Quick Brexit facts read by Ministers, ex-Ministers, MPs, MEPs, Councillors, legal and financial experts, local campaigners, and the general public - From reliable, official sources
SOUND-BITE FACTS - EU REFERENDUM NEWS INDEPENDENCE DAY + 130 DAYS : 31 OCT 2016
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EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
LOSING SLEEP OVER THE EU?
On Sunday night the clocks went back
The UK shows no desire to change the current arrangements, but did you know that the Government is unable to make any changes if it wanted to, because of an EU Directive?
The annual date of the change, the time it’s made, and the amount by which the hour moves, are all controlled by the EU under Directive 2000/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.
No-one would want to leave the EU merely to regain control of our clocks. It is just one of many such minor irritants.
However it's a briefly topical example of the many areas of everyday life where at some future point the UK will be able to resume making its own national decisions, rather than automatically accepting EU decisions taken by transnational majority voting.
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The gendarme from 'Allo 'Allo
Tony Blair
Mr Blair thinks the Single Market is wonderful and the UK must stay inside it.
Maybe he should try delivering British export goods to it.
THE JOYS OF THE SINGLE MARKET – FRENCH-STYLE
Exporting to France? New French law means it’s now more expensive and more difficult.
You’re a British truck driver. You’ve managed to cross the Channel and get through Calais without your windscreen being smashed. You think you can now relax until the journey home.
Think again, you poor Rosbif.
A gendarme stops you in northern France. “Vos papiers?” he asks icily, with the customary Gallic charm reserved for visiting Britons. You hand him your passport and logbook.
“Non Monsieur, votre Déclaration de Détachement s’il vous plait,” he says, looking at you in a ‘betcha don’t have one of them’ way, as he reaches for his fines book.
All British haulage companies delivering to France must now comply with the following.
Have a Representative Office/Person in France
A new 5-page document in the vehicle – the ‘Déclaration de Détachement’
The driver’s employment contract in the vehicle – translated into French
Proof the driver is paid at least the French minimum wage, additional payments for overtime, compulsory wage supplements
Contract with a French Représentant, written in French and stating the following:
Full personal and company details of Représentant in France, his or her acceptance of appointment, effective date and duration of the appointment (must be valid for 18 months after driver is stopped)
Location where the documents are kept, and copies of the driver’s payslips
Fines range from €400 up to €2750 per offence.
The above is part of what's called 'Macron's Law', named after the former Economy Minister. The law was originally designed to liberate France from some of its more draconian working practices and make it more competitive.
It came into force in July of this year, after more than 3000 amendments were lodged in the French Parliament and the Government was forced to put it through under executive privilege.
At least two lessons to draw from this: 1. The Single Market started nearly 25 years ago and this is what it looks like on the ground to British companies trying to deliver British exports, and 2. The French flout EU law in this way, yet the UK is worried about the minutiae in negotiating its exit from this dysfunctional political morass.
Incidentally, this has nothing to do with Brexit – the new French law applies to truck drivers from all countries.
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A Sunday afternoon opinion piece
South of France Sunday
EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström
LAZING ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Your correspondent is currently sitting in the warm sun of the South of France with a glass of Chateauneuf de Papa-Juncker (or something like that), replete after some oysters followed by calves liver tossed in butter, enjoying the uplifting melodies of Australian-Kiwi band Crowded House on his iPhone. The EU Commission feels a long way away to him right now...
Okay, let’s get back down to earth. Trade. British trade. Stuff made in Britain. Expert British services developed in the UK, servicing the World. British goods sold around the World.
How does the EU feel about exporting outside the EU generally?
It’s in favour. Definitely. Oh yes, exporting is a good thing. No-one on the EU Commission has ever actually done any exporting but it’s definitely a good thing.
(In fact it’s mainly a Goods thing. Services are a bit trickier, but that’s something only the British worry about because they insist on making it about 80% of their economy. They should forget that and make more cheese.)
Yes, exporting is great, it makes for good headlines. World export sales of Camembert up by 0.75%, Modena olive oil up by 1.1%, Spanish biscuits doing rather well in Algeria, German solar panels up by €2m in Colombia – that sort of thing. Ja. Si. Oui.
In fact it’s such a good thing that the EU Commission has produced an "Exporters' Stories" site where you can read all about it.
It’s being promoted by the Swedish former part-time social work teacher who is the EU’s Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström. 33 stories to uplift your Brexitty-brittle little hearts. Rejoice in how your continental comrades are doing so well.
British exports? Ah… non-non-non. Or nej-nej-nej, as Ms Malmström might say. Alas the Commission doesn’t have any export stories about the UK.
Personal piece by a Facts4EU.org staffer 30 Oct 2016
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Net contributions to the EU
The BBC's and the official figures
Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi argues for Single Market membership in today's papers
PRO-REMAIN BBC CONTINUES TO DISTORT
In the last 2 weeks the BBC has again been heavily criticised for pro-Remain bias by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, numerous Tory MPs, Labour’s Kate Hoey, many MEPs, and various respected media organisations.
We present just one key example of this bias, which we pointed out during the campaign and which is still evident to this day on the BBC’s website.
WHAT ARE THE UK’S NET CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EU?
The BBC : £ 8.4 billion p.a.
Office of National Statistics : £11.0 billion p.a
The BBC's 2014 figure was used again this morning in the Mail on Sunday, by Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi. The headline was “Why leading Brexiteer believes £8.5billion is a price worth paying every year to stay in the single market”.
The one thing which is clear is that the BBC’s figure of £8.4 billion was and is simply wrong. The page on their ‘Fact Check’ site about this topic is so lacking in impartiality it would be hard to know where to start. If the BBC wishes to pay us to conduct a line-by-line textual and data analysis, we would be happy to do so.
We grew up with the BBC, like many of our readers. We wish it would once again regain a semblance of fairness and impartiality in its reporting. If it doesn’t, then it’s hard to see how the News and Current Affairs part of the organisation can continue to be justified if it wants to rely on funding from the British people.
(Note: We researched and produced articles on this subject in the last 12 months. Our sources: Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), Office of National Statistics (ONS), House of Commons Library research papers, Eurostat, and others. Fluctuations in the exchange rate and variations by different Government organisations like the OBR and ONS in calculating the net contributions produced slightly different results. None of this changes the basic fact that the BBC has not produced anything like impartial information on this or almost any other EU topic, with the exception of Andrew Neil’s excellent work.)
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Cost of the EU to the UK - an interesting picture
The EU spends UK taxpayer money in the UK, then imposes a legal obligation to display plaques, claiming the money as its own
£350 MILLION PER WEEK & THE BATTLE BUS
The Vote Leave ‘Battle Bus’ figure is often quoted by those who say the public was lied to.
So what about this “£350 million per week sent to Brussels” claim?
The Leave campaign consistently said that £350 million per week was the gross figure
In fact it’s more than this – it’s £375 million / week
This is according to the Chancellor’s Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)
And what about the ‘Gross’ versus ‘Net’ argument, and our rebate?
Vote Leave acknowledged the UK currently gets a partial rebate
However they pointed out that the rebate can’t be guaranteed
Even after the current rebate, the OBR’s net figure is £287 million / week
Was this a reasonable justification for using the gross figure?
In 2005, Tony Blair quietly gave away £10.5 billion of this rebate. The EU is now asking for even more money from the UK. Vote Leave’s argument is therefore based in fact.
What about all the EU’s money which it spends in the UK?
Whose money? The “EU’s money” is UK taxpayers’ money
Unfortunately, the UK taxpayer has no say in how the EU spends it
The EU’s spending priorities for the UK are decided in Brussels
British voters can’t vote on any ‘EU manifesto’ setting these out
Many people find it an additional insult that it’s a legal requirement for UK organisations to erect a plaque acknowledging that the EU paid for whatever it is – no mention of it being the UK’s money in the first place.
Finally we would make a generic point which seems to be missed.
However you think the final figure should have been calculated and told to the public, the EU is costing the UK a small fortune every week. Certainly enough to build schools or hospitals. Let’s not lose sight of that essential fact, to which Brexit-denying MPs have no answer.
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Labour MP Chuka Umunna shows how to deceive the viewers
But what happens when the lies are deliberate and continuous? At what point does the public say ‘ENOUGH’?
On Wednesday, prominent Labour MP and former shadow minister Chuka Umunna was interviewed by Kay Burley on Sky News. He said he is clear the UK has voted to leave the EU. Few mainstream politicians are now daring to say otherwise.
However he argued the UK should stay in the Single Market and described it as “the optimum form of relationship with Europe”. He called it the “economic part” and the “economic unit” of the EU. He added that the Single Market gave us “access to half a billion consumers in the EU”.
Well, we all want economic benefits and prosperity. However here’s what Mr Umunna deliberately didn’t say:
THE FACTS – What staying a member of the Single Market means:
Obeying the ‘4 Freedoms’, including freedom of movement of people
UK’s laws continuing to be decided by EU Commission and European Court of Justice
Continuing annual payments to the EU on a massive scale by the UK
The other costs of the Single Market, which outweigh the benefits by 3:1 (€600 billion costs versus €200 billion benefits, according to the EU Commission)
The UK trades with the EU’s 443 million consumers, not ‘half a billion’
The Single Market is bound up in 31,483 clauses in Treaties, EU case law, Directives, and Judgements.
Staying in the Single Market effectively means staying in the EU. And that means all the things which the public voted to leave on June 23rd.
Mr Umunna is an intelligent man. He knows the facts, so why does he misrepresent the EU and the Single Market so flagrantly?
Because he can do it on TV without being challenged, and because it works on the large number of the people who don’t have time to read websites like this one, and who rely on TV for their news.
Footnote from a DT interview with Kay Burley of Sky News, when she was asked if there are any politicians she fancies: “Oh, Chuka Umunna is very hot. So if he wants to give me a ring...” At least now we know why he’s so often a guest on her programme.
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John Redwood MP demolishes former Labour PM Tony Blair
Tony Blair
REDWOOD SLAYS BLAIR
Tony Blair was allowed to give an extraordinary and lengthy diatribe by the BBC on their Today Programme yesterday, where he called for a second referendum and essentially dismissed the majority vote of the British people.
Senior Tory backbencher and former minister John Redwood MP has responded. He put it so eloquently that we're reprinting his article in full, by kind permission of the author:
Mr Blair wants to thwart the wishes of the UK voters
"Yesterday Mr Blair told us all we should have another referendum or Parliament should ignore the results of the vote on leaving the EU. He took my breath away, both by the hypocrisy of his position and by the vagueness of his proposals.
"I recall Mr Blair won 3 elections in a row and formed a majority government each time. In each of those elections the South-East of England voted by a substantial majority for a Conservative government.
