On Brexit night  I spent 10pm  to 11.30pm  on  5 Live

Their idea of balance was to have reporters in Parliament Square (pro Brexit) balanced by the Scottish SNP Remain  demonstration in Glasgow (anti Brexit) and a protest on the Irish border (anti Brexit) where no-one was around at the protest for the programme! So it was designed to be two against one  as if Remain had won. It is also questionable whether you need to balance Remain and Leave now as if there were still a referendum under way, when the public have endorsed Leave again in a General election and it is now government policy. The official Labour Opposition was not out and about complaining  on exit night  about Brexit so there was no official party source to voice opposition to this national event.

They took pro and anti Brexit calls in turn. They failed to understand the pro Brexit callers who largely took the view that they had voted to belong to an independent democratic country and who instead were treated to detailed points about trade issues on various questionable forecasts and told they would be worse off. Although I gave them positives for Brexit and suggested they put those to the Remain  callers they did not  do so. I asked them to join me in discussing the advantages of Brexit which they promised to do but did not do. They seemed unhappy when I started to reel off a few of the potential wins  we have once we are free.

It is most difficult to hold a sensible public debate when leading broadcast organisations cannot understand either what Leave means or understand why people wish to live in a  free democratic and independent country. As I explained we can be better  off once out properly, but that will depend on how we use our freedoms. I expect this government to help us be better off, but if any future UK government fails  then the joy of democracy is they can be removed and  replaced by a government that does know how to make us better off. This is something we were never able to do to the makers of EU policies like the ERM which did so much damage to our prosperity.

When as a young man I was on the losing side of the EEC referendum I accepted the democratic verdict. I did not object to the issue of a celebratory coin nor to the entirely pro EEC bias of the media after the result. Then the establishment regarded the policy and its endorsement as a matter for national rejoicing, not to provide an opportunity for the losing side to go on and on about why we were right all along. No-one suggested we might like a second go because the winning side had not stressed  the truth about how this was something much more than a common market, when they assured us our sovereignty was not at risk. No-one asked us to explain how we felt about it all.

I have received complaints about the BBC Brexit night coverage. I  expect the government to propose decriminalising non payment of the licence fee soon.

On 02.02.2020 it is appropriate to look forward to our future.

When Churchill did so in 1958 at the end of his History of the English-speaking Peoples he looked forward to their ultimate union. He saw the military and defence alliance developing, as it has through NATO, and saw the English speaking peoples as the defenders of Peace and Freedom.

He did not write a history of the European peoples or ever recommend  the UK should pool or give up its sovereignty to European institutions.  He did point the way to a more united continental western Europe through a rapprochement between France and Germany.

Today we look forward to global UK, with many alliances, friends and allies. Our defence will continue to rest with NATO, our intelligence with 5 Eyes and our global trade through WTO with various other Agreements on top.

Dear President Macron

          Thank you for your letter addressed to the UK on the occasion of our departure from  the EU. My country looks forward to welcoming you personally to the UK for your next visit, and wishes to have friendly relations with you as our neighbouring  state as  with the rest of the EU.

           As an independent nation we support free trade, democracy and peace and will work to promote all three with our allies and friends. We  regard the question of membership of the EU as something for the peoples and governments of each country to decide without external interference. We will work closely with fellow European countries whether non members like Norway and Switzerland or members like France and Germany on issues where we have a common interest or viewpoint.

             I was disappointed to see that you have not understood why so many people in the UK voted to leave the EU in  the first place and why so many voted in the two subsequent General elections for parties that wished to see Brexit through. You state that you need a “sovereign and democratic Europe whose strength will make our continent strong” . You may well think the EU needs to have a stronger central government which is more efficient and effective at doing things. Your task is to explain that  vision of greater EU integration and power both to the EU itself where the Germans are sometimes more reluctant than you going forward, and to your own voters who do not all share that vision. I can assure you that the pro Brexit majority in the UK was fundamentally opposed to more EU political integration, and wanted powers back from the EU for the UK  which the EU decided not to offer. As a bare minimum we wanted control over our taxes, benefits and borders, areas where UK governments had previously falsely assured us we would retain a veto.

