Brexit wins

We voted for Brexit because we once again wanted to live in an independent country. We want our laws and taxes settled in Parliament by MPs that we can vote out of office if they do not please. Elections empower voters to get change. A sovereign Parliament can do what it takes to promote the freedoms and prosperity of the British people.

 

In 2019 we had to vote again to get Brexit through owing to the obstructions of all too many MPs. The voters showed they knew the way to get their will done by removing many of the MPs who were thwarting Brexit. Now we are legally out of the EU the government needs to do more to exercise the Brexit freedoms we have gained.

 

There have already been some good wins from exit. We  no longer have to make large contributions to the EU. As promised NHS spending has increased, by  more than the savings from Brexit so far. We no longer have to accept the accumulating debts and liabilities of the EU. Since we left the EU has started to borrow large sums in its own name to spend mainly in the financially stressed  countries of the Union. All that debt becomes a burden on the taxpayers of all  the member states, the only source of money to pay for it.

 

Out of the EU we were able to pursue our own vaccine and covid strategy, getting to a vaccine earlier than the EU and allowing us to get out of lockdown before many continental countries. We are pressing ahead with different approaches to the regulation of science and medical advance, to assist in the development of UK excellence in those fields like gene editing. Faced with a shortage of drivers over lockdowns, we were able to flex our regulations temporarily  to help solve the problems. We cancelled VAT on female hygiene products and suspended it on green investments for five years. 

 

The wild pessimism of Remain forecasts for the economy did not come true when we voted to leave. We did not see a rise in unemployment, a fall in house prices, a rise in interest rates in 2016 on the vote nor in 2020 on departing. Our trade with non EU countries is expanding, and we have completed a series of new trade deals with non EU countries. We may well soon join the  very large Trans Pacific Trade Partnership,something we could not do as members of the EU.

 

We have been able to rebuild old valued friendships and alliances. The UK damaged important ties with Australia, New Zealand and Canada on joining the EEC. Today we are building a wider relationship on the back of our 5 Eyes Intelligence grouping and with new trade and investment links  possible.

 

Many of us are far happier now we are out. We are impatient to show more Brexit wins by changing laws and repealing taxes the EU imposed. Our happiness resides in the knowledge that our Parliament can  now make the right decisions and laws for us if it wishes, and we can change the Parliament if it refuses.

 

 

 

177 Comments

  1. Javelin
    January 26, 2023

    There are five systems that make up Western nations

    – The Family
    – The Economy
    – Science
    – Justice
    – Government

    Each of these systems are codependent and have evolved through small changes but this improvement can only come from individual conscious choices. Family choices, Economic choices, Research choices, Legal Choices, Voters Choices.

    Brexit was such a choice made by voters and it freed up all 5 systems to improve. This will only bring benefits if individual conscious decisions are allowed to decide how to improve things further.

    The Government (including civil servants) have decided they did not like individuals decisions and are making a large number of important policy decisions without the voters agreement, such as Net Zero, Mass Migration, Covid Lockdowns, Internet Censorship, Woke targets. These unelected changes are not part of Western social evolution through collective individual conscious decisions and we are seeing them all fail spectacularly. We no longer live in a free Western Country, there has been a political coup across the top of Government, by a Technocracy.

    1. Sharon
      January 26, 2023

      Javelin +1

      1. ignoramus
        January 26, 2023

        Don’t vastly see the point in this debate.

        I think we have to reserve our judgement on Brexit until we can measure the economic impact fully.

        If it works out, all well and good. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to change track.

        I really don’t see what the big hoo ha is about. Our trading policies are not set in stone.

        1. mancunius
          January 27, 2023

          Our trading policies are not set in stone *because* we have escaped the monolithic mentality of the EU which – like yourself – ‘cannot see what the big hoo ha is about’, ie those who prize temporary personal convenience above freedom. We have been a successful trading nation since the middle ages, and having a Parliament full of the historically ignorant can be remedied. The period since 1973 will be seen as a brief aberration.

    2. Michelle
      January 26, 2023

      I cannot applaud you enough for that statement.
      Each individual strand you mention worked in harmony to create the whole.
      There seems to be a determination to undermine this, not just here but throughout Europe and the further reaches, such as Canada under Trudeau.

    3. Donna
      January 26, 2023

      Correct. Coordinated by the WEF which our “leaders” all enthusiastically participate in.

      They are quite comfortable with the policy that the serfs will “own nothing” and they don’t give a 4X if they’re happy or not.

      1. Norman
        January 26, 2023

        Exactly. Only about 100 MPs at most voted against the ‘pandemic police state’, to quote the title of Big Brother Watch’s 20 min. video on which Steve Baker MP and Dawn Butler MP appeared – different parties but in agreement on the matter of civil liberties.

        A friend and I have only recently become aware of the extent of the UK’s 1688 Bill of Rights. Why is no-one aware of the rights and freedoms that this document supposedly guaranteed us *for ever*? The executive has been happy to trample on a lot of them, presumably because no-one challenges it … because, if the courts and most lawyers are ‘bought’, what chance do you stand?

        Some US courts do still seem to be functioning and are willing to hear cases brought in respect of the apparent 2020 coup. Ironically, they seem to have derived their Constitution in considerable part from the text in our earlier Bill of Rights.

    4. Sea_Warrior
      January 26, 2023

      I was pleased to see you mention the family. And displeased to learn a few days ago that more children are being outside of marriage than inside.

    5. Berkshire Alan
      January 26, 2023

      Javelin
      Indeed, I see it is reported today that car production in Britain is now down to 1956 levels, I just wonder if the Government understand how their Net Zero Policies, and the banning of new ICE car sales from 2030 may have had something to do with that ?
      Freeports at last ? perhaps, but only if the eco loons who have held up such with their never-ending legal protests over the last few years can be defeated.
      Illegal immigration not in the newspapers any more, is that because the government have stopped them, or is it because they are not releasing figures any more !

      1. Diane
        January 26, 2023

        B A – Figures sometimes late being recorded on the UK Gov website. Yesterday’s ( 25/1 ) now on and show 373 / 8 boats plus 44 / 1 boat 02 Jan, 106 / 2 boats 17 Jan and 442 / 10 boats for 22 Jan. Total 965 so far this month. GB News does keep up to date & reports & provides varying opinion regularly on what is happening between the French beaches and our south coastal areas. It’s obvious though that there are attempts from elsewhere to keep as much as possible under wraps & away from the public gaze.

    6. Anselm
      January 26, 2023

      You forgot to mention our noble history in the world, embodied in the Royal family and the National Church. Easy to sneer and forget, but without these we would be just another country. English is the international language for an extremely good reason.

      1. Mike Wilson
        January 26, 2023

        @Anselm
        Your comment made me laugh. The history of this country is of the takeover of other countries using brute force. The consequences for the people in those countries were appalling. As for the bloodshed involved in royalty and the history of the ‘Christian’ church – if you think this is something to be proud of!

      2. Adam
        January 27, 2023

        I hate to break it to you all, but the reason English currently is the dominant world language has far more to do with United States hegemony than Great Britain. (I’m guessing that some people will be inclined to respond with something like “but why does the US speak English?” Of course the US speaks English because the colonies were settled by British emigrants, however that’s entirely unrelated to why English is *currently* the world’s dominant language.)

    7. Ashley
      January 26, 2023

      – The Family
      – The Economy
      – Science
      – Justice
      – Government

      Alas the last of these has attacked and partly/largely destroyed the other four.

      The family using the benefit system and by anti male divorce laws.
      The economy by over taxation, over regulation, endless interference especially in employment, net zero and far to large a state with rigged markets in energy, healthcare, schools, universities, transport, housing and with open door low skilled and often criminal immigration.
      Science is hugely distorted by funding only one side (usually the correct people) and cancelling the other as we saw with the Barrington Declaration, vaccines, net zero, climate alarmism… Climate realists and vaccine realist are banned by the BBC and much of MSM, universities and even social media.
      Justice what a sick joke our police & criminal justice is today. They have not even come out of the ECHR and all that right to a family life with you cat stuff.

      Still some good news the government/regulators are finally stopping vaccines for under 50s far too little and too late but better than nothing. Excess all cause deaths over 3000 last week it seems – so was it the dire NHS failures and delays, the vaccines, hypothermia of pensioners due to net zero. other caused? It seem the government do not even want to know or find out.

    8. glen cullen
      January 26, 2023

      I agree with every single word 
.MPs vs The People

    9. agricola
      January 26, 2023

      Oh that they were technically educated and competent.

      1. Hope
        January 26, 2023

        Allowing EU to take our fish six miles from our coast against international norms! It is humiliation the EU are after and the shameless betrayal by the Tory party allows this.

        ECHR not scrapped because it is central to sell out agreement. If UK does not followECHR EU can scrap sell out agreement in 12 days, then there would be no coming back to join EU. Even more reason I want ECHR scrapped, win win. Deport all illegals and alleged asylum refugees etc and treat as UK wishes.

        1. John Hatfield
          January 26, 2023

          At the next General Election vote Reform because a Lib, Lab or Con govrnment will continue the same treachery.

        2. Gary Megson
          January 26, 2023

          Where would you deport them to, Hope? No country is willing to accept them. They are our problem. They used to be the EU’s problem, but we left the EU. You knew you were voting to have more migrants arriving in the UK who we cannot remove from the UK, right?

