friends, with those who hold polar opposite ideals and interests, or are constantly rather rude and personal, even more so when they use third parties such as newsprint to spread their bile.

    “The EU is very bad at getting on with its neighbours.”

    Really?! The EU appears to get on very well with the majority of its near and not so near neighbours, the EU has very good relations with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, the USA (before Jan 2017 and after Jan 2021), Turkey, plus most other NATO member countries, along with many Pacific rim countries, it also has close relationship with Ukraine, much to the annoyance of Russia.

    There is only one country the EU is having problems with, a rather arrogant little country of late, if the truth be known, full of its own importance, certain politicians still behaving as if they control the fortunes of 1/4 of the worlds known land area and are thus entitled to have their bread buttered on both sides, it not have the jam on both sides too!

    1. jerry
      July 22, 2021

      OT; Why are there some Tory MPs who apparently voted to force others still contributing to parliamentary debates and questions via video link, why are these people not physically present on the HoC benches – are they all self-isolating due to being ‘pinged’ by T&T, or it this just another example of the usual Tory “do as I say, not as I do” mantra?…

    2. Nota#
      July 22, 2021

      @jerry – have you told Switzerland that. Or for that matter Iceland and Norway

      1. jerry
        July 22, 2021

        @Nota#; Told them what? That they are all members of either the EEA or EFTA, I think they already know!…

    3. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      That’s a little off even for you, Jerry. The EU is constantly having problems with its neighbours (Russia, Switzerland, UK, Turkey etc) as well as problems with its own sub-states (Poland, Hungary, Italy, Greece, etc), as well as problems with far away states (USA, Mali, etc), as well as problems with its vaccines, as well as problems with its finances (Target2, covid recovery fund, etc). And the UK didn’t have any problems with the USA when Trump was in charge. Which tends to indicate that it is the gaffe-prone Biden which is the problem, not the UK.

      1. jerry
        July 22, 2021

        @NickC; All countries have difficult relationships with other countries at certain times, that is why almost all countries have diplomats. You are also way off suggesting there was no friction between the USA and the UK during the Trump presidency.

    4. Mitchel
      July 22, 2021

      The EU has good relations with Turkey? Really ?!The Centre for European Reform has just issued a report (23/6/21) on the subject,titled : “From Partners to Rivals”.

      Turkey has it’s own geo-political ambitions which conflict with the EU;it has perhaps been slightly more co-operative very recently due to it’s economic problems.And Mrs Merkel has just confirmed she does not see Turkey joining the EU.

      1. jerry
        July 22, 2021

        @Mitchel; Well yes EU/Turkey relations have turned a little sour since certain factions within the EU/EP managed to stall any hope that Turkey might one day become an accession candidate to the EU. That is not to say relations have stalled in the way they have between the EU and UK, Ford of Europe, for example, still appear to be able to export their Transit van range into the EU from Turkey….

        As for CER, that report Title might have been better reserved for their report on post Brexit UK-EU relations!

  17. Bryan Harris
    July 22, 2021

    In other words, its long since time we stood up to EU bully tactics.

    I trust Frost will get the appropriate support when he dismantles the NI agreement. If it were me I’d scupper the whole BREXIT deal and tell the EU to support themselves. We don’t need their aggression, their trade and certainly not their BMW’s

    They have been nothing but petty and vindictive, even well before BREXIT – We need to face them down

    1. bill brown
      July 22, 2021

      Bryan Harris,

      They are our allies and friends with whom we go to war around the world and with whom we sit in all sorts of alliances and collaboration. Do you think the average Dane or Swede wants anaythiing but a properous UK and a happy UK population?

      1. Peter2
        July 22, 2021

        As usual bill you get mixed up between individual European nations which are loved by UK people and the dreadful EU

      2. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        The EU empire is neither our ally, nor our friend, Bill Brown. Or at least I hope you don’t treat your friends the way the EU treats the UK.

        1. bill brown
          July 23, 2021

          Nick C

          You are getting carried away again

          1. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            He got carried away years ago I think, Bill, and has apparently long since lost all sight of land.

          2. NickC
            July 23, 2021

            I’m sure you told us that the EU had unfriended the UK, Martin, because we were so wicked as to leave their nice little club?

    2. majorfrustration
      July 22, 2021

      spot on

    3. MiC
      July 22, 2021

      I’ll stick with fine French wines, I like my BMW too, and I don’t mind my taxes going to pay what we owe either, thanks.

      You do as you will.

      1. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        Does that include “fine” French diluted battery acid, and “fine” French horse meat masquerading as corned beef, Martin?

        1. MiC
          July 22, 2021

          Most of the horse meat in this country came from Todmorden, didn’t it?

          French horse meat doesn’t need to masquerade as anything else. They and many others are perfectly happy with it for what it is.

          Anyway, I thought that you “loved” the peoples and countries of Europe?

          1. dixie
            July 23, 2021

            Spanghero (French), South of France, 2013 – they made 500K euro profit by labeling the horse meat as beef. Also the Dutch Jan Fasen Company was deeply involved via it’s Draap Trading corp (Cyprus) in the scam which involved mis-labeled goods distributed to the UK, Germany and many other European countries.
            The Todmorden episode involved 55 horses, nothing like the scale of the Franco-Dutch scam which involved 750 tonnes of horse meat.

          2. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            Thanks for the research.

            So what were the relative penalties for the perpetrators then?

            I suppose it depends on to which school the Todmorden boss went?

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        Mic. Perhaps, as you reckon you’re so “well off’ (driving a BMW?-so what?) You could pay my share? No, thought not.

      3. Micky Taking
        July 22, 2021

        Ah. A traditionalist taken for a ride consumer. French wines rip off. BMW expensive, but the badge does impress – why for god’s sake.

  18. Peter Parsons
    July 22, 2021

    “the Brexit the majority voted for”

    But what did people vote for? People voted for a concept (leave), not a destination (EFTA, Switzerland, Canada, Turkey, something else). There is not one possible Brexit, there are many, and no one can claim that they know the destination that each person wanted and it is infinitesimally unlikely that everyone who voted leave did so envisioning the exact same destination.

    Meanwhile in the real world, many of us knew that the promises made by the leave campaign could not all be delivered as they contained impossible contradictions. What we see now is simply the consequence of those undeliverable promises meeting the real world.

    1. Peter2
      July 22, 2021

      There were loads of different remain visions too Peter.
      These were also debated and discussed endlessly prior to the referendum
      In the end voters decided and voted accordingly.

      1. Peter Parsons
        July 22, 2021

        Indeed. People voted for a concept. That concept has been implemented whether you like it or not.

        1. Peter2
          July 23, 2021

          Of course it has been implemented.
          Many more people voted to leave than remain.
          So leave won.
          Mind you, remain ought to have won easliy
          If only they had fought a positive campaign instead of endless project fear.

          1. MiC
            July 25, 2021

            Remain was perceived as being led by Cameron.

            That is, by he who described himself as “a practical eurosceptic” – I can only suppose that that is to a eurosceptic what a practical joker is to an accomplished stand-up.

