When in a hole CBI, stop digging.

Remember Carolyn Fairbairn? Only a few months ago the Director General of the Confederation of British Industry announced that only 4% of her Membership were ready for the so called no deal BREXIT.  Three years to prepare yet 96% are not ready.  What an admission.   

Considering the Bank of England reckoned that 80% of UK businesses are ready to leave with the WTO alternative, she sounded a bit out of tune.  

But one thing you have to admire her for is perseverance.  Yesterday it was reported that she sent a letter to all MPs standing for the Conservative Party leadership outlining her views that a no-deal scenario would do "severe" damage to businesses.   And they are her views as not all Members of the CBI agree with them. 

She warned them that smaller companies cannot afford the necessary preparations for leaving without a plan.  

Three points.  One, CBI don’t represent smaller businesses.  Try the FSB for that, the clue is in the name.   

And second, as Mark Carney admitted earlier this year, 80% of business are ready to leave on WTO rules.   

That leads to the third point, and that is the implication that the CBI seem to be unable to grasp is there is no such thing as a cliff edge, just an alternative to the deal the EU are forcing upon us.  

When the biggest manufacture of hole diggers, JCB, decided to up sticks (or should that be digger buckets) and leave the CBI 'over its Brexit stance, Ms Fairbairn never understood the irony of JCB leaving and the the old adage, when in a hole, stop digging.

What's a porkie pie between friends?

Did Ms Sturgeon tell one in 2014?  Is it right to tell the people one thing one year and think it is ok to say the opposite two years later?  That's for you, dear reader, to decide.  

However, if we look at President of the European Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, a man that Ms Sturgeon seems to be in enthral to, has never hidden his view that the compromises and deals being worked out in EU meetings or leaders or ministers need be protected from public scrutiny, by lies if necessary. 

"When it becomes serious, you have to lie" he said .    

On another occasion he said of the euro's introduction.: "We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.". 

Welcome to the European Union.

Define a generation.

I seem to remember Ms Sturgeon saying that the September 2014 referendum in Scotland was a "once in a generation event". "This probably is a once in a life time opportunity for Scotland".   

Yet only two years later on 13 October 2016 she announced that an Independence Referendum Bill would be published for consultation the following week.   

So did she tell a lie saying it was once in a generation event?  Or was she thinking in terms of the generation of a hamster, not a human?

On which side of the fence is the Chancellor?

One does sometimes wonder about Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Who’s side is he really on?     

The other day he talked about how he might find it difficult support a future Conservative prime minster that opted to leave the EU on an alternative deal to the one the EU have offered us.   

Some candidates have taken the balanced approach and suggested that if the EU chooses not agree to a deal that is less bad than leaving with WTO, then WTO it should be.  That is logical, though hysterical Remainers don’t seem to understand that.   

Anyway, not that everyone thinks that WTO is bad.  Far from it.  But the really odd thing is, Mr Hammond is apparently willing to put aside all logic and vote for something that would visit an even greater economic catastrophe on our nation.

Bizarrely Mr Hammond has refused to rule out voting against his own party in a confidence vote.   

Just think that through for a nano-second.  Our Chancellor, a man who is supposed to know all about finances, is in effect saying that leaving on WTO terms would be more damaging to the economy than a government led by Jeremy Corbyn.   

Is he having a laugh or what?  Or just being a scaremonger like he was at the referendum.  And all his scare stories then were, in the following months, proved to be utterly fanciful.

What this is really all about. A protectionist EU.

Amidst all the stuff about Deal and No Deal, those who don’t accept the democratic process like the Lib Dems are actually very cleverly shifting the narrative.  It’s all about confirmatory votes now.   So soft and cuddly.   

So perhaps we should actually remind ourselves what this is all about.  Why we wanted out of the costly, failing, protectionist bloc that is the EU.    

Austin Mitchell was Labour MP for Great Grimsby between 1977 and 2015.  In an article for BrexitCentral he spelt it out, clear and simple.    

As Mr Mitchell reminds us, once we joined, and particularly after John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty, there was no escape.  We couldn’t trade with other economies, get food on the cheaper world market or give state aid to failing industries and redistribute growth by an effective regional policy.   

Instead we were forced to trade in a protectionist bloc weighted against us, accept whatever cheap labour came in from Eastern Europe and all without help from the EU whose grants are our own money back with their costs taken out.   

