The fix is in. UK prime minister Theresa May is on her hind legs telling us black is white and expecting us to swallow the lie. Brexit minsters David Davis and Steve Baker have resigned. Foreign secretary Boris Johnson has followed suit. Several parliamentary private secretaries have also resigned in protest at TMay’s non-brexit plan.
Lawyers for Britain chair Martin Howe has written this assessment of the ‘Chequers deal’ summary released to the press. It lays out in strong terms just how deceptive TMay is when she claims in parliament that her Chequers deal represents the Brexit the country voted for. If it was, those ministers wouldn’t have felt the need to resign their positions.
Summary of the assessment:
- The Chequers proposals would involve the permanent continuation in the UK of all EU laws which relate to goods, their composition, their packaging, how they are tested etc etc in order to enable goods to cross the UK/EU border without controls. All goods on the UK manufactured in the UK for the UK domestic market, or imported from non-EU countries, would be permanently subject to these controls.
- There would be a general obligation to alter these laws in future whenever the EU alters its own laws, with a mechanism for Parliament to block such changes which is probably theoretical rather than practical.
- This would put the EU in a position to fashion its rules relating to goods so as to further the interests of continental producers against UK competitors, when we will have no right to vote on those rules.
- The obligation to follow the EU rulebook for goods would gravely impair our ability to conduct an independent trade policy. In particular, it will prevent us from including Mutual Recognition Agreements for goods in trade treaties and this is likely to destroy the prospect of successfully achieving meaningful agreements with some of the prime candidates such as the USA and Australia.
- These proposals therefore lead directly to a worst-of-all-worlds “Black Hole” Brexit where the UK is stuck permanently as a vassal state in the EU’s legal and regulatory tarpit, still has to obey EU laws and ECJ rulings across vast areas, cannot develop an effective international trade policy or adapt our economy to take advantage of the freedom of Brexit, and has lost its vote and treaty vetos rights as an EU Member State.
The response to Boris Johnson’s resignation by Number 10:
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
May should have gone after her “strong and stable” performance almost gifted Corbyn the election.
I blame the majority of “remoaners” in the Party.
They in no way reflect the will of the people.
Might the bad deal be on purpose in order to say Brexit has been a disaster and therefore we should rejoin the EU as a full member in a few years time. The idea that TM is incompetent is beginning to look a bit tattered and she may be far more devious – along with the Tory grandees. The Tories have a certain reputation and it is becoming crystal clear as time passes they have not changed their spots one iota. They have no empathy with the sentiments of why people voted Brexit. None whatsoever.
All the ludicrous fuss yesterday about Farage completely legally and ethically catching and releasing unharmed a Tope (or was it a large female smoothhound………anyway).
The BBC site (that ran the story with it’s usual anti-Farage relish) even has a picture of a Tope being held in exactly the same way for a tagging exercise. The internet is full of pictures of people holding Tope that they have caught! But Farage does it, and the mob is unleashed.
The EU allows commercial fisherman to take 45kg a day of Tope as bycatch. The biggest market is mainland EU (and sharkfin soup in the usual place).
In 2009 (before restrictions) Spain landed 576T of Tope and France 330T (mostly from the English Channel).
This is a lot of bad news to bury but I cannot help thinking that she is fortunate we are having such a great summer and England are doing well in the World Cup.
You cannot have an independent Britain without borders between Britain and the EU unless there is global free trade in goods, services and people.
Teresa May is trying to implement a solution by which you end up 1/ 2 pregnant without the nasty business of sex. In the end you are going to get screwed
Canada and the US have a free trade agreement. NAFTA. You still need to go through the border control to determine what qualifies.
Otherwise the Chinese for example could import into Canada then pass over the canada/us border tariff free to avoid US customs.
This is why canada and the us are in dispute over trade. Chinese products flooding into canada tariff free being relabelled as Canadian made based on minimal value added to avoid us tariffs.
the amount of money to be made by cheating is irresistible because at worst you simply pay a fine which you can quickly make up elsewhere.
