Toby on Tuesday

 

"It's beginning to look a lot like..." 

 

 

“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.   In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution.”   That was George Orwell, author of ‘1984’, ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ and ‘Animal Farm’, writing in 1941.   And if it was true 75 years ago, then it is many times so today when the Left has had three generations to colonise many of those institutions.   The narrative of our news outlets, in particular the BBC about which I wrote last week and Channel 4, and their palpable sense of anger and loss over June’s Referendum result, is all too clear.   And while the need to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is now seen as inevitable, the campaign to negate June’s vote has moved onto more sophisticated ground with arguments over the Single Market, the Customs Union, the Internal Market or whatever name you choose to describe the relentless power grab of the EU institutions.   This ignores deliberately the simple truth that what ordinary British, and especially English, men and women voted for in June was to get back their unique country, the land of Shakespeare and Newton, Nelson and Churchill, of Elizabeth 1 and indeed our own marvellous Queen, the wonderful country that had been taken away from them by all those self-styled intellectuals, so well described by George Orwell in 1941.

 

And as the whole Brexit process unfolds, there will be five simple tests to gauge whether Brexit does indeed mean Brexit:

 

1.  Will we have control of our borders?

 

2.   Will we be able to make our own laws?

 

3.   Will we be able to negotiate our own trade agreements?

 

4.   Will we have to continue paying into the Brussels budget?

 

5.   Will we be able to reclaim our North Sea fisheries?

 

And of these five, the final one, the return of our fisheries is of huge psychological importance.   The EU knew just what it was doing in 1972 when it took away our fisheries, for it was saying that Britain would no longer be a maritime, open trading nation any more, but rather it would become just one more Continental country, part of the European land mass.   And only by the return of our fisheries can that error be put right and our role as a maritime nation be reclaimed.  Now it is by these five tests that Brexit will be judged post-next year’s invocation of Article 50.   My belief is that those who were defeated in June will seek to ensure that not one of them will be properly fulfilled and that Britain will remain within the EU by some other name.  So this is why a strong and united UKIP under Paul Nuttall’s leadership is now needed more than ever.  And as the year draws to a close, it’s just worth remembering those splendid lines of Rudyard Kipling on Danegeld, the tribute once paid to the Danes to stop them invading England:

 

“We never pay anyone Danegeld,

No matter how trifling the cost,

For the end of the game is oppression and shame

And the nation that pays it is lost!”

 

Have a very happy Christmas and until next year!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

 

'A Champion of Social Justice (sic erat scriptum)'

 

It’s a funny thing, but dear old Auntie BBC has always gone weak at the knees at the thought of any kind of National Socialist dictator.   In the 1930’s it was Adolf Hitler who made her go all wobbly, speaking only well of him and supressing any nasty news from Berlin.   And she always reached for the smelling salts whenever that dreadful Winston Churchill went on about German rearmament, banning him from the airwaves for being so naughty.   So it was last week on the death of Fidel Castro, who also liked to murder his political opponents and minorities, having children and women shot whenever they tried to flee his grisly regime.   And the roll-call of monsters who were in Havana last week says it all.   President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, President Zuma of South Africa, President Bouterse of Suriname, President Maduro of Venezuela, President Ortega of Nicaragua and President Morales of Bolivia were all there, while Kim Jong Un of North Korea declared three days of mourning and despatched a delegation to Havana.   Gerry Adams was there to represent Sinn Fein and Emily Thornberry to represent the Labour Party.   And for Jeremy Corbyn, “Fidel Castro was a massive figure in the history of the whole planet...an internationalist and a champion of social justice.”   

As for Auntie Beeb, she excelled herself with coverage that was beyond parody.   For Newsnight, she dredged up clapped out Rentamob leftie Tariq Ali to praise Cuba’s “social dictatorship.”   Snooker coverage made way for a special documentary to “Remember Fidel Castro.”   And BBC News drew heavily on grovelling interviews with former Guardian journalist and “Cuba expert” Richard Gott without disclosing that he had been on the KGB payroll through services provided to a Russian agent called Mikhail Bogdanov.   Good old Auntie – there’s nothing like a grisly dictator to get her all excited!

 

And the dictatorship of the EU definitely fits into the same category.   Auntie Beeb’s reporting of Sunday’s referendum in Italy, where the attempt by a government of EU-favoured apparatchiks to tamper with the constitution was soundly rejected, tells us all we need to know.   The purpose of Sunday’s vote was to clip the wings of Italy’s Upper House, her Senate, by reducing the number of Senators from 315 to 100, to strip them of the right to hold votes of No Confidence in the government and above all to end all elections to the Senate.   In future, its 100 members would have been made up of 21 regional mayors, 74 regional council heads and 5 members appointed by Italy’s President.   This Euro-fascistic and blatantly anti-democratic measure would have concentrated yet more power into the hands of Italy’s Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, and by default into the hands of Brussels and the European Central Bank.   Now, since the banking crisis of 2008, Italy’s economy within the Euro currency has shrunk by almost 10% and unemployment has soared, while outside the Euro Britain’s has grown by broadly the same amount and jobs have flourished.   So to defy Italy’s democracy openly as Matteo Renzi did with his power-grab was foolish to say the least.  The Senate that he was proposing would have made our own, very questionable House of Lords like like a model of popular wisdom and insight.

 

In truth, and this isn’t being reported on Auntie Beeb’s news, the Italian people were determined not to go the way of Greece, condemned by Brussels and Berlin to impoverishment and humiliation.  For Italy, this is a moment of liberation.   Beppo Grillo’s Five Star Movement campaigned on the simple messages of transparency in Italy’s shadowy politics and restoration of the Lira, Italy’s old currency, a precondition for any economic recovery in this proud country.   The state of Italy’s banking system is all-too well known, with the extent of Non-Performing Loans far outweighing her banks’ capital and reserves.   Brussels’ solution will no doubt be to seek more control, the imposition of a new “technocratic” government and strict penalties for both depositors and shareholders as part of a bail-in/bail-out by the European Central Bank.   For the EU, the ideology of the Euro-project must at all costs not be questioned.   The obvious solution, following the experience of the UK and of the US Treasury’s TARP programme, is for the Government in Rome to reclaim the Lira and then to recapitalise the country’s banks.   But to do this would be to bring the whole crazy Euro project into question and to accept that you cannot have a monetary union without large fiscal transfers from the stronger to the weaker parts.   In Britain, we can only be grateful that we are finally leaving this ill-judged project.   Defying economic and political gravity leads eventually to destruction.   And Sunday’s vote in Italy could just be the moment when reality finally starts to challenge ideology – although of course that’s not how dear old Auntie Beeb, bless her, will be reporting developments!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

