HS2 – why must all railroads lead to Rome?

It is sometimes easy to forget that the United Kingdom enjoys an extensive intercity network with trains operating at speeds of over 200kph (120 mph), so it could be argued high speed rail already exists across the nation. An EU directive (96/48/EC) defines high speed rail as having track dedicated to high speed travel with trains operating at a minimum line speed of 250 kph (155 mph). By that definition the U.K. has one high speed line (HS1) that operates between London, Paris and Brussels via the Channel Tunnel.

High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway which will connect London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. The scheme is scheduled to open in phases between 2026 and 2033 with high-speed trains travelling up to 400 km/h (250 mph) on 330 miles (530 km) of track. This would make HS2 the fastest commercial railway in Europe, faster than the Japanese Shinkansen (the fabled bullet trains) and comparable to the newer high speed lines in China.

The EU has for a number of years been supporting mega projects to build its trans-European network, in 2015 Violeta Bulc confirmed that the EU was investing in the project up to a maximum of €39 billion. This rather suggests that however much people in Britain dislike the project, Brussels is pretty keen on it being built and I would argue were it not for Brexit the scheme would certainly go ahead irrespective of our views. As a Brexiteer I am not going to fall into some sort of default mode where everything the EU does is necessarily bad, HS2 has a number of merits I am just not convinced by the scheme as whole.

HS2 is coming under increasing attack by politicians and parts of the media but it is easy to forget that HS1 also went through periods of controversy. Perhaps the difference was that HS1 had a clear logic to it, the Channel Tunnel had been built and on the French side a high-speed rail connected the portal at Calais to Paris, the conventional rail connection on the UK side was a bit of an embarrassment. HS2 has never really enjoyed the same clarity in terms of what it sets out to achieve, the project is now expected to cost £56 Billion, almost double the original estimate and there is now increasing doubt about its future.

Personally I do see value in high speed rail but feel that phase 1 of HS2, the link between London and Birmingham offers poor value for the tax payer. There is already sufficient capacity on this route that operates at high speed, HS2 would shave about one quarter of an hour off the journey between the two cities, this works out to a couple of billion per minute. Notwithstanding doubts about the journey time the London connection is a sub optimal design, it not only lacks a direct connection with HS1 but seems instead to have become the flagship for a major property redevelopment scheme at Old Oak Common in West London. Put bluntly if it is built according to current design a business traveller from Leeds on his way to Paris flies down the country at 250mph, stops at a part of London he doesn’t want to go to, travels on to Euston and then has to get out and travel a mile or so by bus or tube to King’s Cross to continue his journey.

There is also an element of NIMBYism to my views on phase 1 – the Vale of Aylesbury. One hour from my home in London I can be in some of the most magnificent countryside in Britain, those of you that know the region will not need much convincing from me of its stunning beauty, those of you that don’t know it – well I envy you, I envy the feeling you will have when you first see it. Is it really worth scarring such natural beauty? Is it really worth the destruction of so many ancient woodlands? I would argue no.

Look more closely however and HS2 does however have support when you consider some of the other phases, in 2013 the Department of Transport commissioned HS2 Ltd to undertake a feasibility study into improving journey times to the north of England and Scotland. In 2018 Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced that two of the better options would be studied more deeply to determine costs and technical feasibility. South of the border advocates of the Northern Powerhouse initiative are also strongly supportive of a high-speed rail network to connect the northern cities.

I suspect that HS2 is unlikely to deliver value for money with its current approach, but I do not think the scheme should be killed off completely, work on phase 1 should be cancelled and instead money should be spent to support the Scottish Government in completing their feasibility studies and preparing their business case with a view to obtain funding. In terms of design already committed we should accelerate the work on the phases that link Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds since these enjoy more public support and offer much better value to the taxpayer.

Partly because of EU planning and partly because of the natural geography of our island we have allowed our thinking about rail to become London-centric. Even in railwayman’s terms track is described as ‘up’ to London or ‘down’ to the country. This has inevitably resulted in a radial system with London at the centre of a spider’s web of rail lines. This thinking has affected London itself – tube users wanting to travel from say West London to North London have to travel into the city centre to come back out again. As an Arsenal fan living in West London you have to take my word for it how tedious and irritating it was to travel to a game by tube that I could drive to more quickly. It was only with the advent of London Overground that Londoners could travel more directly to where they wanted to get to. The same thinking that made London Overground such a game changer needs to be adopted on a grander scale. Don’t bin HS2 – don’t get emotional about it, have a rethink and let us build the other sections of HS2 and extend it to Scotland if the business case stacks up and maybe just for once stop prioritising London over the rest of the country.

