One of the most remarkable opinion polls ever published showed that (in voting intentions for a general election the brand new Brexit Party has 24% to the Tories’ 22%. Labour was on 29%. Of course in the Euro-election poll the Brexit Party does even better (35%) – 11% more than the Labour and Tory vote combined! Equally remarkable is the collapse of Labour in Wales – down 24 points to 25% just ahead of the Brexit Party on 23% and the Tories down 20 to 17%.
But that tipping point of the Brexit party actually outpolling the Conservative Party must terrify every Tory MP. For there comes a point when the once “major” party becomes a minor party and the first past the post electoral system starts to wipe them out.
With a buffoonish embarrassment for a Prime Minister who manages to attack every Conservative principle (family, marriage, safeguarding children, parliamentary democracy, nationhood, constitutionalism, the rule of law and democratic sovereignty, immigration control, personal capital, property rights) and a country which is becoming an international laughing stock, the party she “leads” (although never elected to do so) fecklessly fails to throw her out.
HAMMOND GOES MAD
May’s arch Remainer and City Corporatist Philip Hammond (whose catastrophic ministerial career has qualified him to be Chancellor of the Exchequer) sees the world upside down when he says:
“To advocate for (sic – can’t even speak English) no deal is to hijack the result of the referendum, and in doing so, knowingly to inflict damage on our economy and our living standards……….there is no mandate for a no-deal exit”
There is no mandate for anything but a straight, clean leave (what Hammond calls “no deal”) to restore our democratic sovereignty and independence in the trading world. It is precisely because we would “become a nation once again” that Hammond rejects it.
Since May’s deal contains no trade agreement it is a REAL “no deal”. Since it binds us to an EU from which only the EU can agree to let us leave it contradicts the Referendum result. And since it nevertheless costs us £39bn plus for nothing it really does “hijack the result of the referendum”
GENERAL ELECTION
No wonder neither Labour nor the Tories are keen on a general election (and effectively both have to agree to overcome the hurdle of a super majority to hold one).
The Minister Matthew Hancock says that a general election would get in the way of Brexit! But of course it is Parliament which is blocking Brexit and the best solution is to change the members of parliament to make them implement the will of the people. And the solution to that is a general election.
May – as usual living in her dreamworld – said (in the most embarrassing launch of an election campaign ever) that “Only the Tory Party can deliver Brexit” when what she wants to deliver is not Brexit at all.
Jeremy Corbyn (attending the same asylum as May) says Labour “can unite the country” when it cannot unite itself. The Labour Party in Parliament is eurofanatically Remain but 35 of the 45 marginal seats Labour need to win an election are Leave voting.
EU DESTROYS BRITISH STEEL
British Steel with sites in Scunthorpe, North Yorkshire and Cumberland is seeking a £75m loan from the British government. Orders from the collapsing Eurozone have fallen and the company has been liable for a £100m payment under the European Union’s Carbon Trading Scheme. In addition US tariffs – in response to certain EU countries subsidising their steel production – have been applied at 25%. British steel sells 7% of its production to the USA so – BECAUSE WE ARE IN THE EU – US tariffs hit us as well. Had we left by now (as both major parties promised in their 2017 manifestos) we could have done a separate deal with Donald Trump to which he has been willing to commit.
So it is not Brexit but the lack of Brexit which is crippling them.
The British Steel industry has suffered for decades from unfair subsidies for French, Spanish, German and Italian steel production. (I have a family member whose professional life in the steel industry was destroyed by subsidies after the EU broke its promise to the UK Government). Today the UK produces only 735,000 tonnes while Germany produces 3.675m tonnes, Italy 2.2m tonnes and France 1.38m tonnes. Not a great return for 46 years membership of the EU.
And if the UK Government wants to take over British Steel or provide finance it has to conform to EU rules which usually prevent such aid.
WHILE POLITICIANS FAIL THE PEOPLE SUCCEED
It is always the economy which shows what the people (as opposed to their politicians) can do. The British people’s economy is doing well – despite the catastrophic conduct of Brexit and the economy.
In the UK in 2018 there were 273,000 working days lost due to labour disputes, the sixth-lowest annual total since records began in 1891. (The education sector accounted for 66% of all working days lost, due mainly to disputes involving employees of universities.) The number of working days lost in the public sector (26,000) was the lowest since records for public sector strikes began in 1996.
The UK unemployment rate dropped to 3.8% in the January to March quarter of 2019 – it has not been lower since October to December 1974. Employment at 76.1% is the highest on record and there are 846,000 vacancies – obviously too many for Jeremy Corbyn who wants to spend over £200bn nationalising public utilities and introducing Venezuelan economics!
GERMAN EUROPE IN TROUBLE
It is ironic that the (now German owned) Thomas Cook should be “worthless” – a bellwether of the loss of trade between the UK and the EU thanks to EU failure to agree free trade. As the East Europeans found out you cannot trade with German Europe unless you surrender your sovereignty! The EU always negotiates with a gun to the head of their trade partners – as they are doing now with the UK.
“First you pay us £39bn and surrender full independence and join a customs union then we TALK about a free trade agreement”
With unashamed hypocrisy the EU Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom has said she will not negotiate trade with the USA “under threats”!! And the EU refuses point blank to negotiate trade in agricultural produce – because of course the EU market in agriculture is the most subsidised and distorted in the world.
Dr Lars Feld, one of the German Council of Economic Experts has warned of another Eurozone crisis. Germany expects expansion of 0.5% this year, down from 1.8% just a few months ago as German industry suffers from lower demand in China, a serious banking crisis involving Germany’s biggest banks and car emission scandals.
The German political parties seem stuck in a time warp where the traditionally successful German industries are losing their prominence in the world economy and all they can think of is government “support” for them.
Dr Feld rightly worries about the banking crisis in Italy where national indebtedness is £2 trillion, banks are in crisis and the bank and Government finances are intimately connected. The EU and the Italian Government are in perpetual conflict over the country’s financial deficits and Italy is entering recession for the third time in a decade as the Euro destroys its economy and the EU destroys its democratic sovereignty.
In an extraordinary European wide poll fewer than one third of EU citizens had money left open at the end of the month for discretionary expenditure. Only in Sweden and Denmark (WHICH ARE NOT IN THE EURO) does the percentage reach anywhere near 50%.
No wonder that half of EU citizens think the EU will collapse in the next 10-20 years. In France those thinking that reached 58%. More than a third of voters in France and Poland even thought a war was possible!
