Category Archives: EU

English Democrats bring the Case to get a Declaration that the UK has left the EU as of the 29th March 2019

This is our only chance to complete what we voted for in the EU Referendum!

We are serving the legal papers required to bring this case but we really need all the support that Leave supporters can give us to make sure that we can match the expensive legal muscle whom the Government and Remainers will instruct against us! 

Please help as generously as you can! 

There is a donate button on our website >>> EnglishDemocrats.Party

Here are the draft Grounds:-

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
BETWEEN
THE QUEEN
ON THE APPLICATION OF THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS
(REG. NO. 6132268)
Applicant
-and-
THE PRIME MINISTER (1)
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXITING THE EUROPEAN UNION (2)
Respondents
________________________________
GROUNDS OF THE APPLICATION
_________________________________
1.     It is submitted that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has left the European Union as of the 29thMarch 2019 after the expiry of its two year Notice to Leave dated 29thMarch 2017.
2.     Much of the relevant law has been explored and ruled upon by this Honourable Court and by the Court of Appeal and by the Supreme Court in the case of R (on the application of Miller and another) – v – Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC5.  Consequently Parliament enacted the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. 
3.     The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland joined the European Union pursuant to Treaty in 1972 and subsequently the European Union Act 1972 was enacted to give domestic legal force to the Treaty obligations to the European Union.
4.     The current overarching constitution of the European Union was reformed under the Lisbon Treaty which was brought into direct legal force in the United Kingdom pursuant to the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008.
5.     Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty  reads as follows:-
“Article 50 – Treaty on European Union (TEU)
1.     Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2.     A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention.  In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.  That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.  It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
3.     The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
4.     For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.
A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
5.     If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asked to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.”
                           
6.     On the 23rd June 2016 the voters of the United Kingdom, by a majority, and the voters of England by a larger majority,  voted, in the largest democratic mandate in the United Kingdom’s history, to leave the European Union. 
7.     In accordance with the United Kingdom’s “Constitutional Requirements” Parliament enacted the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017.  The Preamble to that Act states that it is:- “An Act to confer power on the Prime Minister to notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU” 
The Act provides:-
“1. Power to notify withdrawal from the EU
(1)  The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.”
8.     Pursuant to the statutory power granted by the European Withdrawal Act 2017 the Prime Minister duly served the Notice on 29th March 2017.  That Notice expired on the 29th March 2019. 
9.     Accordingly it is submitted that as of the scintilla temporis after the expiry of the said notice on the 29thMarch 2019, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has left the European Union.
10.In the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018 Parliament further enacted a transitional scheme whereby it proposed to transpose all EU law into a direct effect in the UK jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, Scotland and England and Wales.  Much of that Act has not been brought into force.  The Act mis-describes its implementation date as “exit day”.  This is something of a misnomer since under the true construction of this Act it has no role, either purported or implicit, in determining the date of departure of the UK leaving the European Union.  Within the meaning of the Act, “exit date” is merely the implementation date for the Act’s transactional arrangements.
11.The Applicant is aware that there has been purported ministerial Regulation under the 2018 Act which may have been approved by resolution in both Houses.  However even if it has, it is submitted that such a Regulation cannot of itself be in any way definitive of the UK’s actual departure from the European Union.  The relevant wording of the Act makes this clear:- 
“European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018
An act to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and make other provision in connection with the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
[26th June 2018]
1 Repeal of the European Communities Act 1972
The European Communities Act 1972 is repealed on exit day.
2 Saving for EU-derived domestic legislation
(1) EU-derived domestic legislation, as it has effect in domestic law immediately before exit day, continues to have effect in domestic law on and after exit day.
20 Interpretation
(1) In this Act—
“exit day” means 29 March 2019 at 11.00 p.m. (and see subsections (2) to (5));
(2) In this Act references to before, after or on exit day, or to beginning with exit day, are to be read as references to before, after or at 11.00 p.m. on 29 March 2019 or (as the case may be) to beginning with 11.00 p.m. on that day.
(3) Subsection (4) applies if the day or time on or at which the Treaties are to cease to apply to the United Kingdom in accordance with Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union is different from that specified in the definition of “exit day” in subsection (1).
(4) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations—
(a) amend the definition of “exit day” in subsection (1) to ensure that the day and time specified in the definition are the day and time that the Treaties are to cease to apply to the United Kingdom, and
(b) amend subsection (2) in consequence of any such amendment.”
12.Despite the express wording of the European Union (Notification f Withdrawal) Act 2017, expressly only empowering the Prime Minister to give Notice to withdraw the United Kingdom from the EU, the Prime Minister has purported to request an extension of the Article 50 date for departure and subsequently purported to agree an extension to the date of departure. 
13.It is submitted, in accordance with long and high authority of legal precedents and also recently and comprehensively in R (on the application of Miller and another) – v – Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC5 that, statute fully displaces any residual prerogative powers. 
14.In the premises the only power that the Prime Minister had, as regards Article 50, was the service of the Notice withdrawing the United Kingdom from the EU and giving two years notice.  That power was functus officio on the 29thMarch 2017. Accordingly, her purported request for an extension of the date of departure and the Government’s purported agreement to such an extension is and was unlawful and is and was null and void.
15.In the premises the Applicant seeks a Declaration from this Honourable Court that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland left the European Union upon the expiry of the Article 50 Notice on the 29th March 2019.
Statement of Fact
I believe that the facts in these Grounds are true.
Signed …………………………………           Dated ……………………..
            Robin Charles William Tilbrook

Stand fast must be the order of the day for Leavers

Robert Henderson

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which” .(The last sentence of  Orwell’s Animal Farm )

This is precisely where Brexit is heading.  The leave voting public look from leaver politician to  remain politician and increasingly find it difficult to distinguish between most of  them. This trait is exemplified by media reports which suggest some grubby deal is being cooked up whereby May agrees to resign as PM and the wavering leave politicians agree to vote for her agreement with the EU.

This trade off  fails to address the questions  of what May’s agreement contains, the likely behaviour of remainer politician and public servants if  May’s agreement  is accepted by Parliament  and the EU’s attitude to the UK   if May’s agreement is turned into a legally enforceable document.

May’s agreement leaves the UK in the hands of the EU.

