Brexit

The false premise of the EAW; the wrongful assumption of parity of justice across Europe

Tony Edwards / Blog / Brexit, European arrest warrant / 0 comments

13/01/2017

The English and Welsh legal system is one of great history and importance in the development of legal principles across large parts of the globe. Seen from both a criminal and civil law perspective, it is held up by many as the gold standard and in many ways the template for less aged jurisdictions.

The protections and freedoms of the Briton in his court system is ensured by several constitutional safeguards. The upholding of right of Habeas Corpus for example, which large majority parliaments have struggled to infringe in the shadow of even terrorist threat, shows that it is a system which has an enduring central balance. The separation of powers which underpins this, Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, is politically unquestionable for the most part, and politicians in the UK tread lightly here for they know that it a principle which the citizen prizes incredibly highly.

The move towards European integration has demanded that the Union itself has a converging policy for judicial affairs, and central to this policy is an implied parity of justice across the European Union. By inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Lisbon Treaty, the intent was to set the standard in such areas at a parity that was at least an acceptable minimum under which justice could be relied upon. But has it been altogether successful?

Assessing Judicial Effectiveness

One potential indicator in assessing the dedication of the nation state to operating an effective judicial processes, is the manner in which it funds the process itself. When looking at the budget allocated to the Justice system across the EU and further, the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice report 2014, shows a great disparity across the EU nations. Britain, while not being the highest spender (figures exclude the cost of public prosecutions), is one of the higher spending nations, and certainly above the average. It’s spend is proportionately very high, over 40% of its total budget, to financial aid of the litigant or defendant. We know that with the reduction in the spend on civil litigant support in the legal aid system, that this relates to a very high degree of spending on the legal assistance of criminal defence.

By comparison, all apart from Norway spend a lower proportion of their budgets on legal aid, but Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Ireland all spend fairly high proportions, over 20%, on legal aid. At the other end of the spectrum, Romania, Poland, Malta, Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Italy and even Austria, spend less than 10% – many of these under 5%.

This would tend to indicate a difference in the balance of public policy priorities between the states – where some have a large funding priority to the prosecution by the state or to the court system itself, but less so to the individual defendant or litigant. In the common law systems such as the UK, there are a smaller number of very qualified judges, and therefore a lower courts wages bill for example, but the defendant is well represented at all stages at the cost of the state in many cases. Inquisitorial systems of course have different structural costs. But how does this imbalance affect the access to justice, and to a reliable defence for those without significant means?

Access to Effective Justice

Fair Trials abroad reports a mixed picture across the EU nations in regards to access to effective justice, and access to a lawyer on detention in particular. Pre Trial detention in some EU states causes particular concern, especially where there is a lack of legal aid or long process due to failure of the courts to pursue matters promptly post detention.

Bulgaria for example, comes in for particular criticism from the US state department in regards to pre trial detention. It complains that prosecutors in Bulgaria bring charges into a heavily backlogged system without sufficient evidence. Where the judicial system acts a check against this error, the Judge must refer the case back for further evidence collection and presentation, but at this point the defendant is still deprived of his liberty. To make this situation worse, the low amount spent on legal aid in Bulgaria means that the defendant will have difficulty in accessing any public defence aid while incarcerated. This would not be the case in the UK, where the defendant should be afforded fairly swift justice, with full legal representation.

The Michael Shields case highlighted the lack of rigour in the Bulgarian legal system, as was widely reported in the press. His was case of mistaken identity, via an identity parade process which would not have been allowed under UK law. Evidence that he was in his hotel, asleep at the time of the incident he was charged for was ignored by the courts, and there was a total absence of forensic evidence. He was fortunate that he had been allowed to serve his sentence in the UK, thereby allowing the then home secretary Jack Straw to intervene (eventually), and Shields was granted a pardon after four years of incarceration for a crime he knew nothing of.

In the 24 months to March 2016, Romania was held to be in violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights 19 times, and Article 5 in a further 9 instances. Again, issues of pre trial detention loom large in Romania’s very ineffective legal system, and access to legal advice is again poor. Fair trials abroad note many cases of alleged brutality to extract evidence or confession, which has then been made admissible in court. The US state department notes that “Major human rights problems included Police and Gendarme mistreatment and harassment of detainees”. Prison conditions are also exceptionally poor in Romania, and that the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture has registered allegations including acts regarded as torture of imprisoned persons as recently as 2012. These include beatings, use of electric shock and stress positioning. The independence of the Judiciary is now also under threat, and political interference is also noted.

Greece, although it has a better record that Romania under at the ECHR with only 8 cases decided against it in the same period, also suffers significant problems with pre trial detention and access to legal representation. What have been described as ‘Chronic delays’ in the courts, an average of 50 months taken to reach a criminal trial verdict, are described in a study by the World Bank. The dire financial mess in Greece has led to concerns of judicial corruption.

The case of Michael Turner, extradited to Hungary in 2009, is shocking in that it is fairly clear that Westminster magistrates court was ‘mislead’ into granting extradition on the basis that the case was ready to go to trial. EAW requests are designed for trial, not for incarceration for investigative purposes. Eventually, after an extended period of alleged mistreatment he was released without charge, only to be hauled back to Budapest in 2012 – only to be found guilty of a trivial fraud of £12,000, which is is appealing. His sentence, non custodial. He suffered months of imprisonment in substandard conditions for a crime punishable only by a fine in Hungarian law.

Even long standing Western EU members are not entirely free from issues though. Austria merits a mention on the Fair Trials International website due to poor police practice in terms of issues that would be covered by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 – namely that they are not cautioning subjects correctly with regard to right to legal representation. France was also held to be in breach of the ECHR in regards to detention and trial 25 times in the 2007-14 period.

Conversely, the same organisation criticizes the UK in only one respect:

Unjust Extradition from the UK under the European Arrest Warrant.

Protection of the citizen

This paints a worrying picture. The common law system in place in the UK, the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, ensure that our system conforms to the highest standards. It is not perfect, but it is built and constituted on the correct foundations. While it seeks to protect the citizenry from the worst elements amongst us through use of a police force and prosecution service, it also seeks to protect us from the will of any government which tries to extend state power beyond the constraints of the law.

Our parliamentary system is also strong, in that we have a committee structure and a revising chamber which has a tendency (with some exceptions of course), to modify or even weed out bad laws at the drafting stage. This again, makes it more difficult for government to extend the power of the state for its own ends. Even with the constraints on spending that have been imposed in recent years, our spending on public defence is the highest by percentage anywhere in Europe, and only outspent by Norway. Many of the countries to which we subject UK citizens simply on request, have none of the evidenciary safeguards afforded by legislation that has been in place here for over 30 years.

Yet despite this, we are asked to accept the EAW on the basis that the ‘aim’ is that all the legal systems across the European Union will someday be in some kind of parity. At the same time, the enforcement process for this parity is creating only the tiniest impact. In some areas, it might be argued that the direction of travel is contrary to that which is desirable as the political scene shifts.