            He and his party had spent years running down our membership, and vaingloriously using the UK’s veto very unhelpfully.

            He never once – long before the campaign – ever made a positive case for our membership.

            The warnings as to the possible adverse effects of Leave were rather secondary, I think.

    2. Len Peel
      July 22, 2021

      Brexit. Only the undeliverable was appealing. Only the unappealing could be delivered

      1. Peter2
        July 22, 2021

        Leaving is easy.
        160 other nations carry on their lives without the EU Len.

        1. Peter Parsons
          July 22, 2021

          Leaving is easy, yes. We’ve left.

          Leaving in a way which delivers on all the promises of the leave campaign (“take back control of our laws, money and borders”, “set our own standards and do our own trade deals”, “maintain frictionless trade with the EU27) while also maintaining the UK’s prior commitment to the Irish peace process is, however, impossible.

          1. Peter2
            July 23, 2021

            Well we were in the EU for 40 years.
            We have only been a non member for a fraction of that time.
            We are still untangling ourselves from the EU’s grip.
            And they aren’t helping.

          2. hefner
            July 23, 2021

            P2, that’s a very poor excuse. If after four and a half years of discussions, and after six months of ‘sovereignty’, it is the only argument you can think of, it is rather weak.

            And let me titillate you again: ‘we are still untangling ourselves from the EU’s grip’, what are you exactly doing for that, apart from coming to this blog. Any practical advice you could share with the community?

          3. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            4 years of a dreadful remain speaker and a remain parliament wanting to remain against the stated wish of the majority of the voters.
            It is only since the 2019 election we have had a parliament with the majority to actually leave the EU.
            PS
            Please don’t try to titillate me hef.
            It isn’t something that would ever work.

        2. bill brown
          July 23, 2021

          Peter 2

          most of them are not part of Europe

          1. Peter2
            July 23, 2021

            Well spotted bill.
            But they manage OK on their own and some do very well indeed.
            In fact some buy and sell billions in trade with Europe every year.
            Some even without a formal trade deal nor accepting any EU imposed laws directives rules and regulations.

        3. MiC
          July 25, 2021

          “Getting divorced like never having been married in the first place” says Pete.

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        Only if you are a loser like you Ken.

    3. No Longer Anonymous
      July 22, 2021

      Remaining had impossible contradictions too. People were getting poorer whilst in the EU.

      In 1997 a bus driver could buy a terraced house in South London on a single wage. In 2021 not even a doctor could.

      1. Peter Parsons
        July 22, 2021

        That’s not people getting poorer, that’s the fact that housing in London is sold to people all over the world. I know of a number of developments just to the east of the city where they were marketed in places like China, Singapore and Russia (countries where people will purchase “off-plan” meaning the developers don’t even need to use their own money to build) before being marketed in the UK.

        It’s well known that money from all over the world gets put into the London property market, where a lot of that money comes from and why. It’s nothing whatsoever to do with the EU.

      2. MiC
        July 22, 2021

        Property has rocketed at a greater rate since 2016, old flower.

        1. Peter2
          July 22, 2021

          You remainers predicted a property price crash.

          1. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            Some said that there was an increased likelihood, yes – they were wrong so far, apparently, but there’s plenty of time for that, isn’t there?

            But the OP claim that property has become more unaffordable due to European Union membership is exposed by what has happened since 2016.

            Sterling was devalued, so foreign investment flooded into UK assets, pumping up the bubble still further.

          2. Peter2
            July 23, 2021

            So you are a bit like a weather forecaster who during a sunny spell says rain tomorrow.
            And keeps repeating it every day until it rains.
            PS
            Nothing to do with our biggest increase in population since 2000 in our history

          3. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            “The euro will be dead and buried by Christmas 2012”.

            I think that Nigel Farage has better form on that than any Remain spokesman.

          4. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            Your diverting again MiC
            Whataboutery as usual.

    4. X-Tory
      July 22, 2021

      Although it is fair to say that there were different ways Leave could be interpreted, the opposite is equally true: What did Remain mean? Remain exactly as we were with no changes of any kind? Remain but try to negotiate changes? Remain and accept any future changes the EU might decide, against our wishes (remember, we had no veto, except in very, very limited areas)?

      The one thing that ALL Leave voters DID agree on was the concept of Take Back Control (which is why it was such a powerful slogan). So it is clear that Boris the Spineless Coward has NOT delivered the Brexit we voted for, as we do NOT have control over part of our own country (NI), or over our fisheries, or over the money we are being ordered to send, etc.

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        Remain? Having the jack boot on top of you. No thanks.

      2. MiC
        July 22, 2021

        So they were ALL taken in by an implicit lie then, you appear to accept.

        The UK never lost control in the first place.

        It could not have left by the mere sending of a letter if it had.

        1. Peter2
          July 22, 2021

          Four years later and we still haven’t escaped their clutches.

    5. John Hatfield
      July 22, 2021

      No Peter. We voted to leave.
      Sadly at that time and possibly still, we had a leader and a government who did not want to leave and negotiated an agreement that kept us in many ways, unnecessarily attached to the EU.
      We voted to leave without strings attached. That did not happen.
      Your shades of grey Brexit is simply Remainerspeak.

      1. Peter Parsons
        July 22, 2021

        It’s simply reality. Brexit had its own version of the Iron Triangle (price, quality, speed) and required making its own version of the Iron Triangle compromise (you can’t have all 3, you have to pick which 2 you want and sacrifice the other one).

        It was well known beforehand that something would need to be compromised on, despite the claims of cakeism. Johnson and Frost’s decision was to sacrifice frictionless trade.

      2. MiC
        July 22, 2021

        So what is your understanding of Leave then?

        It appears to be zero trade, communication, or anything else with our twenty-seven neighbours.

        Effectively a N Korea position.

        If it is not, then how are the departures from that isolation to be achieved without negotiation and agreement?

        1. Peter2
          July 22, 2021

          “Zero trade” with Europe…what are you on about MiC?
          Trade, both ways, carries on.

          1. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            Yes, but only under an agreement that the brextremists want to scrap.

            Brextraordinary!

          2. Peter2
            July 23, 2021

            How do all the other non EU nations trade happily with Europe?
            Most don’t even have a formal trade deal with the EU.
            Why are we being singled out for special treatment.

          3. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            By AGREEMENTS Pete!

          4. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            WRONG
            The biggest trading nations don’t have formal trade deals with the EU
            USA
            South Korea
            India
            China
            Japan…decades without a trade deal.

    6. Bryan Harris
      July 22, 2021

      Well yes, of course there were many possible variations on the type of BREXIT that could have been – There was the one May negotiated that would have kept us tied to EU regulations without any say in our future…. But what we all voted for was to leave the EU — There was no definition on the ballot paper as to say how close we would remain with the EU — It was simply to LEAVE.

      Thanks to May, so many things she screwed up had implications later on — but that just shows you the character of EU REMOANERS – The lengths they will go to to harm us because we were totally dissastisfied with the EU.

      Looking back, we would surely have been better off with a WTO BREXIT, but even so, we are going to win over the the EU, just as soon as Boris grows a pair.

