Category: Brexit

Brexit

‘BREXIT – An appeal to the ‘Remainers’

Andrew Livingstone
I share this excellent and comprehensive article, in the vain hope that the daft folk, who seem prepared to acquiesce to the throwing away of everything that is precious to the majority of sensible ‘commoners’ – will come to realise that there is more to this momentous decision than the concern of how they will still get their foreign ‘holydays’, their cheese and their wine.

 

 

The Present Situation

The British government has all but failed to fulfil the decision of the British people that the United Kingdom should be taken out of the European Union (aka Brexit). Under the Article 50 process we now have just 50 working days (even fewer Parliament-days, I believe) until the date on which the UK must, by law, leave the EU, that is 29th March 2019.

Our constitutional and political systems are in chaos and nobody has the first idea of the terms under which the UK will leave the EU – known as the Withdrawal Agreement; a sort of ‘divorce’ settlement.

The default position is that if there is no Withdrawal Agreement then, as far as trade between the UK and EU countries is concerned, we shift to World Trade Organisation rules.

In all other respects, the UK will no longer be a member of the European Union.

Like one of those scenes in a ‘Mission Impossible’ movie, where the screen is filled with a big, red LCD timer counting down, and you’re biting your nails to know if Tom Cruise will defuse the nuclear weapon in time, we’re all wondering what will happen on 29 March. Will the UK leave the EU with a deal? Will the UK ‘crash out’ of the EU with no deal? Will somebody pause the clock (extend the Article 50 process)? Will somebody stop the clock (terminate the Article 50 process altogether)? Nobody knows – which is an extraordinary failure of government and politics when you think about it.

The EU Referendum June 2016

Sad perhaps, but I had spent seven years before the EU Referendum of June 2016 teaching myself about the history, culture, workings and ambitions of the European Union. I did so after reading a book in 2009 written by Matthew Elliot, the Co-Founder and then Chief Executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance (of which I’m a member); the book was entitled ‘The Great European Rip-Off: How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Taking Control of Our Lives‘. I finished the book and was horrified. I resolved to find out as much as I could from multiple sources about the EU. The more I researched, the more horrified I became. Marta Andreasen’s ‘Brussels Laid Bare‘ made me shudder, but probably the definitive work on the story of the European Union is a book written and published in 2003 by Christopher Booker and Richard North entitled, ‘The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive?‘ I read all 615 pages of this tome and by the end of it had decided that not only was the European Union a pernicious political construct, but also likely eventually – and ironically – to become the cause of the next serious conflict in mainland Europe.

I realised that the European Union was not some kind of benign ‘group-hug’ which existed for the pursuit of children’s happiness, animal welfare and world peace; rather, my research told me that the European Union was in fact the mother-of-all rackets, heavily disguised and cleverly promoted as Nirvana. It won’t surprise you to learn, therefore, that come the EU Referendum, I voted Leave.

The Power of the European Union

The impressive thing about the European Union is that over a generation or so it has seduced member nations through their ruling political and societal elites, establishment institutions, academia, press and media organisations, big business and so on into believing that ceding national sovereignty is synonymous with prosperity. The originators of the European Union founded the institution on the basis that if you play on people’s economic hopes and fears, you can do pretty much as you like with them politically.

We shouldn’t have been surprised, therefore, that the thrust of the Remain campaign in the EU Referendum was not to espouse the untold cultural, political and societal benefits of EU membership, but rather to argue that leaving the European Union would result in economic ruin. Indeed, even now as we approach the 29 March, the British government, the political class, the BBC and much of the mainstream media, big business, Uncle Tom Cobbley and All are telling us that without a Brexit-In-Name-Only (BRINO) Withdrawal Agreement, the United Kingdom is without doubt doomed. Such is the power of the European Union marketing machine; such is its hold on our society after 40-odd years of subservience to its political and legal institutions. Please don’t accuse me of making biased, unfounded assertions here, by the way. Just spend a few years like I did studying the history and workings of the EU for yourself.

What Next?

A couple of years ago, naively perhaps, I thought that UK would indeed leave the European Union, unfettered, on 29 March 2019. Today, I’m not so sure. Indeed, I’m rapidly coming around to the notion that there’s a very real chance that the UK will remain tethered to the European Union in some shape or form: either as a full member (Brexit is cancelled), or with some half-baked associate status, ie BRINO. In this context, I fear that our politicians are right now scheming to put their  EU Referendum II to the electorate. It would sicken me if this came to pass, but I’m what’s known in psychology circles as a ‘Defensive Pessimist’. I look at every situation in which I find myself and ask two questions: ‘What could possibly go wrong here, and how do I mitigate the effects of things going wrong?‘

From my Leave perspective, EU Referendum II would mean that things had gone horribly wrong. A second referendum would signal above all else that democracy was collapsing in the UK, if it hasn’t collapsed already, looking at the extraordinary antics of our ruling elites this past 2 years and more. A second referendum would signal that the culture of the European Union had indeed infected totally our British political institutions. The EU way is to arrange matters such that if a member nation conducts a referendum and comes up with the wrong result, the people must vote again. Denmark was required to vote again on the Maastricht Treaty; Ireland was required to vote again twice: first on the Nice Treaty and then again on the Lisbon Treaty. As José Manuel Barosso, erstwhile President of the European Commission once said, ‘They must go on voting until they get it right‘. Unbridled arrogance, I’d say.

