Philip Gegan
Brexit. This post was first published in November 2019, before the General Election of the following month swept the bulk of the Remainers out of the House of Commons and gave Boris Johnson a mandate to "get Brexit done" no matter what.
Brexit – We’ve heard so much in the news about
(a) the need for a “deal”; Remainers in Parliament have even passed a law prohibiting a “no-deal” Brexit;
(b) how a second referendum would “let the people decide”; and
(c) if we do insist on leaving, the need to follow the procedure set out in Section 50.
What are we to make of all this? At this time, only two things are clear.
(a) The majority of people in this country want us to leave the EU without any further delay. This includes the “Single Market”, the “Customs Union”, the “European Court of Justice” (sic) and all the other myriad institutions and bodies set up (both before and after the 2016 referendum) in order to make leaving the EU, for any “member-state”, impossible.
(b) The Establishment is determined to prevent us from leaving. If it goes along with Boris Johnson’s “deal” then that will only be because, although considerably better than Theresa May’s deal, it is still not a genuine withdrawal.
Do we need a “deal” at all?
Contrary to what many supporters of Brexit say, we do, strictly speaking, need a deal of some kind in order to continue trading with member-countries of the European Union.
The over-riding problem is this. Over the years the EU has gradually absorbed more and more powers and functions that were formerly exercised by the sovereign nations that were foolish enough to surrender such powers. One of these powers was the ability to conclude trade deals with other countries, both inside and outside the EU (the Customs Union and the Single Market saw to that).
This power is a fundamental component of national sovereignty. Now, no member of the EU can conclude such deals; they’ve lost the power, along with their national sovereignty.
This is an unfortunate fact, but the key difference between it and what the Remainers would have us believe, is that the correct order of events should be not to negotiate a deal and then leave the EU, but to ignore Section 50, leave the EU and only then negotiate a deal.
Let it not be lost on us that individual European countries would invariably be pleased to negotiate a trade deal with us, if they still had the power. But the EU has usurped that power, and will undoubtedly use it against us instead of for the common good of all. They do not want us to thrive outside the EU, and they are not interested in giving us a deal. All they want to do is to try to coerce us into re-applying for membership.
Negotiate from a position of strength
The next problem is this. Any dispute involving two “member states” of the EU, or involving a “member state” (which is what the UK still is) on the one hand and the EU Commission on the other can only be resolved by the EU itself through its Court of Justice (ECJ).
Such a system is contrary to natural justice and to common sense. The ECJ will always rule in favour of the EU. That’s what it’s there for. For that reason alone, the procedure of trying to negotiate a deal whilst still inside the EU is madness.
We should have placed ourselves in the same position as Canada, Mexico, or Japan. That is, outside the EU, and negotiating from a position of strength, free from the jurisdiction of the ECJ.
Another tool to try and stop Brexit
There’s another important point about not leaving the EU without a “deal”. I’ve covered this before, but it’s worth mentioning again. If you go into negotiations of whatever kind loudly declaring that you won’t come away without an agreement with the other side then you seriously need certifying. Yet this is what the Remainers have done, time and again.
You have to reserve to yourself the option to “walk away”. For anyone claiming to be compos mentis to vote in favour of a law making a “no deal” Brexit unlawful is simply absurd.
In reality, these people knew exactly what they were doing. They were using all this nonsense as another tool to try and stop Brexit altogether.
Remainer hypocrisy about
a “Second referendum”
Now let’s deal with all the Remainer pressure for a second referendum.
There’s a very important reason why a second referendum should not take place. A referendum in UK politics is a very rare event, and rightly so. Up to 1975, when the first referendum took place over whether we should remain in what was then the EEC, there had been no referendums in our history.
The 2016 referendum was the first nationwide referendum in the UK to have taken place since 1975. The device has been used as infrequently as it has because it has been universally recognised that too many referendums would weaken the government and tend to make the country unstable.
It is completely unacceptable to have another referendum on the same question (whatever the question may be — not just Brexit) so soon after the original (the same applies to the proposed second referendum for Scotland on “independence” from the UK).
The reason is that if there is a second referendum it would completely undermine the whole concept of referendums. Not only that, but,
(a) if the result is the same as the first one, then it would be shown to have been a complete waste of time and money, and
(b) if the result is different then which result should prevail? And who should decide?
If the first result, then why have the second referendum at all? If the second result, that would almost certainly lead to civil unrest, as supporters of the first result will rightly feel they have been gravely wronged and deprived of the result they worked and made sacrifices for.
The end of referendums?
In either outcome, it would fatally weaken the concept of referendums (as well as democracy itself), as the next time a referendum was proposed people would be inclined not to vote at all on the basis that, “if we vote the wrong way they’ll simply make us have another one until we vote the way they want us to vote“.
And they would be right. The concept of referendums would thereby be section 50destroyed.
In any event, calling for a second referendum is intrinsically hypocritical. Had the result in 2016 been the other way round and Leavers had called for a second referendum then you can imagine the avalanche of derision and mockery we would have had to endure at the hands of the Remainers and the mass media. They would have pulled no punches in telling us to grow up and accept the result.
When the 1975 referendum produced a “Stay in the EEC” outcome, we who had campaigned to leave stoically accepted the result without calling for another referendum, even though we still continued our opposition to UK membership of what was then the European Economic Community (EEC).
Do we need to comply with Section 50?
This article was signed up to, on our behalf, by Tony Blair, in December 1997 as part of the Lisbon Treaty, which was ratified by Parliament in 1998. Blair and his government had absolutely no mandate to bind this country in such a way, and it’s especially ironic that this nonentity of a former Prime Minister now struts around pretending to be a “democrat” and telling us that we can’t leave.