    7. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      No, Peter P, there was only one Leave on offer at the Referendum – to leave entirely (or “quit” as the Remain campaign described it). What people wanted, and what motivated them (in either voting Leave, or Remain), was irrelevant – they weighed up the choice actually offered and plumped for Leave by a majority of 52:48.

      1. MiC
        July 23, 2021

        So Leave means NO negotiated arrangements whatsoever with the European Union then.

        Right, that would have meant no access to its ports, roads, or airspace; no trade, no communication, no visa arrangements, nothing at all.

        If you want those then they have to be by AGREEMENT, which means that you have to talk to people and agree terms, but apparently you say that you don’t want that either.

        There simply is NO other feasible way, however.

        You seem unable to grasp this – what is the matter with you?

        Reply The UK and the EU are both WTO members bound by its rules, so we could trade with them under most favoured nation WTO basis.

        1. MiC
          July 23, 2021

          Thank you John, but there is FAR more to our necessary relationship with the whole of the near Continent than trade, isn’t there?

        2. NickC
          July 23, 2021

          Martin, I’m simply explaining to another Remain who thinks he has the privilege of defining what Leave is, that he is wrong. It’s a fact that Leave means the EU no longer controlling any aspect of the UK (neither Northern Ireland, nor intra-UK trade, nor our fish, nor …). In other words, no exchange of sovereignty for trade. None. That does not mean, as you fatuously infer, that the UK and the EU cannot agree on mutual recognition of driving licences, for example.

          1. MiC
            July 25, 2021

            I don’t imply – as you should have said – any such thing.

            Of course parties can agree anything not prevented by general law, but it takes two to agree, and then each might ask themselves whether they think that the other needs that agreement more than they do, and if so, then link it to other things.

            And there you go…

  19. Everhopeful
    July 22, 2021

    Funnily enough the EU’s lack of manners and neighbourliness is often echoed in society. Living near people is a nightmare now ( here, anyway).
    I reckon you can blame left-wing politics.
    Entitlement, unearned money and a desire to control.

  20. a-tracy
    July 22, 2021

    Your government keep playing all fair and nicey-nicey. The EU laughed at Theresa May when they child-locked her in her own car and bullied, isolated and ignored her, leaving her to twist her bangle and agree to anything. “No deal is better than a bad deal” she used to say as a mantra.

    Boris insults us when he tells us he has no money to pay for social care, a bill that has been reduced in one year by an extra 100,000 people that lost their lives due to the infection of covid from China! Then he sends France ÂŁ54 million yesterday to pay for what – some replacement rubber dinghies or do we just send them back each night under cover of darkness?

    Sadly it has been shown up time and time again you are in a small minority group in your party John. A party that is pretending to be something it isn’t and taking all the flak and allowing it’s supporters to be constantly condemned whilst funding billions on asylum, billions on overseas aid and charity, billions on the EU whilst they spit in our eyes.

    If the politicians won’t sort out this problem then the people will have to sort matters out and refuse to buy anything from the EU themselves, stop supporting EU owned businesses in the UK. If Boris and Frost are playing cricket whilst they are playing power ball it’s time to change the game.

  21. NickC
    July 22, 2021

    I am continually surprised that so many are continually surprised by the behaviour of the EU. The EU states – as you quote, JR – “founded on the values of the Union”. The prime “value” of the EU is its own power. The EU will always put its power above every other consideration. It cannot survive otherwise. I continue to be surprised by the bone-brained naivety of the UK establishment. Whether it’s the NIP or our continuing subjection to new EU law. We simply have not left. We are as Verhofstadt’s staffers said “a colony” of the EU. Or maybe that is what the UK establishment wants.

    1. Nota#
      July 22, 2021

      @NickC – There is the EU Commission then the EU States. The trading organisation, the commission is not as yet the Government. The EU citizens have no say. The EU trading body has an embassy in London, gets a seat at the G7 and are now suggesting that Euroland Countries should march behind the Euro Flag at the Olympics. Someone needs to remind them who and what they are – then again if EU Land is a Country so be it, let the people have a say in how its governed – if as now it is a trading association that’s there only status.

      Laws, rules and regulations are made by democratic organisation and they do not go beyond their territorial boundaries. As you say the EU is its own Law, its own arbiter of those laws and is looking to absorb colonise into its sphere of dictatorial rule.

      1. Nota#
        July 22, 2021

        Nota# – the USA comprises of 50 States, 1 Olympic Team. The EU 27 States, 27 Olympic Teams and only 1 EU Government.

        Loading the deck

        1. hefner
          July 23, 2021

          European and World Cup, potentially four UK teams.

          Furthermore as many here keep telling us the EU is not a country, and potentially/actually there could also be teams from European countries not in the EU: Albania, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine.

          So what was your point?

      2. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        Nota#, Perhaps when I stated “The EU states . . .” I should have phrased it “The EU says . . .”. The EU is not a “country”, nor even a state in the usual sense. But nor is it merely a trading bloc. Which is why I term the EU an “empire”. It is an empire built partly voluntarily, partly by strong-arm tactics and bribery. And built by bureaucracy, rather than military conquest. Quite definitely the EU Commission is a centralised government – with a dirigiste mentality.

        1. glen cullen
          July 22, 2021

          I like your thinking but perhaps we shouldn’t kid ourselves the EU is a country…I can see a time in the near future when they propose a renaming to the United States/Federation of Europe

  22. ChrisS
    July 22, 2021

    The EU is and always has been a bully. Brussels relentlessly imposes its will on both member states and its neighbours and since Merkel and Macron shoehorned the disasterous VDL in as President, things have got considerably worse. They had to try really hard to find someone even worse than Juncker for the job !

    We can see numerous examples : The UK’s experience, of course, but even Switzerland has broken off negotiations with Brussels over their attempts to impose a new treaty that would severely impact on Swiss sovereignty. Within this fractious Union, Hungary and Poland are under immense pressure and Brussels is embarking on legal action against 24 of the 27 member states over breaches of obscure EU rules on communications.

    A far more important conflict is building with the Germany Constitutional Court over the attempt by Brussels to assert the primacy of EU legislation over the rights of the German court. This is absolutely critical in two areas : the fight to prevent Brussels from setting up its own independent revenue streams via direct taxation of carbon useage by businesses and citizens within member states, and the collectivisation of debt across the bloc which Brussels knows is so essential to prevent the demise of the Euro.

    The biggest problem is that they are hamstrung by their inability to change their existing treaties or create a new one. To attempt to do so would involve referenda in many member states and Brussels knows only too well from past experience that they will lose some of them. After Brexit, they are no longer in a position to simply ignore the outcome and demand that countries vote again until they come up with the “right” answer. Voters will not stand for it.

    We aren’t yet watching an organisation in its death throws but it would not take much to put it in that position. The inevitable next crisis over the Euro could well accelerate the process and everybody knows that VDL is nowhere near clever enough to navigate the commission through troubled waters.

  23. The Prangwizard
    July 22, 2021

    Indeed so, but it is no use being polite and ‘fair’ in expressing criticism or opposition.

