There were precious few wins in the hype. None of them are yet delivered.
Use of egates to speed Uk travellers. Nothing changes before EU technology changes, which will not happen this summer. UK would then have to negotiate egate use with every member state individually!
More exports of UK food products. The UK has conceded taking EU laws but there is no text saying what will be cut out or when. The UK exports so little meat and dairy potential wins would be small even if they do make genuine reductions in requirements. Meanwhile farmers would lose other freedoms to innovate and trade elsewhere.
Youth Experience Scheme. No agreement on limit on numbers or duration of visas. No clear statement on how to prevent it becoming another entry route for migrants.
Access to bid for defence contracts. Nothing agreed about how many or about a possible charge for allowing this.
Common emissions trading and new carbon tax regime. No text. Just a threat of higher energy taxes and more imports, with EU calling the shots.
May 20, 2025
We have to oppose this . Support Badenoch and Farage in their resistance , Vote against Labour at every opportunity
May 20, 2025
What about 12 years unfettered access to our fish
I bet that’s set in stone
It’s probably the only thing that will happen
After all that’s all the EU really wanted
Badenough won’t repeal any of the damaging measures because the limp dumbs in her party won’t let her. Only Farage has categorically stated he will wind them back
Starmer is a traitorous being and needs stopping.
May 20, 2025
Ian
The fishing deal has a clause that prevents any future government from backing out, without paying a huge fine (or similar!)
I’d like to know why this deal wasn’t voted for in Parliament! Especially as essentially it’s breaking the results of the referendum vote!
May 20, 2025
Whatever 2TK has agreed can be cancelled
Reform and the not conservatives must make it clear that any agreement will be unwound without compensation
Of course the tories won’t do it but Farage will
Reply Both have said they will.
May 20, 2025
Reply to reply
But Reform will actually do it
May 20, 2025
It is not breaking the results of the referendum vote. It is honouring the results of the referendum vote. The whole point of Brexit was to permit the UK to make Treaties on its own, not through the EU. And this is PRECISELY what hapened yesterday – the UK agreeing to make a Treaty on its own. You should be celebrating Brexit in action
May 20, 2025
It places us back under ECJ Jurisdiction and we are forced into dynamic alignment, with a version of free movement to come. It’s a betrayal of the Referendum.
May 20, 2025
absurd conclusion.
May 20, 2025
Indeed.
So Labour have banned transgender Women (Men) from All Women lists for positions. But what they should be banning is “All Women Lists” as clearly these blatantly discriminate against men and ensure that very often (circa 50% of the time and far more in heavily Male Dominated areas like Engineering, Building, Physics, Maths…) you end up with not the best candidate winning the position. Not good and especially if the position is for a pilot, surgeon, air traffic controller, teacher, lecturer, MP, bridge designer, fire/police officer… as people may well die as a result or suffer other damages.
May 20, 2025
Positive discrimination for some is blatant negative discrimination for other and does vast damage too by not recruiting on merit this getting the wrong people in the jobs.
So one political prisoner is to be released next week Tommy Robinson.
But the other Lucy Connolly has had her appeal dismissed. She is no danger to anyone and should never have been sent to prison a warming was more than enough for her. 90% plus of the population are surely of this view. So why are our appalling judges so lacking in judgement!
The Court of Appeal should be charged with bringing itself in to disrepute! On Lucy Connolly and on Lucy Letby (whose 15 convictions are all clearly totally unsafe) but is denied even the right to appeal. There is not even enough evidence to show that any crime at all was committed let alone by Lucy) Two tier policing, two tiers justice and two tier judges who we surely influenced by the Starmer Political agenda!
May 20, 2025
A statement that the Court of Appeal found “no rational argument” that the Lucy Connolly sentence was unreasonable.
I have to conclude the these judges are entirely irrational or for some reason simply did not look or are perhaps indirectly taking orders. I assume the original judge who gave the 31 month sentence was obeying orders from the Sentencing Council. The body that wanted clearly racist sentencing a month or so back on grounds of ethnicity but latter withdrew them.
Surely the reasons for prison is either to deter others or to protect the public from a dangerous person. Lucy is clearly not remotely dangerous or likely to re-offend so the reason is clearly to deter others from free speech.
May 20, 2025
@DP; Labour have an outright Parliamentary majority, the time to fight Stamer’s reset plans was last years General Election, but Farage and his adorning supporters refused to cooperate.
Reform UK might have been taking a longer view, looking ahead to 2028/9, their wish to not only destroy the Conservative Party but Labour too, except a lot of damage can be done in the four to five years of bad government, have some forgotten 1974-79, although still retaining popularity, it was only the winter of discontent that did for Callaghan.
May 20, 2025
Just reminding you that Sunak passed the Windsor Treachery and Badenough REFUSED to repeal the EU laws/regulations which Jacob Rees-Mogg had identified and which had Parliamentary approval.
Why would anyone who wanted to LEAVE the EU and “Take Back Control” of our laws and borders (Boriswave anyone?) vote for the Not-a-Conservative-Party.
May 20, 2025
@Donna; I do not need reminding of Johnson’s non Brexit!
But the fact is we are now worse off today due to this Labour govt (and not just Brexit), than we were when any of the last five Conservative PMs were in office, and whose fault is that, it is you who needs reminding, Johnson, Truss and Sunak had a HoCs majority this time last year and the only real push-back he was getting was from disgruntled Tory voters who clearly went on a hissy-fit and voted Reform come July. Look at the actual election results and how both thus Labour and LidDem’s made hay at the expense of both the Conservatives *and* Reform, yes the latter won five seats but were also-rans in most others, not even the runner-up prize.
You and others were warned, “Vote Reform, get Labour”, yet now you have the audacity to bleat and blame everyone else. Sometimes, just may-be, better the ‘devils’ you know than the ones you don’t.
May 20, 2025
Reform actually came second in a nearly one hundred seats (98).
May 20, 2025
@Barbara; Oh, so Reform came second in 98, out of 650 constituencies. How does that compare to say the Libdems, who increased their share of seats by 64, winning a total of 72, many due to Reform splitting the vote in a sitting Conservative constituency were Reform had no chance. That’s an extra 64 votes should Starmer need them, should he choose to break his own red lines and go further on reintegration with the EU.
When will Reform supporters realize politics is not some bizarre beauty pageant…
May 20, 2025
You are right Donna about the Windsor Framework and the refusal to delete EU retained law. Boris and Liz Truss – and Corbyn – were smeared and got rid of for a reason.
May 20, 2025
There’s no real gains for the UK and the small concessions we have managed to negotiate are not immediate.We are still under the jurisdiction of the ECJ
The EU however have gained a further 12 year access to fish in UK waters and we will be hosting lots of EU students for their education at our expense.
