MPs Who Quit Their Party - Traitorous or Principled?

Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen have today quit the Conservative Party citing Brexit and a lurch to the right. While I fundamentally disagree with their opinions on these matters I applaud and indeed salute their principled stance. They will join with the breakaway Independent Group formed by Luciana Berger, Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker, Ann Coffey, Mike Gapes and Joan Ryan who similarly resigned from the Labour Party yesterday, albeit for perhaps different reasons; the Tories not being endemically and systematically anti-Semitic.

I am sure that for all these MPs their decision to realign themselves with a new and fledgling group will have not been easy and I am sure they will know that it may well come at a cost. I believe that principled politicians are to be admired not pilloried. In my opinion those with strong principles must follow them. However, if those same principles put them at odds with the political party on whose support and manifesto they relied upon to get them elected then they must make it clear that they are putting themselves forward for re-election on an independent platform based on the tenets they have espoused. Simply resigning the whip, or leaving the Party, is not enough. Have the courage of your convictions and fight a by-election. 

Whilst I support those who take a moral and principled stand I have nothing but contempt for those who are not brave enough to have the courage of their own convictions. I speak particularly of Dominic Grieve.

The Tories fought the last general election with an explicit promise to take us; out of the EU, out of the Customs Union, out of the Single Market and beyond the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Yet, as Theresa May seeks to carry out the will of the electorate, as expressed in the referendum and to fulfil the promises made in the party's manifesto, the self-aggrandising braggadocio Mr Grieve is content to vote against his party and attempt to frustrate them at every turn. Aided and abetted by that other cowardly political pygmy the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow.

Obviously, I recognise that on a personal level, Mr Grieve must follow his own conscience and be true to what he believes. However, my problem with his behaviour is that he enjoys a position which requires him to champion not his own opinions but the wishes of those who elected him (and those from the wider electorate who won the referendum). As he is a barrister I am surprised that he appears to be a stranger to this fundamental principle of advocacy. It appears that I am not alone in my stance as Mr Grieve will face a no confidence motion at an annual meeting of Beaconsfield Conservatives on March 29 which will state that the association has no confidence in Dominic Grieve, that he should not stand for re-election at the next general election and the association should commence proceedings for selecting a new candidate.

While I am familiar with Lyndon B. Johnson’s sentiments regarding J. Edgar Hoover ("I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in") I think that if he is not prepared to fulfil his role as an advocate for the people, he should remain firm to his convictions and principles, resign and fight a by-election as an independant.

As The Point Of No Return Approaches Can You Feel The Fear?

As the Brexit negotiations proceed it is becoming ever more clear that their primary intention is to use the divorce settlement as a crude ransom demand. It is obvious that because they believe that the Remoaners are willing to pay any price for a trade deal, and because they think that those Remoanerscan force the government to agree with their position, they are ratcheting up the final figure and trying to force us to pay it as the entry price into trade talks. Meanwhile the likes of George Osborne, Michael Heseltine, Peter Mandelson and Tony B Liar are continuing their campaign of Project Fear in a crude attempt to frighten those they regard as the ignorant poor people who voted to leave to change their minds and simply surrender to all the EU's demands.

What are those demands? They are pretty large. As well as trying to force us to continue to bankroll the PIGS (Portugal Ireland, Greece and Spain), they also want us to carry on paying, in perpetuity, a part the huge pensions of all the European bureaucrats, civil servants, MEPs and associated hangers-on who got us into this mess in the first place. Also they want us to continue to accept the supremacy of the European Court of Justice and the Human Rights courts. They want us to carry on accepting economic refugees from Eastern Europe and take a quota of the tide of illegal migrants flooding, unchecked, across the mediterranean onto the European continent. They want all of these concessions before they will even think about a trade deal.

Let's just stop to consider this for a moment. We give up all our rights to self-government, a shedload of cash up-front and we promise to carry on paying them loads more cash for an indeterminate time into the future. Once we have done this we then start another set of separate negotiation with they same bunch of gangsters and extortioners who have just mugged us. Would you?

