A tale of words.

“Brexit means Brexit”.  

Became “No deal is better than a bad deal”.    

Became “It’s my Brexit or no deal”.    

Became “It’s my deal or no Brexit”.   

My, how Napoleon, the leader of the pigs in George Orwell's Animal Farm, would have blushed in awe and admiration at Mrs Mays supreme craftiness.

The border.

A lot of people have said a lot of things about the border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.  Turns out a lot of them where porky pies. There will be no infrastructure on the UK side, even if there is no deal in place with the EU.   

So if Jon Thompson, the head of UK customs says that, Leo Varadkar the Taoiseach of the Republic says that, why are Remainers keeping up this false narrative that the border is a problem?

Is signing an agreement that will have the UK subject to a foreign power in perpetuity a criminal offence?

We all know that no UK parliament can bind its successor.  There would be no point in having elections if they could.     

So why, in Article 20 of the Agreement, does Mrs May want to push through that very same UK parliament an agreement that would bring about exactly that scenario?   As has been stressed before, this is an agreement that Mrs May and the EU want to be recognised under international law.   

If it is recognised under international law then a future UK parliament cannot undo it without the agreement of all the parties involved in the agreement.  So no parliament in the future can ever, without the agreement of the EU, resile from the agreement.   We would be stuck.

This will be a first.  International treaties and trade treaties always have get out clauses for obvious reasons.  Even the EU’s own trade agreements with non-member countries, which is what we voted to become, don’t contain such draconian clauses.  This treatment is reserved for the UK because we had the temerity to vote to leave.

As Martin Howe, QC, says in a paper today “(there will be) no unilateral exit clause. The Protocol can only be stopped from coming into force if the EU agrees with the UK to replace it before the end of the transition period with a trade agreement.  If the Protocol comes into force, the UK cannot exit from it without a “joint” decision (meaning the EU has a veto) in the ‘joint committee’ (article 20 of the Protocol). This absence of a clause allowing withdrawal on notice is unprecedented in trade treaties including the under international law, future governments and Parliaments would be locked in and bound by the treaty concluded by this government.”  

If any MP of any party votes for this they clearly are in the wrong job as they will be binding their successor in perpetuity.  And that is against our own rules in the UK.  

But, one final question. 

Why is Mrs May deliberately seeking to overrule our own systems of laws and force us to be wedded to the EU for ever?  Is she not, in effect, seeking to overthrow the UK state by having it permanently under the rule of another foreign power?   

Who’s side is she on?  Who’s side has she ever been on?

It's all there in the document. We're not leaving EU jurisdiction.

So, Mrs May says we are ending EU jurisdiction?  Aye, right!  We’re doing no such thing.   

And the draft agreement she produced last week proves it.   Just take, for example, Article 4.  That’s the bit that effectively declares how the whole agreement is to be interpreted in any judicial sense:   “The provision of this Agreement and the provisions of [European] Union law made applicable by this Agreement shall produce in respect of and in the United Kingdom the same legal effects as those which they produce within the Union and its Member States.”   

Just read it slowly again.  Yip, EU law remains superior to UK law at any time and in any area the EU wants.  And in the event of any dispute?  Yip, the adjudicator would be the EU itself.  

So our elected representatives in Westminster, or Holyrood or wherever, must follow the EU’s Parliament.  If we don’t, well there is final arbitration.  Not the UK Supreme Court of course, but the judicial arm of the European Community, the European Court of Justice.   

And if you were wondering, is there not a little wriggle room, I’m afraid not.  Paragraph 3 tells Britain to interpret and apply law “in accordance with” EU law.  Which is repeated in Paragraph 4.  The UK must interpret all law “in conformity” with the ECJ’s jurisprudence through the transition period.     

Given the EUs track record we can be sure of one thing.  The so called implementation period will be used to drive a dagger into the UK.  And we will have no say in it.  Yes, beleive it or not, Mrs May did commit us to this in spite of not being able to influence such decisions.  Does may you wonder which side Mrs May has been on all along.    

