Defending BREXIT (and democracy)

Anti-BREXIT forces are clearly aiming to bring about a second referendum with the question skewed in favour of remain - i.e. something along the lines of: "Do we leave the EU with no-deal" or "Do we remain in the EU"? They (and the EU leadership) know that they can only be 100% certain of winning a second referendum if the question is loaded. The current battle for the Tory leadership is rapidly turning into a war by proxy for a second referendum with the likes of Hammond and others declaring that they will not support any candidate who insists that 'no-deal' should still be an option. The simple facts are: 1.              IF 'no-deal' is not left on the table, we will never know what deal the EU might really have been prepared to offer. Johnson is right when he suggests that any negotiating team, which genuinely wanted to achieve the best outcome for the UK, would be stupid to rule out 'no-deal' at the outset. 2.        ...

Now that his Brexit party has won the European elections with 32% share of the vote, Farage should do two things: 1. He should stop talking about an immediate General Election. An early election is not in the interest of anyone who voted Leave in June 2016 - other than possibly, Farage himself. 2. He needs to start explaining why a 'No-Deal' Brexit, is not something we should be afraid of. To do that he needs to focus on the detail and he needs to articulate the economic rationale for a 'no-deal' - and why it could actually be the best thing that has happened to this country in decades.

Yesterday’s vote by MPs to rule out a ‘no-deal’ BREXIT, must surely count as one of the most irresponsible acts by the UK’s elected representatives – ever. It amounts to constitutional vandalism and clearly represents a concerted attempt by forces on both sides of the House of Commons to overturn the voters’ decision of June 2016 and force a second referendum. The decision can only have one of two effects: EITHER, the UK still manages to leave the EU but the terms and conditions will be materially worse than we would otherwise have secured, had we still retained the option of walking away from the negotiating table – OR we do not leave the EU at all.  14 March 2019

We will never know what deal the EU might have been prepared to offer, had the UK made clear that its ultimate default position was ‘no deal’. By their insistence that Parliament should categorically reject a ‘no deal’ outcome, Amber Rudd, Heidi Allen and the other ‘remainer’ MPs have effectively killed off the likelihood of the EU ever offering us an acceptable, compromise deal. It is absolutely clear that the EU has no incentive whatsoever to ‘meet us halfway’. Unless the EU believes that the UK can and will walk away from a ‘bad deal’. it will never agree to anything which might be considered acceptable (and workable) to both sides. The EU has one aim in mind - and that is to force a second referendum. Amber Rudd is a member of the cabinet and yet  she is collaborating with a foreign power to undermine the interests of the UK, in attempting to force a second referendum . The UK is still (for the time being) a sovereign nation. Amber Rudd is a traitor.

  There is one simple reason why we, as a nation, have struggled for the best part of 40 years to reconcile ourselves to the concept of the European Union. That reason is democracy. At its heart the EU does not believe in ‘democracy’ in the way that we do. Ultimately, the EU does not trust ‘the people’. The self-appointed elite that governs from Brussels does not consider it safe to allow ‘the people’ to decide the important issues – or indeed to have any meaningful say at all in the affairs of the EU. It’s not hard to fathom why this is so. Germany and France, have both suffered deep national trauma as a direct result of allowing ‘the people’ to decide. Hitler did not seize power in March 1933 – the people voted him into office. He didn’t stage a coup. He didn’t ‘hijack’ the German state. He formed a legitimate coalition government in March 1933 having secured overwhelming popular support from the German people at the ballot box. In the three federal elections ...

I am starting to become slightly irritated by 'remain' politicians (and not a few journalists) who insist I am stupid - simply because I voted 'leave' in June 2016. Am I stupid and if so, why? Yes, I voted leave. Yes, I choose to ignore HM Govt's official advice (to vote 'remain') as published in the leaflet that was delivered to every UK household at the start of the referendum campaign. Yes, I voted 'leave', even though I had been clearly warned of the likely consequences of such irresponsible behaviour by the the Governor of the Bank of England, the President of the United States of America, Grayson Perry and other assorted saints and world leaders, whose intelligence and understanding of such matters is clearly far beyond that of a lowly commoner such as myself. Yes, I think the result of the June 2016 referendum should stand  (and no, I do not think we should have another referendum) Yes, I think the UK should exit the EU on 29 March...

Why did May ever think the EU autocracy would show her any more respect than it did Cameron? He trotted off to Brussels in early 2016, supposedly to re-negotiate a better deal for the UK, ahead of the referendum. He got nothing. Juncker and the rest of the panjandrums swatted him away like some annoying street urchin. That was before the referendum, when it would have been easy to give Cameron at least something to take back to the British people. Had Brussels been prepared to bend, to offer some meaningful concession on freedom of movement, it would have been possible to guarantee the outcome of the referendum. But it didn’t. In time-honoured EU fashion it choose to ignore the impending deadline, confident in its belief that Cameron and his team of prefects would deliver the correct result – and, besides it was just a referendum, the result of which, if needs be, could be easily overturned as had been the case in Ireland and Denmark. So, why on earth did May think that the...