An Appeal to Remain Voters

The point is that if our politicians succeed in engineering EU Referendum II, what are we supposed to do? Regardless of which way you voted in the EU Referendum, how would you react to being invited to vote again? For you can be sure that EU Referendum II would be constructed to make a Remain outcome a racing certainty, either in the way that the question was framed, or how the debate was controlled (rigged), or both. This is the way that the European Union works, bearing in mind that the overwhelming majorities of the British political class and the establishment are, to all intents and purposes, agents of the European Union; they make no secret of this fact for much of the time. If you throw in the state broadcaster’s bias towards the joys of EU membership (check out News-watch if you’re sceptical about the BBC’s pro-EU bias), then those of us who would like to see the UK leave the European Union would deliberately be heavily outgunned in EU Referendum II.

Reflecting the overall profile of voting in the EU Referendum, I would say that roughly half of my wider family and friends voted Leave, whilst the other half voted Remain. That said, recently a number of my Remain-voting acquaintances have let it be known to me that perhaps being in favour of having the UK governed by a foreign power wasn’t such a great idea after all. We’ve come to see the EU in its true colours over the past couple of years, and we’ve discovered that those colours are more pirate-like Jolly Roger than United Colours of Benetton.

So, here’s my appeal. If you voted Remain in the EU Referendum and are invited to vote again in EU Referendum II, please give serious consideration to placing your cross in whichever box is most likely to result in the UK regaining its sovereignty.

Bear in mind that the power brokers in the European Union are on an avowed mission to create a United States of Europe (‘ever closer union’); to emasculate member states and centralise EU power in the European Commission; to have EU foreign policy take precedence over member nations’ foreign policies; following on from that, to form a European Union Army [PESCO] to enforce EU foreign policy, inimical to NATO, the preserver of peace in Europe since NATO was formed in 1949; to set tax policies across all member states – a policy of taxation without representation; generally to convert sovereign nation states into mere regions of the United States of Europe. It was the Conservative MP Ken Clarke who said, ‘I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe‘.

An Existential Crisis

I hope you can you see that the apparently simple question of whether or not the UK should be a member of what was purported to be a trading bloc, is now in fact an existential crisis for the British people. The European Union absolutely is not a trading bloc. That was the original seductive intention when the European Coal and Steel Community was formed in 1951. Today, however, the European Union is a nascent empire without a demos. In other words, the 500 million people who make up the European Union have no allegiance to the European Union at all. They buy into it primarily, if not solely, for economic reasons.

That was always the intention of the founding fathers, led by the Frenchman Jean Monnet who said, as long ago as April 1952, that:

‘Europe’s nations should be guided towards the super-state without their people realising what is happening. This can be achieved by successive steps, each disguised as having some ‘economic’ purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to ‘federation’

If you want your country, the United Kingdom, to become nothing more than a ‘region’ of a single European state governed by unelected, unaccountable people like Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, then if EU Referendum II comes to pass, by all means vote Remain. However, if you value everything that the United Kingdom stands for, I appeal to you to vote for the option which will ensure the recovery of our national sovereignty – a precious gem bequeathed to us by generations of blood, treasure and sacrifice.

Those of us who understand what is written here are already working hard to ensure a permanent change for the better in our method of government. Please refer to:

www.theharrogateagenda.org.uk

where our SIX DEMANDS for a total reorganisation of UK government are set out. If you care to download and peruse the ‘FLEXCIT’ publication (a pdf 400 pages long, but well worth the time ) or contact us via ‘info@theharrogateagenda.org.uk’ for a copy of the synopsis version entitled ‘The Market Solution’.

With once again a hat-tip to our contributor ‘moraymint’

Brexit

The Definitive EU Exit Plan for Britain

Andrew Livingstone

Working together with ‘The Harrogate Agenda‘, we share a vision for the United Kingdom as a self-governing, self-confident, free trading nation state, releasing the potential of its citizens through direct democratic control at national and local government level, so providing maximum freedom and responsibility for our people.

The history of Britain, for close on a thousand years, has been as a merchant and maritime power, playing a full role in both European and world affairs while living under its own laws. It remains our view today that the UK can flourish again as an independent state, as well as developing other relationships throughout the world as trading patters evolve.

For an age, the UK has freely engaged as an independent country in alliances and treaties with other countries. We have a long history of entering into commercial agreements and conventions at inter-governmental level. This tradition we wish to uphold.