            It is not now for the UK to tell the EU what level of political or economic integration is appropriate because we are no longer members with vote and voice. We wish you all well in coming to a happy outcome. I  note making  a success of a single currency usually requires substantially more political, budgetary and economic integration than the EU has so far achieved. It usually needs what the Germans somewhat disparagingly call a “transfer union”. When I with others ran a successful campaign to persuade the UK not to join the Euro it was obvious the UK needed a different relationship with the EU, whilst the EU proceeded on  the false assumption that it was only a matter of time before the UK gave in and joined the currency.

                  You state that UK access to the single market will depend on the “degree to which EU rules are accepted”. The UK is leaving so we can make our own laws. The government has made clear we seek a Free Trade Agreement if there is a mutually beneficial one that is better than trading with each other on best or favoured nation  WTO terms. Japan and Canada have good FTAs with the EU that do not  require accepting EU legislative supremacy. You should also remember that the EU seeks preferential access to the UK market, which it has enjoyed for many years. Our mutual  trade account is dominated by EU exports, not  by UK exports. We are happy to offer continued tariff free and relatively barrier free entry to the UK  in return for similar access to the EU despite the big imbalance in trade in the EU’s favour.

               Brexit voters voted to leave the single market and customs union and do not share your rosy view of these devices. Many think the EU sees the UK as a Treasure island, to take our money and to sell us many goods on  terms denied the rest of the world.  We do not  think the single market was  created by UK Ministers. As the UK’s single market Minister in the crucial period prior to the 1992 so called completion of the single market I remember fighting many battles at the time trying to make the single market less of an excuse for a power grab with a big build up in bureaucracy over business. Some of the large companies who now support EU rules in those days wanted me to argue against many of them or to water them down on  the grounds that they made things dearer but not better and were hostile to innovation. .

           I watched sadly our first ten years of membership of the EEC. As I predicted at the time, the shock of removing all tariffs on goods where Germany and to a lesser extent France and Italy had a comparative advantage over us, without removing barriers to a wide range of services where the UK had an advantage resulted in a big increase in our trade deficit with the EU which continued throughout our membership. More importantly it led to a halving of our car output, to a large reduction in our steel output, to the closure of many foundries and textile mills. No wonder I and many like me developed or confirmed a  negative view of the EEC/EU. This  was made far worse by the disaster of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism inflicted on us by the EU and the governing elite in the UK.

          So please understand we want to be friends with the EU and with its individual member states. We are happy to trade freely with you even though it helps EU exporters more than  our own. We see no need to sacrifice further or pay more for our future relationship. Your letter implies the EU has learned  nothing and still does not understand why we left. We left to be an independent  country. You cannot drag us back under EU control because it suits the EU.

You mention Winston Churchill.He did indeed want a more integrated Europe but never thought the UK would be part of it. He wrote his History of the English speaking peoples to set out his view that the UK needed closer ties with the USA and other Countries in his history.

           With every good wish

John Redwood

One of the first votes I cast as a young man was to vote to leave the EEC in 1975. I read the Treaty of Rome and realised this was no simple common market. I thought we were being  lied to by the establishment who told us we could veto anything we did not like and would not lose our sovereignty, as the Treaty made clear wide ranging ambitions by the Europeans on their chosen path to “ever closer union”.  

I accepted the democratic decision of the UK voters and did my best for many years to believe in the common market and to  limit the EU’s activities to those of a common market.  I only called for a second referendum a generation later when several new Treaties had transferred large powers to the EU and it was quite obvious this was well removed from the common market people thought they had voted for. It was helping lead the campaign to keep the pound that marked the turning point. The UK’s eventual rejection of the main feature of European integration meant we had to seek a new and different relationship from those countries signed up to the federal state agenda. I launched the idea that joining a single currency was like sharing a bank account with the neighbours. It turned out to be an accurate metaphor, and one which most UK voters rejected as a policy for our country. The Euro predictably  caused intense economic distress in various Euro countries.