The truth of the matter is that such a clause would never be upheld by an impartial court. It would most probably be held to be unnecessarily burdensome, so there was no need to comply. We could have parted company with the EU before the end of 2016.
Boris Johnson’s new deal
Now Boris Johnson has a new deal, essentially the same as Theresa May’s deal, though with a few concessions in our favour. It has got rid of the Irish backstop, but at a price. The EU will have powers to station customs officials (all of them, of course, immune from prosecution) at our ports to ensure that goods shipped to Northern Ireland (and therefore not subject to any excise duties) are charged duties as if they were going to the EU.
Only when they have arrived in Northern Ireland will they be de-bonded and the excise duties made liable to refund. Northern Ireland businesses selling their goods to the mainland will have to complete a customs declaration. What a charade!
And all, of course, subject to the over-riding jurisdiction of the “European Court of Justice”.
Ongoing obligations under the “deal” inhibit our ability to modernise industrial infrastructure and practices by requiring us to prevent them from acquiring any competitive advantage compared to similar industries in the EU.
Using this part of the “deal”, the ECJ can step in at any time and sabotage any trade deal we are about to sign with an outside country, e.g. the US. So much for regaining our national sovereignty.
It must be said, however, that Johnson has been far tougher than May (who basically agreed to everything the EU demanded). For example, at least Northern Ireland is staying within the UK’s customs territory, and not ceded to the EU as it would have been under May’s appalling deal.
The coming general election
Until recently, hopes have been high in the Brexit camp that the Brexit Party would do sufficiently well in the coming General Election to win at least several seats, and possibly hold the “balance of power”. Johnson would be forced to implement a genuine Brexit in order to save his political career.
If only it were this simple. Those of us hardened racial nationalists who were around in the heyday of the National Front, in the 1970s, know just how difficult it is for a new political party to make any impact at a General Election.
In by-elections and European elections voters are more prepared to vote for the party or candidate or party leader that they most prefer. Minority and new parties often do well.
But in a General Election it’s different. The electorate, at a General Election, vote negatively. That is, they tend to vote against the candidate, or the party leader, or the party, that they hate and fear the most. There’s too much at stake to do otherwise.
The likely outcome
It’s never wise to try and predict the outcome of a General Election. Probably most voters currently hate and fear Labour and Jeremy Corbyn most, and want to keep them out of office. Sadly, in most constituencies the only way to do that is to vote Tory. This doesn’t bode well for the Brexit Party, and Nigel Farage knows this.
That, and not wanting to risk splitting the pro-Brexit vote, is probably why he has decided not to contest seats won by the Tories in 2017. It is alleged that some other Brexit Party candidates have been bribed by the Tories to stand down at the last minute.
As a result, it looks increasingly likely that the Tories will be the largest party after December 12th, and possibly have an absolute majority. As a political party, they will be united, on the surface at least.
The pro-Brexit faction will think the UK is free from the EU, while the Remainers will smirk in the knowledge that secret entanglements prevent a genuine withdrawal, and in the meantime they will work secretly to facilitate the UK’s re-entry into the EU in a few years’ time when a suitable pretext arises.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media will be able to convince us that democracy prevailed and that the strings still tying us to the EU and neutralising our sovereignty were authorised by the Tories’ convincing win at the polls. The fact that hardly anyone knew about them until afterwards will be ignored.
Johnson’s real motives
Johnson is a chancer by nature, and he took a chance in early 2016 when, with the referendum taking place in a few months, he threw his hat into the “Leave” camp, resigning from David Cameron’s Cabinet in order to be free to campaign.
Since then he has been careful to take advantage of all the in-fighting in the Conservative Party over Brexit so as to (eventually) manoeuvre himself into the leadership of the party and, as such, the post of Prime Minister.
So for Boris Johnson it’s all about his career in politics, his position as Prime Minister, and the success of the Conservative Party in the forthcoming General Election. He’s happy for most Brexit supporters to carry on believing that his “deal” with the reptilian “European Union” is the real thing, as long as he wins the election and retains his role as Prime Minister. He’s riding a tiger and he’s betting everything he has on staying on top of it.
Hope for the future
Boris Johnson’s deal is far from being a genuine Brexit, but we can console ourselves in the knowledge that it is merely the start of something much larger. Just think – if the Remainers had won the referendum then without a doubt further centralisation of powers in the EU, and further transfers of national sovereignty and power to the EU would have swiftly followed.
Even now we would most likely have the reality of a European Army, the Orwellian “European Arrest Warrant”, and the pending abolition of sterling, to be replaced by the Euro.
Even entrenched pillars of our ancient system of common law would be eroded by now, with the abolition of such guarantors of our liberties as the Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, and Habeas Corpus (in the name of “harmonising” our laws to EU law).
So we have much to be thankful for. We have managed to avoid having the doomed Euro foisted upon us, and we also kept out of the Shengen Agreement. And key parts of our ancient liberties remain more or less intact.
Under the deal, we’ll be free of the ECJ at the end of the transition period, in January 2021. That alone is a massive blow to the Euro-federalists.
All these things, together with the Soros/Merkel backed Afro-Asian “refugee” invasion of Europe, the economic downturn the more prosperous European nations are now facing, and increasing Europe-wide opposition to Brussels, will lead to even more EU instability.
This in turn should encourage other Euro-sceptic nations, such as Hungary, Poland and Italy, to follow Britain’s example in regaining their national independence.
The days of the European Union are now surely numbered.