 

'Once More Unto The Breach Dear Friends, Once More'

 

 

 

Finally, we have a new leader and a new leader of whom we can all be very proud.   The process has been tortuous, but the result full of promise for the future.   Paul Nuttall is the man for the hour.   With a strong academic background as a history lecturer first at Hugh Baird College and then at Liverpool Hope University, he will be able to hold his own against all those sneering pundits from the BBC and Channel 4.   Nigel Farage was a meteor, a comet hurtling through the political firmament, throwing out huge quantities of light and heat, torching any lesser planet foolish enough to try and block his path.   By contrast, Paul will be our Pole Star or North Star, the stable constant by which political voyagers steer their course.   He is precisely what will be needed in the coming years as the great prize of Brexit starts to slip away from our grasp and the Remainers use every subterfuge to prevent its happening.   Whatever our Government may say, the initiative is fading and it will be UKIP’s mission to regain and reinforce it.   Paul will be ideal leader for this great task.

 

And I hope sincerely that, having won the argument on Brexit, UKIP will now wage war on that other great evil of our time, the scourge of political correctness.   Unseen, undetected, with its roots in Stalinist doctrine, it has sought to colonise the western mind over the past two generations, just as the EU has sought to colonise Europe.   Like George Orwell’s Newspeak in his “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, political correctness exists to stifle empirical evidence and thwart political debate.  It exists to deny argument and, what is so disgraceful, has taken root in our universities where open debate is the principal reason for their existence.   The end of the curse of political correctness will be as great a liberation for the human spirit as our exit from the so-called European Union.   It is not racist to say that Britain should welcome those who can add to the civilisation and prosperity of our society and reject those who would undermine it.   

 

A software engineer from India should naturally be made welcome here.   By contrast, members of the Black Axe mafia from Nigeria, which uses voodoo rites and machete attacks and which is now firmly embedded in Italy, must not be allowed to use the EU’s freedom of movement rules to come here.   Nor is it islamophobic to say that the greatest threat to the peace of the world, and indeed to peace-loving Muslims, is the Salafi strand of islam, which receives so much funding from Saudi Arabia and which has penetrated so much of European life..   And Putin’s Russia should be seen, despite everything, as a prospective ally in what is now a clash of civilisations.   And nor is it homophobic to say that, if homosexual relationships are to have the tax and other benefits of civil partnerships on the grounds of fidelity, then so should heterosexual relationships.   Nor is it hard-hearted to say that poor countries need free and open trade without tariff barriers and not the corrupting culture of Overseas Aid.   And above all they need good government.   Nor is it anti-Scots to say that Scotland, with a population and economy broadly similar to Yorkshire’s, benefits disproportionately from the Barnet formula and the SNP needs to grow up and acknowledge just how privileged Scotland has become.   

 

And finally it is not anti-European to say that the EU is the greatest job-destroying, civilisation-wrecking, arrogant, incompetent project in the history of the Continent and its day of reckoning will arrive very soon.

 

The other day, the egregious Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, EU apparatchik and author of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, declared that Britain needed high levels of immigration because “native Britons are so bloody stupid”.   No doubt the purring pundits all nodded in agreement, but had a UKIPper said something similar about any other group, he or she would have almost certainly been reported for a hate-crime.   Of course the consolation is that the world of Lord Kerr is drawing to a close.   After the Referendum, UKIP’s task in the coming years will be to dismantle a failed ideology and replace it with new and sensible structures based on empirical evidence.   Paul Nuttall is the one to lead this great project and, with the Brexit vote and our leadership election behind us, for UKIP the best is yet to come!

 

Until next Tuesday!

Toby on Tuesday

'Apparatchiks and Agendas'

 

                                                                                                                                Picture: Daily Express

 

 For the first time in well over a generation, we are about to have the pleasure of a U.S. President who knows and loves Britain.   We are about to have the pleasure of a U.S. President determined to prevent an accidental war with Russia over its support for what is, despite everything, the legitimate government of Syria.   And if Argentina is foolish enough to attempt another invasion of the Falklands, we will have the pleasure of a U.S. President to whom the Falkland Islanders can look for support.   We will have the pleasure of a U.S. President happy to see Britain at the front of the queue for a trade deal which could even involve Canada in a North Atlantic Free Trade Association.   

 

And above all we will have the pleasure of a U.S. President open to the idea of reinstating Winston Churchill’s bust in the Oval Office from which it was removed by the overtly hostile Barack H. Obama.   Yet to listen to the wretched, self-righteous, self-regarding, narcissistic, wrong-headed and anti-democratic pundits who fill the media and the old political parties, some global catastrophe has happened.  The truth is that Donald Trump will be a fine President who will fulfil his promise to make America great again.   And when America is great, then Britain as her close cousin and true ally, will become great again too.   So to the whingers in Westminster and Whitehall I say, “grow up, seize the opportunity and be glad that UKIP and Nigel Farage have made this new dawn possible!”

 

But today I don’t want to write about the U.S. Presidency.   Rather I want to alert you to the next date in the calendar, 4th December, when the global rejection of the old, failed order gathers pace and Italy goes to the polls in its own referendum.   For Italy’s Prime Minister, the apparatchik Matteo Renzi, is trying to reduce the power of Italy’s Upper House, its Senate, and thereby increase his own hold over the political system.   And under Italy’s constitution, his plan must be put to a referendum.   Originally Renzi  declared that, if unsuccessful, he would resign although he is now backtracking on that pledge.   For the truth is that both Italy’s Northern League and its Five Star Movement, the chief opposition groups, are campaigning against this crude attempt to concentrate yet more power into the hands of the Brussels-driven bureaucracy.   So we can expect yet more turmoil in Italy, buckling as it is under the burden of the employment-destroying Euro currency.