All in all a very bad deal poorly negotiated and with no certainty of delivery for the UK.
It’s a win win for the EU…but then what did we expect!!
May 20, 2025
Starmer’s total lack of negotiating skills were exemplified by the Chagos deal and he has doubled down on treachery to the UK’s interests here.
May 20, 2025
And why wasn’t illegal immigration part of the deal
We’ve missed some opportunities which we will live to regret
May 20, 2025
You were advised in 2016 we’re better off in than out. How much more proof do you need?
May 20, 2025
How much more proof do you need that that is wrong? We are now opposing accepting any more EU even if it were profitable! We don’t want it. Ever. Under any circumstances.
Which bit don’t you understand?
May 20, 2025
You might not want it, the polls show that you are now definitely in the minority.
May 20, 2025
The pollsters ask people if they are satisfied with the way Brexit was done/satisfied with the outcome; and if they answer no, that is recorded as having changed their minds. Remainiacs are still lying and deceiving, all these years later.
Reply I am not satisfied with the failure to do a good Brexit and use the freedoms. It has not changed my mind that Brexit is a good idea. Lets try it properly.
May 21, 2025
The latest YouGov poll shows 53% in favour of rejoining the EU, with only 35% against.
Reply If we did have a referendum to rejoin more would be horrified at the costs and disadvantages. I cant see even this Labour government wanting to try a new referendum.
May 20, 2025
Advised by whom?
May 20, 2025
It won’t be 12 years if Reform get in, who will just rip up the agreement. No government can tie the hands of its successor.
For all the Conservative bluster, I wouldn’t trust them to make any changes given how they betrayed NI.
May 20, 2025
Very True
May 20, 2025
@Paul Wooldridge – under the jurisdiction of a foreign power controlled court, with no overriding say, is to fight sovereignty, democracy and the nation and its people. Dress it up any way you(not meaning you personally) like that is 100% surrender to a foreign power
May 20, 2025
And we’ll still be fingerprinted and photographed when we enter or leave the EU Shengen area. I wonder where these prints and photos will be stored and who will have access to them?
May 20, 2025
I’ve just returned from the EU and have neither been photographed or fingerprints.
May 20, 2025
Because it’s not up and running yet. It got delayed.
May 20, 2025
Ian,
Comes in from October.
May 20, 2025
Good morning.
Sorry, slightly off topic.
I withheld my views on the trade deal with the USA until I had gained a bit more knowledge. Well, apparently, according to Harry Metcalfe, of Harry’s Farm (YT) the deal is not such a good one for UK farmers. It seems our, not as good as they think they are Civil Serpents have negotiated a very bad deal where, we import a large amount of ethanol (for petroleum fuel) undercutting our wheat producing farms. This has led to a fall in wheat prices further hitting our farmers on top of the Chancers wealth tax.
We are paying an awful lot to CS’s for very poor service.
If our kind host allows
https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/opinion/editors-view-so-far-trade-deal-detail-leaves-me-shrugging?fw_soucre=home_focus
May 20, 2025
@Mark B; Who is “Harry Metcalfe”?!
You might be surprised when you check his Bio, the man is allowed an opinion of course but he is no expert nor Farmer (in that his family has been tilling the land for generations, there are plenty of long established Farmers who disagree with him on Agri matters. Nor is fwi the only opinion.
May 20, 2025
Best re check Jerry
Harry Metcalfe studied at agricultural college worked in the grain buying industry and then built up over more than 40 years his successful farm to over 800 acres.
He has his own popular you tube channel called Harry’s farm with more than 160,000 followers.
But as you say “he’s no expert”
Although well done for saying he is entitled to his opinion.
May 20, 2025
@Sam; I knew all that…
Many true Farmers have spent hundreds of years farming (at least they and their forebears), not just four decades. as for higher education, many who disagree with Harry Metcalfe have similar or better Degrees. By the way, I think you will find he made his wealth via the magazine printing industry, in a non agri sector, not dealing in wheat and grain.
May 20, 2025
Yes I know that too Jerry
I did not say he made his fortune “dealing in wheat and grain”.
He’s a very clever and successful farmer and magazine publisher.
But according to you because he doesn’t have many generations of farm ownership his views are not of a ” true farmer”
Well you know best.
May 21, 2025
@Sam; “Yes I know that too Jerry”
Did you, I suspect not, as you still don’t get it, he is a ‘hobby’ farmer and thus simply does not have the wealth of knowledge and experience that gets passed down the generations of farming families and those who work on farms. What you and Mark are doing is like comparing a parish Councillor and our host, claiming both have the same level of political expertise..
Is Mr Metcalfe allowed an opinion, of course, is he an “expert”, certainly not, and the same goes for his other hobby, collecting (classic) cars.
May 21, 2025
“Not an expert. Not a true farmer”
Some hobby:- 800 acres owned successfully for many decades.
But by your own strict definition his opinions are of little value
Yet you give us your strong opinions multiple times a day on a huge range of topics.
Do you “get it” Jerry?
May 21, 2025
@Sam; If he was so successful as a farmer, since he could walk, like most farming families are, why did he go off to study a non core agri degree, then seek his fortune as a wheat buyer, and then publishing magazines?
As for “800 acres”, do you understand what ! acre equates to, it is a fraction over 4 square meters, or put in another way, it is the width of the ‘in-field’ at a professional American Football field but only 9/10 its length, go do the maths yourself!
May 21, 2025
What a time for a typo! 😳
Sorry, I (clearly) meant 1 acre = just over 4000 Square meters
May 21, 2025
Give it up Jerry
Your dislike of the excellent Harry, a farmer for over 40 years is irrational.
May 22, 2025
@Sam; You *still* can’t get it, besides (most likely) getting yourself confused between Acres and Hectares, why can’t you grasp the simple truth, I have no problem with Harry Metcalfe, but do I have a problem with people such as you and Mark putting people on in plinths simply because they say what you want to hear. For every ‘Harry Metcalfe’ there is someone with a polar opposite opinion, but good luck to the man and his ‘retirement’ hobbies. And as I said, how can he have been a *full time* farmer for the last 40 years when by his own Bio he lists his career path as being a wheat analysist/buyer and then as a magazine publisher/editor?!
May 20, 2025
Jerry
He has never claimed to be an ‘expert’. And as not being a farmer, just because he started just 40 years ago is irrelevant. EVERYONE has to start sometime and, just because you farmed for ‘x’ number of years does not make you more or less a farmer as there has never been a limit on such.
As for others disagreeing with him, that is their right. But he does cite material regularly to support his argument, such as I linked to above. That is good enough for me.
He is bringing problems in farming to public attention and that is for the good of all.
May 20, 2025
MarkB
Jerry simply doesn’t like Harry
Only Jerry can explain why that is.