The ability of the people of the United Kingdom to determine their own independent future, and to use our wealth of executive, legislative and judicial experience, to help inspire and shape political developments by means of international bodies (so improving both world trade and enhancing the well-being of all people) remains our aim and purpose; this can, however, only again be possible once we are free of the undemocratic and moribund European Union.

The prosperity of our people depends on being able to fulfill the fundamental need for, and right to, self-determination, allowing us to retake control of both our opportunities and our destiny. With such an international global future comes the ability to swiftly correct and make improvements where errors do occur.

Within the United Kingdom, our vision is for a government respectful of its people, as they take on greater participation and control of civic duties and public business at both local and national level.

That vision embraces the need to foster a truly sovereign people as the bedrock of a true democracy. If this is a vision you share, come work with us and make first contact via info@livingstones.uk or on the website at www.theharrogateagenda.org.uk

Brexit, Media

How scared should we be?

Andrew Livingstone

This was the headline for a post in a recent ‘Spectator‘ publication, as the contributor made a valiant effort to differentiate between ‘doom-mongering’ and ‘common sense’:

‘Food shortages, diabetics going without insulin, outbreaks of salmonella and swine flu: a no-deal Brexit has become a dystopia of the imagination that gives even the Old Testament a run for its money. [Exodus 8:1 – 12:36]. To lend it extra credence, the doomsayers are not muttering men with long white beards but business leaders and figures from respectable-sounding thinktanks.’

The fact is that the nation stands, with bated breath, at a significant point in our history, so tantalising in its possible portent, that the mighty media’s ‘bean counters’ are in danger of overload, so many copies to be sold, so short a turn-round time between each pulsating article.

So here are the options for us, the dithering dollards, who have taken two generations to realise what the ‘European Union’ scheme is really all about .

First time round, when the Austrian ‘painter/decorator’ and his cohorts saw that their plans for territorial aggrandisment were about to crumble, it transpires that there was already a Plan B prepared (couldn’t we do with one of those today??), which could succeed where Plan AH had failed, by offering financial incentive and appealing to the vanity of self-important leaders. Does “You’ve never had it so good!” ring any bells?

Now, second time round, it is no exaggeration to say that we are again being placed on a ‘war’ status. The methods may be modernised but the threats are similar – just the ‘pen’ rather than the ‘sword’ is now being used.

There are, no surprise, two main camps to consider:

ONE – the militant ‘pitchfork and scythe’ brigades, whose seething desire is to burst the gates of Westmonster and send every disagreeable incumbent off to meet his/her Maker.

TWO – the steadier thinkers, equally sincere in their desire to see an end to the ‘Tussles with Brussels’ – to break free from its tiresome tentacles , but at the same time, musing on how best to steer Britannia, once she finally gets clear.

One fact is clear from this persistent parliamentary pantomime – the Party system is killing the once united Kingdom stone dead. We are faced with the same serpent, just wearing a different mask, but, alas, our so-called ‘leaders’ will not desist until they see the whole voting public lying in vassal servitude to a well-organised enemy.

War needs coalition. War calls for unified opposition. If these self-important clowns won’t do it, the populace will have to rally under a different banner. In the days when ‘Junker’ was the name of a high-speed bomber, rather than a ‘two-faced’ drinker -(remember the comment to his tame press corps “I will talk to her, then you can bury the body” – Mrs T would have smashed him in the crotch with her handbag and walked away) – our nation was scared but united. Ration Books saw us through.

As a footnote, let’s suppose the fear-mongers are correct – a NO-DEAL departure will bring some hardship. The human body can survive for three days without any water to no lasting damage, and six weeks without ANY food at all – likewise without lasting detriment. I know this is true, having experienced proper ‘fasting’ (not this current ‘kissing the pavement’ charade); after just three days, the body adjusts, and one feels no more hunger pangs. As the Rastafarian followers say

                        “Those who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences”,

and we know that, as in 1939, we again have RIGHT on our side. Let us then not dither, but steel ourselves against the WRONGDOERS and get ourselves organised in coalition to meet the future. If we accept the Exodus account, 600,000 males plus families left the slavery of Egypt – that’s about the same number as voted for UKIP in 2017 – and the nation is much better than that, so let’s not be shy about rooting out the duplicity within the House.

Please check us out at [www.theharrogateagenda.org.uk] or you can email us at [info@livingstones.uk] for further information.

 

Brexit, European Union

“If you follow what I May mean..”

Andrew Livingstone

With a hat-tip to The Slogger – from La Belle France

This morning I was up, out and away early to visit my local tax office. The word ‘local’ is more of a received metaphor than a fact – it takes 40 minutes to drive there. As from January 6th, it’s moving to somewhere 50 minutes away, but this is only a temporary arrangement. After that – some time in 2020 – it’s moving to another place that is two and a half hours drive from here.

I went there because today is a working day, and the internet site promised they were open, so I followed that advice. They weren’t.

