Brexit - back to basics
Brexit the ongoing saga
I wonder how many people can remember the day on Thursday 23rd June 2016 when we all went to our local polling station to vote in the Referendum!
I remember it vividly. It was a cool evening in late spring when we (my wife and I) went into the hall to cast our vote. Surprisingly we were the only people there. Handing over our voting registration papers, getting our names checked on the voters roll, and then been given a single sheet of approximately A5 size.
All was that was written on the paper was the following:
Leave the European Union
At the end of each statement was a box where you would insert a 'X' to signify your preference.
Before I placed my 'X' in the appropriate box, I turned the paper over and to my amazement there was NOTHING written on the other side. Nothing, as in no second question about any deal. Nothing.
The question was quite simple and in very plain English. Leave or Remain.
Having place my 'X' in the "Leave" box, I folded it and placed it into the ballot box.
We then made our way home, and I was resigned to waking in the morning to find that the country decided to remain.
WOW, what an upset the result was to find that the country voted to LEAVE. I don't think that the majority of people in the country were expecting that result in their hearts.
The government of the day under David Cameron were expecting it to be business as usual and we would get on with our lives.
Since then a lot has happened and also a lot has not happened.
David Cameron a staunch remainer did the honourable thing and stood down as he could not take the country out of the EU. The subsequent leadership battle brought in Theresa May, another remainer, which I still cannot comprehend. She was tasked with the job of taking us out of the EU, no chance of that happening. I will explain my reasons for saying this.
Firstly Theresa May was a remainer, so how could she possibly negotiate to take us out of the EU. Her true colours were to be seen later when she brought out the ill fated Withdrawal Agreement which parliament quite rightly rejected 3 times.
Secondly, she went into the negotiations with the EU, with a cap in hand attitude and effectively allowed them to dictate the terms of leaving. A proper Prime Minister who really wanted us to leave would never have allowed them to dictate to us.
A proper PM would have gone in and set out the terms of us leaving and negotiated from a position of strength.
A lot of people will be shouting and saying that the Leave camp didn't have a plan for Brexit after the Referendum. You know what, I totally agree with you. Yes I said I agree. Now the reasons for me agreeing are quite simple. Yes quite simple.
The truth of the matter is that Leave NEVER expected to win the Referendum. Plain and simple.
Once Theresa May was instilled as PM she went about the negotiation process, very poorly I must say and set a date for us to leave on the 29th March 2017, thereby triggering Article 50. This then set in motion a 2 year process to ensure we left on 29th March 2019.
This is where the whole Brexit process turns ugly, personal agendas playing a huge part, and broken promises of MP's to parliament and their constituents.
Leave voters were accused of not knowing what they voted for. I knew exactly what I voted for, and the further this shambles continues it confirms even more the reasons why I voted to Leave.
Ask any Remain voter why they voted to stay, and they evade or avoid the question and keep telling us we didn't know why we voted to Leave. I have yet to come across a single Remainer that can tell me why we should remain.
My reasons for leaving are clear
No Single Market - Free trade is what we want
No Customs Union - unfair taxation
Controlled Immigration - not the uncontrolled entry into the EU as is happening now
Our Own Fishing Waters - saving our fishing industry
No EU Parliament - we have our own parliament (as bad as it is)
No EU President - dictating to us like the autocrat that he is
No EU Court - we have our own Supreme Court
No EU Laws - we live by the laws we make, nut by some foreign power
No EU Flag - I like the Union Flag. If you don't you can always leave
No EU Passport - My British passport is accepted in practically every county on earth
Our own Trade Agreements to trade with whoever we want. Not who we are told to deal with to our disadvantage as far as costs and taxes are concerned.
And Finally, why should we be propping up the EU with finances when we have an NHS that is in desperate need of funds, a huge housing shortage, a road system that is falling apart, and homeless people all over the country. We need to look after our own first before we help others. Charity begins at home.
The more this fiasco goes on the more I'm convinced I made the right decision. All the powers in the EU are interested in is the money we contribute into their coffers. Are you aware that the EU has never been audited, and spend the money on anything they want with no recourse. The biggest shambles of all is the waste of having 2 parliaments, yes 2. There is one in Brussels and the other in Strasbourg in France.
Why are there 2 Parliaments? France is one of the original members of the EU and insisted on parliament being held in France as well as Belgium. Every time they want to change this there is a vote and France veto the vote, and it stays where it is. The EU is legally bound to meet in Strasbourg 12 times a year for 4 days every sitting. This is all done at a cost of £150 million per annum, for 4 days work.
This is over and above the Administrative offices in Luxembourg.
The EU are great at wasting our taxpayer money, and we have no recourse on this at all.
I then get people saying to me that we get so much back from the EU monetary wise. I somehow don't think so. Of the millions we fund the EU with on a monthly basis these are the 2018 figures on return for investment. This list is not complete, but the figures are available for all 28 countries if wanted.
Luxembourg £34.04/£1 = 3304%,
Bulgaria £6.14/£1 = 514%
Romania £5.36/£1 = 436%
Hungary £4.92/£1 = 392%
Poland £2.99/£1 = 199%
France 58p/£1 = -44%
Germany 43p/£1 = -57%
UK 38p/£1 = -62%
Looking at these figures the UK is the 3rd biggest contributor after France and Germany, and yet we get back less than both of them.
My question is this - who is being fleeced and by whom?
Theresa May was given a simple task to do and that was to go to Brussels and tell them we were leaving and give them a date. She was not there to negotiate a 'divorce' term and then a trade agreement that was heavily weighted in the EU's favour.
If she had the guts to say we are leaving on such and such date then walked out we would now be in a position of strength to work from.
Instead being a remainer, she caved in to all their demands, and came back absolutely powerless to negotiate anything. She was instrumental with us being in the position we see ourselves in today.
Coupled with all this at the 2016 Referendum we had 406 constituencies voted to leave compared to 242 that voted to stay. The main problem was that 326 more MP's voted to stay than leave.
This would not have been a problem had the MP's lived up to what they were elected to do and that is to REPRESENT THEIR CONSTITUENCIES.
As we have seen throughout this whole process, that many MP's jumped ship or totally ignored the wishes of their constituents. Hopefully the people will remember this when we next have a General Election, and get rid of the traitors to our Democracy. Now you would have thought that with 2 years to discuss everything they would agree something and we would be out on the 29th March 2019. I must repeat - 2 years is a long time. It is enough time in anybodies book to negotiate an agreement.
If the MP's followed the wishes of their constituents it would have been an easy process. However, when you have MP's with their own agendas and their own vested interests it was never going to be easy.
At the end of the day the Withdrawal Agreement presented by Theresa May was rejected 3 times, as even the stupidest person can see would only take us out of the EU in NAME ONLY. We would still be in the Customs Union and the Single Market, unable to trade with who we wanted and no control of our fisheries either. No wonder it was rejected.
Then they have the audacity to ask for more time. So now the leave date was set to 31st October 2019.
Added to all this frustration was the Supreme Court ruling that we could not have a No Deal Brexit. This is the most ludicrous thing ever passed into law. That effectively ensured we had no negotiating power with the EU at all. They can effectively tell us that this is the deal and we have to accept it. Added to the fact that the Supreme Court judges all voted to Remain in the EU did not bode well at all. So much for the Legal system being impartial.
Then came another bombshell, we have to ask for an extension to the 31st October deadline if no agreement is passed by parliament.
As you can get the jist from all this, the Remainers are doing their utmost to stop us leaving the EU, which is totally against the democratic will of the people.
I get so many people saying we need to have a 'people's vote'. This is obviously from the Remainers, that are not prepared to accept the result of a democratic vote held in 2016.
The question asked was very simple - Leave or Remain. This was done so as to not insult anybody's intelligence or lack of.
It would appear that the Remain contingent cannot accept anything other than them being right. If Remain had won the Referendum, then we would have just got on with our daily lives. It seems that they are incapable of this.
Then the Remainers come up with the argument, why won't you accept having another referendum?
The answer to that question is so easy. I in fact answer it with a question.
If we had another Referendum and we got the same result, would you accept it?
The simple answer is no. And this definitely applies to the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who when asked the same question live on TV stated quite categorically that she would NOT accept the result. This just shows the levels that the Remain camp will go to to stop Brexit
Boris Johnson took over from Theresa May with the promise of delivering Brexit by the 31st October with or without a deal. We all know now that he can't do a No Deal as the supreme court put paid to that, and now parliament have introduced a 'Law' insisting that he call for an extension to the deadline if no deal was forthcoming .
He resurrected Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement, did some very minor tweaks and last night got it passed by parliament. Let me say now that this is not Brexit. This deal keeps us closely aligned to the EU for as long as they wish.
Boris then gave them 2 days to discuss the deal and amend as necessary. That was put to the vote, and was defeated, with MP's insisting that 2 days is not long enough time to go through a 150 page document. Bear in mind as I have said previously that this is a rehashed Theresa May Withdrawal Agreement that was rejected by parliament. The point I am making is that the bulk of the document is unchanged. All MP's know this document well so all the salient points should be highlighted and discussed. Two days is plenty of time in which to do this.
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