Who is to say where they will set the price for access to their so called "Free Market?" I guess that one of the concessions they will ask for is to demand that we remain in the Customs Union and another will be a promise to continue to obey and implement all the regulatory nonsense that will continue to pour out of Brussels. The truth is that if we cave in to just the minimum of what they are asking then how will we have left the European Union.? They will still control our borders, our economy, our laws and our ability to trade freely with the rest of the world. All of this to have nothing more than we started with for a huge price.

Of course I realise that we cannot leave the EU without having to make some concessions. Mrs May has already indicated that we will meet all our legally outstanding commitments, We will continue to offer places to European citizens for them to live, work and prosper here in the UK, We will, where necessary, strive to make the goods and services we supply to them compliant with their standards. We will continue with our policies to offer succor and sanctuary to those who are genuinely fleeing from being persecuted or who fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion; policies which we have held in place for hundreds of years, before many of the current members of the EU even acknowledged the concept. I don;t think we need to take lessons in compassion or freedoms from the EU; as the people of Catalonia about that.

In order to make any negotiations work both parties must enter into them knowing that "No Deal Is Better Than A Bad Deal". This applies to both sides. If the EU can't succeed in bullying or intimidating us and if they genuinely feel that what we are offering is unacceptable then they too must tell us that they are prepared to walk away.

They have accused us of not offering concessions, "cherry picking" and "wanting to have our cake and eat it: I find it interesting that in such circumstances they have made little or no mention that they might want to end the talks and walk away. If their position is so strong and they can do so well without us why are they bothering to negotiate at all? I am convinced that they need us a whole lot more than we need them and their strategy is based on our desire to be reasonable and polite in a very British sort of way. I believe that they think being British means that we will try to avoid conflict at any cost.

In order to try and browbeat us they have recruited a fifth column of Remoaners, see above, who are seeking to undermine our resolve. Let's remember that we are one of the greatest trading nations in the world, the world's fifth largest economy, that we have a strong and robust economy, and can survive outside of the EU just as well, if not better than we did inside. Let's walk away and then see who feels the cold hand of fear? They'd be back to the negotiating table pretty Tut Suite methinks. 

It's Time To Stop Playing Pattycake With The EU Bullies And Change The Game To Hardball.

We must face up to the fact that leaving the EU will cause a temporary hit to our economy. I knew this when I voted for Brexit, as, I am sure, did the vast majority of Brexiteers.

Following Mrs May's Florence speech it has become obvious that the EU have no intention of negotiating and appear to have no interest in a mutually beneficial trade deal. It seems to me that rather than conciliation their sole aim is to make sure that they hand out a punishment beating to make sure they warn off the remaining 27 countries from any idea of dissent to the increased centralised control the Brussel Bureaucrats want over their laws, economies and governments.

M. Barnier's and Guy Verhofstadt's strategies are obvious. 1) extract as much cash out of the UK as they can to fix the back hole in their bloated budgets. 2) Use the EU citizens who reside here in the UK as hostages to retain the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) hold over our sovereign parliament. 3) Drag out the negotiations to wear down the public's resolve, so that we eventually elect to stay in the EU.

Given their intransigence and obvious desire to cause us as much pain as possible I am coming to the view that the only thing Brussels will understand is our taking the hardest of hard Brexit stands. I think that damage limitation is now the name of the only game in town. The only question left to answer is how do we minimise the pain?

I would prefer the short sharp shock treatment to death by a thousand cuts, implemented over a two, three or four year 'transition period'. It's like taking off a sticking plaster. Do it quick and brutally and get the pain over with in one short sharp shock. The last thing we need is to be half in and half out and continuing to be dictated to.