The UK courts must once again be able to differentiate between the standards of justice offered in different jurisdictions, and refuse to extradite to countries under which fundamental rights cannot be guaranteed. At the same time, the presumption to extradite must only be upheld under the 1957 European Convention on Extradition where there is a demonstrable standard of Judicial transparency and independence, and where there is real doubt the right to call for evidence must be restored.

Justice must be equal for all in the UK, it is the fundamental principle in a free society. We must not outsource responsibility for this to other nations in respect of our own citizens or those who seek refuge here. It is not the role of the nation state to offer up its people for summary injustice.

Join Conservatives for Liberty and special guest speakers from inside and outside Parliament, including Steven Woolfe MEP and Jacob Reese-Mogg MP on 28th February as we ask the government to withdraw from the European Arrest Warrant

Read more

Tony is a Luthier by trade, studied law and is an active Brexit campaigner. He blogs at The Brexit Door. Follow him on Twitter here: @TonyE_42

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

The EU has failed to uphold democratic values

Paul Nizinskyj / Blog / Brexit, democracy, eu / 3 comments

22/12/2016

One of the defining features of the EU referendum campaign, and arguably a major factor in the vote for Brexit, was the seeming inability of the Remain side to say anything positive about the European Union. The message, from start to finish, was not so much that the EU was particularly good for Britain but that, like a drug addict, we could not now survive without it.

Memorably, arch-Remoaner Matthew Parris had six chances to present the EU in a positive light in his pre-referendum listicle for The Spectator, but squandered each of them bashing the Leave campaign. As Dan Hannan commented, it was ‘anti-Eurosceptic rather than pro-EU’. Asked by CfL’s good friend Viscount Ridley this month why no-one wanted to make a positive case for Remain, Parris admitted there was only a negative argument.

It really oughtn’t be a mystery to anyone why people voted Leave when even the EU’s most vocal supporters can’t bring themselves say anything nice about it. But how could they? A federal Europe, the cornerstone of the original movement, was stillborn after the Second World War with the French Non! and subsequently fading popular enthusiasm. Furthermore, as we approach the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the EU has comprehensively failed to deliver its three stated aims: peace, prosperity, and democracy.

Consequently, like Communism in the second half of the 20th century, it has become a zombie project; an abject failure, which everyone now knows can never work, but which is kept in a state of undeath solely for the benefit of those who operate it. Consequently, it continues to mindlessly charge forward at a rabid pace, even when the results are inimical to its own stated interests. This was no more evident than in the rushed and entirely inappropriate admission of Romania to the Union nine years ago.

In doing so, the EU ignored its own Copenhagen criteria for admitting new members, one of many instances of Brussels creating rules and laws only to break them when they become politically inexpedient – all while ‘promoting’ the rule of law, of course. In order to qualify for membership, countries must have ‘achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.’

That Romania was nowhere near fulfilling this criteria was obvious to everyone – including the President of Romania. Train Băsescu, head of state between 2004 and 2014, went on record with astounding candour to admit ‘virtually all institutions of the state are affected by corruption’ and that ‘when the treaty is signed, Romania will not yet be prepared to meet the European Union’s standards.’ That this is still not the case is hardly a secret, with a resulting chilling effect for democracy throughout the continent, best exemplified by Poland and especially Hungary’s slide into autocracy.

Worse than this, however, is the fact the EU is actually enabling the Romanian government to crack down on critical media and control the judiciary under the pretence of ‘anti-corruption’. In a complete inversion of the EU’s stated aims, the anti-corruption programmes it encourages to belatedly bring Romania up to the standards it ought to have achieved before even joining the Union are being used as a smokescreen to snuff out democracy, free speech, and the rule of law.

There is no separation of political and judicial power in Romania, and the notorious National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) resembles a modern-day Committee of Public Safety. Today, very few independent newspapers and broadcasters have been spared prosecution, with the most familiar pattern being a publicly broadcast speech by the president or prime minister attacking proprietors as guilty of trumped-up charges which are then executed by prosecutors.

This happened to Dan Voiculescu, who owned a number of TV stations and newspapers such as Jurnalul Naţional, majority TV station owner Maricel Păcuraru, and media mogul Adrian Sârbu. But ignorance – or apathy – to the way in which the DNA is being abused is not the only way in which the EU is enabling the erosion of democracy in Romania and the continent. The European Arrest Warrant, which allows any EU member state to extradite citizens from another member state, has enabled the Romanian government to hound its critics beyond its own borders. Romania Liberă, the country’s oldest newspaper, was attacked in a similar manner and its proprietor, Dan Adamescu, was convicted of trumped up bribery charges in 2014. He was jailed in some of the most appalling prison conditions in Europe and his companies expropriated.

When his son Alexander, a German citizen resident in London who has never lived in Romania, filed arbitration proceedings for damages caused by this expropriation, an arrest warrant was swiftly issued by the Romanian authorities on the same charges as his father and he was arrested by British police, spending two nights in Wandsworth prison. The only way this extradition can be stopped is if it can be proven Adamescu’s warrant is political motivated and that he would suffer human rights abuses if he were extradited. But, despite both these things being true, this is where the Soviet-style logical fallacies of the EU come into play. If Romania’s courts were politically controlled then Romania would never have been able to join the EU just as, if Romanian prisoners faced human rights abuses, the 2007 accession would never have happened.

With these abuses in Romania, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán having successfully shut down the anti-government newspaper Nepszabadsag, and Poland’s government having approved a law sentencing anyone to three years’ imprisonment for referring to ‘Polish death camps’, the European Union has not only failed to uphold democratic values. Through its supposed anti-corruption drive and the European Arrest Warrant, it is complicit in the destruction of democratic values across the continent.

Paul is Creative Director for Conservatives for Liberty. Follow him on Twitter: @Whiggery

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

2016: The year post-democratic politics went mainstream

Paul Nizinskyj / Blog / Brexit, democracy, donald trump, Fidel castro, margaret thatcher, Pinochet / 0 comments

01/12/2016

November 25 was a date of cosmic importance this year. Jupiter joined a waning crescent Moon in the dawn sky, “bleeding inside each other’s wounds,” according to the America’s Most Haunted Twitter account, whatever that means. But it wasn’t the only event of cosmic significance to occur that evening. As the entire world now knows, and probably no longer cares, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro finally died at the age of 90 – and on General Pinochet’s 101st birthday, no less.

Whether the death of another communist was a welcome present for the deceased Chilean dictator, or whether joining him in Hell would be the supreme punishment, only America’s Most Haunted can tell us. But such a bizarre coincidence hasn’t occurred in the world of politics since former US presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died within six hours of each other – on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

It’s fitting because Castro and Pinochet were not only mirror images of each other – brutal dictators with similar tactics guided by ideologies on opposite ends of the political spectrum – they also both served as a remarkably accurate litmus test for democratic credentials on both the Left and the Right. Because if you find Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone, and Justin Trudeau making excuses for Castro’s ‘excesses’ because of his education and healthcare policies nauseating, remember that Margaret Thatcher was a personal friend and admirer of Pinochet.