The tax I went to pay had been €719 in 2015. Today it is €1488. I went in person not to talk to the fonctionnaires about that, but rather because so far – (a) they have taken directly from my bank account €1360 – (b) then sent me a letter saying there would be a supplement of €128 and then – (c) sent me a bill for €1488. But the person in charge of updating the website’s opening hours forgot to do it.

Last week, a large UK financial institution sent me a letter by express mail saying that I had £00.00 in its Online Saver Account and this had attracted £00.00 interest, which sort of follows. Six months ago they renewed a smart card, and sent it by express for me to sign. I don’t have a Savings Smart Card with them, so that doesn’t follow at all.

Now all of these events will have the AI (artificial intelligence) mob jess a-whoopin’ an’ a-hollerin’ for their product….except that AI is briefed by human intelligence. Human intelligence is not the same as logic, emotional intelligence or compassion, because most bureaucrats lack some of that, and pointy-head geeks lack all of it. Sadly, they are the people briefing the AI software into the robots.

So very soon, nothing will follow. Do you follow?

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I was quite surprised to learn yesterday that Germany has formally recognized a third gender. This is because I still speak a sprained-to-fractured form of German, and  it has always had three genders – der, die and das – he, she and it.

But the move is to do with people, not language: as from yesterday, Deutschland is once again ‘über alles’ in that it now has three types of citizen – male, female and diverse.

In a previous outing, The Third Reich also had had three typologies of humanity: Aryanische, Untermenschen and Jüdische. It was like the Cleese and Two Ronnies sketch about social status, but with fewer laughs and more concentration camps. However, exceptional Nipponese people with yellow faces were designated honorary Aryans.

Most German ideas do not end well. This has been particularly true of the beloved Führerprinzip that gave us the Austrian asylum-seeker and Merkel – and equally of their open welcome to Islamic refugees, whom Berlin sees as the next generation of Gästarbeiter – whereas the general citizenry has its doubts.

A German bloke who on Monday drove his van into a crowd of Muslims has been designated a ‘Xenophobic killer’ by the media. But the Islamic knife nutter who yesterday severely injured three Brits in Manchester has been filed under ‘possibly terror related’. He was yelling “Allah u Aqbar” – which could just be a major clue to his motive.

‘Migrants’ (a form of behaviour now rapidly becoming a slightly more active form of vagrancy) are eyeing up Blighty as yet another land where welfare is readily available. Desperate infant asylum seekers, unaccompanied by adults, are heading for Britain in droves, and so our Home Secretary Avid Rabid has returned home from his safari jaunt holiday, and immediately ordered two HM Naval destroyers to take up positions in the Channel, because his enemies in the Tory Party forced him to do so.

He appeared to think that the ships were being deployed to stop criminals from smuggling rings into England. However, The Slog can exclusively reveal that, actually, the issue is the smuggling of discerning criminals, not rings.

Having realized that there were not always nice people involved in this issue, Belovid Jihavid said he doubted the motives of those unwilling to accept the first safe haven they found, and affirmed that the sending of warships to the area would send a strong message to those migrants who would, naturally, be processed in the normal way on arrival in Britain.

The discernment of these ne’er-do-wells is to be admired given that – just like those who rejected Greece, Hungary and Italy on their way towards Germany – they have not allowed their desperation to lower their level of aspiration. Having found France less than welcoming, they now stoically sail towards our Sceptred Isles.

Surely it is our duty to welcome shrewd folk with open arms. Our banking system, for example, will always have vacancies for those with such an obviously ambitious focus.

Do you follow?

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That sort of gritty determination is what sets Theresa May apart from the general run of political leader, because she and she alone alone leads by following.

Our Prime Minister has been following EU leaders around from Pilau to Positano – from the yacht moorings of the Virgin Islands to the deregulated sands of the Bahamas – in an unstinting and unsparing pursuit of the unspeakable. Indeed, such has been her indefatigable prostration, NASA has decided to rename its next Voyager Probe ‘ComeWhatMay’ – in recognition of her ability to find a lump of ice somewhere way beyond Pluto, and conclude that it is warming to her Chequers Plan.

Optimistic as ever, I present here the full text of her New Year’s message in the hope that somebody somewhere waiting for a pension, a bus, an operation, a Brexit, a direction or a star to fall – might find inspiration in her avowed exculpation:

“My fellow Britannic Europeans, we must now come together and follow each other in order to turn the third sharp corner that lies ahead, leading directly back to where we were before my spineless predecessor asked The People what they wanted, and they gave the wrong answer. You followed your own personal thoughts, adding up to a risible majority. And where did that get us? Getting on for three years of chaos before reason prevailed.

“So now is the time to follow a leader who follows all the important leaders and ignores divisive extremists. Now is the time to Leave on a bold new journey with zero risk – and Remain in the safety of our port of departure, minus only the cargo and the Captain”.

The choice is yours, fellow citizens. Do you follow?

Brexit, European Union, Political

‘A Merry Brexmas and a Deja vu Year’

Andrew Livingstone
Posted with permission from the writer, John Ward

The early Christmas present you’ve all been waiting for: the complete print out and keep guide to Theresa May’s Long & Winding rock n roll Road Show to nowhere.

