Brexitwatch: Broken Promise no 7 - 'taking control'

The Brexiters told us that if we voted to leave the EU, we would 'take control.' Apparently not.

With less than a month gone since the referendum, we have already had a prime minister that no one voted for imposed on us . So are the Brexiters demanding a general election? Apparently not.

The other thing we heard a lot about from the Leave campaign was that the UK parliament must be sovereign. So is it going to get a say on when our unelected prime minister gives notice to quit the EU under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty? Not if the Brexiters get their way.

The minister in charge of Brexit, David Davis, appears determined to make sure Parliament has no control, but a number of British citizens are mounting legal challenges. Predictably they have been subjected to threats and racist abuse.

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: So farewell then, David Cameron

According to Enoch Powell, 'all political careers end in failure'. But few can have burned up quite so spectacularly as that of David Cameron.

He spent months telling us it would be a disaster if we left the EU, and yet because of his foolishly constructed referendum, which imposed no minimum threshold for Brexit, on the say-so of not much more than a third of the electorate, we are now consigned to suffer the damage he predicted.

As for his flagship policy - elimination of the budget deficit - he abandoned that completely. Originally he promised to balance the books by 2015, then by 2020, and much pain and austerity was inflicted on the British people to achieve this objective. Now there is no plan for getting rid of the deficit, just as there is no plan for what to do when we leave Europe.

In Peer Gynt, as the hero's life nears its end, he is confronted by a button-moulder who proposes melting him down to see if anything of value remains. When David Cameron's time at No 10 is melted down, what will we find? He legalised same-sex marriage. And that is about it.

We British often get sentimental about prime ministers who are coming to the end of their careers, however unpopular they may have been. But David Cameron's great failing was that he put the interests of the Conservative Party before the interests of his country. And for that history will judge him harshly, and rightly so.

He leaves office a leading contender, against some formidable competition, for the title of Britain's worst-ever prime minister.

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: Little England 1 Iceland 2. What now for Boris Johnson?

He told them Little England were world beaters, and that it was easy to keep out foreigners, but the fans were stunned as tiny Iceland, with a population smaller than Nether Wallop, slammed in two goals and dumped Boris Johnson’s team out of Europe without even the consolation of a trade deal.

The fans had adored his flagship argument that they could have their cake and eat it, and responded by beating up foreigners and chanting his slogan: ‘F*** off Europe, we’re all voting out.’

But after the match, those same supporters were bitter and angry. ‘He promised the rest of Europe would do whatever we told them,’ said one, ‘but instead they kept scoring goals against us. It wasn’t fair.’

Another complained: ‘He’s just a conman. After I’d eaten my cake this morning, it wasn’t there anymore.’ His friend commented: ‘Johnson’s team didn’t seem to know what they were doing. There was no plan.’

An ashen-faced Johnson, the highest paid manager in the tournament, said he did not remember making any of his promises. 

Boris has survived many scrapes and scandals, thanks to the slavish support of his friends in the press, but with the supporters who once idolised him now in open revolt and his assistant, Michael 'we've had enough of experts' Gove, plotting against him, it is hard to see Johnson surviving to lead Little England for much longer. 

Brexitwatch: Letter to David Cameron

I sent this letter to David Cameron via the No 10 Downing Street website - https://email.number10.gov.uk/

The site allows you 1,000 characters. If we want to keep Europe in the EU, it is important that as many people as possible write to him. Feel free to adapt/improve/be inspired by/ignore what is written below, but do write:

Mr Cameron, you have so far always put the interests of the Conservative Party before those of your country. If you do not want to be remembered as the worst Prime Minister this country has ever had, that needs to change now. In order to stop the dreadful damage that is already happening to our economy, you need to put a motion before Parliament, saying that the UK will be remaining a member of the EU. MPs are representatives, not delegates. They are not bound by a referendum result that was won by systematic lying from the Leave campaign. If we had been seeking approval to hold a one-day strike, the government would have refused on the grounds that the approval of less than 40% of the electorate was insufficient. And yet you consider it is enough to take us out of the EU, and inflict all manner of unnecessary horrors on us! Even Nigel Farage has admitted that a 52-48 margin is too narrow to be considered decisive. At the v least, we deserve a 2nd referendum - this time a fair one.

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!'