Tonight is an historic occasion. We are well on the way to being an independent self governing nation again. The government now needs to be firm as well as friendly to the EU in the talks ahead. We should not make any more concessions. Our fish are not be bargained away again,  our laws must be under our sole control, and our money repatriated. The EU needs a Free Trade Agreement more than we do as it is such a big exporter to us, so we must stand firm in negotiation. The UK has been Treasure Island for the EU, both as a source of tax revenue for their plans, and as a great market for their exports. They should now be decent and honour their promise of a Free Trade Agreement with no penal clauses.

When we leave the Implementation period at the end of the year I will celebrate more. We will once again be that free independent country we were for centuries before we joined the EU. We will be a world leader for free trade, peace and democracy. We will regain our vote and our voice on international bodies. We will be true to our traditions of being engaged with Europe  but not governed by  Europe’s main continental powers. The UK has long championed the rights of smaller nations, democracy  and the importance of national self determination in Europe.

We will be free to set out own taxes, so we can remove VAT from green products, from repairs to charitable buildings and from female hygiene products.

We are already shaking off the Maastricht debt requirements as the central driver of our economic policy and replacing it with the aims of promoting growth and prosperity.

We will able to pass the laws that people want, and spend all our tax revenues on our priorities.

I always thought myself lucky to be born into a country that so valued and defended freedom and democracy. I was always humbled  by the knowledge of the sacrifices my grandparents and parents made with their generations to keep us free.

Tonight I am again proud to be British, and optimistic that we can do so much better once we have truly taken back control.

At last we leave the EU. It is now quite possible to leave fully at the end of December this year and reap the benefits of Brexit. We can be better off out, and we will restore self government.

It’s nineteen months late , and we still stay under their rules and budgets for the rest of this year, so it’s not what I wanted or voted for. In the end I accepted the verdict of the election and the new Parliament, as there was no support for just leaving without signing the Withdrawal Agreement which I thought the better option. The delay has been financially penal, forcing the UK to contribute around £1bn a month for many more months. It has been corrosive of our politics, setting the last Parliament against the people. It undermined trust in many MPs and the Parliament as a whole prior to the election, as so many MPs broke their promises to respect the referendum and help get us out .

Mr Cameron promised he would send the Withdrawal letter promptly after the vote, but failed to do so. Mrs May let Parliament and courts delay our exit letter further. She then promised us an exit in March 2019, with a good deal or with no deal. She too broke her word and kept us in, under pressure from a hostile and broken Parliament.

The new Parliament has a clear majority to leave, and a clear majority that Leave means an exit from the single market and Customs Union as well as from the EU Treaty which we leave this week. That is all very positive. It is important now that the UK government is firm and strong, as well as polite and positive in its dealings  with the EU. There must be no sacrifice of our fish, no offers of more money, no acceptance of continuing ECJ jurisdiction. They need a Free Trade Agreement more than we do, and are more likely to grant one if we are firm. The UK has given far too much ground in past negotiations under Mrs May. The new team should table a Free Trade Agreement and explain we do not have to pay to trade.

The world teems with opportunities for us once we are fully out. Today is an important step along that road.

Yesterday saw the government announce the takeover of the Northern Rail franchise by the government from March. They tell me the aim is to introduce private sector capital and management again on a new basis. They warned against expecting too much from taking over the franchise.

Too many delays, cancelled services and old rolling stock have blighted the service. Many of the problems were entirely outside the control of the franchise holder, and will be no more under the control of the government franchise manager.

The Spanish company supplying new trains failed to meet deadlines for deliveries, forcing the franchise holder to battle on with old stock.

Network Rail, a nationalised business, failed to lengthen platforms in time to allow delivery and use of other new trains.

Some of the delays were caused by Network Rail failures with track and signals.

The franchise holder had problems with the new timetables in 2018 which were required of it from the rail authorities.

Various rail franchises have difficulties in securing Trade Union consent to new ways of working. There is no guarantee the Unions will change their mind over these disputes once they are dealing direct with a government franchise manager.

The bulk of the railway is already nationalised. Many of the delays throughout the network are caused by track or signal failures in the nationalised industry, or in a few cases by people and even vehicles intruding on track or disrupting operation of the system.

Nationalisation is no easy answer, and in the case of Northern it does not suddenly resolve the big issues over train delivery and driver availability that are part of the problem.