The Spectator magazine  recently listed what they called the top 40 horrors of the agreement. Apart from the Irish Backstop, these include the following :

  1. May says her deal means the UK leaves the EU next March. The Withdrawal Agreement makes a mockery of this. “All references to Member States and competent authorities of Member States…shall be read as including the United Kingdom.” (Art 6)
  2. The European Court of Justice is decreed to be our highest court (Art. 86) both citizens and resident companies can use it.
  3. The UK will remain under the jurisdiction of the ECJ until eight years after the end of the transition period. (Article 158).
  4. The UK will still be bound by any future changes to EU law in which it will have no say, not to mention having to comply with current law. (Article 6(2))
  5. Any disputes under the Agreement will be decided by EU law only – perhaps the most dangerous provision of all. (Article 168) Arbitration will be governed by the existing procedural rules of the EU law – this is not arbitration as we would commonly understand it (i.e. between two independent parties). (Article 174)

These clauses of the agreement alone should make the agreement unacceptable to British politicians for they are the type of subordination required of a defeated enemy who has sued for peace.

The likely behaviour of remain politicians

The circumstances of a remainer  PM, a remainer dominated Cabinet and a remainer  dominated Parliament alone make it wildly improbable that  the  British Government  (of whatever complexion) after Theresa May’s agreement was  converted into a treaty will be any more robust in its dealing with the EU than May has been.  This is not merely a matter of weakness or inexperience by those calling the political shots in the  UK  Rather, it is the consequence of a remaner political elite which is determined to sabotage Brexit.

Nor  can we look to an early election to change matters. The House of Commons is probably 75% remainer. Hence, even if a General Election is held it is likely that a remainer  dominated Commons would be returned simply because it would require an almighty  and most unlikely throwing out of remainer  MPs.

The attitude of the EU

The  EU has given ample evidence since the Referendum that they  have no intention of treating the UK reasonably. Thieir behaviour has run the gamut of personal abuse to a rigid refusal to make any meaningful compromise with the UK or simply to accept the reality that the UK have voted to leave. The idea that they will behave more reasonably if the agreement made with May is enshrined into  a legally enforceable treaty is best described as ludicrous.

A taste  what the UK is likely to be confronted with if Parliament passes  May’s agreement  is demonstrated by the struggle which Switzerland is having with the EU.  They are meeting the same bone-headedly arrogant and unyielding EU attitude that the EU has presented to the UK since the Referendum, viz:

“All the terminology in this tiff will be uncomfortably familiar to the U.K. “Nothing is decided until everything is decided,” Commission officials say, and the Swiss can’t “cherry-pick” the benefits of the EU.. “

WTO terms is the only way to Brexit

All of these considerations make leaving to trade on  the WTO deal absolutely  necessary. Irreconcilable remainers have shown ever since the  Referendum that they were not willing to accept the result and are  demonstrating their resolution  in that intention  to prevent it happening as I write – a Sunday Express article   of 23 March  claims that the Government is already plotting to bind us fully back into the EU.  This is entirely plausible based on remainer behaviour since the Referendum.

Leaving under WTO terms serves two purposes : it is  the most efficient and rapid way of leaving  and is the most difficult for situation for   remainers to subvert because it immediately provides  a general trading framework.

The Irish Question

The Irish Backstop has not been made unnecessary or modified in any way.

If the  UK leaves to trade on WTO terms there will be no legal constraint , other than the WTO rules,   on  how the UK engages with the EU generally or the Republic of Ireland (RoI) specifically.  The UK government could offer the RoI a deal, namely,  to come out of the EU and retain the common travel area and frictionless trade between and with the UK or remain in the  EU and lose those advantages.

Given the RoI’s fervently  EU stance this might seem impossible at first glance but less so when the present circumstances are seriously considered.  The  RoI only joined the  EU (or EEC as it then was) because the UK joined.  They  did so for exactly the same reason s that it would make sense for the RoI to leave now, the large  amount of UK-RoI trade and the ability to  travel freely between the UK and Ireland.

To the trade argument can be added the fact that RoI  in 2016 moved  from being a net recipient of EU money to being a net contributor to the EU.  Their contribution in 2018 was more than £2 billion. With the UK leaving and removing a great wad of money from EU coffers  net contributors to future EU budgets will have to pay even more to make up for the loss of the UK’s contribution.

Of course leaving would raise the difficult  problem of the RoI  being in the Euro,  but the UK could  help the RoI to resurrect the Punt by lending financial assistance and perhaps even underwriting the Punt for a period.

If the RoI did leave the EU the Backstop problem would evaporate.

What happens if the RoI remains in the EU?  That would leave the EU not the UK with the problem of erecting a border between Northern Ireland and the RoI. The UK will not place  a physical border between the two so the only authority who could do so would be the EU.  Would they dare? I doubt it.

We desperately  need a modern law of treason

The UKL does not have a functioning Treason Law. It is sorely to be missed because without it what would have been called treason in most times in our history passes without any action being taken.

A recent  first rate example was Tony Blair advising major players within the EU how they should in effect thwart Brexit – see here and here . That amounts to treating with a foreign power without the authorisation of the Government.

A new treason law should make any attempt to assist a foreign power to the detriment of the UK treason.  That would cover much of the behaviour of irreconcilable remainers including politicians.

Such a law should not interfere with the normal democratic process. For example it would allow renainers to work for the UK to  rejoin the EU after the UK has left by making it the policy of a party and standing for election on that platform.   (That incidentally was the only democratically acceptable way for remainers to attempt to reverse Brexit, namely, let it take place and then try to reverse it in the way I have described).

The post-referendum position

The only reason Brexit is in such a mess is because  remainer politicians from Theresa May downwards have made  it  so.

The constitutional position is simple: by passing the Referendum Act Parliament contracted out the question of whether  the UK should remain in the EU or leave. Once the country voted to leave  Parliament (Lords and Commons) were obligated to put that decision into effect.

The referendum question was beautifully clear, senior politicians said publicly that the result of the vote would be  honoured by implementing it and after the vote the major parties promised in the 2017 election manifestoes  carried the same promise.  Parliament also agreed to the activation of the Article 50 procedure putting the UK on the leaving path. In short, there is absolutely no excuse for the grossly anti-democratic misbehaviour of  remainer politicians. They are not people acting in good faith to do what is best for the country. Rather they are  simply trying to enforce their will.

If Parliament passes May’s surrender document of a deal it will not only create great uncertainty,  but will also leave the UK securely attached to the EU, an attachment which will be  progressively tightened by a remainer dominated government and remainer dominated Parliament until within a few years the UK will be a de facto member of the EU . Like the animals in Animal Farm the uK  shall be indistinguishable from a full blown member of the EU.

