Tuesday 25 August 2015

Toby on Tuesday 

‘Falsehoods and Fallacies’



UKIP’s greatest achievement so far is to have forced David Cameron into conceding a referendum on EU membership before the end of 2017. Without UKIP, a sense of inevitability would have surrounded our being drawn deeper into the swamp of the whole failing project. And the other day the shape of David Cameron’s negotiating strategy became clear when Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary and strong supporter of the EU, let the cat out of the bag. What he said was that the referendum was planned for September 2016 to avoid a clash with next May’s Scottish, Welsh and council elections. He added that “the government had choreographed a big row with the French after February’s European Council meeting…Public expectations from renegotiation need to be realistic (and be downplayed at the outset) and then be exceeded. Other EU governments should recognise the need for UK ‘wins’, preferably following some ‘rows’!”

Of course, all this nonsense is completely unnecessary, just as our membership of the EU was completely unnecessary in the first place. In essence the EU is a political, and not an economic, project which the British people joined on the basis of a clear deception. In 1960, the UK was a founding member of EFTA, the European Free Trade Association, along with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Iceland joined in 1970, Finland in 1986 and Liechtenstein in 1991. But in 1973 the UK and Denmark left to join the EU, as did Portugal in 1986, and Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. Yet the truly significant moment came as early as 1972, when EFTA signed its own free trade agreement with the EU. That is to say that, at precisely the moment when we were being told that, to trade in Europe, we had to be an EU member, the EU itself was signing a free trade agreement with EFTA, of which we had been a co-founder. And since then EFTA has itself signed free trade agreements with nations and customs unions across the world, from which the four remaining members, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, derive great benefit.

So with the so-called “renegotiation” underway, the time must have arrived to embrace our EFTA membership once more, an arrangement about which we can be positive instead of carping about the EU in a negative way. And the precedent for the UK must surely be that of Switzerland which has retained all the benefits of trading throughout the EU without losing control of its borders through the deeply-flawed concept of “free movement of people.” All this has been spelt out clearly in a powerful new pamphlet from UKIP’s Trade Spokesman, William Dartmouth, MEP for the South-West and Gibraltar. Entitled “The Truth about Trade outside the EU” and with the sub-title of “Why leaving the EU takes the UK into a world of new opportunity”, the pamphlet will be circulated throughout UKIP’s branches over the coming weeks. It is packed with compelling statistics, not least the chart that shows that, per head of population, Switzerland exports nearly five times the value of goods to the EU as does the UK. As William says, “Our future must not be built on falsehoods”. We must expect to be lied to and deceived to an astonishing extent over the next year by all those with an interest in our staying trapped inside the EU project. The counter-arguments and essential facts are all contained in William’s remarkable pamphlet, which I commend to anyone serious about reaching the truth behind our EU membership!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby

 

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Toby on Tuesday 

‘A complete collapse of intelligence’



Here in Yorkshire, we are exceptionally lucky in having two outstanding UKIP MEP’s in Jane Collins and Mike Hookem. They complement each other and both have brought practical experience of the real world to their new lives in the European Parliament. Mike’s background is in the Armed Forces, where you would have thought that he had seen something of the murky side of life. But our Armed Forces, still the finest on the planet, live according to their own strict code which could not be more removed from that of the EU. So even Mike was astonished by the scale of sheer criminality when the other day he was threatened with a handgun by an illegal immigrant in a camp outside Dunkirk. These migrant camps in Northern France, driven as they are by people-traffickers and other villains, are now the most potent images of our EU membership, images that no amount of hand-wringing by powerless ministers, desperate not to offend our so-called “partners”, can eradicate.

But today I want to write not about illegal immigration through Calais but rather through Istanbul in Turkey, which has received literally billions in “pre-accession funding” as it presses on with its application for full EU membership. Now, in order to seek influence across Africa and the Middle East, Turkey has created an e-visa entry regime. This is open to 89 countries including Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan. It requires just the completion of a simple e-form, a fee payable online and a flight into Istanbul using either Turkish Airlines or Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines. For its part, Turkish Airlines flies to virtually the whole Islamic world, including Somalia. And it is calculated that there are now some 100,000 temporary migrants in Istanbul, preparing for the next leg of their journeys into Greece and then on to Northern Europe, not least to Britain. For them, the Istanbul route is a fair bit more expensive than the boat across the Mediterranean, but a good deal more straightforward. It is also highly profitable for Turkey.

Even Frontex, the EU’s borders agency, has finally acknowledged that Turkey’s e-visa regime is open to “countries of origin for irregular migration to the EU…an increasing number of people arriving in the EU from Turkey…are using forged and fraudulent travel documents.” The truth is that the whole EU dream is turning into an unqualified nightmare and we will only regain control of our borders when we bid farewell to this terminal disaster. And it seems well-nigh incredible that our own weak Government, urged on by the U.S. State Department, is still seeking Turkish accession to the EU, despite the ongoing war against the Kurds. Now, as Mike Hookem knows better than most, this year sees the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War. Peter Weir’s 1981 film “Gallipoli”, starring Mel Gibson, still resonates after more than 30 years. As the film showed, the principal cause of the disaster of Gallipoli, the Turkish peninsula at the tip of the Dardanelles straits, was a complete collapse of intelligence. As we seek to stem the tide of illegal immigration from Turkey and elsewhere a century later, an equal collapse of intelligence, albeit of another kind, is again the dominating feature!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby

 

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Toby on Tuesday 

‘Brazen lies and false declarations’


 


Last week I wrote about the very best of the very best, those enterprising Yorkshire men and women behind Business for Britain. Creating top-of-the-range products and selling them across the globe, they build employment and prosperity here for the benefit of all. By contrast today I am going to write about the very worst of the very worst, or at least someone who must be a contender for that particular title, namely the late Sir Edward Heath. It was Edward Heath who, as Prime Minister from 1970-74, took Britain into the then European Economic Community. I don’t propose to write about the various police investigations now underway, but instead want to say something about his proven crimes. And of course his greatest proven crime, from which we continue to suffer, was to have given away our sovereignty on the basis of a brazen lie.