"I and my fellow MPs representing that Conservative majority of the South-East did not:
Turn up at Parliament and say Mr Blair had no right to govern our voters
Take a case to court to say that as the South-East of England is a larger part of the UK than Scotland and Northern Ireland combined in terms of voting population the UK government had no right to tell us what to do
Demand a re-run of the election to try and get a better nationwide result
Say that because Labour lied, telling us there would be no more boom and bust and assuring us there would be very few EU migrants, the election was null and void
Demand debates and votes on specific topics from the government in court actions when we were quite capable of tabling such debates and votes ourselves in opposition time"
"In a mature democracy like the UK we accept the verdict of the majority. A loyal Opposition in Parliament will oppose, challenge and try to influence a government, but accepts the government’s right to govern, and accepts that the main features of its manifesto have every right to pass through Parliament.
"Why does Mr Blair now think all these conventions and rules have been suspended, because this time he was on the losing side?"
In our opinion the above piece by John Redwood sums things up beautifully. In fact we think he has been very restrained. For those who missed Mr Blair's astonishingly undemocratic views, you can hear his lengthy rant on BBC Radio's Iplayer here. Mr Blair starts at 2hrs 09 mins 24secs into the programme and carries on for 15 minutes. Hear is a short clip:
HEY EUROPEANS, PROOF THAT THE BRITISH PUBLIC WAS LIED TO!
Ah, hang on there. Don’t get too excited. In fact the overwhelming majority of lies came from the Remain side.
Thanks to Brexit-denying Remain MPs, the EU’s people and the World’s media believe that the British public were deceived by the Leave campaign into voting for Brexit.
It’s repeated to them over and over again, the latest occasion being on Tuesday in the EU Parliament by the leader of the biggest political group.
The reality is that the overwhelming tsunami of lies, misrepresentations, and threats came from the Government-backed Remain campaign. The Leave campaign didn’t need to do this – simply stating truths about the EU was enough to persuade the British people.
Yes, at Facts4EU.org we didn't use Vote Leave’s £350 million per week claim because the £200 million per week net figure was equally shocking and it should have been used as it was incontrovertible.
However the gross figure which was used was actually an understatement – the true gross figure this year for UK contributions to the EU is £398 million per week. And this doesn’t even include all the misguided EU projects where the individual states are expected to cough up ‘matching funds’.
A recent example:
Frau Merkel visited Africa in the last couple of weeks. €1.8 billion euros was promised to just 5 African countries, as an inducement to stop economic migrants reaching Europe.
It’s only when you read the small print that you see the true figure is even higher - €3.6 billion. The 28 EU countries are expected to provide ‘matching funds’ – something which never appears in the ‘What the EU costs us’ narrative.
In other words, we pay our part of the extra €1.8 billion to get Mrs Merkel out of a hole before her elections next year, and then we’re expected to contribute the same again as a ‘member state’s contribution’.
(If we had a generous benefactor, we could report properly on stories like this one.)
The simple fact is that one controversial claim by Vote Leave was simply swamped by the flood of misleading and untruthful claims by the Government-backed Remain campaign.
Here’s the reality
Any objective analysis of the ‘lies’ from each side shows that when it came to deceiving the public, ‘Stronger In’ and the Government made ‘Vote Leave’ look like angelic little children.
Nevertheless, across Europe and in the World’s press, the received wisdom is that the British public were deceived by a torrent of lies from the Leave campaign. We see it daily.
When is the UK Government going to wake up and start countering this pernicious narrative? It is profoundly damaging to the reputation of Britain abroad.
Facts4EU.org 28 Oct 2016
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Part of the Nissan Sunderland Plant
EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS TODAY
Nissan announce they will build Qashqai and X-Trail SUV in Sunderland
Vote of confidence by major car manufacturer
It was only yesterday that Chuka Umunna cited Nissan as an example of bad news for Brexit
“I am pleased to announce that Nissan will continue to invest in Sunderland. Our employees there continue to make the plant a globally competitive powerhouse, producing high-quality, high-value products every day,” said Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of Nissan. One in three British cars are produced in Sunderland, which is the UK’s largest car plant of all time. In addition, 80% of production from Sunderland is exported to over 130 international markets.
Business Secretary Greg Clark said: "The fact Nissan have not only made a long-term commitment to build the next generation Qashqai and X-Trail at Sunderland, but decided to upgrade their factory to a super-plant, manufacturing over 600,000 cars a year, is proof of the strength of the sector."
"The pattern of growth continues to be broadly unaffected following the EU referendum" - ONS
REMAIN’S ‘PROJECT FEAR’: BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER
UK continues to grow faster than all major economies
Leave campaigners were RIGHT
Dire promises of immediate recession by Remainers were WRONG
Official statistics today show the UK grew at 0.5% in last 3 months
No recession, no ‘emergency punishment budget’
Just good, healthy economic growth
The process of leaving the EU won’t be easy, thanks to the vested interests of the EU elites and the UK’s Remainer MPs, and UK and international organisations who are determined to talk the UK down.
Remember their forecasts about joining the Euro?Remainer MPs and ‘experts’ were wrong then, wrong now.
The proof of the British pudding is shown today.
This is another great day for an outward-looking and positive Brexit Britain.
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Every week there are more and more organisations recanting on their pre-Referendum threats if the UK voted Leave
The World Trade Organisation is the latest
YET ANOTHER OF REMAIN'S ‘EXPERT’ ORGANISATIONS BACKTRACKS ON BREXIT
World Trade Organisation says there will be no ‘vacuum or disruption’ in UK trade
In May the Financial Times interviewed the head of the World Trade Organisation, Snr Azevedo.
The FT’s headline was “WTO warns on tortuous Brexit trade talks”
During the Referendum campaign, the WTO regularly joined in the anti-Brexit propaganda by world ‘elites’
Yesterday, Sky News interviewed Azevedo. The headline was :
“Brexit will not cause UK trade 'disruption' - WTO boss”
Despite the interviewer being Sky’s Economics Editor Ed Conway, who seemingly rejoices in anti-Brexit news, he was unable to get Azevedo to predict misery and Armageddon if the UK reverts to WTO rules on exiting the EU.
"The UK is a member of the WTO today, it will continue to be a member tomorrow. There will be no discontinuity in membership.”
"Trade will not stop, it will continue and members negotiate the legal basis under which that trade is going to happen. But it doesn't mean that we'll have a vacuum or a disruption."
"I will work very intensely to ensure that this transition is fast and is smooth."
The message from the WTO is important. If the EU refuses to do - or is incapable of doing - a quick deal to continue trading with the UK without tariffs, and without the nonsense of free movement and jurisdiction by the European Court of Justice, then converting to WTO rules is a viable option.
Not ideal, but certainly better than being a member of the Single Market – and certainly in tune with what the British people voted for.
(No apology from Azevedo for the WTO misleading the British public for months, naturally.)
Whilst the new Commons ‘Brexit Committee’ will be chaired by pro-Remain Labour MP Hilary Benn and will have a Remain majority, eight out of the ten Conservative candidates who have won election to the Committee are Leavers.
The even better news is that Anna Soubry was rejected by the electorate of Tory MPs.
Michael Gove, Peter Lilley, and Dominic Raab were successful, as were Maria Caulfield, Andrea Jenkyns, Karl McKartney, Craig Mackinley, and John Whittingdale. The two Tory Remainers were Alistair Burt and Jeremy Leroy.
The reason for the importance of a reasonable number of Leave-supporting MPs is that they are more likely to take a positive approach to the scrutiny of the Government’s Brexit strategy.
We anticipate that the majority of Remainers on the Committee will use the opportunity to grandstand their views on why the Public should never have voted Leave. We do not need yet another re-run of the Referendum campaign, as the Public have already decided we should leave the EU.
27 Oct 2016
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Prime Minister May on Saturday
Secretary of State for International Trade Dr Liam Fox
Is the Government aware that it can negotiate free trade agreements in full, with the rest of the World, right now?
IS THE GOVERNMENT AWARE IT CAN NEGOTIATE FREE TRADE DEALS WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD RIGHT NOW?
It would seem not. Someone needs to tell the Prime Minister and Secretary for International Trade.
Question from Jonathan Djanogly, MP for Huntingdon :
“Technically, it seems that the UK cannot enter into trade deals with third-party countries while we are still a member of the EU.”
Answer from the Prime Minister :
“My hon. Friend is right that there is a limit to what we can do when it comes to entering into a trade arrangement before we have left the EU, but that does not mean that we cannot scope out negotiations and start to have those discussions.”
This is not the case - the UK can so much more.
Facts4EU.org gave our opinion on 5th September based on the Treaties, that the UK could start immediately negotiating Free Trade Agreements with the rest of the World, ready to start on the day of exit from the EU.
This was then confirmed by the EU legal experts at Lawyers for Britain, whose opinion we published on 5th October. They state that ‘The EU may not prevent the UK negotiating and entering into such treaties providing that they will not come into force until the UK withdraws from the EU.’
Can someone please inform the PM and the Dept for International Trade?
The UK should be going full steam ahead on this, ready for the formal day of Brexit.
The splendid 'Member for the early 19th century' succeeded in getting a guarantee from the PM about UK laws post-Brexit, which precludes the possibility of Single Market Membership.
MAY RULES OUT SINGLE MARKET MEMBERSHIP
In the Commons on Monday, the PM gave an answer which rules out the possibility of the UK staying a member of the Single Market
45 second video, courtesy of the excellent team at Parliament.tv
Question from Jacob Rees-Mogg :
“Will she confirm my understanding that once we have left the European Union, the European Court of Justice will have no jurisdiction of any kind whatsoever as the final arbiter of any UK law?”
Answer from the Prime Minister :
“When we leave the European Union, UK laws will be determined here in the UK. It will be British judges sitting here in the UK who opine on the application of those laws, and it will be this House that determines the legislation that covers the British people.”
Membership of the Single Market is an integral part of membership of the EU. It requires subservience to the European Court of Justice.
The Prime Minister’s answer above makes clear that the UK will not remain a member of the Single Market.
It was the clearest indication yet from the PM, as it was delivered at the despatch box in Parliament. “British judges sitting here in the UK” will decide on the application of laws. “UK laws will be determined here in the UK”.
The PM has not made this point so clearly before in Parliament, and it will not be lost on the politicians and bureaucrats of Brussels. She gave her views during her speech at the Conservative Party Conference, but that had none of the power of a statement in the House of Commons.
The Prime Minister has ruled out ‘Free Movement’ – a principle of the Single Market enshrined in EU Treaties and law – and has now ruled out jurisdiction of the ECJ.
Will she please now come out and say that Single Market membership is therefore not on the table?
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Magdalena Andersson, the Swedish finance minister
Respected Civitas thinktank has produced a report based on actual data for imports and exports with the EU
EU Countries most hurt if there's no trade deal :
UK IN STRONG POSITION WITH EU TRADE TALKS
If the EU refuses a trade deal and the UK has to go to WTO tariffs, the cost to the EU will be much higher than for the UK, due to the fall in the pound’s value.
UK’s exports are now much cheaper because the Pound has fallen
The Pound has fallen 17.6% against the Euro. This makes our exports to the EU (and to the World) much cheaper and more attractive to foreign buyers.
Overall, if the EU-UK trade reverts to WTO tariffs, British products will still be cheaper despite the tariffs, and EU customers will continue to buy them. Even with the extra tariffs which the EU would apply to cars (9-10%), for example, vehicles exported from the UK would still be about 8% cheaper than at present, because of the currency effect.
