Foreign Affairs

It. Is. Time.

Emily Barley / Conservatism, Foreign Affairs, News / 0 comments

11/04/2019

Indeed, it is well-past time. Theresa May needs to resign, and she needs to do it soon. If she won’t resign, then the Cabinet and the 1922 Committee need to sort it out.

That’s my conclusion after the UK and EU agreed to extend the Article 50 deadline for withdrawal from the EU to 31st October.

Political commentators are saying May is likely to resign after the local elections, or else the European elections, so that her successor is not contaminated by the results, which are likely to be awful. I have a few things to say about that.

First, trusting that May will go after the local or European elections does not seem like a good idea to me – events could move on and she could find a reason to stay on. Which would be a disaster. There is no real convenient time to do a leadership election while in government – we need to get on with it.

Second, why would we waste almost six weeks of a six month extension on watching the clock until after the European elections? With a PM who is unable to make any progress because everyone knows she’ll be gone soon? It doesn’t make any sense. It would be a waste of precious time.

Third, if the Conservative Party puts itself before the country for one minute longer, we’re finished. Absolutely finished. Please, just do what needs to be done.

Fourth, why is this idea that a new leader would be ‘contaminated’ by the election results being accepted? It doesn’t make sense. Everyone knows that Brexit and May are causing us electoral harm. People won’t just forget that because ‘Ooo! New leader!” – because, actually, people aren’t stupid.

Fifth, if you do think a new leader would be contaminated by the elections, why not do the leadership election at the same time? So we get those results, and then the day after (or week after) the new leader is in place. That way, we’re not wasting time.

Yes, I want to run a leadership election campaign alongside the local and European elections campaigns. I think we need a full campaign, with the opportunity for a proper debate about Brexit, the Conservative Party, and what we want to do in every other policy area after Brexit. To decide what, as a Party, we now believe in. Crucially, members need to have the final say.

Yes, such a campaign would be best done during summer recess when there’s plenty of time and space for navel gazing. But we don’t have that luxury anymore. We missed that chance. We missed that chance when May stayed on as leader after her terrible General Election performance. We missed that chance after the Chequers Plan was published. And we missed the chance of a leisurely leadership election when Conservative MPs voted for May to stay on in December.

This is urgent; this needs to be done now. No more running down the clock, no more trying to be cleverer than is good for us, and no more treating the electorate as though they are stupid. It. Is. Time. May must go.

Onwards to April 12th

Emily Barley / Foreign Affairs, UK Politics / 0 comments

29/03/2019

‘Our best hope of getting any Brexit at all is to pass the Withdrawal Agreement.’

That’s what we’re being told. That’s what Conservative Brexiteer rebels are being beaten about the head with. On the same theme, immediately after today’s failed (yet again) vote on the PM’s Brexit deal, official Conservative Party social media went into overdrive, alleging that ‘Labour just voted to stop Brexit’.

A great many of those Labour MPs did vote against the WA because they don’t want Brexit to happen, but that’s not the whole story. That’s not the only reason to vote against Theresa May’s deal.

These Conservative Party lines rely on three false assumptions:

1) That the WA is a proper Brexit.
2) That a no deal Brexit is off the table.
3) That the electorate is daft enough to believe those first two points.

Do I need to explain again why the WA is bad a deal that it doesn’t qualify as a proper Brexit? Do I need to explain again why it poses an unacceptable threat to the Union and would put us in the worst possible negotiating position for the next stage?

No, I don’t. It’s been done. Read it here, here, here, here, and in many other places. Those of us that oppose the WA are not playing: it really is that bad.

Parliament won’t allow a no deal Brexit to happen, says the PM. It’s not up to Parliament though, is it? It’s up to May to decide whether or not to seek an extension beyond April 12th, and it’s up to the 27 leaders of the EU to decide whether or not to grant such an extension.

Not Parliament. We know this because the latest change – stopping today, March 29th, being Brexit day in favour of an extension – was done without the involvement of Parliament. It was done on May’s initiative. This means that May can decide not to ask for any further extension. She can stick to her promises and get us out of the EU.

And the EU…well. They want this to be over.

The EU Commission has issued a statement has issued a statement saying that a no-deal Brexit on 12th April is now a "likely scenario".

Follow live reactions to the latest #Brexit defeat here: https://t.co/Q7j5yxJC2w pic.twitter.com/OCh2gcl4AK

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 29, 2019

Now, the final point is important; especially as hints are dropped and speculation rises that a GE could be imminent.

At this time of year – with local elections coming up – social media is usually flooded with ‘positive response on the doorstep’, ‘good reaction on the doors today’, and similar cliches.

But not this year. Because Tory activists are being hammered out there: broken promises (do we need to talk again about Brexit Day being cancelled?), fear of a betrayal of the democratic vote, and sheer frustration at May’s command and control approach. #ToryCanvass.