          1. glen cullen
            January 26, 2023

            France from whence they came

          2. beresford
            January 26, 2023

            As members of the EU we would have shared the consequences of their mass immigration policy the same as other EU members. It was Angela Merkel who invited them in (‘Wir schaffen das’) and the EU which opposes attempts to end the Mediterranean taxi service. Breaking up nation states and destroying democratic consensus by replacing their citizens with Third Worlders is part of the Great Reset. This is why it is somewhat laughable to see some on here still arguing about ‘Brexit’, the game has moved on from one European state to one World government. We have exited our escape tunnel to find we are still behind the perimeter fence.

        3. Peter Parsons
          January 26, 2023

          The ECHR is central to the Good Friday agreement.

          1. mancunius
            January 27, 2023

            We cannot remain tied to the EU-centric political court the ECHR has become just to appease Sinn Fein and the electoral interests of the US Democrat Party. The Agreement has already been clearly breached by the change in NI’s constitutional settlement enforced by the NI Protocol and acknowledged in the High Court as having set aside Section 6 of the UK’s constitutional Act of Union as it applies to NI.
            If we leave the ECHR, the GFA (the Belfast Agreement) can easily be reframed; the UK has human rights legislation that is justiciable in the courts of the United Kingdom for any legal complaint arising within the UK – of which Northern Ireland remains an integral part, until and unless its people decide otherwise. The other sovereign party to the Belfast Agreement (the Irish Republic) cannot reasonably withhold consent, as it dropped its constitutional territorial claim to NI two decades ago.

    10. Pauline Baxter
      January 26, 2023

      Javelin. Yes you are right.
      Several others have supported you and added their reasons.
      I would add that it is not just the W.E.F. coordinating the project, as Donna says. It is the United Nations also.

      Also, I have a comment to make directly to Sir John. (I believe he does read these comments.)
      Sir John, to be prosperous as well as free, this country must have goods to sell, to export to, the Global Market Place.
      We used to exercise a native genius for invention and development of new products – that was before the E.E.C./E.U..
      What are we going to export now?
      The Balance of Trade is even more important than the national debt that is constantly rammed down our throats.
      I find it very difficult to find any hope that we can have a healthy Balance of Trade with the present M.P.s, Civil Servants, and Media set up.

    11. Ian B
      January 26, 2023

      @Javelin +1 Why are they so afraid of the people?

  2. Mark B
    January 26, 2023

    Good morning.

    The very fact that you are only mentioning a few paulty wins now is a testimony to the failure of the Conservative Party and government.

    We had a shortage of lorry drivers because of IR35 Rules and many just quit as they were earning BELOW the minimum wage.

    There are still dark forces trying to draw us closer and closer to the EU. Some predict we will rejoin in 10 years. Whilst I am a little sceptical about the time frame, I am not about the rest. The EU was presented with a golden opportunity to move the ‘Project’ on and more integration. This would mean another treaty. Such a new treaty would put further distance between the UK and the EU, a distance that could not easily closed. So the EU is parked quite nicely waiting for the day when its ca$h cow rejoins, drops the pound and takes its 30 pieces EURO silver.

    It just remains to see who wishes to be the new Judas ?

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      January 26, 2023

      It’s a testimony to the lies that were told about the mythical benefits that brexit would bring.

      Why do you overlook the obvious that is staring you in the face?

      1. Michelle
        January 26, 2023

        You are a tease. You know full well there was no way of telling if the benefits would be ‘mythical’ or not. You also surely know that for ministers and MP’s to drag their feet on any attempts to go forward from day one as an independent nation (my former MP’s words at being frustrated at every initiative he tried) would result in a very sluggish looking Brexit.
        Regardless of your opinion on the issue of leave versus remain it should be of concern to you that so many in positions of power and more importantly trust, along with all the other hangers on who have done nicely out of EU membership and hidden behind its dictates as an excuse to be useless and greedy, have sought to undermine a democratic process. All for their own benefit/purpose and political agenda.
        The appalling attack on the working class who took the brunt of freedom of movement, as one example (mostly by those who claim to be their saviours) of the EU, just reinforces my view I hold of such people.
        The claim they didn’t know what they were voting for is outrageous. They know far more than most book learned, middle class socialists who wave the Labour banner, will ever know.

      2. agricola
        January 26, 2023

        NLH,
        No lies, just a lack of interest in taking action to achieve those very real benefits. Parliament and the Establishment were traumatised by the result of the 2016 referendum result, remember Dimbleby’s face ,and have been fighting against that democratic decision of the electorate ever since.

        1. Lifelogic
          January 26, 2023

          Indeed especially the appalling May who “in effect” gave us the dire Boris deal with the NI Protocol. Also left us with net zero and the Modern Slavery Act which is helping illegal immigration so much. But Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak have all been dire on this and much else.

        2. Hope
          January 26, 2023

          The Tory party betrayed the nation on Brexit and mass immigration policy in exact contrast to what the public wanted and were promised at election time.

          N.Ireland protocol needs to be scrapped not negotiated. Border down Irish Sea- totally unacceptable,
          Checking of goods from GB to NI and now allow8ng EU to examine GB data basis which could be commercially sensitive!- totally unacceptable,
          Tory govt. introducing legislation to for DUP to capitulate to EU demands- disgusting,
          ECJ and ECHR have no part in a free sovereign independent nation, scrap them,
          EU law still in place (Clegg and other remainers claimed there was hardly any) seven years after we voted leave!,
          Level playing fields on environment, state aid, competition and employment laws to stop any benefit from leaving EU and keep UK in lock step,
          Giving contracts to Spain to build our warships and fitting out in NI to prevent GB businesses applying because of EU laws, regs, rules and tariffs!! While creating a recession in UK! Traitors. No other word for it.
          Helping Ukraine propaganda, taxes and weapons but no spirit to fight for part of our own country!
          JR, your party and govt has betrayed the nation on Brexit. Not civil service, Treasury but people like May, Cameron and Johnson. Sunak and Hunt on a mission to fully align with EU leaving in name only.
          The 80 seat majority was to stand up and fight for our country to leave EU. Resoundingly failed.

        3. John Hatfield
          January 26, 2023

          Not just lack of interest, agric. Something more determined and nastier than that.

    2. Mark B
      January 26, 2023

      Adembum

      I have just heard part of, David Lamy’s speech at Chatham House. He wants us to be VERY closely aligned with the EU, ie in lockstep. After which, there will be calls to rejoin the EU.

      It seems I was right. The EU is waiting for us to rejoin.

      1. Alison Macd
        January 26, 2023

        +1 re Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary. A propos, he called NATO the North Atlantic Trade Organisation on Monday morning on LBC. We all make mistakes.

    3. Michelle
      January 26, 2023

      Very well said.

    4. Peter
      January 26, 2023

      “ Our happiness resides in the knowledge that our Parliament can now make the right decisions and laws for us if it wishes, and we can change the Parliament if it refuses.”

      My unhappiness resides in the knowledge that government will not make ”the right decisions”. The vote to leave will continue to be dodged and we will be left with an unsatisfactory fudge. Changing leaders makes no difference. Changing to another established party would make no difference.

      Meanwhile we are also saddled with things we don’t want like Net Zero.

      The way we are governed is no longer fit for purpose.

    5. Ken Larking
      January 26, 2023

      Mark B
      Not ‘We had a shortage of lorry drivers’.
      We HAVE a shortage of lorry drivers and, whilst IR35 rules might be a factor for some, they are a long way from being the root cause of the problem.
      The reality is that drivers are being driven from the industry by massive, inflexible EU imposed over-regulation which this current government has not only failed to recognise and correct but has actively and significantly increased fairly recently. (Incidentally, the problem is even worse in the bus industry)
      If Sir JR thinks that a temporary flexing of drivers daily hours regulations helped solve the issue then he really, REALLY has no comprehension of the scale of the problem.

  3. Mark J
    January 26, 2023

    Brexit Wins?

    We may have voted for Brexit, however what we’ve got is certainly a hashed version of it – with sell outs on ECHR, N.I Protocol and fishing rights.

    What this entire deliberate in order to strengthen further remain cries of “Brexit isn’t working!”

    With this Government, nothing would surprise me anymore. A ‘big L’ (big Liberal) Conservative party, rather than the ‘big C’ (big Conservative) one it should be.

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      January 26, 2023

      ECHR is a separate, non EU institution, designed largely by Churchill.

      How many times must you be told?

      1. agricola
        January 26, 2023

        NLH,
        What you say may be historically correct. It was designed to stop such as the Nazis and their genocidal tendencies. Like all bureaucracy it has given to itself judicial control of ever widening aspects of life, such that it can now boast an ever increasing number of fat cat lawyers in the UK feeding at public expense against the wishes of the electorate. To resolve the current immigration crisis we must leave the jurisdiction of the ECHR and create our own human rights/responsibilities legislation. Should not be so difficult for we who started with Magna Carta.

        1. Pauline Baxter
          January 26, 2023

          agricola. +1

        2. Bill Brown
          January 27, 2023

          What a load of nonsense we should remain members

      2. glen cullen
        January 26, 2023

        It doesn’t really matter who designed a policy document over seven decades ago, nor does it matter if the ECHR is aligned to the EU or not – what’s important is whether the UK wants to remain part of the european council and is it still of benefit to the UK people ….I’d suggest that it isn’t separate from the hidden hands of the EU

    2. Ian wragg
      January 26, 2023

      We still haven’t left the EU
      Most of Parliament and the snivel service are remainers and sir kneelalot will take us back in after you deservedly lose the next election.

