We now know that the Galileo project that we have contributed £1.39 billion into has been withdrawn from us, despite the government fighting for the military to have access to the highly encrypted parts of the system which have largely been developed here in the UK. We cannot get any benefit from this system, as we have been frozen out by the EU unless of course, we pay a great deal more money to access the system when it is operational in 2020. This satellite system provides a navigation system for defence and critical national infrastructure purposes.
The system would have also supported mobile phones and sat nav systems. It is to be launched in 2020, and no timeline has been given as to when Britain will have a similar system operational. Theresa May has said we will build our own, the cost of which is estimated to be between £3-5 Billion. This new system will have to be compatible with GPS used by the USA in order to maintain cover if one of the systems was under attack. Mrs May has tried to put pressure on Brussels by putting forward £92 million into a scoping exercise to develop our own system. She has further talked tough about not being an end user of the Galileo system, and therefore the need for our own system is important.
What is clear is that the EU is not budging. What is also clear is that they now want the UK, having put in £1.39 billion, to be a commercial user, and at what cost.
The other main project which is currently jointly serviced and used by the UK and the EU is sis2 (Schengen Information System). Whilst we have not been told we cannot use this anymore, what was made clear by the Home Secretary Sajid Javid at the Home Affairs Select Committee on 27th November, was that he cannot guarantee that we will be `allowed` to continue to use this sharing of information post Brexit in March next year.
It did take some getting out of him this admission. He tried his best to obfuscate and fudge but well done the Labour MP`s on that committee for ensuring they got the truth. The Home Secretary has issued a thin document which outlines the pathway to maintain our involvement. It does not state in any way that it may be the case that we lose our use of this system.
Schengen Information system provides a highly efficient information system which is vast. It supports external border control and law enforcement cooperation with all Schengen states. In essence, it allows coppers and border guards to enter the system and look at alerts on certain categories of wanted or missing persons and objects too.
An alert on the system contains vital information on a particular person or object, but it also directs the person investigating as to what to do if they have found the person or the object. The whole point of sis2, therefore, is to allow those that need it, instant information on anyone travelling throughout Schengen area for the purposes of safety, law enforcement cooperation and vehicle registration information.
Clearly, with our current open borders and the number of vehicles arriving and leaving each day from the country, sis2 is an invaluable sharing system of which we make much use. The daily, weekly and annual applications to the system numbers are staggering. The UK does not, of course, have its own system on anywhere like this volume and detail. The gathering of such information will take many years, and the costs in setting up a new system will again be exceptionally high.
Sis2 operates in 30 European countries, including the 27 member states of the EU. Special arrangements exist with Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia since August of this year. The UK is, of course, not a part of the Schengen area, but we do operate sis2. We cannot issue access or issue Schengen wide alerts for refusing entry or stay within Schengen areas, therefore. But we do use and access all other areas of the system.
It follows from the foregoing that losing access to and sharing information on this system would be a major blow to the UK agencies dealing with crime, the mobility of peoples and border control. It is a further example of the EU spitting their dummy out and punishing the UK for having the temerity to leave their club. Or is it. Surely this major collaboration would have been protected throughout the negotiations to leave by the government when initial negotiations took place, surely the powers that be involved, would have set this and Galileo aside and ring-fenced these systems, having invested in them so heavily. It appears not.
You just have to wonder what has been going on in the last two years, what else are they hiding that they have given away or withdrawn from.
A clean Brexit and our money back from Galileo or we sue the EU in their own court. sis2 matters less to us than the continental countries since we are an island. It should be the government’s priority to seal our borders as effectively as we did between 1939 and 1945. With modern technology that should be easy. That it doesn’t is an example of the collapse of efficient government in the UK today, but it does not mean we should tolerate it any longer. The sooner the lunatic May is expelled the sooner we can start protecting our borders properly.
Let’s not forget what the government and EU wants to do with the GPS applications for any satellite system. Pay Per Mile, and Congestion Charging. From time to we see articles in the media, about it and at each time the Government are guaging the public reaction to it, all the time preparations are ongoing to bring in a new system to charge you as you drive. Incorporated in with this you will get a regular statement of all your journeys and any fines, parking charges, traffic violations you incurred and list of points on your licence automatically. Insurance companies will use the data to assess your driving style, how often you break the speed limits whether to terminate your insurance or throw out any claim you make in an accident. Tracked and traced by the government, insurance companies, perhaps even by your employer and the security services. What could possibly go wrong?
If I remember correctly when the satellite system was first proposed it was criticised as an extremely expensive way to annoy America whose existing system was being used free of charge.
As to Galileo, the first thing is that it should be £1.39B off the £39B.
Next, we are likely much better off being friends with the USA, especially as part of the “Five Eyes” group which do share.
And, if we are to develop our own system, I would have thought the obvious thing to do would be to make it a Commonwealth system. Some Commonwealth nations are already “in space”, and there is the Woomera site in Australia from which to launch rockets, as we used to do.
Stuff the EU.
I’m all in favour (favor) of closer ties and cooperation with the USA except in the area of agriculture where such things as genetic modification for the benefit of corporations rather than consumers appears to take precedence and I’m also uneasy about our shared (the government’s) love of surveillance of the ordinary ‘Joe’ – while ‘untouchables’ commit monstrous crimes.
Listening to various media (America has so much ), I have a deep suspicion of big ‘pharma’ and particularly the desire to give as many vaccines as possible to anything that moves, including very young children.
The more that gets uncovered the more it becomes obvious that the EU is, at the very least, not our friend. We might as well be dealing with Communist China. Indeed, if one looks at the structure of the upper echelons of the EU and Communist China or even in the lower strata at things like corpus juris, one can’t help seeing disquieting similarities. A cleverly disguised police state or perhaps one in the making?
Were one to imagine that that we’re dealing with a large, rapacious criminal gang one might not be all that mistaken. We were, of course, once ruled exactly like that, under the feudal system where the biggest toughest gang in the land called the shots and their head honcho called himself King.
Then there was Magna Carta.
This begs a question. If we can see through the smoke and mirrors and discern what is really going on what of the current denizens of Westminster? Surely they can’t all be that obtuse. Are they, in the main, complicit?
The above is the macro view of the eu.
This blasted organisation meddles in just about everything.
Let us not ignore, at the micro level, we have imposed on us:
– vacuum cleaner hobbling,
– cox’s apple max-min dimensions
– light bulbs that you put on a day in advance
– maximum 2 litre engines in motor cars
– fortnightly bin collections
– lamp shades only rated for max 40 w bulbs
and so on.