Brexitwatch: Kent's Brexit bogs - is Boris Johnson planning his greatest double cross?

There's a story doing the rounds that the UK could rejoin the EU in short order under Article 49. I personally do not give it a lot of credence. Nor do I think we should arrogantly assume that other EU members would want us back after the way we've behaved over the last four years.

Still, it does make you wonder. As I've noted many times, anything you say about Boris Johnson has to be highly speculative because you can't believe a word he says. 

So why is Johnson's government building 'Farage Garages' all over the place to accommodate lorry drivers stranded by Brexit, and why is Kent being turned into a public toilet that you'll need a passport to get in and out of?

Is this just the inevitable result of a no-deal Brexit or whatever lousy bare bones deal Johnson manages to do?

Or is it to ram home to the Brexiters what a disaster leaving the EU is going to be (Kent voted 59% for Brexit in the referendum), and to soften them up for an eventual application to rejoin or at least to agree a relationship that keeps us in the Single Market and the Customs Union? After all, it's quite clear that Johnson knows perfectly well that Brexit is a thoroughly foolish idea for the UK, however much it may have advanced him personally.

I don't believe this is Johnson's game, and I wouldn't put any money on it, but he knows that if he is not to go down in history as the UK's worst ever (and possibly last) prime minister, then at some point he needs to pivot away from disaster.

The millionaire who made a fortune out of Brexit

Just watched BBC-2’s Brexit; A Very British Coup. The duplicity of the Brexiters is clear to see.

The Tories, like Gove, Johnson and Fox, are under orders to have nothing to do with what their party supposedly sees as Nigel Farage’s irresponsible and incendiary campaign. But in fact, they are in touch with him the whole time, and when a story starts running that if Boris gets to be PM, he’ll offer the UKIP leader a seat in his cabinet, the blonde bombshell does nothing to deny it.

As for Labour Brexiter Gisela Stuart, she says she considers Farage so loathsome, she will never share a platform with him. But when it becomes clear that his anti-immigrant approach can save the Leave campaign, she, er, shares a platform with him.

Another Brexit campaigner is the hedge fund boss, Crispin Odey. The Leave vote sent the pound plummeting – bad news for the rest of us because it cut the value of our homes, savings, pensions, wages etc by 10 per cent or more. But it was good news for Mr Odey. He made £200 million out of sterling’s collapse. Another example of how Brexit was a blow for the rich elite against ordinary people.

But perhaps the most revealing moment in the programme was when disgraced former defence secretary, now leading Brexiter, Liam Fox was asked what would happen after a Leave vote. It was plain he neither knew nor cared. And doesn’t it show?

Brexitwatch: broken promise no 6 - fishing

During the referendum campaign, UKIP’s Nigel Farage led a few fishing boats up the Thames to protest against the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy while another leading Brexiter, ‘Mike the knife’ Gove blamed it for the destruction of his father’s business. Leave campaigners told fishermen that once we left Europe, foreigners could be excluded from British waters, and all their troubles would be over.

Sadly, it was just another broken Brexit promise. The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations has warned that because the UK is so close to Europe, it will not be possible to shut out other nations in the way that Iceland, for example, has done.

Instead we will have to negotiate with our neighbours – a process that will almost certainly take years, with no guarantee that quotas will end up being any more generous than they are now, especially as they will still have to be tight enough to stop the suicidal overfishing the CFP was designed to prevent.

The only certain outcome of leaving the EU will be that fishermen will lose the subsidies they currently get from Europe.

 As with so many things that were blamed on the EU, much of the discontent stirred up by the CFP was actually the result of a decision by the UK government - to allocate two-thirds of our quotas to just three big companies, freezing out many smaller fishermen.

Brexitwatch: Write to your MP

If you are not prepared to stand by and watch Britain dragged out of the EU on the basis of a Brexit campaign founded on a pack of lies which won the support of less than 38 per cent of the electorate, you need to write to your MP. This is what I have sent to mine.