      1. glen cullen
        January 26, 2023

        It doesn’t feel like we’ve left

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          January 26, 2023

          So give us a clue as to exactly how you think you should feel?

          I think that you will find that most people of any ability worth occupying responsible positions have a positive attitude towards the European Union, Glen.

          You don’t find many illegal dog breeders and fly-tipping waste disposal operators on the boards of top flight companies or much else. Then again, there is Southern Water and the rest…

          1. glen cullen
            January 26, 2023

            When I use the word ‘feel’ I’m describing that nothing has changed …it feels like nothing has changed
            I’m also very positive towards the EU and I wish that institution great success, however I believe in self determination and the people have voted to leave

  4. MPC
    January 26, 2023

    Where’s the ‘control of our borders’, a key part of the Leave message? It’s a very loose control what with the ‘small boats’ getting bigger all the time and young male migrants living with impunity across England threatening the safety of all of us.

    1. PeteB
      January 26, 2023

      MPC, illegal migrants are an issue however with a net 500,000 p.a. migrants into the UK it is the legal arrivees who are the mopre significnat number. I know lots of these are overseas students but they should offset other students finishing and leaving. We need to tighten up on legal migrants too. UK is too small a county to leave the doors open to so many.

      1. Michelle
        January 26, 2023

        I agree and I can’t help wondering if the sudden interest in the illegal crossings is to deflect from the huge legal influx. Such is my distrust of all in positions of power nothing would surprise me.
        These crossing are not new, they have been going on in some form or another for an extremely long time.
        A lot of people who don’t live in the area seem to think it’s a new phenomena.

      2. Anselm
        January 26, 2023

        In Australia they had the same problem and simply turned the boats back or put them in unpleasant islands. It stopped. Today if I rocked up in Brisbane to see my family without a passport I should be on the next plane back to where I had set off from.

        1. Mark B
          January 27, 2023

          I have mentioned here before the story of a man who overstayed his welcome in Australia, got caught, and spent time in jail. They put him in a cell with a convicted murderer and subjected him to such treatment that he will never return. Nothing violent, just unpleasant.

          The funny thing was, they took his passport and flew him out of the country via Japan. When he got to Japan to transfer to the UK (don’t know why, but I think it was part of the punishment), and the Japanese realised they had an illegal, they put him through more hell.

          He well and truly learnt his lesson.

      3. Mickey Taking
        January 26, 2023

        the overseas students should be zero!

        1. Bill B.
          January 26, 2023

          That’s the end of our universities, then. Of course, you may want that.

        2. glen cullen
          January 26, 2023

          100%

    2. Gary Megson
      January 26, 2023

      Exactly right! In the EU there was a good system of co-operation to address this problem, but since we left the EU we all watch in horror as the UK is powerless on its own to deal with this human trafficking. Just as, having abandoned the co-operation provided by EU membership, we are short of nurses, careworkers, and truck drivers, our exporters face massive new red tape, inward investment to the UK has collapsed and we reduced to begging the EU and the US not to hurt us in any trade war. Brexit wins? It be a joke if it weren’t so serious

      1. Denis Cooper
        January 26, 2023

        “inward investment to the UK has collapsed”

        That’s not what I’ve heard, and only last night this came my way:

        https://mailchi.mp/47d09fa8dea1/brexit-britain-is-lovedinternationally-but-not-by-the-eu?e=1f45a43554

        “In addition to ERG Deputy Chairman David Jones MP, the former Secretary of State Sir John Redwood MP also commented on CIBUK’s report:-

        “It was good to see another leap in inward investment into the UK from non-EU countries following our exit from the EU.

        “Far from damaging our standing in the world Brexit has drawn more attention to our strengths, and to new flexibilities we can use and enjoy outside the EU rules.”

        1. Peter Parsons
          January 26, 2023

          UK inward investment 35th out of 38 according to the OECD this week. Hardly something to celebrate

          1. Denis Cooper
            January 27, 2023

            You have the link.

            “In a CIBUK report which utterly confounds widespread opinion, latest figures reveal a large year-on-year rise in direct inward investment since 2016.”

          2. Denis Cooper
            January 27, 2023

            Here’s a link and it’s not even about INWARD, ie FOREIGN, investment:

            https://news.sky.com/story/amp/north-of-england-sees-lowest-investment-of-advanced-economies-think-tank-finds-12794629

            “The North of England receives one of the lowest levels of investment among advanced economies, a think tank has said.

            Greece would be the only OECD nation to see less public and private investment, if the region was a country, according to a new IPPR North report.

            Researchers found the UK as a whole ranks 35th out of the 38 OECD countries in terms of receiving the least investment.”

      2. Mike Wilson
        January 26, 2023

        There are more nurses in the NHS than before we left. Unfortunate fact but, there it is. And, as for being ‘powerless’ – what nonsense. We have the power but our politicians will not exercise it.

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          January 26, 2023

          Quite right Mike.

      3. R.Grange
        January 26, 2023

        Gary, it’s nonsense to pin the lorry driver shortage on Brexit, when it’s a Europe-wide problem. Even the Europhile Irish Times admits that:-
        ““It is a global driver shortage across Europe, not an isolated problem of one country,” said Zsolt Barna, chief executive of Waberer’s, one of eastern Europe’s largest hauliers based in Budapest. He pointed out that Romania, an important source of truckers for the UK over the years, was 20,000 drivers short — out of a population of 20 million.”
        Brexit.https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/i-will-never-go-back-eastern-european-truckers-not-returning-to-uk-after-brexit-1.4670455
        Compare the biased headline with what the paper is forced to admit in the article.
        Also, published figures that I’ve seen showed we have more EU nationals in the NHS now than we did before we left the EU.
        It’s worth taking the trouble to look up the facts and go beyond the stale old Remainer cliches.

        1. hefner
          January 26, 2023

          commonslibrary.parliament.uk 22/11/2022 ‘NHS staff from overseas: statistics’ in particular ‘Has the number of EU staff in the NHS changed since the 2016 referendum?’

          Caution in conclusions would seem to be the order of the day.

          1. R.Grange
            January 27, 2023

            Hefner, according to the BBC as reported in Bracknell News 5/8/2022, across England ‘the share of UK doctors joining the health service [fell] from 69 per cent in 2015 to 58 per cent last year. Over the same period, the share of new UK nurses fell from 74 per cent to 61 per cent.’ That’s a big drop in British doctors and nurses wanting to join the NHS. Presumably they weren’t put off by Brexit? So could the same factors explaining their reluctance to join the NHS also explain why EU nationals were less keen?

          2. hefner
            January 27, 2023

            You originally said there are more EU staff in the NHS now than they were before we left the EU. The document I quoted pointed out a change in how people were surveyed (whether their nationality was recorded or not).
            Now in your subsequent comment you move from an increase in the total number of EU staff in the NHS to a decrease in UK nurses and doctors JOINING last year.
            I hope you will agree you are comparing apples and oranges, ie, the content of a pond vs the flow in and out the pond.

      4. Pauline Baxter
        January 26, 2023

        Gary Megson. You still here? What is trapping you in this country now? Thought you wanted to move to France but were prevented by the Covid lock downs.

        1. Mickey Taking
          January 27, 2023

          Martin left Cardiff for Spain. With luck a few hundred thousand of the same mindset also left us.

      5. Mark J
        January 26, 2023

        No there wasn’t.

        The issue of illegal crossings across the channel has been occurring since around 2000. When we were firmly in the EU.

        France were unwilling to do anything even back then. Even allowing the Sandgate refugee camp to be constructed.

        So don’t make out the illegal migrant crossings is a result of is leaving the EU.

    3. Javelin
      January 26, 2023

      Every net tax losing migrant removes a net tax contributor out of the tax system. Net tax contributors are becoming a rarity. Each small boat takes a postcode of tax payers out of the tax system.

      The financial markets watch this tax draw down and will soon call the Government to account by forcing internet rates up. The markets simply won’t believe Government promise. Nor do they have to.

  5. Cliff. Wokingham.
    January 26, 2023

    I agree with what you write Sir John however, it does, according to the Preston programme last night appear that, many of my fellow countrymen have now changed their mind and would like to rejoin the EU. This is a worry given that the party operating under the banner of The Conservative Party has no chance of winning the next election.
    Personally, I won’t be able to vote in the next election because I don’t drive now, no longer have a passport and will not apply for a voter’s Id card. I wonder how many other will be not voting next time. I predict that with the new id rules and very little to choose between the parties, it could be an all time record low turnout.

    Reply There is no proposal to rejoin and no likelihood we could rejoin in the half hearted way we did before, opting out of the Euro. Rejoining with Euro membership unlikely to poll well

    1. Gary Megson
      January 26, 2023

      Think it through Cliff, why does a majority now want to rejoin? Brexiters told us we’d keep all the benefits after we left – no, we face massive red tape and barriers to trade. Brexiters told us we’d get great trade deals with other countries – we haven’t, even the one with Australia is rubbish, as George Eustace MP who negotiated it now admits. Brexiters sneered at claims we’d find ourselves short of labour – go ask the NHS, hauliers, farmers etc how they are managing without the help of our EU friends. Brexiters told us we’d control our borders – a very sad joke. Reality is now telling us that leaving the EU was a very very bad idea – just as the Remain campaign accurately predicted

    2. Donna
      January 26, 2023

      Reply to reply.

