POPULISM RULES, BUT ONLY WHEN IT SUITS !

Many of those who campaigned against the UK leaving the European Union accused the 'Leave' campaign of pursuing 'populist' ideas. 'Populism' was identified with some sort of evil and underhand way of appealing to the people through the promotion of policies which, while popular, were fundamentally unfair and wrong. Similar criticism was levelled at the campaign of Marine Le Pen in the French Presidential election.

However, as we get into the nitty-gritty of our General Election campaigns, popularity seems to be what it's all about. Theresa May seems to be popular while Jeremy Corbyn is not and, consequently, the Conservatives are miles ahead in the opinion polls. The Labour Party Manifesto, due to be published next week but leaked yesterday, appears to be utterly populist, full of policies designed to appeal to particular groups in society. Both the Conservatives and  Liberal Democrats have been putting forward their own 'populist' policies, be they on energy prices, public service investment, welfare, paternity leave or whatever else they can dream up.

Obviously, political parties need to have a degree of popularity in order to win elections and they all appeal to voters with a range of relevant policies designed to appeal to their own supporters and, hopefully, some others as well. Why then was 'populism' so derided by the likes of Nick Clegg, an arch-Europhile, when his side lost the EU referendum ? Might it have been nothing more than a case of sour grapes ?

Surely not !

EU PLANS TO BAN WEED KILLER !

Just what will EU bureaucrats do next ?

It's being reported that their latest interference in our lives involves banning the most widely used weed killer in the UK. It seems that there is disagreement amongst member nations with 19 countries, including the UK, wanting to carry on using glyphosate based products, Italy and France opposed and Germany and 6 more planning to abstain from any vote. Apparently, the effect of this mixture of opinions is that the EU licence to market such products, which is due to expire on 30th June, will not be renewed and sale of them will be illegal after that date.

It's reported that there are certain health concerns about glyphosate, specifically that it may be carcinogenic. This view has been formed after experiments with mice, although the World Health Organisation has said that the danger to humans in minimal. Typically, experiments to determine the risks associated with any chemicals are assessed by feeding huge quantities to animals such as mice and observing the effects, often making their relevance to humans questionable. Nonetheless, the EU may well ban the use of glyphosate weed killers, including the very widely used 'Roundup' either by a positive vote to do so or by the inability of member states to agree what to do. Either way, the licence to market these products would expire on 30th June.

Regardless, what on earth can the EU have to do with deciding what weed killers are available in the UK or any other country ? My use of a weed killer in my garden cannot possibly be any business of EU officials; if the stuff is dangerous, it should be for our own government to say so and act accordingly, not for some distant bureaucrats to tell me that I can't use it, even though my own government sees no problem.

Do we really want this type of dictatorship, imposed by unaccountable and faceless bureaucrats in offices hundreds, and even thousands, of miles away ? I don't. VOTE LEAVE !!

CARNEY'S BREXIT WARNING IS MEANINGLESS.

Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, has decided to make another entry into the on-going EU referendum debate. This time, he is reported to have said that the risks of leaving the EU "could possibly include a technical recession".

Now, Carney is a mate of George Osborne, the Europhile Chancellor of the Exchequer and a man who is desperate to be the next leader of the conservative Party and our next Prime Minister. Osborne is also the man who appointed Carney to his current post in 2012, making his latest intervention all the more suspect. To add fuel to the fire, David Cameron has very quickly leapt into the fray, saying that Carney's remarks amounted to a "very clear message" of  the dangers of so-called BREXIT.

While Osborne and Cameron clearly welcome the Governor's words, they actually amount to almost nothing. In fact, if he was proved to be completely wrong, he could not be criticised as he's said nothing definite. His use of the words "could" and "possibly" place so much qualification on his warning as to make it worthless; qualifying his reference to a recession by prefixing it with "technical" is also clearly calculated to provide cover for him.

The question that arises is why has Carney chosen to make such a statement, hedged around as it is with so many qualifications as to make it meaningless ? The answer can only be that he's been urged to say something by his masters, those with a vested interest in keeping the UK within the EU, but has felt less than comfortable about saying what they want; accordingly, he's made what is, effectively, a non-statement. Cameron and his pals on the 'Remain' side will, no doubt make much of it, but no one should be fooled. This 'warning' is worthless and we should not be diverted from taking the only sensible course. VOTE LEAVE.

OBAMA THE BULLY-BOY

So now we know.

For decades, we've believed that there was a 'special relationship' between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, but no more it seems. President Barack Obama, a man who is in the dead-duck, dying days of his incumbency, has said that if the UK dares to leave the European Union, it can expect no special help from the USA when it comes to matters of trade. If this isn't an attempt to frighten the British people into doing what the yanks want, it's a pretty good bluff.