The EU’s World Trade Organisation ‘Most Favoured Nation’ tariffs vary wildly, based on protectionist measures by various EU countries for their own interests. In total value terms they are about 5.8% on average for what the UK buys, although they range between zero and 43%. These are referred to in the EU as ‘the Common External tariffs’.
WTO Option : EU’s exports to the UK would be much more expensive
It’s the opposite for EU companies trying to sell into the UK. Not only would they face tariffs, they would also have to sell at higher prices because of the exchange rate. If sold in Euros, their products are already 21% more expensive, because of the fall in the value of the Pound.
If you then add 10% tariffs onto German cars, BMW and Audi and Volkswagen are going to suffer big falls in sales. Then add 32% onto EU beef, lamb and pork and onto Dutch chickens. The British consumer will buy far, far less of them and EU farmers will be out marching in the streets.
So, the EU’s sales to the UK will fall, and this has already started. Even without tariffs, the Swedish Finance Minister said yesterday that Swedish exports to the UK have fallen by 19% since the start of 2016. “A weak British pound affects Swedish exports companies, and that could of course affect the Swedish economy,” she said. Britain is Sweden’s third biggest foreign market.
There are 2 great benefits to the UK, if the EU refused to do a trade deal or found it couldn’t get agreement from all 27 countries.
If the EU forces the UK to go to the “WTO Tariffs Option”, the UK consumer will naturally look first to UK manufacturers and farmers to find what they’re looking for. These products will be cheaper than the EU equivalents, thanks to new EU tariffs and the fall in the Pound. UK producers will therefore see a benefit and will wish to ramp up production (and employment) accordingly. This will also have a beneficial effect on the UK’s balance of payments.
Secondly, there will be added impetus for the Secretary for International Trade, Dr Liam Fox, to negotiate trade deals with all our friends around the World. A large number of countries have already expressed their keenness to do this and it’s clear that the UK will be able to buy many products far more cheaply from them, than from the dysfunctional EU.
See details below from Civitas import-export report.
Respected Civitas thinktank has produced a report based on actual data for imports and exports with the EU
EU Countries most hurt if there's no trade deal :
IF THERE’S NO TRADE DEAL WITH THE EU?
THE EU WILL A BE NET £8 BILLION WORSE OFF IN TARIFFS
Major study shows effect on the UK and the EU if no trade deal is reached on Brexit after 2 years.
The EU would be worse off by almost £8 billion in tariffs - net
22 out of the 27 EU countries would be hit
Germany would face 3.8 times the total tariffs faced by the UK
France and Italy’s total tariffs would be 2 times and 2.5 times higher, respectively
Biggest areas by value – Vehicles and Food :
Vehicles represent the biggest area of trade by value
The EU27’s total vehicle tariffs would be 3 times higher than the UK’s
Next comes food: meat, fish, dairy, fruit and vegetables
The EU27’s total food tariffs would be almost 3.5 times higher than the UK’s
The 10 EU Countries Hit Hardest, In Order :
Germany, Netherlands, France, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Sweden (see graph to the right)
These include all the countries at the power-centre of the EU, who will strongly influence the outcome of trade talks.
Brexiteers have consistently argued that a Brexit in 2 years’ time with no trade deal in place will hurt the EU27 far more than it would hurt the UK. This is the “They can’t afford not to do a deal” argument.
Yesterday the substantial and detailed analysis of the UK’s imports and exports, produced by Justin Protts, Research Fellow of the respected Civitas thinktank, backs this up with hard evidence.
In fact, the EU’s problems are even worse than this report shows. We will shortly produce a further article above.
Ukraine managed to sign a free trade deal with Canada in July - after just 2 years.
The EU still hasn't managed it after 12 years.
The Canadian trade minister left for home last week, making clear her disgust before she left.
THE WALLOON BALLOON GOES UP
Final EU ultimatum to Belgium’s French speakers over EU-Canada trade deal is ignored
“We’ve been confronted with an empty chair on Sunday and the silence from the Walloon representatives this morning.”
Belgian President Charles Michel, this afternoon
At 17.15 this afternoon, EU Council President Tusk has a phone call scheduled with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, which may prove awkward.
The Walloons from the southern French-speaking part of Belgium have today ignored the final ultimatum from the EU to ratify the Free Trade Deal with Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was supposed to be flying in from Canada for the formal signing ceremony on Thursday. On his call this afternoon, President Tusk will have to explain that after 12 years of trade talks, (the last 7 of which have been on the specifics of the latest incarnation called CETA), the EU can’t proceed as planned.
Timeline of Canada-EU Summits:
2004 : Ottawa, deal framework was agreed, negotiations started
2009 : Prague, negotiations were rebranded as CETA trade deal
2014 : Toronto, a signed ‘in principle’ agreement was presented
2016 : Brussels, deal is vetoed by Belgian region of Wallonia
Let’s stop talking about the UK’s prospects post-Brexit, what about the EU’s?
British TV journalists, Remain MPs, and EU Presidents all talk about Brexit being a disaster for the UK.
The UK has been the fastest-growing major economy in the World for several years. It’s therefore not surprising that the departure of the UK will have a devastating impact on the EU’s combined economy.
For some reason this is almost never mentioned on TV, rarely in the press, and never by EU politicians keen to stoke the fires of anti-democratic Remainerism in the UK.
Once again, the facts show that the UK is a significant force economically and the Government needs to start shouting about this. What on earth is going on within the Civil Service’s PR departments?
The chart clearly shows that the UK is in a powerful position to negotiate excellent terms for a simple exit. The UK should give a kind offer to let the EU continue to trade with the UK tariff-free.
If EU national leaders reject this for their own political reasons, their electorates will judge them and so will the rest of the World.
We’re sorry you’ve been messed around by the EU for the last 12 years. We understand the frustrations of your International Trade Minister Ms Freeland, who gave up with the EU bureaucracy and flew home yesterday.
Now you know why the UK had to leave this failing institution. To paraphrase what Chrystia Freeland said yesterday, if the EU can’t deal with a friendly country like Canada, who can it deal with?
Here’s a suggestion…
Invite our friendly International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox over to see you.
Contrary to what you might have been told, the UK is legally able to agree trade deals right now. The deals can’t start until we officially leave the EU, but everything could be signed and sorted ready to press the button on our leaving day.
Yours in friendly cooperation, The British people
P.S. The moment the UK leaves the EU in 2 years’ time (or less), the EU market will be 18% smaller. Did they offer you some concessions to compensate for your proposed income falling by nearly a fifth? Nope, thought not.
P.P.S. The EU will sign with you in the end. They’ll quietly threaten and bribe the Walloons in equal measure until they cave in. The public won’t be told, as that’s the EU way. However just remember, we British are ever so nice to deal with! "
Facts4EU.Org Sunday, 23 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
Bringing you the facts
Ukraine managed to sign a free trade deal with Canada in July - after just 2 years.
The EU still hasn't managed it after 12 years.
CAN THE EU GET ANY MORE DYSFUNCTIONAL?
EU FAILS TO AGREE CANADA TRADE DEAL AFTER 12 YEARS – CANADA WALKS OUT IN DISGUST
“It seems evident to me, and to Canada, that the EU is now not capable of having an international agreement, even with a country that has values as European as Canada.”
Canadian Trade Minister, Brussels, 21 October 2016
12 years after Canada started trade talks with the EU, the CETA trade deal was in tatters yesterday, with the Canadian Minister walking out, describing the EU as “not capable”.
In July, Ukraine signed a Free Trade Deal with Canada after just 2 years, despite a civil war raging.
Timeline of Canada-EU Summits:
2004 : Ottawa, deal framework was agreed, negotiations started
2009 : Prague, negotiations were rebranded as CETA trade deal
2014 : Toronto, a signed ‘in principle’ agreement was presented
2016 : Brussels, deal is vetoed by Belgian region of Wallonia
The very upset Canadian Trade Minister (with spoken translation):
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FACTS4EU.ORG
Bringing you the facts
NICK ‘CLEGG-ON-HIS-FACE’ - DESTROYED ON THE SINGLE MARKET
The BBC’s Daily Politics team gently pointed out how wrong he is, live on air yesterday
2 minutes of pure joy for Leavers who are brassed off at Remoaner MPs failing to accept the democratically-expressed will of the British people :
Mr Clegg, the British people voted to leave the EU. The Single Market is an integral part of the EU.
They voted for full control of immigration, for sovereignty, for supremacy of UK laws, and for stopping the massive annual payments to the EU. Staying in the Single Market means none of these.
What part of Brexit is hard to understand?
[Source : @daily_politics Twitter feed ] 21 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
Bringing you the facts
EU Council President Donald Tusk
THE BRELEPHANT IN THE BRUSSELS ROOM
This is the second day of talks in Brussels and the topic of Brexit had 5 minutes at 1am last night
The leaders of the 28 EU countries, including Prime Minister May, are meeting in Brussels for a two day EU Council Summit.
Yesterday's Agenda :
Migration crisis
Syria and Russia
Follow-up on last Summit, to which the PM wasn’t invited
Final Day's Agenda :
"Reiterate the EU's commitment to a trade policy benefitting from open markets and heeding citizens' concerns"
"Discuss the modernisation of Trade Instruments, which aim to tackle unfair trade practices"
"Assess the state of play of free trade agreement negotiations with key partners"
In case no-one has noticed, there’s a Brelephant in the room and it’s called Brexit. This is one of the most fundamental and existential issues for the EU, and yet it’s not on the agenda.
In typical EU fashion, the EU leaders and bureaucrats are sticking to the line “There will be no negotiations until Article 50 is triggered by the UK” (EU Council President Tusk)
No-one is suggesting that the EU Council should start negotiating in detail today. However for Brexit not even to be on the agenda shows how the EU political elites have learnt nothing from the cataclysmic shock of the UK’s vote to leave their sclerotic and dysfunctional political project.
“The European Economic Area (EEA) unites the [27] EU Member States and the 3 EEA EFTA States (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) into an Internal Market governed by the same basic rules. These rules aim to enable goods, services, capital, and persons to move freely about the EEA in an open and competitive environment, a concept referred to as the four freedoms.” (EFTA website)
In plain English :
The ‘halfway house’ solution of staying in the EEA and joining EFTA – sometimes referred to as ‘Soft Brexit’ – isn’t Brexit. This is not what the majority voted for in the Referendum.
There’s a myth spreading across the internet largely unchallenged, that if the UK left the EU but stayed in the EEA and also joined EFTA, then it would have escaped from the binding decisions of the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ).
Technically it’s true that the EFTA court may shadow the ECJ and its decisions are only ‘advisory’ and so the UK could just ignore them if it chose. The reality is very different.
From an article in Monckton Chambers’ Brexit Blog, by Michael-James Clifton, Chef de Cabinet of the EFTA Court in Luxembourg, he writes in a personal capacity that EFTA’s ‘Surveillance Authority’ must :
“ensure that the EEA/EFTA States live up to their obligations under the EEA Agreement by fully, correctly and timely transposing the common Internal Market rules (the acquis communautaire) into their domestic legal order and by applying these rules correctly.”
In plain English :
This means the UK would continue to be bound by laws made by European courts.
“The EFTA Court was founded in 1994 and shall follow relevant ECJ rulings handed down prior to the date of signature of the EEA Agreement (2 May 1992). This aimed at ensuring that from the outset the Single Market playing field was perfectly flat. The EFTA Court is required also to pay ‘due account’ to all subsequent relevant ECJ jurisprudence. In practice, the EFTA Court makes no distinction between the two and pays equal regard to post 1994 ECJ case-law.”
In plain English :
This means that the EFTA Court follows the same laws as the European Court of Justice – something Brexit is supposed to free the UK from. Very few people would describe this as having ‘taken back control’ of our laws.
OPINION Of course the UK could try to join EFTA, and stay in the EEA, on the basis that it intends to treat judgments of the EFTA Court as merely advisory. It could also intend to abuse the EEA Article 112 safeguard measures permanently to restrict freedom of movement of persons from other EEA states.
We suggest that this is an illusory wish. As one senior MP wrote yesterday: “The EEA is yet another legal construct with freedom of movement and financial contributions attached.”
The British people didn’t vote to leave the EU and yet still have free movement, laws made in Europe, and continuing payments to the EU. Brexit therefore doesn’t mean EEA and EFTA membership.
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FACTS4EU.ORG
Bringing you the facts
New Chancellor admits the Treasury got it wrong
CHANCELLOR ADMITS TREASURY (AND CAMERON & OSBORNE) WERE WRONG ABOUT BREXIT
Remember the Treasury Report which said every family would be £4,300 worse off if the UK voted Leave? Even the Chancellor now says the assumptions it used were 'invalid'.
In evidence to the Treasury Select Committee yesterday, Philip Hammond finally admitted the Treasury’s Project Fear forecasts in April were wrong.
On the Treasury’s short-term forecasts :
He said they assumed there would be no policy response to a Leave vote – “and yet the Bank of England has made such policy responses”
On the Treasury’s long-term Brexit forecasts he said :
“They did not take into account some of the mitigations that we would expect to be delivered”
“They did not assume we would enter into any new Free Trade Agreements”
“The model doesn’t capture all of the potential outcomes”
On the future of the Treasury’s forecasts he said :
“Some of those assumptions have already proved to be invalid”
“The Government’s position is that we will not be seeking to pursue any of these modelled outcomes”
This is the same report which claimed that every family in Britain would lose £4,300 – a claim constantly repeated by Messrs Cameron and Osborne.
The new Chancellor is effectively now saying that the Treasury produced forecasts which are unusable.
This is what we and many others said at the time, accusing the Treasury of distorting the truth and creating more ‘Project Fear’.
Unfortunately it seems that someone needs to tell the Treasury – last week they used the same data to produce a revised report about Brexit for the Cabinet. It’s as if they want to continue to talk down the UK’s prospects in an attempt to make their forecasts come true.
Their Lordships have retired to consider their verdict
Yesterday was the final day of High Court hearings, brought about by vexed Remainers against the Crown, to deny the express will of the British people.
Before the Referendum, in Parliament and in the media, the Government made it repeatedly plain that the Referendum was not advisory and that it would submit the Article 50 notice if the public voted to leave. This is beyond dispute.
The hearings took place over three days and the arguments were complex, as is so often the case with anything to do with the EU.
When do we hear?
"We shall take time to consider the matter and will give our judgements as quickly as possible," said Lord Chief Justice Thomas
Whatever the verdict, the losing side will almost certainly appeal to the Supreme Court, so a final verdict is unlikely before December
Knowing that 74% of MPs backed Remain, some politicians, private individuals, and organisations want Parliament to decide whether to trigger Article 50.
It is perfectly obvious that these legal cases were brought in the hope that Parliamentarians will refuse to support the will of the British people.
Strange how the lack of sovereignty of Parliament wasn’t something that worried these Remainers during 43 years of EU rule.
Staying inside the EU Customs Union post-Brexit would mean the UK couldn’t govern its own trade domestically or abroad, couldn’t do free trade deals, would be subject to the continuing jurisdiction of EU law and courts, and would have no vote on these matters.
Anti-democratic Brexit-deniers must face facts : Tim Farron and Nick Clegg (LibDems), Keir Starmer (Lab) and Angus Robertson (SNP), Ken Clarke (Con) and Emily Thornberry (Lab), Nicky Morgan (Con) and Anna Soubry (Con)
Q : DID WE VOTE TO LEAVE THE SINGLE MARKET?
A : YES
Leaders of the large anti-democratic Remain group in Parliament say we never voted to leave the Single Market. They say this wasn’t clear.
It was perfectly clear. Here’s the Co-Chairman of the official Vote Leave campaign on the BBC:
Brexit-deniers such as Starmer, Clegg, Miliband, Thornberry, Clarke, Osborne, Farron and many others describe leaving the Single Market, bizarrely, as ‘Hard Brexit’, as if it’s something the voters didn’t know about.
We repeat once again: There’s either Brexit or no Brexit. This was even confirmed by EU Council President Tusk last week when he said : “the only real alternative to a ‘hard Brexit’ is ‘no Brexit’.
Being in the Single Market basically means being in the EU – it means free movement, laws made in Brussels, and continuing to make massive financial contributions.
Brexit means no longer being in the Single Market, but accessing it as over 160 countries worldwide do very successfully.
[ Sources: EU Council | BBC on Youtube ]
17 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
Telling it like it is
David Cameron and President Juncker of the EU Commission
The UK Government and the World all ganged up to brainwash the British people
The Chancellor and the Treasury threw everything they had at the vote, with extraordinary claims
Even President Obama was flown in to tell the UK how to vote
WAS THE RESULT GENUINELY CLOSE? - PART TWO
THE MOST BRAZEN BRAINWASHING ATTEMPT EVER?
In a normal world the result would have been 60-40 for Leave
If the massed ranks of Government, Political Parties, Banks, Business, Unions, Science, Education, Sport, Charities, TV journalists, International Organisations and Foreign Governments had stayed neutral, does anyone genuinely think the result would not have been at least 60% to leave the EU?
It’s not the slightest exaggeration to describe this as having been a David against Goliath contest.
The Remain campaign was Government-backed. For months it pointed out on a daily basis that Leave had virtually no ‘experts’ nor major organisations on their side. This was compounded with dire threats of immediate recessions and emergency budgets, massive job losses, property crashes, losing £4300 per family, and almost anything else Remain could think of, including wars.
The key factor was that this mass-propaganda had the authority of the Government. It dissuaded a large number of ordinary voters whose natural inclination would otherwise have been to vote Leave.
In a democracy the opinion that matters is that of the electorate, not the ‘elitorate’.
For the ordinary people of the United Kingdom to reject the state-sponsored attempt at brainwashing - including monstrous claims of dire consequences - and to vote for the opposite, was nothing short of a magnificent triumph for democracy.
It’s our contention that the final result of 52% would have been far higher, had people not been quite understandably dissuaded from voting Leave by the disproportionately-powerful propaganda campaign by the Government and institutions.
A few examples of just some of the organisations and people who were pro-EU and tried to push the British people into voting to Remain :-
UK Governments & Political Parties : The UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government, Labour Party, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru, Ulster Unionists, Sinn Fein, SDLP, Alliance Party
Ministers : The Prime Minister, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Defence Secretary, and 19 other Cabinet Ministers (80% of Cabinet in total)
Other politicians and entities : 74% of all MPs, vast majority of the House of Lords, the TUC, Mayor of London, the Bank of England and the Treasury (unofficially), almost all senior civil servants and Ambassadors (unofficially), major City Councils including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield
Banks : HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, George Soros, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Chairman of Barclays, CEO of Lloyds
Business : The CBI, City of London Corporation, Heads of Ryanair, Easyjet, Marks & Spencer, Asda, Vodafone, BT, Virgin, and 36 of the FTSE 100 companies, 90% of economists, Institute for Fiscal Studies, Lord Sugar, 7 of BBC’s ‘Dragons’, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, Michael Bloomberg, Charles Dunstone, Bill Gates, and more than 1,000 other business leaders
International financial ‘authorities’: The IMF, OECD, World Bank, G7, G20, European Central Bank, World Trade Organisation
Security : 13 senior former Chiefs of Defence Staff and generals, former heads of GCHQ and JIC, former heads of police services, NATO Sec Gen, Head of Europol
Society : NFU, Universities UK, National Union of Students, NHS Chief Executive, the Head of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, Church of Wales, Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and many other organisations in society
Media : BBC, Sky, and ITV journalists (unofficially), the Times and the Financial Times
Science : Sir Stephen Hawking plus 150 other Fellows of the Royal Society, 13 British Nobel laureates, the Astronomer Royal
Sport : All 20 Premier League football clubs, David Beckham, Arsene Wenger, Gary Lineker, Rio Ferdinand, Paula Radcliffe, Brian Moore, Lawrence Dallaglio, Bobby George, Ben Ainslie
‘Celebrities’ : Elton John, Daniel Craig, Jude Law, Bill Nighy, Simon Cowell, J K Rowling, Jeremy Clarkson, Keira Knightly, Danny Boyle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Damon, Paloma Faith, Jamie Oliver, and hundreds more ‘celebs’ of all kinds, 96% of the Creative Industries Federation
Charities : RSPB, World Wildlife Fund UK, Heads and former Heads of other major charities including Save The Children
International Politics : The EU Commission, European Parliament, and 27 EU countries, President Obama, Hilary and Bill Clinton, 8 former US Treasury Secretaries, Kofi Annan, PMs of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, President of China, Japanese Government, and most foreign governments worldwide
The above are merely some examples of the machine lined up against natural Leave voters.
[Sources : We have all the links but there are far too many to put here.]
17 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
Exposing the facts
This is how last minute voter registrations went on the supposed 'final day'
And this is what happened during the unprecedented 2-day extension - exactly as predicted
DO REMAINERS GENUINELY THINK THE RESULT WAS CLOSE? - PART ONE
HOW THE CAMERON GOVERNMENT TRIED TO FIX THE REFERENDUM RESULT
Was this the biggest gerrymandering exercise in UK history?
In early June, polls were showing that Leave had a chance of winning
Voter registrations rocketed – on the ‘final day’ 525,246 registered to vote
That’s over half a million people in one single day
401,666 of these people were under 45 – the most likely to vote Remain
However, 100 minutes before the midnight deadline on 7th June, the online registration system started malfunctioning. The next morning we proposed that the system be re-opened on 9th June for 100 minutes.
What happened next?
The Government re-opened registrations for an extra two days
2 days, to compensate for only 1 hour and 40 minutes of downtime
This required an unprecedented emergency law to be rushed through Parliament
The Government and BBC went into overdrive, urging people to register
Huge social media campaigns were launched, persuading young people to register to vote Remain
What were the results?