    We need immediate action which either is ultimata or direct resistance ‘on the ground’.

    Our constant displays of weakness must end now.

  24. Derek
    July 22, 2021

    It is quite clear that when dealing with the obnoxious and belligerent EU, we must fight their fire with our own form of high energy thermal lance. Enough is enough already.

  25. bill brown
    July 22, 2021

    Sir JR,

    We are still negotiating on the amendments on the NI protocal proposed by Mr. Johnson as the best solution. In the meantime you and part of the right wing of the conservative party are doing the best fake news bashing of our European allies you think you can get away with. We have not lived up to our obligation with the NI protocol, so we have some provisional rules to find a better solution.
    The emotional propaganda and lies about promising Ukraine full membership of the EU, which everybody know is politically impossible gives an impression of trying to defend a failing government which has failed us on Covid and on the so-called wind-falls on leaving the EU.(much more money for the NHS, no waiting lists and great trade deals with the US.)

    1. graham1946
      July 22, 2021

      Bill,

      Can you please tell us in what way we have not lived up to the NIP?

      We have put up with our own countrymen in NI having shortages in their supermarkets due to EU belligerence, we have risked the Good Friday agreement on the altar of trying to satisfy the EU which may yet turn out to be extremely nasty, we have a border in our own country, ruled by foreigners. Would any other nation accept such things?

      1. bill brown
        July 23, 2021

        Graham

        We suggested it and signed it

        1. graham1946
          July 23, 2021

          That’s a reply? You just simply don’t know, do you. Just re-gurgitating stuff you see somewhere without any understanding and expecting no challenge. Pitiful.

    2. Denis Cooper
      July 22, 2021

      You obviously missed the news that the EU refuses to negotiate on any amendments to the protocol:

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-9814777/EU-chief-rejects-renegotiation-NI-rules-Brexit-pact.html

    3. a-tracy
      July 22, 2021

      Bill, M&S said just the other day that they had an HGV turned back from Northern Ireland because the ink on the paperwork was blue not black, no compromise, no e-mail over a version in black ink print it and on your way in our own sovereign Country if you call that the EU being reasonable then that should sum up for you why we’ve had enough of them and their pettifogging little ways.

      1. MiC
        July 26, 2021

        The M&S spokesman was unclear.

        He seemed to be suggesting that if the regs were as their word, then in principle lorries could be turned away for having paperwork in the wrong colour ink.

        He did not confirm that this had actually happened, and if so when, where, and how.

        The report was in…the Express.

  26. Tabulazero
    July 22, 2021

    Come back in September. Brussels is closed for summer. Have a nice holiday.

    1. a-tracy
      July 22, 2021

      Thank you we will, beautiful weather this week.

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      July 23, 2021

      Never been and never going to.

  27. John Miller
    July 22, 2021

    I voted for Johnson having met him fleetingly at my local Conservative Club and because I am a regular reader of the Spectator.

    I wonder how many of the writers would recognise their former editor?

    Had I been prescient I may even have voted for Corbyn. At least his Cabinet would not have been as dazed and confused as the current one must be.

    The current Government does not strike me as Conservative in any shape or form. I remember hearing that Johnson wants to be liked by the last person he has spoken to. Not a good attribute for a leader.

    1. Denis Cooper
      July 22, 2021

      https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-s-brexit-deal-isn-t-worth-sacrificing-northern-ireland-for

      “Boris’s Brexit deal isn’t worth sacrificing Northern Ireland for”

      “The NI Protocol might have made sense when we were still hoping for a valuable trade deal with the EU, and an amicable relationship on a whole range of issues. Some compromises were worthwhile to make that happen. It is now clear that isn’t how it worked out. In fact, the best move the UK could make now would be to insist that the Protocol has become unworkable, and walk away from it. True, we may lose the FTA with the EU. But it is no longer worth saving anyway.”

      1. a-tracy
        July 22, 2021

        I think Boris should tell us what the UK got from the deal that we wouldn’t have just leaving on WTO terms.

        1. Denis Cooper
          July 23, 2021

          According to the official responses to my FOI requests there has been no official assessment.

  28. Grumpy German
    July 22, 2021

    What constantly amazes me is how unhappy you are with your victories. You achieved Brexit, have a big majority in Parliament, had a world beating vaccine rollout. You should be happy, but are still complaining all the time.
    The reality is both UK and EU became unpleasant neighbours in the course of the Brexit process. The EU can ignore you for the most part, there are more urgent issues. You apparently do not have this option.
    Reply We want the EU to stop interfering in our country. It is the EU which cannot leave us alone.

    1. Grey Friar
      July 22, 2021

      If you don’t want the EU to interfere in your country, why did you vote in favour of a deal which puts part of your country, NI, under the supervision of the European Commission and the ECJ? The EU didn’t do that. The UK did that – the UK government and the UK’s Conservative MPS

      Reply I didn’t vote for it

      1. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        Grey, I did not want the EU to interfere in the UK. But I didn’t get a vote in Parliament. I voted to Leave the EU. Not for the EU to remain in control of intra-UK trade.

      2. Denis Cooper
        July 22, 2021

        You could equally well ask why Tory MPs chose Boris Johnson to replace Theresa May.

        1. Micky Taking
          July 22, 2021

          Possibly due to a poor set of alternatives, and a gullible Tory voting public believing Boris would be an improvement.

      3. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        Neither did the rest of the Leavers John but Remainers are too stupid to accept this. Are their brains that dense they cannot fathom this out even after being told so many times? It would seem so.

      4. Malone
        July 23, 2021

        An outright untruth in that “reply” by John Redwood. The Protocol is attached to the Withdrawal Agreement, which you voted for in the Commons in January 2020. We in Ulster understand (and won’t forget) how Conservatiove MPs betrayed us – trying to deny you betrayed us will get you NOWHERE

        Reply I voted for the sovereignty override and made clear my view the NIP had to be changed.I did not vote for the final deal when the NIP remained.

        1. hefner
          July 23, 2021

          The typical ‘not me, guv’ comment from Sir John. Pathetic.

          1. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            An MP has one vote.
            What on earth do you want Sir John to do?
            PS
            I think you comment is unfair, very rude and unworthy of you.

          2. hefner
            July 24, 2021

            P2, have a look at ‘A guide to getting out of the EU – We have a plan’, 2 July 2016, JR’s website.
            It is ‘We’ not ‘I’.
            Neither ‘Model I’ nor ‘Model II’ has been effected.
            As for the ‘Best negotiating style’, do you still take JR seriously, or are you are deluded as he is?

          3. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            So first you call Sir John pathetic now you call him deluded.
            Genuinely heffy I’m shocked at your descent into low level insults and effectively you are now trolling.
            For someone who plainly is intelligent and educated it is even more saddening.

          4. hefner
            July 25, 2021

            As far as I can check pathetic and deluded are not insults but qualificatives that would be accepted in the Chamber. As you are not the Speaker, I won’t take any notice of your pitiful comment.

            And for your education look at:
            Quentin Letts, MailonLine, 17/06/2009 ‘God help us (and our pathetic MPs 
’
            Stewart Jackson, telegraph.co.uk, 21/07/2021 ‘The PM has seen off deluded Dominic Cummings 
’
            I would never pretend to reach even the sole of these brilliant commenters, but can’t I borrow some of their vocabulary?

    2. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      Grumpy, How would you like it if the UK controlled trade between Hesse and the rest of Germany? The EU is a bully; and the UK’s establishment is either terminally naive, or Remain, or both.

      As a result the EU is a more effective negotiator than the UK – we usually get taken to the cleaners. Of course that’s why we voted Leave. It’s ironic that if the UK establishment Remains hadn’t sold out so completely to the EU we would have got better deals for the last 48 years, and probably remained.

      1. Grumpy German
        July 23, 2021

        NickC, we won’t be in this situation, so it does not matter whether I would like it or not. As I said, the EU can ignore most of the things the UK does now. You do not have this option, you will have to deal with the EU and find solutions with the EU for the next decades. And regardless of the outcome, you won’t like it. Ask Canadians what they think of the US.
        I can reassure you that you do not have to fear a successful rejoin in the next decades. Everyone is quite happy that we do not have to deal with the UK as a member anymore.

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          July 23, 2021

          No but you still want our money don’t you? No pride.

          1. hefner
            July 23, 2021

            In January 2021, there were still somewhere near ÂŁ40bn to be paid. What I cannot find is how much corresponds to the continuing participation of the UK in the Horizon, Copernicus and Euratom programmes.

            ec.europa.eu ‘Q&A on the UK participation in Horizon Europe’, quotes a 4% of the cost of the programme for 2021-2027.
            €374 m from the UK to the ESA programme part of Copernicus.

            Otherwise see ukri.org ‘Working on EU-funded projects’, 12/05/2021

  29. majorfrustration
    July 22, 2021

    It does seem to be rather shambolic. We voted for a blundering buffer hoping that he was not one but now we find out that he is – change the man or the people will change the party. Mind you Im not that sure that there is anybody of quality in the Government

    1. Denis Cooper
      July 22, 2021

      From June 2 2019:

      https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/06/02/involving-nigel-farage/#comment-1025957

      “Of all those who have announced their candidature so far I would say that Dominic Raab is probably one of the least untrustworthy. Maybe that’s just because he hasn’t yet had the full opportunities to build up his own long bad record, or maybe he has but it hasn’t yet been properly exposed by the media 
 perhaps being one of the best of a generally bad bunch is not much in the way of a recommendation, but pragmatically I would like to see him offer a pact to Nigel Farage under which the UK would without any question leave the EU on October 31st, deal or no deal, in return for which the Brexit Party would commit to actively help him to extirpate the eurofederalist wing of the Tory party, Philip Hammond and his ilk, if they dared to precipitate an early general election.”.

  30. Mark J
    July 22, 2021

    To this very day, I still applaud Sir John for not voting for – what has transpired to be – an utter shambles of a brexit ‘deal’.

    It has not delivered on what many people want, despite the usual spin telling us otherwise.

    Get these world trade deals, then stick two fingers up to the EU. It is very clear they don’t, nor will ever play fair in what they agree to.

  31. Grey Friar
    July 22, 2021

    The EU has concluded two agreements with the UK, the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Co-Operation Agreement. The Withdrawal Agreement has three parts – one, the rights of EU nationals in the UK, which the UK has already broken by failing to provide sufficient protection, two, the Ireland Protocol, which the UK has already broken by failing to put in place the checks on trade between GB and NI which it agreed to do, and three, payments into the EU budget which in this post you claim the UK should break. The UK is turning into a rogue state, and neither the EU nor the US will stand for it. Things are turning very dark for the irresponsible Brexit fantasies

    1. Peter2
      July 22, 2021

      Totally wrong as usual GF
      The UK guaranteed the rights of EU citizens living in thecUK ages before thecEU did.
      And their system forcUK people living and working in the EU is far more complex and difficult.
      The Protocol in N Ireland has been hijacked by the EU in its interpretations and they have adopted a very awkward stance.
      Listen to Marks and Spencers CEO for details of how dreadfully the EU are behaving.
      Budget payments are for negotiation and little has been finalised.
      But as usual the EU are demanding ridiculous extra amounts.

      1. hefner
        July 24, 2021

        P2, indeed, the UK guaranteed the rights of the EU citizens before the EU did, but two things: one, the UK guarantee did not make the application process that simple: the original scheme had 80+ questions and at a cost of £65/person. Only after groups like the 3Million.org made a big fuss did the scheme became more reasonable in its demands for justification papers and documents and became free. So to pretend as you do that the UK was the ‘shining light on the horizon’ (not your exact words but I guess your ‘ages before’ was trying to convey that, wasn’t it) is a bit much of a stretch.

        Two: despite what you are still claiming, the responsibility for granting legal status to UK citizens in the EU27 countries is a country’s one, so there are 27 different schemes, some rather simple, some more complex. France’s has been reasonably straightforward from what I heard from British ‘expats’ in ‘my’ village of South of France.
        For people residing there before 31/12/2020, they get a ‘titre de sejour’ following
        contacts-demarches.interieur.gouv.fr (sites in both English and French) and providing similar documents to what would be required from a EU citizen in the UK (copy of passport, bank statement, utility bill, 
) and showing how long they have been in the country and signing a declaration that their main residence is in France.
        Only UK citizens who had arrived after 01/01/2021 would have to get such a residence permit in person from the ‘prefecture’ of their ‘departement de residence’. This is likely to include an interview.

        Possession of such a residence permit will only be compulsory after 1/10/2021.

        1. Peter2
          July 24, 2021

          Oh Hi heffy.
          Decided to join in at last.
          Like an academic moth to a flame.

          1 Try to to the same as an ex pat in other parts the EU
          2 You talk only of your small area in France
          3 Many examples of the EU playing up UK citizens in other countries.
          4 Six million now have managed to fill in the UK forms so not a very good argument for how difficult it is.

    2. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      Grey, Since when has the EU respected the integrity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

      1. Garland
        July 23, 2021

        It respected it by doing a deal with Mrs May which ensured no border between Gb and NI. Then along came Boris – who accepted exactly that border. It was his oven ready deal, I hope you read it. The only people who don’t respect the integrity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are Boris Johnosn and his Tory MPs

        1. NickC
          July 23, 2021

          Garland, The “deal” done with Theresa May was not Leave because the whole UK would have remained subject to the EU. Neither the EU nor the UK Remain fanatics who were in the Parliaments 2016-2019 respect the integrity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

  32. glen cullen
    July 22, 2021

    We keep dancing to there tune, we’re not equal neighbours, its like they have ‘right of way’ to my yard or there the freeholder and I am the leaseholder
with this government we are subservant
    It’s a one-way ‘level playing field’
    You might even think that there were some people in parliament trying to manipulate a return to EU membership by stealth – lets face it where still in all the EU institutions all be it in name only BRINO

    1. turboterrier
      July 22, 2021

      Glen Cullen
      Correct, definitely the bit about people in parliament.