Theresa May has learned nothing from her General Election débacle. Strong and Stable as a mantra has been replaced by The only deal available that defends British jobs gives us back control of our borders and honours the 2016 Referendum. It’s longer, but none the wiser.

Its other flaw is in being completely false. As a threader here remarked yesterday, “She has negotiated a Withdrawal Agreement which is neither a withdrawal nor an agreement”. That is indeed true. But as ever, she is convinced that if she repeats it enough, people will come to believe in it.

If only I could be nicer about the rentagobs who disagree with her. I watched yesterday morning as Baron Astonish burbled on at Adam Boulton: it was the Baron’s best illustration yet that he is a man in need of mental help. He discussed six separate aspects of the Whadawedonext debate, and concluded for each, “This is the sole reason we are in this mess”. To be able to divide one into six and get one as the answer is as certain a sign as you’ll ever see of madness.

The equally bald but even more gobby bloke standing next to Admonish was not so much mad as muddled. He was, he insisted, a believer in democracy, and thus felt the Second Referendum was the only way to go. Boulton needled him only slightly on this obvious cognitive dissonance before Baldy2 said – in a zero irony response – that “What we need is for the People to decide what sort of Second Referendum they need”.

“You see Minister,” said Sir Humphrey, “the People need to tell themselves what kind of referendum they need by voting about what they want to say next time, prior to reaffirming in a third referendum what they said the first time.”

As the May Commons update approached yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn announced that he would call a non-binding vote of no confidence in Mrs May rather than the Government, but then almost immediately dropped the idea. Even the ghost of Sir Humphrey would struggle with that episode, but let’s see how he manages it, with his usual wry smile:

“Minister, Mr Corbyn is merely signalling that he has confidence in Mrs May’s ability to inadvertently screw the EU which he hates although for tactical reasons must pretend he likes but equally doesn’t want to be handed a crown of thorns with a chalice of poisoned wine by becoming Prime Minister just yet, and so wants to be assured that in the unlikely event of him winning such a vote of no confidence only Mrs May would go, thus leaving the Conservative Party in a pickle clumsily wrapped in fibreglass which he can then condemn at PMQs every Wednesday, however at the last minute John McDonnell told him the idea is to go for a Second Referendum and so, being a man of rigid principle, unstinting consistency – but chiefly inestimable survival wisdom – Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition bowed to his advisers”.

Came the hour, came the Daft Mare. Some are born to be leaders, some have leadership thrust upon them, and some steal leadership from others vastly better qualified than they. Mrs May told us that the vote she backed out of on December 11th will now take place – with Commons debates beforehand – on January 14th.

What is likely to happen between then and now, apart from Christmas?

The Prime Minister told the Commons:

“I know this House is still deeply uncomfortable about the backstop. And I understand that. And I want us to go further still in the reassurances we secure. Discussions with my EU partners – including Presidents Tusk, Juncker and others – have shown that further clarification following the Council’s conclusions is in fact possible. So discussions are continuing to explore further political and legal assurances.”

Sir Humphrey intervenes once more:

“Minister, it is important always to remember that a backstop is really nothing more than (if I might put into words what the Prime Minister said) what insurance companies never want to insure against, that is – something which seems very unlikely to happen but always does. It is clear that the Prime Minister believes – while it has been emphatically stated by Brussels that no such possibilities exist – certain plausible but meaningless clarifications might be forthcoming. This could mean, more or less, that a meaningful vote can occur on January 14th about meaningless side letters in such a manner as to reassure persons of a less than discerning nature that continuing explorations of assurances are in fact meaningful and thus likely to bring concrete meaning to hitherto and to fore ethereal considerations.”

I make only one firm and convinced prediction about what will happen in due course: somebody with gumption and a sharp mind will write a script about this saga when it finally comes to some sort of end, and Hollywood will be falling over its knickers to buy the rights*.

I nominate Helen Mirren to play May, John Slattery to play Corbyn, Corbyn to play Sir Humphrey Appleby, Diane Abbott to play silly buggers with the statistics, and Billy Bragg in a cameo role as the inevitable busker singing All Around my Hat outside the railings of Downing Street.

But while we’re waiting for that End Game, whassnext?

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Several million citizens appear to think that the next major event will be full-on Armageddon….and have begun panic buying. Apart from the likelihood of most of them being Remaindeer, I am at a loss to know why. Whatever the answer, this has hilariously coincided with a decision by Britain’s retailers to slash prices, the hard up British consumer seemingly displaying little interest thus far in the Christmas splurge. So now, websites and shops are heaving with dingbat Remain flappy-bottoms and Leave bargain hunters.

Rather than being a movie in real time, the Parliamentary process is taking on all the features of a third-rate amdram provincial pantomime. Yesterday we had “Oh yes he will/won’t!” shouted by Corbyn Labour, and today his ugly sister across the divide is taunting with “Oh no you daren’t!”, to which the Peter Pan lad isself insists, “Oh yes I do….look behind you!”