This champion of democratic capitalism and scourge of Soviet human rights abuses was willing to overlook the very same brutality in Chile because Pinochet’s junta had implemented to an even greater degree the policies of Thatcher’s economic godfather, Milton Friedman (a privilege of dictatorship). Even Friedman himself, a god-figure amongst libertarians, saw the dictatorship as an opportunity to prove his ideas right – despite misgivings about the ‘excesses’ of the regime.

I’m guilty of it myself. I’m one of these irritating people at pains to point out the difference between liberty and democracy, and tend to agree with Friedrich von Hayek – that other titan of libertarian economics – who said he would always ‘prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism,’ but generally advocated limited democracy. I condemn Pinochet’s gut-wrenching record of torture and summary execution but then find myself comparing him favourably to Castro because he put a time limit on his dictatorship and because Chile is now much better off.

But what’s worrying is this lefty love-in for Castro is just the latest in a disturbing tendency gathering force in 2016 – the rhetoric of post-democratic politics. From Remoaners remoaning that ‘Brexit reminds us some things are too important to be decided by the people’ and David Lammy MP urging Parliament to ‘stop the madness’ of a democratic vote, to arch-Remoaner Matthew Parris remoaning that ‘After Trump, I’m losing faith in democracy’, it’s becoming ever more acceptable to denounce the ballot box as rule by the ignorant, rule by the prejudiced, rule by the mob.

It’s tempting to think of this dangerous tendency as a new development, but I suspect it’s simply a case of people finally being honest about what they’ve always thought. That true democrats are, and always have been, an exceptionally rare breed. That most of us simply co-opted democracy as a means to and end. That democracy is currently political expedient to the Right but no longer to the Left. But, as Castro and Pinochet renew their ideological warfare in the afterlife, perhaps the graves of their victims ought to remind us how precious our democracy really is.

Paul is Creative Director for Conservatives for Liberty. Follow him on Twitter: @Whiggery

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

The Autumn Statement: A missed opportunity to bolster Brexit Britain

Conservatives for Liberty / Blog / Brexit / 0 comments

25/11/2016

The Autumn Statement contained some positive elements. It was pleasing to hear that the employment rate is at an all-time peak of 74.5% and that unemployment is at an 11-year low. We were happy to see the back of the “rabbit in the hat” political manoeuvres that Osborne was so keen on; every one shifting us leftwards and costing the taxpayer money. It can only be a good thing that the Autumn Statement is to be abolished. It was introduced to give the vainglorious Gordon Brown a platform for political posturing and George Osborne used it as an opportunity to buy off sections of the electorate.

Unfortunately, looming over the entire event is the UK National Debt which stands at a record high of 90.2% of GDP. Over six years George Osborne portrayed himself as austerity personified; the very picture of prudence. The reality is that the deficit got the better of him. The national debt was £1 trillion when he took office and £1.6 trillion when he left. Philip Hammond plans to raise this by £1.95 trillion. We at Conservatives for Liberty have long believed in the necessity of reducing the size and scope of the state, but instead of making difficult decisions about how to reduce spending, the Chancellor chose to rack up more debt. Our grandchildren will pay for it.

As for the Government’s response to Brexit? Weak.

In a remarkable time of our history, with the nation still reflecting on the bold decision taken on June 23rd; this was an unremarkable Autumn Statement utterly lacking in boldness. Had this been a normal year, had the referendum never happened, then this “steady as she goes” statement may well have been what was called for. But this is not a normal year and the Chancellor should have begun implementing radical policies for Brexit Britain. Now the economy will be navigating through the choppy waters of the jittery markets well into 2017; the Chancellor should have opened the sails. We need the Government to be proactive, not reactive.

The inevitable uncertainty created by the anticipation of Article 50 being triggered, and the subsequent negotiation process, is likely to lead to a drop in private investment. This was a missed opportunity to introduce radical tax cuts to encourage investment and get British business booming. We are happy that the planned cuts in corporation tax are going ahead, but the rate is still too high; why not cut deeper? To encourage investment he should have slashed capital gains tax. Rather than tinkering with the housing market, he should have abolished stamp duty; it’s an abysmal tax that reduces homeowner mobility and it’s a contributing factor to the housing crisis.

Imagine the excitement and the positivity that would be generated from brave policies such as these. The markets would respond positively to optimism in tone and confidence of action. Instead, we had no bold tax cuts or major tax reform; all we got was timidity. There was no vision or imagination.

The Chancellor’s cautiousness may be due to a belief that he needs to hold back for now, and play a stronger card later when it is most needed, but why wait? Why be reactive? It simply allows a sense of directionless and creeping negativity to dominate the economic narrative. This is not the time for pessimism; we should be reinvigorated and excited about our future.

Those among us who are buoyed by negative indicators and hoping for bad news will continue to try and shape the national narrative in a gloomy manner; the Government is allowing them to do so, to the detriment of all.

The OBR, the UK’s official economic forecaster, has released figures that have been pounced on by remainers as proof of the damage of the Brexit vote. The OBR, having so little to work with from the Government, has made a series of assumptions; that there will be lower productivity, reduced business investment and more barriers to trade. Based in these assumptions the OBR predicts an extra £59 billion in extra borrowing in the next five years will be directly related to the result of the referendum. Brexit detractors are now citing this as the real cost of the Leave vote and using it as ammunition in their quest to stop the whole thing in its tracks.

However, citing forecasts based on assumptions as if they were facts based on certainties is highly dubious. Remainers with confirmation bias want the public to believe unquestioningly in the figures as the “true cost of Brexit” and to take every piece of bad economic news as directly and solely linked to the referendum, even when we are still clearly suffering from the legacy of the financial crash, and share many of the same problems, such as low wage growth, with much of the West.

Even if we run with the OBR’s pessimistic forecast; the economic impact is nothing like as severe as predicted pre-referendum. Britain will still be growing faster than the Eurozone and the British public will likely be wondering what on Earth all the fuss was about in a few years. The OBR forecasts GDP growth from 2017 to 2021 as follows:

2017 – 1.4%
2018 – 1.7%
2019 – 2.1%
2020 – 2.1%
2021 – 2.0%

These figures are hardly disastrous. The OBR predicts growth will be back to normal after just two years; meaning the negative Brexit effect that the OBR expects will be short lived. It was a decision for the future, for the next 10, 20 to 50 years; in the long run we will be better off than otherwise would have been.

Looking ahead, Brexit will make the British economy more competitive, more dynamic and more open. We should’ve started as we mean to go on. Philip Hammond should have sent a clear signal to the the world about Britain’s exciting direction of travel. By taking the first steps to building a dynamic, free market Britain – preparing to exploit the benefits of its freedom – the Chancellor could have lifted the mood of the nation.

With the Conservatives facing so little resistance; we cannot afford to keep spurning these opportunities. We want a Conservative government that envisions a fairer country based on lower taxes and rediscovers its instinct for frugality. Above all else, we want a Conservative government that inspires a sense of national pride and optimism and embraces our path to national independence.