By the end of the two days, 436,344 more people had registered to vote
77.3% of these people were under 45, the most likely to vote Remain
Only 2.8% of the extra voters were over 65, the most likely to vote Leave
In the run-up to the original deadline, the Government had firm evidence that last-minute registrations were mostly young people, who were highly likely to vote Remain.
16 days before the vote, they then changed the rules for registration.
We consider this to have been a breathtaking abuse of power to try to fix a Remain result.
If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
This was pure gerrymandering in our opinion. There should be an enquiry, with a panel being made up of Leave and Remain in equal proportions.
Celebrity compere Adrian Chiles was booked by the BoE
SUNDAY LAUGHS, PART TWO
Laugh no. 2, courtesy of the Governor of the Bank of England
Not content with more media appearances per month than fellow-Canadian Justin Bieber, Mark Carney wants to ensure we see more of him. If you couldn’t get tickets for the latest gig on Mr Carney's UK tour, don’t worry. The Bank of England's new YouTube Channel was videoing it.
In Birmingham Mr Carney (non-politically) opened with his speech: “How can the Bank, with its responsibility for monetary and financial stability, support the most vulnerable members of society?”
Clearly not a political speech in any way... He was then asked questions.
Q: “In general are politicians a help or a hindrance to your work?”
A: “We’re not going to take instruction on our policies from the political side.”
We hesitate to ask how much this jamboree cost. And why it was necessary to go out to the ‘celeb circuit’ to employ Adrian Chiles as compere at an advertised cost of up to £15,000...?
Following on from his pro-Remain role during the Referendum, if Mr Carney wants to pretend he’s not political we can only say we have to laugh.
A SPECIAL 10-PART REPORT FROM THE FACTS4EU.ORG TEAM
Below are 10 one-minute articles about the Single Market.
If you like this work, please send it to friends and post it widely online!
Special link : http://facts4eu.org/brexit_and_the_single_market.shtml
Remainers, why all the moaning about UK possibly leaving Single Market? We all knew what we were voting for, sure Cameron & Osborne told us pic.twitter.com/w9wnmKOEKM
1. What is 'the Single Market'?
2. What is it worth and how much does it cost the UK?
3. Why does this question affect the value of the Pound so much?
4. Did the UK vote mean a vote to leave it?
5. What about the City and 'financial passports'?
6-9. The OECD's 2016 devastating report on the Single Market
10. Has it made the UK wealthier?
We have extensively researched this using official EU documents and data, as well as official Government data and information from institutions such as the OECD and IMF.
15 October 2016
PART ONE -WHAT IS 'THE SINGLE MARKET'? WE GIVE YOU THE SIMPLE FACTS
The Single Market isn’t about trade, it’s about politics
1. No other trading bloc in the world:
Demands political obedience
Demands open borders
Imposes its own social laws on members
Imposes its tax system on members
Has its own (failing) currency
Is forming its own army
Has shown no growth since 2008
Demands £10bn per year membership fee
The ‘Single Market’ should really be called the ‘Single Government’
2. Despite the hype, there's no visible effect on the UK’s growth rate in 30 years
30 years is surely long enough to see the effects of this 'Single Market'?
If the Single Market is so important, why didn't UK's growth rate jump?
3. The Single Market is based on goods not services - only 21% of UK economy is goods
Previous Governments (including Messrs Osborne and Cameron) talked of the EU 'completing the Single Market' as being vital
What they mean is that it should have been extended to cover services long ago
Services make up almost 80% of UK economy
In 30 years, the EU still has no effective single market in services
In the EU, when something's in the UK's interests, it doesn't get done
4. The Single Market is intrinsically bound into EU Membership
The term 'Single Market' doesn't appear anywhere in the EU treaties
Instead it is referred to as the 'internal market'
It includes the 4 freedoms - goods, services, capital and people - and requires subjection to the European Court of Justice
The EU legal database contains 31,483 documents relating to the internal market - Treaties, International agreements, Legislation, EFTA documents, Consolidated legislation, Preparatory acts, EU case law, Directives, Judgements, Decisions etc
5. Over 160 countries trade happily with the EU, without joining the Single Market
If the UK leaves the EU, trade will carry on
The UK will negotiate a 'British Option' - a trade deal in the UK's interests
Even falling back on WTO arrangements will still be better than the current system
No more mass immigration, no more EU-imposed laws, no more EU politics
Just good profitable trade, the way the rest of the world has done it for years
1 Note: The graph showing average growth was produced from ONS data.
15 October 2016
WINNING THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT with Facts4EU.org
PART TWO
Costs and Benefits
UK payments to EU since we joined. Click below to enlarge.
THE EU'S SINGLE MARKET AND FREE TRADE DEALS WITH THE WORLD
Here is how well a country like Australia has done
And here are the results of the EU's efforts
WHAT’S THE SINGLE MARKET WORTH TO THE UK?
Here’s a summary of the benefits and costs of the Single Market – using official EU data
Q: Any benefit to GDP? A: Virtually none.
In 2012 the EU Commission claimed the Single Market had raised EU GDP by 2.13% in 20 years
So that’s just 0.1% per year, compared to a UK average of 2.5% p.a. over the last 60 years
And this is from the EU, who normally exaggerate their achievements.
Q: Is there any job creation which could make it worthwhile? A: No.
In the 16 years to 2008, “The Single Market helped to create 2.77 million new jobs – a 1.3% increase in total EU employment.” (EU Commission)
That’s only 16,500 UK jobs per year, compared to 434,000 jobs created by the UK in the last year.
UK created 26 times more jobs than the Single Market managed.
Q: Is the cost worth it? A: No, it costs more than it generates.
Up to 4% of EU GDP, twice the estimated benefits of the Single Market, according to Lord Mandelson when EU Trade Commissioner.
Up to 7% of EU GDP, according to the then Chancellor Gordon Brown, referring to “barriers to external trade and investment - such as tariffs, quotas and unjustifiably restrictive standards”
6% of EU GDP (or €600 billion) according to the EU Commission in 2006 and again in 2009. “These administrative costs reflect activities directly related to the compliance with information requirements contained in legislation, such as the time and effort in filling out forms.”
So that makes the costs of the Single Market 2-3 times the supposed benefits.
In the last year the UK has created 26 times more jobs than the Single Market has.
And this comes from the EU, following detailed research by Facts4EU.org.
WHY DOES THIS QUESTION AFFECT THE VALUE OF THE POUND SO MUCH?
In recent weeks, Government statements on the Single Market have caused falls in the Pound
There are several reasons :
UK and international Banks were almost all pro-Remain
They want the UK’s continued membership of the Single Market because it means the UK doesn’t truly leave the EU
The EU’s propaganda about its Single Market is believed by many people
The same misinformation is propagated by the Treasury & Bank of England
Very, very few people understand the Single Market – including ForEx dealers
Even fewer know the short facts we have set out in this simple series of articles
It is accepted internationally that the Pound was overvalued before the vote and had been falling for some time. Some further depreciation was necessary, and it is certainly beneficial for the UK’s exports. It’s now reaching what many consider to be its natural level.
The Government urgently needs to conduct a PR/education campaign to explain the Single Market to a wide domestic and international audience.
15 Oct 2016
WINNING THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT with Facts4EU.org
PART FOUR
What did the UK vote for?
DID THE UK VOTE TO LEAVE THE SINGLE MARKET?
The simple answer is yes
Britain’s continued membership of the Single Market is currently a hot topic. MPs, Members of the House of Lords, and a wide variety of professional and other pressure groups are claiming that no-one voted to leave the Single Market.
They say that this wasn’t made clear during the Referendum campaign. This is simply not true. Here are the Prime Minister and the Chancellor :
Remainers, why all the moaning about UK possibly leaving Single Market? We all knew what we were voting for, sure Cameron & Osborne told us pic.twitter.com/w9wnmKOEKM
And here is what Stronger IN (the official Remain campaign) said:
“There is no country that has full access to the single market without paying in to the EU budget and there is no country that has full access to the single market without accepting free movement of people. Given that Leave campaigners have committed to ending free movement completely and to ending all budget contributions, they would therefore be unable to retain access to the single market”
It may be possible to negotiate a deal with the EU which gives the UK very similar trading arrangements as at present. However it's unlikely that this could involve Britain being IN the Single Market, as this involves all the things the British people voted against.
This was clear during the Referendum campaign, as we have shown above.
Essentially, financial passports allow a financial services firm to trade in another country using an approval from the regulator in their home country. In the case of the UK, this is the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
On 17 Aug the FCA reported the numbers of outgoing passports for UK firms, and the number of incoming passports for EU firms.
5,476 UK firms have a passport to do business in another EU country
8,008 EU firms have a passport to do business in the UK
So that’s 46% more EU firms having UK passports than UK firms having EU passports.
The EU has recently introduced the concept of 'equivalence' of regulatory regimes in other countries and new permissions will come into force on 1st Jan 2018, before the UK leaves. With two centuries as the most innovative financial market in the World, we fully expect the City will carry on as usual, using its customary ingenuity.
Largely unreported, the OECD produced an 86-page damning 2016 assessment of the EU's SINGLE MARKET
In June we analysed this devastating 86-page OECD report in detail, to summarise it for campaigners and voters. We have updated this to highlight the Single Market.
We think it sheds a completely different light on the whole question of the UK's access to the Single Market post-Brexit.
This is definitely recommended reading for all international foreign exchange dealers, as well as the anti-democratic Brexit-deniers in Parliament and elsewhere.
A summary, details, and graphs are all below. You may never look at the Single Market the same way again.
15 Oct 2016
WINNING THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT with Facts4EU.org
PART SEVEN
OECD 2016 says Single Market 'unfinished and stalled'
SUMMARY OF SINGLE MARKET'S FAILURE, BY OECD
KEY FINDINGS:
EU Single Market remains ‘unfinished and stalled’ after 30 years
Goods market ‘far from fully integrated’, services market far worse
‘Unjustified and disproportionate requirements’ for services (80% of UK economy)
Services growth in last 3 years only 0.1% of EU GDP
Single Market suffers from high level of regulation
EU’s promises to reduce excessive regulations ‘remain to be implemented’
Single Market isn’t ‘single’ – big variations by country
And here's what the rest of the World has been doing
FINALLY A REMINDER... IF THE SINGLE MARKET IS SO ESSENTIAL
Why has there been no obvious growth effect for the UK?
CONCLUSION
On leaving, the UK will wish to continue trading with the remaining EU27.
All the product and services regulations are already in place so if it wants to, the EU can simply maintain the status quo and continue to sell the UK £87 billion per year more than the UK sells to the EU.
We showed above how in June the OECD - strongly pro-Remain - described the Single Market as 'unfinished and stalled'.
We showed how the costs outweigh the benefits, according to the EU itself.
We have also showed that, in effect, the Single Market is the EU, contained in over 31,000 EU legal documents and treaties.
Over the years the EU has regularly made claims that the full implementation of the Single Market will produce an uplift in GDP of 4.5 - 6%. In almost 25 years, this has never materialised.
Following Brexit, let's trade with the EU by all means, but let's not pretend that the Single Market isn't simply part of the EU's failed political project.
The future for the UK looks a whole lot brighter when the shackles are off and it can trade successfully with the rest of the World again.
BREXIT: Making Britain Wealthier and More Successful Again
[Sources: Office of National Statistics | IMF World Economic Outlook Database ]
Facts4EU.Org 15 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour's Shadow Brexit Minister, who proposed yesterday's motion in Parliament
LABOUR WANTS VOTE BEFORE ARTICLE 50
Shadow Brexit Minister wants another debate on Article 50 - and a vote on it
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s Shadow Brexit Minister, outlined their strategy on Article 50 during yesterday’s debate in Parliament.
Yesterday’s debate was about ‘scrutiny’, he said
Next debate will be about Parliament voting on Article 50
Government insists it can use ‘Royal Prerogative’ and doesn’t need Parliament’s approval
Q (Alex Salmond) : “Is [he] calling for a vote, not just an examination, on the terms before we send the Secretary of State off to negotiate?”
A (Keir Starmer) : “Absolutely, but I take this in two stages because both are important. Scrutiny—putting the plans before the House—really matters. There is a separate argument about a vote, and I say that there should be a vote”
Anti-Brexit MPs appear to want to vote on a full Brexit strategy before Article 50 is invoked. Linking the two in this way is deeply suspicious to many who worry that anti-Brexit MPs simply want to frustrate the UK’s exit.
It’s hard to see why the issuing of the Article 50 letter should be linked to having fore-knowledge of the details of the Government’s negotiating position. The Referendum mandate was clear and the Government should invoke Article 50 in order to start the process of leaving the EU.
The precise details of the negotiating strategy are another matter entirely and shouldn’t be linked to the fundamental need to notify the EU formally that the UK is leaving.
Since we wrote the article below, the Government has tabled an amendment to the Labour motion to hold a debate and vote on Article 50.
Government Amendment :
“At end add '; and believes that the process should be undertaken in such a way that respects the decision of the people of the UK when they voted to leave the EU on 23 June and does not undermine the negotiating position of the Government as negotiations are entered into which will take place after Article 50 has been triggered.'.”
(See below for original Labour motion.)
What does this mean?
Broadly it means that if the amendment is accepted, there will be a debate and possibly a vote on triggering Article 50 before it happens.
This allows all the anti-Leave MPs to force the Government to declare its negotiating stance, ahead of sending the Article 50 letter to the EU. It also allows them to question the fundamentals of leaving the EU which includes no longer being part of the Single Market.
This is very serious. It’s the first time we’ve seen Theresa May rowing back on the firm commitment she has given that ‘Brexit Means Brexit’.
The decision of the British people to leave the EU (no free movement, no contributions, and no EU laws being supreme) is under threat.
Jeremy Corbyn will today lead anti-democratic MPs against the decision of the British people to leave the EU
MPs supporting the motion: Tim Farron and Nick Clegg (LibDems), Keir Starmer (Lab) and Angus Robertson (SNP)
REMAINERS WILL TRY TO STOP ARTICLE 50 TODAY
Shortly after 1pm, Parliament will debate a Labour motion on the Referendum result
The wording for the motion, proposed by Jeremy Corbyn, is:
“That this House recognises that leaving the EU is the defining issue facing the UK; believes that there should be a full and transparent debate on the Government's plan for leaving the EU; and calls on the Prime Minister to ensure that this House is able properly to scrutinise that plan for leaving the EU before Article 50 is invoked.”
What does this mean?
It means anti-democratic, pro-Remain MPs want to prevent the Government from invoking Article 50 to leave the EU, as mandated by the British people in the Referendum. Effectively they want a veto over the terms of the UK’s departure, before negotiations have even started.
The motivation of these Remain MPs is clear. We deplore this blatant attempt by elitist MPs to deny the clear mandate from the British people. Those concerned should be ashamed of themselves.
By all means let’s have Parliamentary debates about the EU and Brexit over the course of the next two years. However the decision to leave is the decision to leave, and this can not be a matter for debate.
Treasury is still fighting the Referendum campaign
Remain poster based on original Treasury report which is now totally discredited
Pro-Remain Chancellor Philip Hammond must launch immediate enquiry into this damaging leak
£66 BILLION LOSS CAUSED BY BREXIT?
PROJECT FEAR IS ALIVE AND WELL IN UK TREASURY
Draft Cabinet paper leaked to the Times shows apocalyptic claims
On 18 April the Treasury published a report on ‘the Long-Term Impact of EU Membership and the Alternatives’. This report was widely discredited by many organisations including Facts4EU.org.
In May, even Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee criticised the Treasury, saying “A few grains of truth accompany the mountain of exaggeration and unqualified assertion.”
It now seems that this report has been rehashed and a paper is to be presented to Cabinet ahead of decisions on Brexit. It says:
"The Treasury estimates that UK GDP would be between 5.4 per cent and 9.5 per cent of GDP lower after 15 years if we left the EU with no successor arrangement, with a central estimate of 7.5 per cent."
“[There] would be a loss of between £38 billion and £66 billion per year after 15 years, driven by the smaller size of the economy."
As we wrote in April, “No-one forecasts 15 years ahead. Even the Treasury's 6-month forecasts in late 2015 were wrong by £27 billion.” We studied the 202-page Treasury report in detail and our verdict was damning.
How is it possible for the Treasury to regurgitate a report which was discredited at the time, and which has been discredited by post-Referendum events? The Treasury got the short-term impact of the Referendum result completely wrong.
As one senior MP wrote today: “Don’t the Treasury know the referendum debate is over?”
It seems the Treasury won’t accept that Remain lost. Continuing the fight on their own little island invites ridicule of a major Department of State.
We previously called for the Head of the Civil Service and the Head of the Treasury Dept to resign. The impact of the Treasury’s Remainerism on the international perception of the UK’s economy - and therefore on the fortunes of the UK - now make this essential and urgent.
The Secretary of State for Brexit made a statement to Parliament yesterday, bringing anti-democratic Remain MPs out in droves
Click the graph to see how the EU declines every year (Source: IMF)
THE SINGLE MARKET ISN'T A TRADE AGREEMENT
It’s an indivisable part of the EU Membership which the British people rejected in the Referendum
Brexit-Denying MPs (many Labour MPs, some Remainer Tory MPs, the SNP and LibDems) are trying to say that the British public didn’t vote to leave the Single Market.
The ‘Single Market’ is an integral part of EU Membership which requires free movement, subjugation to the jurisdiction of the EU Court of Justice, and net contributions of over £10 billion per year. This is what the British people voted to leave.
Even the official ‘Stronger In’ campaign recognised this: “There is no country that has full access to the single market without paying in to the EU
budget and there is no country that has full access to the single market without accepting
free movement of people. Given that Leave campaigners have committed to ending free
movement completely and to ending all budget contributions, they would therefore be
unable to retain access to the single market” (Strongerin.co.uk)
The words ‘Single Market’ do not appear anywhere in the EU Treaty. Instead, the idea of an 'internal market' is embodied in thousands of legal clauses, Directives, Regulations, and ‘communications’. It started in 1992 and since then it has quietly expanded – like all EU activities.
The Single Market isn’t a membership organisation. The EU is.
Over 160 countries in the World access this market, but only 28 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are ‘in’ it and have to abide by all its rules. Outside the EU, the UK will still trade with the EU but without all the political, federal, and cost implications.
In practice, the Single Market is almost all about goods but the UK economy is almost all about services – it therefore benefits other EU countries far more than the UK.
Have you criticised Remainers? You may already have committed a crime. Read these articles and decide.
In many countries in the EU including the UK, true freedom of speech no longer exists under the law. The limitations placed upon it make the term inappropriate.
Any civilised and democratic society might reasonably wish to impose some limited exceptions, such as the prohibition of incitements to violence.
However a large number of EU countries have gone much, much further, including the United Kingdom.
The recent ‘hate crime’ laws governing free speech, and the interpretation of these laws by the Police and the CPS, are unknown to most British people.
You might already have written something on social media, or said something, which the police would consider to be a ‘hate crime incident’.
"A hate crime or incident includes assaults, criminal damage, minor public order, harassment, and incitement offences." It’s particularly the last two definitions of crimes or incidents which may worry many readers, as they could be open to interpretation.
Here is what the UK’s College of Policing has to say :
“Hate crimes and incidents are taken to mean any crime or incident where the perpetrator’s hostility or prejudice against an identifiable group of people is a factor in determining who is victimised.”
They go on to say that the crime or incident need only be “perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice”.
So that makes you subject to police action for telling any one of a large proportion of jokes in circulation, or for criticising a group of people. It doesn’t even matter if your accuser wasn’t the butt of the joke. ‘Any other person’ can accuse you even if they weren’t physically present. If you are deemed ‘hostile’ (see Article 4 below) then you can be investigated.
The guidance continues: “The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incident.”
Yes, you read that right. Evidence of hostility is not required. This is from the National College of Policing.
In order for you to be prosecuted, the Crown Proscution Service needs to show ‘hostility’ in your words or actions. So how does the CPS define ‘hostility’?
We hope you’re sitting down for this. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) gives the following guidance to prosecutors:
“In the absence of a precise legal definition of hostility, consideration should be given to ordinary dictionary definitions, which include ill-will, ill-feeling, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment, and dislike.”
The abuse of the English language continues in other ways : “Phrases such as ‘the victim is a cerebral palsy sufferer’ are likely to cause offence as they imply that the impairment is the defining factor of a person’s identity.”
Unfriendliness? Dislike? Resentment?
In relation to the term ‘hate crime’ these are not words which would spring to mind in the average person if they heard that someone was accused of being hostile. Most people would assume that if someone were accused of being hostile in an incident or crime, this might include anger and threats of violence.
There is clearly a move to define ‘giving offence’ as something to be investigated by the police. Unfortunately there are now numerous examples of people being subject to police investigation for a Twitter post, expressing an opinion but not inciting violence.
Next, Article 5 – AGAINST WHICH GROUPS CAN YOU COMMIT HATE CRIME?
Article 5 - Which victim groups are monitored for hate crime?
5 - WHICH VICTIM GROUPS ARE MONITORED FOR HATE CRIME?
There are now 5 groupings against which hate crime is monitored: Race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender identity.
The police guidance covers many forms of hate crime, including those against groups which are not specifically defined.
The national College of Policing mentions a further 21 groups but say that any group can be considered. Presumably this could include resentful comments about stamp collectors, or unfriendly comments about Remainers who don’t accept the Referendum result.
In short, you might no longer feel comfortable discussing ideas freely and openly, for fear of legal action by the State. You might not be an activist for the overthrow of the State or of our society. You might not be advocating violence or hostility (in the usual meaning of the word) to anyone. But you are nevertheless muzzled in expressing yourself.
You may wish to reflect on the stifling of public debate in the UK, where it can now become an incident involving a police investigation to say or write something which any other person might consider to be ‘unfriendly’ towards them or someone else, if the law considers them to be part of a vulnerable grouping.
Article 6 - Genuine persecution and incitement to violence
6 - GENUINE PERSECUTION, DISCRIMINATION, AND INCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE
This should go without saying, but...
We abhor all violence, discrimination, and persecution of minorities. Most people in the country have an inate sense of what's right and wrong.
Our concern is the extent to which new laws are now being used, or are capable of being used, to stifle fair and reasonable debate.
We welcome your thoughts on this and are happy to publish them.
10 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
ORIGINAL ANALYSIS OF REPORTS & DATA
President Hollande of France, on Thursday evening
HOLLANDE TALKS DOWN THE POUND
Sterling fell again yesterday, thanks partly to the French President’s speech Thursday evening
On Brexit, President Francois Hollande said: “There needs to be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price.”
This is despite EU Treaty article 8, which says:
‘The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.’
Foreign exchange dealers might do well to look at the latest French polls. These show that Hollande is as likely to win a second term in next May’s elections, as it is for the French to declare themselves to be poor in the ‘amour’ department.
The latest BVA-Salesforce poll shows Hollande failing even to get into the second round, with ratings of 9-13% depending on who opposes him.
For more on this story, see the Sketch from our Paris correspondent below.
French general, Piere Bosquet, famous for coining the phrase "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre"
SATURDAY SKETCH FROM OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT
TWO BREAKING NEWS STORIES FROM FRANCE
1. President Hollande ‘Has Great Affection For The UK’
2. French Pigs Seen In Formation Flypast Of Eiffel Tower
In Paris on Thursday evening, French President Francois Hollande made a speech about the EU, celebrating 20 years of the Jacques Delors Institute. (Delors was a predecessor of Juncker, still celebrated in the UK with the famous ‘Up Yours Delors’ Sun headline many years ago.) Present were many EU dignitaries including current Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
President Hollande’s speech contained a great deal of the usual teary-eyed, self-congratulatory, and squirmingly-embarrassing tosh about the EU which is customary on such occasions. Then he turned to the UK.
“I have great affection for the UK,” he proclaimed, as solemnly as only a French President can
Some minutes later, once the laughter had died down, he got serious about Brexit
“There needs to be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price”
So there we have it. Brexit means being threatened, put at risk, and a price extracted, courtesy of Britain’s affectionate neighbour Monsieur Hollande.
If we may paraphrase a former French general:
Monsieur le President, le Brexit est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.
Mrs May presented her latest Brexit views on Sun and Wed
Frau Merkel gave her Brexit views on Wed and Thur
The British media reported widely on the two speeches by Theresa May to the Tory Party Conference. If you want to read them, here is Sunday’s and here is Wednesday’s.
Less widely reported by the British media (because the speeches were in German) were Angela Merkel’s words. The German Chancellor lost no time in making her views on Brexit clear, with two speeches to two different key business conferences in two days.
Merkel at the German Confederation Of Wholesale Foreign Trade (BGA)
“We do not carry out any preliminary negotiations, but only say in general terms: full access to the internal market is inextricably bound up with the acceptance of the four fundamental freedoms. This includes the free movement of persons.”
“I ask your support for the principle of full access to the internal market with the reciprocity of the four fundamental freedoms. A departure from this principle would be a systemic challenge for the entire European Union. If an exception is permitted to one country, if all countries determine the freedom of movement with all others, this leads to an extremely difficult situation.”
Merkel at the big annual ‘Day Of German Industry’ Event at the BDI
Coordinated by the BDI (German version of the CBI) this event is probably the most important, bringing together 1,200 high-ranking representatives of German industry, politics, research institutions and society leaders.
“If we don’t say that full access to the single market is linked to full acceptance of freedom of movement, then everyone in Europe will start doing what they want.”
“No-one can move away from the basic principle: only those who respect the four fundamental freedoms of the EU - freedom of movement for capital, goods, services and employees - can get full access.”
Frau Merkel could not be clearer about Germany’s (and therefore the EU’s) negotiating position. The UK will not have full access to the Single Market without accepting free movement.
Any form of free movement or lack of complete control of borders is politically unacceptable in the UK. The UK’s starting position should therefore be as firm as the EU’s: We will not accept free movement, nor the European Court's jurisdiction, but we will allow EU companies to sell tariff-free in the UK as at present, despite the enormous trade surplus which the EU has with us.
[ Sources: German Chancellor’s Office, BDI, BGA, ConservativeHome ]07 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
ORIGINAL ANALYSIS OF REPORTS & DATA
Francis Hoar, author of report
YES, WE CAN NEGOTIATE TRADE DEALS NOW
Lawyers confirm that the UK can agree trade deals now, to implement on E-Day, despite legal threats from EU
Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the EU Commission, has threatened the UK with legal action if it conducts trade negotiations with other countries. This accords with his emotional statement on 24th June that “This will not be an amicable divorce” – something which even Angela Merkel has since contradicted.
However, a new report from the experts at Lawyers for Britain confirms that Dr Liam Fox (Secretary of State for International Trade) and his team may start now and may conclude deals, ready to come into effect on the day we exit the EU.
This means the UK can work now to set up trade deals with countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, and the many other countries who are very keen to work with the UK going forward.
OUR CONDENSED SUMMARY of Legal Opinion from the New Report
The view that the UK may not negotiate future free trade agreements (‘FTAs’) with countries outside the EU while it remains a member state is not supported in the EU Treaties or by the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
The EU may not prevent the UK negotiating and entering into such treaties providing that they will not come into force until the UK withdraws from the EU.
The EU Treaties give the Union the exclusive right to enter into FTAs with non-EU countries. However member states give up this right on the basis that they will be members of the Union once they come into force. Any exit may go through a process of departure likely to take some years.
EU member states have a duty of sincere co-operation with each other. What the CJEU has never suggested is that this duty gives it the jurisdiction to consider whether member states negotiating treaties outside the EU’s competence might damage the wider interests of the Union.
A treaty coming into force after the UK withdrew from the EU would not be in breach of the UK’s treaty obligations to the EU. By analogy, the UK would be acting no differently to a person negotiating a new employment contract before the end of his current employment.
The EU has the objective of creating an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness outside it. In taking steps to enhance its economic prosperity once it left the Union, the UK would be acting in accordance with that object. If the EU sought to prevent such steps, it would endanger the wider area of prosperity and its good relations with its future neighbour.
You can read the full report from Francis Hoar, barrister and Committee Member of Lawyers for Britain, here. Mr Hoar was the barrister who won the celebrated High Court judgement last year, which voided the election of the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, against the combined might of two QCs. This was the longest election petition in English legal history, lasting over six weeks.
Our Opinion A month ago we highlighted this key issue. Our opening statement was: “We are firmly of the opinion that the UK can start trade talks, regardless of any wording of articles in the EU Treaty.”
Mr Hoar has produced an important legal opinion based on a study of the legal documents, which will doubtless be read with considerable interest at the Department for International Trade.
To read more about the EU and its attempts to prevent the UK from negotiating future trade deals, please see the article we wrote a month ago, reprinted below.
Australia is one of many countries lining up to do trade deals with the UK
Australian GDP growth per person since 1990 (World Bank data)
[ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED ON 5th SEPT]
CAN WE TALK TO AUSTRALIA & OTHERS?
EU Commission President Juncker says "Nein"
Such discussions are an “exclusive matter” for the European Union and “we are sticking to it”, Juncker said yesterday
There are typically conflicting legal opinions on the question of whether the UK can start to negotiate trade agreements with non-EU countries prior to exiting the EU. This relates to articles 50, 207 and 218 of the Treaty (TFEU).
The excellent EU-specialist lawyer and QC Martin Howes of Lawyers for Britain says “The process of negotiating new trade deals can be started during the 2-year notice period leading up to Brexit, with a view to bringing them into force on or soon after the date of exit.”
OPINION
We are firmly of the opinion that the UK can start trade talks, regardless of any wordings of articles in the EU Treaty. Lawyers who are arguing against this using the wording of the Treaty don’t seem to consider some fundamental points:
If the UK were prevented from even negotiating with non-EU countries prior to its exit from the EU, the UK and the EU could be seen to be disadvantaged in a way not foreseen by the Treaty. The fall-back position would then be WTO rules – a wholly inappropriate restriction for the World’s fifth-largest economy and potentially damaging for the rest of the EU. Furthermore, is the UK also to be prevented from having discussions with the WTO to ensure the smooth transition of trading arrangements with WTO member countries on the UK's exit from the EU?
It is inconceivable that a country of the importance of the UK could be prevented from preparing for its exit. This is tantamount to a deliberate act of damage to a neighbouring state and must equate to an unreasonable restraint of trade.
It could also prevent the UK from negotiating a trade deal with the EU itself, which would then leave EU exporters into the UK facing large tariffs in some cases. All of this would hardly pass any test of being ‘fair and reasonable’ and nor would it be in the political and economic interests of the EU.
Article 50 was ill-conceived and poorly-drafted and was almost an afterthought in the latest Treaty. Prior to that, no ‘leaving’ provision even existed in previous EU treaties. We would go further and say that an argument could easily be made that Article 50 is not fit for purpose, given the enormous implications for all the countries of the EU, for the exiting country, and for the rest of the World.
It is our opinion that the UK could easily agree to absent itself from ongoing EU trade negotiations with non-EU countries and discussion thereof, allowing the EU to continue in its (interminable and mostly abortive) attempts to agree Free Trade Agreements with other countries. In effect, the EU and the UK could then agree to pursue their own trade agendas without disadvantaging the other.
As with almost everything else to do with Brexit and the EU, the end result will come down to politics and money.
Philip Hammond depresses with ‘rollercoaster ride’
The previously pro-Remain Chancellor yesterday delivered a gloomy Brexit vision.
“As we go into a period where inevitably there will be more uncertainty in the economy...”
"If we don't do something, if we don't intervene to counteract that effect, in time it would have an impact on jobs and growth."
“We must expect some turbulence as we go through this negotiating process.”
“We have to expect a period when confidence will go up and down – perhaps on a bit of a rollercoaster – until we get to a final agreement”
This morning a senior Conservative MP commented: “There was some surprise that the Chancellor is still genuflecting to the absurd Treasury pessimism that was fashionable under his predecessor.”
We warned against a pro-Remain Chancellor.
When Mr Hammond was appointed, we hoped he might convert to the cause, as the PM now seems to have done. Alas, Europhil still sees a shadow...
Click below for the original scene from 'Groundhog Day'
More voted against the EU's migration policy than originally voted to join the EU
Q: WHEN IS 3.3 MILLION LESS THAN 3.1 MILLION?
A: WHEN THE EU SAYS SO
The EU and media dismiss the Hungarian Referendum due to low turnout – are they right?
FACT: More people voted in the Hungarian Referendum against EU migrant quotas, than voted for EU Membership in the first place.
On Saturday the Hungarian people voted in a Referendum on whether or not to accept EU-imposed quotas of immigrants. 13 years ago there was a different referendum, on whether Hungary should join the EU.
Here are the official results :-
12 Apr 2003 – Joining EU – 3,056,027 voted ‘YES’
02 Oct 2016 – EU migrant quotas – 3,282,928 voted ‘NO’
In both results, turnout was under 50%
Only 1.66% of Hungarians voted for the EU's migrant quota policy.