  33. Bob Dixon
    July 22, 2021

    We were in the EU for 40 years. For 40 years we implemented EU instructions. My belief is that major improvements will not happen until we elect free thinking MP’s . This will take 10,15 20 years.

  34. glen cullen
    July 22, 2021

    We haven’t negotiated a ‘treaty’ as equals
.we’ve bought ourselves an partnership membership and sold our souls in the bargain
    History will record this time as the dark ages of UK ‘democracy’

  35. formula57
    July 22, 2021

    Why has our Foreign Office not established an Evil Empire attack unit, the better to confound our enemies and frustrate their knavish tricks?

    I am betting it is a certainty that the Foreign Office will have a fully resourced Evil Empire treaties compliance unit that will give early warnings to Brussels of any potential breaches or delays.

    Is your colleague Rabb up to the job or is he on a par with Mrs. Patel?

  36. Nota#
    July 22, 2021

    The EU is a Trade Commission that has ambitions to become a Government. When you are not Democratically elected, not accountable your only responsibility is your own ego.

    When it comes to the UK as long as the EU Commission can keep agitating they will be seen as doing their job. It has never been about a mutual benefit through trade, it has been who gets to control and govern.

    It seems bizarre that any sort of treaty with an unelected trading body can have any standing, either morally or in practice in side the UK. The EU as they have their own courts make their own laws they can change them interpret them at well as long as they get their own way.

    In a democracy all Laws, Rules and Regulations are created though an elected body, who can then amend or repeal them as is dictated by the needs of the electorate. This of course includes the whole of the UK. To suggest otherwise is to surrender democracy and rule to and aggressor. Outside of mainland Europe that is called a dictatorship

    We should never forget the People of the UK voted to become a free democracy and stop being ruled by those that are above law, against freedoms and definitely don’t recognize democracy. We just voted leave, no caveats, just leave.

    It is said that in the UK we see Sovereignty as the power of the people who lend that power to their Parliament. Whereas in the EU it is the collectively control by an elite that permits people life.

    The UK’s biggest stumbling block is its Government and the HoC, all freighted of responsibility and the people they suggest the represent.

  37. Micky Taking
    July 22, 2021

    OFF TOPIC.
    More than 39,000 people died of coronavirus in care homes in England in the year from 10 April 2020 to 31 March 2021, new figures suggest.
    The numbers, released by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), show how the virus spread across the country. The highest number of deaths in a single care home was 44, while 21 homes had more than 30 Covid-related deaths.
    “Every number represents a life lost,” said Kate Terroni, CQC chief inspector for adult social care.
    (I think we gathered that -obviously well qualified for the job).
    Care homes in the North West had the most Covid-related deaths in the first wave of the pandemic, while those in the South East were hardest hit in the second.

    1. glen cullen
      July 22, 2021

      Where those deaths directly due to covid virus or deaths due within 28 days of positive covid test ?

      1. hefner
        July 24, 2021

        GC, will that make a difference whether they go to Heaven, Purgatory or Hell?

  38. Iago
    July 22, 2021

    Heywood, the head of the civil service, after the referendum result is supposed to have comforted a lesser mandarin by assuring him there would be no brexit, but brexit in name only. Was he the first to use ‘brino’? Hardly matters, brexit can mean whatever you like and so was far preferable to unambiguous ‘leave the EU’ for Mrs May and Johnson. The point I’m trying to get to is that the civil servants and the politicians were determined to thwart the decision of the electorate. These same people, displaying the same contempt for the population, are now trying to force on us what they declare to be a safe vaccine and so imprison us with an electronic passport. Somehow we must stop these creatures and cancel their pensions.

  39. Nota#
    July 22, 2021

    It says it all when parts of the UK are still under direct rule and governance of the Un-elected Un-accountable EU Trade Commission. The citizens of the UK, the UK Parliament and the UK Government have no direct say in UK internal laws, rules and regulations. These laws rules and regulations can be changed without and input of reference to the UK voter.

    No other country in the World is subjected to that type of abuse. The UK as we were reminded in the WA negotiations and daily since is a colony of an un-elected, un-accountable elite.

  40. Nota#
    July 22, 2021

    The reality and reason the EU Trade Commission and their need for the NI Protocol is 2 fold, in the first instance it is to confirm Colony Status on the UK, the second is that the peoples of the island of Ireland cannot be trusted.

  41. X-Tory
    July 22, 2021

    The problem is government timidity. This is ALWAYS the problem. We are governed by cowards. Here is the evidence:

    Exhibit 1: The government has stated (rightly) that the situation in NI warrants activation of Article 16. BUT THEY HAVEN’T DONE SO. In other words, the problems are severe, and they could resolve them, but choose instead not to do so and to let the problems fester. Lunacy!

    Exhibit 2: The Judicial Review Bill. The government acknowledge that judicial overreach and activism is a problem, and initially proposed (rightly) to use ‘ouster’ clauses in legislation to ringfence this from judicial review. Now they have backed down and are proposing nothing of any significance. So they will just let the problem fester. Lunacy!

    Exhibit 3: The government acknowledge (rightly) that illegal migrants crossing the Channel are a severe problem, but refuse to take the one, preliminary course of action which will then open the doors to all the necessary solutions: withdrawing from the ECHR. So whatever else they will attempt will get nowhere as it will be challenged in the courts, and the problem will be allowed to fester. Lunacy!

  42. Original Richard
    July 22, 2021

    Our current relationship problems with the EU all stem from the passing of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 – more commonly known as the “Benn Act” or the “Surrender Act” – by anti-democracy EU supporting MPs who were not prepared to accept the result of the UK’s EU referendum.

    1. NickC
      July 22, 2021

      Indeed so, Original Richard.

      1. hefner
        July 26, 2021

        OR , NickC & anon: completely ridiculous: the Benn Act (EU (Withdrawal) (No.2) Act 2019) was repealed and superseded by the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 voted by Parliament on 23 January 2020.

        Talk of know nothing and understand even less. How poor you are, guys.

    2. anon
      July 22, 2021

      The government had a majority of 80 post the election.

      It could have revoked the prior Benn Act and moved to WTO. It instead signed up to BINO instead.
      It also had plenty of time to rescind, during the delay needed by the EU, it did not.

      It would seem anti-democracy EU supporting MP’s plus the rest of the establishment are still a major problem.

  43. Lindsay McDougall
    July 22, 2021

    I wonder why the UK Government does not make any effort to retaliate. Our first step should be to ‘go nuclear’ by suspending our signature to the International Law on Treaties, signed on our behalf by Lord Caradon (one of the Foot brothers) in 1970, for one year. This means that no treaty cannot be broken, something that the EU should view with some concern.

    We theoretically still owe the EU about ÂŁ40 billion. We should immediately suspend all payment of this debt. We should calculate the loss of earnings incurred by British exporters, both to Northern Ireland and to mainland Europe, as a result of unnecessary bureaucratic delays (non-tariff barriers), then declare our intention to deduct these monies from the payments due. Why, Sir John, have you not asked the PM to do this?

