Author: johnredwood

THE UK WILL BE MORE INFLUENTIAL WHEN IT LEAVES THE EU

Out of the EU the UK will regain her rightful place on world bodies. The UK will reclaim her own seat at the World Trade Organisation, in World Climate talks and similar fora.

Instead of having to broker a line with 27 other countries, the UK will in each case be able to form her own opinion and to advance it directly.

The UK will be free to make her own trade treaties with the USA, China, India and other leading countries. During 43 years in the EU the EU has failed to negotiate trade Treaties with these and other countries, and prevents us from doing so on our own.

The UK will retain her seat on the Security Council of the UN and her leading role after the USA in NATO.

The UK’s defence will continue to be assured by our own armed forces and by the NATO support.

Rule making for trade and related matters worldwide now occurs through world bodies. The UK does usually has to allow the EU to sit on these bodies instead of us. Out of the EU we will have our own seats on these organisations, and will have a more direct say in the world standards and rules that affect us.

Far from neglecting or ignoring us, out of the EU France and Germany will be keen to negotiate our support and agreement to various initiatives they will lead in the EU. We will have more influence over any common policy because we will effectively have restored our veto.

OUR OPPONENTS WILL CLAIM THE UK WILL LOSE INFLUENCE IF WE LEAVE

They ignore the fact that many decisions in the EU are now taken by majority vote, where the UK can easily be outvoted.

They are unable to explain how the UK can both influence central EU policies and stay out of the Euro which increasingly drives decision making in the EU

They claim the UK would have to adopt all EU rules outside the EU. This is simply not true. Outside the EU the UK would not have to adopt any EU rule it disliked for domestic or rest of the world activities. It would only have to adopt a requirement of the EU in order to sell a good or service to them, just as we have to accept customer requirements wherever we sell in the world.We meet US standards to sell to the USA, our biggest external market, but do not need to join their political union to do so.

They claim the UK will be sidelined outside the EU. On the contrary. EU states will want UK support for EU initiatives in the world. The rest of the world will take the UK more seriously once it returns as a full voting member to the main world bodies where it currently shares a representative with the other 27 countries of the EU.

When the UK leaves the EU it will carry on paying all the current grants to farmers.
We will have our own money to spend, and will have all the money we had to send to the EU to pay for our farm subsidies back under our own control.
A Conservative government will guarantee existing subsidy levels and will discuss with farmers if they need more or if they want the money paid in some different way.

Outside the EU the UK will be free to buy more of our own food in the UK without the problems of EU procurement laws.

We will be free to adopt modern technologies and innovations we think will help farmers and their customers.

The UK will regain her seat on The International Plant Protection Convention, and will have a stronger voice in combating plant disease worldwide.

OUR OPPONENTS WILL CLAIM WE WILL LOSE SUBSIDIES AND INFLUENCE

They are wrong on both counts.
We will have more of our own money to spend, and will guarantee current subsidy levels

We will have much more influence when we can say what we want and make our own decisions, instead of having to live with compromises with 27 other countries as our official view.

FISHING
Out of the EU the UK will regain control of our fishing grounds.
The Common Fishing Policy has done huge damage to our fish stocks and has allowed factory ships from the continent to come and take so much of our fish. A UK domestic policy could be more successful at husbanding our fishing grounds and giving priority to UK vessels. Norway, Iceland and Canada show how.

The Common Fishing Policy ranks alongside the Euro and the common energy policy as one of the great disasters of the EU, costing us jobs and environmental damage on a large scale.

ENVIRONMENT

Outside the EU the UK will be able to set her own environmental standards, and reward farmers and landowners for looking after our precious landscape and allowing others to enjoy it.

The UK will also be free to modify the water and planning laws which have assisted flooding and got in the way of good water management.

The Water Directives have worsened flood problems.

The UK can have a rural policy that looks after rural areas and is sensitive to UK needs.