      Which is why Macron resurrected Cameron’s proposal that the EU have a two-tier structure: the core EU (which will presumably be the Eurozone and those already committed to join) and a satellite tier: which would include the UK, Turkey, Ukraine and probably the remaining EFTA nations.

      And that would allow Starmer to insist that he had kept his word and not taken us back into the EU.

    3. Cliff. Wokingham.
      January 26, 2023

      Sir John
      To Reply….
      I hope you’re right but, the figures quoted last evening didn’t bode well for those of us who voted leave.
      You know as well as I do, that if a pro EU government or coalition government wanted to take us back in, they would and use a vote/consultation worded to get the result they wanted. We saw this in the recent consultation(sic) by WBC in relation to the refuse service they sort of provide.

      1. Pauline Baxter
        January 26, 2023

        Cliff, Wokingham. This plan for us to have to prove our identity to vote is very worrying for those of us who need to vote by post. I have managed for previous G.E.s to attend the polling station. So where I place my cross is kept secret.
        Presumably by post I would need to enclose something proving my identity.
        So therefor my identity is enclosed with my voting decision.
        So much for ‘The Secret Ballot’.

    4. Bloke
      January 26, 2023

      Cliff:
      Needing an ID card is a sign that we live among a large number of untrustworthy people in our country. However, how could you hope to keep your ID unknown to Govt, or many other people anyway? There are thousands of instances recording your personal details, including the old driving licence you now don’t need. Why enable other people to decide the outcome of your Govt solely because of irrational fear? Your vote is important, both nationally and in Wokingham. Use it or lose control of your values.

    5. glen cullen
      January 26, 2023

      You can only rejoin something if you’ve left – we haven’t left 
why are we still paying the EU money and subject to EU laws in NI

    6. Richard II
      January 26, 2023

      Cliff, check it out:
      https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/voter-id/accepted-forms-photo-id

      Accepted forms of photo ID

      You can use any of the following accepted forms of photo ID when voting at a polling station.

      International travel

      Passport issued by the UK, any of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, a British Overseas Territory, an EEA state or a Commonwealth country

      Driving licence issued by the UK, any of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, or an EEA state (this includes a provisional driving licence)
      A Blue Badge
      Local travel

      Older Person’s Bus Pass
      Disabled Person’s Bus Pass
      Oyster 60+ Card

      There you go – Don’t give up your vote!

  6. Fedupsoutherner
    January 26, 2023

    We may not be paying money to be a member but we’re paying the French far too much to stop the dinghy invaders when they are still coming. 450 yesterday and and more than that over the weekend. That’s a thousand that we know of and a good many of them will be coming with criminal intent. This government is storing up no end of problems which will come back to bite us. We had a 20 year old Afghan who had already committed 2 muders and been rejected in Norway but welcomed with open arms here because he had no identity papers. He was fostered and went to school with our children and then went on to murder again. As reported on GB News, nobody should be able to claim asylum without a passport. Nobody. Until your government grow some and get out of the ECHR and get our own Bill of Rights this is going to continue and most sensible right thinking people have had enough. Sunak and co are all talk and no action. He will not stop any coming unless he gets out of the ECHR. Fact.

    1. Donna
      January 26, 2023

      Correct. And very few will ever be deported unless we leave the control of the ECHR, repeal or significantly amend the Human Rights Act, and find a Prime Minister with some cojones. Unfortunately, we won’t find that in the Cowardly LibCON Party.

    2. MFD
      January 26, 2023

      I agreed with your opinion until you said we need our own HR Bill. We do need rid of the ECHR but we do not need to replace it, Britain never had a problem without one, the way to work is to make every one responsible as the basis of their actions.

      On another subject. Were has the Astra Zenica vaccine disappeared to? Suddenly off the planet Covid!
      Suspicious .

      1. Lifelogic
        January 26, 2023

        It was banned in some countries ages ago as it was damaging and killing people. Eventually but much to late later they dropped them in the UK too. They have now just finally stopped the other vaccines for under 50s far too late yet again. Excess deaths last reported week 3,000+.

        1. Christine
          January 26, 2023

          Excess deaths are up massively across all western countries and continue to rise. Where is the enquiry from Government? Why the deathly silence? The few brave MPs asking the right questions get shut down and vilified. Inquests into unexplained deaths are taking over 6 months as there are so many. Parliament wastes it’s time arguing about ‘what’s a woman’, they have truly lost the plot.

          1. Lifelogic
            January 26, 2023

            More concerned about Sunak’s seat belt and Zahawi’s tax that the 3000 a week excess deaths and old people dying of hypothermia due to the moronic net zero agenda causing rip off energy prices.

          2. Bill B.
            January 26, 2023

            Why the silence, Christine?

            ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁ

      2. Fedupsoutherner
        January 26, 2023

        The minority woke would never consider us leaving the ECHR without replacing it with something. I suspect whatever we replaced it with would be so badly written there would be loopholes everywhere. Let’s face it our government don’t get much right.i

  7. Fedupsoutherner
    January 26, 2023

    Change the parliament? You mean try and change it and get the same garbage as we have now. There is no difference between any of the 3 main parties. They are for the most part all traitors who are taking away democracy and eroding anything we hold dear from our lives and our futures. I will not vote for that.

    1. MFD
      January 26, 2023

      Now I second that FUS!

  8. Nigl
    January 26, 2023

    Thin gruel indeed. You have failed to deliver indeed do not seem to have any plan/vision of what you want to achieve.

  9. Nottingham Lad Himself
    January 26, 2023

    Er, a country’s borders are shared with whichever countries it adjoins, whether on land or at sea.

    They are only “ours” in the inclusive, and not exclusive sense.

    They are not a stockade around a claim in the Wild West.

    It requires co-operation with those countries to make them effective.

    Your brexit has largely torn up all that.

    Reply More lies. Brexit means we can dial legal migration up or down which we could not do for EU migrants when in the EU. We have at least as much border co operation over illegals as before.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      January 26, 2023

      Martin. You get more ridiculous by the day. I wonder if you would consider them our borders if we found ourselves in a situation like Ukraine where we were being invaded by an army? Perhaps you’d just allow them to walk in? You are such a silly individual.

    2. agricola
      January 26, 2023

      NLH,
      Our borders are a “Stockade” around our right to self determination. It does not require cooperation to the point of subjugation of our laws and percieved way of life to maintain a very positive healthy relationship with neighbouring countries. Not to mention the cost.
      Think of the leadership the UK has given the EU over the past year in the face of Putin’s war on Ukraine. It was not because of our membership or otherwise of the EU, it was strategic foresight in the face of a totalitarian threat from Putin to the whole of Europe, which Germany avoided seeing until this week because they had already sold their energy requirements to the enemy.

    3. Mickey Taking
      January 26, 2023

      What value are the Schengen borders, members’ citizens have free movement, no controls.
      The EU objective is to create a single state, dictator rules, totally control and conformity.
      I want no part of that and should you forget a majority threw the idea out!

    4. Mickey Taking
      January 26, 2023

      reply to reply….when will we see legal migration dialled down?, and when will illegal migration be controlled at even a miniscule level? An appalling FAIL by this Government which will get a resounding P45 at the forthcoming GE.

  10. michael wilson
    January 26, 2023

    A very wise and factual reminder, not often given today

  11. Nigl
    January 26, 2023

    Archie Norman. It is baffling that the government has rewound four decades of digital innovation to come up with a solution (re labelling) that is expensive and makes us uncompetitive.

    Well what do you expect from a government that is stupid and short sighted (James Dyson) wherever you look the wealth creators have given up on you as have the public.

    1. Denis Cooper
      January 26, 2023

      Hence, as posted earlier, lower down the thread, my email to Chris Heaton-Harris headed:

      “Could M&S be trusted with a licence to export its goods across the Irish land border?”

      Quoting Archie Norman:

      “retailers already operate in real time digital information – day or night, at the click of a button, we can locate our products, be that in a depot, in transit or in a store”.

      And suggesting:

      “… the most suitable type would be a reusable Open General Export Licence:

      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spire-online-export-licensing-guidance/using-spire-to-get-an-export-licence#types-of-licences

      While noting that:

      “”OGEL holders must adhere to all the specified terms and conditions”, which in this case would mean compliance with all EU Single Market requirements.”

  12. Paul
    January 26, 2023

    Free movement of labour meant all citizens of EU member states could travel freely – where the jobs are. All EU members could also agree a strategy on migrants from outside the EU. We now have the worst of both worlds. Most of what you refer to could have been done within the the EU. Fortunately most voters now see the error of the vote where only 36% of voters chose leave – with no clear plan as to the implementation. ‘You can fool some of the people some of the time’.

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 26, 2023

      That strategy didn’t exist – Merkel just called millions to come and join the march across Europe. It caused chaos, real suffering and the effects are still felt in mass unemployment, black economy, racial violence and instability.
      So much for ‘EU members’ – who do you mean exactly?

    2. beresford
      January 26, 2023

      Oddly enough one of the reasons for leaving the EU was the threat of half the population of Albania upping sticks and ‘freely moving’ here after Albania was granted membership. And yet our halfwit politicians are allowing this to happen anyway.