'As a representative, and not a delegate, clearly your responsibility now is to exercise your judgement as to the best way of avoiding further serious harm to us, your constituents, and to the country as a whole. In the absence of any plan of any sort from the Leave campaign, this can only be achieved by a clear statement from Parliament that it rejects the result of a fatally flawed referendum, and affirms that the UK will remain in the EU.

We are already suffering serious economic damage from the referendum result - job losses, cancelled investment, value of people's savings and pensions slashed by the falling pound, and miscellaneous other effects, e.g. the loss of £7bn+ from the taxpayers' holding in RBS, not to mention racist violence against minorities in our country:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-eu-referendum-racial-racism-abuse-hate-crime-reported-latest-leave-immigration-a7104191.html

This cannot be allowed to continue. Parliament must act.

The EU referendum result lacks legitimacy for the following reasons:-

1. The Leave campaign deceived people into voting for it by lying. It broke at least four promises in the first 24 hours after the result 

http://disasterhistorian.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/brexitwatch-lies-and-broken-promises-so.html

And large numbers of pro-Leave voters now wish they had voted Remain.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum-bregret-leave-petition-second-remain-latest-will-we-leave-a7105116.html

2. Even Nigel Farage has admitted that a 52-48 margin of victory would not be sufficiently decisive and would require a second referendum

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-wants-second-referendum-7985017

If we had been voting to have a one day strike instead of to leave Europe, the proposition would have been rejected as having insufficient support:

'The government has long emphasised that, it does not consider a majority vote valid if it is less than 40% of the eligible electorate, when it is union members voting for a temporary public sector strike. Given that an EU exit is far more important and permanent, how will MPs justify treating the 37.4% of the vote to leave as sufficient, especially when the majority is so small and significantly composed of old people who won’t be affected by the outcome?'
Professor John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle upon Tyne

The Brexiters plainly have no plan, but I am sure that you do. I look forward to hearing what it is.'

Brexitwatch: today's broken promise

Broken promise No. 5 by my reckoning, though I may have missed some.

Throughout referendum campaign, Brexit leadership: 'Of course we will hold informal talks with our European partners for a couple of years before giving formal notice to quit under Article 50.'

Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande today: 'Oh no, you won't!'

Brexitwatch: how the Leave campaign poisoned the political atmosphere

Nigel Farage is complaining the Leave campaign is being victimised over the murder of Jo Cox.

We do not know who killed Jo Cox or why. Quite properly, that can be decided only by a court of law.

We do know that the Brexit leadership has run a deceitful, inflammatory campaign that has unleashed forces that make violence more likely.

When you tell people: 'we want our country back', that can only mean their country has been stolen or taken from them by someone. (The man accused of Jo Cox's murder said: 'Freedom for Britain' when asked his name.)

When, like Michael Gove, you dismiss any informed voices who disagree with you with the words: 'people in this country have had enough of experts', when you denigrate the same people as 'elites', you paint a picture of a Britain where ordinary folk are being betrayed by a corrupt cabal holding power. (This 'elite', of course, does not include Gove, Boris Johnson, Grayling, Priti Patel, who are all themselves cabinet ministers.)

And when you studiously avoid offering any coherent policies on what you will do if Britain actually leaves the EU, but simply demonise immigration from Europe as the cause of anything anyone dislikes, you unleash what Polly Toynbee described (before Jo Cox's murder) as 'furies' which you cannot control.

Today Stephen Kinnock put it like this: 'There are those who say we must “take our country back”, who castigate those on one side of an argument as an “elite”, in the pay of an establishment, in it for themselves and detached from the real world. Those people have to realise that their aggressive words and dangerous rhetoric have consequences. If you try to light a fuse, you can’t be surprised when it catches.'

Brexitwatch; how they demonise immigrants, 'experts', Cameron, while their fantasies wreck our economy

Even the Mail is waking up to the dangers from the anti-Europeans. From today's paper:

‘The time has come to talk about Project Hate. Three weeks ago we all woke to the following quote from a pro-Brexit MP: 'I don't want to stab the Prime Minister in the back – I want to stab him in the front so I can see the expression on his face.'