OUR OPPONENTS CLAIM THE UK OUT OF THE EU WILL INTRODUCE LOWER ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS

That is not the intention of the current Conservative government. Parliament will be free to set higher or more effective standards if it wishes.

ENERGY

One of the most damaging policies the EU has visited upon us is dear and scarce energy. The UK needs to be free to have its own energy policy based on domestic security of supply and lower prices.

EU energy policies are pricing energy intensive industry out of the UK, and also damaging the cost base of general industry. The UK has lost large amounts of capacity in aluminium, steel, ceramics and other basics.

The renewables requirement encouraging dependence on wind energy has left the UK with expensive intermittent sources, which require going to the great cost of building back up stand by power.

More use of interconnectors to the continent makes the UK more dependent on a continent short of energy and itself reliant in part on Russian gas, which contains considerable political risk.

Freed of the EU obligations the UK could develop more of its indigenous energy sources, rely more on gas and fuel efficient coal stations, and deliver more cheap energy to business and households.

Instead we import more goods made using coal based power that is cheaper abroad. It does not save on the CO2 but costs us more in other ways.

Dear energy is creating more fuel poverty and necessitating higher welfare payments.

OUR OPPONENTS WILL CLAIM WE NEED JOINT WORKING WITH THE EU TO BE SECURE

The opposite is true. The continent is energy short, reliant on dear interruptible renewables and Russian gas.

Our best security is to develop our own energy, with our own nuclear and reliable renewable technologies, and with domestic energy sources for conventional power stations.

TRADE

Outside the EU the UK will have more scope to sell to the rest of the world, will be able to draw up its own free trade agreements with other countries, and will see its balance of payments deficit cut by the ending of EU contribution n payments.

The £10 billion the UK contributes to the EU every year which it does not get back is on fifth of the forecast balance of payments deficit for next year.Stopping those payments would be a great boost to our overseas account.

The UK needs free trade agreements with China, India and the USA, but has been prevented from having them through EU membership.

The UK will be able out of the EU to influence standards and rules governing goods and service sector trade, by regaining seats on international bodies the EU took from us.

The decision to leave will send a clear signal that the UK is dedicated to the wide world, not just relying on its adjacent continent.

We will be able to rebuild stronger trade and investment links with the Commonwealth and the English speaking world.

OUR OPPONENTS WILL CLAIM TRADE WILL BE DAMAGED AND THE UK WILL BE LIKE NORWAY

Our trade is not at risk. The German government has made clear they do not want to impose new tariffs or other barriers to trade if the UK leaves. After all, they sell us twice as much as we sell them, so new restraints would be damaging to Germany.

Our leading car makers Nissan, Toyota and Jaguar Land Rover have all said they will invest in new models and remain committed to the UK whether we are in or out.

The UK will not do a deal like Norway. When you run as large a deficit as we do with the rest of the EU there is no need to pay anything into the EU to keep the trade going.

Nor will the UK be on the wrong end of fax rules and regulations. The UK will return to making our own rules and regulations, and to having more influence on world standards.

£10 billion is a lot of money each year. That’s the sum we send to the EU and do not get back. That’s around £300 a household every year going to subsidise relatively rich countries on the continent.

One of the main questions in the referendum is how should we spend this Brexit bonus?

The cautious will say let’s reduce the deficit by not spending it.

The adventurous who want more growth will say let’s all have a Brexit tax cut, so we individually get to spend it because we pay less Income tax .

Those worried about the costs of health, schools and social services will say let’s boost our caring and educational services with some more spending.

The important thing is to open this debate. It’s good for morale to be discussing a better financial picture than the current one. It will remind all in the debate of a very positive large gain from exit.

We also need to ask the Stay in campaign what they think is going to happen to our contributions if they win.

Recent years has shown remorseless pressure and changes of the rules and methods of calculation to get more money out of us. How much more are they going to demand?

How does the UK stay out of meeting some of the costs of economic failure in parts of the Eurozone? Wont we be expected to contribute to economic regeneration and recovery plans for the countries plunged into long term austerity by the Euro?