  13. Philip P.
    January 26, 2023

    Sir John is right that we were able to get out of the Covid lockdown straitjacket faster thanks to being out of the EU. However, I’m not so sure about the rest of his point, on pursuing ‘our own vaccine strategy’. A healthcare product is normally subject to a period of careful trialling and observation before it is made available to the public. The emphasis has to be on minimising any possible harms to recipients. To have seen the Covid injections as something to race the competition for, to get the product into people’s arms as fast as possible, was a deeply disturbing change in normal practice. Many questions are now being asked about whether it was a sound move, especially now that the evidence of likely vaccine harms is steadily accumulating. I would expect to see this blog soon tone down the fanfares on ‘how well we did with the Covid vaccines’.

  14. Narrow Shoulders
    January 26, 2023

    mmm. The level playing field is being used to keep us tied to the EU so there will be few wins. We are associate members.

    Cut the umbilical cord and we might experience some wins.

  15. turboterrier
    January 26, 2023

    Brexit?
    Still the invaders keep hitting our beaches. Still have so called legal numbers far above what has been promised. Northern Island not sorted government backing down and giving in on every twist and turn set by the EU.

  16. Donna
    January 26, 2023

    We are still attached to the EU by the umbilical coil “deal” Johnson pushed through, and Northern Ireland is effectively the EU’s hostage, completely controlled by Brussels and used as a weapon to make sure we “behave” as the EU demands.

    We didn’t get Brexit, we got Brino+, Treason May’s deal with a few minor tweaks. And now, three years later, a Bill to repeal 400 EU laws has finally scraped through the Commons and is about to be ripped to shreds by the anti-democratic Remainers who infest the House of Frauds.

    I’m sure the Pretendy-CONs will claim to have “delivered Brexit” at the next General Election, but anyone who wanted our Sovereignty fully restored knows full well that that is not what we got and the Westminster Uni-Party has no intention of EVER delivering it.

    But we have learned the lesson that we must vote to get rid of arrogant MPs who try to impose THEIR agenda on us with no mandate. I will not be voting for any candidate who supports the Net Zero lunacy.

  17. BOF
    January 26, 2023

    An upbeat entry this morning SJR.

    Unfortunately our parliament has become a single unified force acting against the interests of the UK and its people.

    Failing to defend our own borders. Another 1,000 criminals arrived by boat yesterday.

    Covid 19 led to draconian legislation and the very successful rollout of dangerous poorly tested gene therapy that caused many deaths and serious harm, ongoing. This government and Parliament still refuse to recognise this, but the truth will be exposed. Also lockdown and money printed and borrowed to half a trillion pounds, the main cause of inflation. What a legacy of debt to pass on to the next generation.

    We can now barely distinguish between parties, a Uniparty.

    We have government that constantly bows to the demands of the woke.

    We have a majority in parliament that believes in anthropogenic climate change, so we have NZ, EV’s that are unworkable and unafordable. Now, because they refuse to allow the UK to be self sufficient in energy, great harm is being done to business and consumers. Every aspect of this mad energy policy now requires subsidy, even households.

    Not even the Union has survived intact with NI semi separeted.

    For every step forward, two steps back.

  18. Richard1
    January 26, 2023

    It will be interesting to see what happens with Brexit after the election, if as expected Labour win. If that happens every single member of the govt is likely to be an ardent remainer – with Starmer having been in the vanguard of the attempts to thwart Brexit. I think they will avoid any mention of Brexit at the election other than to say it ‘isn’t working’. They will likely try to change the electoral system to one favouring a perma-left coalition. They will stop any further progress on this govts very minimal steps to take advantage of Brexit potential. They will cave into the EU on anything and everything where there’s a dispute – NI being the most obvious (which is why, in anticipation of `Labour the EU won’t concede anything ahead of the election). And I suspect we will see tax and regulation march in lockstep with the EU.

    This will pave the way for formally rejoining the customs union and the single market after a few years. If we do that we may as well just rejoin completely.

    Why has all this come to pass? Obviously the catastrophic May premiership and negotiation is the backdrop. But I’m afraid Brexit-supporting Conservative MPs must take responsibility also. Boris Johnson squandered his premiership and achieved very little. And the choice of Liz Truss, though she said some sensible things, was patently absurd and has taken us to an irrecoverable position in the polls.

  19. Bill Smith
    January 26, 2023

    Sir JR,

    The so-called wins as you mention are as fluffy as they come and the bigger trade deals have not been won yet,

    Your blog about the Brexit Win is more aspirations than reality and the extra money for the NHS does not seem to make any difference with the incompetence we have had of 12 years of Oconservative rule.

    So, when you can present a real economic argument for the benefits of Brexit as oppose to the 5% of GDP (IMF) we have lost due to Brexit , come back and tell us.

    Reply We have not lost 5% from Brexit. Brexit is about freedom and self government

    1. hefner
      January 26, 2023

      During the years of Mrs Thatcher as PM the GDP went from ÂŁ259,744 m to ÂŁ322,743 m an average progression of ÂŁ1,432 m per quarter (over 44 quarters). Over the period since the referendum the GDP went from ÂŁ527,401 m to ÂŁ556,856 m (from 2016Q2 to 2022Q3) an average progression of ÂŁ1,178 m per quarter.
      ons.gov.uk ‘GDP, chained volume measures: Seasonally adjusted £m’

      ‘Brexit is about freedom and self-government’. For whom? For the Zahawis, Sunaks, Mones, Johnsons and Redwoods?

      Reply For all

      1. a-tracy
        January 27, 2023

        hefner, are you including the covid period of the whole Country closing down 2020 to 2021 to make what point?

        Whether we were in the EU or not GDP would have been seriously affected.

      2. Bill Brown
        January 27, 2023

        Sir JR

        I think Hefner has replied well to your none existing assumptions

        1. a-tracy
          January 27, 2023

          What by including two completely wipe out pandemic restricted years. Get a life Bill.

          Hefner you are seriously being ridiculous including covid close down years. We were also not out of the withdrawal agreement until January 2022 so we’ve been out one year not since 2016. Our divorce payments are lowering every month now since October 2022.

          Now out of the EU, the United Kingdom is re-embracing the world. Free Trade Agreements with Japan, Australia and New Zealand secured; accession to free trade area CPTPP imminent, new FTAs with India, Canada, South Korea, Mexico and the GCC in prospect.

          🇬🇧đŸ‡ȘđŸ‡ș Value of UK exports of goods and services to the European Union in Q3, the July–September period, in [year]:

          2022 ÂŁ89.742bn âŹ…ïž
          2021 ÂŁ66.518bn
          2020 ÂŁ60.764bn
          2019 ÂŁ75.204bn âŹ…ïž
          2018 ÂŁ74.774bn
          2017 ÂŁ72.618bn
          2016 ÂŁ62.739bn âŹ…ïž

          Source: ONS
          Info courtesy to Robert Kimbell on twitter.

        2. a-tracy
          January 27, 2023

          For 2021 as a whole, UK GDP growth was 7.6%. This was the highest in the G7. Commons library

          Anyone can cherry pick stats.

          1. hefner
            January 28, 2023

            Did you ask yourself: why does he concentrates on Q3 and not look at results for the full year?
            Have a look at macrotrends.net ‘UK exports 1970-2023’. Last year is 2021.
            What do you see? whether one looks at it in $bn or %? These are for total exports.
            What about UK trade to GDP ratio 1970-2023?

            Then concentrating on exchanges with the EU http://www.gov.uk ‘UK trade in numbers (web version)’ 20/01/2023.
            The figures (which are good, no doubt) show an increase by 23-24% for the last available four quarters (ie 21Q4-22Q3 compared to 20Q4-21Q3).
            Now tell me, why would Robert Kimbell (I hope you search who the guy is) choose a Q3-Q3 comparison with ~50% increase if not for making people like you salivate?

          2. a-tracy
            January 28, 2023

            For the same reason that you cherry pick the statistics that you use hefner.

            2021 was covid recovery year after the worst pandemic closing down the economy for nearly a year and Labour and their unions wanted it closing for longer the teachers didn’t want to go back in January. That year and 2020 cannot be compared or used to fuzz statistical comparisons.

          3. hefner
            January 28, 2023

            I hope you realise (a lot of hope, I know) that the 2021 UK GDP growth of 7.6% (the best in the G7) came after the -8.6% drop in 2020 (the worst in the G7), which means that the UK GDP is still 0.8% lower than at the end of 2019.

            But follow Kimbell if that entertains you.

            ons.gov.uk 01/02/2021 ‘International comparisons of GDP during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic’
            commonslibrary.parliament.uk 06/01/2023 ‘GDP: International comparisons: Key economic indicators’

          4. a-tracy
            January 28, 2023

            You know hefner, i am never rude or arrogant to you. Your sarcasm is unwarranted and frankly just shows you up. Best wishes.

    2. Bill Brown
      January 27, 2023

      What a load of nonsense we should remain members

  20. Denis Cooper
    January 26, 2023

    This morning I have written to Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris, asking whether he agrees with me that M&S could be trusted with a UK government licence to export any of its goods across the Irish land border for sale in the Irish Republic, on condition that all EU Single Market requirements are always met.

    I have done this is in view of this BBC article:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-64391876

    “NI Protocol: M&S warns against separate labelling for NI goods”

    I have copied it quite widely, including to the M&S chairman and the Irish minister Micheal Martin.

    I wanted to get it done early because I expect to be busy defending Brexit later in the day.

