Author: johnredwood

There is little meeting of minds between the Franco German controllers of the EU and its most detached and unhelpful member, the UK.  The meeting between Mr Cameron and Mrs Merkel did its best to bridge the large and growing gap between the UK and the continent, but the truth is the political Channel has just got a lot wider.

The British people do not want to join the common borders project, do not like complete freedom of movement within the EU, and want the UK to gain more control over its borders and welfare system. They support Mr Cameron’s refusal to join a quota system for accepting new arrivals to the EU from outside. They  support his wish to reform welfare in ways which would limit access to benefits for recently arrived people from the continent.

The British people do not want to join the Euro. Even Lord Mandelson, one of the main instigators of Euro enthusiasm in the UK, now accepts the UK is not simply waiting for a more propitious time to join the project. The people who have argued the pro EU case recently against  me in debate have rushed to criticise the Euro and agree with me over its present shortcomings. As the Euro is the main part of the present EU project this places a big obstacle in the way of our friendly membership, and will mean hereafter we will always be demanding exemptions and special treatment from outside the principal centralising force.

The Prime Minister rightly argues we do not want ever closer union. The German Chancellor and the French President made clear this week that they do want ever closer union, and they want it now. They also seemed to imply that if the UK does not want it, it would be best if we left.

The UK wants fewer laws and regulations. The main method of ever closer union is for the EU to take over more and more areas of lawmaking so it has control. It is a fantasy to suppose the EU is about to halve its laws and agree to return large powers to the member states as a whole, as that cuts against the thrust of centralising to back and protect  the Euro. Promises of deregulation in a few areas have been made before, but have never materialised. Usually some figures are trotted out purporting to show some old directives and regulations have been discontinued. Usually what has happened is a far bigger and more comprehensive regulation or directive has taken the place of several smaller ones. The trend is continuously for more and  more EU law which any given member state cannot change if it wishes.

The easiest way of solving the UK problem is for both sides to agree that all we want – on both sides – is a free trade agreement, along with a range of agreements on extradition, air traffic, telecoms and other interconnections similar to those we already have and similar to those we have with non EU members. I hope that is what Mr Cameron concludes.It is the logic of his position, which has included opting out of the Fiscal Treaty, seeking to reduce the EU budget, and asking for fewer laws which have all proved contrary to the wishes of most continental governments.

In the meantime I support Vote Leave, as we do need to explain to people how being out of the current EU will be so much better than being in. Germany and France could be liberated by the absence of the UK seeking to restrain their centralising push for ever closer union. We will be free to pursue our global agenda for freer trade and better relations between states. We will also be £10 billion a year better off, or £300 per family every year we are out.

Mr Fallon has told us that he is seeking to win over more MPs to the idea that the UK should join in bombing ISIL in Syria. He tells us it makes no sense for us to bomb ISIL in Iraq, but not to bomb them if they step over the border into Syria.

There are of course two ways of dealing with this apparent anomaly. We could decide to bomb them in both places as he wishes, or we could decide to bomb them in neither. At some point war in Iraq and Syria has to give way to a peace settlement. At some point people have to lay down their arms and turn to the much maligned arts of politics to seek a way of living together. When that happens in Syria a  thug government has  to talk to terrorist opponents, and the potential moderates have to find their voices and voting support in order to  offer some solutions that are more palatable.

There are reasons why the UK has  not rushed to bomb in Syria as well as in Iraq. Mr Fallon has to recall that when the government last wanted Parliament to vote to support bombing, it was to support bombing against Assad in  the name of his opponents. I refused to do so then not   because I have any love of Assad’s brutal regime, but because I could not see a friendly democratic opposition who could rise up, win the war and offer a peaceful transition to better government. I was worried that harming Assad more could either give opportunity to extremists to take over, or might just prolong the war and bloodshed further.

Iraq and Syria are different, not least because the Iraqi government has asked us to help them by bombing ISIL, whereas Assad does not. The UK sees the Iraqi government as different in kind from the government of Syria. Legally the case is easier for Iraq than for Syria. Politically and morally the UK government is happier to help the government of Iraq than the government of Syria.

In  other ways they are similar. Both countries contain entrenched warring factions. Both have terrorist problems not just from ISIL but also from groups like Al Qaeda and Jabhat al Nusra. Both are split between Sunni and Shia groups. Both have Kurdish areas where the people want an independent state.

The best the UK could offer might be to seek to lead a very difficult initiative to get the forces and factions on the ground and the great and regional powers circling the two conflicts to sit down and discuss borders, systems of government, and who is best equipped to lead. Russia’s intervention is clearly trying to move the forces in Assad’s favour in Syria, not something the west welcomes. The longer the west delays in seeking a negotiated solution, the worse the position on the ground may become.

