Britain lost the third European War of the 21st century. We have paid the price for 47 years and now we must continue to pay a price for the “freedoms” we have negotiated as we leave the EU. The Withdrawal Agreement and the so called Free Trade Agreement are largely unacceptable to a free trading sovereign nation – but the UK has not been free or democratic or sovereign for decades and those who have been defeated cannot expect a just settlement in the peace treaty! Just as the German reparations of the 1920s were renegotiated and Germany got more freedom to trade (using the freedom to build up in the 1930s its economy and armaments) so the UK can now trade more freely with the rest of the world (with which we have a trade surplus) and restore the businesses and trade which EU domination gravely diminished.
The revised terms of reparations did not please Germany but they got down to restoring their position of economic and political power. Britain must now do the same – even though the terms of this Brexit Free Trade Agreement are not acceptable in the long run. Just as Germany circumvented restrictions, broke treaties and re-occupied land so Britain must be ruthless in building up its strength in the world so that we can increasingly ignore the EU (already a declining force in world economic power) and its unacceptable restrictions on our democratic and economic sovereignty – even after we have left.
This situation arises out of the 47 year betrayal of our country and people by a corrupted political class. They must never be forgiven. We may have enemies without but the real disaster was the fifth column within – especially large elements in the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties! with only the Conservative Party now redeeming itself with Brexit.
No historical agreement or treaty must be allowed to inhibit us in this process. Those who stole our land, our constitution and our democracy as well as our borders and international waters must be gradually removed from all these pillars of our Nationism. http://freenations.net/nationism-not-nationalism/ . Unlike Weimar and Nazi Germany we do not seek nationalistic triumph but only freedom, democratic sovereignty and free trade with the other 160 nations of the world. Democratic Sovereignty and prosperity are not divisible.
We condemn those who see free trade as conditional on the loss of freedom and democracy – the full horrors of which philosophy characterise the EU’s relations and are now seen in their full implications as we leave. It will be a long haul, made all the worse by the treacherous Theresa May Withdrawal Agreement (only partly mitigated by the revised Johnson version).
It is no surprise that most Remainers will not oppose the “Deal”. Even the CBI (a major appeaser of Nazi Germany in the 1930s) having opposed Brexit vehemently now say in the words of its Director General Tony Danker that the trade agreement came as a “huge relief to British business” and:
‘The UK has a bright future outside the European Union and with a deal secured we can begin our new chapter on firmer ground,’
Perhaps the CBI sees that there are far too many ways in which the continued path to freedom can be reversed by a political and governmental class without principles and with a corporate mass media willing to censor objections and call imprisonment “freedom”.
YOUR CANNOT NEGOTIATE WITH YOUR GAOLER
After nearly 50 years of debilitating membership of a continental corporatist system – see my article http://freenations.net/46-years-of-destructive-eu-membership/ the UK started to negotiate our exit! Such was the extent of the imprisonment that we had to negotiate with our prison wardens!
But as I pointed out 4 years ago you cannot negotiate your future freedom with those who control you. First they demand (as the EU did) what you will PAY them to open the door of the prison. That is how the Withdrawal Agreement arose. The EU refused to negotiate any trade deals until the UK had signed up to massive future payments (some lasting until 2064) and continued controls.
Then the “Free Trade Deal” which is now complete, again with obligations and potential tariffs and punishments which no other EU trade deal (eg with Australia, Japan or Canada) contain. And all to facilitate the massive export surplus the EU enjoys with the UK in goods. The UK’s strength is in financial and other business services – but the EU market has long been rigged against us and there could actually be more restrictions on services trade after this deal. The EU and in particular Paris want to attack London’s international pre-eminence in financial services.
THE BRITISH CONSUMER MUST MITIGATE THE LOSSES
So much value to the UK has been lost in this agreement and so much continued trade profit for EU exporters has been enabled by it that the UK can only re-coup some of these losses in the short term by a consumer boycott of EU exports.
The biggest exports – for which substitutes can always be found in the USA, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and of course in the UK – are German and French cars, white goods and wine.
So don’t buy Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Renault or Citroen cars. Don’t buy Rhine wines, Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy or Alsace wines. Don’t buy AEG or Miele white goods.
Buy Australian and New Zealand or South American wines. Buy British or Korean freezers and ovens and Japanese and Korean cars or Jaguar Land Rover.
The sooner we wean ourselves (even quicker than we are already) off EU imports the stronger we will become and the more likely we can assert ourselves against the ruthless exploitation of our economy, land, seas and people which is still evident even in this naively termed “Free Trade Agreement”
THE TRADE DEAL
I am sure that the Trade Deal (all 1200 plus pages) is unacceptable to a sovereign democratic country. So much has been traded – in restrictions, regulations and in fishing grounds – in order to have access to the EU’s imperialist “Single Market” (in which the UK makes a large annual balance of payments loss).
But it is at least a highly flexible commitment – on both sides. There is nothing like the convoluted Article 50 when we were EU members. Article 181 makes clear that:
Either the UK or EU may decide to terminate the Agreement with 12 months’ notice. This overall termination clause is without prejudice to other termination clauses in the Agreement; certain areas of cooperation have bespoke termination clauses, meaning that either Party can decide to cease cooperation in these areas without the whole agreement being terminated.
Individual areas of commitment by the UK like fishing can be terminated. And under a forceful sovereigntist British leader the level playing field terms can be used by the UK against the EU. As David Davis MP points out here: https://www.feedspot.com/fe/4102368?hash=feed/f_4102368/article/6701943546?dd=4311523366351291 inferior social support and workers’ rights in Eastern Europe (to which many former UK based factories have migrated with the help of EU grants) do not represent a “level playing field” for British industry!
But I started this article with the Treaty of Versailles analogy because I don’t think we can AT THIS STAGE do much about it in legal and economic terms.
But that does not mean we are trapped, permanently dependent on restrictions and obedience to the continental power. The trade agreement actually permits further independence, the complete take back of our territorial waters and the withdrawal from EU regulation and controls – provided we accept the negative economic and trading consequences.
But after several years of freedom to produce outside the EU straightjacket and form our traditional trading relations with the USA, the Commonwealth and South East Asia (63 trade deals have so far been signed) we will be strong enough to accept those costs (if a weakened EU still wants to impose them) – in exchange for better returns elsewhere.
AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL END
It is ironic but all too typical of our 47 year relationship with the EU that even the putative “final” ending of the affair should be unconstitutional. The disgracefully short period for analysis of this gigantic Agreement with its 800 pages of annexes has been restricted to a few days over Christmas – a political as well as a religious blasphemy!
The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (CRaG) 2010 states that:
“all treaties … that are subject to ratification, acceptance, approval, the mutual notification of completion of procedures, or to which the UK intends to accede, cannot be ratified unless they have been laid by a minister of the Crown before Parliament for 21 sitting days without either House having resolved that it should not be ratified.”
So the government will have to pass another Act to override the above restrictions. While the British Parliament will have this impossibly short time to consider the FTA the European Parliament will have several weeks! How typical.
