Northern Ireland and the Windsor Framework Sellout

 

by Louise Mclean

This is not a post that I particularly wanted to write because we are as far from achieving Brexit as ever and if anything, things have been getting worse.

On 27th February 2023, with much fanfare, Rishi Sunak, the UK Prime Minister and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, presented the Windsor Framework at Windsor Castle. This was with the blessing of King Charles, effectively using the Royal Prerogative, which avoided a vote in Parliament. 

The fact that the King endorsed the Windsor Framework, without a formal vote in Parliament and which subjugates Parliament to EU law, calls into question the delicate constitutional balance between the monarchy, Parliament and the People.  It compromises King Charles's position as head of state before he has even attended his formal coronation.

The Windsor Framework was their answer to dealing with the problems of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which was agreed in 2019 as part of the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement, with the aim of preventing a hard border between the North and South of Ireland.

As we know, although the United Kingdom had left the European Union on 31st January 2020, Northern Ireland had been left behind and was still subject to the decisions of the European Court of Justice.

The Windsor Framework was supposed to address the problem of trade but many Conservative MPs and especially the DUP Northern Irish MPs are unhappy and say that it does not solve it.

It is so complex by design, that practically no one except those who drafted it can understand it.

Our government has now agreed to implement a whole range of checks and controls for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which had not been enforced yet, due to the current grace period.

On 22 March 2023, Parliament then voted for something called the Stormont Brake by 515 votes in favour and 29 against.  The Stormont Brake was implemented by Statutory Instrument to amend the Northern Ireland Act 1998. It is basically inserting Theresa May's  Back Stop, which was voted down three times by Parliament. 

Altogether 70 conservative MPs either voted against the Stormont Brake or abstained, which was an uncomfortable rebellion for Prime Minister Sunak, and all of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) voted against. The Labour Party voted it in, despite the fact there was barely time to read it beforehand! It is a critical part of the Windsor Framework, which in fact gives the EU a direct return to regulation of the entire UK from Brussels.

The whole thing is so complicated and devious in its creation, that I am at a loss to explain it fully!  All I can do is point to these three excellent articles by Caroline Bell, who sets everything out as clearly as possible.

https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-windsor-framework-getting-brexit-undone/

https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-windsor-framework-a-legal-and-democratic-sting/

https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-stormont-brake-con-is-critical-for-the-imposition-of-direct-eu-rule-on-the-uk/

What it does seem to be is an affront to the people of Great Britain and a backdoor pathway to letting the EU regulate all of our trade and not just that of Northern Ireland. Perhaps this is being used as a way to get the UK back into the European Union and push the North and South of Ireland into a United Ireland.

Certainly Theresa May made sure by passing the EU Retained Law Bill, that despite Brexit, all EU law in Britain would be retained and very little of the thousands of regulations, if any, have been repealed since we officially left the EU in January 2020.

 

The extent of the legal shenanigans of the Rushi Sunak government and the EU, leave my head spinning!  It is all clearly designed to dupe MPs and the public into thinking a good solution has been found for Northern Ireland!  Rishi, as we know, is one of the young globalist leaders of the World Economic Forum and is no doubt following their instructions!

Another good article is here: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-windsor-agreement-deserves-to-be-exiled/

Brexit Fishing Wars with France

by Louise Mclean

On Thursday 6th May 2021 up to 100 French fishing vessels blocked the port of St. Helier in Jersey in protest against new rules.

Throughout the Brexit negotiations, which carried on for five years, the French were extremely angry about losing any rights to fishing in British waters, which they had been doing since we joined the European Union in 1972.

Things got extremely heated at the end of 2020, when talks between the EU and their British counterparts were putting the final touches to the Brexit deal.  The French government were making threats against Britain regarding the slightest reduction in the number of fish they could catch in our territory.

The terms of the final Brexit deal did in fact hardly reduce the number of fish European nations could take around the coast of Britain and only very slightly increased the number British fishermen could have.

Matters have again come to a head with French fishermen demanding the right to catch fish off the Jersey and Guernsey coastline of the Channel Islands. 

They were demonstrating against post Brexit rules, which state that from 1st May EU fishermen must submit evidence of their past fishing activities, in order to receive a licence to carry on fishing there. 

The reason for the new rules is the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with Britain which was passed by the European Union recently.

Early in the morning of Thursday 6th May 2021 a flotilla of up to 100 French vessels, mainly trawlers and dredgers, blocked the port of St. Helier in Jersey in protest. 

Some Frenchmen were even saying it was another Battle of Trafalgar and one knocked into a Jersey pleasure boat, damaging it. Jersey fishermen said it felt like an invasion.

In response, Britain sent two Royal Navy ships, HMS Severn and HMS Tamar, to break up the tense situation, when flares were set off by the French.  The French then sent two gun boats to face off the Royal Navy but they were not granted permission to enter UK waters. 

The Royal Navy will now remain in the Channel to monitor the situation.

Paris has threatened to cut off electricity to the island of Jersey in retaliation, which is delivered via underwater cable from France.

