Minister resigns.

What kind of democracy does Alan Duncan believe in?  It was he and his fellow MPs that chose to put Mr Johnson into the last two.   

Now he won’t accept the vote of the Members of the party.   

Typical Remainer.

A bargaining chip.

A UK flagged oil tanker has been hijacked in the Gulf by Iran and everyone is getting very excited about it.   

But why the excitement I ask.  This is, after all, simply the next instalment in a chapter of an ancient book that goes back to Biblical days.  This current instalment began 48 years ago when I was still at school in 1971.  Back then Iran were our best friends, sort of.  So good a friend were they that we agreed to sell them 1,500 Chieftain tanks.  Quite an order.  And the bill for the Shah of Iran was a cool £650m.   Adjusted for inflation that is a heady £4,103m in today’s money. 

But then things began to go a bit wrong in 1979.  And before we knew it the Shah was no longer ruler of Iran.  The new boys in town were headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini.   To popular acclaim by the people of Iran, (at least, that’s how some write the history of the period), he was back on an Air France flight from Paris where he had been in exile.  

This provided the UK with a bit of a problem.  The Ayatollah really wasn’t our kind of guy.  So we decided we wouldn’t give him the balance of the tanks we were yet to deliver.   The contract was cancelled.   Britain had managed to deliver 185 tanks to Tehran up to this point.  Unfortunately for Iran the Shah had paid it all up front, rather than on delivery.  Not surprisingly Iran said “Ok, give us our money back for the tanks you haven’t delivered”.  Reasonable?  Not to the then UK government. So we refused to give them back the balance of £450m for the undelivered tanks.  That is £2,840m in today's money. Add to that any interest that could  be also added and you have a pretty big figure.

Iran won an arbitration case at the Hague-based International Chambers of Commerce in May 2001 for repayment of the fund, a legally binding judgement.
  
So all of a sudden the oil tanker makes sense.  So does the jailed journalist Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.   Iran is owed a lot of money by the UK.  

The Iranian authorities have never made an explicit link between the outstanding payment and the fate of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year jail sentence for espionage, but in private Iranians cite the money owed as one reason for the lack of trust between Tehran and London.   

So today they have added a bargaining chip to their armoury to fight for the money they are legally owed.  An oil tanker.  

Who can blame them?

How to defeat democracy.

Mr Hammond, like all hard-line Remainers, has simply never accepted the democratic mandate given to the government to leave the EU.   

He also has never accepted that he, like 80% of the current intake of the House of Commons, was elected on a manifesto that said it would deliver Leave.   

Furthermore he hasn’t accepted that MPs themselves set the law which set two different departure dates.  All that means nothing to him.   

And now he even rubbishes his own political party and their internal democratic system of electing a new leader by saying he may not support the new leader that emerges from the two candidates that Conservative MPs themselves presented to the party as their two options.  

The sooner that Mr Hammond and his ilk are recognised as the political failures they have become the better.  

In Plain Sight.

As we near the exit of the May/Hammond axis of power we are beginning to see that they were not Conservatives at all.    

Just look at the direction they have taken our economy, our army navy and air force, our taxation system, our law and order.  

In each of these areas of responsibility they have, in plain sight, overseen the diminution of its entrepreneurial spirit, the inability to protect ourselves as a maritime nation, the ramping up of an economic wet blanket taxation system and the effectiveness of justice.   

They leave our nation far worse off than when they came to office these three short years and ten days ago.

Be Prepared.

The motto of the Scouts.   Always a good way to live your life.  So it is encouraging that the BBC is reporting that the Bank of England says the UK banking system is still resilient to the financial impact of a worst-case disorderly Brexit.  Or put it another way,  a WTO alternative to an agreement with the EU.  

Note the words of caution in the report.  A worse case disorderly Brexit. 

Now in reality we know that this is all about politics, the creation of a European Super state as evidenced by the new people at the top pf the EU tree who have affirmed this as the EUs goal.  

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, nominated by the European Council as their candidate for President of the European Commission (just think that sentence through for a second, no democracy there), has called for the creation of a European superstate. "My aim is the United States of Europe..." she said in an interview with Der Spiegel.  She has also called for the creation of a European Army.  It's worthwhile checking all the other nominees for the EUs top posts.  Not one of them will be democratically elected.  