That’s the problem. Our political elite likes it as a bigger stage on which to strut. The vested interests want to keep their cosy status quo and business lacks the guts to seize an opportunity. Yet the Brexit vote was largely triggered by the effects of austerity and slower growth on our people. Staying in an unchanged EU would do nothing about either. It seems more likely to increase the alienation which caused the vote in the first place.

Negotiations about what exactly?

Lots of politicians don’t want us to leave the EU without a deal.  Fair point.  I think everyone would prefer a deal.  But a deal about what?   

There are two sides to this.   

The political.  There is really nothing to talk about as far as a deal goes.  The people voted to leave the EU. The EU is a political construct.  Leaving, as Remainers kindly reminded everyone, we would be leaving the Political arm of the EU including the ECJ.  That is what John Major signed us up to in the Maastricht Treaty.  Political union.  So we will become just like any other nation that trades with the EU.  Japan, Australia, Brazil, et al.  None of them allow the EU to dictate law to them.  So why should we if we leave the EU?  So what will any deal be about?   

Well, trade.  Now when we get into trading, no one in their right mind tells the people they are negotiating with what their own fall-back position would be.  If they did, guess what would happen?  Yes, the fall back would be the new starting point for your opposition.  No one in their right mind would do that.  And yet we hear cries from people demanding that we must not leave without a deal and saying what we must agree to.  Well, if you were on the other side of the negations, what would you do?  

Answers on a post card….

Just a reminder what the Lib Dems believed under Paddy Ashdown.

590,947 votes

That’s how many votes the SNP garnered in the EU elections this week.  A snapshot.  And yes, they did indeed get the most votes in Scotland.   

But statistics are an odd thing.  The SNP's total haul in the EU election is still half the number that voted Leave in the EU referendum.   I know, I'm juggling numbers.

Mind you, Ms Sturgeon is pretty useful at juggling numbers herself.  She keeps telling us Scotland voted to stay in the EU.  Well, on closer inspection it turns out not quite the whole of Scotland voted Remain.  Indeed, 38% of Scotland voted Leave. That is quite a chunk of the electorate that voted.  That was a total of 1,018,322 souls who voted to Leave the EU.  Hardly “Scotland voted to Leave”.

So, what of the last General Election?  Well, only 977,569 voted for Nicola and her SNP.   And yes, you are sharp eyed and you’ve noticed that her polling at the General Election was also less than the number of people who voted to Leave the EU in Scotland.  

You can't swing both ways Nicola. As Paddy said, "you either believe in democracy or you do not".

Simple.

It really was simple.   Mrs May had a mandate for the UK to leave the EU.  

She also knew what people had voted for because Cameron, Brown, Clegg and Osborne told us when we were voting what exactly we were voting for.  They told us if we voted Leave we would leave the single market, the customs union, the rule of the ECJ.   

So if Remainers were telling us that, we knew that is exactly what was being voted for.   Yet Mrs May contrived to lose it all and surrender all to the EU.   

Any new leader needs to go back to the mandate the people gave parliament.   

Leave does indeed mean leave.

Gallant? Not Junker.

Thanks, Mr Junker, for sticking the knife into Mrs May and her clearly stated love of her country. 

Not the most gallant thing to do was it?  No wonder we want to leave with people like that at the EU’s helm.

Propaganda. Pure and simple.

So there we have it, almost 3 years after the people of the UK voted to leave the European Union, we’re still in it.  Why?  Well, from where I’m sitting, there are a number of reasons.  But as I think it is becoming increasingly obvious the real reason is Mrs May never wanted us to leave.  Why else would she be trying to construct a deal that keeps us in the EU.   BRexit In Name Only.  BRINO.   

And it has meant we have arrived at the farcical stage where we are going to have to go through the charade of having elections to the European Parliament.  How ludicrous is that?   And it’s all because people have not accepted that we voted to Leave the European Union.  The simple question on the ballot paper.  

So it was interesting to take a look at what the European Union are doing as we fail to do anything.   Their PR unit is working flat out with their message of what they think the EU is.  At least they are consistent. This quite remarkable video is one of the products from their legendary and fearsome PR unit.  All soft and fluffy masking the true cold calculating nature of the EU.  With this kind for propaganda from the EU brainwashing us and our children, what chance have we got?  Its nasty implication that if you disagree with their project, you are destroying the future of children.  If you disagree you are climate change deniers.  Worse, you are a terrorist.  It's all there in the video.  Very subtly, but it's there.

What wicked tactics the EU are descending to.

Economic recklessness.

Back in 2012, Geir Haarde, Iceland's former Prime Minister was found guilty of negligence over the country’s 2008 financial crisis.   

At the end of November 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his conviction over his handling of his country’s financial crisis was fair.   

Given Mrs May and Mr Hammond have been pushing the UK into a financial crisis since the referendum by allowing uncertainty to reign with an estimate subsequent economic hit of £800m per week according to of the Bank of England economist Jan Vlieghe, should Mrs May and Mr Hammond not be prosecuted for economic crimes against the state?     

It is not the prospect of leaving the EU under WTO terms that is causing the problem for businesses.  As the Bank of England’s own report stated, 80% of businesses are ready to leave on WTO. 

Contrast this to a Government that appears to have behaved with nothing short of economic recklessness.

Who is right? Ms Fairbairn, Director General, CBI or Mr Carney, Governor, Bank of England?

It was quite remarkable to hear Carolyn Fairbairn, Director General (sounds a bit of a pompous title in today’s world) of the Confederation of British Industry announce that only 4% of her Membership were ready for the so called no deal BREXIT.  Only 4%!  Good grief.  They have had almost three years to prepare yet 96% are not ready.  What an admission.  What have they been doing?  What kind of leaders have they got leading these so called important companies to the economy?   

The interesting thing is, the Bank of England reckon that 80% of UK businesses are ready to leave with the WTO alternative, also known as the cliff edge by Remainers.   

Ms Fairbairn’s statement bears no reality to the data from this wider survey which showed that around 80% of British businesses believe they are ready for a no deal Brexit as the Bank of England revealed that the economy is accelerating ahead of the UK's scheduled departure from the EU.     

Ms Fairbairn has been rebuked by one of her own Council Members, Simon Boyd, managing director of Reid Steel, a 100 year old business that should know what it is talking about you would have thought. They have been manufacturing and erecting large commercial buildings, aircraft hangars, grandstands, bridges, process plants, car parks and many other steel structures worldwide for over 90 years.  Impressive.

Mr Boyd said no deal was not a “cliff edge” for most companies.  “We should be leaving on Friday night under WTO terms with all the side deals.  It is not BREXIT that has caused the damage to British business but the political classes.  There is no cliff edge, no crashing out.  Some will have to make adjustments but the majority of British businesses will be unaffected.”  Well said that man man from the productive side of the UK economy.

The Promise.

“Ultimately it will be the judgement of the British people in the referendum that I promised and that I will deliver.  You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future.  It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave.  Your decision.  Nobody else’s.  Not politicians’.  Not Parliament’s.  Not lobby groups’.  Not mine.  Just you.  You, the British people, will decide.  And it will be the final decision.”   

I think David Cameron was pretty clear what the referendum was all about.  I hope he now takes time to remind Mrs May the promise he made to the people of the UK.  No betrayal.  No dereliction of duty.

So why has Mrs May instructed Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, to tell the civil service to "wind down" worst-case scenario no-deal planning after the European Union imposed a further six-month Brexit delay?   Surely she should be instructing quite the opposite.

Crispin Blunt, MP, said the end of no-deal planning represented a "complete betrayal" of the referendum and described the move as a "dereliction of duty".   

Whether you are a Remainer or Leaver, if you are a democrat, he’s right.

Leaving a Burger King. Easy, isn't it?

If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

What does a nation look like?   

Well, it has quite a few things about it that we would recognise.  Like a parliament that makes law for all its subjects.  Like a judiciary that interprets law.  Like a head of state.  Like an anthem.  Like a flag.  Yes, I think we can all agree these are the obvious symbols of a nation.   

I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that the EU has all of these already.       

How about trade.  No sovereign nation has internal tariff barriers.  Every sovereign nation has freedom of movement within its borders.  And what sovereign state wouldn’t be without its own judicial system.   Well, that is the arrangement Remainers want us to be in with the EU.  Quite the opposite of the SNPs cry that we should be a nation again.  Quite the reveres.  The EU is the nation in this scenario and Scotland is nothing more than a town council, to use Rt Hon Ken Clarkes words. It that really what Ms Sturgeon is fighting for?

So when those Remainers call for freedom of movement and a customs union, they are not arguing for some misty eyed wonderful soft cuddly deal. They are arguing pure and simple for a European super state.  Some of the Remainers realise that.  Most I suspect don’t.    

So while it’s true that no one is saying "We want a European super state" and asking the people "do you approve?", the very mechanisms of that state are being daily created and put into place by the European Commission sided and abetted by the European Court of Justice.   

Now you may think a European super state is a good thing.  And that is a legitimate debate to have.  But creating a super state without specifically asking the people of the states that are within the emerging super state is clearly unacceptable.   

The inconvenient truth is that on 23rd of June 2016 by a majority of 1,269,501, a 4% gap, the people of the UK voted to leave the EU and all its super state pretentions. 

All smiles when abroad.

I don’t know if you have noticed it over the last two days?  Mrs May pictured with the French president.  And the German chancellor.  Notice anything?   

Well, let me put you out of your misery.  They are all smiles.  Kisses to the cheeks.  Arms round each other.  She really looks like she is amongst friends.  And clearly she is.  For te smile in the knowledge that their and the EU’s victory, I really can’t think of any other word for it, in the war to keep the UK shackled to the EU has almost been won.

Back here in the UK her face tells a different story.  She’s clearly feels she is not amongst friends here.  Indeed, she sees people who simply believe that she has got “her” deal badly wrong as the enemy.   

Of course, we know it’s the EUs deal not hers.  She’s just the one making it happen.

Saying different things to different people

Oh dear oh dear.   

“Theresa May has been making a habit of saying different things – sometimes diametrically opposite things – to different people in her increasingly strident attempts to bludgeon down resistance against her toxic Withdrawal Agreement. 

To Remainers she has been saying that voting against her deal will lead to a no-deal exit; while at the same time telling Brexit supporters that voting against her deal will lead to no Brexit, or at least to a long extension.        

The latest example of this kind of tactic came when (The Times, 5 April 2019):     Senior ministers told their Labour counterparts yesterday that Theresa May’s Brexit deal with the European Union already includes a customs union ‘in all but name’.”     

This is the very same deal which Theresa May has spent the last few months assuring Brexit supporters would not require the UK to be in a customs union with the EU and would allow the UK to pursue an independent trade policy.       

It is this persistent but transparent duplicity – transparent in the sense that a 2-year old child could see through it – which has destroyed the credibility of the Prime Minister and eliminated any trust in her on the part of her country, her Party, or for that matter the EU leaders which whom she tries to negotiate.

So which is right?”  Read the whole article by Martin Howe, QC, here.

Criminal!

Isn’t it odd.  Our European partners respect the result of the referendum.   Our choice they say.  They may not think we have voted the right way but “that’s your funeral”.  

Indeed, as we now know, not only do they respect the result, they are ready to implement it.  We are being told time and time again by Michel Barnier, Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker and Guy Verhofstadt that the EU, as an institution, is ready for the UK to leave without a Withdrawal Agreement.   

And individual countries of the EU respect the vote too.  Interestingly The Guardian reports that France, Spain and Belgium are “ready for no-deal Brexit next week”.    

It seems the only people who don’t respect the outcome of the biggest plebiscite this nation has ever seen are those who lost it.  Well, that’s not quite true.  Not all Remainers are so disrespectful of those who voted Leave.  It is just a small militant cabal.   

So the EU respects our vote.  Nations of the EU respect our vote.  Most Remainers respect our vote.   

Today’s big question for Mrs May and Mr Hammond is, if the EU are well prepeared for us to leave without a Withdrawal Agreement and so are the individual nations of the EU, are we?  I assume we are even though the government won’t admit it so that we are kept in fear.  

 But if we are not ready, after nearly three years, and every other EU institution and nation is, what have Mrs May and Hammond been doing all that time?  If nothing, that’s criminal.

Stupid people.

Charles Moore helpfully reminds us in an article in The Spectator of what happened nearly three years ago.    

A question was asked of the people.  MPs had decided that this was too big a question for them to decide.  So they decided to ask the people to decide. A referendum was called.   

The question that was put, argues Moore, was a classic example of something which is simple but not easy.  The question?  ‘Do you want to be ruled by those you can choose, or by those you can’t choose?’   

Ok, the actual words used were different.  But that is what the question was.  Voters understood this, and gave a clear answer.   

Of course, clever people keep complicating it now after the event by suggesting that the actual wording of the question was ambiguous.  "What did remain or leave actually mean?" they whine.   Then the ridiculous word BREXIT appeared.  Soft Brexit or hard Brexit.  All there to add confusion.  Make the “stupid” people feel even more stupid.   

At the end of the day we the people are the losers now.  No matter how you voted.  Why?  Because the Remainers who could not stomach the result the ballot box provided have poisoned the political discourse by constantly seeking to undermine the democratic wish of the “stupid people”.    

And with that went trust.