    The Northern Ireland Protocol should be scrapped. All that is necessary is for an inventory of contents to be produced for those consignments and containers that might be exported to the Republic of Ireland, and forward these lists to the Government of the Republic, as a matter of common courtesy and nothing more. Goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland should require no paperwork whatsoever. I suspect that officials of the EU and the Republic have got their feet under the table in Belfast, enforcing the Protocol. Send them all packing and declare them PNG. If the Republic of Ireland want to organise checks on cross border imports, it’s THEIR problem, not ours.

    Now that Sir Geoffrey Donaldson is safely installed as DUP leader, we can begin to criticise the Good Friday Agreement, which is not in the Union’s interest. The idea that one province can belong simultaneuosly to two different nations is patently a constitutional absurdity. The question is not whether it will collapse but when. The Agreement was promoted by Minor and Blur, pro-Europeans both, as a rachet mechanism gradually to transfer Northern Ireland to the Republic.

    So there’s lots we can do. When are we going to make our move?

    1. Grey Friar
      July 22, 2021

      “Our first step should be to ‘go nuclear’ by suspending our signature to the International Law on Treaties, signed on our behalf by Lord Caradon (one of the Foot brothers) in 1970, for one year. This means that no treaty cannot be broken, something that the EU should view with some concern”.

      Excellent plan! Did you also know that if you wear an orange wig and whistle “Three Blind Mice” that means that legally no treaty can be broken, something that the EU should view with some concern?

      Or, put another way, there is no such thing as “the International Law of Treaties” which you think we signed. It is fiction, a fantasy, a unicorn. And classic Brexit nonsense

      1. NickC
        July 22, 2021

        It’s funny how unconcerned you are about the EU breaking treaties or its own laws. But then you are a Remain, so it’s to be expected. ‘EU good – UK bad’ every time, eh?

        1. MiC
          July 23, 2021

          There’s no point being “concerned” over things about which one can do absolutely nothing at all, such as a neighbour blocking a third’s light.

          You can express sympathy if you like though, if that makes you feel better, but it is for the aggrieved party to enforce a covenant for light, and for no one else.

          1. Micky Taking
            July 23, 2021

            When it came to that 2016 Ref voting the majority ‘ saw the light’, although neighbours like you denied it.

      2. Peter2
        July 22, 2021

        What a strange concept GF
        The eternal treaty.

        1. hefner
          July 24, 2021

          It is obvious that a treaty can be replaced by another one. The point repeatedly made here is that the UK has not fully enacted the T&CA signed by the two parties on 30/12/2020, applied on 01/01/2021 and entered into force on 01/05/2021.
          So I think (and might be wrong) that as long as the T&CA is not properly enacted by the UK, there is very little chance of getting something better from the EU.

          But I guess the specialists on this blog (so many clever business people) can tell us in details how to process legally to go around the T&CA. Maybe following Sir John’s 2/07/2016 ‘Guide to getting out of the EU – We have a plan’ road map.

          Funny isn’t it how the internet keeps track of old documents and of the declarations made in them.

          1. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            Thanks for referring to me as a clever business person heffy.
            Makes a change to your usual cheap insults.

            It doesn’t matter if a treaty hasn’t been fully implemented.
            If one side finds the obligations and more importantly the practical interpretations of a treaty unacceptable then they can first try to negotiate or finally to pull out.
            Do you find the treatment of M and S lorries delivering goods to their own shops in NI being turned back by EU officials because an area on a form was in the wrong colur ink as being acceptable behaviour?
            Do you..really?

          2. hefner
            July 25, 2021

            P2, the usual trick: discuss an important point, whether the practical interpretation of a treaty are acceptable or not, which is a false debate as the two parties at the time of their signatures had obviously agreed to the text (as I guess Barnier did not hold a revolver to Lord Frost’s head), and then get to address a minuscule event (the M&S lorries) as a proof of 
 what exactly?

            Was the PM lying when he said ‘we have a fantastic deal’ and ‘ready to go’, ‘it delivers everything we wanted for our country’, when he later said ‘I commend it to the House’, when the PM signed the T&CA with a smiling Lord Frost behind him, etc

            see gov.uk ‘Prime Minister’s statement on EU negotiations: 24 December 2020’

            So are you doing it on purpose as some kind of a rhetorical red herring, or are you really believing what you write?

  44. agricola
    July 22, 2021

    Talking of neighbours, can someone send Joe Biden and his Irish sounding caucus a copy of the NI Protocol and underline permitted actions should the UK’s sovereignty be under threat. Point out to him that the greatest threat to the GFA is this ill conceived protocol.

    1. Len Peel
      July 22, 2021

      Mate. The UK already tried that. And Biden sent them packing

      1. agricola
        July 22, 2021

        If they did and he did that was his mistake. Like our government he only has three years.

      2. ChrisS
        July 22, 2021

        Like on most issues to do with foreign countries, US politicians don’t take the time or trouble to understand the detail. If Biden was a lot younger and sharper, perhaps he could understand the issues. Unfortunately he isn’t and can’t.

        At least when President Reagan was in the White House, he listened and took notice of what Margaret Thatcher told him. Biden is no Reagan and unfortunately Boris, along with every other British PM, is not in the same league as the late, great Margaret.

      3. Fedupsoutherner
        July 22, 2021

        He has no business in our affairs. Yet another anti UK supporter aren’t you Len?

    2. Denis Cooper
      July 22, 2021

      Don’t bother; just explore how little we would sacrifice if we were denied a special trade deal with the US.

      https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/23/some-questions-for-the-bbc/#comment-1230934

      “The idea that we must do what Dublin wants in order to keep in with Washington and so have a chance of getting that all-important transatlantic trade deal is just propaganda BS.”

    3. Peter Scarlet
      July 22, 2021

      We’re not a US colony. Why should we care what Joe Biden thinks?

      1. MiC
        July 23, 2021

        For the same reason that you cared very much what Trump thought.

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          July 23, 2021

          Biden definitley looked like he had lost the plot on TV last night. He looks increasingly like a frail old man.

          1. MiC
            July 23, 2021

            President Harris looks like an interesting new start for the US then

  45. matthu
    July 22, 2021

    John,

    Please tell us: will you be presenting a vaccination passport to attend the CP Conference?

  46. The Prangwizard
    July 22, 2021

    The EU has rejected the proposals which means we must end do article 16. If we don’t and ‘Boris’ waffles about compromise he must be relieved of duty and taken round the back. Anything less is our humiliation.

    Will you resign Sir John? It’s time to know if you have courage.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      July 22, 2021

      Yes, just seen this. Time for real meaningful action.

    2. MiC
      July 23, 2021

      Read A16.

      It does not permit unilateral action on a trivial basis, such as this hyped-up froth about a few sausages.

      1. Peter2
        July 23, 2021

        But food shortages and worries of civil disorder are certainly not trivial.

        1. MiC
          July 23, 2021

          Read it for pity’s sake.

          1. Peter2
            July 24, 2021

            Answer my point.
            Stop running away MiC
            Are food shortages or civil disorder trivial points under Article 16?