Maybe it’s just because of his views
Or more likely because Jerry has hobby which arguing against anything anyone on here says.
May 21, 2025
Well said Mark B
May 21, 2025
@Mark B; Of course someones lack of experience and thus knowledge is relevant! You like his opinion because he says what you want to hear; would you be citing his opinions if he was siding with the EU, siding with the Starmer govt?
The problem you and Harry fail to grasp is we likely do not have enough ethanol manufacturing (fermentation) facilities here in the UK, and to increase such facilities will cost £m’s, in any case our limited (compared to the USA) home grown wheat is more valuable as a food crop.
May 21, 2025
By this logic Jerry, you will now have to stop any posts you make in future on any topics you do not have expertise built up over several generations.
May 21, 2025
@Sam; I’ve have never had a problem with Harry Metcalfe sharing an opinion as most people are capable of understanding his view is one of thousands. The problem I have is when people such as yourself and Mark take what he says as gospel; by your logic you should accept what I say without question, but of course you won’t, as it is not what you want to hear.
May 21, 2025
Wrong !
I’ve never said I believed everything he says.
It was you who started the negativity about the excellent farmer and successful businessman that is Harry
PS
I would never take what you say as gospel Jerry
I’ve read too many of your posts.
May 20, 2025
@Mark B – all this Government so-called deals have have been sell outs to the detriment of the UK generally and collectively. They all cost the UK, the Nation and its people more there is no sense of reciprocity. The odd minor small sector win amounts to a large collective loss.
Labour as we are all aware doesn’t do farming as farming represents hard working committed self-reliant individuals – that works against the Socialist/Marxist ideal of centralised control by the few of the many.
May 20, 2025
Indeed. Plus I found the non EU gates were often faster than the EU ones. If you arrive in the UK on a small boat no gates are all!
It is reported that this appalling government (far worse even than Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak’s con-socialists has put clauses in to make it hard for a future government to reverse this appalling surrender by Starmer. Is this true?
May 20, 2025
Loads of negatives and virtually zero positives! Well done traitor Starmer. Starmer signing off on the death of the Labour Party.
May 20, 2025
Have you not noticed just how much EU electoral interference is going on? Vee have zee tools.
May 20, 2025
The future suddenly looks much rosier…..Conservatives all but consigned to history for zero honesty, Labour shortly to be remembered as a load of halfwitted treasonable imbeciles wrecking everything within reach.
Greens will be or possibly already are a bunch of fantasy world dreamers. LibDems set out to dismantle vehicle travel in favour of walking, or if you must, ride a bike! The lunatic asylum is out on the streets.
May 20, 2025
If a future Government overturns the 12 year fishing betrayal, the EU will impose tariffs on agri products.
I doubt if that will deter Farage.
May 20, 2025
Why would it ? We have a huge deficit in agri products with the EU, we import far more than we export, so if both sides put tariffs on them the EU exporters would suffer the most. They won’t do that, what they WILL do is cut off electricity from the French interconnector.
May 20, 2025
The French interconnector is a matter for the French, not the EU. If the EU can turn off the interconnectors, then the UK will have insufficient to supply Ireland, who will suffer blackouts.
May 21, 2025
We should be working day and night to remove the total reliance on electricity provided by ransom demands from the French.
May 20, 2025
Bill Cash just now on Talk TV, right as usual. This is the most appalling betrayal by Starmer, far worst than we think!
May 20, 2025
He’s right ….we’ve been a rule taker since 1974 ….and continue to take EU rules
May 20, 2025
See the book
Kaput: The End of the German Miracle
by Wolfgang Münchau
May 20, 2025
@Lifelogic – +1 on your thoughts, even if not visual true 2TK shows he is for going against the wishes of the people, he fights them at every opportunity, and democracy, so is not beyond his creed to cancel elections as he has proven.
May 20, 2025
‘fights them’ – – – – thats what criminal defence work on human rights does to the commonsense man in the street.
May 20, 2025
“I found the non EU gates were often faster than the EU ones.”
Please share with the rest of us where this unicorn airport is since my experience of business travel post-Brexit has been the complete opposite.
May 20, 2025
Regarding passport egates we allowed EU countries continued access to ours with no interruption as a goodwill gesture… and have now had to to give 12 years fishing rights to finally get reciprocality 4 years on.
Reality is of course the disastrous Conservative Govt. monumentally failed to build on Brexit and hence we are now where we are.
What a waste.
May 20, 2025
@Andrew Jones – the Conservative Government with a complicit Parliament all refused Brexit, fought against it and ensured it could not actually happen. The real cost to the UK at every level is that we were not allowed to be a sovereign democratic nation on WTO terms. Parliament and particular those on your list never stopped fighting. The loss to the magic GDP, personal/national wealth and opportunities lay at the feet of those in Parliament and more so those involved in the collective responsibility of government that instead of working with the people and the nation took to fighting against it/them. Never forget it is 2TK’s predecessors that kept the doors open for him and ensured his smooth path.
May 20, 2025
Yes this doesn’t even get us back to where we should have been. Why EU citizens have 6 months versus our 90 days? Why they use our e gates but we can’t use theirs? Either we have a fair quid pro quo deal or no deal at all, which is of course what should have happened. Even Cameron conceded that we’re an island nation. Start from the presumption of that and agree like for like from thereon in.
May 20, 2025
It wasn’t a “goodwill gesture”, it was a cost-based decision. The UK invested in e-gates based on the volume of travellers who could use them, including citizens of EU member states. The UK then left the EU. The two options were (1) continue as before, or (2) expect all those coming from an EU member state to go to an immigration officer which would have meant hiring more people (at an ongoing cost), and ripping out some of the e-gates to replace them with staffed desk (more cost). The UK government simply went for the cheaper option.
May 20, 2025
The cheapest is usually the most foolish solution.
May 20, 2025
Rejoice brothers the tide has changed and we have found a paddle to get us out of that creek. Reset is just a jigsaw but is a start – it is not really about trade so much as about defence the defence of Europe including the UK. Unfortunately they have found out and almost too late that the big US cannot be relied upon the same anymore – or am I missing something?
May 20, 2025
I am unsure whether you are being ironic. I had always thought that NATO was our defence pact to which nearly all European countries belonged.
May 20, 2025
“or am I missing something?”
Yes.
Any respect for democracy.
An appreciation that the EU and their toy-town armies rely on us for defence.
Two-Tier has completely humiliated us on the world stage … again.
May 20, 2025
Well, you have missed the important detail that the US has not withdrawn from NATO or announced that it would not respond to any calls for assistance from its European allies. The US saying “We want you to pay more for your own defence” does not mean that the US cannot be relied upon, and the US deciding that it no longer wishes to support further eastwards NATO/EU expansion does not mean that it is abandoning their existing members. No doubt there are some who wish the US would do that – “Yanks go home” was the old slogan – so that the EU could take over and build up its independent imperial military power, but that has not happened yet.
