Leave voters in the 2016 Referendum knew exactly what they were voting for and why: to bring back political control of making legislation to the British Parliament from the European Union Government in financially wasteful and grossly underused three European capital buildings in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg!
The European Economic Community (EEC, better known as the Common Market) which I and others supported joining in 1973 had much to commend it. However, the overarching aim of the founders of what subsequently evolved into the European Union has always been to obtain full political, not just economic, integration by creating a federal Europe. When the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland joined the Common Market in 1973, it was reasonably expected that electors would subsequently be given the right to decide at the ballot box whether or not they wanted any further progress towards economic and particularly political integration.
Conservative British Prime Minister John Major ardently refused to hold a referendum before the Maastricht Treaty was signed on 7th February 1992, which created the European Community from the EEC and which from the time of its coming into effect on 1st November 1993 opened the way for European Monetary Union and greater use of qualified majority voting under the Lisbon rules.
Eventual British entry into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in October 1990 went well, judging by the need within two years to suddenly withdraw on 16th September 1992, now notoriously known as ‘Black Wednesday’, when interest rates were caused to rocket by currency speculators taking advantage of the problem of keeping Sterling within narrow exchange rate limits at a cost to the Government of at least six billion pounds, whilst the speculators made over a billion pounds from British tax payers’ money!
Now that a majority in the United Kingdom have voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum, Sir John Major argues the case for holding another referendum before finally leaving the EU, contrary to his view before joining and which began the movement to create a United Kingdom Independence Party.
British Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain were both active supporters of appeasement with Nazi Germany and are now considered by some referendum Remain supporters to be good role models for Theresa May to follow in her Brexit negotiations, justifying her increasingly unfurling even more of the white flag of surrender to wave to the European Union in Brussels and not forgetting also the other two official EU staffed capital buildings that British tax payers money is helping to maintain, vastly underused, in Strasbourg and Luxembourg!
The date specified by the European Union Government of October 2018 for Brexit negotiations to be to concluded, allegedly to allow sufficient time for ratification by each of the other member countries before Great Britain and Northern Ireland leave the European Union on 29th March 2019 at 11 pm GMT, just happens to be the 80th anniversary of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain capitulating to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s demands for the immediate annexation of the majority German speaking Sudetenland border region of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany. The annexation was part of the Munich Agreement signed in October 1938, which also led to the expulsion of Czechoslovaks from the Sudetenland and created a British made refugee crisis!
In March 1939 Adolf Hitler reneged on the Munich Agreement by invading the western half of Czechoslovakia, which was surrounded by the Sudetenland, resulting in Nazi Germany immediately acquiring control of 70 per cent of Czechoslovakia’s iron and steel making and electricity generation capacity, substantially ramping up Germany’s capacity for and speed of rearmament!
The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919 formally ending the First World War, required Germany to demilitarise the Rhineland and border next to France. Had re-militarisation of the Rhineland on 7th March 1936 been resisted by the allied powers, including the United Kingdom, as provided for by the Treaty of Versailles, the pre-requisite for Nazi Germany to invade western countries, with the subsequent sending of the British Expeditionary Force to France on the outbreak of war in 1939, followed by the retreat from Dunkirk in 1940 and subsequent five years of austerity, could have been avoided.
Compare and contrast the two photographs showing British Prime Ministers offering greetings prior to their negotiations: Neville Chamberlain being greeted by German Chancellor Adolf Hitler during their second meeting, held at Bad Gothstein on 24th September 1938, which resulted in the Munich Agreement being signed during their third meeting; and (above) Theresa May with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker outside 10 Downing Street, in preparation for commencing Brexit negotiations.
Appeasement has much to answer for throughout history!
Neville Chamberlain’s “pre-war joke”
I’ve loved Monty Python’s Flying Circus for years, but it’s sad that it’s only recently in their sketch “The Funniest Joke In The World” that I fully understood the subtlety of their reference to “as sixty thousand times as powerful as Britain’s pre-war joke” (Neville Chamberlain waves piece of paper)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeMnPyusuBE (start at 5:17 for the initiated)
It seems to be boiling down to Deal or No-Deal.
The media and our establishment representatives keep throwing this word ‘deal’ about.
But its never made clear exactly what kind of ‘deal’ it is they are looking for.