The Channel Islands are very near the French coast and have been fished by the French for 40 years, so they are up in arms about any changes.

One French fisherman said that they had been told that the Jersey decision is irreversible and that it will affect 250 fishing vessels and 2,000 onshore French jobs.

Apparently 41 licences have already been granted to vessels so far but additional conditions have been added, which are unacceptable to the French.  The French maritime minister accused the Channel islands of dragging its feet about issuing licences.

According to Jersey's Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Ian Gorst, all that is necessary is for French fishermen to provide the evidence of the amount of fishing they have done in the past three years in order to receive a licence.  He said out of the 41 licences issued, only 17 provided this information.  This is apparently a condition of the new T&CA.

The French complain that London has imposed new zoning rules for where their fishermen can and cannot go, the number of days at sea, what machinery they can have, as well as insisting they carry data tracking gear.

The EU is saying Britain has broken the terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement but currently Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not agree and has reiterated his unwavering support for Jersey.

Sir David Frost, chief UK negotiator with the EU, Mr. Ian Gorst of Jersey and the British Government are carrying on diplomatic talks with France and the EU Commission in order to resolve the situation.

Lord Frost said that the T&CA gives Jersey the right to regulate the fish in its waters.

The full dramatic story and pictures are here on the Daily Mail website.

Is the EU Pushing for a United Ireland?

by Louise Mclean

Currently the people of Northern Ireland are so incensed about the way they have been sold out to the EU by the British Government, that violent nightly riots have been going on all over Northern Ireland since 29th March.

Update May 2021:  Lawsuit - Defending the Union of the UK, Ending the Northern Ireland Protocol

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/defending-the-union-of-the-uk/

Ever since Brexit finally happened at the very end of 2020, it has been a very hollow victory for its supporters, mainly because of the terms and conditions relating to Northern Ireland.  The Northern Ireland Protocol, which Unionist politicians believe should be scrapped immediately, has created a border down the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, causing a number of serious problems.  

Here a former Brexit Party MEP, Ben Habib, explains why the Northern Ireland Protocol should be dropped and says the border should have remained on the mainland, between the North and South of Ireland, as it has done for over 100 years. 

Firstly, Northern Ireland has effectively been kept under EU law and secondly it is still in the Single Market for goods, so trade between it and the rest of Britain has been seriously impacted. Trade has become too expensive and lined with red tape for British exporters to make it worth their while, meaning that many products are now missing from the shelves of the shops in Northern Ireland.

Problems surrounding trade mean products must comply with strict EU rules on for example, animal and plant health, and traders must complete a range of new processes  in order to ship from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.  Delays due to border checks cause disruption of supply chains of goods moving from the UK to Northern Ireland. Many British firms have decided the market is too small to continue supplying Northern Ireland and that the increased costs, as well as red tape, are simply not worth the bother.

However, the Northern Ireland Protocol is not yet fully operational, as there has been a grace period for certain certifications and declarations, which lapses in the months ahead. The grace period for checks on parcels and some supermarket goods ended on 31st March, revealing the problems.  Conservative minister Michael Gove has asked the European Commission to extend the grace period until January 2023 in order to find resolutions to these difficulties.

The UK Internal Market Bill would have safeguarded trade with Northern Ireland by scrapping parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol and this was favourably greeted by Democratic Unionist Party MPs.  Unfortunately the EU absolutely refused to allow the Conservative Government to push the Bill through Parliament unless those clauses were dropped, saying it was a breach of 'international law', when in fact it would have protected N.I. from many of the crippling restrictions it is now facing.

Currently the Republic of Ireland in the South of Ireland is under the EU empire and it seems as though by holding on to Northern Ireland, the plan all along was to keep them both under the EU stranglehold in the hope of a United Ireland, fully under its grip.

Why Boris Johnson and Conservative Ministers did not see this coming, is extraordinary, as it was plain to many people when the Northern Ireland Protocol was first drafted, this might be the likely outcome in the fullness of time. Few have mentioned this dangerous possibility, which would of course mean that the EU had in fact taken British land as a payment for Brexit.

However, a poll in February showed that nearly 60% of Northern Irish people would prefer to stay in the UK.

Currently the people of Northern Ireland are so incensed about the way they have been sold out to the EU by the British Government, that violent nightly riots have been going on all over Northern Ireland since 29th March. As many as 90 police officers have been injured and petrol bombs, masonry and missiles have been thrown, mainly by teenagers.  The violence is the worst seen in many years.

The EU and British Government say they are currently looking into solutions to the problems of trade between Britain and Northern Ireland but knowing the history of Brexit, this may just be weasel words.  It is far more likely that behind the scenes there is a genuine plan to unite the whole of Ireland under the EU flag and for some reason the British Government is not stopping this from becoming a reality.