In 1970, Lord Kilmuir as Lord Chancellor wrote privately to Edward Heath about the proposed EEC accession. What he said was, “It is clear…that the Council of Ministers could…make regulations which would be binding on us even against our wishes, and which would in fact become for us part of the law of the land. For Parliament to do this would go far beyond the most extensive delegation of powers, even in wartime, that we have experienced and I do not think there is any likelihood of this being acceptable to the House of Commons. We should have therefore to accept a position where Parliament had no more power to repeal its own enactments (in other words that it was no longer a Parliament)… we could only comply with our obligations under the Treaty if Parliament abandoned its right of passing independent judgment on the legislative proposals put before it…In this respect Parliament has in substance, if not in form, abdicated its sovereign position.” Yet in 1972 Edward Heath declared on television that, “There will be no loss of essential national sovereignty.” Kilmuir’s letter, ignored by Edward Heath, only became public many years later. And when in 1990 Edward Heath was asked, again on television, whether he had known that his 1972 declaration had been false, he replied, “Of course, yes!”

As Prime Minister, Edward Heath also started negotiations with Franco’s Spain for the transfer of democratic Gibraltar to a fascist dictatorship, against the express wishes of its people. He offered Spain political and cultural access to Gibraltar to start the process of “persuading” the Gibraltarians to relinquish British sovereignty. Likewise, he had an obsession with the Chinese Communist Party, busy at that time executing thousands of dissidents a year. His defence of Chinese totalitarianism was, “You can’t have a democracy with so many people!” No doubt he had this precedent in mind when planning for a Europe of 500 million people in the “post-democratic age.” I can’t claim to have known Edward Heath myself, but I met him on several occasions, notably when he twice came to speak for me when I was standing as a Conservative candidate. It always puzzled me that he chose to address me as “Tony”. I mentioned this in a light-hearted way to someone who was close to him and he replied, “Oh, when Ted really dislikes someone he always deliberately gets their name wrong!” But what he intended as an insult, I have always taken as a badge of honour for, in a reasonable and balanced world, an insult from Edward Heath can only be seen as the ultimate compliment!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby

 

Tuesday 4 August 2015

Toby on Tuesday 

‘Business for Britain’


 


This week I’d like to introduce you to Alan Halsall, a classic example of the very best kind of innovative Yorkshire entrepreneur. Now Alan has spent much of his career rescuing and rebuilding the Silver Cross company, based in Skipton. Founded in Leeds in 1877, Silver Cross had run into difficulties when Alan acquired it in 2002. Since then the company has been reinvigorated with nearly 100 employees, one-third of whom work abroad, making baby transport and other baby-related products. These include its iconic prams, pushchairs, car seats, nursery furniture, bedding, toys and gifts. The company sells in over 50 countries, is especially strong in China and has a retail boutique in the Ocean Terminal Centre, Hong Kong. Its offices are in Skipton, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai. And it has just entered into a shareholding partnership with China’s Fosun Corporation, which will strengthen its distribution in the Far East and its employment opportunities in Skipton. Silver Cross is now a truly global business of the future, based here in Yorkshire.

I mention all this because Alan is Co-Chairman of Business for Britain, a new national organisation with strong Yorkshire connections. What may have radicalised Alan is his own experience of trying to sell Silver Cross prams in France, where he believes French pram manufacturers are using spurious safety grounds to ensure that his prams are excluded from the French market in blatant flouting of the EU’s free trade rules. In his own words, “When we tried to export our prams to France we found that they were required to meet additional safety standards for the French markets, even though they conform to all EU safety standards required. As a result we had to pay thousands of pounds to ship the stock which we had sent out for sale to French stores back to Britain. We had to pull out of France. It was annoying and expensive.”

Now Business for Britain describes itself as “independent and non-partisan, involving people from all parties and no party.” Alan’s Co-Chairman is John Mills, one of the Labour Party’s key donors. If you google www.businessforbritain.org, you can find out more about the campaign but its stated position is, “It is clear that the EU needs to change. It is also increasingly accepted that if it refuses to do so then Britain should leave.” As well as having the finest possible Yorkshire Co-Chairman, Business for Britain’s regional operations around the whole country are being co-ordinated from Richmond by the excellent Julie Moody, who is really very good news indeed. So with Alan as Co-Chairman and Julie as Regional Director, Yorkshire brains, energy and creativity are at the heart of what must be a successful campaign.

As for my part, I shall be supporting Alan and Julie to the best of my ability alongside my good friend Martin Vallance of UKIP Richmond. There will be many Euro-realist voices heard over the coming months, but UKIP and Business for Britain will be two of the most eloquent. And as for Silver Cross itself, the truth is that Britain needs literally thousands of new businesses like Silver Cross, selling top-of-the-range products around the world, free from the dead hand of the corporatist and protectionist EU. To achieve this is the mission of creative Yorkshire entrepreneurs with a global outlook like Alan Halsall – they are the very best of the very best!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby