Happy third Brexit Day to all who celebrate. Since this day in 2019 we’ve signed about 71 new trade deals, led the European response to Putin’s war in Ukraine and saved countless British lives with an independent vaccine rollout. And that’s without any politicians actually making a concerted effort to capitalise on independence…
For all the refusal by Remoaners to accept the biggest ever democratic decision by the British people, even today’s IMF report on growth forecasts couldn’t bring itself to attribute any faults in the UK economy to our decision to leave the bloc. Now preparations must be made to save Brexit from a Starmer-led Labour government…
After a very chummy left-wing, back-patting discussion on the RMT’s strikes, James O’Brien’s interview with Mick Lynch took an unexpected turn as Remoaner-in-chief O’Brien tried getting Lynch to condemn Brexit. In light of the government taking back control of workers’ rights…
Far from shirking the confrontation, Lynch provided one of the most coherent and well-argued defences of the constitutional principles of Brexit heard in recent months, pointing out that having sovereignty over workers’ rights is no bad thing, and allows for these policies to be debated and thrashed out back home rather than in Brussels. Lynch’s Lexit logic was impeccable.
Asked if he’d still back Brexit today were there a second referendum, James O’Brien ended up looking crestfallen as the RMT boss refused to deny that he would. 1:0 to Mick…
Jacob Rees-Mogg is back doing what he does best: leading the charge for Brexit. On Question Time last night, the former Brexit Opportunities Minister began a defence of Brexit’s benefits on democratic grounds, citing recent scandals in what he called the “corrupt, crooked European Parliament”. He then expanded on the potential for deregulation in the interest of consumers and argued for the liberalisation of wine imports. Cheaper booze is one platform we can all can get behind this Christmastime.
An internal investigation by the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) has ruled that the channel broke impartiality rules over its negative coverage of Brexit on Scottish businesses last year. In a broadcast for BBC One’s Reporting Scotland on December 20, the Corporation aired the following uncontested claim:
“Brexit’s advocates say there will be long-term economic benefits, but it’s been a tough year for some of the Scottish businesses most affected.”
A viewer then complained, quite rightly, that the coverage was “unbalanced‘. The ECU happened to agree…
“The ECU noted the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines on impartiality say ‘We may produce content about any subject, at any point on the spectrum of debate, as long as there are good editorial reasons for doing so’, and considered it legitimate for the report to confine itself on this occasion to ‘the Scottish businesses most affected’ by Brexit.
“However, a programme adopting such an approach should maintain impartiality by exploring other aspects of the topic within a reasonable timeframe, which had not happened in the case of Reporting Scotland.”
How could this have happened again? Surely not the result of ideological bias… surely?
This morning, Mark Carney – the Steve Bray of central bankers – used the BBC as his megaphone to belabour listeners with his opinion that leaving the EU is responsible for rising interest rates and sinking the pound. All par for the course…
Speaking to the Today programme, the former governor of the Bank of England congratulated himself on his clairvoyance:
“If I can cast your mind back to two years ago, this is what we said was going to happen…”
Carney’s numbers to justify this were, as Julian Jessop points out, spurious:
Here's @MarkJCarney's data, which suggest German GDP has grown by 40.9% since 2016, and UK GDP by only 3.3%.
— Julian Jessop (@julianHjessop) November 4, 2022
This is obviously wrong, even allowing for the fall in the pound. I suspect he's compared real (inflation-adjusted) GDP in the UK with nominal GDP in Germany! (2/3) pic.twitter.com/zCtQTiNT2I
Lord Lilley has written to Today, complaining about the interview and pointing out that they frequently allow the likes of Carney to bang on about Brexit uninterrupted – without challenging the improbable and illogical elements of their argument.
Dear Mr Stone-Lee,
Once again you had the Canadian banker, Mark Carney, on to attack Brexit. Given that the UK and Canada now have similar relationships with their continental neighbours (a free trade agreement leaving Britain and Canada free to make their own laws), why do you never ask the obvious questions?
If a simple free trade relationship with its neighbour is so damaging for Britain is it not equally damaging for Canada?
If we British would be 30% better off within the EU, wouldn’t his fellow countrymen be 30% better off if Canada joined the USA?
If he wants the UK to accept EU laws, does he advocate Canada submitting to US laws? And if not, why not?
The bias on Today goes from bad to worse. The reason you don’t ask these questions is your Remoaner groupthink means that, although objectively obvious, they never enter your blinkered minds.
Best regards
Peter Lilley
The Rt Hon the Lord Lilley
If a simple free trade relationship with its neighbour is so damaging for Britain is it not equally damaging for Carney’s native Canada?
Over the weekend, Will Hutton used his Observer column to rubbish Truss’s economic plans and peddle the typical Remainer refrain that Brexit has killed UK exports:
“As British exports stagnate, there is not a nod to the role of trade as a propellant of growth. The UK, as the second largest exporter of services in the world […] is locked out of the country’s largest markets in Europe. It is a growth plan built on sand.”
This is a myth that frequently appears in Guardian and Observer column inches, despite all the inconvenient evidence to the contrary. As Guido reported in January, a report by the City of London Corporation found that London is still the top overall destination for financial services worldwide – including as the leading foreign exchange trading centre – thanks to an “unmatched international financial reach” across 95 metrics. The Global Financial Centres Index 2021 also put London second behind only New York as the top financial hub in the world.
And for all the EU’s incessant sabre-rattling, the London Stock Exchange’s London Clearing House unit is still clearing 90% of euro interest rate derivatives, with the EU in February even extending permission for Britain’s clearing houses to continue serving European customers until at least 2025. The City is still a financial powerhouse, despite what Remainers pretend to believe…
As Tim Worstall blogged for the Adam Smith Institute yesterday:
“It’s not about trade barriers nor being inside them. In fact, London has often benefitted from being well outside regulatory systems – the Eurobond market is proof of that.”
As for British exports “stagnating“, last month British exports to the EU hit their highest level ever according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. Hardly “locked out” of the markets then…
