BBC editorial department needs to get its act together.

Here we go again.  Fake news from the BBC.  Todays headline Giant M20 Operation Brock lorry park 'could last years'. There it is again, contained in quotation marks.  But quotation marks don't make it any truer.  But to continue, yes, "a giant 13-mile lorry park on the M20 could last for years in a no-deal Brexit situation", they say a council has warned.  

Well that might be true if there was no deal.   But of course, there actually is no such thing as NO DEAL.  There is only currently No Deal with the EU.  There is another deal already on the table.  All the EU needs to do is match it.  Not that the BBC reports that either.   

Where do they get this stuff from?  And more importantly, is the editorial department of the BBC now so poor it can’t properly cover a story?   For example, did they do comparisons with other nations that don’t have a deal with the EU?  I see no such queues on the border of Switzerland into Italy or France or Germany.  I see no such queues on the border of Norway and Sweden or Finland. And no such queues in goods flowing into the EU from the USA, Japan, Australia, and, well, from anywhere actually.  

So why the potential queues in the UK?  Good question.  Ask the scaremongering BBC to go and do a bit of digging and it will find that nations that do trade either with a deal with EU or through WTO, there are no queues.  To accuse the BBC of treachery might be a bit much.  But you have to wonder why they are giving prominence to a story that is clearly fake news.

Mrs May's proposal is worse than Remaining. It's Remaining, but with no voice.

Who said this?  “That means taking control of our own affairs, as those who voted in their millions to leave the European Union demanded we must. So we will take back control of our laws and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain. Leaving the European Union will mean that our laws will be made in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. And those laws will be interpreted by judges not in Luxembourg but in courts across this country.”   

This passage in the Conservative Manifesto was drawn from a fuller passage in the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech on 17 January 2017.   

Sounds clear.  Unambiguous.  No room for doubt, or manoeuvre.   But the Chequers agreement says totally the opposite.  According to Martin Howe, QC, “we will not have truly left the European Union if we are not in control of our own laws.”  And he should know, being one of the foremost lawyers of his generation when it come to EU law.  You can read Martin Howes report in full.  And, as he clearly points out, we won’t be in control of our laws if the ECJ has rule over us.  This is spelt out starkly in a paper he and his colleagues have written about the implications of what Mrs May has proposed in her Chequers dogs breakfast.  It’s a dogs breakfast because it is self-contradictory, and certainly contradicts the pledges given by Mrs May at the general election.  

My question is, what are democrats, of both the Leave and Remain camps who have accepted the democratic wishes of the people, supposed to do when we find the people elected on a manifesto, both Conservative and Labour, ignore it and do the exact opposite?    

Some more excitable nations would get out on the streets and try to bring down the government.  But us, no, we seem to accept that deception is part and parcel of how Mrs May and Olly Robbins are now ruling us.  And we must ask, what’s the point of Her Majesties Opposition if it connives with all of this?  Labour should be thoroughly ashamed of their behaviour thus far.

And to finish, who said this?  “O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!” Sir Walter Scott, the Scottish historical novelist, playwright, poet and historian.

He may have died in 1832, but his words couldn't be more contemporary.

Humiliation number three.

“The EU cannot and the EU will not delegate the application of its customs policy, of its rules, VAT and excise duty collections to a non-member who would not be subject to the EU’s governance structures,” Mr Barnier said after meeting the new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab in Brussels following the latest week of Brexit negotiations.  

Basically, Mr Barnier shooting down Mrs May's Brexit Chequers customs plan.

The news from the BBC.

Buried in News:Cambridgeshire there was an interesting little news snippet yesterday.  I never saw it on the tv version of its news.  Or hear it on any of their radio channels.  Or maybe I missed it.

Actually it is, or should be, a major news story because the subject of the story is a Labour MP who has been charged with perverting the course of justice.  Same as what Vicky Price, the former wife of Chris Huhne, ended up being sentenced to eight months at Her Majesty’s pleasure for, though she only served nine weeks. 

But this story, it is buried away.  Not given prominence.  Passed unnoticed if you were relying on the BBC for all you need to know.   

Odd that, given the prominence the BBC gives to non-news stories and stories about people who haven't been  questioned, arrested, never mind charged.

Disaster? Not according to the people who know.

One does wonder where some Remainers get their thinking from.  They keep talking about how trade will suffer.  There will be queues at the customs.  It will be disaster.  