But behind She Who Must be Obeyed, the rebels have shot their bolt, and Labour knows it. Corbyn himself admits the motion will fail….and there aren’t anywhere near enough Tories prepared to put Nation before Party and vote with the Opposition. The sad reality is that, behind the Ugly Sister herself, there are 280+ equally wart-riddled Uglies who want to put off the inevitable burning of their backsides.

The Conservative Party wants to have the cake and eat it too – and those with double standards always want double helpings. What we should have is a General Election once the Withdrawal Bill fails again on January 14th. But we won’t.

Yet again however – and this is so typical of May – she has boxed herself into a corner by openly insisting several times on camera that a second referendum would not solve anything, and represent an insult to democracy. In truth, what she fears is that Leave would win another victory, and force her into a “harder” Brexit….something, as a dyed in the wool geopolitical Remainoid, she is anxious to avoid at all costs.

My suspicion is that she will try one or both of two tactics to keep the clock ticking nicely down towards Brexit-Day, by when a Government (not necessarily hers) will ask for cooperation from Labour Remainers to achieve an extension to Article 50.

First, between now and January 6th (ish), Whitehall will look – in concert with their oppos in Brussels – to come up with a form of comfort side-letter suggesting that only a plague of boils would trigger the backstop. This will be leaked to the press in its best light, and declared by both UK, European and US media as the Big Breakthrough for which we’ve all been waiting….and scrape through the Commons on the 14th.

For myself, I  don’t think a convincing ‘budge’ by the Eurocrats will be forthcoming – and even if it was, I doubt if it would have a snowball in Hell’s chance of getting a Commons majority without being so mauled, it would then be unacceptable to the Sprouts. (Bear in mind that Dominic Grieve has already clearly established Parliament’s right to add amendments and change content that alters the substance previously negotiated by Überstürmbannfuhrer Robbins in Brussels).

Second, once the Bill fails, May will (I’m sure) give yet another speech about her “unsparing” determination to carry on negotiations, hoping again to keep running down the clock.

I have a sneaking hunch, however, that behind the public facade, the Remain candidates for her job have no desire to get another year of Theresa May. I think there is every possibility that she will face a Remainer Cabinet revolt forcing her to resign (if she resigns, the Tories can have another leadership contest) – and she will give way to another Remainer PM….who will call for an extension to Article 50, get that through Parliament relatively easily, and then….and then….God only knows.

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Once the ides of March are upon us – and Brexit is looking increasingly remote – probably one or more of two major events will occur.

First, the Blairite breakaway from Corbyn Labour will probably have happened. And second, the Faragist anti-Brexit Party will almost certainly be launched.

There is also a third matter – the political career of Boris Johnson. If he were to join forces with Nigel Farage, there could be serious chance of other Tories following, and a bloc of ‘Independence’ seats created in Parliament if and when another election is called, or by elections occur.

Last but not least, there is the econo-fiscal storm still brewing around the world that might itself be triggered by eurozone crises in one for or another. That crisis is, I still maintain, infinitely more important than anything served up by a bunch of tin-pot dictators in Brussels, Strasbourg and Frankfurt.

For the time being, I recommend taking the kids to a real pantomime and forgetting Brexit entirely until Boxing Day is behind us.

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Brexit, Political

The knell of Doom

Andrew Livingstone

With thanks and hat-tip to JW – The Slogger

There’s one thing in Mrs May’s Brexit withdrawal agreement we’re overlooking . It is not the beginning of the end of Britain being bullied by Brussels, it’s merely the end of the beginning. If Farage et al wait too long before showing up, they will miss the bus.

 

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Pretty much every front page this morning is devoted to Theresa May and her doomed attempt to sell her “Brexit”. It is, if you like, the beginning of hard sell of an ultra-soft Brexit. The impression being put about is that, come 29th March, we’ll have a deal, and then it’s all over.

Both beliefs are disastrous on the scale of the asteroid that saw off the dinosaurs.

The biggest single danger facing British independence now is the resistance to EU colonialism sticking to a rigid timetable that has been overtaken by events.

Thus far, the Conservative resistance (whether we like it or not, still by far the most likely to succeed) has been running on a timetable allied to its Party rules about leadership challenges. Equally, the much-vaunted new Party being formed by Nigel Farage seems determined to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of every duck in a row before it launches. Both groups need to wake up: life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

The key thing to remember is this: if via one means or another the May Withdrawal Agreement passes into law, launching an organised opposition to it in March 2019 (the last date mentioned by Farage) is going to be far too late. And even if – as I fully expect – that capitulation is rejected by Parliament, there is every chance that Rhino-skinned May will not resign, but rather turn to Brussels again for support. This will not be forthcoming, because the Commission sociopaths want an extension to Article 50, the better to both squeeze Britain further, and put off the cutting of money-supply to their busted bank.