 

So 4th December is likely to be yet one more stage in the collapse of the E.U. Project.   That day too sees a presidential election in Austria, itself unable to cope with its own migration crisis.   So Brexit was only the start of a long process that is sweeping the West.   It will be painful for those who have become used to living well off a failed ideological agenda which benefited only those who managed it, but for the rest of us it will be a liberation.   And it will be a liberation that we should all welcome, not only in Britain, but also across Continental Europe, where Germany’s intelligence services have finally confirmed that “hundreds of jihadists” are among all those “refugees” who have entered the E.U., and last week above all in the United States of America.   Democracy is doing its job across the West and, inspired by Brexit and the new U.S. Presidency, 2017 could just become the year when the West at last moves to ensure its own survival!

 

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'The Bloodless Revolution' 

 

 

 

 

Until last week, probably the most unpopular judge in legal history was George Jeffreys, Lord Chancellor from 1685-88 under King James II.   An alcoholic, which he attributed to kidney disease, he was notorious for keeping brandy in his inkwell and then drinking it through his quill pen while passing sentence.   But we in Britain have always had a healthy scepticism about our judiciary.   And a few weeks ago I wrote about a bizarre evening spent sitting next to the wife of a prominent pro-Remain London High Court judge at a dinner.   She berated me for being a UKIPper, she berated “Northern white trash” for voting Leave, she asked those who were there if the younger members of our families had voted Leave and, when we all replied ‘yes’, she declared, “You’re all so complacent, you Yorkshire people, it’s horrific!”   And she moaned that her son’s hopes of getting a job with Goldman Sachs were now in ruins.   I almost said that the best thing her son could do if he wanted a useful and productive life would be to come and start a business in Yorkshire, but didn’t really want to risk another outburst.  But the truth is that most High Court judges have risen up under the Blair, Brown, Clegg, Cameron dispensation, for which devotion to the EU was an essential qualification, and we can only be thankful that their era is now passed.

 

But today I don’t want to write about the Article 50 case itself, but rather about how the judges’ supporters complained when their decision was subjected to perfectly proper public comment.   For if our judges want to behave like politicians, they mustn’t object when they are consequently subjected to the rough language of politics.   Strong words are the weapons of political life and, if they choose to play the game, then they cannot be immune to robust criticism.   Vigorous debate is central to Britain’s political tradition, which could be why they don’t like it.   Of course the strongest language of all was reserved for Judge Jeffreys, the “Hanging Judge”, notorious for his Bloody Assizes after the Monmouth Rebellion.   The last time before we joined the EU when a British government tried to hand power over to a foreign authority was under King James II.   Following the Battle of Sedgemoor he sent Jeffreys down to Taunton to deal with the rebels, the UKIPpers of their day.   There he found a total of 1,381 of those charged guilty of treason.   Of these some 170 were executed, beginning with Dame Alice Lisle, the last woman in England to have been executed by judicial sentence.  Jeffreys’ black cap, his sarcastic outbursts and his quill pen loaded with brandy entered the annals of judicial infamy.  And the public outcry was so great that in 1688 there followed the Glorious or Bloodless Revolution, the Brexit vote of its time, when James II was bundled off to France, never to return.   As for Jeffreys, he ended up in the Tower of London where he died the following year.  

 

So our High Court judges shouldn’t be surprised that, when they behave like politicians, they are treated like politicians and they should be reminded that strong words hurt nobody.   But what is clear from the whole Article 50 case is that there is serious trouble ahead for Theresa May both in the House of Commons and, more especially, in the House of Lords, groaning as it is with hysterical Remainers from all parties and none.   And if next month’s appeal to the Supreme Court doesn’t succeed, as it may well not, I would be very tempted in Theresa May’s position, to call the Remainers’ bluff, announce a General Election and, as part of her manifesto, to go not only for Brexit but also for a full and thorough reform of the House of Lords.   It is obvious that the so-called Upper House will use every tactic to delay and neutralise Brexit.   The Cameron/Clegg Fixed-Term Parliament Act is an obstacle, but one which may just have to be overcome.   In this way, as well as achieving Brexit, all the flotsam and jetsam of the Blair years can finally be removed from the political stage and the detritus of that failed era, the years of Blair and Heirs-to-Blair, finally consigned to history!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'With Liberty And Justice For All'

Today Americans go to the polls in their Presidential election. There are in fact four candidates who have ballot access in all, or almost all, states - Hillary Clinton (Democrat), Gary Johnson (Libertarian), Jill Stein (Green) and Donald Trump (Republican). And just as we in Britain rightly objected when President Barack H. Obama came here in April during our Referendum campaign to intimidate us with his bullying "going to be at the back of the queue" threat, so our American cousins would object if we were to pass judgement on any of the candidates in their election. However, we can comment on that rich harvest of leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's private server hdr22@clintonemail.com when they relate to our own country.   And there are some priceless gems among them which spell out how the world really works.   For example, six weeks after her appointment as Secretary of State in 2009, her aide Sidney Blumenthal wrote to her, "On economic policy, the UK is no partner and no bridge to Europe," while our very own  Cherie Blair, clearly freelancing at the time, tried to get Hillary Clinton to meet members of the Qatari royal family and wrote, "As you know I have good links to the Qataris."   So welcome to the new world order of the past generation, where those who have run the global power nexus plainly see their electorates as mere fodder, to be thrown a few treats every four or five years but otherwise simply as tools in their relentless greed for money and power.

But they have been found out and our Brexit vote was the catalyst.   Whatever the result of today's poll, the truth is that the world of the Blairs and the Clintons, the Camerons and the Obamas is drawing to a close.   The combination of venality and poor judgement has been their downfall.   It now seems extraordinary that it was only seven months ago that the preening figures of Cameron and Obama conspired to deny Britain our democracy.   One has gone, while the other has just a few weeks left.   And as for the Blairs and the Clintons, no swollen bank balance can compensate for the sheer collapse of their reputations.  Now closer to home we in UKIP have an election of our own, just as important to us as the US poll.   Like the American electorate we have four candidates too, Suzanne Evans, Paul Nuttall MEP, John Rees-Evans and Peter Whittle AM.  But all four are completely united as UKIP rebuilds for the next stage of our journey, seeking to replace Labour in the Midlands, the North of England and Wales.   And our election is taking place against the background of a thriving post-Referendum economy.   The false threats behind Project Fear have been exposed and a great national recovery has begun.   And I was struck by a letter in last week's Daily Telegraph from an Italian businessman from Siena, Tuscany called Viscardo Paganelli, in which he wrote:

"As an Italian businessman, I am seriously considering moving my business to the UK after Brexit.   The EU has proved to be a disaster for Italy, with youth unemployment at 45 per cent., a stifling taxation system, plummeting property values, and (according to official statistics) national unemployment at more than 12 per cent.   Many in Italy look to Brexit with the hope that it will be the beginning of a new era, in which democracy wins out over bureaucracy and arrogance."   Well, all I can say to that is "Welcome Viscardo - benvenuto to Britain.   You and your business are more than welcome here.   You might even want to join UKIP and help rebuild our country as a truly global, outward-looking nation well away from the failing EU project!" And whoever our friends in America choose as their next President, we in UKIP will carry on working for a safe-haven Britain, a friend to all but with secure borders in a deeply troubled world!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby

 Toby on Tuesday

'A House Divided'

With just a week to go before polling day in the U.S. Presidential election, it’s a good time to revisit some of the great Presidential speeches in American history.   And among the greatest was Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech given in Springfield, Illinois on 16th June, 1858.   Warning of slavery-based disunion three years before the outbreak of the American Civil War he declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.   I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free...”   Of course Lincoln himself lifted the theme of his great speech from St. Matthew’s gospel in which Jesus says, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand...”   And those words of wisdom still hold true, not least for UKIP as we approach yet one more leadership election.   If we in UKIP are to achieve our potential and replace the Labour Party in the Midlands, the North of England and Wales, then our watchword now must be unity, unity and still more unity.

The 23rd June Referendum was an astonishing achievement for our party, but now that Brexit has, apart from the remaining irreconcilables, become the new consensus, our task has in some ways become much harder.  The simple theme that set us apart from all other political parties has gone and our new Government has moved quickly to colonise the ground that we held until June.   So we have to mark out new themes based on the rebuilding of our economy in the old Labour heartlands and then exporting around the world through bold new trade deals.   But none of this will happen if any of us, least of all our MEP’s, indulge in publicly criticising their colleagues or anyone else in or party.  Of course the vast majority of our MEP’s work away quietly, serving their constituents and their country to the best of their ability, but they rarely get reported.  One example is my good old friend William Dartmouth, MEP for the South-West and UKIP’s trade spokesman.   As a matter of principle he speaks only well of all his colleagues, is invariably loyal and concentrates his energies on writing compelling publications on the folly of the EU project and Britain’s prospects for global trade once we cast off the shackles of the EU.    But of course you don’t hear about him on the BBC and other media, which have far more fun reporting on the rifts and back-biting within our party.   William won’t be standing for our party’s leadership, but there will be candidates who seek to be forces for unity and it is to one of these that we must now look.   Although UKIP Thirsk and Malton will not try to influence our members’ votes, the need for unity and discipline must clearly be overwhelming.

And a strong UKIP is needed more than ever.   Our role in the past has been to speak the unvarnished truth and this will be equally true during the whole Brexit process.  And the truth is that Brexit Britain must avoid being dragged down by the Euro-banking crisis and the Euro-terror crisis.   Last week, Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena suspended trading in its shares as it embarked on a rescue package while, far more significantly, Germany’s Deutsche Bank’s woes deepened.   Bizarrely, David Folkerts-Landau, Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank, demanded a 150 billion Euro bail-out fund to recapitalise the Euro-banking system saying, “Europe is seriously ill and has to deal with the existing problems extremely fast otherwise a crash will be imminent.”    And last week too the terror threat on the Continent grew still further.   Yet the Brussels ideologues refuse to consider the restoration of national currencies or the possibility of securing borders within the Schengen zone, both of which are essential to Europe’s recovery.   So a strong, disciplined and united UKIP is needed more than ever if we are to serve our country as effectively in the future as we have done in the past.  For my part, I detect an outbreak of sanity in UKIP and a growing recognition that, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”   And those words will guide us as we vote in what hopefully will be our very last leadership election for several years to come!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Turbulent Times'

                                                                                                                                                                                          Picture: Daily Mail

 

In a troubled and uncertain world, we are all looking for safe havens – safe haven countries and safe haven investments, which stay secure in turbulent times.  And with Brexit, Britain now has the chance to become, while still open to the world, the ultimate safe haven.   To obtain that outcome is the overwhelming task of our new Government and a renewed UKIP, which has done so much to place it in office, will be a vital element in achieving that goal.   For the great unspoken reason for ensuring our “Leave” vote on 23rd June was to minimise the risk of Britain being exposed to the fallout from two of the most destructive policy decisions in the history of Europe, the Euro currency and the Schengen border-free travel zone,   To call both of them turbulent is to understate the looming consequences of those two fatal policy misjudgements.   Both were based on a flawed ideology and the contagion from them poses an existential threat to us all.

Professor Otmar Issing was the very first chief economist of the European Central Bank and a towering figure in the creation of the Euro currency.   And last week, he finally broke cover declaring, “One day, the house of cards will collapse...Realistically, it will be a case of muddling through, struggling from one crisis to the next.   It is difficult to forecast how long this will continue for, but it cannot go on endlessly...The moral hazard is overwhelming...The Stability and Growth pact has more or less failed...there is no fiscal control mechanism from markets or politics.   This has all the elements to bring disaster for monetary union.   The no bail-out clause is violated every day...The decline in the quality of eligible collateral is a grave problem.  The ECB is now buying corporate bonds that are close to junk, and the haircuts can barely deal with a one-notch credit downgrade.   The reputational risk of such actions would have been unthinkable in the past.”   Now if one of UKIP’s economists like Tim Congon had said these things, we would no doubt have been accused, in the words of the late and unlamented David Cameron, of being fruitcakes and loonies, but those are the words of one of the original creators of the Euro currency.   Yet to speak ill of the Euro currency is still seen as a form of heresy in Brussels.

Sir Julian King is the new EU security commissioner, indeed appointed by David Cameron in one of his final acts in office.    And last week too he declared that Europe with its border free Schengen zone must prepare for a fresh influx of Isil jihadists fleeing Mosul as the Iraqi army moves in on their stronghold there.   In his own words, “The retaking of the (Isil) northern Iraq territory, Mosul, may lead to the return to Europe of violent (Isil) fighters.   This is a very serious threat and we must be prepared to face it.”   Even if a handful return, it would pose a “serious threat that we must prepare ourselves for.”  In essence, Europe with its open borders must prepare for a new influx of terrorists.   Again, if Nigel Farage or a UKIP migration spokesman had said these things, all those Eurofanatics who fill our media and Parliament would have continued to vilify us, as they have always done.  We would have been accused of alarmism and racism.   But this is from the EU’s own security commissioner and a Cameron appointee.    Yet to speak ill of the Schengen zone or of the free movement policy is to question the EU’s very ideology and, as with the Euro, is another form of heresy in Brussels.  We should remember these things when Article 50 is finally invoked and negotiations for Brexit start in earnest.