Really?  I was reading of owner an international freight forwarder that has been in business for 35 years.  He can see absolutely no reason whatsoever why trucks and container traffic cannot flow freely between the UK and our EU neighbours under World Trade Organisation rules.   

Why? Simple really, if Remainers would care to check it out.  All that an exporter or importer not familiar with international trading needs is a little advice at the outset from a customs broker.  At a documentation cost of around £40 per consignment their products will just go sailing through. No queues, no problems, no panic at the ports.   

So next time a Remainer like Sir John Major or any of the other Project Fear doom-mongers want to know how it’s done, there’s your answer.

The man who endorses Walkers crisps doesn’t speak for a majority of the nation.

Something is very wrong at the BBC.  Put aside the Sir Cliff story, and yes, the BBC were threatening to use licence payers money to launch an appeal on the spurious view that the judges ruling damages freedom of speech, they clearly are failing to define and understand what news is.   

Greece.  The fires that have killed possibly hundreds.  That’s news.  Gary Lineker backs Brexit referendum campaign.  That is not news.  But you can find it here.  Prominent on the BBC web site.   

It’s as if Mr Linekers view is more important than someone with a different view.  It’s as if his view outweighs the majority that voted in favour of Leave.  He says Brexit feels like it is "going very wrong indeed".  On that he is right.  But not for the reasons he would espouse.  It is people like him that are making it go very wrong.  Constantly trying to undermine democracy.  Constantly seeking to slow down or halt the process.  He thinks he seems to have a trump card over the majority of TV licence fee payers who voted to leave and pay for his £1.75million salary.  And his other work, Lineker's BT salary has not been publicly disclosed but he is thought to “earn” around £1m per year for his endorsement with Walkers crisp giant.   

He uses his fame to virtual signal like this and be given coverage on the same BBC that pays him.  If the BBC is going to continue its push against the wishes of the people of the UK as expressed in a free and fair referendum, those who set its policy need to move on and people who truly represent the nation move in. 

It was Alistair Campbell who asked the gathering of the great and good of television, "how many of you voted to leave the EU?”  No one in the room raised a hand.  Hardly representative of the people of the nation they say they serve.

Humiliation number two.

Poor Dominic Raab.  Two humiliations in the space of a week.  First by Mr Barnier.  The second by Mrs May.    

Labour's Shadow Brexit Minister Jenny Chapman said: "Dominic Raab has been sidelined by the prime minister before he has even had the chance to get his feet under the table."  And she is right.

Why doesn’t he just hand his cards in now.  At least he would be resigning with dignity. And respect.

Don't forget.......

If you receive this blog on email, you can always see the full version, pictures, videos and all, at A view from the doorstep.  

Enjoy!

Thank you Donald Tusk for the solution to the UK leaving the EU.

It’s weird.  What was Mr May on when running through wheat fields in her youth?   Is she still on it?   Can't she see what everyone else can see?  The solution to leaving the EU is so simple and Donald Tusk has generously supplied the key.

It is quite extraordinary that Donald Tusk offers the UK the Canada ++ trade deal that the UK has being saying it wants, but the UK then rejects it suggesting instead a total Chequers dog's breakfast of a sort of half in half out mess.   Or the Japan deal.  Ok, we actually could go a lot further than Canada ++ or Japan, but in practise neither would be a bad deal.  Better arguably even perhaps than WTO, in that it would be bespoke, though WTO would have other benefits.  But much better than what’s going on now on offer from the Chequers meeting. It’s insane.   What’s Mrs May on about? Has she lost it?    

A good friend of mine runs a very successful business, a company trading with customers in every EU country and in about another hundred other counties around the world and I draw on his vast expereince in this blog.  He is looking for simplicity in arrangements and instead Chequers offers complexity.   And massive bureaucracy. Seventy percent of the sales his company make are exports with incidentally the US being his biggest single market, where they deliver on a next day basis customs cleared. Easy!   

So Mrs May, or would that be Olly Robbins, how about the following simple solution my friend argues for which would allow the UK to take up Donald Tusk's offer, allow for frictionless trade and also address the misplaced anxiety of the Irish Border which really is a total red herring.   A blanket free trade deal, as is now agreed between the EU and Japan, means that there will be no tariffs for customs to collect on physical trade between the EU and UK except on items that carry UK Excise Duty such as alcohol and cigarettes.  

Which is exactly the situation at present, as duty is payable on them on import or on release from bond into the UK market.    