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Extinction Rebellion and the Climate Change Con

For those of you that have been drinking heavily in a wood shed for the past week or so, Extinction Rebellion is a political movement committed to non-violent protest against climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. I guess where you sit on the political spectrum will tend to determine whether you view the activities of this movement as courageous or stupid.

One of the founder members of Extinction Rebellion is Gail Bradbrook, a pagan, who apparently became an activist after taking massive doses of powerful psychedelic drugs. Yep, that’s right. Given one of the other founders is Tasmin Osmond the granddaughter of a Dorset Baronet you can maybe see why the movement has been rather keen on finding someone more plausible to put in front of the cameras, so they found one – Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish student with Asperger’s. Smart move, who is going to give a rough interview to a 16-year-old with Asperger’s eh? Who is going to ask some of the more awkward questions about the demands of Extinction Rebellion – you know, questions like why have the police, media and politicians given you a free ride for the past few weeks or – where do you get your money?

I’m going to stop writing about these people now because if what is going on was not so deadly serious I would be making the argument that if they could find a skateboarding panda that drank petrol and peed out mineral water to lead them the whole thing would be a slam dunk, overnight we would all sell our cars, take holidays in our local library and heat our homes with karmic energy.

I refuse to indulge these cranks anymore, and I simply refuse to engage with any self-styled eco warrior who refuses to accept that if the environment really is threatened by anything it is from the fact that there are too many human beings. So here is my message to them now – there are too many of us living in a world geared to a model of depletion economics. Stop looking for anything more complicated than that, if you do not understand that simple fact you are an imbecile, don’t waste my time, don’t even bother responding, I am not interested in engaging with you. Banning wood burners and trying to make steel from the heat of compost heaps is not going to make one iota of a difference if you do not address the cause.

We have zero hope of any of our current class of politicians or the idiot media pointing out that our problem is over population, after all these are the people that think adding ten million people to an already over crowded island in less than a generation has taken us into some sort of progressive Nirvana. However, the most wicked thing they will conceal from us is who is paying for all of this? The mainstream political parties love talking about fuel poverty and how this hits those on the lowest incomes, of course none of them will admit that by charging VAT on fuel they are the very people that harvest from the poor, they are the ones living a parasitic existence on the least fortunate in our society.

I am not a climate change denier, I keep an open mind since it is clear to me that human beings are living in a way that is not sustainable. Yet what is also clear to me is that the wealthy elite, who may have just had a slight inkling that we need to change our ways, expect the poorest to shoulder the burden. They expect that those with little money should spend more and more of it on increasingly expensive fuel, unlike their betters who can afford to put solar panels on their roof.

Listen to them and we ensure the poor can no longer enjoy a flight to a sunny destination to forget their woes for a week or so whilst their betters assuage their folly by paying the carbon tax – or better still jet around the world in first class to lecture the poor about the sacrifices they must make. Oh and whilst we are about it let’s rob the poor of the KFC and McDonalds they so enjoy – you know the little treat they like to share with their children, nah – they should be vegans and eat beans and quinoa, after all only those on the right income and status should be able to afford organic free-range chicken.

This is the truth self-declared ‘progressives’ conceal from us all, raising taxes does not hurt the rich it hurts the poor – so they can shove their Greta Thunberg narrative where a solar panel won’t work. I know what they are doing and I’m not buying it. If they want something done about the environment then they are the ones that should change their ways and stop taxing the poor to pay for their stupidity.

Why obey a Rogue Parliament?

In terms of the 2016 referendum, many feel last week was not a good one. Despite the express wishes of the people, and the promise of Parliament to act on those wishes, we have not left the European Union and it looks increasingly likely that every avenue to us leaving will be blocked.

The despair amongst my fellow Brexiteers is palpable as is the growing concern amongst remainers that believe in democracy. I refuse to give in to anger but I have an overwhelming sense of sadness when I think about the people who in 2016 voted for the very first time in their lives, innocently believing that just for once their votes mattered, just for once that their voice would be heard. I can think of few crueller betrayals by an establishment that loves to lecture the world about the rule of law and democratic ideals. Quite frankly most of our establishment sit so far beneath my contempt I am not going to waste words on them.

So what if I told you it was actually a good week? Finally now you can see them, Brexit has flushed them out into the open. These are the globalist cuckoos that have been infiltrating our political parties ensuring that no matter how we vote the globalists win, we just get to choose which rosette they wear. There they are now, visible to you, the people who are waging a war of replacement on the people of this island. There they are, in plain sight, the people trying to normalise what is base and perverse, the people trying to force you into stating a lie that a man is woman if he says so. There they are, the people hell-bent on destroying free speech, authoritarian satraps that want to create a world where only their dogma and false creed can be spoken unchallenged.