  21. agricola
    January 26, 2023

    Unfortunately the bonuses of Brexit you lay out are largely intangible from the electorates point of view. They are therefore not tipping points at the ballot box. These tipping points are:-
    Immigration.
    NI Protocol.
    NHS, an absorber of wealth with ever diminishing results.
    Housing.
    Inflation, Cost of Living.
    Energy or bare sufficiency of it.
    War on personal transport.
    Taxation.
    Absence of a dynamic, positive forward plan that could carry the electorate with government.

    Your party in government is a dead man talking, walking would erroneously suggest it had direction. The opposition commit to no answers, but wait to one side for your continued and inevitable self destruction. My answer in 2024 is abstention or Reform, because I do not live in Wokingham.

  22. Old Albion
    January 26, 2023

    Quite disappointing. Not my CSE results. But the amount of effort put in by this Gov. in achieving Brexit fully.
    Not that Labour would do any better.

  23. Sir Joe Soap
    January 26, 2023

    Well it feels as though we’re neither in the Swiss mode with reasonably free movement, whereby we trade opensly and negotiate bilaterals with the EU, nor in the totally third country USA, Australia mode where we’re free to send unwelcome visitors back, set our own low tax levels, employment legislation etc. and generally run things without looking over our shoulders at the EU.
    Reasons mainly that our negotiators have been dire. Why are EU nationals allowed 6 months here but we’re only allowed 90 days there? What possible reason was there for May to be hit over the head with that and accept it? Why can’t we move food within our own country without some stupid labelling scheme?
    The voters weren’t wrong to vote out, as we can easily see by the attitude of the EU since, but our government-your government has made a complete mess of the aftermath.

  24. majorfrustration
    January 26, 2023

    We have enough of our own criminals without allowing more to come into the country. Currently the Government is going through the motions and whilst the PM is “addressing” this issue and that issue the fact of the matter is that nothing is being done. Its all talk. And so it will continue under the next Labour Government

  25. Berkshire Alan
    January 26, 2023

    Yes JR the opportunities are there for the taking, but the Government seems reluctant or incapable of turning positive thought, into any form of sensible action.
    Instead of trying to move the Country forwards with sensible economic policies, we get, Net Zero fantasy, higher taxes, more regulation, more wasteful spending, all of which discourages not only the self employed, but private investment in general.
    Perhaps the reason our past Chancellor of the Exchequer had an alleged problem with his tax returns, was because he did not fully understand the 20,000 pages it covers, he would not be alone, millions of ordinary people are in the same boat ,which is why many employ an accountant to do it for them, just to be on the safe side !.

    1. Ian B
      January 26, 2023

      @Berkshire Alan – reluctant or incapable?, more like total refusal.
      Least we all forget Net Zero was a race that the Boris Johnson’s Government created (remember it was the whole cabinate that signed up to it, Sunak etc.). No other Country in the World saw it as a race, as some of them said(other Countries) t the time it would be an asperation but at no stage would they endorse wreking their own economies to acheive it.

  26. Anselm
    January 26, 2023

    Sitting at home as a retired old man, I find it is very easy to be scathing. I have, however, been wondering for some time what life must have been like for an MP or Civil Servant under the EEA/EU.
    As an MP, or Civil Servant, my decisions, including very difficult ones, would already be mapped out for me. I would be invited, as of right, over to Brussels or Paris for a meeting which might include several interesting activities apres la reunion. I might learn that the Brussels restaurants, for example, are as exquisite as many of my European colleagues.
    I would feel part of a top team of bureaucrats, the managerial class.
    Now – all gone. Just bloody London.
    I wonder how much that might influence my own thinking as an MP or Civil Servant?

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 27, 2023

      Well if you would Remain to take advantage of a European restaurant on expenses, its good that you are neither Civil Servant nor MP.

  27. Lynn Atkinson
    January 26, 2023

    Unfortunately the political party machines are thwarting true democracy by deciding who will be in Parliament and allowing us Hobson’s choice from the shortlist.
    We want MPs who know that no asylum seekers arrive in the U.K. as they have reached safe countries before arriving on our shores. We are shocked at the list of hotels taken over by the Government to house economic migrants from all over the world, mainly fit young men, we are anxious about the huge taxes extracted from us to fund all this anti-British activity.
    We can’t change our politicians!
    We need to change and prefer a peaceful, ballot box change, but change we will have.
    I have never known such depression throughout my family, friends and acquaintances.
    The political class are culpable.

  28. Bloke
    January 26, 2023

    A large number of bad MPs remain in office, still opposing and restricting our nation’s ability to achieve sensible outcomes. Too many linger in the Conservative Party. If the Reform Party can oust those nuisances, a nearer-pure Conservative Govt might then act in the UK’s interests to deliver the freedom and opportunities Brexit enabled.

  29. The PrangWizard
    January 26, 2023

    Times are not good for the Tories and their Brexit, so this is why we get this desperate puff piece.

    It doesn’t amount to much in the eyes of ordinary people, it indicates the distance the party and its MPs are from them.

  30. Peter Parsons
    January 26, 2023

    “Out of the EU we were able to pursue our own vaccine and covid strategy” – nothing about the UK’s approach to Covid vaccines was restricted by membership of the EU (the UK was still subject to all EU regulations at the time the Covid strategy was developed, which of itself contradicts your assertion). Hungary (still an EU member) took a similar approach to the UK.

    “Faced with a shortage of drivers over lockdowns” – a shortage caused by Brexit, specifically the type of Brexit this government chose.

    “We cancelled VAT on female hygiene products and suspended it on green investments for five years.” – Something that would have been possible as an EU member anyway. Ireland has had no VAT on female hygiene products throughout its time as an EU member. The reason the UK does is because of choices made by Conservative governments, not the EU.

    Meanwhile the UK took longer than any other G7 economy to recover back to its pre-Covid level. Business investment has lagged comparable economies since 2016 (see the recent OECD figures).

    Eurostar is running trains at well below capacity (the Amsterdam service sells just 250 out of 900 seats, Paris services 550 out of 900) and has kept Ebbsfleet and Ashford stations closed because of the amount of extra bureaucracy and checks introduced by Brexit.

    1. a-tracy
      January 27, 2023

      Peter, the UK no longer has ownership or shares of Eurostar? If France is ruining its tourism economy then let it shoot itself in the foot. People I know who are reading the reports of problems getting in to France are changing to Portugal and Malta.

      The UK is trying to cope with recovery from an overlong unnecessary (as I said repeatedly at the time) lockdown. If Starmer had been in power we’d have not come out of it when Boris did. He unions were crying for more time off. The public has been told repeatedly to tighten their belts and cut their cloth so they have, they have been told energy relief is ending in March, cold weather doesn’t end in March so people are hunkering down. How can business invest when their business is closed down due to a pandemic.

      We are under warring factions not just with the Ukraine problem that Boris seemed to want to take on our shoulders, trying to be the great statesman, but we are also under a warring set of MPs and it seems a lot of Tory MPs masquerading as people who wanted to get Brexit done and all they do is thwart change to delay the process.

      1. a-tracy
        January 27, 2023

        Can I also add that Q3 2022 we had days lockdown with the Queen’s funeral, the public sector went into mourning and turnover was affected for over a week, cherry picking quarters of unusual, once in seventy year events is poor.

  31. Ian B
    January 26, 2023

    “Brexit wins”

    Sir John, I like the positive spin you attempt to apply to the situation.

    However we have a Parliament and a Government that still believes the UK should remain subordinate to the EU and its Courts. Parliament and Government point blank refuse the democratic principle that in the UK, Laws Rules and Regulations are created, amended and repealed by democratic means.

    All the time that basic tenant of democracy, ‘Government by the People for the People’ is denied to the people by parliament and Government they are as they(the HoC) have been acting as foreign puppets.

    1. hefner
      January 26, 2023

      As far as I know ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People’ was from Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburgh Address. A similar declaration appeared later on in the 1958 French Constitution.

      As far as I could check, the texts that are the basis for the ‘Constitution’ of the UK do not contain any such formula. Whereas the US President cannot be overthrown by Congress, the UK PM leading both the executive and legislative parts of the Government would have more possibilities of introducing a parliamentary dictature as through the sovereignty of Parliament such ‘constitutional’ arrangements can be changed by a simple parliamentary vote.

      But anybody who thinks they have an easy way to change a system – that has become sclerotic – by their vote at the next GE under FPTP is rather deluded and should really consider the texts and what they allow and do not allow with regards to their rights.

      And BTW, the above has very little to do with the EU.

      1. Ian B
        January 26, 2023

        @hefner I cant see were I am suggesting it is a constitutional thing. It is an accepted view of Democracy, that the people are the ones that lend authority and powers to their elected representatives.

        In an ever evolving World not having Constitution is a good idea.

        The main idea is that the Laws, Rules and Regulations that are passed down on the people of this Country come from their Parliament. If they don’t like them there is the opportunity to have them amended or repealed, or remove the MP’s at elections causing the road blocks. As the UK Parliament continues to keep it self subordinate to the EU it has therefore become the block on democracy, the block on progress.

        This Government is refusing at all levels to take on the responsibilities the electorate has given them, which is why the Country is in such a state. As such it is them that are changing democracy to suit their own egos

        The only block on FPTP working as it should is the selection process, as it stands basically ‘gang leaders’ decide who will stand in elections, the only criteria being loyalty to the leader, not constituents.