My negotiating stance would be to tell them, in no uncertain terms, that unless we can begin trade negotiations now and run them in parallel with the divorce bill and if they continue to prevaricate in an attempt to drag out the negotiations, then at midnight on the 1st of April 2019; 1) All payments to the EU will stop. 2) All EU citizens who wish to continue living and working here will be granted full rights, equal to those of any other UK subjects and will be subject solely to UK courts. 3) The UK will no longer recognise the jurisdiction of the ECJ. 4) All EU citizens arriving at our borders will be treated in exactly the same way as any other foreign national. 5) The Irish/UK land border will operate as it does now; restrictions at the air and sea borders will be as point 4. 6) Trade will be conducted under the World Trade Organisation rules unless and until they negotiate a trade deal. 7) The UK will immediately begin to negotiate trade deals with any other country as it sees fit.

As I have said I know that this will cause business and industry some hardship initially. I though, unlike our Quisling Chancellor, think that this arrangement will hurt their trade more than it will hurt ours. I strongly suspect that they will be back to the negotiating  table in short order. It's time to stop playing pattycake with these bullies and change the game to hardball.

Juncker Gives Us Even More Reasons To Realise We Were Right About Leaving The E.U.

Jean-Paul Juncker has delivered his Sate of the Union speech. A cursory glace at it shows that leaving the EU is the only sensible option for any country that wishes to remain an independent sovereign state that has control of its own internal policies, laws and trading relationships with the global economy.

In his speech he called a special summit in Romania on the 30 March 2019, the first day of an EU of 27 member states rather than 28, Juncker said he hoped the continent would “wake up” that day to a new more unified bloc. it seems clear that his call is a warning of the drive toward "ever closer union". Just what does that mean; well he has I think left us in no doubt.

He called for more help for all EU countries to join the euro along with a series of institutional changes, including the creation of an EU finance minister. This means that ultimately individual EU members will have no control over their own interest rates, the prices of their exports, or their own internal spending policies. All fiscal control will be in the hands of the Central European Bank and an unelected EU finance minister who will only be answerable to the unelected EC commission.

He ruled out Turkey’s accession to the EU in the foreseeable future and he called for the presidencies of the European commission and the European council, the body comprised of the leaders of the member states, to be combined in the future. He also called for the adoption of qualified majority voting, rather than unanimity, within the council on foreign policy issues. This is another blatant power grab. Once again Juncker is seeking the centralisation of power into the hands of the faceless Brussels Bureaucrats by suggesting they can overrule a member state's civil rights and foreign policies on the slenderest of votes.

Also, in an apparent attempt to take over military power as well as civilian he is pushing for a continued drive forward in European defence, which is Brussels doublespeak for a European army; again under centralised Brussels control. Just contemplate for a moment; would you want some European admiral ordering our navy to withdraw from Gibraltar so the Spanish can come in and take over?

Given Mr Junckers' megalomania and his obvious desire to be head of a European Super State I can only conclude that we are much better off out of it; and yes, at any price.

Churchill or Chamberlain? May or Corbyn? the choice is yours.

I do not doubt that Jeremy Corbyn is a man of integrity and conviction. Unfortunately, I perceive that among those convictions are pacifism, unilateral disarmament, appeasement and a naive student-union politics type belief that there will always be a way of reaching a consensus which is mutually beneficial to both sides. Sadly, I believe that it is those very attributes which mean he is not the right person to be Prime Minister, particularly at this portentous time.

Given the momentous negotiations that we are about to embark upon as we withdraw from the EU and as we hear the increasingly bellicose and aggressive rhetoric which is emanating from Brussels, I am convinced that what we need right now is a government which is led by someone who will stand up for what’s best for Britain in the face of the hostile punishment beatings Mr Junker and Mr Tusk want to hand out. The last thing we need is a leader who will follow a line of least resistance to achieve “peace for our time” at any cost, as I fear Mr Corbyn will if he stays true to his integrity and conviction.

Churchill or Chamberlain? May or Corbyn? the choice is yours.

Terrorism: No Fear, No Surrender! - So why do they do it?