The Brexit Pantomime!

by Louise Mclean

From 1st January to 31st December we have been going through a transition phase of leaving the European Union, continuing to abide by all their rules and regulations until that final date, when we are supposed to have agreed a trade deal. Since at least March 2020, the UK Brexit negotiators have been talking to the EU, looking for an agreement.  Here we are, nine months' later and that trade deal has not yet been signed.

For the last few months and at least since the end of June 2020, when the deal was supposed to be agreed, four main sticking points have remained.  These are the 'level playing field' (to continue being bound by EU law), sharing our fishing waters with other European countries, disputes being adjudicated by the European Court of Justice and the issue of State Aid, which may give our country the competitive edge over European states.

Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator, has been over to London numerous times and probably thousands of hours of discussions have taken place.  Lord David Frost, Britain's Brexit negotiator has been over to Brussels and now Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister seems to have taken over.

'Oh no you won't!'  'Oh yes we will!'  On and on it goes.  The British Press has been telling us repeatedly for at least two months that the outcome will be a No Deal Brexit.  Then we hear Boris is absolutely dead set on having a deal.  After that we are told that Boris will cave in to the EU's demands and we will have Brexit in Name Only (BRINO).  Then again we hear that Boris will leave with no deal.  

Recently we read that there may even be an extension past 31st December for the transition period. Every day there is chopping and changing and it is enough to drive the public mad with frustration.  After all, we have been waiting for four and a half years already!

Boris Johnson was elected on 12th December 2019 with his promise to 'Get Brexit Done'.  Here we are over a year later, and there is no sign whatsoever that this has been finalised.  Brexiteers are urging Boris to walk away with No Deal.  If he did this, the EU would come running and everything could be sorted out afterwards.  

The sheer number of deadlines that Boris Johnson proclaimed, which have come and gone, is truly astonishing!  The 30th June was the first important one, Then came 31st July, 15th September, 15th October, 15th November and 30th November!  Now we hear that a deal will be secured in 10 days and Parliament may have to sit on Christmas Eve!  

If we had a decisive leader like Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, we would have been out a long time ago.

Unfortunately by constantly changing his mind and by running over to Brussels recently just when he was looking strong, Boris makes it patently clear that he wants a deal, which then makes it easier for the EU to eventually make him back down on his 'red lines', which are the above four areas of contention.

Today Monsieur Barnier has said there are now only two main issues to be agreed and that is sharing our territorial fishing waters and basically stopping us becoming more competitive than EU markets. Does that mean the other two areas have already been agreed?  We do not know.

Recently member states have started to intervene in the negotiations making their own demands and the situation seems extremely difficult, if not impossible.  The fact is that the issue at stake is that Britain is supposed to become a sovereign country making her own laws, which is what we voted for on 23rd June 2016, so the whole thing has become absurd, in that it doesn't matter what EU states want, when we are trying to break free of their control.

We were told repeatedly in the past that our two hundred mile fishing waters were not important and yet right now this has become one of the main sticking points, as countries such as France and Holland take our fish on a regular basis. Today we learn that Monsieur Barnier has threatened us with economic trade sanctions if we lock out European fishermen from our waters!  Only yesterday we were reading that Boris Johnson planned to bring in the Royal Navy to stop foreign fishermen!

It does not seem possible that a trade deal will be agreed in seventeen days by 31st December, since our Parliament must approve it, the EU 27 member states must also rubber stamp it and it must be debated in the European Parliament.  A further extension is therefore likely, something that will infuriate all Brexiteers, as there has been plenty of time this year to come to an agreement.

The whole thing is becoming ridiculous.  The EU is waiting for us to back down and we are waiting for them to do likewise.  Boris Johnson does not seem to realise that the EU is intransigent and will never back down, unless......we left with No Deal.  Only then would they perhaps compromise.  In the meantime, Brexiteers are getting thoroughly fed up with this never ending pantomime!

So Many Missed Brexit Deadlines!

 

by Louise Mclean

The ongoing sorry saga of this year's Brexit negotiations continues, despite four missed deadlines.

The first was the important date of 30th June 2020, when a trade deal should have been agreed or otherwise a possible transition extension.

Boris Johnson and Lord David Frost, our Brexit negotiator, stood firm however and refused to change the final transition deadline of 31st December 2020.

Since then there have been other deadlines that Boris Johnson set, such as 31st July, 15th October and 15th November, when an EU Summit was taking place during this week!

On 15th November, while embarking on yet another round of talks, David Frost tweeted: 'We are working to get a deal but the only one that's possible is one that is compatible with our sovereignty and takes back control of our laws, our trade and our waters.  This has been our consistent position from the start and I will not be changing it.'

This is reassuring but quite frankly, it is like a stuck record!  This deadlock has been going on since March!  We just have to pray that Boris and David don't cave in at the last moment, as the clock is really ticking fast at this stage!  We are coming up to the end of November and December will be mainly taken up with Christmas holidays, so there is very little time to agree a trade deal.

What is extremely important in all this, is the fact that top authorities on Brexit, including Martin Howe QC, Ben Habib, (former MEP for the Brexit Party) and the Centre for Brexit Policy are clearly saying that even with No Deal, there will be no Australian style trading arrangement, so long as we are signed up to Theresa May's disastrous Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration.  It simply will not be possible.  

