Author: johnredwood

Yesterday industry had to reduce its demand for gas to allow priority to households. Compensation will be paid to industry as a result which we will all have to pay.
I have long argued that we need to make more energy available, and that margins are now too tight. The loss of the Rough Storage capacity for gas has taken one more reserve and flexibility out of our system, leaving us short on a cold day. The gas forecasts were based on the assumption that less gas would be used for electricity generation, with more planned reliance on imported electricity. Yesterday we certainly imported plenty of power from France, the Netherlands and Ireland, but still we ran short of gas.
I will write again to Ministers urging them to adopt a policy of self sufficiency in UK energy. We do not wish to be dependent on the goodwill of others to keep the lights on, nor should we have to tell industry to make less because we are short of fuel.

A majority of the public just want the EU to get on with it, so we can complete Brexit.

We voted to take back control of our laws, our borders and our money, so we know our destination . Increasingly the travellers in the car are asking “Are we there yet?”. Instead they are told we are still stuck in a traffic jam in London, with arguments going on over which is the best route to our destination. Meanwhile the Opposition are rushing round trying to close the roads we need to take to get to Brexit.

Most interviews on BBC Radio 4 of business people, economic experts and farmers have to have questions designed to elicit negative forecasts about the impact of Brexit, whatever the main subject of the item.
This morning on the Farming programme in the middle of an interesting piece about modern pig farming techniques we got to the regular lets condemn Brexit slot. The expert being interviewed then gave a most interesting answer, saying that if we went over to WTO terms with no general trade and partnership deal the UK pig industry would clearly benefit, expanding its domestic output and sales as tariffs came in against imported pork and bacon. The interviewer hurried on from this embarrassing forecast.
It reminded me how the BBC often seems to think a negative forecast that says Brexit will damage this or that is “news” even though many of them have already been proved wrong by events, whereas any more optimistic forecast is played down. I don’t suppose they will be leading the news today on the estimate that UK farming could benefit from a WTO tariff regime and win back lost market share from continental producers. They certainly ignored the point I made in my lecture about the obvious boost to output and incomes in the UK that we will get once we have our money back to spend here at home. I have yet to hear interviews where people are asked how they would like to spend the Brexit bonus.
I would still prefer the EU to agree a Free Trade deal to avoid tariffs, but the interview this morning was a reminder that there would be some winners from tariffs as the UK is a heavy net importer at the moment. Consumers should be recompensed by tax cuts from the tariff revenue, and UK businesses competing with EU products would be beneficiaries. More free trade is a good thing, but it needs to be reciprocal and then all are winners.

When I go shopping I do not put cash on the counter and then ask what the shop might have that I would like in return for my money. I ask to see the goods, enquire about the price and then decide whether to buy.I only produce the money when we have agreed the whole transaction, and as the shop releases the goods.

The EU wants the UK to shop the wrong way round. They expect us to put up a lot of money without telling us what it buys, and then keeping us in the dark for too long about whether we might get anything for the cash. They have invented a rule that they cannot reach an Agreement with us on our Future Partnership until we have left, which is most unhelpful and does not seem to be based on the strict letter of Treaty law.

Looking at the draft Withdrawal Agreement it is difficult to see why we would want to sign that, and certainly not without knowing what if any Free Trade Agreement will be reached. It will need considerable amendment, especially over the borders and freedom of movement issues. As it commits us to making a large financial contribution it must not be signed before we have an Agreement on all matters which is fairer to the UK than this one sided interim production.

“Cherry picking on stilts said one critic of Labour’s idea for the UK negotiating stance. They want “full access to” EU markets maintaining the “benefits of the single market and customs union” . The UK should also be able to “negotiate agreement of new trade deals in our national interest”, and should not be a “passive recipient of rules decided elsewhere by others”. There’s a good series of contradictions for you in a few sentences.

You cannot be in a customs union with a Customs Union and negotiate your own free trade deals on the side. You have to impose their common external tariff on everyone else. Nor is it at all likely that you can stay in a customs union with the rest of the EU without having to accept their rules.

It is unlikely the EU would offer us membership of a customs union without requiring that we accept their rules, and without demanding payments and continued freedom of movement. In other words a customs union would look much like membership of the EU without a seat at the table to be outvoted in person.

Meanwhile it is Groundhog time again in the Commons on this issue. We have twice had important debates and votes on whether the UK should stay in the customs union or not. (Amendments to the Queens Speech and to the EU Withdrawal Bill) Twice the Commons has decisively rejected this idea. Now some MPs want to do it again as a amendment to the Trade Bill. I do not see the point of doing it all again, and would expect the government to win another vote on this, even if this time Labour is on a whip to support the customs union instead of whipping to abstain.