Coupled with this how about utilising the current VAT and Intrastat infrastructure that governs trade between EU states, though we would not be part of the EU there is absolutely nothing to stop us continuing to use it for all non-services trade with the EU.   Only political posturing would stop it.   

The present system works as follows: 

• VAT is not levied on exports at all.     
• However VAT is paid on imports into the UK and is either paid directly to HMRC on those from outside the EU or via a trader's VAT return on imports from suppliers in other EU countries.   
• If the value of imports from the EU exceed £1.5 million per annum the trader also declares via an Intrastat declaration in detail on a monthly basis the commodities imported and their value.  
• Though there is no VAT charged on Exports to customers in EU countries, all VAT registered traders exporting to customers in the EU have to submit an EU sales list every month showing the VAT number of the EU customer and the value of the goods shipped to them.    
• If exporting more than £250,000 worth per annum to customers in the EU then a monthly Intrastat form is submitted to HMRC detailing the commodities shipped, their value, the country to which they were shipped and the order reference.   

Whilst my friend thinks it would be good to be rid of Intrastat as part of Brexit utilisation of it as it or even a slightly modified version of it would be a small price to pay to allow the UK to accept the Tusk offer, maintain an open border on the island of Ireland and keep trade with the EU relatively simple and frictionless.    

The other benefit of adopting this system is that as we sign new FTAs with other countries it would be possible to use the same system with them and thereby reduce transaction costs!  There are some that will wonder as to how we might prevent EU traders avoiding EU tariffs by shipping through the UK, for almost all goods it would be more expensive for them to do this than pay higher EU tariffs.   For situations where it may be worth doing so the importing trader always runs the risk of his import being seized and thereby losing the full value and his reputation.   

There is another argument that differences between the two regimes on the island of Ireland will be exploited by smugglers.  But this ignores the fact that at present there are two currencies, tax regimes, two Agricultural support systems, two social security systems and everyone living around the border is involved in one way or another in "smuggling" but as both sides of the border are in the EU it is at present referred to as competition!    

Surely part of the problem is the civil service.  Well meaning they no doubt are, but perhaps if they  apply rather more of the 'Can do' attitude that UK small business is famed for rather than the pathetic declinist groupthink that seems to be emanating from the civil service, we would be better served.
 
The thing is, small businesses already trade under WTO (indeed 60% of UK trade is under WTO already) so small businesses are well used to trading internationally.

The danger of lazy identity politics.

You will have heard the term identity politics in recent days. But it’s nothing new.  It’s been around for a long long time.  Put simply, it seeks to stereotype people.  For example, we think of how we label the Travelling community. Travellers, we label them as gypsies.  They are always up to no good we are told.  So they become petty thieves.  And with that the demonising is set.  And forever the travelling community are painted as less good human beings.   

Think about it for more than a Nano second.  You see echoes of the German of the 1930s.  Jews, intellectuals, Travellers and many other identifiable groups.  They are all in some way not good enough for society.  The consequences of that in German were, of course, horrific.   

It’s a phenomenon that Ben Cobley, a journalist and former Labour Party activist, has seen rise again in the Remain campaign.  Everything is simple.  You are either on the right or wrong side of the line.  Just take the logic a wee bit further, you are good or evil.   So, in his book, The Tribe, The Liberal Left and the System of Diversity, he contends Remain has set out to create negative associations towards those on the Leave side.  Subtle as a flying brick they suggest moral, virtuous aspect to those who voted Remain.  So it’s simple.  Remainers Good.  Leavers Bad.  No prizes for remembering which work of literature has that kind of analogy.  You end up with the spectacle of “if you disagree with me you must be racist”.  No sense of irony there in the accusers voice.   

So we have the negative politicisation of Brexit as racist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic and even sexist and homophobic, creating negative associations towards those on the Leave side.  Take Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable.  Who can forget his remarkable view of Brexiters as “white, male, middle-aged”, and said that Leave voters are nostalgic for an imperial past and should be ignored because of their age.  Or, Pat Glass, then a Labour MP, a month before the referendum, told a party rally,  “Go and speak to your mother, your grandmother. Don’t speak to your grandfather, we know the problem are older white men.”   Are either of these two racist?  Of course they are not.  But were they straying into identity politics?  Perhaps they didn’t realise they were or intend to do so but they were.  And in doing so endorsed the stereotype being created of the typical Brexit voter as a white-skinned ethnically English older man.    