Latest twists in the Brexit Parliamentary fiasco and about the case to stop any extension to Article 50

Following the latest twists in the Brexit Parliamentary fiasco and my previous blog article about the case to stop any extension to Article 50 except by a full Act of Parliament, I have written again to the Government’s lawyers as follows:-
Mr Jonathan Stowell
c/o Government Legal Department
Dear Sir
Re:  Proposed Action
        English Democrats – v – the Secretary of State for Exiting the          
        European Union
We refer to the above matter and to our letter of 20th March.  We note that, since that letter was dictated, the Prime Minister has written a letter to the President of the European Council, Mr Donald Tusk, formally asking for an extension of the Article 50 Notice period.  This request for an extension has been made without the authorisation of an Act of Parliament. 
Ministers, including the Prime Minister, only have official power either on the basis of Statutory powers or on the basis of Royal Prerogative powers. 
A long line of legal authority, including the Gina Miller case, has repeatedly reaffirmed that the Prerogative powers only exist in the absence of Statutory powers.  The only relevant Statutory power was that set out in the EU Withdrawal Act 2017, which gave the Prime Minister power to serve a Notice to terminate the UK’s membership of the EU. 
It follows that on the face of it, the Prime Minister’s request for an extension is illegal. 
Also any agreement for an extension which might have been agreed by the European Council is also without any Statutory authority. 
We thought it only proper to raise these points in the light of on-going developments, especially in view of your not having fully responded to our initial Letter before Claim. 
Yours faithfully
Tilbrook’s

A follow up about the case to stop any extension to Article 50 except by Act

The follow up to my previous blog article about the case to stop any extension to Article 50 except by a full Act of Parliament is that I have had this letter from the Government’s lawyers:-
Dear Mr Tilbrook
Re:  Response to Letter Before Claim
1.    We write in response to your letter before claim dated 28 February 2019 in which you seem to argue that any extension to or revocation of the Article 50 Notice required an Act of Parliament.  This letter, sets out the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union’s response to your proposed claim and has been written in accordance with the Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review.
The Proposed Claimant
2.    The proposed Claimant is Mr R Tilbrook:
Quires Green
Willingale
Ongar
Essex
CM5 0QP
The proposed Defendant
3.    The proper Defendant to this matter is the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union:
c/o Government Legal Department
Team B6
One Kemble Street
London
WC2B 4TS
Reference details
4.    Our reference for the matter is Z1904738/JTZ/B6
5.    Jonathan Stowell has conduct of this matter on behalf of the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.  Any further correspondence or service of documents in relation to this matter should be addressed to him at the above address.
Response to the proposed claim
6.    As you will be aware the pre-action protocol for Judicial Review provides that the letter before claim should contain the date and details of the decision, act or omission being challenged.
7.    Your proposed claim fails to identify any decisionmade by the Secretary of State or indeed any other person or public authority.  The reason you are unable to identify the date or details of any decision to extend or revoke the United Kingdom’s notification to leave the European Union is because no such decision has been taken.  You have not, therefore identified a decision that is capable of being the subject of a judicial review.
8.    To be clear, the Government’s firm policy position is that the Article 50 Notice will not be revoked.  A clear majority of the electorate voted to leave the EU and both the will of the British people and the democratic process which delivered this result must be expected.  The British people gave a clear instruction to leave, and that instruction is being delivered on.
9.    For the above reasons your proposed claim is wholly misconceived and totally without merit.
Details of any other interested parties
10.You have failed to provide any details of the proposed interested parties.  As you will be aware should you decide to issue proceedings, you are required to serve the Claim Form on all persons you consider to be an interested party in the proceedings (see rule 54.7 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998). 
11.We have not identified any other parties who may have an interest in the proposed claim.
Alternative dispute resolution
12.N/A
Action
13.We have explained above why your proposed claim is misconceived, accordingly the Secretary of State shall not be taking any of your requested actions.
Response to requests for information and documents
14.N/A
Address for further correspondence and service of court documents
15.If, after proper consideration of this letter, you decide to issue proceedings, please arrange for all documents to be served on Jonathan Stowell at the above address.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Stowell
For the Treasury Solicitor
I have replied as follows:-
Mr Jonathan Stowell
c/o Government Legal Department
Dear Sir
Re:  Proposed Action
        English Democrats – v – the Secretary of State for Exiting the          
        European Union
Thank you for your letter of 14th March. 
We would point out that our letter of the 28th February was written not on the basis of any decision yet taken, but on the basis of comments made in the House of Commons which suggested that an illegal decision might be in prospect.
We note that you have not denied that only a full Act of Parliament would legally authorise any delay in leaving the EU beyond the 29th March 2019.
In the circumstances we are enclosing a Request for Further Information to request that you formally admit our case.
Yours faithfully
Tilbrook’s
Enc.
And enclosed a formal Request for Further Information as follows:-
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
BETWEEN
THE QUEEN
ON THE APPLICATION OF THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS
(REG. NO. 6132268)
Applicant
And
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXITING THE EUROPEAN UNION
Respondent
__________________________________________
REQUEST FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
___________________________________________
Of:-
“7. Your proposed claim fails to identify any decision made by the Secretary of State or indeed any other person or public authority.  The reason you are unable to identify the date or details of any decision to extend or revoke the United Kingdom’s notification to leave the European Union is because no such decision has been taken.  You have not, therefore identified a decision that is capable of being the subject of a judicial review.”
Request:-
Is it admitted that any purported extension of the UK’s Article 50 Notice beyond 29thMarch 2019 can only be authorised prospectively by a full Act of Parliament?
Of:-
“8. To be clear, the Government’s firm policy position is that the Article 50 Notice will not be revoked.  A clear majority of the electorate voted to leave the EU and both the will of the British people and the democratic process which delivered this result must be expected.  The British people gave a clear instruction to leave, and that instruction is being delivered on.”
Request:-
Is it admitted that any Revocation of the UK’s Article 50 Notice can only be authorised prospectively by a full Act of Parliament?
Tilbrook’s of Quires Green, Willingale, Ongar, Essex, CM5 0QP
Solicitors for the Applicant
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
BETWEEN
THE QUEEN
ON THE APPLICATION OF THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS
(REG. NO. 6132268)
Applicant
And
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXITING THE EUROPEAN UNION
Respondent
__________________________________________
REQUEST FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
___________________________________________
Tilbrook’s
Quires Green
Willingale
Ongar
Essex CM5 0QP
Tel: 01277 896000
Fax: 01277 896050
Ref/Brexit

The purpose in writing in this way is to set up an application to the High Court for Judicial Review in the event that an Act of Parliament is not passed authorising an extension of the Article 50 Notice period beyond 11.00 p.m. on the 29th March 2019.
So if the Government fails to get an Act through by then we shall need to be ready to immediately apply for the High Court to rule that the UK has left the EU with no Withdrawal Treaty or Agreement.  We do therefore need help with a fighting fund to make sure we can do this without delay, given its huge constitutional importance. 

Speaker Bercow  may have  radically changed the rules of the Brexit game

Robert Henderson

Recently there has been a sense of resignation in the leave camp, a  feeling that we  were at the mercy of  our treacherous remainer politicians who appeared to hold all the best  cards because of their domination of Parliament. Singlehandedly the Speaker has changed the mood .

John Bercow’s  ruling (18 March) that May cannot put her deal with the EU to the Commons for a third time if it is “the same or substantially the same” .  This has undermined  utterly May’s entire strategy which is the democratically contemptible one of trying to force a thoroughly bad deal through by a war of attrition allied to Project Fear.

Even before Bercow spoke the situation was unsettled however much the remainers might have portrayed it as being a  clear choice between May’s deal   being passed by the Commons or May going off to the EU to ask for an extension (preferably a long one) which would allow the remainers more time to complete their sabotage of Brexit.

Nor, despite the remainers’ shrill, incessant claims, has a “no deal” departure been taken off the table. In fact a  “no deal” Brexit is  still the default position until and when  the 29 March date in the Withdrawal Act is amended.

Consequently, there was a  launching pad for greater resistance to the game May has been playing and the problems of dealing with a Remmainer dominated Parliament.  All that was needed was something to strike a serious blow at the status quo. Bercow provided that.

Before Bercow stated his position with regard to May’s deal, the Government had no inkling of what he was going to do before he spoke.   The very nasty shock he has administered has already born fruit. May has made a request  for the EU to sanction both a short  extension and a long extension,  The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier has  replied  smartly  that she cannot have both. He also made it clear than an extension should not be taken for granted and that May must come to the EU with a firm plan of action to justify any extension of Artic  50.    She will  find this very difficult to formulate.

The implications of extensions to Article 50

If May does obtain  a long extension this at the least would mean  during  the extension the UK paying  even more money than the £39 billion Danegeld May has already offered to the  ERU  with nothing in return , continuing free movement,  being subject to  any new EU laws and regulations (including quite probability a transaction tax which would hit the UK hard because so much of our economy is services based) and coming under the jurisdiction of the ECJ.

Those sort of impositions might not only strengthen the resolve of Brexiteers but be too much for many remainers,  especially those with leave majorities. Moreover, it is important to understand that though the Commons has authorised May  to seek an extension  it will need a vote in Parliament before it is adopted as law, presumably by amending the Withdrawal Act.

If an extension is beyond the EU elections in June  the UK would have to hold elections for MEPs. That could well result in a phalanx of hard core  Brexiteers intent on making as much trouble as possible.  Neither the British remainer establishment nor the EU apparatchiks, elected or appointed, would welcome that.  Both or the EU alone might conclude that letting the UK leave without a deal was preferable and refuse an extension.

That leaves revoking Article 50 entirely.  The ECJ has ruled  that the UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 ) but I doubt whether Parliament would vote for that because individual remainer MPs in leave majority seats would be worried about losing their seats. . (Strictly speaking May could probably do it off her own bat using the Royal Prerogative, but I doubt whether even she would have the brass neck to do that. Moreover, in the new Parliament is  the executive power situation and mood I suspect that she would face and probably lose  a vote of no confidence if she did so)

On the EU side it would be rash to assume that an extension would be automatically granted. Each of the other 27 EU members have their own national axes to grind and it is possible that one or more might simply say no to along  extension.

Why May’s  Deal Does Not  Mean Leaving the EU.

Anyone who is under the illusion that May’s “deal”  is anything other than a a subordinating horror for the UK should read the  Spectator column The top 40 horrors  lurking in the small print of  Theresa May’s  Brexit deal and watch this excellent less than 4 minute summary of the content of  and the implications of  the  “deal” by the  Bruges Group.

Proroguing Parliament

The suggestion that  Parliament could be prorogued  and a new Parliamentary session started would hit the buffers of the Fixed Term Parliament Act.  This provides for five Parliamentary sessions  of 12 months. If the present session was ended  by proroguing Parliament that would mean the five year term would be shortened because the current Parliamentary Session would be reduced.  As things stand this would mean the end date of the Parliament would not be reached by the end of five Parliamentary sessions.

Short of voting for a General Election now,  to get round this problem either the  new  Parliamentary year would have to be lengthened  or the Commons would have to vote to amend the  Fixed Term Parliaments Ac to fit these distinctly peculiar circumstances.

If nothing is settled by 29th March

What is required now is as much disorder and confusion as possible amongst our political class to distract them from the  draining away of  the last ten days before the 29 March.

In the present complex and rapidly reshaping circumstances It is quite conceivable that  the UK may come to  and pass the 29th March with the withdrawal date intact. That would mean the UK has left the EU. There would be no legal way for  either our remainer politicians or the EU to re-establish UK membership simply by  passing retrospective legislation or by the making of Treaties.  The only way back would be for the UK to re-apply for membership of the EU. From scratch.

Brexiteers should not be unthinkingly optimistic, but the situation is undeniably considerably more favourable to the leave side than it was  on 17 March, not least because Bercow’s intervention has swept away much of the obfuscation and outright lying  which has tainted the Commons until now.

Of course it may be that there is a good deal  of playacting by Bercow,  the Government and the EU and come the crunch Bercow my  allow another vote on May’s deal, the Commons may vote for the deal and the EU will agree to a long  extension, but that scenario   looks a great deal less likely today that it did  48 hours ago.

Brexit: an object lesson in elite betrayal

Robert Henderson

On 15  January Theresa May suffered the  greatest defeat of any British Prime Minister  when she put the draft deal she has  struck with the EU to a vote in the House of Commons. The deal was  rejected by 432  votes  against to 202 votes for, a colossal majority against accepting the deal of 230.

