Author: johnredwood

There seem to be ten main points to Remain’s pitch

1. Some of the member states of the EU are so nasty they might say unpleasant things about us if we leave
2. Germany might want to put barriers in the way of selling us cars and France might want to make it more difficult for us to buy their cheese and farm products, to the extent that the WTO would allow
3. We should want to show solidarity with the failing Eurozone and send our money to spend in their countries rather than spending it at home on our priorities
4. We should be willing to be a main provider of jobs for those fleeing the unemployment and poverty of large areas of the Eurozone. The Euro seems to stand for European Unemployment and Recession Organisation
5. Leaving might put up wages for the lower paid(Lord Rose)
6. Leaving might make house prices a bit more affordable for young people to buy(Treasury forecast)
7. Leaving might mean some U.S. Investment banks made a bit less money
8. The IMF, World Bank, UK treasury and the Bank of England think we might grow a bit less out than in. These were the organisations who recommended the European Exhange Rate Mechanism which plunged us into recession, who presided over the banking crash of 2008, and who thought the Euro a good idea despite it bringing mass youth unemployment, recession and slow growth to most of the EU
9. EU banking, capital markets, energy, social, foreign policy and political union is a good idea which the UK needs to participate in
10. The EU’s policy of eastern expansion and security and association agreements with Ukraine and other countries bordering Russia makes us more secure, as we saw with the troubles in Crimea

Remain has made a wicked presentation of dodgy forecasts, implying we will be worse off out. Their unlikely estimates all show that over the period up to 2030 we will be better off, whether out or in, than  we are today.What we are arguing about is not a cut in our  income but how big a pay rise we get.

Its my view we can earn a bigger pay rise out than in. Here’s why.

1. Out of the EU we can spend the £10bn net contribution we send to Brussels on our own priorities. that means more better paid jobs created here at home for UK’s citizens. it means an immediate and continuing boost to our economy, an end to austerity.
2. Out of the EU we will be able to cut the flow of EU migrants taking low paid jobs and keeping wages down. Pay will go up a bit more when we control migration.
3. Out of the EU our trade will not be at risk. The rest of the EU sells us so much more than we sell them. They  are not planning new trade barriers as they would damage them more. Anyway we and they belong to the World Trade Organisation which stops higher tariffs on most  things.
4. Out of the EU the UK can get on with negotiating free trade deals with the large countries like the USA, China, India and Brazil that the EU has no trade deals with. Where the EU does have trade deals with some smaller countries the UK will continue with those in its own right, as will the rest of the EU, when we leave.Under international law where the signatories split all can continue with the treaties until all sides want a change.
5. Out of the EU we can fit our regulations and laws on goods and services to our needs and the needs of the rest of the world customers for the bulk of our business which is not export to the EU. In the EU we have to apply EU laws and rules to everything.
6. Out of the EU we will not have to contribute to the growing costs of the failing Eurozone.

The UK did not grow faster in  the EU than before we joined, nor faster than many countries outside the EU. Many countries outside the EU have grown their trade with the EU faster than we have been able to from within.

The EU has become a low growth or no growth area,thanks to the Euro and its legal and bureaucratic burdens. The EU gave us the big recession of the early 1990s thanks to its ill conceived Exchange Rate rigging scheme. It assisted in the creation of the great banking crisis of 2008, along with the UK and U.S. Authorities.

We we will be better off out when we spend our own money, make our own decisions in a fast moving world, and control our own borders. Trying to agree your laws, taxes and policies with 27 other countries leaves you ill equipped to deal with the fast changing conditions we find globally today.

I have taken part in a good many debates now ahead of the referendum. One of the most striking things about the Remain advocates I have faced is how little they like or even understand the modern European Union. None of them have come out defending monetary, political, capital markets, banking, and energy union. None of them have advocated the EU army or defended the EU/Turkey and EU/Ukraine policies. None of them have wanted to discuss open borders and the  migration policy. Several of them have stressed the fact that they dislike much of the bureaucracy. Most stress the way the UK is opted out of the Euro and Schengen.

Most of them wish to live in a 1970s style world where the EU (EEC) is primarily a so called single market, and the only things we need to discuss are trade arrangements. It may be inconvenient to Remain that the EU now sees itself as a  foreign policy force in the world, that its founding principles include the free movement of labour, and the Euro is the most important step to full union it has so far taken. The 5 Presidents Report is not mentioned as a proud Manifesto for future ever closer union, but dismissed as unlikely or remote.