More people voted on Saturday against the EU’s migrant policy, than voted for EU membership. Remember this when you’re told that the latest Hungarian vote was invalid due to low turnout.
[Source: Nemzeti Választási Iroda (Hungarian National Election Office) | 2003 : http://www.nvi.hu/en/ref2016/199/199_0.html | 2016 : http://www.nvi.hu/en/ref2016/481/481_0_index.html ] 04 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
Scottish 'Brexit Minister', Mike Russell MSP
SNP THREATENS VETO OF ‘GREAT REPEAL BILL’
Within hours of its announcement, Scottish MPs say majority will oppose Bill to repeal European Communities Act
SNP’s Brexit Minister claims Bill will require Scottish Parliament approval
SNP are relying on ‘Sewel convention’, which says Westminster would not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament
However foreign affairs is excluded from ‘devolved matters’ and Ruth Davidson was quick to say "There is no veto for the Scottish Parliament"
Scotland’s Brexit Minister Mike Russell claims the new Bill involves devolved matters
"Presently there is a majority against that repeal bill - that's absolutely obvious,” said Russell
In the UK Parliament, the SNP has been taking the position that everything debated involves Scotland, even if it’s exclusively about English matters.
It appears that their stance will be no different when it comes to Brexit.
[Sources: BBC Sunday Politics Scotland, Scottish Government website ] 03 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
PM Theresa May
NEWS FLASH
PM ANNOUNCES ARTICLE 50 BY END MARCH
Theresa May is interviewed by the BBC's Andrew Marr
“We will trigger Article 50 before the end of March next year.”
That means 6 months from now.
It also means 9 months from the date of the Referendum.
[Source: BBC ] 02 Oct 2016
FACTS4EU.ORG
'FULL METAL BREXIT'
PM Theresa May
Defence Minister Michael Fallon
Brexit Minister David Davis
IT’S THE FULL BRITISH BREXIT
PRIME MINISTER MAY IS TO ANNOUNCE ‘GREAT REPEAL BILL’ TODAY :
Theresa May has told the Sunday Times: “We will introduce, in the next Queen’s Speech, a Great Repeal Bill that will remove the European Communities Act from the statute book. That was the act that took us into the European Union.”
“This marks the first stage in the UK becoming a sovereign and independent country once again. It will return power and authority to the elected institutions of our county.”
"It means that the authority of EU law in Britain will end."
Defence Minister Michael Fallon confirms :
“It is not hard or soft, it is full Brexit.”
“We are leaving the European Union.”
Mr Fallon also told the Daily Express that "the 'soft Brexit' option wanted by many who had supported Britain remaining in the EU - largely keeping Britain's borders open to European migrants in return for tariff-free access to the EU's Single Market - will not be on the table."
Brexit Minister David Davis will say today :
“EU law will be transposed into domestic law, wherever practical, on exit day. It will be for elected politicians here to make the changes to reflect the outcome of our negotiation and our exit.”
“That is what people voted for: power and authority residing once again with the sovereign institutions of our own country.”
It was the European Communities Act (ECA) 1972 which effectively took the UK into the forerunner of the EU, then called the EEC. It also allowed EU law to become supreme over UK law, something of which the majority of British people were unaware.
Repealing this Act is one of the key demands of those campaigning for action, following the decisive Referendum vote to leave the European Union. It figures strongly in the ‘Brexit Blueprint’ we reported on yesterday.
The new Bill will doubtless face some opposition in the Commons and fierce opposition is likely in the House of Lords from those who still refuse to accept the result of the Referendum.
Thanks to Sara on the Facts4EU.Org Team for the above poll. To vote, click as many choices as you want. Then click 'Vote' to see results.
Copyright Facts4EU.Org 02 Oct 2016
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UK VOTERS CAN SMILE
Big Tory thinkers produce the Brexit strategy
THIS IS WHAT BREXIT MEANS
CONFERENCE OF SENIOR MPs AND EXPERTS SETS OUT EXIT STRATEGY
Britain could be out of EU in less than 2 years
Negotiations over future trade deal with Brussels can be “short and simple”
(See next article below for details.)
Ministers, former ministers, government officials and experts met at Oxford’s All Souls College to produce a 'Brexit Blueprint'
The Blueprint covers 'What Leave Means', Trade, Immigration, Agriculture and Environment, Accountability, Business Opportunities, Negotiating Strategy, Next Steps for Leaving, and Repeal of the ECA
Contributors to the report include Iain Duncan Smith, John Redwood (organiser of the Conference), Owen Paterson, Peter Lilley, Sir William Cash, and Bernard Jenkin
The ‘Brexit Blueprint’ from the Conference has been circulated to the Prime Minister and her advisers
This Brexit strategy is not yet Government policy. It represents a serious but relatively simple approach to our departure from the EU.
Tomorrow the Prime Minister will give a speech at the Conservative Party Conference setting out her own thoughts on Brexit.
Like many people, we can't wait.
[Sources: Legatum Institute, Centre for Social Justice ] 01 Oct 2016
EXCLUSIVE
JOHN REDWOOD TALKS TO FACTS4EU.ORG
Rt Hon John Redwood MP
JOHN REDWOOD COMMENTED EXCLUSIVELY TO FACTS4EU.ORG ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
We asked the organiser of the Conference, the Rt Hon John Redwood MP, what he felt had been achieved.
Mr Redwood confirmed that Ministers in charge of Brexit Departments had attended, but that they had of course "stuck to the government's published positions".
"I was pleased to put together a day of good presentations from experts of both persuasions."
"We have provided a clear blueprint for exit from the EU in a timely and friendly way."
We expect that a heavy-weight report such as this might influence Theresa May in her deliberations ahead of her Conservative Party Conference speech tomorrow. She will be speaking on "Global Britain: Making a success of Brexit".
See below for more details on the report and a link to download it in full.
01 Oct 2016
INTRO TO BREXIT BLUEPRINT
Britain could be out of the EU in less than
two years, according to ex-ministers’ blueprint
Plans for a swift and straightforward British exit from the European Union have been drawn up by a group of senior former ministers and circulated to the Prime Minister and her key advisers.
Below we summarise the main points.
Britain could complete its withdrawal from the EU well within the two-year maximum time limit laid down by Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Negotiations over a future trade deal with Brussels can be “short and simple”.
The Article 50 letter should be sent (announcing Britain’s formal departure from the EU), and the government should repeal the 1972 European Communities Act, which gave legal force to the country’s membership of the then European Economic Community.
The Repeal Bill would convert EU law into British law and so help ensure a smooth Brexit, minimising disruption to industry and commerce. Subsequently, it would be open to this government and its successors to scrap aspects of EU law not considered in the UK’s interests.
Britain should narrow the trade options to two: either a continuation of tariff-free trade as at present but without free movement; or a fall-back alternative of free trade under the relatively light World Trade Organisation’s standard tariffs. Under this approach, the onus would be on the remaining 27 members of the EU either to accept the current arrangements or insist on a WTO deal.
On immigration, the Blueprint proposes a work permit and cap system for EU migrants – the same as applied to the rest of the world. Students, EU tourists and intra-company transfers would be exempt. Work permits would only be issued to lower skilled and lower paid workers if the Government judged there were not enough British applicants for such jobs.
[Sources: The papers presented at the meeting and subsequently circulated in Whitehall are being published in a joint venture by two London-based think-tanks, the Centre for Social Justice and the Legatum Institute. Read the full report here: Road to Brexit Conference ] 01 Oct 2016
SUMMARY OF BREXIT BLUEPRINT
KEY FINDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE
Below are the key findings and recommendations from the Report of the Conference.
"The Conference concluded that the Government should now make due haste with sending an Article 50 letter and introducing a Repeal Bill for the 1972 European Communities Act. The country and business wishes to reduce the uncertainties. The Conference was swayed by a survey of larger businesses and by the business debate into seeing the need for speed, and the opportunities that flow from exit.”
"The Conference was persuaded that leaving the EU is primarily a UK Parliamentary process, repealing the 1972 Act and renewing EU law as UK law to ensure continuity. There was general agreement that this is best done by means of a short general principles and powers Bill, mirroring exactly the short legislation of the 1972 Act to impose the EU legal authority in the first place."
"The Conference was sympathetic to the view that the trade negotiations can be short and simple. The UK can offer either to carry forward current tariff-free trade with service sector passports, or to fall back on the World Trade Organization standard tariff trade. The UK would recommend the former, but could live with the latter."
"Rather than negotiate it is just a question of which the rest of the EU will choose. Whilst the EU Commission is likely to threaten WTO, the member states are likely to opt for the status quo of tariff-free trade given business lobbies in their own countries."
"The balance of trade and tariff rates under WTO rules is more damaging to the rest of the EU than to the UK, given the UK’s bias to services which are all tariff free, and given the devaluation of the pound which has already made the rest of the EU products less price competitive without extra tariffs.”
[Sources: The papers presented at the meeting and subsequently circulated in Whitehall are being published in a joint venture by two London-based think-tanks, the Centre for Social Justice and the Legatum Institute. Read the full report here: Road to Brexit Conference ] 01 Oct 2016
COMMENTS ON THE 'BREXIT BLUEPRINT'
Rt Hon John Redwood MP
Rt Hon Peter Lilley MP
Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP
COMMENTS FROM SOME OF THE KEY MEMBERS OF THE CONFERENCE
Mr Redwood told the meeting that there was no reason why negotiations over the terms of British withdrawal from the EU should take anything like the two-year maximum laid down by Article 50.
“It is in both sides interest to reach an earlier agreement to reduce business uncertainty. If there is a breakdown or no likelihood of agreement, then the UK should withdraw and after the two-year period the UK will be formally out. Trade will revert to WTO rules,” the former Cabinet minister said.
Mr Lilley, the last UK minister to negotiate trade deals before such national responsibilities were taken over by the EU, dismissed warnings of a trade war, saying that EU member states, influenced by strong business lobbies, are likely to opt for continuation of tariff-free trade.
For instance, because of the post-Brexit 12 per cent devaluation of the pound, German cars were already 12 per cent more expensive than before. Their manufacturers were hardly likely to support an additional 10 per cent tariff that would be imposed if there was no deal and WTO rules applied. Decisions on trade should be taken quickly before next year’s French and German elections to maximise business pressure on their politicians.
Introducing the idea of a work permit and cap system for immigration from both EU and non-EU countries, Mr Duncan Smith also said that after Britain leaves the EU, no migrants should be eligible for in work or out of work benefits until they have lived in the country for five years, or made National Insurance payments over a four-year period.
Mr Lilley and others said that once out of the EU the UK could be a leader for free trade worldwide. The main gains would include better access to the UK market for the agricultural and manufacturing goods of developing countries in return for better UK access to their markets for services and high-tech products. China and India were unlikely to reach a trade deal with the RU but could with the UK.
[Sources: The papers presented at the meeting and subsequently circulated in Whitehall are being published in a joint venture by two London-based think-tanks, the Centre for Social Justice and the Legatum Institute. Read the full report here: Road to Brexit Conference ] 01 Oct 2016
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