One week later Nigel Farage said that British women risked being raped if we didn't vote for Brexit. At the same time posters began to circulate from the Vote Leave campaign – replete with shadowy footsteps – warning of 55 million migrants entering the UK from Turkey. Last week, as immigration began to slip down the agenda, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove again demanded Cameron 'veto' Turkish accession.

A day after the Orlando terrorist attack, a poster was published by Leave.EU urging people to 'act now' before a similar attack occurred here in the UK.

This followed a warning from Gove that if Turkey were granted access, 'extremists everywhere will believe that the West is opening its borders to appease an Islamist government'. They know what they are doing. Farage. Gove. Johnson. They have always known. That they were opening a Pandora's Box. But it glistened before them so brightly.

And now we know too. The signs are everywhere. The plunging pound. The increasing panic on the stock market, not to mention the ever more strident attacks on the governor of the Bank of England, and any of the other despised 'experts' who dare to suggest Brexit represents a leap into the darkness.

In some ways, this is the most insidious element of all. The bonfire of reason that now underpins the Leave campaign. Facts, logic, experience – the foundations upon which any rational debate must rest – are systematically dynamited in pursuit of an intellectual abstraction known as 'sovereignty'.

Project Hate has brought us to the brink. Britain – the country we live in this morning – stands on the edge. This time next week it could all be gone. Our economic security. Our national security. Our international security. Imagine if it works. The overt racism. The overt demonisation of refugees. The graphic threats to stab the Prime Minister in the chest. Imagine if that is what constitutes a successful British political campaign in 2016.’

Brexitwatch: Project Leap in the Dark - 3

The anti-Europeans claim we have ‘lost control’ of our country. In fact, about 87% of UK laws are made in the UK. If you do not like them, blame our politicians (and our people for electing them), not Europe.

But in some important areas, we are protected by EU laws. In the workplace, for example, they guarantee paid holidays, equal treatment for men and women, parental leave, rights for part-time workers, a safe working environment, and protection from discrimination or being made to work excessive hours.

In the environmental area, they protect the quality of our air and our water. Then there’s consumer legislation - ensuring the products we buy are safe. There is prevention of cruelty to animals, protection of bees etc etc.

What is the policy of Boris, Gove, Farage and co if they win? Will they keep these regulations, strengthen them, weaken them, abolish them? I have no idea. Have you? Have they? Though the anti ‘red tape’ comments we hear from the Brexiters suggest that if we leave Europe, we might all need to be a lot more careful in future when we’re going to work, shopping, swimming or breathing.

Brexit = Project Leap in the Dark.

Brexitwatch: Project Leap in the Dark - 2

The Brexiters have finally set out a ‘timetable’ for leaving the EU. It all looks terribly orderly and friendly, but as with all Brexit policies, it is based on the assumption that all foreigners will do exactly what Boris, Gove and Farage tell them.

Interestingly the Brexiters want to delay invoking article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon giving notice to leave Europe, for as long as possible (more of this below). Then they say our exit terms and a new trading relationship with Europe will be agreed by 2019 or 2020. Significantly, Gove has said we might still be in the EU at the time of the next general election.

The problem for the Leave Campaign is that none of this is in their gift. The UK government and Parliament may have a view, and Boris, Gove and Farage are not yet the government, though increasingly they behave as though they are.

But more important, it is the other 27 EU members who will decide on the timetable and what Britain is offered. We will be excluded from discussions on our exit terms, which have to be finalised in two years. This deadline can be extended only with the unanimous agreement of all 27 countries. So, in reality, when the two years are up, for Britain it will be take it or leave it time.

Negotiations for a new trading agreement would probably happen at the same time. As I said in my post of 13 June, any such agreement would require the unanimous agreement of all 27 EU governments, their parliaments and the European Parliament.

So the idea of some Brexiters (though bitterly opposed by others who just want to rip up all our trade agreements) that Britain will get some special sweetheart trade deal is cloud cuckoo land. The best we can hope for is that in return for continuing to allow free movement of people, to observe EU rules and to go on paying into the EU budget, we will continue to get access to the single market, though this, of course, is not guaranteed.