But do we really expect businesses to allow political posturing get in the way of trade?  I don’t think so.   Lorries will be flowing across La Manche.  We know that because on the other side of the Dover Straits they have put in the infrastructure ready for even the worst case of leaving the EU without a political agreement.   

One hopes that in the three years the UK has had to get its house in order it has done the same as our friends across the water.  If not, who’s going to be in court on Misconduct in Public Office charge?    

We’d have to go right back to Amber Rudd as Home Secretary an all the others who have run departments and ask, "did you start preparing for leaving with no political deal on day one?"  And follow that up with: "If not, why not?".

Major has short memory.

So, Sir John throws his tuppence worth in the ring again on whether Parliament should be prorogued.  Indeed, he is threatening to take a future prime minister to court to stop them doing just that.

But hang on a moment.  Didn't Sir John do just that himself back in 1997?    Back then it was to delay the publication  of a highly embarrassing report into the “cash for questions” sleaze scandal when he was prime minister.  But suddenly Mr Major, who didn’t have such a problem of parliament being prorogued back then, now feels he's got to stop it happening again. 

Should it not be Sir John that is being taken to court for Misconduct in Public Office for signing the Maastricht treaty in the first place without consulting the people?   Now he is trying to overturn the democratic wishes of 17,410,742 people of the UK who decided he was wrong to sign the treaty of political union in the first place.

Perhaps Sir John should remember that MPs already voted in favour of No Deal Brexit when they set it as the legal default by passing the EU Withdrawal Act a year ago.

Swamp.

If the report in the Times today that “Philip Hammond has told Theresa May that he will fund her legacy plans as a trade-off for her allowing Tory MPs free votes on efforts to stop a no-deal Brexit” is true, then we really do have a swamp to drain in Westminster.   

Not only that, I think it is fair to say that this could be construed as Misconduct in Public Office as he is undermining both the prime minister and the majority of the people of the nation who voted for us to Leave the EU.    

That is far more serious than the numbers on the side of a bus which the judges subsequently ruled were actually ok.

Who?

If I were to ask you, "who is or was our Brexit Chief?", who would you come up with?

I suppose you could come up with a number of answers.  You could name a politician, David Davis, Dominic Raab, or the current incumbent as Secretary of State, Stephen Barclay.  You may even say Theresa May herself was the Brexit Chief.   

Or you may name a Civil Servant.  Olly Robbins has been at the helm for Mrs May.   

So I really was expecting a big name when I read the headline, “Former Brexit chief: We should all worry about no deal”.  Which of these people could it have been?   

As it turns out, none of them.   It was a Civil Servant, Philip Rycroft, who went on to say for the BBC Panorama cameras that everyone should worry about no deal.  

Quite what a Civil Servant was doing speaking to Panorama I’ve no idea.  If that is not undermining the current and future strategic direction of negotiators, I’m not sure what it is.  Perhaps he forgot the real title is not the Brexit department, a word so meaningless its use by Remainer Deniers says all you need to know about what they are trying to achieve. The department he was working in is correctly titled The Department for Exiting the European Union.   A bit of a clue in the wording there I think.

But it is the headline of the article, prominent on the BBC web site that gets me.  Once again another less than subtle apparently deliberate attempt to undermine the democratic wish of the people. 

Remainer deniers.

I really struggle with Remainer MPs like David Gauke.  A Conservative.  He and his fellow Conservative MPs, in what was entirely conducted by the rules of the party, selected two candidates to put to the Membership of the party, the people that do the foot slogging for their selected candidate every election.  It's tough work foot slogging.   I know, I've been there.

The Members of the party will now select the new leader of the party.  But such democracy means nothing to Mr Gauke as he has said he would have 'to resign' if the next PM backs a so called no-deal Brexit.  What of course he won't back is a WTO alternative to an agreement with the EU.  He doesn't beleive in Leaving.

There is no such thing as no deal.  We actually don't need a withdrawal agreement, as we all well know.  There is a deal, it is just not a withrdawal one with the EU.  And that is something totally different as people like Martin Howe, QC keep pointing out to deaf Remainer ears.   

Not that any Remainer who denies the EU referendum result would admit to that.  So be part of an election of a leader who has clearly stated exactly what he will do.  Then throw your toys out of the pram when he says that he will do in office what he said he would do in the election for leader.  