Well, it could also be said we (canada) is in a trade dispute with the US because our PM is and idiot drama teacher that cannot do basic math.
You do not poke a grizzly bear with a stick to try and impress your friends with how brave you are so they will like you. If the bear wakes it will swat you like a fly.
All the US need do is slap a tariff on Canadian car exports and the Canadian economy would die in a matter of weeks. And trump is gearing up to do just that.
A dramatic three days after the virtual imposition, including the use of threats almost comical in their puerile pettiness, by an embattled but stubbornly-authoritarian Theresa May of her Brexit proposals, culminated yesterday afternoon in the resignation of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, following those of Brexit Department Secretary David Davis and Minister of State Steve Baker late on Sunday evening.
May has no right to feel aggrieved. First, the Chequers proposals for a negotiating stance, about as far removed from her 2017 manifesto promises and previous negotiating pledges as chalk from cheese, were rightly labelled Remain-By-Any-Other-Name and Brexit-In-Name-Only, and lacerated by multiple commentators for their disingenuousness and lack of ambition, undue deference to Remainer intransigence and Brussels diktats alike, and even downright mendacity.
Foremost among these was a devastating memorandum from Lawyers For Britain’s Martin Howe QC, exposing how, in contrast to the claims advanced implausibly by her sycophantic Remainer colleagues, May’s proposals would lead directly to a worst-of-all-worlds black hole Brexit with Britain stuck permanently as a rule-taking vassal state in the enduring grip of the EU’s legal and regulatory maw.
On the BBC’s Sunday Politics, presenter Sarah Smith extracted an admission from deputy party chairman James Cleverly that, in contrast to what had hitherto been spun, the UK would automatically adopt any new EU rules, despite having no say in devising them, unless a (Remainer-dominated, remember) Parliament decided not to. Hardly the claimed ‘taking back control of our laws’.
Then it all got much worse. It emerged that May had ‘shown’ (or submitted for approval?) her Brexit proposals to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin even before their disclosure to Cabinet, ignoring every convention of collective Cabinet government. May was duly excoriated both for a grave breach of constitutional protocol, as well as a characteristically appalling lack of judgement.
This was followed by the revelation that her No 10 chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, and her staunchly anti-Brexit, pro-EU, éminence grise Olly Robbins, had seemingly been working on her ultra-soft Brexit plan in secret, not even confiding in the Cabinet, apparently for months.
Fuel was added to the fire both by the unequivocally critical terms of David Davis’s utterly damning resignation letter, in which he said that
‘the inevitable consequence of the proposed policies will be to make the supposed control by Parliament illusory rather than real’ and that the common rule book policy ‘hands control of large swathes of our economy to the EU’, and the blatant lie in May’s reply, that we are ‘ending free movement’. It may be that one type of free movement is being cosmetically ‘ended’, but only to be replaced by a different kind of free movement, and May refuses even to guarantee not to discriminate against non-EU nationals in its application.
Speculation was rife yesterday morning that May would use the opportunity presented by the Davis and Baker resignations to abolish the Brexit department completely, and fold its functions into the Cabinet Office, to be oversighted by none other than Robbins. This truly alarming prospect turned out not, so far at any rate, to be true, but that it was regarded as a strong possibility at all surely speaks volumes.
Soon came the news that May’s chief of staff was to brief Labour, Liberal-Democrat and SNP MPs on her Non-Brexit Brexit plans. Although subsequently shelved, the implication was momentous and clear: the uber-reluctant Brexiteer May was prepared to solicit the votes of the pro-Remain Opposition parties to get her proposals through Parliament, against both her own backbenchers trying to hold her to her manifesto commitments and the votes of 17.4million people.