If I believed in a united Europe then I would be telling people how today’s EU is but a stepping stone on route to a more united future. I would be talking about pan European solidarity, about the obligations we owe to the poorer parts of the Union, and about what I wanted the Union to do in the world as its power grows. Where is the UK advocate of the type of European Union most continental governments  wish to help fashion? Why is it just in the UK that the pro EU people are in denial about the current nature and future aims of this binding legal grouping of states?

The future agenda will have to ensure bigger transfers of money around the EU to tackle poverty and unemployment in the badly affected areas. There is a growing  wish for fairer sharing of the migrants coming into southern and eastern Europe. There are demands for much more political integration, to buttress the single currency. The EU has a big agenda to take more control of taxation, to spend more of our money, and to represent us abroad. They are well on the way to controlling fishing, farming, energy, transport and much else.

Far from In being the stable status quo, it will indeed be a wild ride to political union. Do those who wish to remain want to veto, opt out or compromise with the next Treaty?

During the first quarter of 2016,  224,000 EU migrants got jobs in the UK. Just 5000 migrants from elsewhere in the world were added to the UK workforce, whilst 185,000 British people got jobs.

David Davis MP yesterday made an important speech setting out more of the details of these numbers. He said the EU has created a Job transfer mechanism. The UK generates plenty of jobs, but many of them go to people from other EU countries. All the time the Euro austerity scheme keeps unemployment high in large parts of the Eurozone, so there will be people seeking work in the UK and Germany where there are more jobs. Lower wages and worse conditions in some of the eastern parts of the EU also drives more people to come to the UK in search of better paid work.

Over the last year to March 2016 630,000 National Insurance numbers were issued to EU citizens coming to the UK. The government says that some of these people only came for a short stay and so that does not mean there are 630,000 more EU migrants in the year. It is likely to be the case that some stayed here for less than a year, but the government does not know how many or for how long. It does means their official migration figures based on passenger surveys look too low.

The other crucial point is the impact so many people have on public services, wages and homes, even if they do not stay for as long as a year. Whilst here working people need proper housing, access to GPs, school places for their children and a range of other services. We need to expand phone networks, water supply and electricity generation. We need more reliable figures so we can plan provision better.

Out of the EU we could impose sensible controls on EU migration to match controls on non EU migration. On the Out side we don’t want to stop all migration. We want a fair system, that has the same rules for the EU and the rest of the world. It should aim to cut the numbers considerably overall, to relieve pressure on houses, wages and public services. It should welcome people of talent, people with good qualifications, people wanting to invest and build businesses here, and people wishing to study here. Our young people would like better wages and cheaper house prices and rents. The pressure of large scale migration serves to depress lower wages and raise house prices.

Out of the EU we will still be free to travel in Europe , study in any university or College that offers them a place and do business in Europe as we did before we joined and as non EU countries like the USA and Canada can do today from outside the EU.

There is one thing the IFS and I agree about. When we leave we will be able to spend the money we send to the EU and don’t get back on our priorities. That will boost the UK economy by around 0.6% (they say 0.5%). We can hire more doctors and nurses, create more jobs, pay more incomes in the UK. Will the Treasury now admit there will be a boost to our economy when we spend our own money?

On leaving the EU  wages should go up a bit for the lower paid. We will be able to take control of our own borders and limit the numbers of people coming in from the rest of the EU to take lower paid jobs. The Chairman of the Remain campaign himself, Lord Rose, has stated wages should go up when we leave and put in a fair and sensible migration policy.

Some on the pro EU side delight in selling the UK short and forecasting a worse outcome for us if we leave. The one thing the forecasts of the Treasury and the other international bodies have in common is they all think that we will better off in five and in fifteen years time if we leave  than we are today. They just think we be even better off if we stay in. Those of us on the Leave side think we should be a little  bit better off if we leave than if we stay. After all, we know we can spend our own money on making more people in the UK better off  by providing them with decent jobs with better public services.

So the argument is not over whether individuals will still have a job or not. It is not even over whether individuals will get a pay rise or not. The argument is will you get a bigger pay rise under Brexit or by staying in?

If we cut the numbers of potential workers coming here, that will help wages rise. If we create more jobs here by spending our own money on our own priorities that will advance our prosperity.

So why are there several pessimistic forecasts? Some say we will lose out on trade if we leave. I don’t see that happening. The rest of the EU sells us much more than we sell them, so they won’t want to impose new barriers and tariffs in the way of our trade with them. They have five million jobs on the continent making goods and services for us.

Anyway we and the rest of the EU are members of the World Trade Organisation. Bound by its rules, the rest of the EU would not be able to increase tariffs on most things under WTO controls. It is true the WTO would allow a 10% tariff on cars, but Germany has made very clear that’s the last thing they want given how many VWs, BMWs and Mercedes they sell here.