The bald figures  are  terrible enough but they are even worse than they appear for the government’s “payroll vote” of MPs  holding  government office is around 140. These  would be expected to vote with the Government. Hence, May will have  only attracted around 60 backbenchers (who within reason can vote as they like) to support  her  draft deal.

This gives May and her government a tremendous problem because ever since she came back to Parliament with the draft deal she has been saying it is her way or the highway as she has stubbornly insisted that  no other deal is available and that a failure to accept it could mean no Brexit. As the draft deal she has agreed offers  Brexit in name only  (Brino)  and resembles the type of treaty a defeated enemy who had sued for peace might agree to   such is the subordination of the UK interests which according to many commentators would leave the UK as a vassal state. The Commons showed what they thought of the  goods on offer and chose   to reject them in the most spectacular fashion.

The problem is that May is still Prime Minister . The day after suffering the defeat over her deal a vote of No Confidence in the Government  was defeated by 325 votes to 306 .  This means that she stays as Prime Minister and the threat of an early General Election has receded.  Nor can she face another Tory  leadership challenge  for the better part of a year because she won a vote of No Confidence  in her leadership just before Christmas.

The defeat of May’s deal is  encouraging for Brexiteers inasmuch as  the overwhelming  result should have greatly lessened any  thoughts May had of coming back with a few insignificant cosmetic changes made to the deal  nearer the 29th March leaving date.  However, that is still a possibility  and there  are many other threats to thwart a true Brexit . If there is a serious breakdown of party discipline  there is nothing to stop remainer MPs  doing anything they  want because the house of Commons consists of a substantial majority of remainers.

There  is one bright light amongst this gloom for Brexiteers, namely the fact that the date for the UK’s leaving is fixed in an Acct of Parliament .

Section 20 of  the European Union (Withdrawal ) Act  2018  states ‘“exit day” means 29 March 2019 at 11.00 p.m.’

To  change the date of the UK leaving the  EU requires either an amendment to or repeal of the Act.

While the Brexit leaving date remains unchanged it does not matter what else happens because it places a legal obligation on the UK to leave. Consequently, a  second referendum cannot be held, an extension of Article 50 cannot be sought by the UK or granted by the EU and  Article 50 cannot be revoked. In addition remainers, however aided and abetted by a remainer Speaker of the Commons,  cannot  ultimately stop the UK leaving the EU on 29 March.

However, the House of Commons is remainer dominated (around 6o%)   and  could vote to amend or repeal the leaving date, but  there are serious obstacles to that happening.

To begin with it would  nakedly expose their anti-democratic partisanship.  Ever since the referendum most remainers have constantly bleated the refrain that  they honour the result whilst making it perfectly clear that they want to sabotage Brexit.  If they alter the leaving date that pretence would be unsupportable because once the date was altered or removed completely from  the Act the remainers would be forced to commit themselves to going down one of these paths:

  1. Extend the two year Article 50 negotiating period, perhaps indefinitely.
  2. Revoke Article 50
  3. Announce that the UK is remaining in the EU.

4, Legislate for another referendum on Brexit.

There is also be  the possibility  of a snap General Election if no one could command a majority in the Commons.

Having their true feelings and intentions towards Brexit exposed will be more than embarrassing for many MPs  because  there are many constituencies – and especially ones filled by Labour  MPs – which voted heavily to leave the EU  while their MP voted to remain and has consistently opposed Brexit by fair means or foul.  Consequently, leave voters might well punish remainer  MPs in leave constituencies.

Brexit  did not have to be  thought hideously complicated.

Much has been made of the complexity of the Brexit.  This claimed complexity  is largely down to having  remainer  PM and a remainer dominated cabinet which looked for  terrors where there were none. At best their heart isn’t in Brexit and at worst they are deliberately trying to sabotage Brexit.

If  the process pf leaving the EU had  been conducted by a leaver PM and a leaver dominated Cabinet most of the complexity would have dissolved. There would still have been a potential problem with  remainer dominated Commons (and Lords) but with a government firmly committed to Brexit it is doubtful that remainers in Parliament would have been so blatant in their attempts to overthrow Brexit.

With a resolute  leaver as PM backed by a  leaver dominated cabinet the mere fact of their existence would have changed the language and progress of the negotiations between the UK and the EU.

Trading on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules

Leaving without a deal to trade under WTO rules is a real possibility because of both the fast approaching leave date and the inability of the House of Commons to come up with any plan which can command a majority.   Moreover, significant numbers of leave MPs have embraced the idea as being the best route out of the EU  for  of the  UK .

There are two reasons  for embracing  the idea of leaving to trade on WTO terms. The first is that it simplifies matters  because it is ready made system and allows business to plan . The second  is that it prevents, at least in the short to medium term,   remainder politicians trying to sabotage  Brexit after the UK has formally left the EU.     Nor of course does  WTO membership  mean that future bilateral trade deals cannot be struck.

The Deep State

The Deep State is often portrayed as a conspiracy. In fact it is better thought of as a blind  sociological  event.  There is no group of conscious conspirators, simply people being groomed to have the same opinions  or at least saying they  do.

What has happened in the  UK (and the rest for the West to varying degrees) is the success of the long march through the institutions.  That is what ultimately has given the UK an elite (politicians, mediafolk, teachers etc) who are  overwhelmingly politically correct internationalists  and its those people who are at the forefront of the attempts to sabotage Brexit.

How did it it come about? A German student leader of the 1960s  Rudi Dutschke put forward the idea whereby societies were subverted from within by those of an internationalist bent who would patiently work to gain positions of power and influence. Eventually there would be sufficient of such people to change the  policies of Western societies from national to internationalist ones.  That point was reached in the UK at least 50 years ago and the politically correct stranglehold on our society is now in full  flower.

The capture of Western societies by internationalists has allowed them to permit  and even overtly encourage mass immigration of people from different cultures , denigrate their own societies,  traduce  the West and its native populations generally and introduce gradually the pernicious  totalitarian creed of political correctness which has “anti-racism”  (in reality anti-white racism)  at its heart.  The last brick  in the politically correct building is the increasingly draconian treatment of anyone who  refused to toe the politically correct line , treatment which is increasingly including the use of the criminal law and imprisonment.

That is why Western politics until recently has been so ideologically monotone. Brexit was a revolt against that mentality.

The bad faith of the remainers

The vast majority of MPs have overtly or tacitly supported the idea of the referendum and its result  by promising  in election manifestos, in Parliament and through their passage by large majorities of  the legislation needed to both set up the referendum and make provision for the

By doing so MPs forfeited their  right to do anything other honour the result of the referendum. That applies just as much to remainer MPs as  leave MPs because the leaver MPs were bound by both the democratic choice made by the Commons and the democratic choice made by the electorate.

Sadly, the behaviour of the most committed remainers with power and influence (including many MPs and peers in the house of Lords) has shattered  utterly the idea that the UK is a fully functioning democracy. Rather, it is an elective oligarchy whereby the electorate are offered an opportunity every few years to choose between competing parts of the elite, an elite in the UK whose general political ideas are largely shared by the various competing parts of that elite, ideas  which go against the interests and wishes of most of  the electorate.

Noe of this should be a surprise. The sad truth is that the central political question in any society is this, how far will the masses be able to control the naturally abusive tendencies of the elite.

Angela Merkel: Nation States Must “Give Up Sovereignty” to New World Order!

Angela Merkel: Nation States Must “Give Up Sovereignty” to New World Order

The report below about Angela Merkel’s speech in November nicely encapsulates the so-called “Liberal Democratic” view of the idea of the State and of the idea of the Nation.  This is particularly where she denies the validity of the idea of “the People” and also where she seeks to undermine the sovereignty of Nation States, saying instead that “the People are (merely) individuals who are living in a Country, they are not a group who define themselves as the People”. 
This is very much the view of so many of the members of the British Political and Media Establishment who in their hearts have long rejected the idea of the Nation.  As a result of Brexit they have been forced out into the open and their deep-seated hostility to the nation state and national popular democracy has been so pitifully exposed. 
These people are a threat to our Nation, which is all the more serious because of their position within the Establishment. 
The Roman orator and statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero once vividly described the threat of such people also said:- “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
We need to work harder to ensure that there is a genuinely patriotic party able to challenge these people as part of the system.

Here is the report about Angela Merkel’s comments:-

Angela Merkel: Nation States Must “Give Up Sovereignty” To New World Order by Tyler Durden

“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty”, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.
No this wasn’t something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel told attendants at an event by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won’t seek re-election in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands down.
“In an orderly fashion of course,” Merkel joked, attempting to lighten the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear for comedy and she soon launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think Germany should have listened to the will of its citizens and refused to sign the controversial UN migration pact:
“There were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are representing The People”.
“[But] the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German] people,” she stressed.
Merkel has previously accused critics of the UN Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration of not being patriotic, saying “That is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations”.
Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day speech that “patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason.”
The French president’s words were deeply unpopular with the French population and his approval rating nosedived even further after the comments.
Macron, whose lack of leadership is proving unable to deal with growing protests in France, told the Bundestag that France and Germany should be at the center of the emerging New World Order.
“The Franco-German couple [has]the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace”.
“Europe must be stronger… and win more sovereignty,” he went on to demand, just like Merkel, that EU member states surrender national sovereignty to Brussels over “foreign affairs, migration, and development” as well as giving “an increasing part of our budgets and even fiscal resources”
(Here is the original report >>> https://www.kas.de/veranstaltungsberichte/detail/-/content/-das-herz-der-demokratie- )

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM COMES A STEP CLOSER!

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM COMES A STEP CLOSER!

Although the “Mainstream Media” (AKA “Legacy Media”) newspapers and broadcasters, such as in the article below by Alan Cochrane, focus on the risk to the Union (of the UK) from Northern Ireland and Scotland, it may well be that the more important longer term “threat” to the Union will be from England and from English Nationalists.  As William Hague when he was the Leader of the “Conservative” Party said:-  “English nationalism is the worst of all nationalisms” for the future of the Union!

The constitutional position about Theresa May’s agreement, if she manages to get it through Parliament and ratified by all the relevant parts of the EU will be interesting, because, if that happens, with the majority Leave vote in England, of well over 15 million English people voting for Leave, can then only be satisfied by the dissolution of the United Kingdom!

From a legal and constitutionalist point of view this works because the dissolution of the UK as the contracting state means that the deal is dissolved too.  This was threatened against the Scottish Nationalists, in the run up to the Scottish Independence Referendum, when the then Commissioner Barosso pointed out that, if Scotland left the United Kingdom then (because the United Kingdom would be dissolved), Scotland would be a new State and therefore not an ‘Accession’ state and so not part of the EU. 

The EU is composed of “Member States”.  If a Member State is dissolved and ceases to exist, then the arrangements with the EU also cease to exist.  The EU is not a territorial entity, nor an entity of individual people, nor of peoples, it is an entity only of accession Member States.  This means that the general legal principles on dissolution or death of a participating entity in an agreement apply.  Generally that means that the agreement itself ceases to exist as well as the dissolved entity upon its dissolution (or death).

I explained this in my Blog article quite a few years ago.  Here is a link to that article >>> https://robintilbrook.blogspot.com/2012/12/england-to-be-free-of-eu-in-2014.html

The article below by Alan Cochrane is also interesting but is of course yet again looking at the Union from the Scottish perspective rather than from the point of view of English nationalists. 

In short I think Theresa May’s proposed deal may actually fill the sails of English nationalists and of English nationalism because our way of thinking will then be the only practical way of coming out of the EU. 

What do you think?  Here is Alan Cochrane’s article :-

Warring Tories have put a hurricane in the sail of the nationalists 

With the Conservative Party tearing itself and the government of Theresa May asunder last night, one of its hitherto more successful parts appeared to be also heading for the intensive care ward.

In a bitter, and unprecedented Cabinet-level war, the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party accused resigning Brexiteer ministers of threatening to wreck the United Kingdom. In one of the most outspoken attacks one senior minister has ever launched against colleagues, former or otherwise, David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, described Dominic Raab and Esther McVey as “carpetbaggers”.

Just for good measure, he claimed that Mr Raab’s departure was more about a future leadership bid than the Brexit deal.

In their resignation letters, the former Brexit and Work and Pensions Secretaries had both cited the threat to the Union posed by the fact that special provisions were proposed for Northern Ireland in Mrs May’s withdrawal deal.

And there is little doubt that this escalation in insults reflected the fact that the Northern Ireland aspect of the deal has put immediate and intense pressure on Mr Mundell and, also to a lesser extent, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader.

Their partnership has been largely responsible for the revival of the Conservatives north of the border – leaping from one MP to 13 at the last general election and forming the official opposition to the SNP at the Scottish Parliament.

However, significantly, at least in terms of their current embarrassment, both signed an open letter to the Prime Minister last month in which they threatened to resign if there was a “differentiated deal” agreed for Northern Ireland. And, no matter how you cut it, that is precisely what is contained in the deal Mrs May put to her Cabinet on Wednesday.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the view expressed in Scottish Tory circles that Mr Raab and Ms McVey used the threat to the Union as “cover” for their resignations. And I can also understand Mr Mundell’s intense irritation that many of the most ardent Brexiteers care little for the maintenance of the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Indeed, I can’t remember any of them making an appearance during the Scottish independence referendum campaign four years ago.

That’s neither here nor there now, however. No amount of name-calling and foot stamping will alter the plain fact that, by including a distinctive feature for Northern Ireland after Brexit in the deal, the Prime Minister has done two things: she’s delivered a major boost to the SNP, whose sole aim is the break-up of Britain, and she’s ignored the warnings she received from Mr Mundell and Ms Davidson.

In one of the great ironies of the situation, the nationalists claim that Scotland should be given a different deal from the rest of the UK but haven’t got it, whereas Northern Ireland is getting one but its majority party doesn’t want it. And yesterday First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claimed that Ulster’s special treatment would give it an unfair trading advantage over Scotland.

There is a hope within Scottish Conservative circles that Mrs May might yet be able to retrieve the situation by clarifying and playing down the differences in the deal for Northern Ireland. But given the furious reaction from DUP MPs yesterday, she has a mountain to climb in that direction.

Nevertheless, the Scottish Tories’ main problem is that threatening letter sent to the PM and signed by Mr Mundell and Ms Davidson. It was seen at the time, by some observers, as a silly piece of grandstanding and it has now come back to bite them – hard.

Ms Davidson is on maternity leave and, last night Mr Mundell said he was staying put, insisting that he would fight on for the maintenance of the UK, adding: “That’s what I’m focused on, not being the heart of some soap opera of resignations and I’m not going to be bounced into resigning by carpetbaggers.”

Notwithstanding his determination to fight on and his angry words about his now former colleagues, I’m sure that he wishes he hadn’t signed that letter. It’s boxed him in, good and proper.

ARE THE CONSERVATIVES MAKING AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE ERROR OVER BREXIT?

 
ARE THE CONSERVATIVES MAKING AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE ERROR OVER BREXIT?
It is commonplace amongst political commentators that the voting public is not interested in politics and does not spend much time thinking about it.  In fact the best example of how this has been explained that I have come across over the years was a commentator who said that the public only see politics out of their “peripheral vision”.  If somebody actually manages to get the public to look directly at them then politically that is a game changer. 

So this means that the current parliamentary parties of the British Political Establishment and, in particular, the Conservative Party, which I want to talk about in this article, have lived their whole careers, up until the Brexit vote, in at most the peripheral vision of the voting public.  This has always meant that as long as politicians are looking as though they are going to say the right things whenever they come into view in the public’s peripheral vision, the public’s gaze flicks away from them and they are allowed to get on with it unchecked.

It is because of this lack of attention that the public does not hold Establishment Politicians properly to account and does not put any serious effort into thinking critically about the politicians that are being elected.  This is the situation in which the current generation of parliamentarians have grown up and in which they have developed their careers.

So if, for example, you take Theresa May, she is a politician who has basically been able to get away with lying about what she stands for throughout her whole political career.  Thus in order to get selected by the Conservative constituency party, any Conservative MP who is not genuinely a Eurosceptic has had to lie to claim that they are a Eurosceptic otherwise they would not get selected by the predominantly Eurosceptic Conservative Party membership.   Once selected, in order to get elected, they have had to continue lying and pretending that they are Eurosceptics, because in most Conservative seats they would not get elected if they said that they were Europhiles. 

Theresa May, for example, when she became Home Secretary, on any objective basis she did an appalling job of being Home Secretary. On almost every promise that she and the two Conservative Governments that she got elected but she failed to deliver on almost any of the policies that had been promised.  The most glaring of which of course is on immigration, where they were elected on promises to keep immigration down to the “tens of thousands”.  In fact, she presided over the biggest influx of mass immigration in the history of England, with, in her last year as Home Secretary, more immigrants arriving in that one year than had come to England in the entirety of the thousand years before 1939!

However whenever the public’s political vision flicked over her, there she was saying that was what she wanted to try and achieve a dramatic reduction in mass immigration.  That was enough to satisfy the public so that their gaze moved on and so no critical analysis was brought to bear in holding her accountable for her actual lack of achievement!

This current generation of parliamentarians might have continued to live out their whole political careers just as previous ones had done, without there being a moment where the public would be willing to make any effort to properly hold them to account.  That would however have been without the Brexit vote! 

As a result of the EU referendum on leaving the EU, the public, for the first time in at least a generation, really focussed on a political question and gave an unequivocal answer based upon the largest turnout that has occurred for decades.  The unequivocal expectation of voters was, and is, that the public’s decision would be implemented.  This is where trouble has occurred for our dishonest and deceitful Remainer MPs, who had comfortably expected to be allowed to continue making decisions that suited them and their agendas without any proper accountability to the electorate for the rest of their careers. 

Theresa May is just one of those parliamentarians who had expected to be able to carry on lying her way out of any inconvenient situation. 

It is in that context that she has dishonestly conducted her own hidden Brexit policy which she unrolled to the startled gaze of her Cabinet colleagues at Chequers. 

Theresa May’s Chequers’ proposal is not only completely contrary to the public’s expectations following the Brexit vote, but is also directly contrary to Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech about her “red lines” when she was still repetitively chanting “Brexit means Brexit”.  Now the public is turning its eyes towards Theresa May and is focussing and so is noticing that she is a dishonest and incompetent Remainer, who is, in Jacob Rees Mogg’s words “a Remainer who has remained a Remainer”.  This is despite the public’s vote and despite her pledge to implement it in her otherwise ill-judged General Election manifesto.

This leaves me somewhat torn between two conflicting feelings! 

For the country, and as a patriot, I think that what Theresa May is trying to do is a travesty and a terrible missed opportunity, but as the Leader of what The Times newspaper was kind enough to call an “insurgent party”, I cannot help but relish the prospect that the parliamentary Conservative Party led by Theresa May could well be now heading irrevocably in a direction in which the public will clearly see that the leadership of the modern Conservative Party is composed of dishonest, incompetent, and unpatriotic Europhiles.