Remain II: The Revenge of Remain – The Resurgent Europhiles hoping to stop Brexit

Ben Kelly / Blog / Brexit, Remain, stronger in, Tony Blair / 5 comments

21/11/2016

Remain II: The Revenge – The Remain campaign is to relaunch and reinvigorate the British Europhile movement, with Tony Blair launching his comeback to stop Brexit

The Remain campaign is regrouping and preparing for a major relaunch. Well, you didn’t think the Europhile elite was going to give up that easily did you?

The biggest democratic exercise in British history resulted in a vote to leave the European Union, but the anti-democratic paternal instinct of the Europhiles has kicked in; the British people must be saved from themselves.

They may have exercised their democratic right to vote Leave, but they didn’t know what they were voting for. They turned out in huge numbers, but they were beguiled by lies. Millions of people became engaged in the debate and felt inspired to have a say in our politics like never before, but they were too stupid to vote on the matter anyway, and now they must be ignored for their own good. Yes, that is the logic of the Remain campaign mark II.

Open Britain, the successor to Stronger In, will partner with a new campaign set up by Blairite former ministers to form a refreshed Remain campaign with a two-year timeline to stop Brexit.

Tony Blair, undoubtedly a man with quite a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder, has been planning his political comeback for some time. Now he will be the figurehead of an anti-Brexit movement and plans to set up a new political institute to influence the negotiations and help to push for a second referendum; with the aim, ultimately, being to prevent Brexit altogether.

Blair has spotted an opportunity; wounded by becoming one of the most bitterly loathed politicians in Britain, he wants to become the messiah of Remain and EU icon. He is clearly far too manically egotistical and blinkered to realise the revulsion he inspires; the backlash that will likely grow against him will be severely harmful to the cause he cherishes.

One thing that Remain mark II will not be short of is cash; there are plenty of rich donors available amongst the Europhile elite. Richard Branson’s Virgin Group will help bankroll the campaign along with the insurance millionaire Sir Clive Cowdery. The group will be backed to the hilt by powerful political, financial and corporate interests with top-tier business and communications organisations throwing their support behind it.

The group is being set up by Alan Milburn, John Hutton, Douglas Alexander and former advisers to Tony Blair such as Sally Morgan, Peter Hyman and Kat Garvey. The usual Europhile suspects will all be involved; Nick Clegg, Cuka Umunna, Tim Farron and the like.

Of course, we can expect the usual endorsements from rich celebrities such as Bob Geldof and the same old tedious lectures from a variety of actors, comedian and other tedious wind bags with hugely over inflated perceptions of their own importance and political intelligence.

They believe that the public can be persuaded to change their mind and are hoping for economic deterioration to strengthen their hand. Their allies will attempt to sabotage Brexit from within while they run a resurgent Remain campaign in preparation for a second referendum which they believe they can win. This is far from over; Brexit may yet be prevented.

Brexiteers need to regroup and reorganise in a big way, now.

Remain mark II has already secured approximately £1m in funding, and far more is likely to be pledged to fight a two-year campaign to push Britain into a humiliating reversal, whereupon it will return into the EU as a weaker supplicant than ever before. This would be an embarrassment; an abject defeat that would render us marginalised and submissive in an EU buoyed by another defeat of democracy.

If Remain got their way, and Brexit was stopped, British domestic politics would be more toxic than ever as a groundswell of resentment would begin to build up in response. All of those people who turned out because they believed that their vote would finally matter would have effectively have been told that actually, it doesn’t. Eventually the disillusionment and bitterness that would inevitably cause would boil over.

It’s the Europhiles that have to be saved from themselves, and Remain that has to be prevented. The post-referendum funk must be now shrugged off; we need a full-scale revival of the Leave campaign. The debate will continue and we must advance our ideas and arguments to ensure the public continues to support leaving the EU and becomes confident about our future as an independent nation.

Brexiteers assemble!

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

Brexit does not mean Brexit if we remain in the Customs Union; beware of the stealth Remain campaign

Ben Kelly / Blog / Brexit, customs union, remain campaign, Trade policy / 0 comments

21/11/2016

The Customs Union has become a contentious issue in the Brexit debate, but leaving it is a must; it’s a red line that cannot be crossed

The post-referendum “phoney war” should have been the beginning of an open, honest and exciting debate about what Britain’s post-Brexit future should look like and what our negotiating strategy should be. Instead, this time has been wasted as Remainers continue to fight the referendum debate; they should have tried to shape how we leave but still too much time is being spent on whether we should leave at all.

I fully expected, and gleefully anticipated, a lively debate on both how we should manage our transition from EU Member State to independent nation state, and how we could exploit the advantages of our newfound freedoms. I expected discussions about the bottom up redesign of our policies for trade, immigration, fisheries, agriculture and foreign affairs. I anticipated a debate on how to engage as an independent player in the plethora of international organisations in which we are currently bound by the EU common position. I looked forward to, naively it seems, a developing excitement about rebuilding Britain, reforming the way we are governed and helping to reinvigorate the global trading system.

Instead, one of the central debates of recent weeks has been on whether or not we should leave the Customs Union. Until very recently I never considered that this would become a point of discussion. The case is already closed; we must leave the Customs Union to regain control of our trade policy, remaining within it is not an option because it would violate the democratic mandate of the referendum.

The case is already closed; we must leave the Customs Union to regain control of our trade policy

Click To Tweet

Let’s be clear; It can be reasonably argued that because the “Leave” movement isn’t a political party, and the referendum result was simply an instruction to leave the EU and nothing more, many details are therefore open to debate.

However, any arrangement that sees us remaining in the Customs Union is not Brexit; it is the worst of all worlds and defeats the object. It would be like being an EU member but with very few of the rights or privileges of membership.

There is a lot of confusion over this issue, and indeed it is complex, but it can be boiled down to one very simple point, which I pointed out in my latest Telegraph article:

“One of the main consequences, and disadvantages, of the Customs Union is that the EU negotiates as a single entity in international trade agreements. Thus, the Commission negotiates on our behalf and we must wait for all 28 member states to agree to ratify before the deal is concluded and we can reap the benefits.”

To regain control of our trade policy, we must leave the Customs Union. There is no minority in the Leave campaign arguing for membership of the Customs Union, there are no fringe Brexit campaigns arguing this case either; it quite simply is not even a grey area. The need to regain control of our trade policy was one of the main arguments of every collective Leave campaign and every individual Leave campaigner. We can therefore say, with confidence, that the 52% who voted to Leave did so with the justified expectation that leaving the EU entailed taking back control of our trade policy.

the 52% who voted to Leave did so with the justified expectation that leaving the EU entailed…

Click To Tweet

If we are still represented by the EU in the multitude of international organisations related to trade, and are not able to pursue and negotiate our own trade agreements; then nobody can reasonably argue that we have satisfied the Leave mandate.

Remaining in the Customs Union was never on the Brexit agenda, it cannot have escaped the notice of anyone that it was barely discussed during the referendum campaign. It was never on the table; it has only been placed there very recently by Remainers, it is the latest attempt to problematise leaving, a major component in the strategy of a growing resistance to Brexit.