I’ve experienced it first hand. It’s brutal, and it’s justified. Most people make some concessions – ‘well she has worked hard’ – but the ultimate frustration remains.

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard voters say almost the exact same form of words: ‘we voted to leave, and we should just leave – with or without a deal’. And people aren’t daft. They know that Parliament not passing the WA doesn’t mean no Brexit. They know that if it wasn’t for May’s asking for an extension, today would still be Brexit Day.

What’s more, they’ve bothered to look at the deal on the table. Because guess what, when people care about an issue they make an effort to inform themselves. I know; shocker! And people know that this is a bad deal. Some just about come down on the side of backing it, just to get it over with, whilst others oppose it completely. What’s clear is that virtually nobody considers this a good deal. And a great many people consider it to not be a proper Brexit.

And so the house of cards that has been built by Theresa May comes tumbling down.

Our best hope of getting any Brexit at all is not to pass the Withdrawal Agreement; it’s to hold our nerve, hold the line, and leave the EU on April 12th. We have an extra two weeks to prepare for a no deal Brexit, and we should get on with it.

One person is responsible for the Brexit mess: Theresa May

Emily Barley / Foreign Affairs / 2 comments

16/01/2019

When she became Prime Minister in 2016, May made a series of pledges about the kind of Brexit she wanted. In subsequent speeches she fleshed out that vision. The Conservative Party was broadly united. Sure, Remainers would have preferred to remain, and Brexiteers would have preferred a more buccaneering Brexit, but this was a compromise that could work for all.

But she did not act as she had promised to. Inside government, she had cut out the Brexiteers in pursuit of a secret plan that few knew of. Whilst DExEU prepared a plan that matched her stated aims, May produced the Chequers Plan which did not.

In July last year Brexiteers warned that the Chequers Plan was unacceptable. They used all means available to them, except a leadership challenge, to get it spiked. Resignations, alternative plans, media pressures, honest calculations of the numbers of rebels.

May pushed on. The Withdrawal Agreement (WA) was the outcome.

When that was published Brexiteers did what they could to get it spiked. More resignations, more time spent explaining alternatives, more honest calculations of the numbers of rebels.

It didn’t work. May pushed on. Brexiteers forced an internal party confidence vote. May promised legally binding reassurances on the backstop aspect of the WA. She won, and pushed on.

Well, sort of. Actually she just delayed last night’s rejection of the WA by six weeks, and achieved nothing in the mean time. The letter she got from the EU did nothing to change the WA. As such, it was not the legally binding assurances she had promised in order to stay on as PM.

Last night she lost the WA vote by an historic number. 117 of her own MPs voted against her, some using their vote to resign from the government.

And yet today I see various people arguing that those Brexiteers who voted against the WA are various shades of irresponsible, unreasonable and idiotic, putting Brexit and the country at great risk in pursuit of unrealistic ends.

But when I trace the steps that brought us to this point and then read those outraged comments about Brexiteers, I simply think: are you out of your tree!? How can you not see that May’s handling of this whole process has inevitably brought us to this point? Has party loyalty blinded you to reality? Or do you know the truth but your political ambitions are preventing you from being honest?

The simple truth is that one person is responsible for this mess, and she is not named Jacob, David, Boris, Steve, Dominic, Esther, Sir Bill, nor Owen.

It is all down to Theresa May. She double-dealt against her own Ministers. She promised the electorate one thing, then tried to force through another. She made promises in order to stay on as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, and then didn’t keep them. She ignored warnings, advice, and alternatives in the bloody-minded pursuit of her own plan. Trying to push the blame for this situation on to others – the ERG, the DUP, even the Labour Party – is, quite simply, shirking her responsibility.

Write to your MP and get them to #ditchthedeal

Neil Wilson / Foreign Affairs, Unionism / 1 comment

18/11/2018

The greatest mandate ever given by the British people ordered the Government to take back control of our borders, laws and finances.

This, we were assured, was what we would get.

However the Withdrawal Agreement presented by Theresa May falls far short of what were promised. Instead of control, we’re being presented with an agreement that emasculates our United Kingdom – an agreement written in Brussels, for the benefit of Brussels and which contains multiple provisions for the continued interference of Brussels in our day-to-day lives.

This deal hands the European Union the power to determine rules, over which we will have no say. It allows them and them alone to determine the nature of our future trading relationships. It hands over control of Northern Ireland’s economic affairs to the EU indefinitely. – a development which should offend the instincts of anyone with the remotest conservative sensibilities.

Additionally, the ECJ will continue to have jurisdiction for a least a decade. We will also be subject to monitoring to ensure that we continue to adopt the rules that we are subject to and pay for the projects they determine we are liable for. It’s almost as if we aren’t leaving at all.

