It has been a disastrous week or two for EU negotiator Barnier, Tony Blair, the Italian eurofanatics, the Labour Party and – we hope – Ryanair. Theresa May’s ludicrous “transition period” will make the UK powerless. Italian youth voted 68% for anti EU parties. Will Italy remaining and obstructing break the EU?
The stunning rejection of the EU by Italians voters saw 60% of voters supporting anti EU parties and the even more ominous figure of 68% of Italian youth voting against the EU. Not surprising given the decades long obscene levels of youth unemployment – thanks to the ‘gift” of the Euro. Both left and right wings seem intent on pursuing policies which will destroy the Euro from within. The threats are credible given that Italy is a net contributor to the EU budget and an economy 9 nine times larger than Greece.
Meanwhile the UK flourishes. For the first time since 2001 the UK has a budget surplus (of £3.8bn) on CURRENT spending – that is ignoring capital costs. UK exports rose 11.5% to £625.9bn in the past year, with service exports up 10.1% and goods exports up 12.6%.
The UK manufacturing sector recorded its ninth consecutive month of growth – the longest expansion since records began in 1968 and the UK’s trade deficit shrank by from £41.6bn to £28.8bn, a fall of over 30% in a year.
THE EU’S PICK AND MIX HYPOCRISY
Because the EU negotiator Michel Barnier has indulged in politics rather than rational negotiation he is becoming a bit desperate and a bit of a joke. As we see below he has less and less support from EU countries and his hypocrisy about Britain’s “cherry picking” the parts of the EU we want is grotesque. Apparently it is fine for the EU to cherry pick our Universities, Intelligence services and British fish and reject a trade deal in services. That takes cherry picking to a new level.
Last week Barnier was shown to be the biggest liar and hypocrite of all time when David Davis exposed him as having pursued just such a deal in financial services with the the USA when they sought a deal under the Trans-Atlantic Trade partnership.
Apparently the person who proposed “regulatory co-operation” on financial services as part of the EU-US free trade negotiations was Michel Barnier himself!!
Even Chancellor Hammond rightly observed that if the EU could seek a completely new financials services trade deal with the USA it could certainly do so with the UK where much regulatory alignment already exists.
MAY’S DANGEROUS “TRANSITION”
Although Theresa May has rightly sought to call the period between March 2019 and December 2020 an “implementation” period it is “transition” which has held sway.
But whether transition or implementation the logic was for a gradual phasing out of obligations and privileges in equal measure. And yet the UK seems to be going to lose all our powers (like Commissioners and MEPs and voting rights) in March 2019 but retain all our obligations (like obedience to the European Court and massive budget contributions and inability to make trade deals) until December 2020.
A Financial Times reporter recently wrote: “A key figure in the Elysée Palace recently shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of Gallic disbelief when he described to me what the transition period would mean for the UK. “Do they not realise how powerless they will be? he asked.”
No democrat and surely no British Parliament could accept the situation of “taxation without representation” which seems to be on offer.
LABOUR PARTY DISASTERS
This was a disastrous week for the British Labour Party. The Guido Fawkes blog leaked the draft of a Labour press release which showed the Labour Party collaborating with the EU. Tony Blair’s Office held an opinion poll on whether to “leave at whatever cost” or “Stay and re-think”. Unfortunately for the Blairite eurofanatics the vote was 70% to “leave at whatever cost”.
Needless to say Jeremy Corbyn’s idea of accepting an EU Customs Union – with continuing high tariffs on food, clothing, cars and raw materials (which so affect the poor) has been rejected by nearly two thirds of the British people in an opinion poll! It was of course his own Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade who had said any customs union would stop the UK “making our own independent trade agreements with our five largest export markets outside the EU”. But common sense is the enemy of the Corbyn Labour party!
All examples of how the corporatists of left and and right who have destroyed the UK constitutionally and economically are now held in utter contempt by the British people who are no longer putty in the hands of the “established” parties!