Out of the EU the UK will have more influence in the world

The UK has often been a force for good

We have faced down genocides and warmongering dictators

We have often with our US ally stood for freedom, self determination and democracy

We stood up for the values of freedom and self determination when we helped liberate Kuwait

Freed the Falkland islanders

And defeated the Axis powers in 1945

Some say if we leave the EU we will become isolated and less powerful

That is selling us short and misunderstanding the realities

Out of the EU the UK will regain her voice and vote in international bodies where the EU has displaced us

We have not given up our seat on the UN Security Council

Let us take the WTO as an example

We were an influential founding member

In recent years we have had neither voice nor vote, as the EU has spoken for us

Out of the EU we will once again be a strong voice for free trade worldwide

Far from being isolated we will have new allies

Under WTO rules the EU cannot impose on us any barriers they do not impose on all the other WTO members

So if some in the EU have in mind retreating behind some stockade of tariffs and regulations

They will be picking a fight with the USA, China and the rest at the same time

Out of the EU we will be able to regain our voice and vote in various worldwide standards making bodies, whose work often requires the EU to implement the results

The Labour Manifesto was quite clear in 2017 that they wanted the UK to see through Brexit, including running our own trade policy. They laid out considerable details about the features of a global trade policy they wanted for us, which clearly ruled out staying in the or a customs union. Many pro Brexit voters voted Labour because they stood on a pro Brexit ticket.

Of course an Opposition party can change its mind. This particular change of mind has two big downsides for Labour. one is pro Leave voters who voted Labour will not be happy with this. The second is there is no obvious offer of “a customs union” on the table from the rest of the EU. They have told us we have to leave without cherry picking, so why would this much debated variant be on the table? Both Leave and Remain campaigns, and the UK government., told us before the referendum that leaving the EU meant leaving both the single market and the customs union. I don’t see that anything has changed since then.

Leaving the EU will give us the freedom to decide who we should welcome into our country

Many people who voted for Leave, and both government and Opposition are keen that the UK should be open to talent,

Welcoming to entrepreneurs and investors,

Enthusiastic about extending academic networks through shared scholarship and exchange

And generous to those fleeing danger and intolerance

Many also feel we do need to impose some limits on unrestricted migration into low paid jobs or onto benefits

We want those who join us to enjoy good housing and decent living standards

That requires us to expand our numbers at a sustainable pace

We also want a migration system which is fair between the EU and the rest of the world

The EU decided to reject the proposed UK/EU partnership they think the UK wants before the PM has even set it out! It was further evidence that the EU either does not want a deal or thinks the UK will just take dictation for a very bad deal.
They need to consider that any deal has to be put into UK legislation, and needs to pass muster with the Brexit majority in the UK to do so. Why would Parliament vote to give the EU large sums of money with no full free trade agreement and fuller partnership on offer? How could Parliament pass legislation to give the EU powers back that we had just reclaimed through the Article 50 process thanks to the referendum decision?
The EU offered Mr Cameron far too little in his renegotiation and lost a valuable member as a result. Now they run the risk of messing up a favourable trade and partnership relationship for them by being so negative and unhelpful.

Most people in the UK want us to promote more free trade, not introduce new barriers.

If this can be done fairly, with reductions in barriers on both sides, it will help boost our prosperity.

Our trade with the rest of the world is in surplus, showing that we have an EU trade problem, not a global trade problem.

There can be some early and easy wins for trade policy as soon as the UK takes back control over this important matter.

The UK can offer tariff free access to our market to emerging market producers of tropical produce in return for better access to their markets.

Old friends and trading partners like Australia, New Zealand. Singapore and the USA will welcome Free Trade Agreements with us.

The Free Trade Agreements the EU has with third countries can novate to us as well as to the rest of the EU.

I know of no country that has a trade agreement with the EU that wants to impose new barriers against the UK once we have left.

Some say such arrangements may be possible but will not offset the loss of our current trading arrangements with the rest of the EU
I disagree.

It would be strange indeed if the EU want to impose tariffs and other barriers on trade in goods given their huge surplus in that trade today

We will carry on exporting to them one way or another.

Today the bulk of our trade is carried out under WTO rules with tariffs imposed by the EU.

This is why I do not think we have to choose between being free and being rich

We do not need to stay in some Faustian pact, trading freedom for more exports

The gloomy arguments that we will suffer from leaving are not merely misleading about the economy

They are also too narrowly concentrated on business profit and loss when we should be talking more of freedom and self government.