If pro-remain forces manage to overturn the result of the June 2016 referendum, which is quite clearly their intent, it will represent a betrayal of both the will of the British people and the most basic, fundamental democratic values which define us as a nation. There can be no justification whatsoever for overturning the June 2016 result. 52% voted to leave and 48% to remain. While there was no official tally of the outcome by constituency, independent analysis has shown a clear majority of Parliamentary constituencies voted ‘leave’ – for instance a study by Royal Holloway College (Prof Hanretty) suggests 64% of constituencies were in favour of ‘leave’. So politicians – all politicians – must accept the result and the inevitable consequence has to be that the UK leaves the EU – with or without a ‘deal’. That is what people voted for. It is unacceptable to suggest that the result of the referendum would have been different had voters known that the UK would start tradi...

The answer to those who insist on holding a second referendum is simple: yes - of course, there should be a second referendum....... .......IN 2056!!!!  That is 40 years on from the last one - because that is how long those of us who wanted to leave the EU were forced to wait before being finally allowed to have our say in 2016.

Voters knew what they were doing in June 2016.  The vast majority of voters (both 'leave' and 'remain') were very well  aware that leaving the EU would have consequences. The great preponderance of 'experts', who opined on the issue, were clearly of the view that Brexit - were it to happen - would at best lead to a period of uncertainty and at worst could cause a serious and sustained economic downturn. But, despite all the warnings, 17.4mn people voted to leave. They didn’t simply wake up on the morning of 23 June 2016 and suddenly decide that they no longer wanted to be part of the EU. By that point, dissatisfaction with the EU had been simmering for more than 40 years. Generally speaking the people of the United Kingdom are a fairly tolerant bunch. As a country we tend not to rush into things and, by and large, we are prepared to give people a chance.    By any measure, the EU has had its chance. The EU has had four decades to convince the British p...

In June 2016 voters were presented   with a simple in/out choice: either to remain in the EU or leave. When faced with that straightforward, binary proposition, 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU. Not only is it undemocratic, it is also patronizing in the extreme to suggest that voters who opted for ‘leave’ made a mistake because they did not understand what they were voting for. Voters did not make a mistake. They voted to leave the EU – that was the question that was asked. Voters had multiple reasons for wanting to leave the EU. Not all voters wanted to leave for the same reasons. Clearly, some of the major issues can be categorised as: ‘sovereignty’ ‘immigration’ ‘the cost of EU membership’ and ‘increasing interference from Brussels across a range of issues’. Nor were voters misled or duped. Voters opted to leave the EU in the knowledge that there might very well be, in fact probably would be negative economic consequences for the country as a whole. They were ...

So who exactly voted to leave and why? According to the accepted ‘remain’ line, the great preponderance of the 17.4mn people were either racist, ignorant and / or gullible   - not least because they accepted the claim about £350mn additional funding for the NHS. Not only that, but according to Clegg, a substantial number of ‘leave’ voters have since realised the error they made on 23 June 2016 and these are the people that he says should be allowed to change their mind and be given the opportunity to vote in a second referendum.    According to Clegg, voters have the right to change their mind, and anyway, having set aside the referendum result, the EU will naturally welcome us back with open arms and what’s more, it will listen earnestly to our complaints and change its ways to accommodate the aspirations of the British people in a “new deal”, so that “with a combination of ingenuity and generosity, we can reach a settlement that represents all sides of the debate”...

Quite clearly there were multiple reasons why the British people voted to leave the EU in 2016. It would be wrong to suggest that 17.4mn all had exactly the same reason for wanting to put an end to the UK’s 40 year relationship. But what we can say is that if that relationship was working and had produced benefits, there would have been no referendum movement in the first place. Contrast the EU with the NHS. The NHS came into being in 1946. The NHS is far from perfect. It is not held in in high regard - indeed from the start it has attracted criticism. But, aside from sporadic calls for its abolition, and despite its many failings people have accepted it. There has never been any suggestion that we should have a referendum on whether or not to abolish it. Why is that? Because, give or take, the NHS works. The EU, on the other hand, has had 40 years to convince the British people of the benefits of EU membership and yet, from the outset it has singularly failed to achieve widespre...

On 23 June 2016, 17.4mn people voted to leave the EU versus 16.1mn voted to remain. The difference separating the two sides (1.3mn votes) might not have constituted a landslide but it was still a clear cut decision: 52% vs 48%. But ever since the result was announced, embittered and anti-democratic forces within and without Parliament have sort to frustrate the will of the people and over-turn the referendum result. There is still considerable uncertainty as regards what form Brexit will actually take. There is clearly a degree of anxiety. But that is not a reason why the result of the referendum should be overturned. Part of the problem is that there is a clear imbalance between the wishes of the ‘informed classes’ (the bien pensants ) and the majority of voters. But that’s how democracy works. When Churchill was informed of the outcome of the 1945 General Election he didn’t demand a re-run. His response (supposedly) was a simple: ‘that’s democracy. That’s what we’ve been fi...

Defending BREXIT (and democracy)