CfL finds this is unacceptable. We want to encourage as many people as possible to write to their Conservative MPs and let them know why this is deal isn’t Brexit and isn’t acceptable.

How to get involved

Locate your MP’s email address using the postcode search function here.
Download our template letter here and add your own details (many MPs won’t respond unless they can tell you’re a constituent). Feel free to amend the letter.
Email your MP
Post on social media that you want to #ditchthedeal

The UK is a world leader. It’s time to embrace it.

Emily Barley / Defence, Foreign Affairs, Trade, UK Politics, Unionism / 0 comments

08/08/2018

National pride isn’t very fashionable anymore. People who drape themselves in the Union Flag, sing the national anthem and talk about how GREAT Britain is are sneered at as at best being deluded, harking back to a long-gone past, and at worst being some kind of fascist – as though patriotism is inevitably Nazism.

We’re told that after Brexit – and especially if there’s a no deal Brexit – the UK is going to be a little fish in a big pond. And the sharks are coming for us.

But if those of us who are proud of our country are supposedly deluded, what are the people who seem to have no concept of the privileged, wealthy and powerful position the UK occupies, relative to the rest of the world?

Let’s look at the facts.

In terms of our economy, we’re no minnow. The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world according to rankings by the UN, IMF and World Bank. Ours is bigger than the economies of countries including India, France, Canada, Russia and Australia.

When it comes to defence spending we’re up there with the big boys. Measured by overall size of military budget, the International Institute for Strategic Studies ranks the UK as the sixth biggest spender in the world, while the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute puts the UK at seventh in the world.

The Soft Power 30 index by Portland and The USC Center on Public Diplomacy ranks countries according to their influence, attractiveness and persuasive power. The 2018 index places the UK top, making it the world’s biggest soft power. The report identifies the UK’s underlying strengths in education, culture, digital, creative, finance and tech as the reason the UK is so popular around the world.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report – which assesses how countries perform in terms of infrastructure, education, market efficiency, financial markets, market size, tech and innovation – places the UK eighth overall.

The UK also has a permanent seat on the UK Security Council, has had its national dress adopted around the world (suit and tie), and has untold influence as the anchor member of the 53 country strong Commonwealth of Nations.

It’s not harking back to the British Empire to acknowledge that the UK is a strong and powerful nation. We should own the objective reality that we are a hard, soft and economic power, with more authority and influence than most countries in the world.

Instead of being shy, nervous or falsely modest, the UK needs to move forward with confidence. Not only for our own sakes, but because by reconciling ourselves to our status as a world leader, we can use that influence to do good.

Because Brexit is not just an opportunity for us to realise our full potential as an independent trading nation, but also an opportunity to spread the values and institutions that create the circumstances for prosperity: free trade, property rights, the rule of law, individual civil liberties and an independent judiciary. Built on these foundations prosperity is not a zero-sum game where as one country gets richer another gets poorer, but instead it is a recipe for everyone to improve their lot.

No deal only harms the Republic of Ireland

Neil Wilson / Foreign Affairs, Trade / 1 comment

14/05/2018

My knowledge of the Vauxhall constituency is typical of that of someone who only visits London infrequently. From what I understand, it is just across the big bridge from Westminster and is home to both that awful Communist-looking theatre complex on the South Bank and the much more appealing Imperial War Museum.

Its links to Northern Ireland are tenuous. It was surprising then that the General Council of the local Constituency Labour Party, to which every elected representative in the constituency belongs, recently voted to censure their MP over fairly brief, yet well-informed, comments she made concerning the Belfast Agreement.

What do the members of the Vauxhall Constituency Labour Party know about Northern Ireland? Certainly not as much as their MP.

If you thought the peculiar lack of self-awareness demonstrated in this case was a one-off and merely emblematic of the general state of internal Labour party politics then you would be sadly mistaken.

On the contrary, there is an increasing tendency amongst English remainers to consider themselves better informed than people who live here.

Take, for example, the self-righteous rage meted out to David Trimble on Wednesday. Having again made a reasonable argument – that border infrastructure was not necessary and that discussions about a return to violence were irresponsible – he was pilloried. One tweeter even went as far to label him an ‘ingrate’.

The Belfast Agreement – peace and blessings be upon it – has now been elevated to such a level that its original architects are not even trusted with its legacy. Even if they won a Nobel Peace Prize for it.

Trimble made his comments in the foreword to a report from Policy Exchange which argues that a free trade deal – the preferred relationship with the European Union of every serious Brexiteer – is the only relationship that will both respect the referendum result and deliver a seamless border. The logic is sound. Only the framework allowed by an FTA overcomes the core issue – trade.

Far from the increasingly insane rhetoric of continuity remain and the world’s most half-hearted nationalists to keep us in the EU via the Customs Union there lies actual facts.