  32. Ian B
    January 26, 2023

    From the Daily Telegraph
    “Baffling Brexit plan will wreck trade, says M&S chief”

    The headline is equally baffling as it is really about the stupid baffling plans for the UK economy from Hunt & Sunak.

    Equally baffling is the pandering over the Northern Irish Protocol. In a nutshell the EU is concerned that good from the UK will flow into the EU State of the former Irish Republic, that don’t meet EU standards. That is the baffling bit, if the people in the South of the Island of Ireland are illegally buying goods from the UK to use or sell on, that their master in the EU don’t like the idea of – what has that to do with the UK? The EU has numerous laws, surely in amongst them they have laws to stop their citizens going against their directives. Or is it the just don’t trust their own Citizens that reside in Southern Ireland, or their policing capability. Time for the Political Class to grow up.

  33. Mickey Taking
    January 26, 2023

    ‘ Our happiness resides in the knowledge that our Parliament can now make the right decisions and laws for us if it wishes, and we can change the Parliament if it refuses.’
    If only right decisions were being made! We still wait for any laws to be undone from EU instigation. We can change the Parliament which is the most promising opportunity getting nearer by the month. A radical step to reduce the Commons, and totally change the way and the representatives required to review Bills needs to be achieved.

  34. Ian B
    January 26, 2023

    Sir John

    When are we due to legally leave the EU? When do we get the withdrawal from the EU that the ballot paper question suggested was the direction the UK was to take? When do we get a UK Government that is managing the UK for the UK? Rather than the one that is keeping the UK aligned so as not to upset their masters in the EU.

  35. John Downes
    January 26, 2023

    “Our happiness resides in the knowledge that our Parliament can now make the right decisions and laws for us if it wishes”

    Well whoop-te do! All we need now then is a party that governs on the basis of a few sensible principles, starting with ditching the green crap, not taxing the bejesus out of everybody, and controlling the borders. Sir John, can you reccommend such a party to your readers?

    1. SM
      January 26, 2023

      +10

  36. glen cullen
    January 26, 2023

    Its not god enough to wait for freedom or blame someone else for the erosion of freedom 
you have to fight every day for freedom, fight every day to stop others restricting freedom
    Above all freedom & democracy

    1. Ian B
      January 26, 2023

      @glen cullen +1 Well said, we also need to ensure those in the HoC know whos paying them and what their pay is for.

  37. George Sheard
    January 26, 2023

    We need to support our own businesses, government help to create new businesses, The bonuses will be more jobs less imports a more greener choice , let the government and local councils support our own businesses by buying British, such as cars and vans ic possible companies such as the GPO need to buy Britsh cars and vans
    This would create massive growth in Britain
    Thank you

  38. Richard1
    January 26, 2023

    The argument that the public voted for Brexit at the 2019 election is a risky one. If the next Parliament has a large remain / rejoin-supporting Labour majority, the new Labour govt will apply the same logic to say the public just voted against Brexit – and act accordingly. We are likely then to become an economic colony of the EU, against which prospect full return to the EU would be preferable.

    Reply The last election was won with the slogan and main purpose “Get Brexit done” The next election cannot be won on a slogan Let us rejoin the EU. Were it to be so then of course the new Parliament would need to enact another referendum.

    1. Peter Parsons
      January 26, 2023

      An election at which the electorate were told that there was an “oven ready deal”, that would “get Brexit done”. An “oven ready deal” which has subsequently been disowned by those directly responsible for negotiating it while clearly not getting Brexit done.

    2. Richard1
      January 26, 2023

      Reply to reply: no but it will be a fudge. Labour are already pledging ” new deal with the EU”. If they win they will claim that as a mandate for much closer alignment.

      1. a-tracy
        January 27, 2023

        Richard, you are correct, it is relentless at the moment, Beverley Turner blasted someone on Jeremy Vines show “you’ve come on air to prove to people who voted Brexit are not thick – do that!” I can’t watch this woman on GB News which is where I first saw her. Calling someone ‘thick’ oh yes Bev that’s really going to work.

        We only left the EU’s withdrawal agreement in January 2022, one year ago. We couldn’t get cracking on visiting countries to ready trade agreements for 2021 because of relentless covid, we are told things are moving forward at a pace now, if that’s not true, give us the facts. A big majority of Tories didn’t want to leave, the Lords hold up the Commons, when we voted for sovereignty I don’t think most people thought that would mean an unelected chamber holding the power.

        The divorce bill didn’t start to slow down until October 2022, and we’re still paying in, but it drops further this year check out BBC Brexit divorce payments.

        Working people are earning more in the UK since Brexit. Europe didn’t give us high food standards either Bev to refute your statement, we got horsemeat into our food chain, a massive problem in the EU (Poland/Hungary/Romania), we got a major outbreak of salmonella enteritidis (a food poisoning bug) in chicken from Poland (europarl – The website cites research establishing that Poland accounted for 60% of Salmonella infections in the EU in 2019. )and a host of other food issues that you can google.

  39. Michael Saxton
    January 26, 2023

    Actually Sir John, people are unhappy with a raft of issues, most caused by government failure and incompetence. We have not taken back control of our borders, our fisheries and our laws. The NI Protocol is causing huge problems to the people of Northern Ireland as they are still tied to EU regulation. Where is the Brexit dividend promised by Prime Minister Johnson? And then there is the thorny issue of energy! Fifteen years of mismanagement, selecting a losing strategy of investing in wind and solar, scorning gas and investment in nuclear, especially RR SMR’s, abandoning gas storage and rejecting hydraulic fracturing? These major issues are causing concern and insecurity across the country. There is a disconnect between working people, their families and Parliament over the issue of Net Zero. We are denied any say in the matter, the costs and disruption have never been explained, it’s a stitch up by Parliament, the CCC and the renewable energy lobby. We the people need a referendum on this issue?

    1. Christine
      January 26, 2023

      The problem with a referendum is that many people, especially the young, will vote for net zero as they have been indoctrinated into believing the climate change scam. The loss of the car will force women’s rights back decades as it will no longer be viable for working mothers to get to work, this will reduce the numbers working in the NHS and nursing homes and push up the need to import workers from abroad. All brought in by idealistic politicians who don’t have a clue how modern day families work.

  40. Mark Thomas
    January 26, 2023

    Sir John,
    “The voters showed they knew the way to get their will done by removing many of the MPs who were thwarting Brexit.”
    But unfortunately not enough of them.

    I have no doubt that the EU would love to have Treasure Island back in their vampiric embrace, especially now that it has become involved in the Ukraine conflict. Not only will this impoverish the EU, but it will also make it increasingly reliant on expensive American supplies of liquefied natural gas. The sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines has seen to that.
    In the future any political leader in this country trying to sell the benefits of rejoining this corrupt and failing political organisation, is going to find it extremely difficult to persuade anyone but the most diehard rejoiners.

  41. Bryan Harris
    January 26, 2023

    Yes, we are happy to be out, but we’d be happier still if our own government made better use of self rule, and took effective action to truly benefit us all – Instead they pursue globalism as the latest political fad, alongside anti-Thatcher policies.
    Most certainly HMG have failed us with their inability to implement project BREXIT!

    That so many defy the will of the people, in parliament and the CS, means that our institutions no longer work for us, but to their own agenda!

    Clearly, labour would take us straight back into the EU should they ever win an election – meaning even those people who have come to despise the torys will likely end up voting for them – unless the alternative new parties can come together, amalgamate their overall support and take the crown from whoever is tory PM at the time.

  42. Bryan Harris
    January 26, 2023

    Sorry, off topic…

    Why is the media only pushing one aspect of reforming the NHS – All they talk about is what charges consumers should pay for medical services.
    This is warping the discussion – we already pay heavily for a lousy service!

    What we need is a better management structure, a more effective organisation, and a service that gives us real results…. There is too much to be done in making the NHS work before they start talking about charging us for something we are already funding!

  43. Denis Cooper
    January 26, 2023

    Here is a letter I have just sent to our local newspaper:

    “In his latest contribution (January 26) James Aidan argues that we should rejoin the EU Single Market and customs union.

    Why? Previously (January 19) he claimed that there has been a “5.2 per cent shrinkage in GDP”, but according to the relevant study – easily found by Googling for “What can we know about the cost of Brexit so far?” – we are actually doing better since we left the EU Single Market.

    The methodology of that study has been criticised; but if we choose to accept its validity, for the sake of argument, then to be consistent our approval must extend all the way back to the EU referendum.

    Which means accepting that a 3.1 per cent shortfall had accumulated before we had even left the EU, growing to a 8.5 per cent shortfall before we left the EU Single Market, but since partially reversed.

    In fact if the subsequent trends were to continue then Mr Aidan’s “5.2 per cent shrinkage in GDP” would disappear by the autumn of next year, and from then on we would be in positive territory.

    Incidentally in that study “shortfall” did not mean “shrinkage”; GDP had grown by 5.4 per cent since the referendum, but the author claims that without Brexit the gain might have been twice that.”

  44. Ian B
    January 26, 2023

    Sir John

    Reading your Diary today, and the comments posted it is clear that at no stage have we left EU Control and as one of the EU’s team stated at the conclusion of the WA, the UK is now our Colony!

    If we had left the EU the remainers wouldn’t still believe there is hope for full membership once more and we would all have moved on.