May 20, 2025
How does the defence of Europe work at our south east coast? Not very well.
We need to look to ourselves for our own defence, starting with the illegal migrant invasion. It would also help if we didn’t interfere in the Middle East.
May 20, 2025
Probably ! Quite a bit
May 20, 2025
The EU is not serious about its own borders…Yes, Europeans will have to spend more on defence. The US increasingly sees that Europe may leave the West as it embraces China, retreats from democracy by canceling anti-open borders parties, implements censorship and de-industrializes (net zero).
May 20, 2025
A couple of things you are missing is that we continued to pay into Nato (still probably not enough) whilst still out of the EU, many European Countries did their best not to pay much at all because they thought they could rely upon the USA to defend their Countries for free.
We fought to try and keep Europe free twice, as did the USA (eventually) but times are perhaps now a changing.
We are now an EU law and regulation taker, more than we were last week, so that will have consequences for our commercial businesses, perhaps not immediately, but over a long period of time.
Reply The 2% NATO “payment” is what each country should spend in its own defence forces, not a levy
May 20, 2025
@BA; What some people are missing is that any spending on this European security pact plays into the NATO budget, in short it is a win-win, NATO is strengthened, and Europe is protected in the event of a current North American member of NATO decides to ‘take their football home’, as has been threatened on more than one occasion!
May 20, 2025
Jerry
Yes the EU all together for the greater good until a crisis arises, Just look at the covid vaccine fiasco when the individual nations were fighting each other and everyone else to get a jab.
May 20, 2025
@BA; In that case we are doomed, out of 32 NATO members the majority are European, either members of the EU, candidate nations, or members of the EEA/EFTA.
May 20, 2025
You are spot on!
Germany has declared that she will have the biggest fighting force in Europe!
Rejoice – what could possibly go wrong?
May 20, 2025
will German conscription apply to the hordes that have set up home there? I cant see that working well, can you?
May 20, 2025
Another question: Phytosanitary rules are kowtowed to. Do these include gene editing, banned in the EU but at which the UK has some expertise?
All in all, I have never been so depressed by a government, which has gained so little in return for selling out our fishermen and farmers; it is as though they hate any constituency which is conservative in its views.
The purported gain on e-borders is so makeweight, you wonder why they can even claim it as a positive.
May 20, 2025
The government-owned gene editing company my son works for has just laid off 80% of its workforce. This Government has no intention of backing anything that this country might excel at.
May 20, 2025
Would any self-respecting person sell out their nation in order to move a bit faster through EU passport controls? It’s preposterous. We’re beyond redemption if this truly is so attractive to Brits.
I don’t think any Chinese or Yanks would countenance their government handing over natural resources and sovereignty in order to make passing through foreign passport controls “maybe” a bit faster.
May 20, 2025
The only pleasure is in watching these faux socialists wriggle on the EU hook as they explain the disaster that Starmer has signed his name to. What further idiocy is germinating in his mind for next week. Four more years of it is too hidious to contemplate.
May 20, 2025
I have my doubts about Farage’s ability to form a government capable of actually governing but given a choice between Nigel or this devious, (individual ed)it would be Nigel every time….
PS If the Conservative Party really is daft enough to get rid of Kemi Bandenoch (whatever her merits or faults may be) then they are so stupid as to deserve wandering in the political widerness forever. Have they learned nothing?
May 20, 2025
Two-Tier and the pro-EU Blob have cancelled democracy in the UK. We can have whatever we vote for – as long as it’s what THEY want.
This wasn’t a negotiation; a negotiation requires two sides, both making compromises. In this case there was only one side – the EU – and an abject betrayal of the British people by someone I consider to be in the same category as Philby, Burgess, MacLean and Blunt.
The only upside is that Labour has just kissed goodbye to the Red Wall; every coastal Constituency in England and quite possibly Brexit-voting Wales.
May 21, 2025
But now the betrayal is done in plain sight!
May 20, 2025
The worst things about the defence deal are that a) it will mean UK capabilities being tailored by the EU to EU not British requirements, b) inevitably all Mod defence procurement mandating EU standards and c) worst of all, lead to UK Forces being subordinate operationally to the EU.
And the whole thing depends on UK paying into EU an administrative fee of how many billions and no doubt increases to this every time UK wants anything.
the EU has been considering for some years a two tier structure with the Euro members making all policy and regulatory decisions and non-euro members being requred to follow without repesentation. UK is now the inaugural member of the second tier, which may be called associate membership.
May 20, 2025
Associate Membership is what I have been predicting for a long time. Cameron first proposed it, before the Referendum, as a way of keeping us “in” the EU. But a two-tier structure was rejected.
Macron revived the proposal post Brexit.
Johnson’s “deal” and Sunak’s Windsor Treachery set us up for the next step in the process, which is what Two-Tier has just announced.
May 20, 2025
As ever government is allowing the minority tail to wag the dog.
None of these concessions was required to aid the lives of the majority and yet the majority will pay through the nose to allow them to happen.
Government for the people by the people is but a distant memory. Government by the spads for the focus groups is more apt. Most people are too busy surviving to be on focus groups.
May 20, 2025
So nothing legally agreed apparently, as yet, but that has not stopped the hyperbole Brexitears in this morning’s right-wing media. One claims the deal will add a mere 0.3% to our GDP, but that is more than our fishing industry adds to our GDP. Done up like a kipper another shouts, indeed we were, by Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement when he refused to walk away on WTO rules.
What do these media clowns not understand, we took back control, ducked a true Brexit, and have now taken the decision to enter an *updated* UK-EU agreement. How is signing a trade and cooperation agrrement with the EU any different from the UK-USA agreement signed last week.
And just what do some Brexit supporters believe Brexit means, ‘do only as I want, otherwise do nothing’ it would appear, yet they claim to understand democracy…
May 20, 2025
Dynamic alignment means that we have to abide by rules on food and agriculture, net zero and carbon trading that the EU decides, pay them a fee for the bureaucracy involved and accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, something against which we voted in the Brexit referendum.
May 20, 2025
It’s different because with the USA we’re not signed up to “dynamic alignment” overseen by the ECJ. We’re not subject to US laws being implemented in the UK with no mandate. The USA agreement only applies to trade which is carried out between the two countries and does not affect our internal economy.
The EU is not a trade deal: it’s making us a Satrapy of the EU.
May 20, 2025
@Donna (and @Michael Staples); “dynamic alignment” = regulatory alignment, and is what every Reform voter voted for in 2024 in effect – Vote Reform, get Labour, as set out if their manifesto. Stop bleating!