Poverty is a scourge which always needs fighting. I spoke about this on Monday. I was pleased to see the Prime Minister dedicate himself to an all out assault on poverty yesterday.  Poverty is relative as well as absolute. The west has long since gone beyond making sure people have the basics for life – enough food to survive, a few clothes and shelter. Our welfare systems are designed to let people afford  some of the benefits of the rich society around them in addition to some absolute minimum. The political argument is over how much should people enjoy from benefit payments, who should qualify for benefits,  and what is the best way of encouraging and helping more people into work, and then into better paid work.

In my speech to the Conference fringe meeting I sketched a small  society. Nine people each earned £20,000 a year. The average earnings of the community was £20,000, and there was no inequality. Total earnings were £180,000. A very well paid CEO of a multinational decided he wished to join this community, bringing his income of £820,000 a year. The socialist was against his arrival, as it would generate a huge jump in inequality.

After his arrival the average earnings of the community leapt from £20,000 to £100,000. Inequality shot up from zero, to the highest paid earning 41 times the lowest. The community  now had someone to be jealous of. The total earnings of the community reached £1 million.

Surely, however, the community should welcome his arrival. It would immediately mean the community could collect around £500,000 or more  of additional income, capital and sales taxes from the new arrival, to spend on the  existing community members and their needs. It would allow them to find new markets for their products and services, or to gain higher paid employment by working for the new arrival. Far from the new arrival being bad news, he would generate more growth  and allow the people on £20,000 a year each to earn more and to enjoy more public spending than they could afford for themselves. The inequalities need to be looked at on a post tax basis, not a pre tax basis, and need to take into account the impact of the spending by the more affluent on the incomes of the less affluent.

Poverty is the problem to tackle vigorously. Inequality is very bad if it comes about by the poor getting poorer. If inequality rises because more rich people decide to live here, it can provide money for higher living standards for all.

Mrs May has travelled a long way since 2002 and her modernising  agenda. More recently she asked the Conservstive party to vote to sacrifice criminal justice powers to the EU when we had no need to do so.

Yesterday she posed as a resolute fighter against the EU having power and influence over our borders and migration policy, and warned that allowing too much migration into the UK was damaging to our society.

Mrs May is the senior Minister charged with the duty of getting net inward migration down to tens of thousands from the current level in excess of 300,000 a year. This is a good and popular policy. I am glad she is taking it seriously.

It it happens to be remarkably similar to the policy offered by the Coalition government in the last Parliament, when Mrs May was also the responsible senior Minister. Maybe it was too difficult to do with Lib Dems using a veto on measures required to achieve it. Now she is freed of that problem, what we want to hear from Mrs May is the practical steps that she is taking to achieve the policy aim. We do not need dramatic language or warnings. We need her to preside over a harmonious and successful society, and to find fair and effective ways of carrying out her prime policy goal.

I  suspect she knows that we do need to regain control over migration from the EU to fulfil the policy objective.  Her new anti EU rhetoric needs to share with us  how she intends to get back lost powers over our borders from within the EU and how she is contributing to Mr Cameron’s renegotiation. I wish her well with that endeavour.

At the Politeia meeting last night on Stay or Leave we ended up debating sovereignty. Most of us wish to restore or reassert UK sovereignty. If the UK people and their Parliament want to change a law or control our borders, or decide how much to tax and spend we need to be free to do so. None of that is possible under the present Treaties.

Some argued that the UK remains sovereign. They pointed out that the EU only has power in the UK thanks to the 1972 European Communities Act. What Parliament granted to the EU it could take away. Clearly having a referendum on whether to stay in the EU is the act of a sovereign country. If we vote to leave then leave we can and leave we shall. We can leave by repealing the 1972 Act.

The problem is if the UK does not wish to exercise this power, at what point does the power cease to exist? At what point are we so dominated by European Treaty law and by EU regulations and directives that we can no longer claim to be sovereign? At what point would seeking the amendment or repeal of the 1972 Act cease to be possible, as we were so bound in by EU laws?

The danger is the EU already has a very different view of our legal position to our view of it. They see us as subject to the superior law of the treaties and European Court. Re asserting sovereignty comes down to a question of political will. Either the government has to show it in its renegotiation, or the British people have to show it in, the referendum. If we leave it too long we will discover our sovereignty is no more, and the EU can control us by court judgements and new laws.

I wish to hear today an optimistic message from Conference. Conservatives must use this period in office to promote greater opportunity and prosperity.

To do so requires lower taxes. People should keep more  of what they earn, and more of what they make by venturing their savings.

Lower tax rates on income and gains will also yield more tax revenue to help those in need. the state should be generous to the disabled, and to the elderly who need care.

To do so requires us both to build more homes and to limit inward migration. House prices are too high and rents too dear in places around the country and especially in London.

To do so requires more gas fuelled power stations providing more reliable and cheaper energy.

To do so requires a transport policy that makes it easier to get work by car or by train, with more commuter rail capacity and more road capacity.

I go to Conference to further my campaigns for these improvements.