  45. glen cullen
    January 26, 2023

    The data below is for the 24-hour period 00:00 to 23:59 25 January 2023.
    Number of migrants detected in small boats: 373
    Number of boats detected: 8

    Brexit Win – I don’t think so

  46. John Price
    January 26, 2023

    Why don’t the twits who make up most of the parliamentary Conservative party share your very positive views?

    1. glen cullen
      January 26, 2023

      Well said John

    2. hefner
      January 27, 2023

      Lateral thinking: twit = TheWeekInTory on Twitter . Now everyone can enjoy ‘The Decade In Tory: An inventory of idiocy from the coalition to Covid’ by Russell Jones, Unbound Ed.

  47. Pauline Baxter
    January 26, 2023

    Well yes Sir John, ‘our parliament can now make the right decisions for us, if it wishes’.
    Except – what about The Balance of Trade?
    What ‘Goods’ do we now produce that the ‘Global Market Place’ is short of and wants to buy from us?
    This is a genuine question from me. I honestly feel downhearted at the state my country has come to.

  48. forthurst
    January 26, 2023

    Significant Brexit wins will not be achievable under the First Past the Post uniparty, not selected by the English people and not wanted by the English people. Without voting reform making each vote count, the uniparty cannot be defeated. Two thirds of votes cast have no effect on general election results. Whether in or out of the EU we, the English have no control over the decline and destruction of our country by forces outside of their control.

    I’ve just been investigating a prospective rail journey. I find in order to get from A to B, I have to buy a ticket from one operating company to take me from A to C and buy another from another operating company to take me back up the same railway line from C to B. The Tory market economy consists of privatising public utilities making everything more complex and expensive and selling off profitable private companies to the highest foreign bidder and calling it “Inward investment”.

  49. Fedupsoutherner
    January 26, 2023

    So in Rishis own words he’s completely focused on delivering 5 things. Apparentlyone of those is stopping the boats. So that’s why over a 1000 have arrived in the last week. Put your hands together for those great results.

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 27, 2023

      If he achieves one of them we should have an hour for banging pots outside. It might be deathly silence however.

  50. hefner
    January 26, 2023

    Sometimes one falls upon a jewel: iea.org.uk, 17/03/2016, D. Zuluaga ‘Hayek would have voted to remain’.
    The argument is based on F.v.Hayek’s ‘The Economic Conditions of Interstate Federalism’, 1939: ‘It is rightly regarded as one of the great advantages of interstate federation that it would do away with the impediments as to the movement of men, goods, and capital between the states and that it would render possible the creation of common rules of law, a uniform monetary system, and common control of communications. The material benefits that would spring from the creation of so large an economic area can hardly be overestimated, and it appears to be taken for granted that economic union and political union would be combined as a matter of course’.
    Who would have thought that Ursula von der Leyen and others in the EU Commission could be a bunch of Hayekists? And that some ‘free trade’ extremists might not have received the blessing of their god.

    1. Peter van LEEUWEN
      January 27, 2023

      @hefner:
      My current jewel is the book ‘Empireland’ which convinces me that it will take much longer than I expected,for the British mindset to evolve to “just being another country”.
      If we wait for the young people (of whom 75% voted pro EU in 2016) to become the mainstream British (in about 30 years?), maybe FPTP would have given way to a more democratic system, and if the EU then still exists (I think it will) Britain would be welcome to rejoin.

  51. Paul Cuthbertson
    January 26, 2023

    The Globalist UK Establishment which has ruled us for decades has NEVER wanted the UK to leave the corrupt EU and its associated gravy train because It does not suit THEIR agenda. The people are irrelevant but change is on the horizon. Panic in London. Panic in DC. Nothing can stop what is coming, NOTHING.

    1. hefner
      January 27, 2023

      Well, well, well 
 when do you envisage this coming rapture?

  52. Geoffrey Berg
    January 26, 2023

    I have always rather fancied compounding the benefits of Brexit by converting Britain into Singapore-on-the-Thames which is what the E.U. most feared. Whether that is practical with the housing and manpower shortages in the South East and London I am not sure but it should be investigated and even the formal investigation of it might make the E.U. less unreasonable.

  53. Will in Hampshire
    January 26, 2023

    It’s been interesting reading the many comments here articulating peoples’ experience of the impact Brexit has had on their lives. Let me tell you about the most tangible and immediate impact of Brexit in my life: I am staggered by how long it takes to get into Germany. I go there at least once a month and the delays are horrendous now that we aren’t allowed to use the e-passport gates. I recently stood in line for 100 minutes behind a 787 load of arrivals from China at Frankfurt. No surprise, I missed my meeting. Small wonder that many SMEs in this country are giving up on exporting into the EU markets, they’re nowhere near as accessible as they were before.

    1. Mickey Taking
      January 27, 2023

      Interesting to note that China is invading Germany like it does us.

  54. beresford
    January 26, 2023

    What is the end game in Ukraine? Initially there was the sensible objective of forcing Putin to the negotiating table and agreeing the separation of the Russian-supporting areas Donetsk and Luhansk. Now I hear pundits maintaining that Russia must be totally defeated. In the first place this would probably end in the ethnic cleansing of the two areas and in the second place Russia has tactical nukes and doesn’t have to accept this ‘defeat’. If Kyiv and Kharkhiv are expunged from the map, our leaders have no mandate from me to parlay this up into intercontinental nuclear exchange. But the German Foreign Minister has declared that her country is at war with Russia, and global elites are apparently snapping up underground bunkers in New Zealand.

  55. Sea_Warrior
    January 27, 2023

    British tourists, like other non-EU citizens, will soon be hit with a small charge to enter the EU. At the individual level, it’s not much, a few euro, but taken as a whole the charge represents another substantial imposition on our Balance of Payments. So I’ll call for retaliatory action by the British government, with all EU citizens arriving in this country, and them alone, to be hit with a tourism tax, payable at our borders, that will recoup all of the money extracted by Brussels. The EU, like Putin, only respects strength.

    1. Tony Hart
      January 28, 2023

      But we like having EU tourists coming over here and spending their money!!! If this new levy on UK tourists stops us from going to EU, then EU doesn’t get our money. Tough!!!! No more lunching at Natalies.

  56. Pat Murphy
    January 27, 2023

    The problem with the British people, and in particular the English, is that they adhere to the Class system so much and always to the detriment of their own better judgement that when it comes to important decisions in their lives, like the brexit vote for instance, they defer to their betters for guidance advice etc so much so that deluded politicos, crooked media and others can creep in and pull the wool over their eyes – like what happened with brexit – and then get away with it all by use of 350 on the side if a bus – or 70 million Turks snaking their way here – amazing stuff – Britain is now off the rails – and no amount of dressing it up is going to change that – as an outsider sorry to say I could see it all coming forty years ago.

  57. a-tracy
    January 27, 2023

    Public sector staff are never going to be happy.

    Since 2005 Time for Planning Preparation and Assessment is provided for teachers during the school day, they are entitled to a minimum of 10% of timetabled teaching time for PPA as part of their hours of directed time.

    When mine were at school this meant half a day off a week at first then the teachers preferred one whole day off per fortnight.

    11 Jan 2022 — In November 2020, there were 204,847 full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers and 151,865 FTE teaching assistants (TAs) employed in local authority. The schools now also have to employ extra teachers to cover the PPA time, or specialist teachers who teach sport, music etc.

    All of these advances aren’t seen as beneficial. Did you know that while the number of mainstream school teachers in England has remained static over the last 10-years, the number of teaching assistants has trebled since 2000? Since 2000 the number of teaching assistants has risen from 79,000 to 262,800 dma.ac this was by national agreement in 2003 – and they’re still not happy. I know three people training as TAs at home not in schools on OU. Perhaps you’d have been better off employing more ACTUAL teachers and fewer assistants because something is going seriously wrong if a teacher is still claiming they’re working over 60 hours per week!

    Three taxis leave our home estate each morning with one child in each mini-bus, half a million ÂŁ per week the councils spend on this service.

  58. a-tracy
    January 27, 2023

    This from Robert Kimbell

    Q3 2022 uk exports to EU were 43% up on 2016.

    1. a-tracy
      January 27, 2023

      “In recent periods, the UK has experienced strong GFCF growth relative to the other G7 nations. Since Quarter 1 2021, UK growth was the largest out of the G7 nations in four out of seven quarters, including Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2022. In this most recent quarter, UK growth was 1.6 percentage points ahead of France, which had the second highest growth. Most of the G7 nations saw an increase in growth in Quarter 3 2022 relative to the previous quarter except Japan, which saw a slight decrease, and Italy, which saw a larger fall. Notably, these two nations had the highest growth in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2022. Italy showed strong growth through 2021 and Quarter 1 2022, but growth has now fallen for two consecutive quarters. Despite showing an increase in the latest quarter, both Canada and the US remain in negative territory for the second consecutive quarter.”
      ONS https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/businessinvestment/julytoseptember2022revisedresults

      September 2022 was a very unusual period for the UK with our beloved Queen dying. Then we got Sunak/Hunt and their doom laden promises of more tax, more tax, more tax. They froze a lot of public sector spending in mid-October.

  59. Tony Hart
    January 28, 2023

    In David Lidington’s article ‘Finally, the Brexit penny has dropped for Sunak’, he writes ‘the EU’s decision on UK data adequacy and the current policy on derivatives trading’. What is all that about, please? The rest of the article was fairly ambiguous. He does make the point about Conservatives needing to connect with the young generation. Nothing like as clear as you!!!

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