By then, Boris, Gove, Farage and co will be between the devil and the deep blue sea, with their supporters getting angrier by the day that they have been conned into voting Leave by a pack of lies. So some of the wilder Brexiters are suggesting we do not bother with the legal niceties and just start unilaterally withdrawing.

This would destroy any residual good will there might be among our European partners, so that we would be offered only the harshest exit terms, with no trade deal of any kind. It would also mean we were in breach of international law, with unknown consequences, particularly for the million plus British people working or living in, or retired to, Europe. Not that Boris and co have ever cared about them.  

So why do the Brexiters suddenly want to start dragging their feet on leaving Europe? Probably the awful realisation that they might win, and that, once invoked, article 50 cannot be uninvoked. Giving notice to leave the EU is irrevocable. Another factor may be growing nervousness over promises they have made that they know cannot be kept, and a third the bitter divisions on the Brexit side that are beginning to emerge.

Brexitwatch: Project Leap in the Dark - 1

The thing that has surprised me most about the UK's EU Referendum campaign is how the anti-Europeans have been allowed to get away with saying virtually nothing about what they will do if we vote to leave. In this series, I am going to highlight some of the crucial questions to which they have given no answer.

The Breixters now seem to be getting cold feet about leaving. Michael Gove said if we voted for Brexit, he would try to delay invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which we have to do in order to quit, and that Britain would still be in the EU in 2020, though he later tried to deny this. https://next.ft.com/content/b296fa42-2bd4-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc

At the moment, the anti-Europeans have no idea what they will ask for from the EU, never mind whether the EU will agree to it. Sometimes they want to be like Norway, or perhaps Switzerland (though plenty of commentators have said these options will not be viable - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/10/three-reasons-a-post-brexit-uk-cant-copy-norway-or-switzerland/) All right then, like Canada, or (Gove's favourite) Albania. Or maybe we don't try to get a deal at all.

It is sobering that some of the Brexiters have been plotting against the EU for decades, and yet they have not been able to sign up a single country to agree to a single one of their ideas.

At other times Gove, Boris and Farage and co have said: don't worry because German carmakers and French cheesemakers will force the rest of Europe to give us a really good deal. 

In fact, any deal with the EU has to be agreed by all 27 countries, their national parliaments, and the European Parliament. The car and cheesemakers are going to have their work cut out to twist the arms of that lot!

And a deal has to be reached within two years. If it is not, the deadline can only be extended with the agreement of all 27 EU countries. You can understand why Gove and co are in such a panic.

UK general election - 5 things we learned

1. The Conservatives have managed three surprise election wins in the last half century – 1970, 1992 and now 2015. Labour have achieved none.

2. The British electoral system is as undemocratic as ever. The Tories now get to rule us even though nearly two voters in three were against them. UKIP won nearly three times as many votes as the SNP, but they got 1 MP while the SNP got 56. So far, the Labour-Conservative coalition has blocked any move towards real democracy, but if Labour begin to feel they no longer benefit from the current unfairness, will they abandon the road block?

3. It was refreshing to see Messrs Miliband, Clegg and Farage accept responsibility for their failures and step down (though Farage rather devalued his resignation by saying he might try to get his job back). Wouldn’t it be wonderful if politicians in power took a similar attitude?

4. There is such a thing as a good election to lose. If Labour had lost in 2005, as they should have done after Iraq, they could have held to account the conspirators who created the war, and made a fresh start, while, through serendipity, the Tories would have been landed with the world economic crisis. Today David Cameron is a hero, but with a tiny majority, he could soon find himself the prisoner of the Tory extremists, and by 2020, he may have lost Britain’s place in Europe, and lost Scotland.

5. They say countries get the politicians they deserve. The Liberal Democrats made many mistakes, but when Britain faced a severe economic crisis in 2010, they put the British people before party interests by going into a coalition that many Lib Dems found unpalatable. The British people responded by giving them the worst electoral drubbing in modern political history. It may be a long time before another party puts the national interest before its own selfish interests.