Leading Barrister Martin Howe argues that some of the Withdrawal Agreement clauses should be redrafted in order to maintain the independence, sovereignty and integrity of the United Kingdom, or we will be tied to the European Union for many years to come.

Numerous Brexiteers and leading campaigning organisations have sent Boris a letter dated 19th November 2020 imploring him to walk away now, once and for all, citing all the missed deadlines!  See video  

The EU remains intransigent with their own red lines but the EU States themselves are now panicking about trade, the lack of time and a possible No Deal outcome.

The EU red lines have remained consistent, as has our rejection of them.  Disagreement over State Aid rules, the European Court of Justice being the arbiter of any disputes, sharing our 200 mile fishing waters with other EU States and the 'level playing field' (i.e. abiding by many EU laws).  

Many are saying that the EU have not been treating Britain as a sovereign country, have not been negotiating in good faith and that gives Britain the right to pull out of the talks.

Currently David Frost says there is a short suspension of the negotiations, due to one of the EU's team having tested positive for COVID19.  In addition, Boris Johnson was in contact with an MP who tested positive last week and although Boris subsequently tested negative, he decided nevertheless to take the full two week's quarantine.

This means little is being achieved at the moment with regard to the Brexit negotiations.  With less than six weeks until the end of the Brexit transition period, it does not seem likely that any meaningful trade deal will be struck between the parties. 

We will just have to hope and pray that Boris Johnson has the courage to walk away from these negotiations and hopefully tear up the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration, although this seems unlikely, as it is doubtful he has the courage to shred them and has always said he wanted to conclude a trade deal.

The other alternative is that a botched deal will be hatched or that the Brexit transition period is extended, citing the virus and lock down as an excuse.

Boris WTO - Is this the Real Deal?

by Louise Mclean

On Friday 16th October, after Boris Johnson waited to see the outcome of discussions on Brexit at an EU Summit, he made a statement in Downing Street saying we would be leaving the transition period at the end of the year trading with the EU on WTO terms, or as he put it 'Australian' rules. Boris said all the UK had ever asked for was a Canadian style trade deal but it seems the EU was not prepared to grant one.

Leaving on WTO rules is admirable and something a very large percentage of British people have wanted for a long time.

The Government was so final about this decision that on Friday, Lord David Frost, chief UK negotiator, even warned Michel Barnier not to bother to come back this week for further talks.  However, I see Barnier and Frost are talking again today after yet another final ultimatum from us!

Michael Gove is also talking to an EU official today, even though he stated that we would 'leave the door ajar' for future talks, if the EU changes its stance and backs down on its demands.

This does not sound very final, nor very decisive.  It is unlikely the EU will back down on its call for us to continue to be bound by EU laws, to be adjudicated by the European Court of Justice, to bring our state aid rules in line with theirs and to give them access to our fishing waters.

These are very tough commands for a country that wants to break free from the European Union and make its own laws!

  

The fact that the EU is so desperate to continue the talks, shows that they, not us, will be the real losers if they don't get a deal.  They trade far more with us, than we do with them.  They sell us over £100 billion more than we sell them and worried business leaders in top EU states, such as Germany and France, have been begging the EU to do a good trade deal with us.

Despite the fact that the EU needs a deal more than we do, as we can soon trade with countries around the world, the EU still pretends it holds the real power. In a tweet on Friday 16th October, Donald Tusk said: 

Dear @BorisJohnson, we all know that you like playing tug of war. But remember, if you play for too long, you can take a nasty fall. And all the others will pay the price.   

This sounds rather threatening and could have other meaning!

Emmanuel Macron is very concerned about his French fishermen, as there has also been talk of the possibility of the EU offering French waters to European fishermen if we are not prepared to budge on fishing.

Macron has repeatedly said that the UK will be worse off if we go for No Deal or WTO trade.  Of course this is not true, as the UK only has 8% of its businesses trading with the EU.

92% of UK businesses either trade internally or are already trading on WTO rules and have been smoothly doing so for a long time.  In fact one caller on LBC about a year ago said her company trades with both the EU and on WTO.  She said the paperwork was much easier for WTO!

However, even if we do completely walk out of the trade talks and go for WTO instead, there is still the huge problem of much of the Withdrawal Agreement, which still makes it impossible to have a clean break.  This was unfortunately signed into law to become effective on 31st January 2020, making it difficult to release us.  If it had been signed before 19th December, Boris could have used the excuse that Parliament cannot bind its successors, i.e. there was a new Parliament after the election.

The EU is still making a big fuss about the Internal Market Bill, which would facilitate smooth trade between all the countries of Britain and it is even trying to take legal action because it breaches the Withdrawal Agreement.  Although the Bill got through the House of Commons at the end of September, the House of Lords wants to vote it down. Certainly not a House full of patriots!