Brexiteers have been distracted of late by the High Court ruling that parliament must vote on triggering Article 50. Although the motives of Gina Miller and her allies are clear (they want to stop prevent Britain leaving the EU) having a lively parliamentary debate and a vote on Article 50 is very healthy and democratic (parliament takes back control!) and was always extremely unlikely to lead to a vote against.

MP’s who voted Remain, and still don’t want to leave, will have their say but will ultimately the majority will respect the referendum result at this point. They are compelled by the need to show that they are respecting democracy, and because many of them represent areas where the majority voted to Leave. Few would be so brazen as to blatantly disrespect the will of the electorate by voting against it at the first opportunity; no, the unrepentant Remainers will play the long game.

The sudden noise around the Customs Union is a warning shot; many more spanners will be thrown in the works. The Remain campaign will continue by stealth, and as the negotiations conclude we may witness a full resurgence of the Europhile movement and a concerted effort to subvert the whole process.

The Remain campaign will continue by stealth, and as the negotiations conclude we may witness a…

Click To Tweet

First of all, we have the legal case in the Supreme Court that could lead to a decision on whether Article 50 is revocable. Nicola Sturgeon could choose to instruct the Lord Advocate to seek a reference to the Luxembourg court to get a definitive answer to that question. If the decision is made that Article 50 is revocable; the devolved Assemblies and allied Remainers could effectively gain a veto on Brexit. Voting against the exit settlement would, in effect, revoke Article 50 notification and see us remain in the EU.

Another prime opportunity to derail the process will come with the Great Repeal Bill; just like with any other legislation facing ingrained resistance, opponents will seek to put the brakes on by making amendments thereby tying the Government’s hand and potentially sabotaging Brexit negotiations.

Zealous Remainers are reorganising and will grow in strength. They will fight this every step of the way. Now they argue for remaining in the Customs Union, next they will make more demands, eventually their vision will be little different from being in the EU; finally, they will go all out to stop Brexit altogether.

The referendum was round one; but the war isn’t over.

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

Are the masses too stupid to know what’s good for them?

John Scotting / Blog / Brexit, donald trump / 0 comments

20/11/2016

If Brexit was a wakeup call for the authoritarian Left, their attempts to frustrate the process reveals a latent grogginess, as they repeatedly hit the snooze button. Our friends across the pond, with their typically audacious MO, have opted for an even louder alarm with flashing lights and a vexatious blare that seeks to “Make America Great Again”.

The received wisdom is that another blue-collar raspberry has been blown at the establishment; but while Donald J. Trump’s surname may be comically apposite, perhaps a definition that his compatriots are more accustomed with, is equally apt. Was he simply the highest scoring card in the game of presidential top trumps? Did the Democrats play the wrong card altogether? Maybe assertive showmanship, business acumen, lower taxes, fewer wars, and putting American interests first, trumped the ‘same shit different day’ prospectus of the celebrity endorsed alternative?

Claims that an emotion-driven red mist has descended over the great unwashed, rendering them incapable of rational thought, are reminiscent of a Victorian patriarchy dismissing the hysterical wittering of the hormonal weaker sex. Such is the arrogance of the champagne socialists that dominate Western media; such was the complacency of the political elite that refer to themselves as “liberal” despite a clear disdain for “deplorable” alternative opinions and an aversion to free speech. The bigoted Left has employed identity politics and vitriolic aggression to force diversity of thought underground, creating the Shy-Tories, Bashful-Brexiteers, and Silent-Trumpers (lol), that now dominate the electoral battleground by stealth.

The majority of both Britons and Americans are “sick of experts”, and the premise that a political intelligentsia is supremely qualified to run our lives, because “they know what’s best for us”, is wearing a little thin. Having voted for state intercession for years, poverty-stricken communities remain poor. So perhaps those that claim to have all the answers aren’t as infallible as they’d like to think.

President Obama had 8 years to make a difference, but for many expectant voters, it turns out that “No, he couldn’t!”. It was presumed, for example, that America’s first black president would improve race relations; but after stoking up divisions by presenting minorities as being oppressed by the evil white majority, unsurprisingly, resentment and tension have grown. The same is true of gun crime and inequality. So, it should come as no surprise that the patience of many Democrat voters has expired.

In the UK, the Labour party had 13 years, and as per usual, left office with the country on its knees. That bought time for the coalition that followed, just as Brexit uncertainty could do for Theresa May. The lack of a credible opposition strengthens her hand further, as they continue to labour under the misapprehension that we can solve the problem of too much government with even more government, borrow our way out of debt, and tax our way to prosperity. The same flawed logic is exactly why the EU was rejected in June, with Brussels Technocrats attempting to remedy the various ails that excessive centralisation has caused on the continent with even more centralisation. (As a handy side note, the ‘stuff yourself skinny’ diet doesn’t work; nor can you drink yourself sober!)

Recent developments are as popular amongst Millennials as a shart in a hot tub. They have no direct experience of the last time that genuine hardship was replaced by prosperity; that being when the bloated public sector was last rolled back! The older generation understood the economic argument to have been won by Thatcher and Reagan; hence, in stark contrast to left-leaning counterparts, approval ratings grew throughout their times in office, which ended with their own parties retaining power.

Unfortunately, complacency has since allowed socialist idealism to creep in. Not that it’s labelled as such these days. Contemporary exponents know that “socialism” is synonymous with economic illiteracy, so they rebranded, with the auto-antonymic “progressive” tag, some time ago. Their prosperity suppressing policies have prevailed nonetheless, so rather than making progress, a flying DeLorean is now whisking us back to 1985!

The Classical Liberal economists, that provided the inspiration for Maggie’s supply-side reforms, established that economies are too complicated for any individual to assess all of the relevant information before deciding what form of interference a government should take. Instead, they advocate allowing the hive mind of an unencumbered free market to facilitate the organic improvements in living standards that can be derived from the value created by billions of voluntary exchanges. If that sounds complicated, that’s probably because it is.

Graduates of the state-is-great doctrine of Western academia may harbour the desire to exert greater control over their world, but denying its complexity is folly. The notion of an omniscient authority is a chimera, as the inability of economists to produce either consistent or reliable forecasts, clearly demonstrates.

Value is subjective, so pursuing a politically determined “common good” is both spurious and immoral. Interventions inevitably require a trade-off between the gain of a chosen special interest group and the loss of everyone else. Unscrupulous career politicians recognise that these advantages can be sold to the highest bidder, with the proceeds used to buy the votes required to sustain their positions. This inevitably leads to the state-sponsored cronyism that is fallaciously mistaken for laissez faire capitalism by detractors that see no alternative to big government, and presume the alternatives to be as binary as benevolent-left or malevolent-right. They now fear that if evil concepts like patriotism and self-responsibility can be openly discussed in public, that may signal a shift in favouritism, with the “wrong” type of people assuming the prerogative status of their own coteries.