  47. jon livesey
    July 22, 2021

    I think that asking what we can “make” the EU do is mis-conceived. We could never make the EU do sensible things when we were members, so what chance could there be after we have left.

    We need to forget sentiment. We will never have the kind of relationship with the EU that we take for granted in our dealings with the US – basically shared values and good faith dealing.

    We will always have to wait until the EU wants or needs something from us, and then we will be able to suggest quietly that they should undo another little bit of the worst of their pointless bureaucratic obstructionism.

    It will happen, but it can take years.

  48. Original Richard
    July 22, 2021

    Our response to the EU’s lack of “good neighbourliness” and lack of “close and peaceful relations based on cooperation” appears to be very weak.

    But we don’t know what threats we have received from the EU or more importantly from Mr. Biden.

    1. ChrisS
      July 23, 2021

      Threats from Biden are really of no consequence. Trade negotiations with the US will probably create more political problems here for our government than they would be worth, given the likely problems over food standards and healthcare. US companies are not suddenly going to stop trading with us, just because SLeepy Joe is upset over the NI Protocol.

      Furthermore, if he hasn’t realised it already, Joe will soon come to appreciate that we are a far more steadfast, useful and reliable ally than Germany or France, and none of the other countries in the EU are worth a dime in that respect.

  49. Denis Cooper
    July 22, 2021

    This is from nearly three years ago now:

    https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/09/21/the-eu-is-more-preoccupied-with-migration-than-with-brexit/#comment-962171

    “A deal like CETA, with the UK playing the part of Canada, would:

    a) Do nothing to solve the fabricated problem of the Irish land border;

    b) Be only marginally better for the UK than falling back on WTO terms;

    c) Put the UK in the weak position of a supplicant during the negotiation.

    http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/09/07/where-is-the-uks-tariff-schedule-for-march-30-2019/#comment-959636

    “
 I find that Canada exports about 3% of its GDP to the EU, while the UK exports about 12% of its GDP to the EU; therefore on a simple pro rata basis if CETA boosts Canada’s exports to the EU by the equivalent of 0.18% to 0.36 % of its GDP, as the EU Commission projects, then for the UK the same kind of special trade deal with the EU might be worth 0.7% to 1.4% of UK GDP.

    It has to be borne in mind that the long term trend growth rate of the UK economy is close to 2.5% a year, so even that upper limit of a 1.4% gain from a special trade deal would be equivalent to natural growth over less than seven months.”

    The EU Commission now estimates that Boris Johnson’s free trade deal is worth 0.75% of GDP to the UK.

  50. glen cullen
    July 22, 2021

    £55 million to the French police equals 1050 new UK border force employees, based on 12mth contract gross cost £50k per employee
..and we have a load a large rubber boats at their disposal
    We’ve given our neighbours enough money

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      July 22, 2021

      Think of all those extra jobs. Win, win.

    2. MiC
      July 23, 2021

      It’s far less that 37 billion for nothing much at all, isn’t it?

  51. Micky Taking
    July 22, 2021

    Labour MP Dawn Butler has been ordered to leave the Commons chamber after she refused to withdraw accusations that Boris Johnson is a liar. Ms Butler said the prime minister had “lied to the House and the country over and over again”.
    Under parliamentary rules, MPs are not allowed to accuse each other of lying in the House of Commons.
    The acting Deputy Speaker asked the MP to withdraw her remarks but Ms Butler refused and was ordered to leave.
    The incident took place during the final debate in the House of Commons before MPs leave Westminster for the summer. Ms Butler used her speech to attack the prime minister for “misleading this House” during the pandemic.

    The truth denied in the H of C.

    1. DOM
      July 22, 2021

      I have never trusted Johnson. He’s an opportunist of the most extreme kind and that means he’s open to all forms of ideas and politics if it promotes himself and his morally repugnant party

  52. turboterrier
    July 22, 2021

    Let’s all be honest in that the EU have screwed us for years and nothing changes.
    We have a weak useless government that talk and talk but do nothing.
    The elected opposition are out of the same mould.
    Our parliament is not fit for purpose, you can count on the fingers of your hands what in the old days would have been known as statesman.
    Until the British lion remembers how to roar we will be walked over time and time again. We need a leader and more importantly statesmen who will face down the civil and public servants and stop all the hypocrisy and start to lead by example. Stuff the EU we have left the union so get arses into gear and get this country going forward. There are procedures and treaties that can be torn up as in reality they are not worth the paper they are written on.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      July 22, 2021

      So true Turbo. The frustration is overwhelming. What is happening to this country? We are governed by idiots.

  53. Tabulazero
    July 22, 2021

    Meanwhile, nobody of significance in Brussels seems to care about what is mostly a proposal for domestic consumption.

    Five year on, it looks like the British have not realised yet how last season Brexit really is. We are definitely bored of it on the continent.

    Can’t you people just move on and get on with your lives ? Aren’t you supposed to « level up the country » or something?

    1. Peter Scarlet
      July 23, 2021

      If you’re bored of it, stop interfering in trade between different parts of the UK

    2. Peter2
      July 23, 2021

      Well Tab can you ask the EU elite to stop interfering in our independent domestic affairs and making speeches about the UK.
      They seem unable to leave us alone rather than the other way round as you claim.

  54. mancunius
    July 23, 2021

    Dealing daily as with the businesses in EU countries, and with the bureaucratic pressure some of their state governments are putting on them to exclude services trade with the UK, it is clear to me that the EU is trying to pursue a deliberately hostile policy of attrition, a trade war in all but name.
    In NI they are trying to stir up a real war, and this needs to be nipped in the bud. The horrifyingly wishy-washy Pollyanna-ish optimism displayed in Brandon Lewis’s answers at the recent NI debate is out of place. The EU’s steps against Switzerland and attempts to strong-arm Iceland show us that the EU has no concept of ‘good-neighbourliness’ – it is, like most of its ‘foundational principles’ a fig-leaf for expansionist Realpolitik.
    Coveney has already admitted that the RoI’s policy is to attempt to disrupt and supplant NI trade with the rest of the UK. Trigger Art. 16 to day, and suspend the sea border permanently. Nothing short of that will answer.

  55. XY
    July 24, 2021

    Fully agree. We are seeing signs of Frost kicking back, hopefully the plan was always to let them show the world who’s the bad guy and then invoke A16.

    I hope the other dominos will fall as well – the FTA and then the WA, which exists to plug holes in a FTA (and the fact that they resequenced it doesn’t make it any more valid as a stand-alone).

  56. Rhoddas
    July 27, 2021

    HMG must know by now (we all do) that the EU is pedagogically determined to punish us any which way it can – irritating, bad neighbourly or even increasing becoming close to acts of war? Seriously impacting food supply chain security is in my book exactly that!

    There must be enough sections in the various treaties/agreements to start dispute mechanisms legally. The same herculean effort as the vaccine task force – focussed on this NOW.

    Keep up the great work Ms Truss on expanding trade agreements in parallel. Thank you indeed!

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