Ah, you are just being negative, reading it all the wrong way, you tell me.  Really?   Lest you be in any doubt of the indefinite superiority of the ECJ – this is in paragraph 5:   “In the interpretation and application of this Agreement, the United Kingdom’s judicial and administrative authorities shall have due regard to relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down after the end of the transition period.”  

I think the key word there is “after”. Yes, the document says we will not be free even after we have finally left.  You can spin it all you want, but that's thewords used.

But it is on this contentious thing about when can we leave finally I conclude.  And do we need the EU to give us permission to do so.   

I think the best place to find that answer is in the document itself.  The ECJ is the final judge of when the UK can end its transition period.    Flip through to Article 164.  This provides for a “Joint Committee” to be co-chaired by the EU and the UK.    If this Joint Committee couldn’t agree, then it could defer to an “arbitration panel” (Article 171).  This is presumably what May has spun as an “independent panel”.    If the “arbitration panel” fails to agree whatever the EU expects it to agree, the ECJ will decide (Article 174).  And in this respect, Article 168 confirms that no party will have recourse to any other party than specified in the agreement. The ECJ will have the final rulling.

In other words, it’s true, the ECJ, the legal arm of the EU, can stop us leaving. It’s there in ink.   

One great tactic of leaders found in history is confuse the people.  Clearly that’s what May is banking on.    

The other great tactic is keep trotting out the same line of your story, even though it's porky pies, on the basis that if you say it often enough, people will begin to believe you.  George Orwell would be proud of Mrs May!    

Or as Bruce Newsome, Ph.D. is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of California Berkeley remarked earlier this week in relation to us leaving the EU, “Lies are easier to sell if you keep everything complicated. It’s the only thing she and the EU are expert at.”

The EU empire. It's coming, like it or not.

Every day a new announcement.  No, not from the UK government, but from governments within the EU we voted to leave.   

Today’s gem is, and this is a direct quote for the French Finance Minister, “….the only way forward is an agreement between France and Germany; everything else is illusions and projects which will be short-lived.  Only an agreement between France and Germany can allow us to build this European sovereignty, which is our challenge, the challenge of our generation, the challenge of the next 25 years.”  He goes on: “….I’ll go even further: I think Europe has to become an empire again.  …. This is my personal firm belief: Europe has got to assert itself as a peaceful empire in the next 25 years.”    
He argues that beyond these great ambitions, "it is essential to build this peaceful empire and European sovereignty brick by brick.   ….Building this European sovereignty then means strengthening our economic power.  I think this is the first brick we’ve got to make rapid progress on. We should be looking at weeks and months much more than years.”  

Well, that’s pretty clear.   

And that comes hard on the heels of Angela Merkel, when addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, singing the praises of  “European unification” and calling for a European Army.  She began her remarks by saying she was appearing before MEPs “with joy but also with gratitude, in front of the greatest parliament of the world.”  Problem is, I think she actually believes that.

Her vision, like that of president Macron, is a vision of creating a real, true, European army.

So let us be in no doubt.  Staying locked into the EU and its laws means we are in effect, signing up for a European Empire.

Now, I have no problem people arguing that such an idea is a good one, though I would disagree.  That is effectively LibDem policy.   

What I object to is this reality is hidden behind a so called “peoples vote” (yes, I know, we had one two years ago), and scare stories about the economy under WTO rules.  Why can’t they be honest and come out and just say we want to be part of this EU empire.  It’s more honest, and it would hopefully produce a better debate than the scare tactics they are once again dropping into, talking about those who voted to leave in effect being zealots.

Mrs May is not telling lies. But she is not telling the truth either.

Remember that tweet in June 2018 from Mr Trump declaring victory shortly after returning from Singapore and his meeting with Kim Jong Un.  

“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea”.   Really?  Did Kim agree to dismantle his nuclear programme?  Nope.   

So the emergence of secret missile bases and the reality that North Korea is continuing production of atomic warheads and nuclear-capable rockets, should hardly be a surprise to anyone according to Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and the author of the novel The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States.    

So as we look back we can come to two of two conclusions.  Either Mr Trump’s announcement was a lie.  Or it suggested a complete misunderstanding on the president’s part of Kim’s plans and promises.    “Kim didn’t deceive anyone,” Lewis added. “Trump deceived himself.”   