Out of the EU we will be able to rebuild our fishing industry, We will be able to generate our own power and develop our own energy reserves in ways we wish without having to be part of a common energy policy.

These are  of the reasons I am voting to leave. I could not recommend something which I thought would make people here worse off. I also want to restore our democracy and regain the right to make our own laws and set our own taxes. It is time to take back control.

I am very positive about what the UK can achieve once we are an independent country again. I think we need to remind our fellow countrymen and women just what we have achieved in the past, when as a country we were both much smaller and poorer than today. This is my list. I would like to hear your suggestions of what else we should include.

1. Magna Carta 1215 – setting out why every man should be free under the law, innocent until proven guilty, and why the King should have to take advice from others.
2. 1533 Statute in restraint of Appeals. England peacefully shakes off foreign legal controls and jurisdiction by Act of Parliament, asserting independence
3. 1588 Defeat of Spanish Armada England stands up to the European bully power of the age and wins despite large imbalance in populations and wealth
4.1623 Publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio – colossal literary and cultural achievement
5. 1688/9  Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights – Parliament establishes proper controls over executive government and the King
6. 1805 The UK defeats France and Spain at Trafalgar, starting to lift the threat of domination of the continent by force of arms by the allied powers.
7. 1837 The UK abolishes slavery and offers the example to the rest of the world. (Act of Parliament 1833)
8. 1851 The Great Exhibition demonstrates the brilliance of the UK industrial revolution
9. 1928 Equal votes for all women and men
10. 1940 A lonely UK wins the battle of Britain which starts the liberation of Europe from Nazi domination.

With a history like this surely we should stay true to the struggles of our ancestors who fashioned a free people and fought to keep us free.

Under the last Labour government the pound collapsed within the EU – far more than the latest ridiculous Treasury forecasts of possible future falls.
In July 2008 the pound bought $2. By January 2009 it was under $1.40, a fall of 30%.
In July 2007 the pound bought 250 yen. By January 2009 that was down to just 122. It had halved.

Better stewardship of the UK economy and events elsewhere since has brought the pound back up to $1.45 and to 160 yen.
I do not recall the Treasury forecasting the huge falls in sterling we experienced towards the end of the last decade.
If they were unable to forecast the pound accurately then when such a big change was about to happen, why should we believe their latest forecast?

The Remainians want it every which way. If economic figures disappoint, they claim that is the result of Brexit fears. If the numbers fail to disappoint, they claim that is because people think Remain will win!

Their most consistent claim is the pound will go down if we leave. It’s as good a guess as any. You have a fifty fifty chance of being right. The pound has often gone down whilst we have been in the EU. With a colossal balance of payments current account deficit we are currently running thanks to our lop sided trade with the EU and all those EU contributions we have to send abroad, it is quite possible it will go down again. Just to make it more likely the Chancellor has weighted the dice. He has imposed higher taxes on foreigners buying property in the UK. He has just toughened the anti money laundering rules to deter dubious foreign cash from continuing to come. He has toughened the rules against tax avoidance, to put people off using once normal offshore schemes into London from abroad. That ought to lower the pound.

It is therefore curious that since the end of February, as the referendum campaign has come to prominence, the pound has gone up a bit against the dollar. It serves to remind anyone interested in the truth rather than the mindless and often misleading slogans that the pound is part of a much larger currency turmoil where the dollar has been slipping at last against the other main currencies of the world , unlike last year which was a year of dollar strength.

This year has also brought the surprise that the yen and the euro have strengthened a bit despite the large amounts of these currencies being created as part of their exotic money policies. Both the Euro area and the yen area are running large current account surpluses, so helping to underpin the currency values.

The Chancellor also forecasts that Brexit will slash house prices. Many see this as a good thing, so it might backfire as a political trick. However, the Chancellor should be reminded that he wants to get house prices down so they are more affordable. That is why he set more penal Stamp duties at the top end against foreign purchases, and why he has sought to stop some foreigners buying by new rules and regulations. So many house prices in Central London have already fallen, no thanks to Brexit, but thanks to a deliberate policy of trying to get them down set out by the government itself.

Recent retail sales figures have been strong, undermining the government’s view that fears of Brexit are damaging the economy. The main investors in the UK motor industry have all said they are staying and will continue to invest if we leave, and HSBC has completed its review and decided to stay in London before knowing the result of the Brexit vote. There is simply not enough bad news around to underpin the government’s pathetic wish to talk us down and to force us to stay for fear of worse, when out of the EU we will be better off. We will spend our own money on our own priorities, which brings a modest 0.5% boost to our National Income once we do it.