For what it’s worth, my opinion is that the scaremongering by business of the past week, with Business Secretary and arch-Remainer Greg Clark acting as the willing mouthpiece of pro-Brussels, crony-corporatist big-business, is inextricably linked to this. Who knows what donations have been threatened to be witheld unless Brexit is effectively killed off, or promised if it is?
It’s now abundantly clear that we have a political class resolutely determined, at almost any price, not to enact the instruction given to it by the British electorate, and that it is led by a Prime Minister prepared to destroy her own party, even democracy itself, to perpetuate Britain’s subservience to the anti-democratic supranational EU. Always more Milibandite than even Blairite, May’s mask has finally slipped.
This means that the quasi-constitutional crisis we face is greater than the extant issue. This has just got bigger than Brexit. It’s about nothing less than whether we’re a functioning citizens’ democracy at all, or unwilling subjects of an unaccountable apparatchik-elite pursuing its own agenda.
We just have to win this fight, and in a much wider sense than merely holding a reluctant or even intransigently-defiant government to the referendum verdict it promised to implement, or the manifesto pledge on which it stood for election.
It’s now about so much more than Brexit. We can’t afford to lose. Because if we do, a triumphalist and overwhelmingly Remainer Left-‘liberal’ elite oligarchy, who dominate Britain’s political, media, academic and cultural classes and thus control virtually every institution of public life, are likely to try to wreak a terrible revenge on the ordinary people of this country.
We saw a taste of it in their furious reaction to the Referendum result, about which I’ve previously written at TCW. I suspect it would intensify. So nearly deprived of one of the main anchors of their entire worldview, and moreover by what they contemptuously regard as a backward, racist, xenophobic, unsophisticated, uneducated, politically-illegitimate rabble, they would probably redouble their efforts to foist EU rules, uncontrolled mass immigration, progressive loss of civil liberties, multiculturalism and divisive identity-politics on us for having had the temerity to rebel.
I recall tweeting just after the 2016 EU Referendum that the ‘liberal’ elite oligarchy would not give up its power back to the demos without a fight, and that we might well have to take to the streets to achieve it, preferably non-violently, however repugnant the prospect.
But we may have no choice. To quote Thomas Paine: ‘If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.’
Time to move to exchequers – the only office that matters.
“Treason” May, as she is now known. She is a truly useless woman. We need another Maggie or better still, a Nigel, in charge.
All because she refused to consider Efta/EEA as the transitional arrangement.
Maggie who was assassinated & Nigel who ran away when the going got tough.
The way the situation is going perhaps the formation of a ‘resistance’ to rid ourselves of this EU puppet Govt 🙂
Adam Gallon says: “& Nigel who ran away when the going got tough.”
I believe he thought it was ‘Job Done’ after the referendum and ‘needed a break’ from all those constant death threats & abuse from screaming deluded lefties
No guts by May and therefore no glory.
I got to “voters and Law” and it become clear that the guy is not reflecting on this as a Lawyer but as a Brexiter. Any of you guys in this list with a potential to see your job go to the EU and lose your house and head for poverty, after working hard for years at a career etc Homeless increases in the thousands kids into poverty. Great Policy guys kick all those working for a living in the goolies.
You want out of the EU then GO we are not stopping you,17.5 million people do nopt pretend to be a majority May well have won the Vote on the Day but it does not detract from the fact that the Vast Majority did not Vote to Leave and they are now realising their peril.
If Brexit goes ahead there will be even bigger problems than if Brexit is stopped.quite simply more people and even more upset = Real anger against Faux Anger
“You want out of the EU then GO we are not stopping you,”
We’d love to escape from the failing schlerotic EU, it’s what the majority voted for, but our own government is holding us back.
“the Vast Majority did not Vote to Leave and they are now realising their peril.”
https://twitter.com/Asclepius81/status/1016809882987753472
Theresa May should pray for an England victory in the World Cup. Nothing less will deflect the rising anger coming.