Such stereotyping is just plain lazy.  It’s also very dangerous.  Which is why Remainers must stop the negative campaigning and stereotyping of all Leavers are bad.  For it is those who are doing the stereotyping that are displaying the ‘parochial’, ‘ignorant’, ‘narrow-minded’, ‘uneducated’ as well as ‘bigoted’, ‘xenophobic’, ‘racist’, ‘ugly’ views they claim to be against.

Humiliated.

So Dominic Raab faced ridicule on his first trip to Brussels as Secretary for Exiting the EU as the EU flatly rejected Theresa May’s Chequers Plan and mocked spelling errors in translations of the document.    

Senior EU diplomats made it clear that the Brexit white paper agreed at Chequers cannot form the basis for negotiations.  British sources said the EU was being “deeply unhelpful”.   Unhelpful is an understatement as Mr Raab pleaded for a crumb of comfort.  He got none.  But that’s the way the EU does things.  Destroy those that don’t agree with them.  

But why expect anything different from the EU?  They have been consistent, if nothing else, in their desire to punish the UK for leaving the EU.  It would be bad for Mr Barnier and his colleagues in Brussels if the UK actually made a success of leaving the EU.  They know that.   They know the whole EU is a house of cards built on sand and it will collapse.  And they won't let that happen, whatever the internal cost to the rEU.

You can tell who is in charge here.

To say Mr Raab looked nervous ahead of his first meeting with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, would be an understatement. 

My question is, why are we even going through with this charade with our elected Minsters being humiliated in public by unelected EU civil servants?   

All Mr Rabb needs to do is send Mr Barnier and email and say, “I’m giving the EU 12 weeks to come up with a deal that will be better than what we get under WTO.  Speak again when you’ve done that.”

Japan.

If the EU can do a deal with Japan that entails no freedom of movement and no “common rule book”, and where the ECJ is not the final arbiter, why not the same for one with the UK? 

Actually, we know why.  It’s because of the “punishment” attitude of unelected EU commissioners and some EU politicians.   

One hardly needs to be a conspiracy theorist to ask the question, why are we putting up with this given the UK is still number 8 out of 137 nations in the World Economic Forum List of the most competitive global economies. And the UK remains at number 5 in the worlds biggest economies.

Morally superior.

Why does the word progressive, when used by politicians, always sound a bit like they are hiding something.  It’s because they are using it to hide something, their ability to convince people of their policies by normal argument.  They, less than subtly, are trying to suggest they are morally superior.  Sort of “We are progressive, so you must be dinosaurs”.   

You see progressive used all the time in many areas of social and economic policy.   

So “progressive taxation” in Scotland really means the SNP will be taking more money out of our collective pockets for them to decided how to spend.   Yes, you and I will have less money to spend in local shops keeping private business in business creating wealth.  Evey pound a government takes away from you is a pound you no longer can spend in your local shop. Keeping somone in a job.

Which brings me nicely to Derek Mackay, the Scottish Finance Minister, who said the Scottish Government's “progressive tax system” would mean 70 per cent of people in Scotland were paying less tax this year than they did last year.  Like £20 less if you are a private in the UK Army.  Very nice.  £0.06 a day.   

In real terms the tax hikes will mean a staff sergeant paying an extra £117 a year in Scotland.  An army major would pay £660 more while a lieutenant colonel would pay £863 extra, and a full colonel £1,013.   

Mr Mackay, in typical "progressive" mode, then tries to shift the blame: “It is disappointing that, despite making an offer to discuss the differential taxation of military personnel, the Scottish Government has not been consulted on the proposal announced by the MoD.”   

Actually, there was no need for a discussion Derek, you should simply have emailed the MoD and said, "we’ll cover the difference".

Guilty till proved innocent.

In his analysis, 'Dark day for news reporting', BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman suggested that today's judgement is very significant.    And indeed it was.  But not in the way he is portraying.    

Basically the BBC has been found out.  And they don’t like it as their PR machine swings into full drive to shift the focus from their culpability.    Anyone who recalls the reporter who covered the early morning event will no doubt remember his seemingly gleeful, I’ve got you Cliff, you goodie goodie, tone as he announced what was happening.  It really was exhibiting broadcasting standards at the lowest of low, certainly not award winning material.     