Be careful what you wish for, as the saying goes! Assuming that one’s own subjective values are more virtuous and deserving than anyone else’s, and seeking to elect a government that is prepared to use its monopoly over legalised force to implement them on your behalf, might not be the way forward after all.

Whether people are ready to kick the habit of Keynesian quick fixes remains to be seen though. It seems that globalised capitalism is erroneously bearing the brunt of the approved “left behind” narrative, enabling calls for a doubling-down of protectionist corporatism and redistributive interference. The same commentators conflate genuine free trade with highly regulated regional trading blocs and uncontrolled self-selecting immigration, implying an inexorable link where none exists. The common external tariffs and state-enforced barriers to entry that artificially raise prices, and the over-supply of unskilled labour that suppresses wages, were entirely avoidable political choices. The poverty that has been deliberately created by centre-left governments across the West, looking to calcify their support, is now coming home to roost.

We are now entering an entirely new political epoch: On 23^rd June 2016, 17.4 million Britons voted to reclaim the freedom to do something about it. On 8^th November 2016, 61 million Americans voted for a return to their core values of “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Perhaps it’s time for the so-called experts to start listening to the people!

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

Mr Brexit? Trump is the antithesis of the Leave vote

Phil Myth / Blog / Brexit, donald trump, free trade, Leave Campaign / 0 comments

13/11/2016

Donald Trump likens his movement to the Leave campaign yet his parochial, anti-trade message is the antithesis of the Brexit spirit

Donald Trump winning the US Presidential election is the biggest political upset since, well, only June as it happens. A completely unexpected result, Trump’s victory has been likened to the UK vote to leave the EU on June 23, not least by the man himself, who earlier this week described the possibility of him winning as “Brexit plus plus plus.”

There’s no doubting that both results gave the establishment a bloody nose, but the comparisons between the Donald’s rise to the White House and Brexit have been massively overblown. In fact, putting aside the rejection of the status quo, the two are practically antithetical.

For starters, Trump’s platform railed against free trade. He constantly denounced NAFTA, and threatened to pull out of the agreement if Canada and Mexico were unwilling to renegotiate it. On top of this, Trump also threatened an all-out trade war with China, suggesting the introduction of tariffs, the bringing of trade cases against the country at the WTO, and labelling it as a currency manipulator.

Compare and contrast those protectionist instincts with the Leave campaign’s message on trade. The cornerstone of the Brexiteer’s message was the ability, freed from the EU’s common external tariff, to sign our own trade deals with countries across the globe. Campaign literature, both official and otherwise, was awash with statistics showing where the current growth was in the world, which emerging economies would be the powerhouses of the future, and how our share of exports with the rest of the world was increasing, whilst that into the EU was in decline. Trump sought to be elected in order to make trade with China as difficult as possible. We voted to leave the EU in order to make it easier.

This isolationism can be found elsewhere in Trump’s policies too. The president-elect has described NATO as ‘obsolete’, and has suggested he would look at pulling the United States out of the agreement. Compare and contrast, once again, with the Leave campaign. On security, one of the main tenants of the Leave position was that the EU’s expansionist policies, and plans for an EU army, threatened to undermine NATO. When Remain supporters suggested that peace in Europe since the second world war had been secured by the EU, leavers pointed out that this had much more to do with the North Atlantic alliance than the Brussels bureaucracy. A desire to ensure NATO is maintained as the strongest military alliance in the world, not weaken it exponentially by pulling out of the agreement, was a core part of the Leave position.

Even on immigration Trump and Brexit are worlds apart. Yes, there was a strong part of the Leave campaign that wished to control immigration, but the key word there is control. No-one on the leave side advocated closing the borders completely, but rather sought to ensure that the level of immigration into the country was manageable. Moreover, in the wake of the referendum result, Leavers have been just as aghast as Remain supporters at May’s refusal to guarantee the rights of EU citizens currently in the UK to remain here. How diametrically opposed is this to Trump’s call to deport 11 million people and ban all Muslims from entering the United States? The equivalency is a spectacularly false one.

There is no doubt that both Brexit and Trump were unquestionably votes against the status quo. Both campaigns rightly tapped into an anger at the ruling orthodoxy that for too long had been ambivalent about the concerns of ordinary voters. But that, bar the occasional appearance of Nigel Farage, is all the two events have in common. Trump is a bigoted isolationist, advocating the very worst forms of protectionism. Brexit on the other hand, was always about looking beyond the parochial borders of the EU, and engaging fully with the world, pursuing a free trading, global agenda, working constructively with our friends and allies, both in Europe and beyond. Far from Brexit plus plus plus, Trump is Brexit minus minus minus.

Guitarist. Humanist. Pun-loving Nintendo fan. Flirting with libertarianism. Follow Phil on Twitter: @philmyth

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

Photo by Gage Skidmore: Creative Commons Licence 2.0

Debate: Should parliament have a vote on Article 50?

Phil Myth / Blog / Article 50, Brexit / 95 comments

03/11/2016

No – Chris Manby

Judges in the High Court ruled this morning that the government must consult Parliament before invoking Article 50 and triggering Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Since a majority of MPs backed the Remain campaign during the referendum, Leave campaigners have good reason to smell a rat.

The government have vowed to fight the ruling in the Supreme Court. There is every prospect of the decision being reversed. If that doesn’t work, then a snap general election would almost certainly return a huge Conservative majority with a headline manifesto commitment to deliver Brexit. But make no mistake, the Remainers and their lawyers have won a major battle today. They must not be allowed to win the war.

The arguments of the referendum campaign have been reversed. Those who favour EU membership now argue that Parliament ought to determine the terms of Britain’s withdrawal, if only to render Brexit so meaningless that we might as well not even bother. Brexiteers, by contrast, assert that the Parliament they fought so hard to free from the grip of Brussels should have no opportunity to shirk or surrender its new-found responsibilities.

Given the chance, parliamentary opponents of Brexit would seek to kill off the entire process. There is an air of fanaticism about europhile MPs who see their future perks and pensions at risk. It has become painfully obvious that parliamentarians cannot be trusted to rule on their own future. The stark irony of a parliament that does not wish to be sovereign at all should not be lost on anyone.

Parliament is only sovereign because it represents the will of the people. The people have spoken – or at least, a majority of people who felt strongly enough about the issue to turn up and vote. It has become fashionable amongst Remoaners to call the referendum result merely ‘advisory’. Yet the referendum literature clearly stated that “the government will implement what you decide”. That alone ought to have been enough to head off any challenges to the result.

Yet the Remain camp are prepared to fight to the bitter end for the united ‘Europe’ they so love. People like Gina Miller, the investment manager leading the so-called “people’s challenge” against Brexit – a woman who claims the vote made her feel “physically sick” – will never see it as legitimate.

Nor will the likes of Green Party leader and softly-spoken lunatic auntie Caroline Lucas, who described the High Court result as “brilliant news”. Or Labour MP David Lammy, who crowed that “this is what real sovereignty looks like”. Or Tim Farron, who in recent months has set about rebranding the Liberal Democrats as the ‘party of Europe’.