The similarities between that and what is happening between Mrs May and the EU is scarily striking.  The EU isn't telling lies or deceiving anyone.  They are forthright in what they are saying.  And if recent history is anything to go by in relation to nations like Greece, they keep their word.   

The problem is not the EU.  The problem is, like Mr Trump, Mrs May is deceiving herself.  And the  coterie of people who she has gathered around herself are people who tell her what she wants to hear, the insensitive bringing back of Ms Rudd being a case in point. 

If she truly believes that there is goodwill on the EU side to come up with a deal she would have no need of the so called backstop.  But the idea that the EU will allow compromise or show goodwill is a fantasy.  

One thing is sure, if we have that backstop, that is exactly where we will end up.  And history backs up that view.  

Mrs May is not telling lies.  She is not telling the truth which is different.  And she is doing that because she is deceiving herself.

Perpetually living under the ECJ.

It was a remarkable coincidence that on the same day that Mrs May effectively cemented the UK to perpetual membership of the EU by allowing the EU to determine if we are ever allowed to leave (you couldn’t make that up, could you!), the European Court of Justice, (a misnomer if ever there was one, just ask Sir James Dyson), ordered, yes, ordered, the immediate halt to a £1bn scheme designed to keep Britain’s lights on.  

Through gritted teeth UK government spokesperson said the ruling “will not impact security or supply”.   

So why was the UK government undertaking such a scheme if it didn’t need to?  Of course, it did need to undertake it.   

But it just another angle on leaving the EU.  If we don't, this kind of behaviour will continue.  Until we do leave, our domestic agenda will forever be controlled by a foreign court. 

That is why we vote to leave.  And that is why we must leave.   

As a footnote to the story, your pension and mine took a big hit from this ECJ judgement.  Hundreds of millions of pounds was wiped off the largest energy companies which your pension funds invest in.  So the ECJ has just cost you a lot of money.

A bit insensitive Mrs May.

So, Ms Rudd is back in government after only 201 days on the backbenches.   

Not sure what message Mrs May is sending to the Windrush generation.  

Probably the same as the one sent to those who voted leave.  

I’m not listening.

The brutal truth from George Osbornes Evening Standard.

Well, as the dust settles on Downing Street this morning, the truth comes out.  A leaked Brexit deal note from top Brussels official tells its ambassadors that the 'EU retains its leverage'.   

The note is said to state that the UK "would have to swallow a link between access to products and fisheries in future agreements".  

According to the note, Ms Weyand, deputy to Michel Barnier, said: "We should be in the best negotiation position for the future relationship. This requires the customs union as the basis of the future relationship.”   

She goes on:  "They (the UK) must align their rules but the EU will retain all the controls. They apply the same rules. UK wants a lot more from future relationship, so EU retains its leverage."   

Quite how this squares with what Mrs May said in Downing Street I don’t know.  It's as if there are two different conversations in parallel universes going on here.  And given the EU tend to say what they mean and get their own way when they say it, I know who’s narrative I would choose to believe.

Animal Farm

Last night, emanating a smugness and swagger often found often in victory, Mrs May stood in Downing Street.  She delivered a statement worthy of Animal Farm.  She trotted out all the phrases about how we were taking back control.   

To be generous to her, perhaps she hasn’t read the full text of what Mr Olly Robbins had produced.  Specifically, the agreement will lock the UK into EU customs union and EU law.  That means being subject to the ECJ, not the UK courts.   

So the UK will not, according to the agreement, have the ability to regulate its own economy.  It will not, while caught in the trap of a never ending implementation phase with no end date, be able to form its own trade agreements.  It will lose out on the real opportunities that leaving the EU affords the UK.   

Mr Barmier must have been having the party of his life last night.    

But it was her words at 1:20 in her statement that sent a shiver down my back.  Up till now it had been very simple.  Brexit Means Brexit.  No deal is better than a bad deal.  These were her stock in trade phrases.  Her mantra.  But at 1:20 into her statement that changed.  That’s no longer the script.  What she said was it is my deal “or leave with no deal or no Brexit at all.”     