Perhaps she is modelling her approach on the end of the Peasants’ Revolt, rather than the brutal ending of the Pilgrimage of Grace, but she should also realise that neither the Civil War nor the events of 1689 helped those who saw themselves as having the Divine Right to rule.
This was indeed predicted as the likely outcome 2 years ago. Power is *SACRED* to the political/media segments of the population and nothing is permitted to interfere with it. The lust for power is deep beyond most people’s ken. The true lesson from the Brexit plebiscite is that the lumpenprole will *never* be asked such questions again.
The question now is what practical steps can be taken to rescue or resurrect the point of the plebiscite. Given that the two major parties are implacably hostile to the plebiscite result, and irrespective of which group is in power at any one moment, they control the police and the army, appoint and dis-appoint the judiciary, I suspect the answer is “not a lot”.
Dear Theresa May,
On your proposal for BREXIT —
No, NO, NO!
I, and many like me, did not vote for a slimly, back-pedalling, half in-half out, EU bureaucratic negotiation; I vote for OUT!
“And out means out!”
No-one should vote for these Conservative creeps at the next election.
“You want out of the EU then GO”
I love Remainers, they are so illogical. Time and again they post stuff that makes them look silly. They are utterly incapable of seeing the other side. This week I have seen them claim that Leave wasn’t a majority because some people didn’t vote (so that makes Remain a majority how?), that the imposition of tariffs and barriers on the minority of our exports will lead to utter ruin but the removal of the same from the majority of our exports will bring no gains and that because the vote was close Remainers should get some of what they wanted (because if it had been the other way round Leavers would have got what?). Then there are the economicly illiterate claims that business will leave the U.K. tocontinue to export to the EU but that none will do the reverse – yet because we are a net importer from the EU more would come than go!
So let’s just turn this around.
You want to stay in the EU, the GO.
Wasn’t there something back in the American Colonies about a Tea Party? And wasn’t that about “no taxation without representation”? And weren’t they ENGLISH colonists rebelling against an unrepresentative foreign domination?
Just maybe there’s some ‘tea’ in Mrs May’s future?
“The Hydrogen Answer (@thehydrogenans) says:”
You obviously dont have one patriotic bone in your body and care less for the sacrifices and hard courageous decisions made by the past generation to preserve the sovereignty and independence of Britain
No one ever voted for a united states of europe and the end of independent nation states with Germany at its heart. Does Australia take its laws dictated to from Japan New Guinea Philippines etc
It certainly does not.
We new what we were voting for ‘Freedom’ from a ‘stealthy’ dictatorship and new it wouldn’t be an easy break as after all, all the EU wants is OUR MONEY to further its agenda
If you cant see it, all fool you
If you think Europe so dam good YOU move their ASAP
So we are out!
Of the World cup that is and people are now looking for something to kick in frustration.
Mrs. May will be the obvious recipient tomorrow when she unveils the white paper that mutti approved for release to us peasants last Thursday.
If I ever vote again which is very much in doubt, it will NEVER EVER be Conservative.
Yeah either UKIP (or similar) or will not vote again whats the point as they take no notice.
There is no democracy left in a country that once exported it all over the world.
roger, BLACK PEARL,
we in Australia are forced to vote, but I would implore you to vote, if not for those parties in favour of Remaining.
The politicians scan the polls (despite what they say) and a rising number not voting for them will worry them. They won’t be able to use the old “If they didn’t vote, then they must approve of us”.
Time will bring a party to your liking.
There is a move afoot to form a strategic alliance of the small pro-brexit parties. Watch John Rees-Evans from 11:00 in this video.
Here’s what we’re up against
Roger, I believe in Direct democracy as in Switzerland, particularly the referenda for recall of elected officials (national, state & local government) plus all senior appointed public servants including judges. I would join up if I was a UK citizen. I wish we had direct democracy in Australia. So far only one party ie One nation has that as a policy. At least we have compulsory preferential voting every three years for Federal parliament (rather than the optional first pass the post system which allowed Hitler to take over Germany)
A complete dog’s breakfast & completely avoidable by a transition via Efta/EEA.