It would be in their better interests to make concessions at this point, but Brussels-watchers have learned over the years that these clowns never know what is in anyone’s interests – least of all, their own.

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We learned over the weekend that if the May plan fails in Parliament, Chancellor Philip Hammond will resign and five other Cabinet ministers will follow him. While this is just more bollocks designed to scare Tory waverers into supporting the Withdrawal That Isn’t, it should bring home to the thinking Briton how uninterested in our independence and cultural survival the hardline Remainers are. The only upside of their antics is that they may, at long last, destroy the Neoliberal Tory Party forever…..assuming the PM doesn’t beat them to it.

March 29th can and will only be “the end of the matter” unless we leave the European Union with no deal. In all other scenarios, the bullying and subterfuge will continue. And the longer it goes on, the harder it will be to unravel.

Theresa May (and her friends in Brussels and NATO) are banking on that reality. Like it or not, the whole nation is suffering from Brexit fatigue: this time, a clock really is ticking – probably because Michel Barnier isn’t involved.

All this is extremely important, because I do believe now that, penultimately, there are five groups we need to consider: world opinion, the Italians, Tory Remainers, the active British Resistance and the UK electorate as a whole.

Of course May has to be removed, but that won’t solve much. If it brings on an election (which it should) then the Leavers HAVE TO BE SEEN TO HAVE WON so that global opinion is clear about what the People think, and the Italian resistors don’t feel isolated. This means the structure and influence of the Parliamentary Conservative Party have to be changed, to the extent that Remainers are challenged at constituency level and a credible Sovereign Brexit candidate stands.

Only by forming a united “front” against Andrex-soft Brexit ( that is, a Sovereign halfway house where it’s heads they win and tails we lose) can that outcome be achieved. It means a tactical, activist alliance between those who want the Tories out at all costs, and those who want the EU out of our hair at all costs. This will be incredibly difficult to achieve (if it was easy, someone would’ve done it by now) but failing to do it will mean the final frame in the movie called Great Britain.

There is a glaringly urgent need to coordinate a broad spectrum of thinkers who want to see the end of Blairism, the defeat of fluffy EUism, the restructuring of an overwhelmingly neoliberal Tory Party, and the genuine return of power to a Britain going its own way. This will shock some Sloggers, but I am absolutely certain that a great many Corbynites feel this way, as do Centrist Tories – and former UKIPpers who deserted Metropolitan pc Labour….along with the 2020/Waspi movement who want a Government of honest decency back in Westminster. Even Diane Abbott said on a radio call-in show last week, “We should not have a second referendum, because the voters will say, ‘which bit of Leave did you not understand the first time?'”. A lot of people on the Labour Left recognise that EUNATO is for the rich and the military and the repressives, not the poorest and most vulnerable in our society…..and avowedly not for Peace on Earth.

The desperate as well as the foolishly smug in society need to be made acutely aware of what’s at stake here. This is no longer about soft or hard this, that or the other: it is about the right of national creativity to defeat the crushing process of Might Is Right globalist big business, and reestablish a Rule of Law to defend us from dictatorship.

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In that context, Boris Johnson is making barnstorming speeches to the DUP, giving soundbites to the tabloids and pouring out vitriol in the Telegraph. But he doesn’t have an organisation, nor does he stand under a clear banner. He is, at present, nothing more than a disgruntled right-wing Tory with disturbing ties to the City.

Equally, Nigel Farage is mouthing off on radio, and calling for UKIP leader Gerard Batten to be ousted in the light of the Tommy Robinson appointment. Less well known is that he is a vice-Chairman of the organisation Leave means Leave. He too lacks any real infrastructure, and is in danger of turning into a media shock-jock, and apologist for banking greed.

Will they act together? Will they act at all? We need to know. This is one of those rare occasions when late will not be better than never. For late will be far too late….and after that, it’s regional EU slavery for as long as the Federalist bandwagon still has wheels

Contact us urgently at ‘info@livingstones.uk’ for planning and action details

Brexit, Political

Watch and Pray! [Neh 4:9]

Andrew Livingstone

Having done all he could, to ensure that we, the little sheeple, would conform, David Cameron suddenly got a bloodied nose on Friday 24th June 2016. Oh dear, there was apparently a broken fence and half the flock had bolted..

Not to labour the simile, he failed to point out that 138 of his shepherds had also decided that membership of the Evil Unelected was not turning out to be what the nice Mr Heath had promised, back there in 1972.

The other sad side of the equation is that, apparently, 185 of his team are content that all our history – industrious, military, commercial marine, regal and democratic excellence is of no value, suitable only to be sold off, nay, given away to the Entirely Unacceptable.

In time of war there has always been a coalition to ensure that this nation did not succumb to the enemy.

It is time for such a coalition, and, knowing as we do, that the ‘party’ system is moribund, at LIVINGSTONES we offer, NOT yet another party, but a rallying point – an Emergency Meeting Point – where we can gather and discuss our plan of action.