In truth, Obama doesn't actually have the authority to make any such claims; if we in the UK make the only sensible decision and vote to divorce ourselves from the suffocating and debilitating overlordship of the EU, everything will change. Those who have been doing their best to terrify us into maintaining the status quo will suddenly be confronted with a need to court us; in very many cases, they need our trade and business much more than we need theirs. After all, we import far more in goods than we export - will those exporting countries REALLY want to make life difficult for both us and their own industries ? Frankly, the same applies to the United States, the 'Land of the Free' where exporters will not be at all happy if their government makes arbitrary decisions to penalise both the UK, and them, simply because we haven't done what their leaders want. I can imagine companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and others, being less than happy about the idea of being hit with new trade restrictions, tariffs, taxes and a raft of special rules and regulations; Mr President, go boil your head !

Obama will be gone on 20th January 2017 and the future relationship between the USA and the UK, whether we stay in or leave the EU, will be determined by his successor; Obama's views will be largely irrelevant and his influence will be minimal. Indeed, Obama has had a negative approval rating amongst his own people for the last 2 years, according to Gallup Polls, making one wonder how seriously his remarks should be taken anyway; his has been, at best, an undistinguished, even a disappointing, Presidency.

No American would accept being told what to do by the British, and we should not accept being told what to do by the Americans, even if it's by their President. This is true 'bully-boy' tactics and we should tell the bully to 'bully off'. VOTE LEAVE !

OBAMA'S EU HYPOCRISY

United States President Barack Obama thinks that the UK should remain within the European Union, and he's making sure that we know it. An article in the Daily Telegraph plus a forthcoming speech will tell us which way we should be voting on 23rd June.

The blatant hypocrisy of this stance by a President who will be an ex-President in 9 months time, is breath taking but utterly American. Ever since the end of the second world war, when the rest of the western world was bankrupt, the USA has become the major economic and political force in the West, if not globally. It has become used to telling every other nation what to do while doing whatever it wants itself; it has ignored the views of others and batted away all criticism of its own policies and actions.

Over the last 70 years, the USA has engaged in wars, or armed conflicts, all over the world. It has invaded numerous countries, including Grenada, a sovereign territory of the United Kingdom, while it refused to allow British forces access to its bases during the Falklands War. Since 2002, the USA has maintained a gruesome prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a place where hundreds of prisoners have been held without trial, routinely tortured and denied all human rights. The USA has habitually ignored the complaints of the international community about its assorted activities in many places. Would they welcome being told to be subservient to the wishes of, say, a group of other American states such as Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador ? Of course not, and they'd be outraged if anyone told them this would be in their own best interests.

However, Obama is quite happy to come to Britain to tell US what we should be doing. How dare he ! The UK is not a dependency of the USA and Europe is not an American fiefdom. What Obama wants, as does every American, is what is good for America, not what is good for anyone else. If Obama thinks that keeping the UK within the European Union is good for the USA, fine, let him say so. What he has no right to say is that it's good for the UK. That is a decision for British voters to make, based on the arguments put forward by British politicians, businessmen and others; it has nothing to do with any nation outside of the European Union and especially nothing to do with an interfering, dead-duck American President.

Mr Obama, give Her Majesty your birthday wishes for her by all means, but stay out of our politics.

EU CRUNCH TIME FOR CAMERON.

Oh dear, oh dear. The poor old European Union is huffing and puffing and making out that agreeing to new arrangements for the UK is a huge problem. As we get closer to the supposed 'crunch meeting', key players are letting it be known that the negotiations are hard, agreement may or may not be possible, there are 'sticking points' and so on. The truth is very different.

Of course there'll be agreement, mainly because there's very little that can't be agreed. Cameron's 'demands' are virtually meaningless and will make almost no difference to anything. The EU will continue on its merry way as before and all of the fuss that's been made over the last year or so will be forgotten. Migration into the UK will continue; paying benefits to migrants will continue as will having to provide them with all of the social facilities enjoyed by long term residents, such as free access to the NHS and assorted local authority services. The UK will continue to be beset by vast volumes of rules and regulations issuing from the faceless bureaucracy that will continue to shuttle back and forth between Brussels and Strasburg, not forgetting the vast costs incurred by simply having the various EU bodies of parliament, council, commission and God knows what else.

The European Union is a huge conglomeration of nations which serves no one but itself. It is inherently socialist, protectionist and inward looking. It is like an old-fashioned 'closed shop' trade union, with its leadership hell bent on maintaining power and status at all costs; no one can 'enjoy' its privileges unless they're members and no one can be members unless they sign up to its ways. Leave, and you forfeit all rights. This is a doomed organisation, utterly unfit for a world in which communications and trade are global; while it may have been a good idea, once, its day has passed.

Cameron will return from his latest round of talking just like Neville Chamberlain did in 1938. He will have at least a metaphorical piece of paper to wave at onlookers and will claim that he has achieved a wonderful result, and that all is now well. He will say that we can now vote to stay in this organisation without fear but that to leave it would be both foolish and highly dangerous.

POPPYCOCK.

Vote to leave. Get out. Open up the UK to business and opportunities with the rest of the world without all of the baggage of the EU around our necks. Di it now. Do it in June. Do it as soon as possible. Just DO IT !