Tell me Donna, what exactly do you dislike about the ECJ, and the ECHR for that matter, do they stop you doing something in particular, or is it just their names, the fact that they are in some way linked to the EU. Even if we were to walk away from both the ECJ and ECHR the UK still can not truly “make our own laws” as the UK is signed up to various UN treaties, laws and regulations, and thus “satrapy” to the majority will of other countries, should we leave the UN too?
May 20, 2025
In both cases they are undemocratic and have been imposed on us with no mandate.
I do not want “European” law, particularly when it continually rules against the UK and prevents us from governing our own country the way the British people want it governed.
I’d be quite happy to leave the UN; it is the source of many of our problems.
May 21, 2025
@Donna; That is a very telling reply, so basically you dislike democracy. The UN, the ECHR, the ECJ, were all set up by democratic governments to be checks and balances to prevent autocratic govts. Nice to know you disagree with our greatest PM, Churchill….
May 20, 2025
You seem to be arguing as a pastime Jerry.
Writing loads of posts simply contrary to what anyone else posts.
The mystery is what your political opinions are.
May 21, 2025
jerry …’what exactly do you dislike about the ECJ, and the ECHR’ ?
I’ll tell you …. they have been used to prevent UK ejecting rapists and other criminals to their country of origin. Enough reason?
May 21, 2025
@MT; Those courts also protect you from being put in prison for your political beliefs…
May 20, 2025
Can anyone help me please, with a citation hopefully, on Fishing Areas, is this a 12 year unilateral or bilateral agreement, in other words do UK fishing boats and trawlers have similar access to EU waters?
Also, when people talk about the ‘UK fishing industry’ are they talking about just the fishing boats/trawlers and their immediate land based support industries, or are they talking about our entire UK sea food industry; my suspicion is the former, as the latter would include fish-farms, rivers and lakes etc, not forgetting the processing of netted and landed fish bought from the boat/trawler owners off the wharf-side, at auction or contract.
Reply It is not reciprocal. People can mean the boats or can include onshore processing,
May 20, 2025
@JR reply; As I feared then, the situation (not your reply) is about as clear as mud, given that it would be quite possible for (say) a French boat/trawler to catch the fish, land it under contract to a UK company, for that UK company to process the catch here in the UK, then export it back to the EU!
May 20, 2025
The vast majority of purported asylum seekers crossing illegally from France are young men.
Starmer has just signed a deal to allow young people to travel from the EU to the UK.
I’m wondering whether that’s his cunning plan to “smash the gangs”? The only argument I can think of against this idea is it would mean he’s kept a promise.
May 20, 2025
Yes they will all be entirely legal, so ‘good for the border’.
May 20, 2025
@Pud; “The only argument I can think of against this idea is it would mean he’s kept a promise.”
Analytical logic is lacking from your appraisal;
Those illegal migrants have no official EU27+ documents, those citizens who will arrive in the UK under this new ‘Youth Mobility’ scheme will be presenting their official EU27+ documentation, so for your scenario to work the EU would first have to give residence to those (illegal) migrants, once they do that what’s to stop now *legal* migrants from simply arriving as EU tourists and then binning the return half of their ticket?
May 20, 2025
And comprehension is lacking from your response. Once the purported asylum seekers gain EU documents they will be free to come to the UK under the youth mobility scheme. Tourists don’t have a right to stay.
May 21, 2025
@Pud; Comprehension, understanding, is certainly lacking from your response, you appear to have replied to something I did not write.
What, exactly, did you not understand when I said “what’s to stop now *legal* migrants from simply arriving as EU tourists and then binning the return half of their ticket”?
May 21, 2025
You obviously missed my last sentence.
May 20, 2025
This e-gates thing is a total red herring. UK arrivals in Portugal can already use the e-gates as can Japanese arrivals in Germany. The EU have just held back implementation of this so they could use it as a zero-cost do-nothing item they can concede during to negotiations. And of course Starmer and our hopeless Civil Service negotiators fell for it.
Interesting the EU demanded 12 years of fishing access – they are gambling on a one-term Reform government.
May 20, 2025
This is another Labour sham.
They steep themselves in failure and claim it as an improvement.
May 20, 2025
Sir John,
Yesterday was a sad day and as more details come out in time, I cannot see things getting better.
I wonder how much money we will be required to pay into the defence fund to get access to it.
It seems to me that we have had a special second tier membership created for us by the EU. All give and no take.
How on Earth can one man agree and sign a legally binding deal without the need to put it through Parliamentary scrutiny? Will this deal need to be approved by Parliament?
May 20, 2025
No, it’s done under Royal Prerogative.
But Treaty law is subservient to all other and Parliament can rescind the treaty in one. It can’t ‘amend’ any treaty.
May 20, 2025
Cliff,
‘How can one man?’ certainly begs the question. Do even his Labour colleagues support what he has done? Treason is the only word which describes his actions. One man, surely, should not have the authority to overrule the views of millions which a few years ago comprised the majority of those voting in the referendum. This abhorrent agreement should surely be debated in full, every miserable, treacherous, detail in Parliament and all those voting for, or against, should be publicly listed so that, come election time, their actions may be judged by the voting public.
A disgusting and depressing start to the week. May sensibility somehow prevail.
May 20, 2025
As there will be rules coming from the EU that need implementation and enforcement in the UK there will have to be changes to UK law. When we joined the EEC that was accomplished through the European Communities Act 1972, and surely something similar will be required to give effect to the new treaty that will be drawn up.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1972/68/enacted
“2 General implementation of Treaties
(1)All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly ; and the expression ” enforceable Community right” and similar expressions shall be read as referring to one to which this subsection applies.
(2)Subject to Schedule 2 to this Act, at any time after its passing Her Majesty may by Order in Council, and any designated Minister or department may by regulations, make provision … ”
And so forth.
Of course as Theresa May pointed out in a hypocritical defence of her similar Chequers deal Parliament would remain sovereign and in theory it could still decide not to accept some new law handed down from Brussels but there would be consequences. The Norwegians found that out:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/09/06/eu-and-uk-laws-what-a-different-approach-to-framing-them/#comment-959329
“If we tried to change our rules or refused to adopt new rules, we would be bullied into submission by EU threats of loss of market access. That’s what happened when Norway refused to follow the EU’s Postal Directive. They soon fell into line.”
May 20, 2025
@Denis Cooper; But how much ‘implementation and enforcement’ could be done via SI’s?…
May 20, 2025
A lot, that was the purpose of subsection 2(2) of the Act, which you can read in full.
May 20, 2025
@Cliff.. Wokingham.; That’s what a massive HOC majority allows. Something Reform supporters should reflect upon…
I’m sure the PM would be willing to lay this ‘deal’ before parliament, along with a three line whip on his own MPs no doubt, if there was even a hint of back-bench trouble. As Heath once repeated, this having been said by another PM, a majority only need one vote; Starmer has 175 such votes, the Speaker in a hung vote traditionally voting with the government of the day.