The past two weeks have seen our parliament increasingly run amok; barely a day goes by without it becoming increasingly obvious they have no intention of upholding the outcome of the referendum. It was a good week, they are becoming increasingly desperate. It seems clear to me that they are trying to create the conditions to revoke Article 50 but are struggling to find a legal or democratic device to provide the fig leaf they need for their treachery.

The past months have seen the elite media trying to push a narrative that fewer and fewer believe now, the BBC has used up the last remaining stock of its credibility now, even its presenters are now increasingly wary of reading out prepared scripts from a government that couldn’t lie straight in a bed. It was a good week, the lies don’t work anymore and even the people pushing them know it.

This week has seen Parliament break all established process to rush through a bill to force the Prime Minister to seek an extension to Article 50 if we are faced with a no deal. Not a day later the EU announces it is prepared to offer a one year extension. What are the odds of a coincidence like that? It’s almost as though the EU is colluding with our MPs to frustrate our departure! It was a good week – I saw what they did there, I have joined up the dots.

It was a good week because it is finally clear that it is practically impossible to leave the EU with the parliament we have. There are perhaps 200 MPs that are on the side of respecting the wishes of the people of this country, and my guess is that there are about 400 MPs that the EU controls, and the rest are useful idiots.

It was a good week because a clear and peaceful path to regaining our independence lies before us. Conservative party constituency associations need to continue their deselection processes and force Central Office to remove the globalists, if they fail to do this then the association should declare who it is they would have selected and ask them to stand as an independent with their backing, this should concentrate the minds of those at Central Office.

Non Tory Brexiteers need to unite and co-ordinate their efforts to ensure that one single Brexit supporting candidate stands in each constituency where a remainer (or at least one that wont accept the referendum result) is the present incumbent.

This we must do because we are in a race now, any long extension I fear will provide the excuse the remain ultras want for their second referendum – a referendum I am sure will be rigged to deliver the ‘correct’ result. I doubt the Tories will see the back of Theresa May before the winter; they must fight to limit the damage she can inflict until then. If we hold the line then the Conservatives can finally put up a leader that believes in Brexit and go to the country for a mandate knowing that the way has been paved.

For the past few decades an asymmetric war has been waged against the people of this country by an establishment that no longer bothers to conceal its contempt. Be under no illusions, these people really hate you. Violence is not the response to this, nor is hatred, peaceful civil disobedience is the correct way to resist that and for the world to know that this parliament has no further legitimacy in our eyes and we are no longer bound to honour anything they agree as of March 29th 2019.

The first rule of war is know your enemy, for over two decades now we have been bewildered and confused and unable to identify who was waging this asymmetric war against us. It was a good week. We can finally identify our enemy.

Now get to work, start plotting, we can win this!

Westminster – the lying Mother F****r of all Parliaments

“England is the mother of parliaments”.

 

– John Bright, 1865.

 

In June 2016, in the biggest ever democratic event seen in the UK, almost 34 million people voted in a referendum to decide our future in the European Union. The results were close but 52%, over one million more people, voted to leave the European Union.

 

Throughout the campaign we were told this was a once in a lifetime event. Throughout the campaign we were told that there would be no way back if we voted to leave the EU, and we were told in writing that the government would honour our vote. Of course most us didn’t realise that when our politicians told us it was a once in a lifetime event they meant our last democratic vote.

 

Before the referendum, David Cameron had indicated he would invoke Article 50 the next day. Not long after the referendum Cameron decided instead to run away from the chaos he had caused. Mr Cameron had deliberately prevented the civil service from preparing for a leave vote, this to ensure there was no plan if the government lost, an unbelievably reckless decision.

 

Shortly after the referendum the Conservative party held a leadership contest that seemed more designed to ensure a Brexit supporting candidate did not gain office. Theresa May, a politician with known limitations and flaws, was left as the sole choice, effectively placed into office.

 

Theresa May went on to make a speech about her approach to things, ‘Brexit means Brexit’ she said, ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ she said. Not long after the speech Theresa May decided to call a general election to get a majority behind her leadership. In a disastrous campaign, with flagship policies toxic to her natural supporters, she lost her majority to a Marxist ideologue with a very feeble grasp of geo politics. Nonetheless, 85% of MPs currently sitting in Parliament did so on a mandate to leave the European Union. Somehow she managed to form an agreement with the Ulster Unionists and to form a government. She even managed to invoke Article 50, although only after a convenient delay which allowed a destructive piece of lawfare to insist that Parliament had a “meaningful vote” on any deal she brought back. Thus was sowed the seed of the betrayal of the EU Referendum vote.

 

Since 2016 I have not known one single moment where I felt my vote to leave the European Union was going to be honoured. Since 2016 barely a day has gone by without some game to de-legitimise the votes of 17.4 million people, some angle to weaken Brexit, some parliamentary ruse to deny the people of this country of what was promised.