When the public truly realises what the modern Conservative Party leadership stands for, I think it likely that the public will regard them as unfit to hold Government Office ever again. 

It may well be that many of the seventy plus per cent that Professor Sir John Curtice of Strathclyde University has identified as being “Leavers” who have been voting Conservative will decide not to come out to vote for the current alternative Establishment party (i.e. Corbyn’s Labour) but that does not mean that they will vote again for a Conservative Party that has so clearly and now noticeably betrayed the trust that was placed in them. 

The purging of the Conservatives from being a Party of Government is the first step required for a reconstruction of our national politics. 

We need a politics more in line with the two opinion blocks of real voters.  These are for the patriotic, anti-mass immigration, pro-Brexit, pro-traditional values and pro-welfare and NHS nationalists.  Against this block is the internationalist, pro-EU, anti-patriotic, liberal values, pro-mass immigration, individualistic cosmopolitan block. 

The current mishmash of views is one in which the Establishment parties are at cross purposes with most voters.  Most of us like some of what Labour has to say and also some of what the Conservatives have to say but we don’t like all of what either of them have to say.  So, at the moment, voters have the awkward and unappetising choice at elections of having to choose between the least worst party, rather than being able to choose a party they actually fully agree with.  Changing that ladies and gentlemen would be a reform of our politics well worth seeing!

WILL THE EU COLLAPSE BEFORE THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT REMAINERS CAN GET US OUT OF IT?

WILL THE EU COLLAPSE BEFORE THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT REMAINERS CAN GET US OUT OF IT?
I read an interesting article recently in the Daily Telegraph entitled “The Brussels empire is collapsing before our eyes – but Remainiacs just don’t see it” by Professor Gwythian Prins who is Emeritus Research Professor at the LSE and applied historical methodology to the task of trying to work out what the risk of the EU’s collapse is likely to be.  

I thought the analysis was both interesting and quite compelling.
Here is the article:-
The Brussels empire is collapsing before our eyes – but Remainiacs just don’t see it 
There are two strange things about ‘remainiacs’ – the self-important 5% of the country who are trying to halt Brexit. The first is well known. It is their disrespect for the biggest winning democratic vote for any issue or any government in British history. But the second is not. This is their weird attitude to the EU. 
Their frantic ‘virtue-signalling’ finds all fault with Britain and none with the unelected Brussels machine in our mud-wrestling ‘negotiation’ to leave. But what is the actual state of health of this institution to which they would keep Britain shackled in a ‘Hotel California’ Brexit – one where you can check out anytime but you just can’t leave? 
I am an historian and cultural anthropologist, so I decided to compare the EU to similar complex social systems in the past, using the academic tools of my trade. 
My main finding should worry Mr Selmayr, the German uber-bureaucrat who just took effective charge of the EU in a surgical coup d’état last month. And it should reassure everyone who voting to leave the EU in 2016. 
By getting out now we may just avoid the cliff-edge of major crisis in the EU. And the ‘remainiacs’ just don’t see it. 
If we apply a famous technique for analysing the risk of collapse in complex societies to the EU, we find that it is squarely within the zone of that risk. How so?  
First, we have to identify what sort of institution the EU is. Well, it looks like an empire. It walks like an empire. It certainly talks like an empire – listen to Mr Tusk. It treats its subjects like an empire. They grumble rebelliously, as vassal-states do. Its rulers, the Brussels elite, feather their nests just like their predecessors in function did in the USSR. In 2007 the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso actually called it an empire. I think we may safely say that the EU is an empire. And empires collapse. Is this one facing that risk? And if it is, how would we know? 
The leading methodology today for analysing the risk of collapse in empires was first used by an American archaeologist in a comprehensive review of mainly ancient empires. He borrowed it from the world of finance and adapted it to measure the perceived marginal benefit that you either do – or do not – get if you increase the complexity of a social structure. 
Professor Tainter’s point is that empires are only strong when the benefits from increasing complexity are positive. It is when more complexity yields less benefit that an empire enters the zone of risk of collapse. So I ran the detailed history of the European ‘project’ through this methodology and the results show pretty clearly that since the introduction of the Euro, the ‘project’ has been badly on the slide. What’s happening? 
Across the EU – not just in Britain – we, the peasants, are revolting! The facts are stark. In referenda and increasingly in national elections too, since Denmark and Sweden rejected the Euro, we have had almost twenty years of rejection after rejection of the EU’s wishes by the people. 
The premature introduction of the Euro to try to force the pace towards political union was the Federalists greatest mistake. It infected the entire ‘project’ with a wasting disease that remorselessly destroys its legitimacy. 
The next crisis was 2005/6 when the Dutch and the French rejected the ‘EU Constitution’ only for it to be rammed through as the Lisbon Treaty. 
The Irish bridled, so they had to be whipped over the fence at the second attempt. The Brussels elite reran referenda when they could because they believe their own Vanguard Myth which tells them they know best. 
Or, in 2015, they simply ignored the Greek referendum and imposed even harsher terms on this troublesome colony. The biggest cluster-crisis started then, grew with Brexit and Germany’s immigration crisis. 
The revolts in Italy and now in Hungary are just the latest and possibly most threatening. All this evidence of citizen rejection while Brussels responds with further bureaucratic complexity, has plainly taken the EU into the Zone of Risk of Collapse where it now stands. 
In order to deter any other prospective escapees, Brussels is shaky but defiant, bullying, hoping to dishearten the British (some hope!), intent on punishing us for taking back control. Hardly a sign of self-confidence. 
Across the EU, the cost in terms of alienation mounts as citizens, resentful of being treated so contemptuously, rationally choose less complexity at the national level. Less complexity is no catastrophe. It’s the historical norm. And that’s the key. If people don’t regard an empire’s power as legitimate, they rebel. Empires are like Peter Pan’s fairy friend Tinkerbell. They can only live if all the children clap. And across Europe, the people aren’t clapping any more. This empire is collapsing before our eyes but it’s no crisis for the ‘Brexiteer’ Many, only for the ‘remainiac’ Few. 
The Government should understand this evidence. We are by far the stronger party facing this rickety EU. Stop being so timid. Thank goodness that ordinary people had to good sense to get us out in the nick of time. 
Gwythian Prins is Emeritus Research Professor at the LSE. His report is published on the university-based website ‘Briefings for Brexit’ set up by academics who back the majority decision to leave the EU.
What do you think?