So as we rebuild ourselves as a party, seeking to replace Labour in the Midlands and the North, we must remember that, for those millions of former Labour voters, a sense of security is not just an attractive option but an essential condition for their survival.  For them above all Britain must become a safe haven.   To be represented by MP’s who still show more interest in Overseas Aid and the demands of economic migrants than in the needs of their own core constituents will no longer be acceptable.    And if UKIP can be seen as the ‘safe haven’ party, protecting our country from policy failures on the Continent and the fallout from a profoundly unstable world, then we shall have secured our own futures and will be able to contribute quite as much to the future of our nation as we have done in the past generation!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

 

Toby on Tuesday

'Making The Weather'

In one more memorable phrase, Winston Churchill described Joe Chamberlain as the politician who “made the weather”.   Of course in the past generation it has been Nigel Farage and UKIP who have made the weather, preparing the ground for our new pro-Brexit consensus.   But in his own time, more than a century ago, Joe Chamberlain was a phenomenon.   The industrialist mayor of Birmingham who became an MP and then entered the Cabinet started as a reforming Liberal, then split with his party over Irish Home Rule to create the Liberal Unionists before allying himself with the Conservatives, in the process creating the Conservative and Unionist Party.   His obsessions were social reform, the improvement of the lot of working class people, the Union of Great Britain and the global English-speaking Empire, now the Commonwealth.   And where all this matters is that Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s Chief of Staff and literally the most powerful man in the country, sees Joe Chamberlain as his inspiration for the direction in which Britain is now travelling.

Nick Timothy himself comes from Birmingham, where his father was a steelworker.   He went to grammar school there and then on to Sheffield University.   In time he became director of the New Schools Network and a special adviser to Theresa May at the Home Office.   Her confidence in him is absolute.   “Our Joe”, Nick Timothy’s biography of Chamberlain, tells of his ambitious improvements in Birmingham’s education, housing and social services while mayor there.   He tells how on Chamberlain’s 70th birthday in 1906 thousands of ordinary Brummies followed a cavalcade through the city to celebrate his achievements.   And on 14th June this year, 9 days before the Referendum, Nick Timothy declared, “I have strongly held views about Europe.   I have already voted to leave the EU, I think we should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights...”   Four months later he is at the centre of government, directing events from Downing Street, so Brexit will almost certainly be for real.

Now what does all this mean for UKIP?   What is remarkable is that Paul Nuttall, MEP for North-West England and until recently our Deputy Leader, is like Nick Timothy also a specialist in Joe Chamberlain’s Edwardian politics, which he studied at Liverpool Hope University.   Later, he went on to lecture at the University, joining UKIP in 2004.   So Paul has a fine academic mind as well as a broad historical vision.   And I recall a conversation with him some years ago when he declared that UKIP was really the old Liberal Unionist Party of Joe Chamberlain adapted for the new age which could become the voice of the patriotic Midland and Northern working class.   So he and Nick Timothy were working towards the same insight, which was extraordinarily prophetic when Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party would soon disenfranchise millions of loyal Labour voters.   Some could move to the Conservatives, but for most this will simply be a step too far.   Yet there is a home for these millions of Labour voters in a revitalised UKIP.   We won almost 4 million votes at the last General Election and can win millions more at the next under our new leader.   In Paul Nuttall’s own words, “There is definitely a future for a patriotic voice of the working class, and people aren’t getting that from Labour under Corbyn – that is where UKIP becomes relevant.”   And to underscore this point, there was an election the other day in the Headland and Harbour Ward of Hartlepool Borough Council.   Here is the result:

Tim Fleming (UKIP) – 496 votes (49.16%)

Trevor Rogan (Labour) – 255 votes (25.27%)

Steve Latimer (Putting Hartlepool First) – 155 votes (15.36%)

Benjamin Marshall (Conservative) – 41 votes (4.06%)

John Price (Patients Not Profits) – 36 votes (3.57%)

Chris Broadbent (Independent) – 26 votes (2.58%)

So, like Joe Chamberlain, Nigel Farage’s UKIP has made the weather.   Theresa May and Nick Timothy are wisely following.   Now we have to win elections and the Hartlepool Borough Council result is a small sign of just what is possible.  So for UKIP, despite our great Referendum achievement and its turbulent aftermath, the best may be yet to come!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Whose Policy?...'

“Just listen to the way a lot of politicians talk about the public.   They find your patriotism distasteful, your concerns about immigration parochial, your views about crime illiberal, your attachment to your job security inconvenient.   They find the fact that more than seventeen million voters decided to leave the European Union simply bewildering.”   No, that wasn’t Nigel Farage speaking.   It was the Prime Minister, Theresa May, addressing last week’s Conservative Party Conference.   And the truth is that the new Government has purloined not just great chunks of our General Election manifesto - on the EU, on taking the low-paid out of tax, on grammar schools and much more - but has even purloined our actual language too.   It seems extraordinary that the country has, within just four months, rejected the Blairite settlement of the past 20 years and finds itself with what is really its very first UKIP Government.

   

Of course that is what makes politics endlessly fascinating, but it does leave old UKIP with a serious challenge, not just the challenge of finding a new leader who can restore confidence to the Party, but who can also create a new identity, a kind of NewKIP.   It’s that new identity, which can retain the loyalty of the nearly 4 million voters who supported us at the General Election and add millions more, on which everything depends.

And here it’s worth a visit to the online journal HeatStreet for an article by the bookies’ favourite to succeed Diane James as UKIP’s new leader, Steven Woolfe, on http://heatst.com/world/steven-woolfe-mep-why-ukip-is-the-official-opposition-now/.   In this Steven writes, “....There are other areas of domestic policy which Theresa May is now talking about where UKIP has driven the agenda for some time.   The coalition government took the minimum wage out of tax altogether – this was a UKIP policy.   Increasing the defence budget to 2% of GDP, in line with NATO guidelines, was also a UKIP policy.   And only this week at the Conservative Party Conference, the Government announced a new scheme to build thousands more homes on brownfield sites – which was in our last manifesto   

On Sunday, Theresa May hinted at a possible bill to reform the House of Lords – something of which I am personally supportive...I hope the Prime Minister lives up to expectations and delivers on her promises, especially on Brexit and immigration controls.   There is still much to achieve in this post-Brexit world.   We in UKIP will continue to take a pragmatic view to everyday politics – we will continue to fight for what we believe in, but we will oppose and support the Government where necessary – to build a happier, more confident UK.”

