With sincere apologies for the delay in delivering this... lots happening away from the blog.
In part 2 we explored David Cameron's plans to introduce measures to assert the
sovereignty of the UK parliament, and create a Constitutional Court with the aim of overruling EU law. In the piece we made a crucial statement of fact...
Anyone trying to argue that Britain can remain in the EU and that
Parliament can be sovereign, or that a new Constitutional Court can bat
away EU laws, would be lying. I'm not saying they would be exaggerating
or overstating the position. I'm saying it is not true. At all.
It is inconceivable that Cameron doesn't know what he claims to want to 'put beyond doubt', namely that the UK Parliament is sovereign, is not possible if Britain remains a member of the EU. The treaties we have signed gave away Parliamentary sovereignty to the EU and gave the European Court of Justice the power to make rulings that we must obey absolutely.
To sum up then, in part 1 we have made the case that Cameron's EU-UK deal, currently being theatrically hawked around the member states by Donald Tusk for their approval, is an empty, meaningless sham that gives no power back to Britain. And in part 2 we have established that Cameron's promise to bolster it with some kind of Parliamentary sovereignty act and a Constitutional Court is a cruel and cynical deception. So what do we think Cameron's game really is?
Answer: We believe Cameron is treading water and playing for time, in the hope that the EU re-focuses its attention on plans for a two tier EU - creating a status known as Associate or Affiliate Membership - and begins to firm up proposals for the necessary treaty that enables the Eurozone countries to press ahead with integration in support of their common currency.
Such a treaty is to be designed in a way that prevents the non Eurozone countries from holding back that integration. For Cameron, it also provides the happy benefit of giving the impression the UK will be going no further down the path to ever closer union. It would give him the opportunity to declare he has won a massive victory and opted Britain out of more integration.
But as Associate Membership is about the future needs of the Eurozone members, it is extremely unlikely it will do anything to row back what the EU has already imposed on us. It won't return substantive powers and it won't remove us from the jurisdiction of the ECJ. Associate Membership is current EU membership, without needing to accept the additional economic integration needed by the Eurozone countries. It is a Remain proposition. It changes nothing for Britain.
Since before the Five Presidents' Report, the need for a form of Associate Membership (AM) has been acknowledged and accepted. We've mentioned it on this blog before while highlighting the people who are supposedly eurosceptic, but hanker after it. The problem for Cameron is that he had hoped he could point to AM in time for the referendum. But there hasn't been sufficient progress, so he is trying to play for time until there is something more substantive to declare as a major reform.
As Cameron has pledged to hold the referendum by the end of next year time is running out. The EU knows AM is a pressing need, but it is very patient in its approach and its timeline won't take account of what Cameron wants. That's why we have seen the sham deal and the naked deception of Parliamentary sovereignty come to the fore as disposable placeholders.
Associate Membership will come. It's just a matter of time and the EU has plenty of that. It's taken over 40 years to get the member states as integrated as they are. Hell, it's taken more than two years just to get some kind of imaginary concession about Britain being able to adjust in-work benefits for migrants, even though the provision already existed in the EEA agreement as an existing safeguard measure set out in Articles 112-3. The EU is in no big rush. Cameron is out on a limb, with only the inherent advantage of status quo and voter ignorance in his favour when it comes to a vote.
Even if he holds and wins 'his' referendum in 2017, this all adds up to a badly mismanaged piece of politics by Cameron. 2013 saw him panic because of a combination of large Labour poll lead and consistent rump of support for Ukip, leading to his Bloomberg speech. Promises spilled forth in quantity, but just about everything has been quietly dropped from his list, leaving a trivial basket of 'demands', most of which could already be implemented as they are catered for in the existing treaties.
Cameron's attempts to bully and silence members of the government who believe in Brexit have been typically arrogant and ham fisted. The lies he has told the public so far have been disgraceful, and those that haven't already been pulled to pieces will be exposed over time, undermining trust in the Conservatives. The waste of time and money pushing legislation that cannot assert primacy over the EU, and the vast expense of his constitutional white elephant which will be unable to overturn decisions from the ECJ, will be recognised as such and there will be a reckoning with the voters.