For the last four months we have been told that the vote to leave was racist in origin, that it unleashed a wave of hatred against foreigners, that the people didn’t know what they were voting for, and must have been lied to. The vitriol poured out against the ‘ignorant’ white working classes who dared vote against the expressed opinion of their betters has been shocking.

Brexiteers must be ready to fight even harder to preserve the country we love from parliamentary obstructionists, judicial activists and rich financial sector luvvies determined to reverse the July vote. If we don’t then we will lose everything we have gained, and deservedly so. In the Game of Thrones you win or you die.

Yes – Phil Myth

Today’s supreme court ruling that the government can’t use royal prerogative to invoke Article 50 and instead must put it to parliament has, by and large, been met with consternation from Brexiteers. Given the outpouring since the result from Remain supporters for the result to be ignored or overturned, one can understand why Leavers are worried about this recent development.

There has been a worrying display of anti-democratic sentiment since June 23rd. From petitions calling for a second referendum, to public protests (neither of these garnering anything like enough numbers to match the 17.4m who voted to leave mind you), to outright defiance from MPs such as David Lammy, calling for the biggest vote for any one thing in British history to be ignored by those in power.

That said, the judgement this morning has been met with rather more hysteria from Brexiters than is warranted. Farage has donned the tin-foil head gear, claiming he fears ‘a betrayal may be at hand’, and the likes of Leave.EU are equally unhinged, with founder and UKIP financier Arron Banks stating “Why wouldn’t unelected judges want to preserve an EU system where unelected elites like themselves are all-powerful?”

It’s really quite spectacularly hysterical. Those ‘unelected judges’, as they’ve also been dubbed by David Davis, weren’t upholding the EU system, but rather British constitutional democracy. Sure, it would’ve been nice if we’d had more of that when powers were being handed over to the EU in the first place, but it’s good to see it’s finally kicking in. The judgement today has not subverted democracy, overturned the referendum result, or said that we can’t leave the EU.

The result means that MPs will vote on triggering Article 50. Or to put it another way, our elected representatives will be required to act out the will of the people. This, more than anything else, is precisely what Leavers voted to Leave for. I find myself siding with the Remainer school of thought that it’s ironic that those that campaigned for parliamentary sovereignty are apoplectic about a UK court ruling that parliament will be sovereign on this issue.

Now, there are of course an overwhelming majority of MPs who were in favour of Remain. But that doesn’t mean that they will all be ignoring the referendum result, even if a few noisy ones wish to do exactly that. Former Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps tweeted to say that, although he backed Remain, he wont be voting to frustrate the will of the British people or his constituents. Jeremy Corbyn too has reiterated that Labour respect the result of the referendum. It’s likely both parties will whip in favour of triggering Article 50.

I have another proposal though. Each MP should do precisely what they were elected to do and represent their constituents. Any MP whose constituency voted to Remain in the EU should be given free reign to vote against triggering Article 50. But those MPs whose constituents voted to Leave the EU should acknowledge the instruction given to them by those who elected them, and vote in favour of the motion.

Unfortunately, the referendum result wasn’t broken down according to Parliamentary constituency, but by local authority area. However some work has been done to extrapolate these results to parliamentary level, finding that of 574 English and Welsh constituencies, 421 probably voted to leave, and of those, 270 definitely did. Conversely, 152 voted to remain, with half (76) almost definitely voting to remain, The result hasn’t been converted for Scotland, but let’s throw Nicola Sturgeon a bone and suggest that all of Scotland’s 59 constituencies voted to Remain. Thus, if MPs vote how their constituents did, as they should in a representative democracy, Article 50 gets triggered by a vote of 421 to 211.

Remainers get to be properly represented in parliament, Leavers get Article 50 triggered, and it’s all done by a sovereign UK parliament according to British constitution. Sounds good to me.

John Simpson is right, the BBC did let audiences down with its EU referendum coverage. But not in the way he thinks

Guest / Blog / bbc, Brexit, eu, EU referendum, european union, john simpson / 0 comments

09/10/2016

BBC editor John Simpson said that in its referendum coverage the BBC had “let our viewers and listeners down”. It did, but not in the way he thinks

By Sam White

BBC world affairs editor John Simpson said in an interview during the One Young World Summit on Sunday that in its pre-referendum coverage the BBC had “let our viewers and listeners down”.

According to the veteran broadcaster, the corporation, due to its obligation “to be balanced between different political ideas and different political viewpoints”, had allowed both Leave and Remain campaigners “to lie their heads off about… what might happen if we left or if we didn’t leave the EU”.

He went on, “if people looked to television and radio for a clear guidance about what to do, we certainly didn’t give them clear enough guidance about the lies that were being told. I suspect that if people had known the facts and had judged in a more balanced way the outcome would have been a bit different”.

This is a patronising analysis and shows that even now, more than a hundred days after the referendum result, there are still influential media figures proving themselves incapable of comprehending the thought processes of ordinary people.

The first problem is with Simpson’s rueful, “we let them down”. The implication is that something undeniably bad has happened, and that we are now lumbered with a national catastrophe. Regretful and distraught, the BBC must shoulder its fair shame of the blame for not averting disaster, and Simpson is a man with integrity enough to begin the flagellation.

The problem with this conclusion is that the majority of voters, obviously, won the referendum. They’re happy, the result is a good one, and the short lived notion of ‘Bregret’ was fabricated anyway. In the absence of a catastrophe—no matter how much some Remainers might be willing one—nobody can have been let down.

The second misapprehension is in saying that had the BBC done its job properly then the result would have been different. But if the BBC had held campaigners to account, fact checked, and reported without favour, then their coverage would have become much less biased toward Remain and more open to the Leave argument. The BBC has hardly been a bastion of impartiality around the subject of Europe, and remains very clearly pro-EU, evidenced in fact by this very interview.

So should it have done its job properly? Absolutely, and that would have meant cutting out the bias for Remain, leading to, if anything, even more people opting for Brexit.

However, that raises Simpson’s other conceit—that a significant number of voters make decisions at least partly based on what the BBC tells them. He condescendingly underestimates us to be a nation of children, whose empty minds are easily manipulated by the lofty-thinkers at the BBC. As mentioned though, the corporation was heavily biased in favour of Remain, and despite that, Leave still managed to take a majority. This is an emphatic sign that when making decisions, nobody gives a second thought to what the BBC might want them to do, and in the referendum an enormous number of people did the precise opposite of what BBC executives had implicitly instructed.

Simpson and others like him are operating under a strange delusion that millions of their fellow citizens are credulous naifs who have gone through their entire lives without noticing that people lie. He also seems to have forgotten that of all the professions, it’s journalists and politicians who are the least trusted by the public. When a journalist interviews a politician, most people’s default setting is to doubt every word they hear.

But Simpson is apparently unaware of this. Or perhaps he thinks the BBC is different. Sure, we might take the red tops with a pinch of salt, and everyone knows the Guardian has an agenda, but the Beeb is a paragon of journalistic virtue, isn’t it? Well, sorry as I am to shatter such illusions, the BBC is about as widely trusted as Michael Gove, and its values are openly at odds with a significant faction of the population.