May 20, 2025
Again, we have to be suspicious of the hidden text and agreements – there is a record of duplicity in this Government and its Parliament. But anything that suggests surrendering the rights to govern the UK within its own borders overseen by what amounts to taking orders from a foreign power and have an illegitimate court defining what is right and wrong must be seen as some sort of treason.
In effect what has come out is that Parliament will be relegated to the position of local council taking orders from a foreign illegitimate power with no say and no recourse given to the democratic rights of the UK Citizen.
TwoTierKier confirming his two tier version of governance and law and seeing how far he can push it before people realised they have lost everything
May 20, 2025
Yes you are missing an awful lot
If it was just about defence it wouldn’t be a problem but we are to pay an unspecified amount to the EU to partake in procurement with no guarantee we will get equivalent value back. As we are one of he strongest militaries in Europe they want to control our assets paid for by the UK taxpayers
No way would France and Germany send troops into a war zone they leave that to the stupid Brits
May 20, 2025
I said that yesterday but too bluntly and JR refused to publish.
We have a war-zone and unless they accept this last offer to settle the SMO will be ramped up to a ‘war’ and the Russian steamroller will be set loose.
If it fights European NATO forces they will not hold back and China has said they will support Russia against an overt European NATO war. China produces 10,000 cruise missiles a week. That is more that the entire stock of cruise missiles in the west.
May 20, 2025
Correct. I imagine UK’s success in bidding for contracts under this scheme will be close to zero.
May 20, 2025
@Ian wragg – the UK taxpayer is the funder and its armed forces first in-line cannon fodder
May 20, 2025
Sorry Sir John but your party had a big majority from 2019 and could should have got everything on Brexit through parliament but you were scared of small rebellions in your party to get it through even though the wishes of the people wanted a full departure from the dreaded EU, it’s going to be a very long slog to the next General Election by then Reform will be ready and waiting to take the reins and put the Great back into Britain and hopefully the Reform Party won’t be infiltrated by wishy washy liberals or leftists like the Tories and Labour
May 20, 2025
@Mick; If Labour prove there is life after Brexit within a workable relationship with the EU, that may well find solutions to the issues that Mr Farage currently bangs on about (and Badenoch then repeats like an echo), do not count on Reform being seen as the solution to all our ills, he might be seen as the problem by 2028. Remember how Mr Corbyn was once seen as the solution, and came within a dozen or so seats of toppling the Conservative govt in 2017; no point being the largest Party if you do not have a working majority, by 2019 the pendulum had swung back, the ‘up-start’ was seen as the problem…
May 20, 2025
Well at least we now know you are an optimist Jerry.
May 21, 2025
Ha Ha.. and doesn’t suffer from sitting on the fence.
May 20, 2025
I’ve just checked the government’s official press release:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-secures-new-agreement-with-eu-to-benefit-british-people#
“PM secures new agreement with EU to benefit British people”
which says this deal is “set to add nearly £9 billion to the UK economy by 2040, in a huge boost for growth”.
That would be “a huge boost for growth” of 0.3% of GDP added over 15 years, which I would say is “negligible”.
Maybe it was that realisation that lead a minister to add a zero, making it £90 billion, when I might say “trivial”.
This is putting a pretty low valuation not only on our national democracy but on our national sovereignty.
I also come back to the estimated 22% loss of GDP since the passage of the Climate Change Act in 2008.
May 20, 2025
@Denis Cooper – the governments drain on the taxpayer is greater
May 20, 2025
It is, because the tax base is smaller than had been expected.
May 20, 2025
It is suggested the 12-year deal on fishing overseen by the EU and the ECJ to dish out quotas (the UK doesn’t even get to set the limits or define share in its own sovereign territory) this alone actually hands Sovereign UK Territory to the EU through squatters’ rights. As the EU fleets grow bigger and more dominate and the UK rights and share along with its fishing fleet gets diminished in 12 years’ time, we would have no one left in the industry to respond should we get back control.
The contradiction for all to see the EU refuses to buy UK fish, through their protectionist rules and regulations but see it is legitimate for the EU to ‘take’ as much as it can from UK territory without ever paying, and 2TK and Parliament sees that is legitimate and warranted. The UK will not be allowed to ‘take’ and EU resource and certainly will not be able to have anything without paying.
At the time of the withdrawal agreement (WA) one of the EU’s delegations said on camera that’s it sorted, the UK is now a EU Colony.
May 20, 2025
The French and Spanish have fished our the Mediterranean over the past 30 years. The large European trailers will do the same to our waters thanks to this treachery.
May 20, 2025
@Stred – the French alone have the Worlds largest EEZ and that isn’t enough, they destroy what they have first think next
May 20, 2025
We didn’t need to be here. If we had simply had a Conservative government over the last decade.
May 20, 2025
+1
May 20, 2025
For those wanting a sound overview of what this sell out to the EU does I would recommend them to read Matt Goodwins substack today and every day.
What a complete charlatan Starmer is. What motivates him to do the very opposite of what needs to be done to secure a better a more prosperous Britain.
Looking at this latest so called deal, we would have to concede Starmer is working for and only for, the EU.
The institutional destruction of our manufacturing industries has now been complimented by the institutional destruction of ur fishing industry, such as it is. The complete destruction of our inshore support industries now all sent to the EU. The ongoing permission for EU factory ships to vacuum up our fish stocks for the next 13 years is astonishing but that is what Starmer has just granted the EU?
Let no one be under any illusion. When the 2029 election is held this sell out of our sovereignty and our basic freedoms will be centre stage of Reform’s campaign.
When Reform gain control at that election this debacle of Labour logic will be repealed and the EU had better understand. Our constitution does not allow the sitting government to lock future governments into such nationally damaging agreement as this EU deal.
May 20, 2025
He effectively told us before the election: he works for the WEF (ie EU) not the UK.
May 20, 2025
Trouble is, Rod, the devastation that’s been wreaked in ten months… what state will the country be in, four years down the road?
May 20, 2025
That is a good question Sharon and one no one this side of sanity is able to answer.
They Labour, may already have done irreparable damage in just the past ten months. With the influx of probably another three million migrants over the remaining parliamentary term come 2029, the scale of the corrective policies needed to put things right will be off the scale.
May 20, 2025
This was an agreement to agree, which, as any lawyer worth his salt will tell you, is only worth so much toilet paper. Basically Starmer has agreed to pay today in the hope, not guarantee, of some meagre helping of jam tomorrow. He worked assiduously during the Brexit fiasco in Parliament to thwart Brexit. Now in power he is doing his best to undermine it. When we truly have the worst of all worlds, the cry will go up that we should rejoin so that we can have some say over what our money is being used for and the rules that affect us.