The UK needs to improve its supply chain for the many of the new trains the big surge in rail investment will require, and ensure most of the work is carried out in the UK.

The government wishes to crank up the scale and pace of new infrastructure investment in the UK. Many agree we need better railway links, more road capacity, more schools, hospitals and houses given the rising population, faster broadband and more water and electricity supply.

The government inherits a very expensive large railway project. The costs has spiralled before much work has been done on the ground. The eventual completion of the project linking northern cities to the southern and Midlands sections will not be complete until 2040. That is in five full Parliaments time. Who knows what our needs will then be, what technology will then be available for personal transport, and what the size of the population will then be.

HS2 is a reminder of what is wrong with UK infrastructure procurement. It takes far too long. It is highly contentious with the public. It is ruinously expensive. The governments that back it and take the flak in the early stages for it do not enjoy the benefits of its completion.

The Taxpayers Alliance has now drawn up a schedule of many transport projects we could afford if we cancelled the big line. Some of these are ready to go, and some are very popular in their localities. They are all much smaller than HS2 but taken together could provide a lot of improvement.

In order to speed up infrastructure investment there are some rules the government could adopt that would make it easier. Backing schemes that are strongly supported in an area would assist. Offering compensation as part of the plan to those who will be inconvenienced or adversely affected by the development would be a great help in speeding projects and reducing opposition. If someone’s house is close to a planned new rail line they should be offered enough money to be able to move if they don’t like the noise.

It is easier to put in broadband, water and power investments than to put in new roads or railway lines, as they have much less impact on people. They are much needed and can attract wholly or mainly private finance to pay for them. The government needs to expedite permissions and licences.

Last week the  EU’s effective political leader Mrs Merkel said she was worried by the big gap between the views of the establishment who see climate change as the gravest  threat facing us and the climate sceptics who do not. She asked for a proper dialogue between the two sides, presumably to search out some common ground or a way of respecting each other’s positions,.

As someone who is lobbied strenuously by all sides, I remind  the EU and governments that  climate change scepticism is not a single doctrine or united group of dissenters against current policy. It is not traditional right or left, and may  be motivated by many different considerations. So let us today consider some of the different forms of scepticism there is over this issue.

The first thing to grasp  is most climate sceptics do not deny the underlying science which rightly asserts that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Nor do most deny that if nothing else changes and mankind pumps out a lot of extra CO2 average temperatures will rise.

Some sceptics however argue that current climate models do not capture the complexities of greenhouse gases. Natural CO2 exceeds manmade and that could vary in either direction. Volcanic activity can have a big impact on world climate. A view needs to be taken on the stability of various carbon sinks, including  the oceans. Water vapour is a more common greenhouse gas than CO2 so models need to capture variations in water vapour concentrations.  That also gets the forecaster into wind directions and cloud formation, which we see have daily big impacts on the weather and over time can affect the climate , if new trends and patterns emerge. These sceptics either say you cannot gauge temperature direction from simply measuring manmade CO2 or go further and argue other trends may be or are offsetting manmade CO2.

Some sceptics point out that the sun  is the main  source of warming the earth, and that there needs to be more information about solar activity rates, as the sun itself produces variable output over time as well as from night and day and the seasons.

Some sceptics are unconvinced that there has been a linear increase in average temperatures during the long period of industrialising since say 1820. They raise issues about historical records, and about how you actually calculate an average world temperature, as well as pointing to periods in  the published records when temperatures did not rise.

Other sceptics accept the predictions that manmade CO2 will take temperatures higher whatever the other forces do. They ask whether it is not wiser and cheaper  to spend money on adaptations where warming has adverse consequences rather than trying  to wean China and the USA off fossil fuels in  time to meet the needs of carbon reduction to head off the problem.

So I say to Mrs  Merkel she needs to engage her experts and the EU in a new dialogue which examines these various strands of sceptic thinking and deals with them sensibly, rather than castigating anyone who asks questions. A lot of people are in the middle on  this issue, seeking better information and guidance on the nature and scale of the threat. They are more likely to be persuaded  by well informed people with knowledge and balance than by angry politicians asserting you either accept their version or are some kind of denier of the truth.