CAMERON, JUNCKER AND TUSK PLAY GAMES WITH US ALL

David Cameron's much reported discussions with Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk are a sham, as anyone with half a brain cell must know. All Cameron is trying to do is to show how hard he is 'fighting' for the UK, while Juncker and Tusk are trying to show how tough they are. In reality, this is a case of 'aunt sallies' being set up simply so that they can be knocked down, and both sides can claim 'success', 'victory' and anything else that occurs to them. To cap it all, Cameron is desperately trying to finish things off so that he can call a referendum as quickly as possible, and before the opinion polls move even further in the direction of 'leave'. To this end, he is prepared to have the referendum campaign going on at the same time as campaigns for the Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly AND most local authorities throughout the UK; this is utterly ridiculous, though not to Cameron.

The whole EU re-negotiation is a political exercise designed from the start to end with Cameron claiming enormous reforms that will free the UK from vast swathes of intrusive EU rules and regulations; in truth, it will achieve very little, though that won't prevent an utterly disingenuous and Europhilic Cameron from telling the voters that we must stay in this 'reformed' organisation as we now have membership on our own terms and to leave it would be terribly dangerous.

Ha, bloody ha. Whatever Cameron 'achieves' will be dressed up as victory, though it will be a hollow one. The potential confusion caused by holding 4 separate electoral campaigns at much the same time will be destructive for all of them, but will allow Cameron and his fellow Europhiles to muddy the waters still more. For me, the clearer it becomes that Cameron and his fellow travellers are hell-bent on rushing the population into an early and ill-conceived vote, while campaigning to remain in with lies, half-truths and scare-mongering, the more I am certain that the only way to vote is 'LEAVE'.

WE MUST VOTE TO LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION

Those who say that the United Kingdom should remain within 'a reformed European Union' simply have no case. Rather than state positive reasons for continued membership, they rely on scare-mongering, telling us all how dangerous it will be and how difficult life will become should we vote to leave. They tell us that we will cut ourselves off from the EU economy and other major international markets. This is total bullshit.

The UK is one of the largest and most important economies in the world. It has the second largest economy in the EU, being second in size to Germany and comprising some 16% of the total. Indeed, The economy of the EU is wholly reliant on 4 countries - Germany, the UK, France and Italy, which together make up close to 65% of the Union's total GDP. Astonishingly, 18 of the 27 EU members together comprise only 12½% of its GDP and yet these minnows are able to dictate policy to the rest, if it suits them, in selected areas.

The truth is that the EU needs the UK every bit as much as the UK needs the EU, probably much more so. Without the UK, the burden of carrying the mish-mash of minor nations will fall evermore heavily on Germany and France; neither wants to risk this happening and so they will, reluctantly, agree to a few irrelevant yet headline grabbing 'reforms' which David Cameron can present to British voters as 'victory' in his campaign to achieve change in the EU. In truth, nothing will change.

From the perspective of the UK, leaving the EU will relieve us of the need to continue to support a large number of tiny and relatively unproductive economies. Germany, France, Italy and others will have no choice but to continue trading with us, and we will have the added benefit of being able to trade freely with the rest of the world, including its largest economies in the USA, Japan and China, as well as re-establishing links with the Commonwealth.

The European Union is a disaster. It is based on outworn notions and run by a largely faceless elite; it has expanded well beyond it's initial boundaries, as a political construct, and is now an amalgam of countries, many of which have nothing in common other than their geographical locations. It has become the geopolitical equivalent of the camel, often referred to as being a horse designed by a committee; the European Union is an organisation designed by politicians for their own purposes. It should be consigned to history and the UK leaving would be the catalyst for it's dissolution.

Vote to leave.

LEAVING EU IS THE ONLY OPTION.

Two senior Conservatives have come out in support of the UK's continued membership of the European Union.

Former minister Nick Herbert claims that leaving this egregious political bloc would be a "jump into the void", while the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, is reported to have said that it would "cut the country off from the rest of the world and limit the freedom of young people to study and find jobs in the European Union".

What is this other than scaremongering ? Why do these Europhiles not tell us what the tangible benefits of membership are, rather than attempting to scare us with vague, unsupported and frankly risible remarks that are devoid of any actual content ? The simple fact is that remaining in the European Union will bring still more rules and regulations which stifle innovation; it will bring, regardless of anything that the Europhiles say, the 'ever closer union' so beloved of Europe's predominantly socialist leaders and the UK will inevitably be encompassed by it; it will continue to bring, inevitably, vast flows of population from poorer nations to the UK, leading to enormous social pressures and ultimately to civil strife. The UK will find itself ever-more subservient to the will of the Brussels (and Strasbourg, given the imbecilic dual arrangements that exist) executive, to European foreign policy, social policy, monetary policy, economic policy and so on.

Pro-Europeans such as Nick Herbert and Nicky Morgan say nothing about any of this. They confine their campaigning to issuing statements designed to frighten sections of the population, rather than giving them any positive reasons to remain in the Union; the only possible reason for taking this approach is that they have no positive reasons to cite. Remaining in the European Union is a protectionist policy while leaving it would be a clear indicator that the UK is genuinely open for business with the rest of the world.

The only conclusion is that the UK should, indeed must, leave.