Author: johnredwood

The EU’s bad offer to the UK has been conditioned by what the Prime Minister asked for. Mrs May and her team were trying to cherry pick in the way the EU told them not to, so they have ended up with no deal at all about the future relationship after two and half years of talks. If she had asked for a Free Trade Deal along the lines of Canada plus, with various arguments about how the Irish border would work we would be in a much better position. There are plenty of technical and practical ways of handling the border on existing technology, so we would have found out if these issues had been pressed whether the EU was up for a Free Trade deal or not. The Prime Minister’s refusal to table a free trade agreement, and her long delay over pressing more practical solutions for the Irish border has led to the current impasse with the UK Parliament and the complete lack of a Future Partnership Agreement other than a few pages of vague aspirations and plenty of negotiation to come.

Once Parliament has voted down the Withdrawal Agreement – as MPs currently say they will – the UK government needs to return to the EU with the individual detailed issues that are best resolved prior to just leaving, and to table a full Free Trade Agreement. We will then find out for sure whether the EU is serious about an FTA or not, and can in the meantime get on with fulfilling the pledge to leave. Immediately anyway the UK government should publish its tariff schedule for March 29 2019, set out details of how we will run our own borders from that date, and provide the necessary permissions for continuing trade and activity.

Mrs May rightly says the country wants shot of all the arguments and delays about Brexit. That is another good reason why we must veto the agreement she has come up with, because it sentences us to an indefinite future of endless talks about our future partnership, shorn of our bargaining position by all the concessions made in the Withdrawal Agreement.

Mrs May’s first ten points and last point are all ones I want to see happen. The trouble is they do not happen any time soon under the Withdrawal Agreement she wrongly wishes to lock us into and maybe never.
Most of the rest of her points are things that re create many features of the E$U after we have left in ways Leave voters do not wish to do, or vague promises of future co-operation which we can easily enjoy without signing this disastrous Treaty. Some are bizarre – “Gibraltar’s sovereignty protected” – it was not at risk until the last minute concessions – and no hard border in Northern Ireland – I never thought the UK was planning one!

This letter and the further concession on Gibraltar are likely to tip more MPs against this Withdrawal Treaty. I remain strongly opposed.

According to the press, the government will soon publish its long delayed Migration White Paper. Mrs Rudd in office never got around to doing this, though she was lobbied regularly to do so. Apparently government thinks Eurosceptic opponents of the Withdrawal Agreement will be won round by proposals for the future on migration. I have no idea why they think so.

Their first problem is we will not be allowed to have our own migration policy all the time we rest in the unsatisfactory limbo land of so called Transition. With no guaranteed way out that the UK can use on its own without EU permission, what is the point of talking about how we might use freedoms still to be won in negotiation?

Their second problem is the alleged policy itself. Apparently they want to make it easier for people to come to the UK to take well paid jobs, whilst coming up with some plan to restrict someone in a low paid job to an eleven month stay. That would create a revolving door of people coming to take low paid jobs, whilst increasing problems over housing and access to services to those who come to work for the least money and are most in need of help from the state. Why would Brexit voters find that attractive?

It shows a continuing misunderstanding of why many people voted Brexit. We voted to take back control of our laws, our borders and money, not for any particular answer on migration. Vote Leave did not campaign on migration, though answered on it as others did. Highlighting the fact that under Transition we have not taken back control is unhelpful to the government, whilst their particular scheme sounds mean without controlling numbers in the way voters concerned about this issue would like.

This is another badly thought through policy which is irrelevant were the government to secure its dreadful Withdrawal Agreement.

I have often set out the advantages of just leaving next March, here and on the media. I have just sent a pamphlet making this case off to a possible publisher.I am urging like minded MPs to help make the case for the WTO exit.

The Education Secretary has said he wants primary schools to lace their curriculum teaching children to read and write with more adventure, outdoor activity and risk.

I invite you today to say what you think about this suggestion.

Are the things he has in mind like climbing trees and watching a sunrise things for schools, or are they opportunities for families and leisure time? Do we have to ask the schools to do these things, when children spend far more time out of school than in it?

The state ensures everyone has an education, and provides a network of local schools throughout the country to give all have the chance to learn. Almost all of us agree that a good grounding in the basics at primary is central to being able to get more out of secondary education, and necessary to be able to navigate the complexities of adult life.

I saw sunrises, skimmed stones and climbed trees as a boy, but never at school.

The EU does have a sense of humour. The so called Withdrawal Agreement is designed to keep us in whilst making us pay up. No sensible person could regard it as being Brexit, and no good negotiator would ever say Yes to a one sided proposal. Worse still it completely undermines our negotiating strength for the next prolonged phase, negotiations on the so called Future Partnership. This is not a deal for the future, and it does not end the uncertainty. The quickest way to end the uncertainty is to leave without signing it. Leave voters did not vote Leave in order to subjugate ourselves to new EU Treaties that we can’t get out of.

As expected, the latest draft of the Political document about our possible future partnership with the EU is empty of any enforceable content of benefit to the UK. It is an invitation to trade and customs talks extending over an unspecified period, delaying our exit from the EU. Far from taking back control of our money, our laws, and our borders, this Agreement if signed alongside the Withdrawal Agreement which is legally binding means we stay in and have no unilateral right to leave if the talks prove fruitless.

Under this non binding proposal our fish are still in play for a future negotiation. The Irish backstop remains etched legally into the Withdrawal Agreement, with words about a future technological solution as a possibility. There is plenty about the need for future regulatory convergence and for the UK to keep adopting EU laws we have no say over. The proposed format of the Future Partnership would be an EU Association Agreement. These Agreements are designed to bring potential member states of the EU progressively into line and under legal obligation to the body they wish to join.

This disappointing document confirms that this negotiation does not deliver Brexit, and does not give us control of our laws, money and borders, any time soon, with the risk that it might never properly do so.