Theresa May - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

‘Boris Johnson accused Theresa May of being scared’: Ex-No 10 chief of staff reveals inside story of Brexit

Arj Singh — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:18:36 +0000

Mrs May’s ex-chief of staff Gavin Barwell tells i his inside story of the Brexit wars, including a very “difficult” Mr Johnson who often “crossed a line”.

Britain’s former Prime Minister Theresa May with then Number 10 Chief of Staff, Gavin Barwell on a visit to in Belfast, Northern Ireland (Photo: PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images)

Gavin Barwell is angry.

You can hardly blame him, having been in the eye of the political storm of the century that was Brexit, and crashing out of it in failure alongside his former boss Theresa May.

Especially when he believes many of the arguments he, as Downing Street chief of staff, and the then-prime minister made at the time were now being proven right.

If only Boris Johnson, Tory backbenchers and Labour had listened to the former prime minister, we could have avoided the dangerous instability now being experienced in Northern Ireland, and even perhaps the humiliation in Afghanistan, Lord Barwell suggests.

The Tories may also have fared a better chance of avoiding the “demographic dead end” that is its Brexiteer, older electorate.

But ultimately, what he saw as a battle for compromise and realism in the raw political chaos between Mrs May’s snap election loss in 2017 and Mr. Johnson succeeding her as PM two years later, was lost.

They say that history is written by the victors but in his new book, Chief Of Staff: Notes from Downing Street (£20, Atlantic Books), the former housing minister and Croydon Central Tory MP attempts to give his side of the very bitter story of Mrs May’s doomed Brexit deal.

In an interview with i ahead of the book’s launch today, he describes opponents of the ill-starred withdrawal agreement as being like “Alice in Wonderland”, unable to grasp what the “actual real choices were” and proposing fantasy solutions.

The worst offender was Mr. Johnson, who pops up in the book time and time again to dismiss the thorny Northern Ireland problem that was and still is at the heart of the Brexit conundrum.

“The Northern Ireland issue is a gnat,” the current PM is quoted as telling Mrs May in one key meeting.

And while Mr. Johnson may have succeeded in replacing Mrs May and driving through a hard Brexit after agreeing to unique half-in-half out terms for Northern Ireland that his predecessor refused to countenance, the consequences are now clear with the well of EU relations poisoned, riots in Belfast and the potential collapse of the Northern Irish government.

“The Northern Ireland issue is the one that I am most angry about,” Lord Barwell says.

“Because [Mr. Johnson’s] deal is a very bad deal and it has led to all of the negative consequences Theresa predicted that it would, it’s why she fought tooth and nail to get a Northern Ireland-only arrangement out of the deal.”

Not only that, but our current PM was “incredibly difficult and challenging” to deal with when he served as Mrs May’s foreign secretary.

At one point, he veered dangerously close to sexism as he accused Mrs May of being “scared of the Treasury” as she tried to explain the consequences of trade barriers with the EU and the difficult position of Northern Ireland.

This was, Lord Barwell writes, “just about the worst thing he could have said to her”, especially as it held “the implication that, as a woman, she was easily scared”.

So is Mr. Johnson sexist?

“You’d have to ask her if she thought it was because she was a woman but she definitely took offence,” Lord Barwell says.

“I wouldn’t want to make a comment about his general attitude.”

This rude approach once even forced Lord Barwell to stop a meeting as Mr. Johnson was “constantly interrupting and not treating the prime minister with any respect”.

“In that particular meeting, it crossed a line.”

Lord Barwell also bemoans the current Prime Minister’s wider approach to Brexit, saying “it’s so sad and wrong” that the deal he agreed with Brussels junked the commitments Mrs May and the EU made to security coordination.

This would have helped a trading relationship that’s “not good and doesn’t look like it’s going to get better”.

And Lord Barwell suggests it even might have helped avoid the humiliation in Afghanistan, noting that the Government tried and failed at the last minute to stitch together a coalition to keep troops in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal.

“On foreign policy, on how we view Russia or China or Iran or climate change, the two sides remain very well aligned.”

He added: “It really would make sense if we were better coordinated.

“Not only would it maybe have helped in Afghanistan but I think over time, it will help with the trading relationship if we’ve got that other element (security) to (the deal) which is easier for both sides.”

Lord Barwell, author and former Downing Street Chief of Staff

Mr. Johnson’s pursuit of a hard Brexit and what Lord Barwell sees as divisive politics has also left the Tories in a potentially dangerous place, he argues.

The splintering of voters along Remain versus Leave and more starkly along old versus young lines presents a “massive opportunity” for the party in the short and medium-term but “my question is where does it leave you long-term?”

“You could be driving yourself down a demographic dead end basically,” Lord Barwell says.

“And I think there is a significant risk that the party is running.”

He urges Mr. Johnson to return to the morning after his stunning 2019 election victory, where he spoke about forming “a One Nation government and trying to bring the country together”.

“That Boris Johnson I admire,” says Lord Barwell.

And if he’s learnt anything from one of the most fractious and polarized periods in modern British political history, it’s this: “I care less now about the colour of the rosette that someone wears and I care more about whether they are engaging with complexity and whether they are trying to bring people together or draw dividing lines to pull people apart.”

It is serious stuff about a serious time, but Lord Barwell isn’t totally averse to a joke.

When I ask him about the recent conversion of hardline EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier to the Eurosceptic cause, launching a French presidential bid with a call to be free from European court rulings in the same way Mrs May once sought, he quips: “It sounded a lot like cherry-picking to me.”

Source: https://inews.co.uk/news/boris-johnson-accused-theresa-may-of-being-scared-ex-no-10-chief-of-staff-reveals-inside-story-of-brexit-1201540?ITO=newsnow

[Disclaimer]

The post ‘Boris Johnson accused Theresa May of being scared’: Ex-No 10 chief of staff reveals inside story of Brexit first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Brexit: is it sustainable?

Anthony Robinson — Sun, 09 May 2021 15:02:30 +0000

Brexit with EU and UK flag by Christoph Scholz – Image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

In January 2020, as Britain was about to exit the EU, a post appeared on the London School of Economics (LSE) blog musing about the mechanism and conditions that might apply if Britain ever wanted to re-join.

The author, Anthony Salamone, suggested that before any future application, the EU would look for a “significant, stable and long-lasting majority public opinion in favour” and should be of the order of 60–65 percent or more for several years as a minimum. This would avoid “an unstable member state or risk another Brexit down the road”.

I’ve read similar elsewhere. It’s a typically logical EU position that makes the prospect of reversing Brexit in the short term all but impossible.

However, that is not to say that Brexit is settled, far from it.

How stable and sustainable is Brexit?

Given that there has never been anything like a 60–65 percent majority in favour of Brexit and a lot of evidence that most people actually now think it was a mistake, how sustainable will it be in the long term?

Despite Johnson banning the use of the ‘B’ word by ministers, the question is still finely balanced and will remain so until a “significant, stable and long-lasting majority public opinion in favour” emerges, one way or the other. That majority is unlikely to be for Brexit.

In the years leading up to the referendum, there was little evidence that the UK population when asked what the most important issues facing Britain were (out of a choice of 36), thought the EU was anywhere near the top.

Ipsos Mori have run these monthly polls for years and in 2008, the year after the Lisbon treaty was signed, right up to 2010 when the Tory/Liberal coalition came in, an average of between 2 and 3 percent thought the common market/EU/single currency was a big issue. By comparison, crime and the economy were sometimes well over 50 percent, even 70 percent at times.

As late as 2015, with talk of the promised referendum growing and Cameron touring EU capitals to renegotiate Britain’s terms, less than 9 percent on average thought it important.

Since there seemed no natural appetite for Brexit, UKIP, and Conservative Eurosceptics together with the British press, manufactured one and satisfied it with the success of the Vote Leave campaign.

The Irish writer Finton O’Toole has described the leave victory as the UK winning imaginary freedom from imaginary oppression. In other words, the pressure for Brexit in 2016 he claimed, was largely mythical and didn’t stem from any tangible, rational or widespread anti-EU sentiment.

However, pressure to reopen talks is now growing amid major trade disruption and a flight of business and capital to the EU. The impact on the UK so far has been far from imaginary.

Support Yorkshire Bylines with a monthly donation

Nobody’s happy with Johnson’s deals

Remainers are clearly not pleased. Unionists in Northern Ireland who voted for Brexit are now deeply unhappy with the Northern Ireland protocol and are pressing for it to be renegotiated. Paramilitary loyalist groups have gone as far as renouncing the Good Friday Agreement, while one of its architects, Lord Trimble, joins a legal challenge against the protocol.

Members of the food industry are calling for a new sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement with the EU to align standards and ease problems with exporting meat and breeding stock.

Scotland Food and Drink has joined in calls for the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) to be renegotiated with mutual recognition of food standards. The BBC say pressure is mounting to ‘reopen’ the deal.

Even Shanker ‘snake-oil’ Singham, the so-called ‘brain of Brexit’ thinks we need at least a bespoke EU/UK veterinary deal, based on a similar one with New Zealand, using common standards to help reduce the number of checks required.

Amidst calls to restart talks with the EU, some ardent Brexiters are warning that any such move would simply be BRINO or Brexit in name only. They warn of “an alliance of UK remainers and protectionist agricultural interests” forcing the government into the alignment which the food industry says is needed.

Even the UK government may not be totally happy

We know that Theresa May’s preference was for an agreement that avoided as far as possible disruption to UK-EU trade. This was an implicit acknowledgment that close trading ties were essential for British industry.

The EU rejected her proposals as cherry-picking. Johnson came to office determined on the surface to prioritise sovereignty at all cost. However, even in May 2020, Barnier was still noting the UK’s continued demands for “a simple Canada-type trade deal” while retaining single market advantages “in innumerable sectors” but the EU would not yield.

The day before signing the trade deal on Christmas Eve 2020, the UK was still trying to present the EU with a legal text which Barnier claims was “peppered with traps, false compromises, and backwards steps”.

Does this sound like a deal that the UK government is genuinely satisfied with?

Fishing: Norway, Brexit, and unfulfilled promises – Richard Carden3 May 2021

Brexit was always destined to end in disappointment for the majority

The 2016 referendum result saw the 48 percent who wished to remain, losing to a 52 percent Vote Leave ‘coalition’ that believed they were all voting for the same thing. In fact, they were voting against a variety of different things, all blamed rightly or wrongly on the EU.

Note this is the reverse of how UK general election decisions are made. In our ‘first past the post’ (FPTP) system, supporters of a range of different parties with wholly different aims usually cast the majority of votes against the winning party, but are deemed to have lost. In the referendum, they won.

This was always likely to make reaching a consensus about the UK’s post-Brexit status difficult if not impossible, and so it has proved. Johnson seems to have satisfied almost no one and without a significant majority to support it, Brexit will remain an issue.

Professor Chris Grey who writes extensively about Brexit and is seemingly the foremost authority on it, has a forthcoming book: Brexit Unfolded: How no one got what they want (and why they were never going to). The title is an astute observation on where we are.

Is there a realistic prospect of changes being negotiated?

The answer is no, at least in the short term. As several trade experts have pointed out, this is not how trade deals work. Those in British industry looking to the partnership council, the joint body which will oversee the TCA, to provide relief are likely to be disappointed.

These joint bodies are common in EU trade deals and meet infrequently to resolve minor technical issues or ‘clarify’ matters. They do not and cannot change the basic terms of the deal.

There is also little pressure on Brussels to renegotiate a deal which preserves and probably increases their huge trade surplus in goods with Britain.

And Lord Frost, questioned about it in the House of Lords at the end of March, appeared to rule out any changes to help the food and drink sector because it would mean accepting “the laws of the European Union” which he said was “quite a considerable downside”.

So, there appears no foreseeable prospect of substantial change.

The problematic Northern Ireland protocol is here to stay

The two sides are putting considerable effort into finding ways of making the controversial Northern Ireland protocol more acceptable to citizens in the province. The Financial Times ran a recent article suggesting the UK government was “throwing [the] kitchen sink” at making the deal work.

Johnson, in one of his confused metaphors, talks of “sandpapering the barnacles” off his protocol like a demented ship repairer.

Tony Connelly at the Irish broadcaster RTE, reports the beginnings of what may be an agreement offering some easements to reduce disruption at Ulster’s ports. But the EU is taking a hard line. It is offering the UK government a choice between small ‘piecemeal’ easements or a wider ‘structural’ change where the UK aligns with EU SPS rules – something the UK will not contemplate as we have seen.

One possible solution being discussed is for any alignment to be temporary until one or other of the sides decided or needed to diverge, due to a US trade deal for example. This would push the problem into the future but wouldn’t resolve it.

The ‘risk-based’ approach favoured by many pro-Brexit politicians, where foodstuffs entering Northern Ireland would be assessed on the likelihood of them entering the EU single market, has been emphatically ruled out.

It seems loyalists and those calling for the Northern Ireland protocol to be scrapped, will be disappointed, at least in the short term.

The “duping delight” of manipulator Johnson – Anthony Robinson 5 May 2021

How did we get here and is the past a pointer to the future?

Britain has had to accept a lot of unpalatable truths, of which perhaps the most difficult is the fact that the EU had the upper hand from the outset.

In October 2016. Theresa May said Britain would not be a supplicant in talks with the EU, but in the last five years, despite of a lot of tub-thumping rhetoric, we have barely stopped bending the knee.

The ‘row of the summer’ on the sequencing of the talks ended in humiliation as Britain caved in to the EU demand that a withdrawal agreement covering money, citizens’ rights and the Irish border question be signed before any trade talks could even begin.

We paid and will continue to pay, the divorce bill that Brexiters claimed we had no legal obligation to settle. Two Conservative prime ministers assured the DUP that they would never allow a border to divide the nation. We now have a trade border in the Irish Sea.

Michael Gove similarly assured Scottish fishermen that an agreement on fish would not be part of any trade deal. It was and is now stacked heavily in the EU’s favour.

Britain has finally granted the EU’s ambassador the same diplomatic immunity as ambassadors from nation-states, after refusing to do so because the EU was just an “international organization” and recognizing the EU’s envoy would supposedly create some kind of precedent.

These events and plenty of others are characteristic of a highly asymmetrical relationship, with the UK as the junior partner.

Why so many capitulations?

The stark truth is that threats to leave without either withdrawal or trade agreements were always empty ones. The desperate need to keep the bare minimum of access to the single market meant that was never a realistic position.

Almost all the concessions needed to reach both agreements came from the UK side and in exchange all we have is a fractured nation and a thin tariff and quota-free trade deal for qualifying goods plus basic agreements on various sectors important to the EU, like aviation, road haulage, and energy.

We are only marginally above rock-bottom World Trade Organization terms. The sovereignty red line has come at considerable cost and there is no evidence that the UK-EU future relationship will be any more symmetrical.

The UK fooled itself into thinking it was the equal of the EU

When the European Parliament ratified the TCA, Lord Frost welcomed the decision with a tweet and hailed the start of a new chapter “characterized by friendly cooperation between sovereign equals”.

Michael Dougan, professor of European law at the University of Liverpool quickly pointed out that the EU “isn’t sovereign. And the UK isn’t its equal”. It does however point to one of the many delusions behind Brexit.

Under May, in 2018, the British government put out a series of ‘future framework’ papers, many of which looked like requests from an accession country, talking of a “deep and special partnership”. This culminated in the White paper in July that the EU rejected as cherry picking. David Davis and Boris Johnson both resigned over it.

Around this time, Crispin Blunt, then chair of the defence select committee, was hawking ideas around Europe for a common defence and security policy (CDSP) after Brexit. This came to nothing as we know, but an EU sub-committee produced a report in May 2018 that gives a fascinating insight into EU skepticism of May’s approach and why it failed.

The report by EU officials was about the CDSP but it went much wider:

“It is an issue [the UK continuing to shape EU policies after Brexit] that ultimately reflects all of the difficulties in the Euro-British divorce. If, as a third country, the British should remain involved, one way or another, in the decision-making bodies of the CFSP/CSDP, as they are in fact calling to be allowed to do, they will end up with a status that is equivalent to that of the whole EU.

“Which means that London would carry the same weight as 27 capitals. Ultimately, this is exactly what May meant when she said, in her speech in Florence, that her country wanted to ‘work hand in hand with the European Union, rather than as part of the European Union’.”

Make no mistake, May, and those in favour of leaving the EU, believed they could continue to wield influence in Brussels after Brexit, and perhaps even more influence than we had as a member. We saw ourselves, not as the sovereign equal of each of the EU member states but as the equal of all 27 put together.

Many who voted for Brexit still do.

Bylines Network Crowdfunder 2021

What of the future and how will things develop?

Anand Menon and Matt Bevington have an excellent account (highly readable) about the future relationship with the EU.

They conclude the two Brexit treaties mean we will be in near-continuous negotiation for the foreseeable future and “as these negotiations drag on, so too can we expect that the direct and indirect impacts of Brexit on British policy, politics and the UK polity itself will continue to make themselves felt”.

In other words, Brexit is not done.

The Tory party seems to think it will be in power for eternity but as Matthew Parris pointed out in his Times column last week, Voters will tire of living in a one-party state.

Parris, a former Tory MP, and aid to Margaret Thatcher, was calling for a new centre party but whatever happens, another party or coalition will inevitably be elected one day. It will find itself subject to all of the same pressures that Frost, Johnson, and many other Brexit supporters are currently resisting, but crucially without the ideological baggage preventing a closer relationship with the EU.

If closer ties or even membership of the single market was a future manifesto commitment by an opposition party, even a smaller party in a coalition, Brexit would again rise to the very top of the political agenda.

And to see how things might change over time, we only need look at the hugely different approaches the UK has taken to the EU under two different leaders of the same party in the last three years. Small factions have made significant policy differences and can do so again if circumstances allow.

The Brexit-supporting professor of politics at the University of Kent, Matthew Goodwin, has suggested that Brexit Britain will provide the “ultimate benchmark” for the EU. In a tweet, he challenged what he called the “dominant assumption post-Brexit […] that the EU will push ahead while the UK will gradually decline”.

He asked what if over the next five–ten years the UK “grows faster, is more flexible, dynamic and more willing to make the most of divergence?” On this point, Professor Goodwin is like many who voted to leave the EU: in a small minority, and betting against perceived wisdom.

The better question for him is, what if it doesn’t? No serious economic forecaster believes Brexit will ever fulfil the inflated promises made for it.

Scotland will be key

Any nation that regularly elects, by a huge margin, a pro-independence party whose entire raison d’être is to break away from another nation, will surely succeed one day. Most commentators think this is inevitable, although Brexit has given it fresh impetus.

In the Holyrood elections this week, the SNP came within two seats of achieving a majority under an electoral system expressly designed to prevent a single party becoming dominant. A coalition with the Greens will see a pro-independence majority in the Scottish parliament which will be a huge problem for the prime minister.

Independence, or moves towards it, are going to raise many important constitutional issues, one of which is the trade border with England.

Note that some Brexiters have called for Irexit (or Irish exit from the EU) as a solution to the Irish Sea border, with Ireland then aligning itself with Great Britain, something no Dublin government could ever agree to.

But Scottish independence would surely see the reverse pressure on England to re-join the EU as a way of resolving two intractable border issues overnight. It would be the ideal solution and hard for a future government to resist.

No, whatever Boris Johnson believes, Brexit is going to be with us for a very long time yet.

Source: https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/brexit-is-it-sustainable/

[Disclaimer]

The post Brexit: is it sustainable? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

UK’s Johnson Defends Plan to Rewrite Brexit Deal, Says EU ‘Unreasonable’

AP via VOA — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 03:58:34 +0000

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a debate on the Internal Market Bill at the House of Commons in London, Britain, September 14, 2020. Photo courtesy UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor

LONDON – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday defended his plan to unilaterally rewrite Britain’s divorce deal with the European Union as an insurance policy against the bloc’s unreasonable behavior — even as his former attorney general joined the ranks of once-loyal lawmakers condemning the contentious move.

Johnson said a planned law designed to override portions of the Brexit withdrawal agreement was needed because the EU might “go to extreme and unreasonable lengths” in its treatment of former member Britain.

“I have absolutely no desire to use these measures,” Johnson told lawmakers as he introduced the Internal Market Bill in the House of Commons. “They are an insurance policy.”

Johnson’s Conservative government has acknowledged that the bill breaches the legally binding withdrawal treaty that Britain and the EU have both ratified. The legislation threatens to sink the already-foundering negotiations between Britain and the EU on a post-Brexit trade deal.

The U.K. formally left the bloc on Jan. 31, but existing trade rules remain in effect until the end of this year under a transition designed to provide time to negotiate a long-term trade agreement.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks in the House of Commons in London, Sept. 14, 2020, in a video grab from footage broadcast by the UK Parliament’s Parliamentary Recording Unit.

Ed Milliband, business spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, accused Johnson of “trashing the reputation of this country and trashing the reputation of his office.”

With an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons, Johnson is expected to have enough votes to push his legislation through Parliament despite opposition anger.

The bill easily cleared its first House of Commons vote by 340 to 263 on Monday. It will now face attempts to amend or overturn it during several days of detailed scrutiny by lawmakers before another vote.

Critics of move

There is wide unease within Johnson’s party about the law-breaking move.

Geoffrey Cox, who was the government’s top legal officer when Johnson negotiated the Brexit withdrawal agreement less than a year ago, said reneging on the deal would be an “unconscionable” breach of international law.

“I simply cannot approve or endorse a situation in which we go back on our word, given solemnly,” Cox, previously a strong supporter of Johnson on Brexit, told Times Radio. “The breaking of the law ultimately leads to very long-term and permanent damage to this country’s reputation.”

As part of the Brexit divorce deal, Britain and the EU agreed to keep Northern Ireland — the only part of the U.K. to share a border with the bloc — bound to some EU rules on trade, to avoid the need for border checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Both sides accepted the compromise to protect the open border, which helps underpin the peace process in Northern Ireland.

The Internal Market Bill would give the British government the power to override the EU’s agreed role in oversight of trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Johnson claims the EU has threatened to use “an extreme interpretation” of the withdrawal agreement to “blockade” food shipments from the rest of the U.K. to Northern Ireland unless Britain agrees to accept EU regulations.

The EU denies threatening a blockade and says it merely wants Britain to live up to the terms of the agreement. EU leaders are outraged at the prime minister’s proposal and have threatened the U.K. with legal action if it does not drop the proposal by the end of the month.

Two former Conservative U.K. prime ministers, John Major and Theresa May, have condemned the legislation. On Monday a third, David Cameron, said he had “misgivings.”

What mystifies some observers is that Johnson is repudiating a treaty that he himself negotiated and hailed as an “oven-ready” deal that would “get Brexit done.” That declaration of victory was key to Johnson’s successful December 2019 election campaign.

“There was a political imperative on the government to get an agreement and then to go to the electorate with the claim that they had, to coin a phrase, got Brexit done,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.

“I think it possibly was the case in some senses that it was ‘make the agreement in haste and then repent at leisure.’ And what we’re seeing now is the repentance.”

What’s next

Johnson’s move has dynamited the dwindling trust between Britain and the EU as they try to negotiate a new trading relationship.

Talks are due to continue this week in Brussels despite the chill in relations. Both sides say any deal must be agreed by next month so there is time for it to be ratified by Dec. 31.

If there is no deal, tariffs and other impediments to trade will be imposed by both sides at the start of 2021.

That would mean huge economic disruption for the U.K., which does half its trade with the bloc. A no-deal exit on Jan. 1 would also hit some EU nations, including Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, especially hard.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/europe/uks-johnson-defends-plan-rewrite-brexit-deal-says-eu-unreasonable

[Disclaimer]

The post UK’s Johnson Defends Plan to Rewrite Brexit Deal, Says EU ‘Unreasonable’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Boris Johnson heckled as he makes case against Scottish independence

Andrew McDonald — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 23:54:56 +0000

Demonstrators greet Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he visits the Orkney Islands on July 23, 2020 | Robert Perry/Getty Images

Not such a warm welcome as UK prime minister visits Scotland.

The first time Boris Johnson visited Scotland as prime minister, he faced a reception so frosty he left a meeting with the first minister via the back door.

Despite steering clear of both Scotland’s main cities and Nicola Sturgeon during his visit on Thursday, there was no escaping the boos.

The people of Orkney, a sparsely populated island with a Liberal Democrat MP, were given less than 24 hours notice the prime minister was coming, armed with a £50 million funding package for Orkney and other Scottish isles.

If the lack of notice was designed to deprive nationalists of time to organize, it didn’t appear to have worked. A small band of protesters, many clutching saltire flags and a few with EU flags booed and held up placards as Johnson’s car moved through a dreich Orkney to the delight of nationalists.

Robert Leslie@robertleslie69

He flew in and out of a dull and damp #Orkney. Boris Johnson, disengaged as he was from the public, will know his dysfunctional Union is on borrowed time when folk turn out to protest in a place represented by Scotland’s longest-serving Unionist MP. #Indyref2 #BorisFarewellTour

His enthusiasm undimmed, Johnson set about his task for the day: strengthen the union, by reaffirming the benefit of being in one during a crisis.

“The union is a fantastically strong institution,” he told broadcasters. “It’s very, very valuable in terms of the support we’ve been able to give to everybody throughout all corners of the U.K.”

“We’ve had a referendum on breaking up the union a few years ago,” Johnson added. “I think what people really want to see is our whole country coming back strongly together.”

It’s an attack line the Conservatives often return to on Scotland — that the referendum has happened and people want to move on. Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, used the strategy to great effect in 2016 and 2017 elections, first displacing Scottish Labour as the main opposition at Holyrood and narrowly depriving the Scottish National Party of an outright majority. A year later, Tory gains in Scotland saved Theresa May’s government, as opposition to a second independence referendum saw the SNP lose more than a third of their Westminster seats.

The problem for Johnson this time is that things appear to have changed. The most recent Scottish independence poll split 54/46 in favor of a Yes vote, and renowned pollster John Curtice said the Yes side “are narrow favorites” for the first time ever.

It’s that change that has unsettled Downing Street and moved Johnson to come north this week — something First Minister Sturgeon gleefully welcomed Thursday morning.

Responding later on to Johnson’s comments to broadcasters, she said the prime minister should not use the coronavirus pandemic as a “political weapon.”

“I don’t think any of us, and I include myself in this, should be trying to use COVID and the pandemic and the crisis situation we continue to face as some kind of political campaigning tool,” Sturgeon told reporters at her Thursday coronavirus briefing. “Every leader has a real duty to focus on doing everything we can to tackle this, and not use it as some kind of political weapon.”

Johnson and Sturgeon did not arrange to meet during the prime minister’s visit.

Authors:

Andrew McDonald Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-heckled-as-he-makes-case-against-scottish-independence/ [Disclaimer]

The post Boris Johnson heckled as he makes case against Scottish independence first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Forget Brexit – the European Union’s problems are only just beginning

Mark Wallace — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:01:20 +0000

Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has complained that Ireland will be paying more to the EU after Brexit (Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images)

The UK has left, but the EU remains. The psychodrama in this country about leaving has been so intense that few people on either side of the domestic debate have been able to give much thought as to what this means for the EU and its continuing members.

The EU itself has inevitably had a lot of its own bandwidth tied up by the question of Brexit – both in terms of how the negotiations define its relationship with one of its largest external markets, and in terms of what the departure of a member state says about the nature and direction of the Euro-federalist project.

The untangling of almost 50 years of integration is not yet over. There is a future relationship with the UK to negotiate before the year is out. But our formal departure from the organization nonetheless allows people and politicians on both sides of the Channel to take stock of what the future might hold for the EU.

You might expect integrationists to be optimistic. Fine, they never wanted to lose a member state – and a major one, at that – along the way, and Brexit marks the first time the EU has contracted rather than expanded, but it also signifies the removal of a roadblock to further integration.

The UK was always a reluctant member, requiring carve-outs, exemptions, and rebates, and muttering about awkward things like the democratic deficit and the need for referendums. Many times over the years, politicians and officials in Brussels have understandably griped about the way we have acted as a drag on their dreams of a unified EU superstate. Now that we’re gone, isn’t that a problem solved?

Other countries will have to start standing up for themselves (Photo: TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />

Not exactly. For a start, other countries that also had their doubts about various aspects of the EU’s operations have long been able to rely on the UK to rock the boat in ways that they like. No longer – without difficult Britons to rely on, they now face the uncomfortable choice of fighting those battles harder for themselves or answering to their voters for unpopular measures that may now be passed. Pro-market countries such as the Netherlands, for example, or states such as Denmark which value their opt-out from the euro must now take a firmer stance to champion their positions.

And our departure as a political member also means our departure as a net contributor to the EU’s budget. The Commission still wants to spend big, as a sign that there are no doubts and no back-pedaling on the project, but they must take €70bn (£59bn) more from the remaining members.

This is a challenge for the remaining EU states. The former Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, of all people, finds himself complaining that the Commission’s proposed budget “means Ireland will contribute much more to the EU budget but will actually receive less back”.

Legislative and budgetary issues are not the only problems the EU faces, either. I wrote a year ago in this column that the UK was a beacon of comparative political stability in an increasingly unstable Europe with Emmanuel Macron’s government in crisis and Italy’s Five Star movement on the rise.

That has become truer over the past 12 months: we have gained a solid majority government, while Varadkar’s domestic failures have visited a Sinn Féin surge on Ireland, and the Greens are now menacing the established parties in Germany.

Less stability at home makes for more fractious member states at EU summits. Leaders without good majorities find it hard to agree things, and are more prone to being brought down suddenly (just ask Theresa May).

Meanwhile, the Commission both wants and needs agreement on increasingly ambitious and contentious questions.

The EU’s biggest difficulty is that despite the huge alarm which Brexit ought to have sounded, Brussels still refuses to consider whether the project needs democratic reform or strategic redirection. More integration appears to be their only answer, regardless of the question.

Mark Wallace is executive editor of ConservativeHome.com, a politics blog

Source: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/brexit-european-union-leo-varadkar-budget-1889680

[Disclaimer]

The post Forget Brexit – the European Union’s problems are only just beginning first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

On Brexit, the EU is our enemy

Rodney Atkinson — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 14:21:16 +0000

THE disastrous Theresa May believed that in the EU she was dealing with friends and allies with whom she could conclude a close and lasting relationship to our mutual benefit. After the German government virtually dictated her surrender document, the Withdrawal Agreement (for which even after the Johnson improvements we will pay a heavy price, with some payments to the EU up to 2064!) only a fool would be so naive. The Johnson negotiating team needs to be strong, interest-led, ruthless and willing to walk away. As the Foreign Office always says, ‘We don’t have friends – we only have interests’. In the EU we have actual antagonists.

We have shown many times on the Freenations website the EU’s collective antipathy to Britain and the Anglo Saxon world in general. The disparaging description of us by German figures as ‘Die Insel’ (the island), the arrogant assumption that the EU states have a right to our fishing grounds even after we have left the EU, and the blatant undermining of our business interests in other countries all show that we cannot assume goodwill in the coming trade negotiations.

Indeed the EU starts from the assumption of power over us. In last year’s BBC documentary an aide of the EU negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said: ‘We finally kicked them out. We turned them into a colony – and that was our plan from the first moment.’

EU AND UK CITIZENS

Take for instance the question of the treatment of EU citizens in Britain and UK citizens in the EU. Without settling the status and security of British citizens in the EU after Brexit, EU negotiators have attacked our treatment of EU citizens in Britain, demanding that EU law should – forever – govern their lives. Their attitude is to use their ‘citizens’ as an unwitting Trojan Horse to extend the EU’s imperial power.

Before the UK has even left the EU, the British Government has granted 2.5million (of the total 2.8million) EU citizens ‘settled status’. The remainder have another two years to register. A Home Office spokesman said: ‘It’s free, there’s plenty of support available and it provides a secure digital status which can’t be lost, stolen or tampered with.’ Apparently no EU member state has gone so far as that for our British citizens in their countries. We are of course now able to reject as citizens those murderers, rapists and violent criminals who, while in the EU, we could not send home!

THE GALILEO EXAMPLE

The EU also demands that the UK no longer participates in the Galileo satellite system ‘for security reasons’ even though the UK has already contributed 1.4billion euros to the project and the EU wants to continue to benefit from UK intelligence and security information after we leave. What aggression and hypocrisy.

EU CONTEMPT FOR BRITISH VOTERS AND DEMOCRACY

Nazi and Fascist Europe in the 1930s and 1940s referred with utter contempt to ‘Anglo Saxon democracy’ as a term of political abuse. In the EU it is (like so much else) the same today.

It was the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, who said there was a ‘special place in hell’ for British Eurosceptics (17.4million of them). And it was the former president of the EU, Jose Barroso, who said ‘people who matter in British politics’ were thinking about giving up the pound. Barroso’s ‘people who matter’ did not, of course, include the voters who rejected the euro by some 80 percent.

In an interview with European Report, Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck, president of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party said:

‘Even within the European Parliament, these EU opponents represent 5 percent of the total with their silly little flags. Why do we let them do it? They have the right to have stupid opinions in a democracy, but these people should be attacked by telling them that they are stupid.’

THE ERASMUS MYTH

The Remainer class in the UK is heavily dominated by those who benefit most from EU power, EU employment, and the totally mythical ‘EU funds’ (not a penny comes from the EU for which the British have not paid twice over).

The academic class benefit from EU programmes such as the Monet Chairs at Universities and the Erasmus student grants, which, they claim, will disappear after Brexit. Pro-Brexit Facts has done some research and finds that:

· Of the total spending of 14.7billion euros, UK students received only 62million euros in 2017. Twice as many EU students study in the UK than UK students in the EU and more UK students go to study in the USA and Australia than to the whole of the EU put together.

· The proportion of UK students using Erasmus is a mere 0.51 percent. Even more important, there is no reason why the UK outside the EU should not continue to ‘benefit’ since other participants include Serbia, Turkey, Norway, North Macedonia, Iceland, and Liechtenstein and on a more limited basis Russia, Algeria, Egypt, Albania, Syria, ‘Palestine’ and Tunisia, not one of which is an EU member.

IT’S ABOUT POWER!

The EU and its defenders base their politics on power and only power. When some 25 years ago I was debating in Newcastle upon Tyne with a euro-fanatical Tory MP, he shocked the audience by suddenly shouting: ‘But don’t you understand? It’s power – that’s what we need – power’. There was silence. His side lost by a large margin.

Helmut Kohl said ‘might is right in politics and war’ and we should be under no illusion that in these trade negotiations the EU will exploit to the full their perceived power over our economy and trade in order to maintain their political and constitutional power over us.

It is because we are now free that those who imprisoned us are so angry. It is the exact opposite of war. We may have agreed to a peace treaty but the hostilities now begin.

This article first appeared in Freenations on January 16, 2020, and is republished by kind permission.

Source: https://conservativewoman.co.uk/on-brexit-the-eu-is-our-enemy/

[Disclaimer]

The post On Brexit, the EU is our enemy first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 1 November 2019

Mark Armstrong — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 01:26:26 +0000

Greetings from Tyler,

We got through the world’s Halloween observance without incident. Maybe they’ll start removing the spider webs and flashing inflatables from the neighborhood yards, and the skeletons from the entries of every dollar store. Not that we’re frightened or upset. We’ve got enough concerns in real life to worry about all the ghastly rubber and plastic that’s not fit for the trash bin. My neighborhood saw a few adults shepherding little children up and down the streets with their bags of candy. Wouldn’t you love to hear what they’re telling their impressionable youngsters in explanation?

Yesterday was supposed to be the drop-dead date for Brexit, deal or no deal. But that didn’t happen. The EU has agreed to another delay, this time to late January. Northern Ireland is apparently one of the major sticking points, and Boris has arranged a deal that will leave Northern Ireland subject to EU regulations while exempting the rest of the UK. Nigel Farage, known as the godfather of Brexit, says Boris’ new deal with the EU is little better than the utter capitulation offered by Theresa May. The concern is that EU policies will remain in effect as part of Brexit! Meanwhile, Boris faces another national election in mid-December.

You’ve undoubtedly seen footage from the several wildfires across the state of California. In its infinite wisdom, the power company PG&E has cut power to hundreds of thousands out of concern that the high winds will cause tree branches to come into contact with live wires and ignite fires. Many hands went up when the question was asked at the recent Feast about how many had had their power shut off. When the blackout goes for days, there goes all the food in the refrigerator and the freezer. It was particularly idiotic when the Indian guru appeared in his blue headgear to proclaim that global warming was generating fire danger. Anybody who lived in Southern California, say, in the sixties or seventies knows that these winds, known as the Santa Ana winds, blow every year at this time and always present the danger of raging wildfires. Back then, they told us that a new ice age was coming. They think they can feed us any line of nonsense with grave sincerity, and we’re just expected to nod and agree.

California’s leadership is the author of many of the horrible problems driving thousands out of the former paradise. You don’t need us to tell you of the rampant homeless situation that’s been allowed to spread out of control. Not only do they have bums living in filth all up and down the streets, they’ve created a crime wave that’s killing businesses. It seems that theft and shoplifting is way down the list of law enforcement priorities, so they’ve reduced the penalty for any theft under the amount of $950 to a misdemeanor. So now, the “homeless” can steal whatever they want, run out the door and sell it for half the price, then go back and steal some more to support their homeless habits. Reports say it’s become brazen and takes place often in broad daylight. Nothing will be done about petty theft, so it’s become a way of life for the down and out all across the state, spreading from San Francisco.

And as goes California, we’ve learned the hard way, so goes the nation. These types of laws are already in effect in Dallas, TX, where an employee is not even allowed to make contact with a thief carrying stolen goods from a store, under penalty of being fired. So that means a petty thief can shoplift at will, as long as he doesn’t go over the amount deemed a felony. It’s another milestone on the road to communist Utopia.

Since the inception of the United States, one philosophy has reigned and been stated in various ways by the founders and past presidents. That is that the USA will not be defeated by a foreign enemy. The real danger is internal. If the majority ever determines to elect representatives that will hand them every earthly need at government expense, look out.

Why is socialism so popular, particularly among the nation’s youth? One of the largest, most hobbling debts on the nation and on the younger set is student debt. It prevents young adults from getting married, buying houses and realizing the lifestyle to which they feel entitled. When someone comes along and says, “We’re going to forgive your student loans,” it sounds like a panacea. That appears to be the price of patriotism for big crowds cheering socialism.

Open borders, free health care for all! Free college, and government programs to cover all your needs. That sounds like a terrific deal to adult kids living with their folks because they’re too hobbled with debt to make a go of it. We’ve got people promising them that every need will be provided at somebody else’s expense, and they’re falling for it. All this free stuff may bankrupt the most prosperous nation on earth. And somebody should tell them. Socialism destroys everything it touches. For the sakes of our kids and grandkids, we hope and pray they don’t have to learn by experience.

Meanwhile, it’s impeachment talk around the clock. We’ve learned that the “whistleblower” has been part and parcel with the push to get rid of President Trump all along. It’s rather disconcerting when the idiots reporting the news know so much less than we do. But that’s where we are. May God see that they suffer the embarrassment they deserve, and the masses see through the onslaught of deception.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

[Disclaimer]

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 1 November 2019 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Merkel says EU must forge free UK trade deal very quickly

Philip Blenkinsop — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 11:16:02 +0000

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Britain and the European Union need to conclude a free trade agreement as soon as possible after Britain’s exit from the bloc, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, hours after the two parties sealed a divorce deal.

Merkel told a news conference after EU leaders discussed Brexit that the exit deal allowed an orderly Brexit and a transition period until the end of 2020, so giving time for a free trade agreement to be settled.

“There is an essential difference compared with when Theresa May was prime minister. Then it was not clear how future relations would look, whether there would be membership of the customs union or not,” she told reporters.

“Now it is quite clear that Great Britain will be a third country and with this third country we must sort out a free trade agreement very quickly,” she continued.

The deal still faces a test when British lawmakers give their verdict in an extraordinary session of parliament called for Saturday.

Merkel said that the EU leaders had not engaged in wondering what would happen if the House of Commons rejected the deal.

“It is now a matter of putting faith in the British parliament to take its decision. It is an old, experienced and wise parliament… So we didn’t get into the ‘what would happen if’ questions. It is a free decision of the British parliament,” she said.

She added that European Council President Donald Tusk would consult with EU countries whichever way that vote went.

“We did not negotiate this to have it rejected, but Boris Johnson has told us he will do everything to ensure there is a majority in favor,” Merkel said.

Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Alexandra Hudson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: click here

[Disclaimer]

The post Merkel says EU must forge free UK trade deal very quickly first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Brexit: Boris Johnson agrees new Brexit deal with EU – BBC News

BBC News — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 05:11:59 +0000

The post Brexit: Boris Johnson agrees new Brexit deal with EU – BBC News first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

‘Britain’s been sacrificed!’ Brexit Party MEP launches ferocious attack on ‘EU superstate’

Emily Ferguson — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 08:05:20 +0000

BREXIT PARTY MEP Rupert Lowe has hit out at the EU, branding the institution a “federal superstate” that has “sacrificed Britain on the alter”.

Mr. Lowe launched a scathing attack on the European Union as he condemned the bloc for being a “fig leaf of democracy”. He criticized the EU for being “ultimately run by the French and paid for by the Germans and us” and called on Boris Johnson to leave the bloc without a deal. The Brexit Party MEP also accused the bloc of “sacrificing Britain on the alter”.

Mr. Lowe said the EU has become a “federal European superstate”.

He told Express.co.uk: “As the proudest sovereign nation in Europe we have been sacrificed on the alter by this post-war European project.

“As a result of that, a lot of our constituents have suffered massively.”

The MEP continued his attack on the bloc and saying: “[The EU] is a fig leaf of democracy. It is not a democracy.”

Rupert Lowe has hit out at the EU, branding the institution a “federal superstate” (Image: Getty/Youtube)

Rupert Lowe criticized the EU for being a ‘fig leaf of democracy’ (Image: Getty)

As a result, Mr. Lowe urges the Prime Minister to honor his pledge to leave the EU on October 31 “come what may”.

He also said Britain needed to leave without a deal, as he branded Mr. Johnson’s deal “an absolute disaster”.

He said: “I am absolutely adamant that we should leave with no deal, a clean break Brexit is right for the UK as a whole.”

He continued: “We cannot have any form of reheated Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement.

JUST IN: Brexit delay: EU leaders to ponder 14-month extension to avoid no-deal

Rupert Lowe (left) is the Brexit Party MEP for the West Midlands (Image: PA)

“It is an absolute disaster and the worst outcome for all of us.”

He said that when he met with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier last month, he told the EU leader: “I wouldn’t sign this treaty if I had just lost to you in a war.”

Mr. Lowe also hit out at Remainers for being “entirely democratic”.

He said: “The Remain camp are disregarding the votes of 17.4 million people.

Boris Johnson sent his new Brexit plans to the EU this week (Image: PA)

“People are getting very angry because it is becoming a matter of these Remain parliamentarians who think they know better than the public.

“They are effectively hijacking democracy and trying to take control of what happens, with one aim which is to overrule the once in a lifetime referendum result.”

The Brexit Party MEP, who will run as MP for Dudley North in the next election, accused Remainers of “intellectual arrogance”, for assuming they are right.

He said: “It’s not their job to think they are right it is their job to enact the democratic will of the people.”

Brexit Countdown calendar (Image: Express)

Mr. Lowe warned that if the UK remains in the bloc, anger will escalate among Brexit voters.

He said, “They are angry now and they will be even angrier” if “the can is kicked down the road” once more.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1186478/eu-news-brexit-latest-European-superstate-brexit-party-mep-rupert-lowe

[Disclaimer]

The post ‘Britain’s been sacrificed!’ Brexit Party MEP launches ferocious attack on ‘EU superstate’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.