We can of course spend the £10 billion and still give exactly the same amounts to farmers, universities etc the the EU currently gives them as well.

OUR OPPONENTS WILL CLAIM WE WILL HAVE TO PAY SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE CLUB

We need to remind them that most of the world trades quite successfully with the EU without paying a penny or a cent into EU funds.

There is no need for the UK to pay anything for the privilege of importing so much from Germany.

Starting this morning I am going to write a series of summaries of why we should leave the EU, taking a topic at a time.

The UK today can decide how many people to allow in to work and live from outside the EU, if they come directly.
The UK cannot control how many people come to live and work here from EU countries, and cannot control all those coming from outside the EU who come via another EU country.

Most people in the UK want controlled immigration.

Outside the EU the UK could have a fair system, placing identical limitations on people coming from the EU as from the rest of the world.
The UK seeks to limit non EU immigration. We favour students, people with skills our economy needs, people with money and ideas to invest, and people with sufficient money to pay their own way.
These limitations are designed to keep the extra costs of public service under control, and to allow in a manageable number of people.

In recent years the UK has experienced very high levels of inward migration. This has required providing many more homes, school places, NHS capacity, transport capacity and other public facilities. It has helped fuel high rises in property prices in the most popular areas of the country. It has provided a plentiful supply of labour, with an impact on wages and on people already settled here getting out of unemployment. For these reasons the current government was elected on a pledge to cut net migration to tens of thousands.

To keep its promise the government will need full control over policy. It will need to impose new restrictions on EU migration which are not legal under the current Treaties. Nothing in the renegotiation will make it legal to do what is necessary.

OUR OPPONENTS WILL CLAIM THAT THE REFORMS OFFERED SOLVE THE PROBLEM

Gaining more control over welfare benefits to limit these to new arrivals will not be sufficient to hit the government’s target on net migration. The main attraction of the UK to migrants from the rest of the EU is the availability of jobs. This will be enhanced by the introduction of the living wage, which is relatively attractive to migrants from the lower paid areas of the EU and from the areas of high unemployment.

Others on the Stay in side welcome unlimited migration. They see the plentiful supply of new labour as an advantage, rather than putting in the apprenticeships and starter jobs for UK citizens which we need.

I have received the enclosed letter from Sir Peter Hendy, Chairman of Network Rail:

Dear John,

Thank you for our recent meeting.

I was pleased to read your subsequent blog in which you call for the modernisation of the rail network with digital technology to release more capacity from the existing infrastructure. I agree wholeheartedly.

Other industries, from aviation, to roads and the London Underground, have already unlocked significant additional capacity through digital control systems. We are hitting the limit of analogue signalling faster than other countries in Europe because of our successful growth – over 40 per cent of the EU’s officially declared ‘congested railways’ are in Britain.

This is why our Chief Executive established a discreet digital railway programme 18 months ago to bring the required pace to modernising the network. We are currently building the business case for the digital railway that will demonstrate the business benefits for the country. In additional we are developing a rolling programme of digital modernisation of traditional command and control signalling.

This is a time of unprecedented growth on our railway. Beyond critical upgrades and projects now planned or underway, a national capacity strategy that is rooted in conventional enhancements would cost too much, disrupted for too long and would deliver too little.

Digital technology will change the way we operate and manage our network. It could create up to 40 per cent more capacity on the most congested urban networks, while making trains more reliable, safer and our network far more resilient to disruptions. This incremental capacity can be unlocked at significantly less cost and with massively less disruption, than building new railways in dense urban centres.

It is not a question of whether we transform our signalling technology, but when. Plans exist already, but they are small and will mean that Britain will not see the full benefits for many decades. Network Rail believes that the country cannot wait that long. We already have brought together parts of railway delivery and planning into an integrated Digital Railway programme, with the aim of bringing forward and maximising the benefits of digital capacity.

We are currently building the business case for the Digital Railway that will demonstrate the business benefits to Britain.