The sad part of this is that EU is not a democracy; there is no way to vote the rascals out. Thus, the Europeans have forfeited one of the three legs of the foundation of western civilization (Christianity, Democracy, Free Market Capitalism). UK needs to back up, take a deep breath, and try again. We, the US and the UK, have a long history together.
Mrs. May cleared the white paper with Mrs. Merkel before clearing it with her government. A real #MeToo moment.
Why would Mrs May NEED to clear the terms in her White Paper with Mrs.Merkel?
I would think she needed to clear those terms with the members of her Government First! then negotiate with the leadership of the EU as to terms of future engagement. Mrs. Merkel is the destroyer of European civilization, nearly finished politically because of her foolishness. What power does she have over Mrs.May and the British Government?
It appears to me that President Trump offered her good advise on how to proceed and He IS Important to British future success. The Germans have never wanted English success.
Germans are destine to rule all of Europe. At least in their minds. Just tell them and their EU Bureaucracy to “Piss Off” and escape their grasping yoke. May seems to want to chain England to the future of Germany…pg
If Britain must join an Empire, at least join the one she created, with a common language and set of values. Similar political and legal systems. The Anglo-American alliance is by far the most powerful in the world. The EU may well be third rate in the future if it continues into the future…pg
All of this was predicted after Brexit was passed.I said then,the best thing to do,was pack your bags and tell the EU to PI$$ OFF.They will never agree to anything that the UK proposes,so just LEAVE.What are they going to do?Fine you?Go to war with you?Impose trade sanctions on you?They are doing those things now,so what have you got to loose?BREXIT means BREXIT.Do it NOW.
@pg,
I have often thought that the British Commonwealth is an example of the right way to help. With good behavior, perhaps more attention to their need for foreign aid. With bad behavior, suspension.
It is clear that the EU is driving for nothing less than a UK bound to EU rule.
OK, there is one simple alternative. Go ahead and leave with NO agreement.
The only downside is that there’s some general disruption. THE major loser is German car makers. So what? ( I say this as the owner of 4 German cars and one Japanese. I like my Subaru the most…) It’s really very simple:
When faced with an opponent who is abusive and pushing for dominance: Walk away. Just walk away. Only come back to “negotiations” when it is clear that you refuse to play their game.
CALL THEIR BLUFF!
The entire Commonwealth plus the USA is just waiting for you to return to us. No pressure. No BS games. No posturing nor abuse. We’ll wait while you make up your mind. It’s OK.
Just don’t agree to some BS where they put on leathers and a riding crop and funny hat and you are supposed to put on knit stockings, bend over, and take your whipping like a good girl… then get…
Freedom isn’t free. Don’t take that free “deal”, you don’t know where it’s been… or what it’s carrying.
I agree EM. Let’s get on with it and take the rough with the smooth.
Now that the EU white paper is out we can see that terms like vassal state, colony and homage were well chosen and that Donald Trump’s doubts are valid. The commitment to a common rule book that includes a pledge to enforce state-aid rules is effectively promising not to try too hard to be economically successful. And yet state aid has hardly been mentioned in the debate.
Freedom from the EU straitjacket gives us the chance to show how an independent people can create prosperity but instead of seizing the day the Government is worried about disrupting integrated EU supply chains, which may involve a car component being made in Italy, then taken to Germany for finishing, before being installed in a car in a UK factory. This remarkably wasteful practice is also environmentally harmful because of avoidable transportation costs and is already being replaced by shorter supply chains.