It started off as a ‘withdrawal deal’ with all the hoo-hah about ‘divorce payments’ and EU citizens rights. “What would be the terms of us leaving the EU” being the initial question.
Then the talk turned around and the ‘deal’ became a ‘trade deal’. “We must have a trade deal with the EU, otherwise we can’t have any sandwiches”.
David Davis and his successor Dominic Raab, as well as Theresa May, baffle us all with grand speeches using words and phrases such as “pragmatic”, “deep and meaningful”, “new partnership”, “EU friends”, “strong and sustainable”, “shared values” etc.
Add to that list Mr Raab’s latest revelation that he will renew negotiations with “vim and vigour”. Who on earth is writing all this stuff? Certainly not going to be winning any “Plain English Awards” for sure!
Appeasement gets you nowhere, that is correct. Because all the other side does is sense your weakness, and keeps pushing you to submit. You don’t see any appeasement from the EU side in these negotiations, and I can understand why, they don’t want to offer a ‘good deal’ to the UK, and they never will; they’ve taken a tough stance in these talks, and are not going to cave-in.
We are not going to get anywhere with these ‘negotiations’ until we send someone to Brussells with some balls who is prepared to play hardline.
But sadly that is not going to happen while the Conservative-In-Name-Only party is running the show on our side, just playing us all along thinking they are going to ‘deliver Brexit’.
And yes, “no-deal” is bad terminology, but the establishment media love it because of the negative conotations.
The USA has ‘no-deal’ with the EU. Let’s just step away from the EU, and deal with them just like the US does.
It’s no-deal for me.
Add to that list Mr Raab’s latest revelation that he will renew negotiations with “vim and vigour”
Raab sounds like he’s negotiating to clean Barnier’s toilet while Oily Robbins hands our country over to Brussels.
Ironically, Vim has been flogged off to an EU corporation as Unilever closed UK plants due to Eurozone failures.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jun/14/unilever-jobs-axe-site-closures
I would like to make clear that in my opinion whether thought of as log term,short term or any other term The best deal is no deal. , No doubts, no caviats , nothing. No Deal is best.
I voted for No Deal.
Brexit was No Deal.
Leave does mean Leave.
All the nonsense since our EU Referendum win has been vested interests plotting to keep their self-serving snouts in the Brussels trough as long as possible.
Probably until the electorate is given a dismal General Election choice of Poor Deal/Stay In Tories, Second Referendum/Stay In Labour and Capitulate LibDems.
The beauty of that scenario is that Brexiters will only have one real honest political decision to make.
Them or UKIP.
(Fingers, toes and eyes crossed).
Why does nobody come out and say it.
It is a conspiracy – United WRECKERS
They put paid to our ship of state every bit as those did who put out lights to lure ships onto the rocks.
The result is the same. pilferage of the cargo (assets- see what the EU did to the Greeks) and slaughter of any survivors as they struggled ashore to give the game away.
I remember black wednesday. At the time it was almost like a physical blow. It was unbelievable that Britain could be so undervalued by the rest of the world. At the time I felt nothing but contempt for our political class. They got it wrong, badly, badly wrong, and refused to admit it. And then made it worse by not acting either faster to limit the damage or by not toughing it out to eventually stabilise to reality.
On 29.03.2019 We will be attacked in the same way, but diferently . But markets will be wiser, and have probably already taken their positions. Most of the drop from political speech to reality has alredy been discounted. But there is always a criminal element. Fake news will proliferate. I suppose Soros imitators will be cruising.
This warning is about different things. Some of which no-one can guess, Others have been obvious for years already. One of these is that parliament must be ready for shocks, not be thinking about the opposition and their slly ‘isms. They need to be ready to pass or repeal the necessary laws to protect our Industries and commerce. Instead of sitting like jellyfish and weeping and saying industry looks after itself. It can but only if Parliament doesn’t do anything insane, or nothing.
Everyone should read Hendersons’ Articles here. This is not project fear, merely elementary precautions. Our industries are uniquely vulnerable from years of our monopolistic accountants..
Soros made a thousand x million ££s on Black Wednesday.
The People’s Vote funder stole from UK taxpayers and is now a Remain leader.
Soros sums Remain up .
‘Once you have paid them the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Danes…’ (Thanks to Kipling)