I voted against HS2 when the decision in principle was made by Parliament. I did so because the business case for it was very weak. The forecasts of likely passenger numbers and revenues looked far too high. The negative impact on revenues and traveller numbers on the competing routes was not taken very seriously. The main argument that we need to get to Birmingham faster changed into an argument that we needed more capacity to get to Birmingham, which the figures did not seem to justify.

I was on the losing side, and accepted defeat with a good grace. I accepted thereafter government and Parliament wanted it to go ahead.

Now the government is holding a genuine review. The immediate cause is the massive escalation in projected costs compared with the figures Parliament used to make the original decision. There is also substantial delay in delivering HS2 in the north, which was meant to be the main reason for the scheme. This gives me the opportunity to make a case again for cancellation.

The business case has clearly got a lot worse, as the capital cost is so much bigger. There is no way that the nation can earn a decent return on such a huge investment, given the likely passenger numbers and fare revenue possible on this new railway and the impact on the competing railways. It points to more subsidy and more losses.

Today though I wish to engage with the political argument that this railway is a totem of commitment to the development of the north and to fairer capital spending around the country, and must not therefore be stopped.

The irony is that for the next few years if we continue  there will be massive capital spending in London on remodelling a main station and in London and the Home Counties as money is spent on providing a tunnel out of the city to limit the environmental damage.  HS2 to Birmingham will be yet another major investment project where most of the money is spent in London and the south east, yet it is a project that the people closest to  in London and the south east vehemently oppose.

HS2 will do nothing to ease congestion in London and the Home counties or to make it easer for people to get to work from outer London or Buckinghamshire. So it will be a big investment in the south east that is not helping the south east.

Meanwhile northern commuters will be frustrated that their journeys are still made difficult by old trains and too little capacity. HS2 unites a lot of people in both north and south saying this is not the right project. We all want better trains, with more capacity into the cities. HS2 does not provide that in ways most people want. If we cancel we could have a big boost to northern rail spending in ways that do  directly help, and still save money overall.

I will soon be submitting some thoughts to the government on possible constitutional reform.

The last Parliament submitted our constitution to a battering, as an alliance of MPs from all the Opposition parties aided by a few Conservatives who subsequently left the party worked with the Speaker and the law courts to delay or prevent Brexit. In acting in this way they opposed the decision of the majority in the referendum which most of them had previously pledged to honour. The Labour and former Conservative ones  also reneged on or redefined their promise to see Brexit through, made to win the 2017 election.

The main issues that arise include:

Fixed Term Parliament Act

This became a major problem, preventing a government from  holding an early election to resolve the tensions Parliament could not sort out. The Act also showed it was eventually meaningless, as we held three elections in four years under a law designed to limit elections to once every five years.

It should be repealed, leaving the power to hold an election at any time up to 5 years in the hands of the majority in the Commons. The Commons needs to have this option, as it also has the option of expressing or withdrawing confidence in any given government.

Powers of the courts to settle political and Parliamentary issues

The decision of the Supreme Court to delay Brexit by nine months  to require an Act of Parliament prior to sending  a letter necessitated by the referendum result was unhelpful and very costly to the country.

The decision of the Supreme Court to prevent a prorogation of Parliament which was only slightly longer than the normal September recess was seen by many as  a partisan decision as it was designed to allow those who wanted to stop Brexit more time to debate and vote on it.

These two decisions were damaging to our constitution. It is most important most people more of the time believe in the impartiality of the court system and believe the judgements are fair and reasonable.  Major issues of constitutional significance need to be decided by Parliament so both sides can put their case and the decision is made by majority vote, reflecting the votes of the people in a previous election.

These decisions were seen by many Brexiteers as being decisions to delay or prevent Brexit, however good the legal reasoning . It would have been better if the Supreme court had said in both cases they were not matters for a court but matters for Parliament to resolve, or a for a General election to settle.

The respective roles of  government, Parliament and courts in prerogative matters needs clarifying, with more protection of the courts by removing their competence in matters relating to how Parliament conducts its business or how government with Parliament  undertakes its Treaty roles and international negotiations.