It makes economic sense for components to be manufactured near the car factory, but there is an initial investment that may involve the Government. Under the white paper, our Government will have to get permission from Brussels before it can support investment in a home-based supply chain and the high-paid jobs that go with it. What will happen when we apply to Brussels for permission to spend our own money? Rival German car manufacturers, some of whom have already shown how unscrupulous they are on emissions testing, will lobby the EU to prevent British investment. Suppressing innovation serves the interests of existing manufacturers but prevents new entrepreneurs from developing the technologies and industries of the future
Every country that has ever flourished economically achieved its success by wise government policies of investment and support. It’s how Germany and the USA overtook Britain in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and it’s how the post-war miracle countries, Germany and Japan, were successful. It is also how Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore became Asian tigers, and it is how Brazil and India became successful from the 1980s. Above all it is how China has grown to economic prominence, and it continues to be the basis of American success. The USA has always supported research and development with public funds, subsidised business loans through the Small Business Administration, subsidised manufacturing especially through its vast defence budget, and allowed federal states to implement economic plans to support local manufacturing with state funds.
The EU is terrified that we will make a success of our independence. It knows perfectly well that its iconic policies have proved disastrous. The eurozone is fatally flawed and the Schengen agreement on immigration is in tatters. If we prosper, it will send a message to countries such as Italy and Spain, where unemployment is high, that there is another way. The EU’s negotiating strategy is to make British success as difficult as possible. They are scared stiff that we will flourish and show the world how misguided the EU project is. Instead of pressing home our advantage, Theresa May’s white paper plays into the hands of the fearful and defensive EU oligarchs. It’s as if she wants us to enter a race while making a solemn promise to the other contestants that we will not run at full speed. Leaving without an agreement would be better than accepting the white paper.
David Green is Director of Civitas
Per the North Ireland Border issue:
Perhaps the Free Trade Zone model ought to apply?
These are enclaves around the world where the National rules on imports are suspended. You can find them in airports around the world, and some are minor cities in size.
Just declare that North Ireland is an EU Free Trade Zone and only shipments coming to the rest of the UK out of Ireland will pass through customs. (The EU can do the same with the Republic of Ireland if they wish, or they can be on the hook for putting up a border with N. Ireland… make it their problem.)
Per immigration, I think Texas has a worthwhile example.
IF you travel down Interstate 10 in Texas, you are a long long way from the Mexico border.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_10_in_Texas
Yet somewhere a few hundred miles from anywhere in the middle of West Texas, you pass through a Border Control station. You will be inspected by Border agents and asked your citizenship. I don’t know how far this is from Mexico, but I’d guess a couple of hundred miles? It’s just that I-10 is the only major road going through that area, so most folks take it. It is a choke point of sorts (as most of West Texas is empty other than sand, cactus, cows, and a few hardy souls…)
So just put the UK Border Control station at the entrances / exits from North Ireland. An imposition on Citizens? Yes. But no more so than when I am asked “Where are you from?” on I-10 in West Texas…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_interior_checkpoints
There is no need at all for the entire UK to be bound up in anything due to the desire to not enforce any N. Ireland / R. Ireland border. Just put the check-points at the exit points from N. Ireland to the rest of the UK. Like we do with interior south Texas …
The “Common Rule Book” seems ok to start with. But the question is who gets to change the rules?
Pochas: Only the EU will gt to change the rules. UK will have no input. Completely unacceptable vassal status for Britain.
EM, It kaes sense to put the chaecks at ‘pinch points’ but a border between parts of the UK is unacceptable to both the govt. and the DUP, which May’s government relies on for its slender parliamentary majority.
This is the death of Democracy, our Government ignoring the will of the people.
It should be called Boaty McBoatface!!!!
🙂
https://twitter.com/ccara/status/1018983519673077760
European Union signs its biggest ever trade deal after striking agreement with Japan
At the moment, EU companies pay €1bn (£890m) of duty on products they export to Japan. Almost all of these tariffs will now be removed and 95% of tariffs the other way will also be wiped out.
http://news.sky.com/story/european-union-signs-its-biggest-ever-trade-deal-after-striking-agreement-with-japan-11439525