 

In October 2018 I predicted that faced with a no deal Brexit Parliament would prevent it under the ruse of ‘national interest’, this indeed seems to be the game in play. Since 2016 there has been no certainty in leaving the EU but there has been the constant threat of the vote being overturned. Every single option for leaving the EU has gradually been killed by Parliament. Our Parliament has now gone rogue, we have a Speaker who seems able to change the constitution at will, MPs that clearly lied to their constituents demanding a second referendum but curiously reluctant to offer their constituents another say by calling a by-election. We even have an MP who has just served a three-month prison sentence sitting in Parliament fitted with an electronic tag, voting against the wishes of the people.

 

Today Parliament will seek to pass a law making it illegal to leave the EU without a deal – despite two years ago making leaving with no deal the legal default option. The lies just keep stacking up, with this piece of legislation in place all remain has to do now is reject any deal to leave the EU and since they have now made it law that we cannot leave without one we remain in the EU and 17.4 million of us become second class citizens in our own country, seething with resentment at the arrogance of our establishment and plotting how to bring an end to the occupation of our country by a malign unaccountable foreign power. Remain ultras must be delighted with their handiwork, they may have destroyed our democracy – but hey they stopped Brexit and that’s the main thing.

 

Well in a way it’s a good thing, finally now we can see you for the lying degenerates that most of you are, finally now we are beginning to understand the Devil’s pact you signed your country up to. The warm light of democracy you loved bathing in – well that’s gone now and we can see you, the world can see you. Whatever happens you are exposed, you are shameless, dirty people, what you have done stinks and I want to see you retch on it for the rest of your lives.

The Cuckoo in our democracy

As a social media platform, I am ambivalent about Twitter, I found it quite useful during the 2016 referendum campaign as it allowed me to connect with fellow like-minded Brexiteers – I was more on the Norway option side of the debate, a soft Brexiteer if you like. What I dislike about Twitter is the unbalanced way it censors debate, if you don’t agree with Globalist dogma you are far more likely to be sanctioned than if you did.

One of the features of Twitter is the way it limits how many words you can put into a tweet – so a thought or an argument has to be carefully constructed. Pete North at the Leave Alliance is quite good at producing threaded arguments some of which can be up to twenty tweets long but they do demand a lot of the audience, the more powerful tweets I find put a compelling argument across in a few words – the one shown below is not only one of the best I have ever seen it wonderfully sums up where we are with Brexit.

Mark@markantro

SNP – Remain
Lib Dems- Remain
TIG – Remain
Conservatives – BRINO
Labour – Remain

The People of the U.K. – LEAVE

Do you see the problem……..

Of course, our establishment knows this all too well but don’t hold your breath, the BBC is not going to point this out anytime soon, after all they receive millions of pounds from the European Union. If anyone thinks this money is a free gift for them to do with as they see fit then please send me an email as I know some Nigerian businessmen with a lucrative business offer you may be interested in.

Our establishment is utterly brazen in this respect, they clearly do not represent the majority but since the majority are what many of them feel are their social inferiors, they feel emboldened to act in the way that they do. This arrogance is what millions of us rejected in 2016, not the irrational hatred of Polish plumbers that all too many Remainers prefer as the reason for their defeat in the referendum.

A shining example of this arrogance is the recent formation of the Independence Group when a number of MPs quit their political parties. What they share in common is a desire to overturn the outcome of the 2016 referendum by creating conditions for a second referendum – of course they prefer not to use this term because it invites the obvious response – what is the point of a second referendum if you are simply going to ignore the first? No, the term they prefer is a ‘People’s Vote’, which sounds much nicer and democratic even if it does invite the question – was it cats and dogs that had the previous vote?

Now the narrative for the People’s Vote normally goes along the lines of people change their minds. This is of course true – which is why we have general elections every few years, we don’t however have a general election because the losing side didn’t agree with the result. That aside what is interesting about this narrative is its specific purpose in the minds of Remain ultras, one would have thought that any MP that stood on a manifesto that committed to upholding the 2016 referendum made a certain promise to the people of his or her constituency. To now renege on this promise would clearly result in people changing their minds about you acting as their representative in Parliament. Yet not a single one of them has offered their constituents a by election.

And then it dawned on me.

They work for the EU and the EU has told them not to hold a by election – because they would almost certainly lose and, at least in the case of the Conservatives, probably lose to a more Brexit leaning candidate.

If you think more widely, the way our two main political parties select their candidates lends itself to interference by the EU, David Cameron baulked at the promised changes to allow constituencies to recall their MPs, had mechanisms been put in place I am pretty sure Anna Soubry would have been recalled some time ago – now she sits smugly pouring out her unwanted Globalist dogma unchallenged by the elite media and her poor old constituents cannot do a thing about it.