How that squares what her other often used phrase of “deliver on the referendum” I do not know. The referendum was very simple.  Parliament gave up its role and asked the people to decide, “did we want to stay or leave the European Union?”.  The majority said leave.  So parliament, having given the people the final say in a peoples vote, it's job now is simple.  Deliver.   

Mrs May may say we are leaving.  But if we are still subject to its rules we haven’t left.  It’s a bit like resigning from a golf club and going back every day, paying your green fees and playing.  Except now you are not a member and have no say in how the place is run but are still subject to its rules and sanctions.  Quite why anyone would do that is any ones guess.   

The whole document can be summed up in just three words.  So quite why it took 2 years to produce the document that she was championing last night is remarkable.  Lay aside the non business like and obviously very civil servant style, its contents could have been written the moment Mr May entered Downing Street.   It's what she has believed all along.  It's what she has manoeuvred to bring about.  It is what she is going to deliver. 

These three words?  We’re not leaving.

Moral fibre.

Now, I think it is fair to say that I don’t think Mr May is the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to negotiations. 

But at the end of the day I will happily admit that I am wrong if she pulls off the deal with the EU.  But she does come across as more Civil Service then entrepreneurial for a start.   

But while she doesn’t appear to have the acumen of being a leader and negotiator, she does have one thing that is a big plus.  The one thing Mrs May does have is moral fibre.   

Early on in the conversations with the EU she explicitly said that EU citizens could stay here.  No if’s, no but’s.  And there are to be generous rules in place for people who had moved here from EU nations in recent days.   

Of course, some Remainers said that didn’t go far enough.  And they heaped criticism on Mrs May for not effectively signing a blank cheque in relation to people coming from the EU.   

Perhaps all those who were critical of Mrs May might have a listen to what the president of La cinquième république, their new best friend, has had to say in the last few days.  Mr Macron’s government has proposed that if the UK leaves the EU without a deal in place with the European Union, UK citizens living in la république will instantly be deemed illegal immigrants.  

This approach from the French government is all the more remarkable given that Mrs May, even in the insult filled air of the Salzburg summit, reminded the assembled leaders of the EU that the UK would explicitly guarantee the rights of the EU nationals living in the UK. .   

She might not be as sharp an economist or negotiator as we may wish for.  But on this one, she’s right on the money.  And we should give her the praise for such a principled stance.

Trade deals around the world. Lesson One.

If you listened to the Today Programme this morning, after Thought For The Day at around 7:50 there was an interview with the prime minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong.   He is signing a trade deal with EU today.   

You knew where the interviewer was trying to go.  But Martha Kearney found her path blocked when talking about the UK leaving the EU.   

So, to paraphrase her questioning, how long will it take for the UK to have the same deal once we leave the EU?  Day one was the answer.   

He patiently explained that given the UK was currently a member of the EU, there would be zero problem in the exact same agreement working for Singapore and the UK.   

The EU negotiators must have been wishing he hadn’t said that.  It gives Mrs May the opportunity to say, "know what, we can walk away.  Every other trade deal we have through the EU’s auspices is exactly the same". 

Of course there are a couple of other things more than the simple trade deal.  Singapore is not subject to ECJ decisions.  Nor is it in a restrictive customs union with the EU.  Nor is it in a restrictive single market with the EU.

An extended transition period? No thanks!

Everyone knows that the EU only works if it has a deadline.  You see it all the time.  

Last minute deals.  One minute to midnight.  It’s the way they do it.   

So the suggestion that the EU may wish to extend the so called deadline for the transition period for leaving the European Union is but a mirage.  All that will happen is nothing substantial will be done till weeks before the new deadline then once again it will be all flurry.  It is a ridiculous way to do business.   

So we should say, “no, thanks for the offer, but let’s stick to the original deadline”.   

If we can’t come up with a solution to the issues that are apparently outstanding now, we won’t with an extended deadline either. 

Raise taxes.

Adam McVey, the SNP Leader of Edinburgh Council was on the STV news programme at 10:30 last night. Go watch it on the STV player.  Everyone should watch the leader of the council of our Capital city had to say.   

The conversation was on whether Edinburgh should introduce a tourist tax.  Now, this is not an unusual thing as anyone who has visited Rome or Barcelona or many other cities around continental Europe will attest to.  It was his justification that was quite remarkable.   

For when it came to the crunch question, “What will you be spending the money on?”, gulp, you could see the panic on the face of Mr McVey.   

Well, he said, that’s why we are doing a consultation; to find out what people think we should spend the money on.  That is a paraphrase of a longer panicked answer.  But the truth was, he didn’t know.   

So, this is how the SNP works.  Say we need more money to fix an issue that they haven’t identified.  Raise the money through taxation.  Then work out where to spend it.  That is what he said.  So no logic whatsoever.  No saying this is what the problem is.  No saying this is what we need to do to fix it. No saying this is what it will cost to fix it.  And no saying this is the amount of money we need to raise in taxation in order to fix it.   

This is the lunacy that is running and destroying Scotland.

Pooling sovereignty? Aye, right!

BREXIT is a “colossal misjudgement” that will diminish the UK’s standing in the world, harm the Special Relationship with America and could break up Britain.   

So said Sir John Major in a speech last night.  But one of his major, excuse the pun, reasons for staying in the EU is to ensure that UK remain as a “buffer between the Franco-German steamroller and smaller nations”.  In other words, he thinks rather than telling the bullies to stop being bullies and that is the end of it, we should insert ourselves as being the nation that simply acts as a buffer to the Franco German steam roller.  Not stop the bullying.    

It is perhaps this kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.  After all, he signed up to the Maastricht Treaty.  And in retrospect, it looks very like he behaved in the same way as his fellow EU enthusiast Mrs May has done these past 2 years.  Be a bully.  

As Stewart Jackson who was Chief of Staff to David Davis when he served as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said “Duplicity and mendacity has become a specialism in this administration: how can you nuance a capitulation on a long-held commitment to having no border in the Irish Sea, and then try to convince your party that gifting the province to Brussels as a colony, at least in respect of its regulatory regime, is fine and dandy?  What message does this send to the Conservative Unionists in Scotland fighting the Scottish Nationalists’ demands for a similar deal?”  Good question.    

Remember what took place this summer?  A carefully-planned coup in the form of the Chequers fait accomplis, complete with photo shopped picture of Mrs May trying to look like the saviour of the world bathed in light.  Indeed, given manipulation has become Mrs Mays game (was it not always thus some may cynically argue, looking back on her time at the Home Office) the 6th July Cabinet meeting would have made even the likes of Hugo Chavez, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, Kim Jong-il, Nicolae Ceausescu and others of such dictatorial style beam in admiration of Mrs May. 

As was well reported at the time, Ministers were bounced, with less than a day’s notice, to approve 120 pages of papers of a Brexit White Paper that few had seen, but which most assumed was based on the Prime Minister’s vision as enunciated at Lancaster House, Florence and Mansion House.    Of course,  we know now it wasn’t Mrs Mays work.  It was Mr Olly Robbins work.  Produced, as he has admitted, in two weeks.  

But of course, Mrs May had set up a parallel government department run by Mr Robbins.  Without telling her fellow cabinet colleagues.  That is a bit like the alleged setting up of  hidden overdrafts accounts at Patisserie Valerie without apparently telling the Board of Directors.  Quite possibly a criminal offence.  Yet Mrs May appears to have conducted the government with the same mind set.  Staggering when you think about it.

Back in the 1993, Mr Major set about persuading parliament to vote to sign up without telling them what it really meant.  And what it meant was signing up to a political experiment where we were giving away our sovereignty.   Political integration.  Certainly not the Common Market that we entered on 1st JAnuary 1973.

Oh yes, these days people like Ms Gina Miller call it pooling sovereignty.   But nobody is fooled anymore.

Well, some still don’t see it as it is through their EU superstate rosy tinted spectacles, but that’s another story.

"I look forward to the day when Parliament is no more than a council chamber under a greater EU."

The International Currency Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn 1996.  I’m sure it is part of your quarterly reading plan.   From its worthy pages we read the following.  "I look forward to the day when Parliament is no more than a council chamber under a greater EU."   