Simpson is right to say that people have been let down by the BBC, but it’s not in the way that he thinks. If he could identify that audiences have become disillusioned by a lack of balanced reporting, or fatigued by an absurd barrage of unrealistic catastrophising, then he might be on to something.

Those at the top of the corporation have clear ideas about what’s good for people, and in the interests of bringing us up to their virtuous moral standards, they aren’t averse to impartially hectoring their audiences. The good news is, as Brexit showed, nobody is paying a blind bit of notice.

Sam White is a writer and journalist, follow him on Twitter: @SamWhiteTky

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

Phillip Hammond and the new interventionism

Chris Manby / Blog / Big government, Brexit, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Conference 2016, CPC 2016, Interventionism, Keynesianism, Phillip Hammond, tory conference / 0 comments

03/10/2016

There was a lot to like in Phillip Hammond’s first conference speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer. But there was also a much less welcome shift towards further state intervention in the economy.

In stark contrast to Theresa May’s take-no-prisoners approach and Boris Johnson’s optimistic vision, Mr Hammond sounded a much more dour note on the UK economy’s prospects outside the EU.

The Chancellor backed Remain during the referendum and is known to have favoured staying in the Single Market. He made little attempt to disguise his reservations as he pledged to “protect jobs and living standards” from the threat of Brexit.

The process of leaving the EU will be a “rollercoaster” ride, said the Chancellor. “There will be a period of a couple of years or perhaps even longer when businesses are uncertain about the final state of our relationship with the European Union.”

Praising his predecessor as Chancellor, Hammond described the economy as “fundamentally robust.” He mocked former shadow chancellor Ed Balls for predicting in 2010 that cutting public spending would bring about a double-dip recession.

Instead the deficit has been cut by two thirds, the welfare bill reduced, and four million low-income workers taken out of income tax. Yet he abandoned the target of a budget surplus by 2020. Indeed he seemed almost ambivalent about the concept of obtaining a surplus at all.

The best parts of Hammond’s speech came when he lay out what he saw as the key challenges facing the British economy: poor productivity, low wages, and above all a lack of affordable housing.

The Chancellor sees productivity and economic growth as key priorities for the British economy. He also made it clear he sees it as the government’s job to deliver these. “If we don’t do something, if we don’t intervene… in time it would have an impact on jobs and growth”, he said.

“Where we see government interventions that work, we should be prepared to make them”, Hammond argued. He neglected to mention how, exactly, you judge whether an intervention is working or not before making it.

You expect this sort of language from John McDonnell, who only last week made the case for an “entrepreneurial state” funding projects and directing economic growth. You don’t necessarily expect it from a Tory chancellor.

Yet over the last decade, state planning has come back into fashion in a big way as politicians struggle to demonstrate to voters that they are capable of dealing with major economic shocks.

The major difference between Hammond and McDonnell is the extent to which the state should intervene: Labour want a completely state-dominated economy backed by a massive tax-and-borrowing spree. The Tories stand for a less profligate, mildly state-guided approach.

George Osborne was far from innocent in this regard. The so-called Northern Powerhouse and High Speed 2 are testament to that. Indeed, Mr Hammond went out of his way to praise his predecessor’s grand projects, promising to emulate them “across Britain” and joking about the difficultly of coming up with “snappy titles”.

As the Chancellor himself pointed out, Britain became a “hub of tech innovation” because of its “entrepreneurs and scientists”, not state planning. The sorry state of British manufacturing in the 1970s is testament to the inability of government to manage the economy. Keynesian demand management simply does not work.

“Driverless cars, Graphene, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, virtual reality, and advanced robotics” would never have existed if the state dominated technology and the internet.

We need a programme of economic liberalisation, not the state picking winners and losers. There is no supporting evidence to suggest that big government can deliver economic growth – quite the opposite. Smaller government; a lower tax and regulatory burden; a stable monetary policy; free trade; and a strong rule of law are the recipe for economic growth.

The Chancellor is known for being a quiet, thoughtful and intelligent man. That came through clearly today. He correctly diagnosed many of the threats facing the British economy. The problem is that he has prescribed the wrong solutions.

Chris believes strongly in individual freedom, personal responsibility, and the power of free markets to eliminate poverty by encouraging wealth creation. Follow him on Twitter: @cjmanby1989

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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

Brexiteers have nothing to fear from a general election

Chris Manby / Blog / Brexit, democracy, general election, theresa may / 0 comments

02/10/2016

Remainers have become very fond of Parliamentary sovereignty in recent months. The referendum, the EU super-fans now allege, was merely advisory. It is for Parliament – in consultation with the ‘experts‘ of course – to decide on whether to leave the European Union.

Never mind that the supremacy of EU law is more destructive to the supremacy of Parliament than any referendum. EU cheerleaders have spied an opportunity to strike back at fickle, unwashed, ‘lizard-brained‘ masses. The “48 percent” are crying out for a second referendum, or a general election, anything that will give them the chance to reverse the people’s decision.

Of course, an immediate general election would almost certainly bring the Tories back into power with a huge majority. So why not give the Remainers what they want?

The government’s majority is slim and many Conservative MPs backed the losing side during the referendum campaign. In the current Parliament, any vote on Brexit – or on ending the ban on new grammar schools – may well be overturned by a backbench revolt.

Yet if recent analysis by the British Polling Council is to be believed, if an election were to be held now, the Tory majority would increase from 12 to 62 seats.

Now is the time for boldness and political courage. Theresa May infamously supported Remain. If she now truly believes that “Brexit means Brexit”, she should say so – in bold capital letters, on the cover page of a Tory manifesto.

Such a manifesto would unite the 52 percent of the voting population who voted Leave behind the Conservative Party. Its victory would commit wavering Tory parliamentarians to backing Brexit (it would, after all, be a manifesto commitment) and leave Brexit opponents without a leg to stand on.

Calling a snap election would be a gamble, but the odds are in the Brexiteers favour.

Labour is still in the process of piecing itself back together after re-electing Jeremy Corbyn in an act of catastrophic self-harm. Meanwhile, Tim Farron has sworn to reverse the Brexit vote, but the Lib Dems are still reeling from their 2015 wipe-out.

UKIP have lost a unifying figure in Nigel Farage, as well as much of their reason for existing. Diane James needs to figure out what an anti-EU party stands for post-Brexit or risk becoming irrelevant.

Imagine, the morning after the election, as the results filter in, the delicious howls of despair from the euro-fanatics as their last hope is snatched from them. Imagine forcing them to eat their words: ‘You wanted Parliamentary sovereignty. You’ve got it. Now eat it’.

Imagine a government empowered to deliver a proper post-Brexit revolution – to slash through the Gordian knot of Brussels-imposed red tape; to take back control of our fishing grounds; to end the confusing and harmful system of farm subsidies; to slash taxes, and cut spending.

I think that’s a dream worth strapping on our armour for one more battle, don’t you?

Follow @con4lib on Twitter

Like Conservatives for Liberty on Facebook

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