My promised second prediction is that once the referendum is out of the way, the men in grey suits at Conservative Central Office and the wealthy influencers behind the scenes we never see or hear about, will pull the plug on Cameron. I expect that he will step down before the end of his second term and a new leader will become Prime Minister and lead the party into the next election. Who might that be?
Well, my money is on someone who has shown themselves to be ruthless and ambitious in equal measure. Someone who has quietly assumed high office without fuss and is rarely considered as a heavyweight. A man who has backed Cameron loyally, lied relentlessly in the pursuit of putting the party before all else, and who possesses a smooth, oily arrogance and has the look and tone of voice that always seems to win over the party. Someone will enough smarts to see off George Osborne. That man is Philip Hammond. Watch ascent unfold.
Incidentally, William Hill and Paddy Power both have him at 25/1, so a £5 bet will return £130. And no, I don't require a cut of your winnings :)
Part 1...
Part 2...
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query associate membership. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query associate membership. Sort by date Show all posts
11 Feb 2016
21 Jan 2016
Vote Leave's Daniel Hannan still pushing reform instead of Brexit
I am full of admiration for Daniel Hannan. No, really.
Rarely have I seen such agility in someone's writing. Hannan is a master of contortion when it comes to the written word. There are few who could give the impression of supporting Brexit in their articles, when their conclusion promotes a reform deal that keeps Britain in the EU. But Hannan does this with incredible skill and consistency.
Hannan has done it again in the Spectator this week, leading people to think he is calling for Brexit with strapline of "Life outside the EU could be very good for us" (shown below)
to deliberately misrepresenting Associate Membership as an economics-only relationship (shown below)
Membership means being a part of. Membership means "remain". As I point out in the comment thread in the Spectator:
Rarely have I seen such agility in someone's writing. Hannan is a master of contortion when it comes to the written word. There are few who could give the impression of supporting Brexit in their articles, when their conclusion promotes a reform deal that keeps Britain in the EU. But Hannan does this with incredible skill and consistency.
Hannan has done it again in the Spectator this week, leading people to think he is calling for Brexit with strapline of "Life outside the EU could be very good for us" (shown below)
to deliberately misrepresenting Associate Membership as an economics-only relationship (shown below)
Membership means being a part of. Membership means "remain". As I point out in the comment thread in the Spectator:
Daniel Hannan and Vote Leave are continuing to take people for fools. Associate Membership is not some privileged position outside the EU. A two tier property is still a single building. Membership is membership. Britain would remain part of the EU second tier, remain bound by the ECJ, continue to receive and implement directives from Brussels.
The only difference is that the full members will take decisions and further integrate to service their place as Euro currency users. Associate Membership only exists as a concept to enable this deeper integration while keeping non Eurozone countries under Brussels' control. So what Hannan is doing is trying to position continued EU membership as something other than that. He's being completely disingenuous.If Vote Leave were honest about their proposition they would change their logo to this...
He is being a loyal director of Vote Leave (since 22 Dec 2015). That group has always wanted a reform deal, of the type they always demanded in their guise as Business for Britain. They never call for or endorse Brexit because they want to remain in a 'reformed' EU, and everything they do is geared to achieving that outcome. Even Dominic Cummings' notion of a second referendum only exists to reverse a vote to leave after further EU talks and some more crumbs from the table.
If you want genuine Brexit, Hannan and Vote Leave are not on your side.
24 Dec 2015
Cameron's 'negotiation' destination is clear, associate EU membership
While catching up from my recent blogging break, I spotted recent article penned by the arch EU federalist, Andrew Duff.
In a previous post I described Duff as the best ally Brexiteers have in the fight against David Cameron, and with good reason. On 10th December he reinforced that description with an open letter to Cameron on his Blogactiv page.