So there you can see some of the ideas which will shape the new UKIP.   There is an immense amount of work to do as UKIP shapes its identity for the coming post-Brexit world.   But what is so marvellous is that politicians can even start to talk in these terms.   The days of Ministers being at the mercy of EU Directives and the so-called European Court of Justice are drawing to a close, which is the great liberation of our time.   And the extent of our escape becomes clearer as the whole EU project sinks deeper into the abyss.   Of course it existed primarily for the benefit of German industry and the German banks.   But where the British and US banks recapitalised and restructured themselves after the banking crisis, the German banks failed to do so.   

Of the two largest banks, DeutscheBank is now struggling with a $14 billion misselling fine imposed by the US Justice Department which could wipe out its remaining reserves, while Commerzbank is laying off 10,000 staff and suspending dividend payments.   And to think that Britain’s Euromaniacs saw the German economy as a role model into which we would need to integrate our own.   By a miracle the British people chose in June to avoid that fate and thus escaped disaster.   So in this post-Referendum world, in which we have what is in essence a UKIP Government, a kind of NewKIP will have a vital role to play under new leadership.   It will not be easy, but our journey has never been easy and we will make as great a contribution to Britain’s public life in future as we have in the past generation!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Democracy Dismissed'

As the new Brexit consensus unfolds, the time has finally come to ditch the old political descriptions of 'left' and 'right'.   The world of Clarke, Kinnock and Heseltine, Miliband, Clegg and Cameron could have been a century ago for all the relevance it has to the new post-Referendum settlement, yet we continue to use language that no longer reflects the culture in which we now live.  In fact the descriptions 'left' and 'right' first appeared during the French Revolution of 1789, when those National Assembly members who supported the old French monarchy sat on the president's right and those who supported the Revolution sat on his left.   So during all the subsequent phases of the Revolution the supporters of the status quo remained on the right and their opponents stayed on the left.   We all know that the Revolution degenerated into the Terror and the guillotine, the Committee of Public Safety, then Napoleon's military dictatorship and his failed attempt to conquer Europe.   But the pattern for future revolutions was set, with the ordinary people in whose name all those uprisings took place being ignored as the leaders' frenzied thirst for power unfolded.   

Today, those who still support Britain's membership of the EU are in precisely the same position as the courtiers of the old Bourbon monarchy, hankering after their extraordinary privileges which the public mood has decided must now be brought to an end.   They have colonised the BBC and much of the media, the House of Lords and great parts of our so-called "Establishment" and they see themselves as 'progressives' or 'centrists' or of the left, yet they are as imbued with the same spirit of entitled privilege as all those who sat on the right of the president in France's revolutionary Assembly.   So are the Kinnocks and Cleggs, the Clarkes and the Milibands of the left or of the right?   The truth is that the descriptions are meaningless and instead the true division is between those who now want our country to be a self-governing democracy again and those who do not.

Among those who see themselves as pro-EU centrists, none has been more vocal during his long career than Ken Clarke.  From the days when, while studying at Cambridge, he invited Sir Oswald Mosley of first the British Union of Fascists and later of the "Europe a Nation" movement to address the students, he has been relentless in his support for the whole crazy EU project.   

And in this week's "New Statesman" he gives an idea of the trouble that he and his friends are cooking up for the Prime Minister as she seeks to ensure that Brexit actually happens.   He describes her as a "bloody difficult woman" presiding over a "government with no policies".   He goes on to say, "Nobody in the government has the first idea of what they're going to do next on the Brexit front."    Dismissing the Referendum result as a "bizarre protest vote" he confirms that he will vote against its result saying, "The idea that I'm suddenly going to change my lifelong opinions about the national interest and regard myself as instructed to vote in parliament on the basis of an opinion poll is laughable."   And then he illustrates all-too clearly why the old language of politics no longer works for he says, "I don't want us to go lurching to the right.   There is a tendency for traditional parties to polarise, and for the right wing one to go ever more to the right, and the left-wing one to go ever more to the left." Yet what is right-wing about accepting the democratic vote of a clear majority of the electorate?   And what is centrist or left-wing about blatantly promising to ignore it?  The truth is that the old language no longer works and the Ken Clarkes of this world have just the same haughty and dismissive sense of entitlement as Louis XVI's courtiers.

So in the new settlement, the divide will not be between 'left' and' right', but between democrats and anti-democrats.   And there are far too many anti-democrats in all parties, not least in Labour and the LibDems.   The Conservative party definitely has its own ranks of anti-democrats who are already on manoeuvres to thwart Brexit.   Ken Clarke has now broken cover in the Commons, as has Michael Heseltine in the Lords.    There is trouble ahead from the ideologues like Anna Soubry and the disappointed like George Osborne.   And with a wafer-thin Government majority Brexit's passage will be far from smooth.   And what of UKIP?   Of course we will support Brexit at every stage.   And are we of the 'left' or of the 'right'?  The answer is neither.   We are determined democrats, working to restore self-government to the people of our country.   The old language no longer works. Rather, we are committed at every stage under our new leader to uphold the well-being and prosperity of the British people.   That is our pledge and nothing, least of all the attempts of a failed political class that has caused untold damage while claiming immense privileges for itself, will stand in our way as we work to achieve our goal!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby 

Toby on Tuesday

'Part And Parcel...'

Last Friday night, BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? came from Pickering’s Kirk Theatre.   On the panel were Shami Chakrabarti, or Baroness Chakrabarti of Kennington as she is now after Jeremy Corbyn’s recent act of patronage, Tim Farron of the LibDems, Conservative Brexiteer Harsimrat Kaur and former Conservative Remainer but now Policing and Fire Services Minister and Brexiteer Brandon Lewis.   Our own, excellent in-house economist Rex Negus managed to ask a sensible question about the need for an effective opposition, but amid all the humbug and posturing it was funnily enough Tim Farron who made the one really salient point of the evening.  What he said was that any Brexit deal would ultimately be a stitch-up between civil servants in Whitehall, Berlin, Brussels and Paris.  He claimed this as a good reason for a second referendum, a claim that was wholly spurious, but his insight that the fingerprints of the bureaucrats would be all over the final deal was probably correct.