Before the broadcast, didn't anyone ask the question, "if this is not true, what permanent damage will it leave on reputation of the person being investigated?".  If  no one did ask that question, then there really is something rotten, even wicked, at the heart of BBC editorial policy given the subject of the investigation and knowing that the person they were reporting on would be smeared for life.  

Or maybe they just didn't care.

What is worrying about Mr Coleman’s article is, he is assuming his view is the correct one.  He’s not giving a balanced opinion, not a tone one would expect of the BBC.   He is making a political statement that the judgement brings about dark days for the freedom of the press.  Many of us would think that it’s about time tittle tattle was taken off our news media feeds.  And that is exactly what this whole Sir Cliff episode ended up as.  A judge decided it was indeed tittle tattle not worthy of the intrusion and permanent damage it caused to his reputation.    It certainly wasn't in the national interest.

You know Mr Colemans argument is weak when he notes that the BBC points out that naming the suspects has sometimes resulted in additional complainants coming forward.  But that would happen once they are charged anyway.   

The courts decision came just before questions to the Prime Minister and featured in the session.  Never thought I would agree with Ms Anna Soubry!  

The Society of Editors said that the judgement "threatens the ability of the media as a whole to police the police".  Ian Murray, its executive director, said: "The ruling to make it unlawful that anyone under investigation can be named is a major step and one that has worrying consequences for press freedom and the public's right to know."   He said making it unlawful to name someone under investigation is "extreme".  And he is right.   

But the people to point the finger of blame at for getting us to this position are the ones who crossed the common-sense line.  The BBC.  Their behaviour has brought this down on the head of every respectable, responsible journalist.

Trade deals can be done.

“We are sending a clear message that we stand against protectionism. The EU and Japan remain open for cooperation.” So said European Council President Donald Tusk, who speaks for the EU.    

And the trade deal between the EU and Japan is struck. 

Now, I know Mr Tusks words on protectionism do sound a bit hollow given how they EU treat African farmers, but the words are a step in the right direction.  And as for the deal itself, it just that, a deal.  Each side comes away with many of the things it wanted, but lost a few.  That's negotiations.  So all round a good deal.   

But here’s the thing.  Nowhere in the deal do we see the ECJ as being the final arbiter.  Nowhere do we see freedom of movement.  Nowhere do we see a common rule book that is in essence the EU rule book.   

So if the EU can do a deal with Japan, why not the same structure for one with the UK?

The Electoral Commission are "guilty".

It wasn’t a court of law that found the Leave camp guilty of breaking electoral law.  It was the Electoral Commission.  And if you read any articles the cries of guilty are always to be found in parenthesis.  A tactic always used to give the impression of truth while hiding behind fact it is nothing of the sort.  

So the Electoral Commission, the whiter than white body that is supposed to look after our democratic processes in the ballot box, has found itself in a little bit of bother.  Well, two bits actually.   

First the Electoral Commission are claiming that officials from the Brexit campaign refused to attend interviews. Really?  This email from Louise Edwards, the Electoral Commission boss, to lawyers for the Vote Leave officials says otherwise:    

Bit odd that.  They can’t both be right can they?   

And second?  They have, as far as I can see, failed, to take up and investigate the far more serious charges that are levelled at the Remain campaign. When, one wonders, will they do that?  Are they "guilty" of favouring Remain over Leave?

To Leave or not to Leave, that is the question.

At the heart of the European Union theology are four key principles: the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour.  Where did they come from?   

Well, basically someone decided to make these up.  Like a modern day cult.  And they are now enshrined almost as a religious belief.  The EU’s prescription for salvation of the nations.  Which when you think about it for more than a few Nano seconds, it’s frankly absurd.  Laughable really when you think of what they have done to Greece.  Laughable because they force nations like Ireland to vote again because they voted “the wrong way”.   Laughable because none of the 150 nations outwith the EU have to agree to them if they want to trade with the EU.  And as we won't be in the EU so why are we even talking about them?

The moment it went from an economic community where goods could flow freely to become the European Union, a super State that makes laws, has its own currency, domestic, foreign policy, military, security and taxation, it was no longer a laughing matter.  That is effectively what happened when John Major signed the Maastricht treaty.   

So, as we approach yet another away day for the UK cabinet, we should be reminded of one thing.    

Given the EU’s stated position is there is no negotiation on the so called “four freedoms” of the EU, if they agree to Mrs Mays latest concessionary offering, we know we have lost.  We won’t be leaving.