Like all Remainers he sees no irony in his positon.  Another person who thinks his opinion is worth more than the majority of people in the nation who actually voted to leave the EU. 

Marcus Ball vs Boris Johnson.

Well, the judges have spoken.  Or written to be entirely accurate.  Yes, Mr Balls case against Mr Johnson was thrown out a few weeks ago.  But its taken to now to see the written reasoning of their judgement in the Marcus Ball vs Boris Johnson case.     

Now we can see why.  Boris’s favourite number was ok.  Yes, the judges said £350m was ok.   “The alleged offence set out in the Application for Summons is that the Claimant “repeatedly made and endorsed false and misleading statements concerning the cost of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union”.  It appears that if the Claimant had said/endorsed a figure of £350m per week gross, or £250m per week net, there would have been no complaint.”    

Pretty clear from the judges.  And given Boris always said the £350m a week was the gross figure, there really was no case to answer.   

Mr Ball is the poorer now for not having taken time to read and listen and watch all the comments Boris made.   

Makes you wonder exactly what he was doing with his time, funded by his crowd funding campaign, that he said was being dedicated to bring those who told lies to court.

One.

Don’t Remainers ever stop and think what are the objectives of the EU?   

One currency. 

One flag. 

One anthem. 

One army. 

One taxation system.   

One foreign policy.   

All that equals one thing.   

One country.
And that is what they voted for in the Referendum.

Tactics

Will Ms Sturgeon be so keen on taking No Deal off the table as a negotiating tactic if she ever has the opportunity to negotiate Scotland’s exit from the UK?   

Don’t think so.

To have Sovereignty or not have Sovereignty. That was the question.

There are two kinds of people in the debate about the EU.  Those who seek to have a conversation based on facts and the law.  And those who seek to sloganize.  Both sides have their fair share of both it has to be said.   

But if we get away from those who cry leaving the EU will be the greatest thing since sliced bread and those how talk about a cliff edge disaster, we can move on to territory that actually is productive.  And at the heart of the debate we find that it all comes back down to the question on the ballot paper three years ago.   Should we stay or should we go?

Just remember, the question was one that the Electoral Commission, the independent body which oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK, said was good.   Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission said, “Any referendum question must be as clear as possible so that voters understand the important choice they are being asked to make. We have tested the proposed question with voters and received views from potential campaigners, academics and plain language experts.

‘Whilst voters understood the question in the Bill some campaigners and members of the public feel the wording is not balanced and there was a perception of bias.  The alternative question we have recommended addresses this.  It is now for Parliament to discuss our advice and decide which question wording should be used.’   

And that revised question was the one that MPs approved.    

That’s the legitimacy of the question out of the way.  In the biggest ever plebiscite the UK has ever seen 17,410,742 voted leave, a majority of almost 4%.   Even the late Paddy Ashdown said one vote was enough.

So, on the question, the Electoral Commission said was ok.  The voters voted to leave.  Yet some still say we didn’t know what we were voting for.   If I asked you, using the same wording as the referendum question, “do you want to remain a member of your golf or leave the golf club”, I think you would agree the question was pretty straightforward.  In other words, it was about one thing only, Sovereignty.

“Tesco faces Brexit deadline headache”.

So said the BBC headline as Tesco's boss who noted that planning for the new Brexit deadline is "more difficult" because the supply network will be full of Christmas stock.  

Dave Lewis told the BBC that the new deadline of the end of October meant there would be "less capacity" for stockpiling longer-life items.    

A no-deal Brexit could mean tariffs and delays at the border that interrupt supplies of some food, he said.   

Like all prudent business leaders Mr Lewis’s business was ready to leave the EU on March the 29th this year.  When it didn’t he, like all the others, probably just shrugged their shoulders, accepted the massive waste of money and time they had spent preparing for what the government had said would happen, as just the way things go, and moved on.

Perhaps he should have sent a bill to HM Treasury for the cost of being prepared.   

So his issue is all about problems of distribution, not about leaving the EU.  Tucked away in the article a single one liner when Mr Lewis said that leaving the EU could also provide opportunities for the UK.  

I’d like to see these words, from one of the UKs biggest companies, feature rather more prominently in the next story the BBC do on Tesco.