May 20, 2025
The first duty of government is to ensure food security. This government has already failed on farming. Now it has failed on fishing. It needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history and replaced by a government that knows and understands the national priorities and how to serve them.
May 20, 2025
Does anyone know if a future government could reverse this deal and if so how?
May 20, 2025
Any Parliament can reverse this deal. It does not take a new government. A Private members Bill supported by more than 50% would do it.
May 20, 2025
Does the US trade deal involve a youth experience scheme? Do the US get to fish UK waters for another 12 years denying the UK of GBP billions of revenue? Does the US trade deal involve ‘cooperation’ over maritime security, health security and judiciary? Did it involve a common SPS area, ETS alignment and assistance with ‘irregular’ migration?
No the US deal was predominantly about recent tariff easing and mutual access to beef markets. Although the deal was nothing to celebrate at least it stuck to the right criteria. The criteria set out in the EU trade deal / summit is all about ‘cooperation’ (ie further integration).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukeu-summit-key-documentation/uk-eu-summit-common-understanding-html
It was a sneaky sell out as the summit should instead have been about boosting British exports and there should be tangible evidence of it available now. So where is it?
If Reform and the Conservatives can unite they will clobber Labour at the 2029 election and save our country.
May 20, 2025
From the Telegraph
“Sir Keir had originally wanted to extend European fishermen’s rights to enter British waters by one year, later extending this to four years under pressure from the French.”
“But following a late-night ambush, British negotiators were forced to accept a 12-year extension.”
“Elspeth Macdonald, the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, described the deal as a “horror show” and a “disgrace”.”
British negotiators were forced? surrender at all costs more like
May 20, 2025
A security and defence partnership will pave the way for UK arms firms to bid for work under the EU’s proposed new £150 billion security action for Europe fund. – the UK Taxpayer must pay into the fund. The bits of the UK defence that are no BAE are French owned. BAE is a multi-national with assets through out Europe but is not British( the largest ownership share is from the USA) in the sense of ownership as their name might suggest. So in essence the UK Taxpayer pays in and any contracts go Foreign owned companies. The UK will act as cannon fodder for Europe and paymaster to replace losing some of the US’s unequal share payments to the EU defence.
The deal requires “dynamic alignment” – the UK following rules set by Brussels – in areas covering the food safety deal, emissions trading and potential co-operation in the electricity market.
That would mean the UK complying with rules over which, outside the EU, it would have a very limited influence.
May 20, 2025
So most of this excercise was about us rejoining the eu AND paying them for the priveledge and the rest was propaganda.
The BBC were cheerleading most of this yesterday. No wonder why trust in the BBC is low.
Why should the public be forced to pay for BBC brainwashing?
May 20, 2025
Why indeed, but the Con-socialists clearly like this as they did not even decriminalise the propoganda tax. They seem to like the pro EU, pro NET zero, antisemitic, big state, high tax, high regulations, anti Trump and Farage lunacy of the BBC.
May 20, 2025
Have you noticed in any negotiations our Government have been involved with over the last 15 years, we always give way at the last minute, the rest of the World are now aware of this, so we will continue to get stitched up unless we eventually walk away, which occasionally you have to do to show enough is enough.
May 20, 2025
Oh not just the last 12 years. Even Mugabe could out negotiate the British ‘diplomats’. It’s just that we had so much that generations of these useless people had careers of failure nobody noticed.
Now we are losing the ground under our feet. We notice and they can’t understand what the problem is because they are doing exactly what generations of ‘negotiators’ have done and about which there were no complaints.
May 20, 2025
It’s just that through long years of being in the EU, and in particular the Customs Union, the UK state lost all skills in international negotiations. The EU have good negotiators, as do the UK private sector especially when negotiating government contracts (look at HS2), as do the Trade Union movement. But the government and Civil Service in their arrogance simply don’t realise they lack these skills and so get taken to the cleaners every single time by opponents who use very simple and well-known tactics (eg. the last minute demand when the deal seems already to have been concluded).
May 20, 2025
That just sums up the labour party – Very little of substance but plenty of open ended suggestions that never get defined properly.
The reset is exactly what we expected from Starmer – PURE Treachery.
In his short term in office he has so far managed to:
– further ruin our country with high taxes and deindustrialisation;
– disrupt Trump’s attempts to end the Ukraine war;
– moved us ever closer to being fully under the EU yoke.
What disaster will he next create for us? Whatever it is it won’t be for our benefit!
May 20, 2025
No narcissist or psychopath has any standards or values. They value nothing outside of themselves. Everything is on the table to preserve their own status by any means.
Starmer gives Britain away, Farage accuses Lowe of having dementia, Johnson closes Britain down and threatens all things again those who do not obey his every command while he parties.
They have never heard of Queensbury! But we are bound by the rules and morals which is why they often win, gain control and then destroy everything.
May 20, 2025
1858 was the year of the Great Stink.
The ‘stink’ pales in to insignificance to the stench of Starmer’s betrayal of Britain.
May 20, 2025
And the court of appeals barbaric treatment of Lucy Connolly – a political attach on certain free speech too!
May 21, 2025
the stink emanates from Westminster.
May 20, 2025
….and whats the annual eu fee for doing this deal …its not free-trade
May 20, 2025
Sir John
It is more than reasonable to suggest that 2TK (some call him the UK PM, Starmer) and his government has since arrived in office, without the explicit mandate for the things he has been doing and has carried on with Parliaments wish to destroy the Nation and its People.
He and his crew have picked up where the faux-conservatives left off and opened the door for him to continue destruction.
It has been a give away government, the Tories destroyed our industry, enforced high energy costs on everyone for no reason – left us with no ability to create income to fund our future. Now 2TK has picked up the banner to destroy the nations farming and fishing resources, given away the UK’s territory then given away taxpayers hard earned money. All the banner waving sound bits of trade have just been giveaways for no gain and no reason. We would prosper more with reciprocal arrangements and working to WTO guidelines.
Not once this century have we had a Parliament or its Government wishing to build, wishing to work with the people and grow the country for everyone’s benefit. It’s been fight, fight and destroy a Parliament against those that empower and pay them.
May 20, 2025
How can this government seal an agreement without ALL the details being explored and evaluated?
Sadly, this shows us just who they are: incompetents who have never run a business in their lives or had experience negotiating anything. I doubt they even haggled in a weekly market near them.
They are too naive and gullible to act in OUR interests, and it will be a nightmare for an anti-EU rules, new pro-British government to dismantle.
It’s just a matter of time before we become the “Sick Man of the Western world”, thanks to the deluded socialist policies that do nothing but degenerate and devalue the country and its economy. But will the IMF bail us out this time?
