Leave - why wait?

By the time you read this, events will have kind of overtaken it but please do read on.

Today, Tuesday 17 January, 2017, UK Prime Minister, Theresa May will lay out the framework for Britain’s exit from the European Union – Brexit.

It’s entirely possible that her speech will have had a bit of a re-write in the last couple of days, to take account of comments by soon to be US President Trump and by the lead EU negotiator, Michel Barnier.

President Trump has indicated a desire for the USA to conclude a free trade treaty with the UK, as soon as possible.  So no more ‘back of the queue’ from the Britain-hating Obama

M. Barnier has apparently recognised the importance of the City of London to the European Union’s financial system.  ‘Apparently’ because having said this in an interview with the ‘remain’ leaning Guardian newspaper, he then sought to backtrack.   Whatever!   Barnier’s position will become clearer over time though I suspect the recent comments are closer to reality than his politically inspired backtracking.

Both though show that Brexit doesn’t presage the doom-laden future that the ‘remainers’ and global ‘experts’ predicted.  Indeed, even the Bank of England Governor now seems to recognise that the immediately greater risk from Brexit is to the EU rather than Britain.  On the same track, the IMF, headed by convicted criminal, Christine Lagarde, have rowed back on their gloomy predictions for the UK economy and are now upgrading their growth predictions for the UK economy.  Also they and other so called experts have come to recognise that the UK was the strongest  economy in the world, during 2016.  And yes, Remainers, that includes 6 months of the ‘dark Brexit winter’ that started on June 23^rd, 2016!

Anyway, to Theresa May’s speech and my hopes for it.

Ted Yarborough, writing for the Daily Globe, has succinctly outlined the five key points that Theresa May needs to ensure are met.  These are:

1.     UK having complete sovereignty over its borders and free movement of people to end.

2.     UK to have free trade with the EU outside of the Single Market and Customs Union

3.     European courts and European Law to have no jurisdiction in the UK

4.     Future contributions to the UK are up for negotiation

5.     Open borders, with the Republic of Ireland to remain.

Ted covers these issues very well and so I won’t repeat his arguments.  I would add the following though.

On the day that the UK invokes Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, signalling its intent to leave the European Union, the UK should actually leave the EU, that very day. 

Okay, I know that that will freak out some people and the ‘Remainers’ will have all sorts of ‘conniption fits’ but stay with me a moment.

Such a move will require emergency UK legislation – I am thinking of a simple one paragraph law that states that as of this date, existing EU law that is on the UK Statute book will remain in effect, even though Britain is no longer a member of the European Union until such time as it is repealed.

That gets us over the immediate legal ‘hump’.

Why leave the same day? 

Well, firstly, bureaucrats have an awful habit of dragging things out.  The recently-resigned UK ambassador to the European Union, Sir Ivan Rogers, had indicated he thought it would take 10 years to conclude a treaty.  That would be a nice ‘little earner’ for Eurocrats and lawyers and a great chance to pad-out the pension pot.  Incidentally, why does any country have an ambassador to the European Union?  It isn’t as if it is a country!

Secondly, nothing concentrates the mind of those conducting the negotiations more, than having a deadline.  On the converse, an open-ended timeline – say ten years – means that talks will drag on and on and progress is bound to be glacial.  Indeed, one would suspect that this is a ploy of the ‘Remainers’  - drag it out so that the British people lose interest and then quietly drop the whole exercise.  And, in the interim, the EU’s freedom of movement policy continues to swamp the UK with migrants for which the UK does not have the resources.  There is currently much talk in the UK media, of a crisis in the NHS.  Apart from those people called ‘health tourists’ who travel to the UK, take advantage of free at point of delivery healthcare and then head home to their own country, without paying for the service they received, the UK NHS simply wasn’t designed for such numbers as it is now being called upon to serve.  UK’s immigrant population jumped from 3.8 million to 8.4 million, in the last 10 years or so.  Such growth is unsustainable.  Just think about that increase.