There are a few things worthy of coverage, but in this post we'll focus only on one, Associate Membership.
On the topic of 'ever closer union', Duff helpfully reminds us previous British governments have not only accepted the commitment to ever closer union but have elevated it in terms of primary law.
As Duff points out, the Tories Edward Heath and John Major have been two of the most zealous Prime Ministers in their determination to advance along the path of ever reduced democratic control and accountability. But what Duff then does is again raise his brainchild of a formalised two-speed Europe, exactly of the type demanded by the Westminster insider, establishment figure and Vote Leave chief executive, Matthew Elliott...
Whether you call it associate membership, the 'British option', two-speed Europe, or affiliate membership, the outcome is the same...
What Duff is doing is preparing the way for a reform destination that has already been decided in the corridors of real power, in Brussels.
The EU needs this solution to enable the push for ever closer union among Eurozone countries. Cameron needs it so it can be passed off as British-forced reform that supposedly resolves all the concerns of eurosceptics and other British voters. The drama played out in the media is all part of the theatre.
Duff is merely playing along in pretending Cameron has rejected the very two-speed construct he will eventually present as a hard won deal, wrested from what will be painted as a kicking, screaming and defeated Eurocracy.
The media will plant the flag as usual, fawn and lap it up as a glorious victory over the EU. But the only change will be that Eurozone countries will have the freedom to push further integration without having to navigate approval from non-Eurozone countries. It's important to recognise and understand this plan, because when it comes to pass it will be possible to be ready to counter the arguments and claims that it represents a solid solution to British discontent with the EU.
The only outcome of David Cameron's faux negotiation will be a form of associate membership. The destination is illuminated with halogen floodlights, if only people choose to look up and see what is in front of them.
In a previous post I described Duff as the best ally Brexiteers have in the fight against David Cameron, and with good reason. On 10th December he reinforced that description with an open letter to Cameron on his Blogactiv page.
There are a few things worthy of coverage, but in this post we'll focus only on one, Associate Membership.
On the topic of 'ever closer union', Duff helpfully reminds us previous British governments have not only accepted the commitment to ever closer union but have elevated it in terms of primary law.
As Duff points out, the Tories Edward Heath and John Major have been two of the most zealous Prime Ministers in their determination to advance along the path of ever reduced democratic control and accountability. But what Duff then does is again raise his brainchild of a formalised two-speed Europe, exactly of the type demanded by the Westminster insider, establishment figure and Vote Leave chief executive, Matthew Elliott...
A more elegant way of settling your European dilemma would be to craft a new form of affiliate membership, short of full membership. Some are surprised that you have rejected that option. You are criticised for not spelling out your own concept of Britain’s ultimate destination. But you can justly demand of your EU partners that they also make more of an effort to specify their own concept of fiscal and eventual political union.
Whether you call it associate membership, the 'British option', two-speed Europe, or affiliate membership, the outcome is the same...
- Britain would remain part of the EU and our supreme government will continue to be the EU
- foreign courts will still have primacy over our own
- the Commission will still generate laws we cannot reject to be enacted here
- our terms of trade, tariffs and customs rules will continue to be decided for us
- we will have no direct involvement in deciding the global rules made at the top tables
- Britain would not return to being an independent nation, responsible for governing itself
What Duff is doing is preparing the way for a reform destination that has already been decided in the corridors of real power, in Brussels.
The EU needs this solution to enable the push for ever closer union among Eurozone countries. Cameron needs it so it can be passed off as British-forced reform that supposedly resolves all the concerns of eurosceptics and other British voters. The drama played out in the media is all part of the theatre.
Duff is merely playing along in pretending Cameron has rejected the very two-speed construct he will eventually present as a hard won deal, wrested from what will be painted as a kicking, screaming and defeated Eurocracy.
The media will plant the flag as usual, fawn and lap it up as a glorious victory over the EU. But the only change will be that Eurozone countries will have the freedom to push further integration without having to navigate approval from non-Eurozone countries. It's important to recognise and understand this plan, because when it comes to pass it will be possible to be ready to counter the arguments and claims that it represents a solid solution to British discontent with the EU.