Please contact us in the first instance via ‘info at livingstones dot uk’ where we can share detail. Do feel free to SHARE this post, the time is short, the nation’s gates have been unlocked, swung open, and the drawbridge is already lowered, the Trojan horse proved to be unnecessary this time round. The gates must be closed, the drawbridge must be raised, persons wishing to join us must form an orderly queue, and then we shall deal with the seditious shepherds as we bring our house in order.

Brexit, Political

How to save BREXIT

Andrew Livingstone

(With acknowledgments to Tony Abbott – former PM in Australia)

27 October 2018

It’s pretty hard for Britain’s friends, here in Australia, to make sense of the mess that’s being made of Brexit. The referendum result was perhaps the biggest-ever vote of confidence in the United Kingdom, its past and its future. But the British establishment doesn’t seem to share that confidence and instead looks desperate to cut a deal, even if that means staying under the rule of Brussels. Looking at this from abroad, it’s baffling: the country that did the most to bring democracy into the modern world might yet throw away the chance to take charge of its own destiny.

Let’s get one thing straight: a negotiation that you’re not prepared to walk away from is not a negotiation — it’s surrender. It’s all give and no get. When David Cameron tried to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership, he was sent packing because Brussels judged (rightly) that he’d never actually back leaving. And since then, Brussels has made no real concessions to Theresa May because it judges (rightly, it seems) that she’s desperate for whatever deal she can get.

The EU’s palpable desire to punish Britain for leaving vindicates the Brexit project. Its position, now, is that there’s only one ‘deal’ on offer, whereby the UK retains all of the burdens of EU membership but with no say in setting the rules. The EU seems to think that Britain will go along with this because it’s terrified of no deal. Or, to put it another way, terrified of the prospect of its own independence.

But even after two years of fearmongering and vacillation, it’s not too late for robust leadership to deliver the Brexit that people voted for. It’s time for Britain to announce what it will do if the EU can’t make an acceptable offer by March 29 next year — and how it would handle no deal. Freed from EU rules, Britain would automatically revert to world trade, using rules agreed by the World Trade Organization. It works pretty well for Australia. So why on earth would it not work just as well for the world’s fifth-largest economy?

A world trade Brexit lets Britain set its own rules. It can say, right now, that it will not impose any tariff or quota on European produce and would recognise all EU product standards. That means no border controls for goods coming from Europe to Britain. You don’t need to negotiate this: just do it. If Europe knows what’s in its own best interests, it would fully reciprocate in order to maintain entirely free trade and full mutual recognition of standards right across Europe.

Next, the UK should declare that Europeans already living here should have the right to remain permanently — and, of course, become British citizens if they wish. This should be a unilateral offer. Again, you don’t need a deal. You don’t need Michel Barnier’s permission. If Europe knows what’s best for itself, it would likewise allow Britons to stay where they are.

 

Third, there should continue to be free movement of people from Europe into Britain — but with a few conditions. Only for work, not welfare. And with a foreign worker’s tax on the employer, to make sure anyone coming in would not be displacing British workers.

Fourth, no ‘divorce bill’ whatsoever should be paid to Brussels. The UK government would assume the EU’s property and liabilities in Britain, and the EU would assume Britain’s share of these in Europe. If Britain was getting its fair share, these would balance out; and if Britain wasn’t getting its fair share, it’s the EU that should be paying Britain.

Finally, there’s no need on Britain’s part for a hard border with Ireland. Britain wouldn’t be imposing tariffs on European goods, so there’s no money to collect. The UK has exactly the same product standards as the Republic, so let’s not pretend you need to check for problems we all know don’t exist. Some changes may be needed but technology allows for smart borders: there was never any need for a Cold War-style Checkpoint Charlie. Irish citizens, of course, have the right to live and work in the UK in an agreement that long predates EU membership.

Of course, the EU might not like this British leap for independence. It might hit out with tariffs and impose burdens on Britain as it does on the US — but WTO rules put a cap on any retaliatory action. The worst it can get? We’re talking levies of an average 4 or 5 per cent. Which would be more than offset by a post-Brexit devaluation of the pound (which would have the added bonus of making British goods more competitive everywhere).

UK officialdom assumes that a deal is vital, which is why so little thought has been put into how Britain might just walk away. Instead, officials have concocted lurid scenarios featuring runs on the pound, gridlock at ports, grounded aircraft, hoarding of medicines and flights of investment. It’s been the pre-referendum Project Fear campaign on steroids. And let’s not forget how employment, investment and economic growth ticked up after the referendum.

As a former prime minister of Australia and a lifelong friend of your country, I would say this: Britain has nothing to lose except the shackles that the EU imposes on it. After the courage shown by its citizens in the referendum, it would be a tragedy if political leaders go wobbly now. Britain’s future has always been global, rather than just with Europe. Like so many of Britain’s admirers, I want to see this great country seize this chance and make the most of it.

Tony Abbott served as Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015