This is one principal reason why UKIP will be needed as much as ever during the coming years.   The other principal reason is that traditional, patriotic Labour voters, horrified by the direction their party is taking under Jeremy Corbyn, will need a new home.   They may never be able to bring themselves to vote Conservative, but a revitalised UKIP, committed to secure borders, strengthened defences and the restoration of so many of our industries, not least our fisheries, would be a compelling home for millions of forgotten voters.   Certainly the party of Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan, Labour Mayor of London, who recently declared that “living with terror attacks is part and parcel of living in a big city” no longer inspires any confidence, to put it mildly.

What does inspire confidence is the new UKIP, under the leadership of Diane James.   And what is reassuring is that Steven Woolfe, the charismatic North-West MEP who was unable to enter the leadership election himself, has just written a fine piece for the online publication HeatStreet (http://heatst.com/world/steven-woolfe-mep-ukips-future-is-bright-with-diane-james-as-leader) which is well worth reading in full.   What Steven says is that, “On Friday Nigel Farage, one of the nations’s most influential and effective politicians, stood on the platform at the UKIP conference and gave his last speech as leader...Moments later UKIP’s new chief, Diane James, took the stage as the party’s first female leader...Diane has a vision.   She is absolutely right to say that in the short term, UKIP must remain a loud and relevant voice in ensuring that Britain gets the best deal from leaving the European Union.   It was clear that Britain must take full control of its borders and reduce net migration.   It was clear that Britain must not continue to pay into the EU budget...” and much more.   

In essence what Steven, like Diane, is saying is that Brexit really must mean Brexit and a cosy stitch-up between civil servants will be good neither for Britain nor for the EU.   Brexit can be the catalyst for fundamental reform across the EU and a botched agreement will do no good to anyone.   But the real point is that Steven, with his strong Northern base in Labour’s heartlands is the perfect foil for Diane with her impeccable roots in the Conservative South.   Together they can reinforce UKIP’s role as the truly national party and his fine HeatStreet article is the starting point for a reunited UKIP in which all regions and all political backgrounds can find a home.  So let’s hope that in the new, strengthened UKIP there will be a major role for Steven.   And do please find time to read his splendid HeatStreet article.

But to return to Labour and its London Mayor’s claim that living with terror attacks was the new norm in big cities, we have to ask ourselves what steps we can take to eliminate as far as possible the many dangers that our country faces.  We know the source to be a virulent form of fundamentalism called wahhabism, onto which young men in particular have latched to provide them with a sense of narcissistic power.   We know that much of its funding has come from Saudi Arabia.   We know that it has infiltrated far too much of our own country.   And we know that, unless we can obtain complete control of our borders, the virus will only develop.   So to those who say that, with Brexit, UKIP’s work is done, I would reply that it has only just begun.   The Brexit negotiations will be complex, challenging and could easily divide our political system once more, yet the security of our country is paramount and cosy deals cooked up by civil servants will just not work, however plausible they look on the surface.   So UKIP, with new leadership from Diane James, hopefully from Steven Woolfe, and from many more will serve our country well in the years ahead, and could come to replace a Labour party that no longer resonates in its Northern heartlands as the true opposition!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Celestial Bodies' 

For this week, three events to put a smile on the face of every UKIPper.

First, the leadership.   As leader of UKIP, indeed as the most influential political figure of the past generation, Nigel Farage was a meteor, in fact a fireball, in the political firmament.   As he hurtled through Eurospace, he left behind a trail of light, sometimes heat, and sometimes the charred remnants of those – from our former Prime Minister down - who unwisely found themselves in his path.   And without him, Britain would never have escaped the fatal trap or prison that is the European Union.    Our country owes him an immense debt that history will recognise more and more as the EU disintegrates.  By contrast, our new leader, Diane James, has the potential to become our Pole Star, our North Star, the constant around whom UKIP’s different elements can chart their course.   Stable, reliable and intelligent, she is precisely what the Party now needs and a sure guide to electoral success in the years ahead.   So it is vital for all our gifted, independent-minded UKIPpers to rally round Diane as the next stage of our journey unfolds.   She will certainly have the total support of all UKIPpers here in Yorkshire.

Next, the paralympics.   The figures speak for themselves – we can all interpret them as we wish, but they are simply humbling:

                                   Gold                 Silver                 Bronze                Total

1.  CHINA                    107                     81                       51                    239

2.  GB                           64                      39                       44                    147

3.  UKR                         41                      37                       39                    117

4.  US                            40                      44                       31                    115

5.  AUS                         22                      30                       29                     81

(figures correct as of 14:10 19/09/16)

Finally, an update on how the EU is finally descending into pure farce.   Our press has not really been reporting the latest spat between Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, and his predecessor, Jose Manuel Barroso.   Now Barroso first rose up via Portugal’s politics as a leader of the Maoist MRPP (Reorganising Movement of the Proletarian Party) before reaching the top of the EU, which he welcomed as a new European Empire – with Britain a mere colony of course.   In classic Blairite form, on his retirement in 2014 he decided to line his pockets as quickly as possible and was recently appointed Chairman of Goldman Sachs International.   This has caused a perfect storm within the European Commission, with Jean-Claude Juncker declaring, “Goldman Sachs was one of the organisations that...contributed to the enormous financial crisis we had between 2007 and 2009.   So one does wonder about the particular bank he has ended up working for.”   And EU staff have called the former Maoist’s behaviour “morally reprehensible.”   Indeed, one group of staff has launched a petition calling on him to forfeit his pension for bringing the EU into disrepute, a petition which has now received nearly 150,000 signatures.   So here is just one more example of why we must quit this rotten institution as soon as possible, bringing our soaring subsidies to an end.   And a revitalised UKIP under Diane James’ leadership – with Nigel Farage cheering her on in the background – will ensure that this is precisely what happens, so that Brexit really does mean Brexit!

Until next Tuesday!