Both main parties have limited the ability of constituency parties to choose their own local representatives, often this has created enormous resentment when a chosen party apparatchik (almost always with pro EU credentials) gets parachuted in to a safe seat by central office. This I think helps explain why our political parties do not represent the people that elect them – the ones that do share their views seldom get the chance to stand for election.

The Independence Group is where this ends up, notwithstanding the secrecy over how it receives its funding it does not represent the interests of voters because it is the arm of a foreign power in our Parliament, a shameless Globalist cuckoo that has no democratic legitimacy at all.

Brexit or a Cowardly New World?

Like many I have a very real sense that there is something not quite right about the world at the moment. I cannot think of the exact moment that I began to perceive a darkness descend across my country. Nostalgia can cloud our judgement on the past but I would say that around about the late nineties things began to change for the worse. Things were not perfect then but I don’t remember being afraid of saying what I thought or feeling the world was regressing. We now live in a country where it is increasingly perilous to speak out about mass immigration or the hatred and violence of a Dark Age cult. We live in a country where it is not only unchallenged it is ‘self-evident’ that it was correct to transfer the substantial debts from reckless banks onto tax payers and that it was somehow necessary for the assets we all once owned like our gas and water utilities to be sold off, often to foreign bidders.

One of the reasons I became more politically active was to at least try to do something to change things. It has been clear in my mind for a number of years now that our politics has failed us, I really do not see any difference in the two main political parties, however we vote we get the same unwanted globalist dogma inflicted upon us which leads me to conclude they are actually just one party offering us all a fake choice.

Perhaps of more concern is the increasing sense that our establishment actually seem to hate us. Barely a week passes when some judgement, decision or law is implemented that not only works against our interest but also seems designed to humiliate us. Such is the web of lies and deceit now that Westminster and our elite media has spun around itself there is precious little trust in our politicians rather a growing sense that they no longer represent our interests but actually seem to enjoy crushing and humiliating us.

The campaign to leave the EU provided a platform for the first time in decades for many of us to have our voices heard. 17.4 million of us sent a clear message, we wanted to leave the EU. It would be very arrogant to state why all 17.4 million voted in the way that they did but as an observation a common thread in my discussions with fellow Brexiteers (and one I share) is that it feels like our country is under occupation – in the grip of an arrogant and increasingly authoritarian establishment that refuses to listen to us, an establishment that is hell bent on implementing a program designed to destroy our identity as a people and as a nation.

In terms of Brexit it has been a turbulent few weeks. The decision we took as a nation to leave the EU, a decision never accepted by the establishment, is yet to be implemented and hangs in the balance as powerful forces do all they can to thwart the will of the people. Long established parliamentary procedures and protocols are suddenly overturned by a Speaker who seems able to re-write our constitution as he pleases, and politicians who stood for Parliament on the promise to uphold the referendum now work shamelessly and openly to overturn the vote.

Against this backdrop the self-styled ‘liberal’ elite of our nation, an elite that have had things their own way for the past few decades, are now beginning to show their real character. There has long been a class of people in this country that not only hate their nation they have utter contempt for what they view as their social inferiors. This is a class that like to pretend they believe in social progress but in truth care nothing for the working class, in truth they hate people that are poorer than them, and they envy those richer than them in equal measure. Brexit is unbearable to them, an upstart working class that in their view have a poor grasp of economics and geo politics need to be saved from themselves – the brazen justification of a second referendum or as the columnist Mathew Parris seems to prefer the suspension of democracy altogether last month. He proudly announced in the Spectator ‘Why I don’t, never have and never will trust the people’. Parris was born in South Africa, he went to public school and from there to Cambridge and then Yale, probably the only working class people he has ever engaged with are the ones he ran into when cottaging on Clapham Common – a practice he openly admits to.

Be under no illusion here, the likes of Parris hate us and everything we believe in, theirs is a world of smug self-satisfaction that provides a veneer for some deeply unpleasant views. These people have no sense of shame just an overwhelming sense of entitlement. If Brexit fails and they secure their hold over our country they will exact a terrible revenge on us – to paraphrase George Orwell – imagine a vision of the future with a human face being stamped on forever by an effete delta male, that is what lies before us. We must prevail, we have no choice.

The fake nationalists of the EU

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have found the past week or so on the Brexit front exhausting. The meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement was pulled at the last minute and the Prime Minister has managed to hold off a confidence vote in her leadership, the rules in the Conservative Party ensure she is now secure from any further challenge for another year but she is not out of the woods quite yet, the opposition under Jeremy Corbyn could call for a confidence vote in her Government. Given one third of the Conservative MPs in Parliament are rather keen on seeing the back of her it would be foolish to predict what could happen in the coming weeks.

 

The permutations are reasonably well understood, Parliament approves her withdrawal agreement, or it does not. If it does not then there seem to be four main options, she goes back to try and negotiate an improved deal, she considers a ‘second referendum’ we leave without a deal or Brexit is halted altogether.

 

Those of you familiar with my blogs know my complete lack of faith in the ability of our politicians or their client media to tell the truth. Spin (professional lying) is considered part and parcel of modern day politics so I don’t expect to find a lie they would not tell or a truth they would not conceal, it’s the cesspool they are all happy to operate in. Finding examples of hypocrisy in Westminster is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel but for me the outstanding winners this week must be the Scottish National Party under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon.

I have long considered the nationalist parties in UK politics to be oxymoronic. Please don’t get me wrong here, as a committed nationalist myself I would find much in common with anyone that sought true independence for his country. What I cannot take seriously is someone that claims to want independence for his country but remain in the EU. When I hear these two thoughts come to mind;

 

You haven’t got the guts to admit that you hate the English,

 

All you will achieve is to swap capital cities which makes you an idiot not a nationalist.

 

Imitation nationalist parties are a feature of life in the EU, the client media fawn over them and give them a relevance way beyond their actual contribution to political life. Of course, you can see why the EU encourages these faux nationalist parties, they help undermine the identity of the host nation. As you may have increasingly noticed, instability is a hallmark of EU membership.

 

Oddly enough when true nationalist parties emerge such as UKIP the client media is less friendly, their politicians are tagged with prefixes like controversial or outspoken, their politics described as far right or populist. The favoured nationalist parties get nice names like progressive although for the life of me I cannot see what is progressive about wanting to put a physical border, a tartan curtain, on an island where there has never been one.

 

I would say we reached peak hypocrisy with the SNP in recent weeks with their backing for a so-called People’s Vote, although in the hypocrisy stakes the SNP is a gift that just keeps giving. So, think about this, the SNP is now a ‘nationalist’ party that is clamouring for the right for an independence vote to be overturned or ignored by Parliament. I think this expedience will haunt them forever and if our press was doing its job they would have been slaughtered for it already.

 

So now a deeper thought, Wales and Scotland were offered their own Parliaments and Assemblies – this had the blessing of the EU since it served to weaken the United Kingdom. England was never offered the same deal. There has been much waffle and obfuscation about why that is, but I suspect it was deliberate. I suspect that had England been given its own Parliament very quickly an anti-EU nationalist party would have taken power, English identity would have found its voice and the path to independence would now be so much more certain.

 

The world we live in is awash with lies and deceit, the truth often concealed from us or distorted to have little meaning, whilst I do not blame the EU entirely for this since it seems to be a malaise that has affected every nation in the West, the EU has taken advantage of this unwholesome environment. True nationalist movements are stifled in countries like England or vilified by the client media where they are on the ascendant such as Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in Germany.

 

There are of course Scottish Nationalists who seek true independence for their nation i.e. independence from both the U.K. and the E.U. I respect that argument. What I have disdain for is the fake nationalism that perpetuates a grievance culture and an unspoken hatred for the English as though there is some huge cultural and genetic difference between people that live on the same small island. Far from uniting the people of Europe the EU favours discord and promotes those things that divide us, the SNP has proved to be a most useful tool in that respect.

 

When we finally extricate ourselves from the EU my hope is that it leads to the exposure of the SNP and their utter hypocrisy.

The Day Glo Revolution

My belief in the honesty of our current politicians and the client media has not been very high since the Tony Blair era when spin (a nice word for professional lying) somehow became a respectable attribute. This week our establishment has surprised me all over again by taking their dishonest efforts to thwart any exit from the European Union to another level.

I struggle to take them seriously any more. Every vote, every story line showcased by the client media is part of an orchestrated pantomime. Our Prime Minister behaves like a ham actor in a third rate amateur dramatics production reading out lines prepared by unseen handlers, there is no evidence of any thought process in what she says other than to ensure the words are said in the correct order. As she reads her lines, behind her on the stage even worse actors than her continue their performance, trying to persuade the audience that this is a functioning democracy.

At the end of March 2019 we leave the European Union, that is the law. This law was passed as a result of a referendum in 2016 when in our nation’s greatest vote ever 17.4 million of us voted to leave the European Union. In 2017 Theresa May called a snap general election, and the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, stood on a mandate that they would honour the referendum. Therefore, there is no democratic mandate for staying in the EU.

So here is the problem, our current set of politicians have no intention of leaving the European Union.

It seems pretty clear that Parliament has rejected the withdrawal agreement the Prime Minister has negotiated, she does have a few weeks to see if she can get some concessions from the EU before returning to Parliament but it is difficult to see how she would prevail. The opposition could call a vote of no confidence to spark a General Election but that also looks unlikely to succeed. So Parliament’s last desperate throw of the dice to keep a democratic veneer on this will most probably be to somehow contrive a second referendum. I contend that any such referendum will ensure that this time the ‘correct’ result is delivered and that it will be the last time anyone is offered any even notionally democratic choice in their future. The jury is out on whether they will try this option to block Brexit, after all the only legitimate question you could put on the ballot paper is to leave with the Prime Minister’s deal or leave without one, but given I have zero trust in our politicians the ballot paper will probably offer us the choice between staying in the EU or remaining in the EU.

There is of course the possibility that Parliament will find some device to stop us leaving without a deal. The narrative for this is already being carefully introduced, you may have noticed how the client media have started talking about Parliament taking control, the irony of this lie of course is that it is Parliament taking control to prevent a process that returns powers to Parliament from an unwanted supranational entity. In my view this would be a very bad development, a Parliament that has decided for itself it can ignore a referendum it had promised to honour can pretty much ignore anything else it wishes to from that point forward and you can be sure that it will.

I wrote elsewhere a few days back that I am minded of a family building up to confront the head of the household about his gambling and drinking problems. Subconsciously he is aware that the denouement is looming but still he deceives and conceals because it has served his purpose so well in the past. This time however things are different, the family can see through all the lies and are determined to finally confront him with the truth. The truth I suspect is that the family fortune is gone, all of the assets and heirlooms sold off and the family left with nothing but debts.

I believe that in March 2019 the people of Britain will finally learn whether they live in a democracy or they are under the occupation of a foreign power that hides behind a puppet government. My hope is that there are enough politicians in Westminster that now see that this is no longer about the European Union but the contract within a democratic nation state that we all learn to share power.

The past two years have shown me how much of our establishment is made up of venal, lying degenerates, I don’t trust them and I do know how much contempt they have for the people of this country so nothing would surprise me about them. I still hope we can leave the EU without civil unrest but si vis pacem, para bellum – if you want peace then prepare for war. My advice is to invest in a yellow high visibility jacket and wait for further instructions, you might be needing it.

April Fool 2019 – who is Sovereign?

“L’État, c’est moi” – Louis XIV of France

For me one of the major irritations in the referendum debate is the way many on the remain side contend that the United Kingdom and its parliament is sovereign. All too many on both sides of the debate labour under the impression that the EU is an inter-governmental arrangement, a sort of NATO for trade. Few realise how much control of this country has been handed over to the European Union in the past forty years or so. Fewer still understand how much of what happens in this country is decided in Brussels and not London.

British politicians have gone to great lengths to pretend to the people of this country that we are members of a friendly trade club. The EU however has been very clear what this is about, the creation of a Federal States of Europe. The EU also has a clearly explained structure, it has an executive in the form of the European Commission, a Council of Ministers that supervise the commission, a court and a parliament (I know – lets leave that one for now). It really requires a phenomenal feat of mental gymnastics to pretend the EU does not see itself as a state particularly when they explain it to you on their web site.

Now there is an argument for a Federal Europe, I accept that, I don’t wish to be part of it but I take the argument at face value because it is a logical belief. What I will not accept is the argument that we are somehow a sovereign nation despite giving away so much control of our country to an anti democratic supranational entity.

This argument matters so much now, as our country draws to the end of the Article 50 protocols. At the end of March next year we either leave the EU with a deal or crash out without one. My views on falling back onto WTO are well known – I favoured leaving within the EFTA pillar of the EEA, this is pretty much academic since this option has not been explored. The deal we will be offered is the one being negotiated by the Prime Minister.

I am not privy to the details of the deal she is working on but the reaction to her favoured ‘Chequers’ proposal has been covered in much detail elsewhere. Unlike many other commentators on the developments I don’t think Theresa May intends to betray the country, I just don’t think she is up to the job and even if she was I don’t think she has been very well supported – our entire Civil Service having long ago ensured only those that supported the EU had any prospect of a career. I am fairly certain she will return with a deal, it will be a poor one of that I am sure but we only had a couple of strong cards to play and they were wasted at the outset.

She has allowed Tony Blair to backchannel with the EU and to use his detailed knowledge of the Good Friday agreement to weaponise the Irish Border question. She agreed almost a year ago to the EU proposed backstop. The deal she returns with will probably keep the UK in some form of Customs Union during the transition period. More expert commentators such as Dr Richard North have pointed out that the Customs Union does not solve the border issue it is regulatory alignment that is the issue. For the sake of argument let us say it does park the problem, whilst not ideal I could live with it – but here is the kicker, we will not be allowed to leave it without the EU agreeing for us to do so.

In a way I hope it comes to that because with startling clarity the sovereignty issue will be there for all to see. Parliament if it is indeed sovereign can make or unmake any law. Sign up to such a deal and the mantra that no parliament can bind a future parliament will no longer be true, parliament will not by any definition be sovereign, someone else is.

Give it time, the penny will drop.

Time for the Flexcit approach to Brexit?

I have just read an interesting piece by Lord Hague of Richmond (William Hague) in the Daily Telegraph defending the Prime Minister and her handling of the negotiations over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Lord Hague describes how the Conservative Party is stretched to the limit over our relationship with the EU which is hardly a surprise to those of us that follow politics. I take a vicarious enjoyment from this in that the party that took us in to the European Union is the party with the most troubled conscience over it, karma I say.

During the referendum Lord Hague campaigned for us to stay in the European Union and I see little that suggests he has changed his mind; however he has been consistent in respecting the outcome of the vote so I respect his views and acknowledge his democratic credentials so I am prepared to listen to what he has to say.

He rightly identifies the struggle the Prime Minister faces in keeping her party together, the need to keep the Democratic Unionists on board and the seemingly intractable problem of the border in Northern Ireland. Whether by design or poor strategy the Prime Minister has created a situation where the negotiations have moved to a point where we either defend the Union or we accept that part of it remains under EU jurisdiction.

There is of course an argument to throw Northern Ireland under a bus, not sensible in my view but it is an argument – George Galloway has already suggested just that in terms of the need for the unification of the island of Ireland. In isolation it is a valid argument but would strengthen the case of the Scottish Nationalists who see remaining in the EU as their route to independence (I know – lets not do that one right now). In any case I don’t think any Prime Minister wants to go down in history as the one that broke up the Union. For the sake of brevity, right now that dog don’t hunt, the Union has to stay intact – at least for now.

My take on Lord Hague’s intervention is that the shrewder Remainers have made the calculation that if the final months of our membership of the EU reach a point where all the discussion is about protecting the Union and negotiating a deal with the EU takes a back seat then we create the conditions for leaving the EU in the Spring of next year without a deal – the so called Hard Brexit.

Many of my fellow Brexiteers are strongly in favour of a Hard Brexit, I am not one of those and cards on the table here I have long been an advocate of Dr North’s Flexcit plan:

Dr North’s Flexcit Plan

For the purpose of this blog it means invoking Article 50 and dropping into the EEA / EFTA arrangements for a number of years to allow us to catch our breath and prepare for full independence. I won’t go into lengthy details about Flexcit (the plan is over 400 pages long) but I will attempt to summarise why I favour this option.

The notion that any nation is completely sovereign is not an accurate characterisation of the modern world. Even China signs up to international agreements that take certain decisions out of their hands, this is not a bad thing when we consider the good regulations that come from international bodies, for example last year the aviation industry had the safest year ever courtesy of international co-operation. The key difference here is that intergovernmental agreements tend to be transparent and come with accountability. The EU operates a supranational model where decision making is opaque and there is little visibility of the people that exert control over our lives- even in Communist China people know who their leaders are. Put as simplistically as I can the EEA is more of an intergovernmental arrangement – unlike the EU. In general terms the EFTA pillar of the EEA allows us to participate in the single market, negotiate trade deals, frees us from the European Court of Justice and allows a better degree of control over immigration since it reverts back to free movement of labour not free movement of people – i.e. you can’t come here just to sign on. There are a number of models of the EEA / ETA arrangements, my preference would be the Norway model.  I feel I must re-emphasise I see the Norway model as a fairly pain free stepping stone to independence not a final destination.

What struck me about Lord Hague’s piece was that for the first time I have heard a senior Tory float the idea of EFTA arrangements. Whilst this is a good thing in my view I am irritated by his sudden realisation. It was because of Remainers like Lord Hague who insisted on telling people if we left the EU we would lose access to the single market and it was Remainers and their knuckle headed Project Fear that prevented this option for Brexit getting the consideration it was due.

More worryingly, Lord Hague mentioned in passing that Parliament could block any attempt to leave the EU without a deal. I am certain that is exactly what will happen, I am certain that any attempt at a Hard Brexit will ultimately fail – not because of the will of the people but because it provides exactly the excuse our political class need to prevent our country leaving the EU. Of course this will be dressed up as acting in the national interest.

Hopefully I have managed to convince some of you to have a deep think about the Norway option, it may not be exactly the Brexit you wanted but please do think deeply about what I have said. The Hard Brexit many of you wish to see will in my view achieve the exact opposite, your argument does not have the Parliamentary arithmetic on its side, mine probably does. Think about it, I implore you, put emotion to one side and really, really think about it, we only get one shot at this.