May 21, 2025
They’re not naive and gullible: they are working against the interests of the British people and in the interests of the Globalists/WEF/EU.
May 20, 2025
How much Starmer’s Brexit deal might cost you – Britain could have to pay Brussels about £16 billion as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s reset.
Starmer’s best guess it will give Britain a £9bn boost to the economy by 2040, if you believe him.
Go figure!
May 20, 2025
Gets worse…
Factories face higher taxes under Sir Keir Starmer’s EU “reset” deal amid warnings that heavy industry is already being crushed by sky-high energy costs.
The Prime Minister has agreed to work with Brussels to link the UK and EU markets for so-called carbon credits, a form of taxation where industrial businesses are charged for any CO2 emissions over an allowed limit.
The agreement commits the UK to imposing caps that are “at least as ambitious” as those put in place by Brussels and paying towards the administrative costs of running the European scheme.
May 20, 2025
So should anybody have any interest in 15 years time, a boost to the economy worth what ? £9 bn when it would stand at £n,nnn bn by then.
May 20, 2025
O/T Today Southwark Crown Court sentenced to 25 years in a British prison a UK-based man responsible for trafficking 3,800 illegal migrants into Europe including some into the UK.
bbc.com 20/05/2025 ‘Man who helped smuggle more than 3,000 people into Europe jailed’.
May 20, 2025
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
“There is no coherent case for what Sir Keir Starmer has just agreed with Brussels. It breaches a large constitutional and democratic principle by submitting Britain to the EU’s law-making machinery over food and farming as a satellite state without voting rights, which is what “dynamic alignment” means.
It violates the terms of our membership in the Asia-Pacific trade pact (CPTPP) and guarantees lawsuits that will put us in an invidious position. It shows that Britain cannot be trusted to uphold a treaty arrangement that it has just joined.”
So Britain cannot be trusted. A bit harsh, 2TK and Parliament cant be trusted more like – they don’t represent or serve the nation or its people they have engaged in war against them
May 20, 2025
The PM is a traitor to the UK and its people. This is not a deal; it is a complete surrender to the unelected leaders of the EU.
We have a government of wimps led by a weak, ineffective PM!
The question is how much damage will they do in the next four years?
May 20, 2025
It turns out that not only can Japanese tourists already use the e-gates in the EU but Japan (and South Korea) can already participate in EU defence fund projects up to the same 35% limit which will apply to UK. But they didn’t have to give their fishing grounds away.
May 20, 2025
We’ve given up our sovereignty, fishing industry and paid money to the EU so the few can now go through an E-gate 5 minutes quicker
May 20, 2025
The advantage of Brexit is that provided there is another GE, which is not guaranteed BTW with the Far Left in control, as we’ve seen from the hiistory of the last century, we will be able to remove the current Parliament and PM and then the activists in the Civil Service, police and judiciary. We will need to start by making our energy secure with North Sea gas and oil, fracking and building CCGT generators followed by a nuclear building plan.
May 20, 2025
Foreign access to our fishing grounds, like the giving away of the Chagos Islands or Gibralter or the Falklands is a sovereignty issue. Parliament needs to be made to understand that although it has been given complete authority this authority is only temporary until the next GE (or so we hope). So all sovereignty decisions which go beyond the next GE should only be taken via a referendum.
May 20, 2025
Even if it’s a referendum decision, the next government could do the reverse, especially if it said so in its election manifesto.
May 20, 2025
Not worried about EU, wont be around long. All the EU/UK talk about is war with Russia the rest is side show.
EU/ Europe are broke and have no resources to get out of it, the only way they can surviva is war. That might get them few more years if lucky.
Slump has not made up his mind if going support EU/UK cable or not, best guess is 2027 when EU goes all-in, people in the EU are ready being dafted into the armies.
You shouldnt worry about a few fish you should worry about your sons being force to go to war.
May 20, 2025
“Nothing agreed in legal text. Is that it?”
This is because the EU hasn’t yet written the “agreement”. The purpose of the summit was to enable the Civil Service to advise us that it has requested the EU to write one.
May 20, 2025
Here is somebody who is very happy with the new deal:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g794p1451o
“Newton Abbot’s Westaway Sausages boss, Charles Baughan, said his export business halved after Brexit, with a typical consignment requiring 14 pages of paperwork and 49 signatures.”
I don’t know what he will have to do to make sure that his sausages comply with EU Single Market requirements but I guess that he could have done those things anyway without everybody else in the country having to make sure that all their products are fit for export to the EU even if they have no intention of selling them to the EU.
Or maybe it is fit for easy export to the EU in this case, as it seems he has been able to sell some sausages to the EU, presumably frozen rather than fresh, but this deal will make his own business easier so he welcomes it.
Likewise the deal may be popular in Ireland where farmers will be able to get seed potatoes and carrot seed without all the unnecessary hassle that the EU created, and also more easily sell their produce in the UK:
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/opinion-eu-uk-trade-deal-makes-perfect-sense-for-irish-agriculture/
Once again we have a Prime Minister whose primary loyalty is to the EU, not to the UK and its citizens.
May 20, 2025
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/20/no-leader-300-years-done-more-undermine-interests-starmer/
“For the first time in three centuries – since the Hanoverian kings made Britain serve German interests – we are ruled by a political and administrative elite that does not put this nation first.”
May 20, 2025
The Youth Experience Scheme” is clearly to allow more “strangers” into the country, many of whom will be be recently arrived EU migrants with deeply held misogynistic views. Interestingly a “youth” is now up to 35 years old. Another 5 years surrepticiously added. How any UK female can vote for parties who support this policy is a mystery to me.
May 20, 2025
12 year fishing agreement!! Astonishing! More plunder to come then.
All I’ve been hearing about is that it’s only 0.03% of output or whatever it is. Our marine ecosystems are a very precious resource! (If they would stop poisoning it with sewage).
Another classic example of the expectation of uniformity of the future and the present. Bad assumption…
May 20, 2025
The PM said firstly that “Britain is back on the world stage”.
Why is this and what does it mean? And how will this affect us?
May 20, 2025
A waste of time then but how much did it cost to entertain that lot of foreigners Starmer invited over? Hope he is paying but I guess not!
May 20, 2025
As someone put it succinctly :
“Starmer has stopped the boats! Pity it’s our fishing boats….”
Pity his free specs don’t work as “I see no Boats”.
May 21, 2025
Normally when you have a government there are good and bad aspects to policy. I can see no upsides at all to anything this bunch of jokers have done in the past year.
I guess this is why democracy is so important, maybe we should have 3 year terms as 5 years you can do an awful lot of damage.
May 22, 2025
Sir John,
As the text is not finished you have no idea if this will stop formers sending their products to other markets , but you still make rapid conclusions for your own arguments not substantiated