The only outcome of David Cameron's faux negotiation will be a form of associate membership. The destination is illuminated with halogen floodlights, if only people choose to look up and see what is in front of them.
25 Sept 2015
The EU Associate Membership cat is well out of the bag
While there are a number of Tory useful idiots who refuse to utter the words 'Associate Membership', and demand 'evidence' that such a thing is planned (see the recent Twitter exchange between him and Richard North), the colleagues on the continent are clearly working in plain sight to bring such a status into being.
The latest signpost to this comes from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph, who reports that France has opened the door to full-blown treaty changes in a bid to keep Britain in the EU, warning that it would be grave mistake to disregard the legitimate demands of London.AEP relays various comments from the French economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, before adding this observation:
These refining decisions will be joined with the usual dramatics for media consumption, to give the impression of tough arguments, spats, fall outs, marathon late night talks, leaks that everything is about to disintegrate without a deal, then finally the issue of a pre-written communique declaring a successful deal that is the latest triumph of the EU.
The end result looks ever more like being a full treaty change that provides for deeper financial integration of the Eurozone countries, the core European Union, and 'Associate Membership' for the rest, including Britain.
This looks to be what Cameron will declare to be his hard won concessions that justify remaining in the EU, even though it will still leave Britain subordinate to the EU. The Associate Member status will not be an opt out zone, but a status for countries who are on track of varying speeds heading towards joining the Euro and the deeper integration pathway.
Unless the British electorate votes to leave the EU, that would mean just one thing in the future.
The latest signpost to this comes from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph, who reports that France has opened the door to full-blown treaty changes in a bid to keep Britain in the EU, warning that it would be grave mistake to disregard the legitimate demands of London.AEP relays various comments from the French economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, before adding this observation:
Mr Macron said it is not beyond the wit of man to craft a “win-win deal” that addresses Britain’s worries about the status of the non-euro members, increasingly untenable as the core countries press ahead with ever closer integration.David Cameron's referendum pledge was always positioned as being about negotiating the return of powers to the UK from Brussels and damping down the increasing pressure for further integration. But here we have a French minister telling the world that Britain's worries are about the status of non-Eurozone member states. AEP goes on to add that:
Mr Macron said changes to the UK’s membership terms could be lumped together with euro reform in a broader EU accord, giving Mr Cameron the coveted imprimatur of full treaty change.This is the clearest signal yet of the nature of the discussions behind the scenes and preparation for the formal creation of an Associate Membership status. In politics of this nature there will already have been tacit agreement of the destination. Only the 'i's need to be dotted and the 't's crossed.
“The first step is for the British government to clarify its requirements. The question is: ‘What exactly do you want?’” he said.
These refining decisions will be joined with the usual dramatics for media consumption, to give the impression of tough arguments, spats, fall outs, marathon late night talks, leaks that everything is about to disintegrate without a deal, then finally the issue of a pre-written communique declaring a successful deal that is the latest triumph of the EU.
The end result looks ever more like being a full treaty change that provides for deeper financial integration of the Eurozone countries, the core European Union, and 'Associate Membership' for the rest, including Britain.
This looks to be what Cameron will declare to be his hard won concessions that justify remaining in the EU, even though it will still leave Britain subordinate to the EU. The Associate Member status will not be an opt out zone, but a status for countries who are on track of varying speeds heading towards joining the Euro and the deeper integration pathway.
Unless the British electorate votes to leave the EU, that would mean just one thing in the future.
16 Sept 2015
Associate Membership of the EU is work in progress
Today there's an opinion piece in EurActiv by a left wing German MP called Joachim Poß. He is pushing for a debate about a report co-written by the President of the European Commission, the President of the European Parliament, the President of the European Council, the President of the Eurogroup and the President of the European Central Bank (all these Presidents and not one of them elected by voters). Imaginatively titled 'The Five Presidents' Report', it aims to set out how to complete the monetary union of the Eurozone countries.