 Toby on Tuesday

'Ideals and Ideologies'

As the years pass, the labels “left” and “right” seem to matter less and less.   Instead, the world appears to be divided between the ideologues and the empiricists – those who believe in an ideology, to which facts need to be bent, and those who believe in studying the evidence before forming a judgment.   European fascism and communism were once ideologies, just as the EU is now.   Britain was spared the twin evils of fascism and communism and, by a miracle and thanks to the Eurosceptic movement in the past generation, is now being spared the ideology of the EU.   Joseph Stiglitz, Professor of Economics at America’s Columbia Business School, chairman of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1995-1997, chief economist at the World Bank from 1997-2000 and winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, has traditionally been seen as a figure of the left.   He has advised the Scottish government on independence, the Syriza government in Greece and briefly even sat on Jeremy Corbyn’s economic advisory panel.   But in his new book “The Euro and its Threat to the Future of Europe” he endorses everything that UKIP members have been saying about the EU for a generation now.   In his own words:

“There have been other things that Europe got wrong, but monetary union was the overarching macroeconomic mistake.   We can see this most clearly in the fact that some countries not in the euro but with the same regulatory framework, such as the UK and Sweden, did much better”...”The way the club was politically organised gave all the power to Germany and the way that Germany was exercising that power was economically wrong and politically insensitive”...”Money moves from weak countries to strong countries.   You make it easier for money to move out of Greece, out of Spain and out of Italy.   And where are they going to move?   They move to Germany.   So you create a system where when you get the shock, the weak grow weaker and the strong grow stronger”...”Germany takes the view that we are not a transfer union and we won’t even take the risk of a banking union”...”They have rewritten their history.   It wasn’t hyperinflation that led to Hitler, it was unemployment.   And if they’d listened to their own story they would not have allowed what they forced in Greece, which is 25pc unemployment and 50pc youth joblessness”...”Juncker’s response after the Brexit vote was this very hostile one, we’re going to punish anyone who leaves.   And to me that was a shocking statement.   It was saying the reason people are going to stay in the EU is not because they believe in the benefits but because of fear of leaving.   That’s a strange statement from the President.”   In short, Joseph Stiglitz says that the EU project in its current form has no future.

Now compare this with EFTA (European Free Trade Association) about which I have written so often in the past.   Based in Geneva and formed by inspired British civil servants in 1960 as an alternative to the EU’s predecessors, it now has just four members, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.   Each one has its own particular trading relationship with the EU but, and this is so remarkable, EFTA has established preferential trade relations with 24 non-EU countries, including Canada, Hong Kong and Mexico.   And negotiations are underway with eight more countries including India and Russia.   When Britain’s so-called “Establishment” simply caved in under Ted Heath and left EFTA for what is now the EU, we turned our backs on a unique organisation based on democracy and open trade for a flawed and anti-democratic ideology based on a great deception.    But post-Brexit this can be put right.   The President of Switzerland, Johann Schneider-Amman, has already told reporters that Britain’s return to EFTA after nearly 45 years would “strengthen the Association.”   Alongside the renewal of our UN and WTO roles, the restoration of our EFTA ties is one more step in the recovery of our country.   In fact, thinking about it and in the light of Joseph Stiglitz’ new book, the best thing that the member states of the EU could all do now would be to leave that toxic institution and apply individually for EFTA membership!    EUexit for the whole of Europe, with the restoration of national currencies and the end of Schengen could just be the best way to save a once-great Continent!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Brexit and Brexports'

Last week I wrote about the Commonwealth, Captain Cook and the need to approach the United Nations (UN) at the same time as triggering Article 50 to reclaim our North Sea fisheries under its 1982 Conference on the Law of the Sea.   The point here is that the EU is an ideology, like 20th-century fascism or communism, and by leaving Britain is questioning that belief system.   No sensible negotiation with Brussels will ever be on offer and so it’s far better to go directly to those international institutions like the UN that rank above the EU in the global pecking order to secure our future.   And it’s not surprising that the only one of the EU’s five so-called Presidents who actually grasps the situation is Donald Tusk, EU Council President, who declared last week that “All too often today, EU elites seem to be detached from reality.”   For Donald Tusk is from Poland, a country which suffered terribly from both German and Vichy fascism and Soviet communism in the 20th century and which therefore of all  EU members views that EU ideology, based on the failed Euro and Schengen projects, much as we do in Britain.

 

So now, just as we should deal directly with the United Nations to reclaim our fisheries, so we should deal directly with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to secure our trade.  Of course it would be wonderful if we could enter into a simple tariff-free trade deal with the EU post-Brexit, but the truth is that Brussels would still demand open borders and contributions to its toxic budget in return.   It would be far better if, as with an approach to the UN, we went straight to the WTO when we trigger Article 50 and claim our full place among its 162 member countries.   For the fifth largest economy in the World, it is anyway ridiculous for Britain to be contracting out our global trade relationships to Brussels.  Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the WTO was established in 1995 to take over the functions of the old GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), itself formed in 1948.   It exists for the sole purpose of reducing tariffs and improving trade around the globe and, under the so-called Uruguay Round, now covers services such as banking, telecommunications and intellectual property.   The current round of negotiations, the so-called Doha Round, is directed at customs procedures.  And as the inward-looking, protectionist EU passes into history, so 21 more countries have applied to join the WTO.   This open, global system offers the basis for our trade and arguments over membership of the EU’s Single Market, really just a Customs Union, are a distraction from what really now needs to be done.

 

My good friend William Dartmouth, UKIP’s Trade Spokesman and MEP for the South-West and Gibraltar, wrote a brilliant pamphlet in the run-up to June’s Referendum called “Britain and the EU:  A Dysfunctional Relationship”, which is well-worth re-reading.   In this he recommended NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Area) as a valuable model for a post-Brexit Europe.   NAFTA’s economies, made up of Canada, Mexico and the United States, are about the same size as those of the EU but it is not a political union.   There is no all-powerful bureaucracy at its heart, there are no fiscal transfers and there are pretty strict border controls between the three countries.   Yet over 70% of Mexico’s exports go the Canada and the United States, while nearer 80% of Canada’s exports go to Mexico and the United States.   Meanwhile, less than 45% of Britain’s exports go elsewhere in the EU and this figure is falling fast.   In another illustration, William describes how Switzerland, an independent country and not an EU member, exports nearly five times the value of goods per head of population to the EU as does Britain.   So the point is that you do not have to be part of a political union to trade freely with another country.   But we must accept, like the EU’s own Council President, Donald Tusk that the people in Brussels with whom we shall be negotiating are “detached from reality” and that they feel wounded and aggrieved.  So it’s far better to apply for full WTO membership when we trigger Article 50, not waste any time on fruitless negotiations for Single Market membership and become a normal, open, free-trading global nation once more – therein lies our future!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby