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“A citizens’ assembly could break the politicians’ Brexit deadlock”, says a bevy of the great and good. Remainer strategy: 1) Campaign for a REAL referendum on Europe. 2) When you lose the referendum, spend two and a half years complaining that it was nothing but a “glorified opinion poll.” 3) Campaign for a REAL glorified opinion poll. December 17th, 2018 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
And the problem is? December 15th, 2018 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
So Theresa May has survived the vote of confidence by her fellow Tory MPs. If nothing else the relief that she must feel knowing that Conservative Party rules mean that she cannot be challenged again as leader until a year has gone by should give her a lively appreciation of exactly what is wrong with the much-touted idea of a second referendum. December 12th, 2018 | 67 comments - (Comments are closed)
Thomas Piketty and a bunch of other Europeans have published “Our manifesto to save Europe from itself”.
Are you inspired yet? December 9th, 2018 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The U.K. is a European country, and always will be. Trade and contacts among the nations of Europe can and should continue much as before. And I have no doubt they will do so. But the political nature of the EU has changed since monetary union. The EU failed to recognize that the euro would demand fiscal and political integration if it was to succeed, and that countries outside the euro area would require a different kind of EU membership. It was inevitable, therefore, that, sooner or later, Britain would decide to withdraw from a political project in which it had little interest apart from the shared desire for free trade.” – Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England. If you read his comments carefully, his displeasure at how the institution he led has become a plaything of Remainer propoganda is plain. His book, The End of Alchemy, contains a devastating take-down of the euro and is an explanation of why the UK had little alternative in the end but to leave. King was never quite of the full “establishment” – too much of the West Midlands grammar school boy to really be at ease in the EU corridors of power. Good. December 4th, 2018 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Guardian‘s Matthew d’Ancona is at least honest about his opinion of Brexit voters:
December 2nd, 2018 | 62 comments - (Comments are closed)
“One of the main targets of (Bishop of Lincoln) Robert Grosseteste‘s (c. 1175 – 9 October 1253) criticism was the Papacy, which he believed was levying over-harsh taxation in England and appointing inappropriate men to benefices in the Church.” Another quote:
Thus say English Heritage of Bishop Grossteste (Big Head) of Lincoln, in a display in the former Bishop’s Palace in Lincoln. The Bishop was never canonised, perhaps because he was too holy. He was no fan of Rome, as English Heritage note, in their exhibition in his former palace. A Protestant before the term was coined, and surely a model for our current political class in the light of current ‘difficulties’ from over the water. November 26th, 2018 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The idea that it is not possible to leave the EU seems to be the most dangerous affront to democracy. They are saying not only that it was wrong for the public to vote to leave, but also that it cannot be done and therefore the democratic vote was meaningless.” – Richard Tombs, historian, University of Cambridge. November 26th, 2018 | 49 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The unwarranted gloom about the UK and the exaggerated respect for the EU are not new. Many of those who now say that Britain must stay as closely aligned to the EU as possible predicted disaster when the pound left the exchange rate mechanism in 1992; prophesied a decade later that Britain would rue the day that Gordon Brown gave the single currency a wide berth; and said with the utmost confidence in 2016 that a vote for Brexit would lead to an immediate and deep recession and a massive increase in unemployment. None of these things happened.” – Larry Elliott, writing in – yes – the Guardian. Even if you don’t share his left-leaning, Keynesian economics, much of what he says he about the EU debate is spot-on. He is right, for example, to remind folk of just how lousy the forecasts of various EU pushers down the years have been, and continue to be. The shamelessness is, well, shameful. November 22nd, 2018 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Author’s note: I gave a talk at one of Brian Micklethwait’s end-of-month Fridays on the Brexit process and why and how libertarians should think about it. This is a sort of distillation of my views, with added material from events of this week. Thanks again to Brian for giving me a chance to hash this out in a congenial atmosphere, along with the likes of Patrick Crozier, also of this parish.) I haven’t anything particularly original to add to the immediate furore about Mrs May’s plan but thought I would set out a few thoughts here, particularly as people on the pro-liberty side of the fence are often divided on the Brexit question. (Yes, there are libertarian Remainers, and may the Lord have mercy on their souls.) Mrs May’s “deal” is awful, in my view, and my former editor, Allister Heath, says what needed to be said yesterday in a typically trenchant Daily Telegraph column. To paraphrase (the DT is behind a paywall), he notes that, for example, members of NATO are free to leave without having to get permission from the others first, whereas under this “deal”, the UK would have to ask Brussels’ permission to leave the