OUR FRIENDS AND ENEMIES IN THE EU
Because we are engaged in critical talks about the future of our country, parliament and economy we tend to concentrate on problems thus exaggerating our enemies and forgeting our friends. In the EU, as the bungler Barnier struts his stage, we are gathering friends for Brexit.
An EU “Brexit Trade Note” meant for Diplomats only was exposed by the Sun newspaper in which a Canada Style trade deal is regarded as inadequate and a deal based on the Trans Atlantic Trade Partnership negotiations which were proposed (but not signed) with the USA.
After Matteo Salvini’s League party won 17% of the vote in Italy he said:
“Great Britain is a friendly country with a long tradition of trading with Italy. You [the UK] made a free choice with Brexit and I very much hope that it will be possible to maintain completely open trade with the EU without any penalties.”
And Luigi di Maio, the leader of the Italian Five Star Party which won 32% of the vote to top the poll in Italy warned Brussels:
“We should not try to punish the British people for choosing Brexit. […] It makes no sense whatsoever for the EU to adopt a policy of revenge over Brexit.”
BOYCOTT RYANAIR AND LUFTHANSA!
Ryanair’s chief executive showed his bigotry and ignorance by saying that after Brexit the British are “no longer going to have cheap holidays” and he would ground his planes to persuade voters to “rethink” Brexit. To which EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren, interrupted him to say: “If you start grounding your planes, I’m flying.”
Only a moron like O’Leary would not know of the fantastic cheap holidays and flights ushered in by “Hippy Travel” and other companies years before the UK ever joined the EU! And only a first class euro-bigot would think of grounding his own planes to teach the Brexit British a lesson.
Not to be outdone in the anti British stakes the German boss of Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr, said flight disruption was one of the ways the airline industry could show the Brits the full consequences of the Leave vote and “that might be a good thing”.
OUR EU BREXIT FRIENDS
But we also have many German friends in our Brexit battle. Dr Alice Weidel, the German AfD surge leader said in Parliament:
“The EU wants to make an example of Great Britain, a punishment beyond any economic or political reason. This is not how one treats a European partner……..the recession that was predicted ahead of the referendum did not happen! The British economy has showed growth.
“Now Brussels, Paris and Berlin are afraid that others could follow, that other states in Europe could take back their sovereignty.
“By supporting these plans of the ostracism of Germany’s biggest trading partner in the EU you are taking free trade and competition as a hostage and making a failed EU ideology.
“The good trading relationship with Great Britain and the rest of the continent have to be maintained – otherwise Europe will be at a disadvantage in global trade.”
Another German – but a British MP Gisela Stuart – warned that in the Transition period
“Brussels would have an incentive to give the UK a bad trade deal. This would mean that for as long as Brussels refused to offer an adequate trade deal, the UK would be faced with little choice other than to prolong the transition phase and continue to pay billions into the EU budget and be subject to EU law. This would be permanent purgatory, EU-style.”
And of course the German MEP Hans Olaf said that “Britain, the only country with common sense, is leaving the EU” and that “Brexit will hurt the EU more than the UK”.
Even as the aggressive eurofanatic President Macron attacks any attempt to compromise with Britain other French voices ring out. Xavier Bertrand President of Hauts-de France region “We should not punish the British”. His region is home to France’s largest passenger and fishing ports and third largest cargo centre!
CHURCH OF ENGLAND TURNS EURO-SCEPTIC?
In Durham Cathedral a commemoration of the End of the First World War contained the following sentence which is completely at odds with UK membership of the European Union:
“Governments are obligated to defend the freedom and self determination of their own people and respect and honour those of other nations”.
That is indeed the longstanding principle of the United Nations – but the Church of England has for decades pursued the end of the self determination of the people of Britain and other European Nations on the altar of the European Union – where nationhood and self determination of nations are anathema! But Miracles can happen it seems!