Northern Ireland is very unlikely to suffer any economic impact from the imposition of any trade barrier along the border. If you listened to our media, and many of our politicians, you would assume that North-South trade is in some way significant or in any way important. That’s not the reality. An InterTrade Ireland report claims that Northern Ireland exports to the Republic would fall by 11% in the absence of a deal. That’s 11% of 5% of Northern Ireland’s total exports. It’s mostly milk.

The Beast from the East had a more noticeable economic impact than the immediate impact of Brexit ever could.
1.6% of the Republic’s exports come here, underscoring just how insignificant cross border trade is. 16% of Irish exports go to Great Britain though, with 80% of their exports travelling via British roads. No deal, which can only be brought about by the Irish veto, would damage their economy to the tune of 7.7%, according to one report. We would barely notice a thing.

In terms of priorities, protecting the three quarters of NI exports that go to the rest of the UK is far more important than any piffling single market or customs union. A huge Mexican-style border wall wouldn’t do anywhere near the amount of damage as the backstop solution which the Government stupidly agreed to.

So far, the Government has effectively allowed itself to be blindsided by Varadkar’s strategy, accustomed as they were to dealing with the far more cognisant Enda Kenny. The result has been a two-pronged assault from the EU and Ireland who have been allowed to overplay the border issue and tenuously link it to the Agreement. They’ve used it as a tool to make people ‘think again’ and either annex Northern Ireland or force the UK as a whole to stay in the Customs Union as a means of protecting Ireland’s economic interests.

Herein lies the reasons for the invective leveled at Trimble and Hoey. ‘Muh Good Friday Agreement’ is being used as an argument for remaining in the EU by stealth, by people who’ve never even set foot here and have only seen Northern Ireland through the very narrow lens of the mainland’s media. They don’t realise they’re dealing with a different issue altogether.

The message going out should be clear – the losses from a no deal hard border would belong to Ireland alone. Everyone knows how to avoid that happening.

Saudi Arabia is an apartheid state

Sara Scarlett / Foreign Affairs / 0 comments

26/03/2017

The label ‘Apartheid’ is bandied around frequently these days, sadly it hasn’t stuck to the one State who, in my humble opinion, not only deserves it but whose human rights atrocities are routinely ignored and glossed over by the International Community for the sake of not rocking the boat. Unlike other States, whose human rights atrocities are more fashionable as cause celebres, Saudi Arabia’s prolific human rights abuses are ignored for the sake of business as usual.

Apartheid is originally defined as a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. What Saudi Arabia practices is a system of institutionalised gender segregation and discrimination. Feminist psychologist Phyllis Chesler defines Gender Apartheid as ‘practices which condemn girls and women to a separate and subordinate sub-existence…’ These descriptions describe the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia accurately and I’m not the only Arab Woman who thinks so:

Gender Apartheid is the best word to describe the situation in Saudi Arabia. I don’t believe there is any other place in the world where gender decides everything a person does on a daily basis and to the minutest details. To the outside world this manifests in the ban on women driving and the compulsory Abaya. However, it goes much deeper than that in that gender discrimination is institutionalized in every sector of the Saudi government. The majority of government ministries are off limits to women, both as visitors and as employees.

Elham Manea:

Women in the Kingdom, a 2008 Human Rights Watch report maintains, are infringes on their basic human rights.

In other words, every adult Saudi woman, regardless of her economic or social status, must obtain permission from her male guardian to work, travel, study, seek medical treatment or marry. She is also deprived of making the most trivial decisions on behalf of her children. This system is supported by the imposition of complete sex segregation, which prevents women from participating meaningfully in public life.

I must stress that most Arab countries don’t enforce gender segregation on anywhere near the scale that Saudi Arabia does. In the majority of the Arab nations the headscarf is not a mandatory requirement and women are both welcome and encouraged to be part of civic life. Saudi Arabia is an outlier even amongst Gulf States, and the behaviour of Saudi tars all her immediate neighbours with the same brush. The other Gulf States have become more sensitive to Western criticism in recent years. Most have put a great deal of time, money and effort into upgrading their institutions and legal systems, though progress is painfully slow at times. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, remains deaf to both internal and external calls for reform.

Saudi Arabia practices the most overt, inhuman and unapologetic form of Apartheid on the face of the contemporary world. In comparison to Apartheid South Africa, the Saudi Kingdom has got off easy, with a fraction of the censure from the International Community very little of which has been official. It is time we started calling Saudi Arabia an Apartheid State and giving it the condemnation it deserves. I look forward to the intense reinvigoration of Anti-Apartheid movements with its ire directed at the Saudi State.

Sara is a journalist, art apprentice, and neo-decadent poet. Follow her on Twitter: @Sayde_Scarlett

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The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Conservatives for Liberty