Customs Union. (In the 1960s, De Gaulle took France out of NATO in certain respects at the height of the Cold War, let it be noted.) In all walks of life, people can and do end agreements – they get divorced, change jobs, leave membership organisations of all kinds. I even cancelled a gym membership once – I don’t recall asking any civil servant’s consent. And the world continues to turn. Only the EU, it seems, wants to lock the UK into an indefinite arrangement, like a form of involuntary servitude. The only way that such a deal would ever be overturned is by extra-legal means (yes, and that might even include military action). The fact that the EU demands such terms from a country that is making very few other changes to its post-EU situation and paying £39 billion for the privilege, is so evidently unjust that one wonders if there is a secret agenda for the UK to crash out. (I sometimes wonder if this is what is going on, but then remember the more obvious reason which is that Mrs May, who supported Remain, does not and did not want Brexit to happen, other than superficially, such as getting blue passports and being meaner to immigrants, as part of her generally authortarian mindset.) The oddity about our situation is that while the EU moves on towards becoming ever more centralised – assuming the euro-zone doesn’t crack up under its contradictions – the new technologies and ideas shaking up business and creating our future are going to come from free, open economies, where the State is relatively small, taxes are low and flat, regulations are strict but not wide, and where entrepreneurship and grit are prized qualities. The EU, by contrast, trundles on, poisoning national politics, stirring up ugly populism, and lining the pockets of a group of people who are so convinced of their own virtue that they express open contempt for democracy. We forget, for instance, how the EU recently helped to stamp out seccession of Catalonia from the rest of Spain. The Scottish independence folk who think Brussels is their friend should take note. My dislike of these forms of bullying and obduracy are in general the reasons I voted for Brexit over two years ago. This was never going to be a clean or easy process – there’s too much invested psychologically in this project of an EU state for its architects to give up easily. For some on the Remain side, this goes deeper than “market access” or the ability to hire a Polish cleaner without fuss. It’s about virtue, modernity, of being part of the progressive side of history. For those on the Brexit side like me who hew to classical liberal ideas on society, in the tradition ranging from John Locke all the way through to Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, it is also important to acknowledge that some on the Brexit side are as collectivist, and fans of Big Government, as some Remainers appear to be, while some on the Remain side hold broadly liberal views and genuinely worry that Brexit will mean the return of socialism and protectionism. Those worries should be taken seriously. Brexit does not have to involve any diminution of a drive towards a freer society – ultimately, what will make the difference are the values of the people who make up a political construct. To those libertarian Remainers who – rightly – object to the idiocies that we Brits are capable of inflicting on ourselves (and the list is long) I make this point: it is a damn sight easier to chuck out a national government than it is to chuck out a whole political class from 28 separate countries, with different languages and political traditions. And that, for me, is the most important argument of all. November 16th, 2018 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
Things are lively in Westminster tonight. According to the Guardian Theresa May has secured the backing of the Cabinet for a Brexit deal. And according to Guido Fawkes, Jacob Rees-Mogg has finally made his move against Theresa May. After saying that he had initially supported Mrs May’s efforts to negotiate Brexit, the Mogster now takes a different view:
Next comes some side-of-the-bus stuff about nurses, just to remind us that JRM is only the “Member for the Eighteenth Century” in his manners. He is thoroughly twentieth century when it comes to Our NHS. The letter continues,
A funny way of putting it, but presumably he means that Scotland would seek to be more deeply in the EU.
That word again
That was a key point.
Personally, though I do object to being subject to the rules of an EU Customs Union, I do not object because of a lack of democracy. However he has a good point about being locked in. Cutting to the chase,
Whaddya think? November 14th, 2018 | 64 comments - (Comments are closed)
So writes Martin Howe QC, of Lawyers for Britain (sounding for all the World like a certain denizen of this parish) in a message to supporters, summarising his advice. He is referring to the proposed deal that the UK Cabinet is being asked by the FFC to agree to:
But it gets worse:
The legal black hole of the proposed treaty.
So it’s really a Brezhnev Doctrine for the EU, the acquis communautaire, with the UK conveniently deprived of voting rights, like a caterpillar injected with a wasp’s egg that slowly consumes the poor beast from within, when it thought it was going to pupate and become a butterfly.However, it’s not clear to me how the sovereignty of the UK Parliament could be subordinated (or suborned) to a treaty, presumably there will be some ‘supremacy clause’ seeking to establish Parliament’s subordination, it may be the Lawyers for Britain have the answer here, subordination to the ECJ. November 12th, 2018 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
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