Of course the EU don't want us to leave at all and Theresa May saw to it that the WA factored in the possibility of us rejoining in the years ahead.  It is a disastrous Agreement, full of traps and should be torn up.

If we had someone like Margaret Thatcher negotiating for us, we would never still be in this position 4 years, 4 months after the Referendum!  It seems our politicians have made a real mess of getting us out but trading on WTO would be a start, if the WA even allows it!

If we had a Trump, the whole thing would have probably been settled by the end of 2016.  I note that on Donald Tusk's Twitter feed, he has a picture of himself with Joe Biden, saying trade would be good between USA and EU if Biden wins the election on 3rd November.  However Biden's family is currently under investigation for crimes committed, which may possibly make him ineligible to stand for election!

It seems that our fully leaving the transition period on 31st December, even if we trade on WTO rules, would mean we would still have to alter or completely ditch the Withdrawal Agreement in order to be completely free. Somehow I cannot see Boris Johnson doing that!

 

Will Internal Market Bill Bring Down Talks with EU?

by Louise Mclean

David Frost has now finished the 8th week of talks with Monsieur Barnier, attempting to seal a trade deal with the EU but going nowhere it seems.  Roadblocks are present on fishing and state aid, which Barnier has made a precondition for a trade deal.  The EU still thinks it can carry on fishing in our territorial waters and meddling in our affairs and seem unable to grasp the fact that since 31st January 2020 we are now a sovereign country.

Their little plan to keep control of the UK via the Northern Ireland Protocol has been scuppered with this week's announcement of the UK Internal Market Bill, which was published on 10th September and will be voted on next week.  When the EU got wind of this, they went ballistic!

Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, was taking questions about the Bill in the House last Tuesday and rather rashly said that we would in fact be breaking international law 'in a very specific and limited way', i.e. the Withdrawal Agreement, which Michael Gove, in charge of No Deal Brexit preparations, has refuted.

However, top lawyer Martin Howe QC, Chairman of Lawyers for Britain and EU law expert, has argued this is NOT the case at all.  He states that as a sovereign country, we are entitled to create our own laws to defend our national interest and this is made clear in Section 38 of the Withdrawal Agreement Act.

Mr. Howe also points out that the 1707 Articles of Union between England and Scotland and those between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800, abolished all customs duties between the different parts of the UK. This meant that citizens of all parts of the UK should be 'on the same footing in respect of trade and navigation, and in all treaties with foreign powers'. 

Northern Ireland has been the little trick the EU wanted to pull off from the start to keep its hold on the UK, keeping Northern Ireland in its Customs Union by creating a border down the Irish Sea but this Bill prevents it from doing so.

The Internal Market Bill states that all goods produced in the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), should be treated equally.  It also protects from potentially damaging interference by the EU, ending the application of EU law in the UK, because the Northern Ireland Protocol potentially gave the EU a great deal of power to interfere with not just Northern Irish goods but goods exported from the rest of the UK as well.

So the EU has been issuing threats and demands, absolutely furious their little game for Northern Ireland could be ruined!  They have been threatening legal action but as mentioned above, top legal experts say they have no case.  EU top brass have been demanding parts of the new Bill be removed within a few weeks but so far this has been refused.  

We have been bullied for far too long! The EU have shown themselves to be absolutely impossible to negotiate with. They are sclerotic in their approach and would have Britain in a straight jacket before they are satisfied.  They also cannot stand the idea that we will be prosperous and successful without them. Brexiteers' patience is finally snapping completely and there have been plenty of rows from Remainers.

The truth is that according to John Longworth, Chairman of the Independent Business Network and a staunch Brexiteer, we only actually export 13% of our GDP and 8% of businesses including supply chains to the EU. The amount of trade we do with them has been falling for some time.  We have been trading on WTO already with many countries in the world.

Today we learn that Boris is thinking of finding new markets outside the EU, if they continue with their threats for passing the Internal Market Bill.  This will seriously impact the sale of EU goods to the UK, which are massively greater than ours to them. 

Next week Parliament will be voting on the new Bill and although about 30 Tory MPs and Labour will vote against it, Boris has a 80 seat majority and the DUP will support it.

In fact the European Research Group (ERG) and senior cabinet MPs are seriously suggesting that Boris repeals the Withdrawal Agreement Act altogether, due to its many pitfalls.  Not just problems with Northern Ireland, but others including the fact that we would be liable to bail out the EU if it goes bust!!  The other reason to tear up the WA, is because apparently even if we walk away with No Deal and go on to WTO rules, it will still be in force and in law.

Of course there are squeals of indignation coming from the likes of Blair and John Major, two dedicated Globalists and also from Labour leader Keir Starmer.

The trouble is the longer we leave this mess without sorting it out, the more chance Remainers and the EU get to think up new ways to stop us leaving properly. The EU has taken charge for so long, it simply cannot understand why this will not be continuing.  

Now Boris Johnson must be really bold and do what is necessary to get us out, even if there is screaming and shouting from the opposition.  The British people overwhelmingly voted to completely leave the European Union and we will applaud Boris if he can get it done right!

More Roadblocks to Trade Deal with EU!

by Louise Mclean

At the conclusion of this last week of talks, David Frost issued a statement yesterday which reveals that the EU is still very much at odds with the UK's stance on a trade deal.

The UK has threatened to make public all the threats of the EU during the ongoing negotiations.

After the third negotiating round this year, both sides were downbeat about any progress being achieved and David Frost says that Britain will be publishing all its draft legal texts, so that EU member states and others can read them.

David Frost says the major obstacle is the EU's ideological insistence on creating 'novel and unbalanced proposals' for standards to comply with the EU's 'level playing field'.  David Frost said:  "The major obstacle is the EU's insistence on including a set of novel and unbalanced proposals on the so-called 'level playing field', which would bind this country to EU law or standards, or determine our domestic legal regimes, in a way that is unprecedented in Free Trade Agreements and not envisaged in the Political Declaration". 

The Bloc has demanded that Britain is tied to EU regulation on trade, fisheries, aviation, energy and that the European Court of Justice should oversee legal standards.  This includes products, e.g. pharmaceutical, entering the EU market from Britain.  It also includes tying Britain to EU state aid rules.

In addition, Mr. Frost said that the EU continues to insist on fisheries arrangements and access to UK fishing waters that is incompatible with our future status as an independent coastal state and which would be against the interests of the UK fishing industry. 

Michel Barnier still demands that the UK cannot have the 'best of both worlds', but all Britain wants is a similar Comprehensive Free Trade Deal to the ones the EU completed with Canada and Japan, which never included regulatory alignment!

Meanwhile, Ursula von der Leyen has threatened that the EU will sue Britain for not complying with EU freedom of movement rules.  A statement by the European Commission reads: 'UK national legislation limits the scope of beneficiaries of EU free movement law in the UK, as well as the possibilities for EU citizens and their family members to appeal administrative decisions restricting free movement rights'.

On our side, Michael Gove has been extremely concerned about the rights of Brits living in the EU.  He says that legislation protects European citizens in the UK but no such legislation appears to protect our UK citizens.

Gove says there is widespread disregard for the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement which says people should be allowed to remain in either the UK or EU after the transition but Britons applying for settled status to stay in Spain, France, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus, Austria and the Czech Republic have had problems.

UK citizens have sent alarming claims to the Government about their concerns regarding the application process,  In a letter to EU Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic, Mr. Gove sets out a four point complaint, saying 'we take our Withdrawal Agreement obligations on citizens' rights very seriously'.

The UK has made available grants of £9 million to 57 community organisation to support vulnerable EU citizens but in contrast member states have not yet shared similar information and in some cases there seems to be none.

The next round of talks is due to begin on 1st June, whereupon a decision must be made by 30th June as to whether the transition period should be extended for a further two years past the end of December this year.  Boris Johnson has so far totally ruled out any extension.

As far as the Writer is concerned, it looks like the EU are trying to come up with every possible roadblock to prevent Britain untying itself from its shackles by 31st December 2020 and we should just leave on WTO terms as soon as possible.  I predict that the EU will make a trade deal impossible with its demands.

Boris Stands Firm Against the EU for Trade Deal

by Louise Mclean

In response to the EU's negotiating mandate which was revealed on Tuesday, Boris Johnson's government has today produced its own 30 page mandate, setting out its red lines, which are clearly at loggerheads with the EU.

Today Michael Gove made a statement in Parliament saying that at the end of the transition we will fully recover our economic and political independence.  'We want the best trading relationship with the EU but we will not trade away our sovereignty'.  You can watch the statement here.

Yesterday Boris announced that he would not be bound by the Political Declaration, which he believes is not legally binding and says that his own Conservative manifesto supersedes it.  He wants to go back on previous agreements in the PD on fishing rights, borders and state aid rules and he has refused to create infrastructure for a border for goods coming in from Northern Ireland. All this sets him on a collision course with Michel Barnier who says the Political Declaration must be 'followed to the letter'.

So the Prime Minister has quietly dropped some of the elements of the Political Declaration and the EU has done the same on financial services and personal data, which were to be settled by June 2020 and December 2020 respectively.   

The EU has also altered its stance since the signing of the Political Declaration, as there had been only one paragraph dealing with 'a level playing field' or regulatory alignment but there are now 20 in its mandate!  

The UK government says that a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement should be 'at the core' of a trade deal, on the lines of those already signed by the EU with Canada and other countries.  This should include other agreements covering fisheries, law enforcement and judicial cooperation on crime, transport and energy but with no role for the European Court of Justice.  Britain is determined to take back control of its borders, laws and money.  

Both sides are in agreement regarding signing up to a zero tariff trade deal but Michel Barnier says that checks must be made for goods coming into the EU from Britain, as they cannot accept goods that are coming from all over the world.  

The EU might later use financial services and other services with member states as a political football, which it has recently threatened to do.    

Knowing how much the EU fear a No Deal, the UK has told Barnier that a trade deal must be agreed by the end of June and finalised by the end of September, or No Deal will be back on the table and Britain will start preparing to leave the transition at the end of the year by trading with the EU under World Trade Organisation rules.

The government has warned in that case trading at the border from January 2021 might not be frictionless and new infrastructure will have to go up in ports to deal with this.  

Boris has also clearly stated that he will not extend the transition period under any circumstances.

Formal talks for a trade deal between the EU and Britain commence next Monday 2nd March. 

Boris Johnson's government is taking a completely different stance from Theresa May's, which seemingly agreed everything that was presented to them. Now the EU must wake up to the fact that they are dealing with a completely different entity that hopefully won't back down!

EU's Impossible Demands

by Louise Mclean

On 25th February the EU agreed its 46 page mandate with member states for negotiating a trade deal with Britain, with talks starting in Brussels on 2nd March.

One has to wonder where Michel Barnier has been these past six months, as it seems he has failed to notice the massive tug of war between the People and Parliament to get the Brexit we voted for in June 2016. As has been pointed out, we have left the EU and should now be treated as a third country, not as a member state.

His mandate has the effrontery to ask for all the things that we had rejected, almost as though Barnier was deaf or deficient in understanding, despite Boris Johnson and his chief negotiator, David Frost, making it clear that Britain wants to 'take back control'.

In exchange for a trade deal with the EU, demands are being made to continue following EU laws and directives, for European fisherman to have the same access to our fishing waters as before and for the European Court of Justice to oversee any legal disputes.

Brussels has recently stated that although it has agreed a Canada-style trade deal, we must align closely to EU rules because we are geographically closer than Canada.  For this you can read that Brussels is terrified of Britain becoming a serious competitor on their doorstep, which is precisely what will happen once we have totally broken free.

The mandate states that we can only have zero tariff trade with the EU, if there is regulatory alignment or a 'level playing field' and maintain current standards on climate change, tax and state aid.  Remaining aligned to EU rules would be as though we had not left the European Union and we would certainly not be taking back control of our laws! 

A new demand at the behest of France, says we must have the same standards for food production, as their fear is our foods might become competitively cheaper. This may prevent us from importing foods from America, which has different safety and processing standards from Europe. Unfortunately this could be problematic, as currently, according to the Daily Telegraph, 80% of our food exports go to European markets.

The EU is also concerned that Britain may not implement a Customs Border for Northern Ireland, which had been agreed in the Withdrawal Agreement.

It looks as though swords will be crossed in the forthcoming negotiations being held in Brussels and London alternately.  These issues must be overwhelming resolved before 1st July 2020, when a decision must be made about the possibility of extending the transition date at the end of the year, when we are fully out.  Let us hope that yet another extension does not happen and if the EU continues its dogmatic stance, we will just have to trade on WTO terms.

Boris Johnson is to present his own mandate to the EU tomorrow and let us hope he does not back down and agree any of these impossible demands.

EU Making Threats and Demands

by Louise Mclean

Anyone who thought that after officially leaving the Bloc on 31st January, all would be done and dusted, is going to find this is very far from the case.  A trade deal with the EU was never going to be easy.  Officials in Brussels had been used to Theresa May agreeing their negotiating terms and simply have not been able to accept that Boris Johnson's new government is no longer prepared to cow tow to them as before.

Starting with a demand for £1 billion on the day we left on 31st January, the threats and demands have been coming thick and fast ever since.

Initially the EU has been demanding continued access to our territorial fishing waters in exchange for a trade deal.  We have had more than enough of large EU trawlers hoovering up our coastlines and destroying it!  The quotas are in their favour and we are hardly allowed to catch any of our own fish!

In addition, the EU want the UK to stay in the Customs Union and Single Market in order to trade with the European Union.  Compliance with this and all other EU laws and directives is currently what is meant by 'a level regulatory playing field'. They want continued freedom of movement and any disputes to continue to be adjudicated by the European Court of Justice.

The Johnson government's chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, made it clear in a speech recently that leaving the EU meant we would be making our own laws and the ECJ would no longer have jurisdiction over us. Boris Johnson also stated that in many cases our laws are superior to those in the EU, for example in the workplace and environment.

Michel Barnier and others have also insisted that the 31st December 2020 deadline would not be long enough for a trade deal to be finalised, suggesting we would have to push forward the date of the transition. Of course this is just another delaying tactic and attempt to stop us fully leaving.

The latest demand is that in return for a trade deal, we must return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, which are currently in the British Museum.

Yesterday Boris Johnson produced a document from 2017 showing that the EU stated only a Canada style trade deal would be available to us, which is precisely what Boris is asking for,  but Michel Barnier is now saying that an EU-Canada style trade deal is no longer on offer!

The truth of the matter is that with Britain leaving, the EU is going to have a big hole in its budget and will have to ask other member states to pay more, many of which are not happy to do so.  The other thing that bothers Brussels is the idea of Britain becoming highly competitive, making a great success of trading around the world and tempting others to leave the Bloc and follow suit.

What is totally obvious is the EU does not really want us to fully leave and is doing everything in its power to hold on to us.  It looks as though there will be an almighty fight ahead that will require Boris Johnson and David Frost to be unequivocal and not back down one inch.

The fact is that we buy far more from the EU than what we sell to them.  The trade deficit in 2019 was £130 billion.  Therefore they need us far more than we need them because we can easily buy goods elsewhere, which is probably what will happen, since EU goods are anyway overpriced.

The truth is that the UK is the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world and the second most powerful country and we will be much more successful and prosperous without the dead hand of EU regulations holding us back!

Too Many Red Flags Coming from Boris' Government

by Louise Mclean

I don't own a mansion, nor do I have a large private pension but the proposals for new taxes by the Conservative government in the March budget make me wonder whether they are in fact socialists in disguise.  Today we see that Sajid Javid has resigned as Chancellor, so perhaps these new taxes will be scrapped.

However, Conservative voters especially will be shocked by these ideas but there are many other red flags raised in the first two months of this new Government.

Are these leftist policies coming from the influence of Dominic Cummings - a self proclaimed lover of the Bolshevik Revolution?

The decision to allow Huawei to run our 5G network is threatening our excellent relationship with the USA, who are apparently furious that Britain will be using them.  We were supposed to be negotiating a trade deal with America straight after leaving the EU on 31st January but now it appears to be delayed. Starting these trade deal negotiations with the US before a trade deal with the EU would have been good strategy.

HS2, which we all had high hopes would be summarily scrapped, is now going ahead.  The 100 billion could have funded a new rail network for the North, among other things.  The public see it as a huge waste of money, just so that a small number of people can shave 20 minutes of their journey from London to Manchester, quite apart from the 100 ancient woodlands and countless small villages that will be desecrated.

Then there is the question of illegal immigrants turning up on our shores in droves in Kent. Far from being sent back to France, they appear to be taken to Dover.  The public are desperate to know when this will stop.  Twitter has been talking of nothing else. Some time back Boris said he would like an amnesty for illegal immigrants, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

We read that Jamaican criminals are being deported but what about all the other terrorists, murderers and rapists of foreign descent? The public would like to see these deported.

It is all very well catching 100 or so illegal immigrants coming in on dinghies across the Channel  We have a nearly 8,000 mile coastline, which is unmanned and they can come in at will anywhere around it.  Apparently we now have 11 patrol boats, whereas other countries like Italy have hundreds.

Of course this is not including the many illegals coming in via lorries, most of which may be undetected.  Since the driver would probably be fined, if he did find stowaways in his lorry without his knowledge, he would probably let them go and keep quiet! Yesterday we learnt of a driver being sent to jail for bringing in 3 Vietnamese people.

Then there is getting rid of gas boilers and buying electric cars, which will be very expensive for people and the expensive idea of building a bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland, which will likely go over budget.

Boris giving a peerage to arch-Remainers Philip Hammond and Ken Clarke has not gone down well with Brexiteers.  Not exactly in line with his removing the whip from those 21 Remoaner Conservative MPs last autumn.

We can only pray that Boris does not backtrack on his promises regarding Brexit.  We must fully regain our fishing territories, be out of the Customs Union and Single Market, remove the ECJ from rulings and run the country under our own laws. Will he allow European trawlers to have fishing quotas under licence?

The biggest red flag of all of course was last Autumn calling Mrs. May's Withdrawal Agreement with the backstop removed, 'over ready'.  It was a terrible deal voted down 3 times in Parliament and should have been scrapped altogether.

We are now in for another 10 months of intense agony negotiating with the EU over a trade deal.  They have already made constant demands and threats in advance of this. They are adamant they want to carry on fishing in our territorial waters, threaten that we will no longer have access to EU financial services and are still trying to make us stay part of the Customs Union, Single Market with our laws being overseen by the European Court of Justice.

Professor Alan Sked, a founder of UKIP, said on television recently that the EU has no trade deal with the USA or China yet trades with them both.  What does that tell you?  That this whole trade deal thing with the EU is a bit of a hoax.  We don't need a trade deal with them.  

The very best outcome for Britain would be to just leave on WTO terms.  Under GATT 24 the EU and Britain would have up to 10 years to agree a free trade deal and could carry on trading on current terms until this is finalised.  A poll in the Daily Express yesterday asking if we should just leave on WTO rules, has reached 98% in favour. Sadly Boris has shown no sign of wanting to do this. 

Yet it would be a true Brexit, giving us everything we voted for and more.  If we had left on WTO on 31st January, we could have started making trade deals with the rest of the world immediately.  As it is, we can't sign any until we leave fully at the end of December this year.

In fact the EU has us in exactly the position it wants us.  We have no say whatsoever in Europe, must follow all EU laws and adopt any new ones, as well as carry on paying them our membership fee.  Yes, this should only be until the end of the year.  That is if the EU in the next 10 months haven't found ways to keep us in this position for longer.