Yesterday we witnessed another senseless act of terrorism on the streets of London. We are told that the perpetrators of these atrocities do this in the belief that the killing of innocents and an attack on the symbols of our freedoms and democracies will eventually coerce us into abandoning our lifestyles and system of government in favour some other alien belief system. Given that throughout history this approach has never seemed to have worked why do these small fanatical groups keep on trying such an obviously failed tactic?

While I could just possibly understand how an individual could convince themselves that being a martyr to their cause could elicit sympathy for it, I am having trouble figuring out how someone else can radicalise a person to the point where they think that wreaking havoc and visiting carnage and destruction on innocent civilians will bring about change? I suppose though that if we really want to understand how people go about radicalising and recruiting bombers and murderers then perhaps we need to ask someone with experience of doing this how they go about it.Knowing your enemy is the best way of defeating them. 

Sadly, with the very recent demise of Martin McGuinness, we have missed a golden opportunity of maybe getting inside the head of a full on bloody handed terrorist general who has sent out agents to kill and maim in the name of a cause. However, perhaps we could persuade, for a very large fee of course, the war criminal Tony B Liar to speak with his friend Gerry Addams who, based on his not inconsiderable experience, would I'm sure have some valuable tips, trick and insights he could impart? Actually, given that it could be argued that Tony B is largely to blame for the circumstances that have unleashed the dogs of war in the Middle East and brought about the terrorist plague the world now has to endure, maybe he could be persuaded to waive the fee? Okay, maybe not.  

In the meantime let's continue to send out the message that even as we mourn our dead we strengthen our resolve to continue with our lives as normal and let our motto be: Terrorism?: No Fear, No Surrender!

Opinions are like belly buttons. We all have one but they don't count for much and a failed ex-politician's is no better than anyone else's

Those that know me well will be aware that while I have strong opinions I hope that they have been reached after serious thought, research and reflection. I hope that I am not too arrogant to assume that I am always right and I welcome hearing the thoughts and reasoning of others.

I know that Len Harvey is also a man of well reasoned opinions and the fact that we stand on opposite sides of this argument do not mean that either of us should be locked in a room, especially in a democratic country such as ours. Interestingly Rob Jollands and I are also on opposite sides of the Brexit debate yet apparently are united when it comes to thinking that Tony B Liar is neither morally nor ethically qualified to make the statements contained in his speech; fermenting revolution by asking people to "rise up" I din't think is helpful and accusing the electorate of not being intelligent enough to see through the lies of politicians is a bit rich coming from someone who took spin (or lying as most of us would define it) to new heights while in office.

I believe that everyone is entitled to have a say in what kind of Brexit they think is best. The problem appears to be that, informed or not, it appears that a majority of British people have voted for us to take back control of our boarders and refuse the principal of the free movement of people within the EU. This one single fact does have consequences. Once you choose to opt out of one of the four fundamental principles of the EU the ruling Brussels bureaucrats will automatically then seek to bar you from enjoying the privileges of the others (the free movement of goods (the free market), the free movement of capital (excluding the City of London's money markets) and the free movement of services (the European Union;'s custom's union).

This is where I think Mr B Liar's arguments are flawed. It is not Theresa May who is pushing for a hard Brexit or rushing us to a cliff edge but the aforementioned Brussels bureaucrats who will drive us there whether we want to go or not. Theresa May has set out in her speeches and in the white paper submitted to parliament her desire to negotiate access to the free market and the custom's union and to apply for passporting rights for the City of London to carry on trading. It is Brussels who seem implacable in refusing to allow us to take back control of our borders and will also try to force us to stay in the custom's union, which means that we cannot negotiate our own trade deals with other countries.

Now, as a poor boy from a cotton town in lancashire I like to think I have demonstrated that I hav some grasp of the consequences of Brexit and am still some what itate the Tony B Liar should imply that I am too uneducated to have made the decision I did. As I pointed out in the title of this piece Mr B Liar has his opinion of Brexit and of my decision, but like his belly button he should keep it to himself.