Thirdly, a repeat of the second – nothing concentrates the mind more than the cash tap being turned off.  Yes, on the day we invoke Article 50, we cease contributions to the EU.  Why on earth would we pay a membership fee for a club for which we have ended membership?  Both ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’ seem to agree that the net contribution is £8.5 billion a year.  Other than providing a welcome reduction in government spending, this will focus the Eurocrats in speeding towards a treaty.  The UK is the third largest contributor to the EU budget.  We account for more than 12% of the total.  Whatever the outcome of the negotiations, this would suggest that the much needed cuts to the bloated EU spending will have to be made.  Better late than never, I suppose.

Another reason is that leaving immediately will ‘lance the boil’ in the UK.  This will provide a ‘crossing the Rubicon’ moment and will allow Britain’s politicians to move on from the result and to focus on the way forward. To focus on how Britain can benefit from the opportunities presented by Brexit.  How Britain can roll back the role of the State in the life of Britons by repealing the more petty and intrusive EU inspired legislation.  (If I were in charge, my mantra would be repeal unless you can show how a law or regulation benefits the UK people and show the cost-benefit case for your assertion.  And this would apply to all such legislation!)

Finally, leaving immediately allows the UK to press on and conclude free trade treaties with other countries.  In the interim, WTO rules would apply but we can take advantage of the apparent desire of trading partners to conclude agreements.

So, hopefully, Theresa May has already thought of this or reads the above and tells the EU that we  will leave the organisation by the self-imposed March 31, 2017 deadline.

Leave now – why wait?

Leave the Single Market

Leave the Customs Union

Leave the corrupt and undemocratic European Union.

Worried about the GOP

So it is to be President Trump. 

Like many others, I didn’t foresee this, except that looking at the attendance at his rallies and those at Hillary Clinton’s, as well as the views expressed on my Twitter timeline, it was clear to me that he was always going to do better than the heavily biased main stream media (MSM) were projecting.  Of course my Twittersphere is bound to lean more towards GOP so …

Trump wouldn’t have been my choice for the GOP candidate.  That was Ted Cruz.  It was discouraging to see that many of the other GOP Primary candidates didn’t get behind Trump in the run-up to the election, though Cruz did have the grace and class, to actively campaign from the Trump/Pence ticket.  Hope for the future, I trust.

In writing this, I was tempted to ignore the post-election whining from the losing Democrat Party and its supporters in the MSM, however, that would be remiss of me.

Just as with Brexit, in the UK, so the ‘experts’ are analysing and ‘slicing and dicing’ the results to see why they got it so wrong.  Here is my advice to them.  Review your own output, see just how much of it was media and people inside the election bubble, talking and pontificating to themselves rather than talking to real people.  It was always ridiculous and incredibly over-simplistic to simply label Trump’s supporters as racists, xenophobes, sexists, misogynists and uneducated.

These people simply didn’t buy into the ‘political correctness’ that says that love of your own country makes you a racist or makes you automatically hate any and all foreigners.  That supporting Trump, who was accused of long-ago sexual assaults, makes you a sexist woman-hater.  These people were concerned about the economy (Bill Clinton had it right with ‘It’s the economy, stupid’)  they saw jobs continuing to bleed to cheaper labour countries.  They saw that globalisation just wasn’t benefiting them or their children.  That Obama’s jobless numbers were fake or at best mis-leading.  They heard that the level of economically inactive had climbed, significantly. Simply put, if there was economic growth – they were not seeing or feeling it.  Belatedly, the MSM have woken-up and started asking steel workers in Pennsylvania towns that have been decimated by cheap imports and coal miners that have been impacted by mine closures brought about by unproven climate pseudo-science, why did they vote Trump?  These people then tell them what they could have known months ago, had they gotten out of their ‘bubble’. 

At some point, these ‘journalists’ and the pollsters will also get around to asking Blacks and Hispanics  why they voted in such numbers for Trump.  The narrative that these minorities had so much to fear from Trump was clearly ignored by the people, themselves. 

It is interesting listening to the comments of some of the losing Democrats.  I hear strong echoes of the UK Labour party after their somewhat surprising 2015 General Election loss.  Especially, when they say ‘we lost because weren’t left-wing enough’. 

No, no, no!  Hillary Clinton lost and other Democrat party candidates lost in House and Senate and Gubernatorial races because you were too left wing and you simply had nothing to say to Americans, that they wanted to hear.  Telling a Veteran that the USA needs to bring in more refugees and give them $1,700 a month, when the Veteran gets less than $1,200 is, I would suggest, NEVER going to get that Veteran’s vote. 

Of course, a major factor in Clinton’s loss is very likely to come down to trust.  She was seen as corrupt and being protected by the ‘elite establishment’.  I wonder just how many of the young people protesting have ever read any information on Hillary? 

·      How she defended a child rapist and destroyed, on the stand, his victim?

·      How she was fired from one of the Watergate investigations because of her dishonesty?

·      How $6 billion is unaccounted for, from her time as Secretary of State?

·      How she stood in front of the coffins of the 4 dead from Benghazi and lied to the families, when she blamed a video while knowing the cause was the Obama administration’s abandonment of its own people?

·      How it is that so many people around her die in what can only be called ‘suspicious’ circumstances (try Vince Foster, just for one)? 

·      How, while Secretary of State, she solicited significant contributions for the Clinton Foundation?

·      How she has taken large speaking fees from Wall Street firms while pretending to be the voice for the little man?

·      How she deleted e-mails from her illegally used private server?

·      How she colluded with others in the Democrat National Committee, to cheat and work against Bernie Saunders and then, with the aid of a compliant MSM, cheated on the Presidential Debates?

The list goes on and on. 

Frankly put, America dodged a bullet.

It is important though that President Trump ignores the siren calls of those who say that it is time to heal the nation and that fulfilling his campaign pledge to ‘lock her up’ would be divisive.  President Trump must appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton.  Some of the work will be to go over already ploughed land but that’s okay.  She shouldn’t be cut any slack.  Remember General Petraeus wasn’t!  Democrats continue to castigate the FBI and its Director Comey. My beef with him is how, after detailing, back in June/July, blatant law-breaking by Clinton, as regards her illegal use of her personal server, he then said there would be no prosecutions.   Note to MSM and Pollsters – another reason why Americans didn’t vote for Hillary – they don’t like the ‘one law for them, another for us’ that was plain to see.

So, finally, I get to the subject matter!

I am really happy that America has a Republican President, Republican House and Republican Senate.  I am though a little worried. 

My worry is that the House and Senate include Republicans that are RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and they will be scared to implement full-throated conservative policies.  That they will ignore the clear steer that they have had from the people of America, that America wants a roll-back of the state and an end to the cancerous policy of political correctness.  That they will, out of self-interest, seek to ‘water-down’ term limit legislation.  That they will forget that America has elected them to represent the interests of Americans – first, second and third.  That they will weaken the repeal of Obamacare – the non-affordable Affordable Care Act.  That they will continue to fund Planned Parenthood – a grossly mis-named organisation if ever there was one.

There’s lot to be done and all three – President, House and Senate – need to hit the ground running.  The next two years are critical – economic regeneration policies need to be implemented, without delay, so that they have a chance to bear fruit by the time of the next round of elections.  Similarly, the appointment of a replacement for Justice Scalia, needs to be fast tracked.   Who knows, maybe Ted Cruz would be a candidate?  As an ardent constitutionalist and great orator, he would certainly add great weight to the Supreme Court (and some needed youth!)

So to President Trump and Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell, I say, get moving now.  America and the World needs leadership, no more dithering, no more leftist leanings, no more pandering to every minority and ‘wack-job’ group. Strong leadership and positive action to return the free world to the conservative path.  You have around 70 days to plan the strategy and then, come January 20, 2017, you start implementing and doing so, mercilessly.  There’s no time for half-heartedness or seeking to build a consensus – get on with the job you were elected to do!

To those that still want to protest – carry on, that’s your right but understand that if you break the law, then you will face the consequences – that’s what living in a democracy means.  And if or when you post tweets advocating the assassination of the President-elect, don’t be surprised if you feel the hands of the Secret Service on your shoulder!  Incidentally, how come Clint Eastwood, a Trump supporter, is banned from Twitter by Twitter, but not these criminal hate-mongers and anti-democrats.