Who could possibly have said that?  You may be surprised that it is not some EU bureaucrat.  These are the words of the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke, MP.  This clearly defines the objective of Remainers and Mrs May.   And he has never changed his view.     

History is a good teacher.   And what does it teach us about attempts to turn a diverse continent into a single Empire?   It always leads to war.   

Europe does better when it is democratic, diverse and free.   Mutual cooperation in trade as originally envisaged after WW2 was a positive aspiration.   But then it all went wrong when Germany pushed for "ever closer union" or the idea of a super state complete with a flag and patriotic song which is designed to replace national anthems.     

So, where are we today?    Great Britain moving toward civil war?   Italy certainly is moving toward failed state status.  Greece already failed, though it’s partly their own fault.  They should have defaulted when the EU bullied held the fiscal gun to their head.   The rebelling in Germany over the unilateral decision to invite in millions of migrants.   Sweden to possibly have a populist government (surely every government is populist given it has won a majority, so is that so bad?).    

I think all sensible people think the best way forward would be to reform the EU by reversing its course toward a super state.   Of course, this means the dream of a super state will need to be replaced.  But too many careers are now built on this fantasy EU dream.  And too many people have taken this on board as a religion as with all Empires.    

As David Cameron discovered to his horror when he asked for just a few concessions to take back home to placate the masses, they wouldn’t even do that.  That is the kind of people who rule the EU.  And the kind of people who want to rule over you.  Completely.

The Irish Border. The Remainers last stand.

Can someone please tell me why Mrs May and others keep perpetuating the myth that we can't have a free trade Brexit because of the Irish border?  

Oh, it’s easy to understand why Remainers like Mrs May wish us to think that.  But the reality is really rather different.  

Firstly, you have to understand that not everyone on the EU set up is a raving, swivel eyed and only out to destroy the UK.  Oh yes, there are many of them that’s true.  But let’s give credit to one man, Donald Tusk.  He is perhaps the only one in the negotiations who actually realise that the EU and the UK are best served by a good deal.  He realises, as he said to Mrs May, there are no cherries on the cake.  This was interpreted by some as a sleight at Mrs May.  The reality was, he was just telling the truth.  And nor would we want cherries as an adornment.  What we want is the substance of the cake.

So in his pragmatic way, last week Mr Tusk confirmed that Canada +++ is still on the table.  It is an option.  So why Mrs May keeps saying there is no other option other than Chequers is beginning to sound rather silly.  Yes, there are strings attached. They could be negotiated.   But substantially, it’s a deal I think most would find acceptable.  Except the SNP who threaten to vote down any deal that comes though the UK parliament.    

Back to the border.  You can get Canada +++ and retain the border as barrier-free as it is today.  The only thing stopping it happening is the Remainer politicians like Mrs May who see it as a way to scupper any agreement and keep us under ECJ rule.   

And what does today’s border look like?  Yes, the tarmac changes colour.  But look closely around it.  Search it on GoogleMaps.  There is a complete infrastructure already in place in the form of ANPR cameras.  Does it cause disruption?  Does anyone complain that both sides are recording details of every vehicle that crosses the line on the tarmac?   And what of the other stuff, VAT, tax, excise and currency?  A border already exists for all these things.  So no new border.  The only thing needed to be added is Customs.  And to help Mrs May, there is a business in London that has just done such a project, in six months, for Singapore. 

So leaving the single market and the customs union, a promise, or should I say a threat, made by David Cameron, Vince Cable, Nick Clegg, George Osborne, Gordon Brown, Nicola Sturgeon and others for a Canada-style FTA adds one more item:  customs.     

But, let’s take an independent view from Lars Karlsson, a former director of the World Customs Organisation.  He has concluded that existing computerised customs clearing methods used across much of the world mean physical border infrastructure is unnecessary.  And from the UK?  Well, the chief executive of HMRC notes that companies currently traversing the border complete VAT returns electronically in a way that could be applied to future customs declarations.  Additional physical inspections by officials already happen away from the border.  So the Irish Border? The only people who think it’s a problem are those that want to stop us leaving the EU.