While the UK media is focused on the migrant crisis, perceived splits in the Conservative party over the rules for the referendum, and whether Jeremy Corbyn wants in or out of the EU, the politicians are focused on what they consider to be the bigger and more long term issues, such as economic and monetary union. The European Commission itself describes it as a Commission Priority. This is the focus that is leading towards the formal creation of EU Associate Member status.
There are 28 EU member states. But there are nine member states who are either exempt from joining the Euro (UK and Denmark, although Denmark has started the process and is experiencing economic problems as a result), don't meet the conditions for joining (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania), or are avoiding meeting the criteria for joining (Sweden).
That bloc of nine has held back the Eurozone countries and that is why the idea of having Associate Membership of the EU is being developed. It keeps them in the EU fold while the other states press ahead towards ever greater EU governance. The Associate Members would be in a waiting room until they are ready and able to give up economic control and commit to ever closer political and economic union. A Treaty will be needed to make this happen and there won't be space in it for the UK getting David Cameron's mythical secret wish list of powers returned. So it looks ever more likely that Cameron will seize Associate Membership and claim victory for not accepting deeper integration.
Going back to Joachim Poß's comments, he gives us a reminder of the nature of the EU and why leaving it would be a positive move. He argues that without deeper integration of the Eurozone it:
It's also typical pro EU doublespeak for Poß to argue that further centralising control by moving it further away from democratic accountability would give the EU more democratic legitimacy. Countries that do not control their currency do not control their economy. No one in those countries can vote to change their economic approach and their elected politicians will not have control over their economy. Staying in the EU will increase pressure to accept its control wholesale, which is a huge reason for voting to leave the EU at the earliest opportunity.
While the UK media is focused on the migrant crisis, perceived splits in the Conservative party over the rules for the referendum, and whether Jeremy Corbyn wants in or out of the EU, the politicians are focused on what they consider to be the bigger and more long term issues, such as economic and monetary union. The European Commission itself describes it as a Commission Priority. This is the focus that is leading towards the formal creation of EU Associate Member status.
There are 28 EU member states. But there are nine member states who are either exempt from joining the Euro (UK and Denmark, although Denmark has started the process and is experiencing economic problems as a result), don't meet the conditions for joining (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania), or are avoiding meeting the criteria for joining (Sweden).
That bloc of nine has held back the Eurozone countries and that is why the idea of having Associate Membership of the EU is being developed. It keeps them in the EU fold while the other states press ahead towards ever greater EU governance. The Associate Members would be in a waiting room until they are ready and able to give up economic control and commit to ever closer political and economic union. A Treaty will be needed to make this happen and there won't be space in it for the UK getting David Cameron's mythical secret wish list of powers returned. So it looks ever more likely that Cameron will seize Associate Membership and claim victory for not accepting deeper integration.
Going back to Joachim Poß's comments, he gives us a reminder of the nature of the EU and why leaving it would be a positive move. He argues that without deeper integration of the Eurozone it:
is not only vulnerable to economic crises and populist slogans from the left and right. It also lacks democratic legitimation.Populism isn't always bad. It's about being concerned with or trying to represent the views of ordinary people. The EU isn't interested in what ordinary people want. Its mandarins believe themselves to be above the people, to know what is best for them, and seek to govern without any reference to the people or democratic mandate from them. That isn't a political union the UK should be part of.
It's also typical pro EU doublespeak for Poß to argue that further centralising control by moving it further away from democratic accountability would give the EU more democratic legitimacy. Countries that do not control their currency do not control their economy. No one in those countries can vote to change their economic approach and their elected politicians will not have control over their economy. Staying in the EU will increase pressure to accept its control wholesale, which is a huge reason for voting to leave the EU at the earliest opportunity.
29 Oct 2015
Vote Leave's Dominic Cummings now caught in his own web
In rushing forth to disown and discredit the Norway Option yesterday, Vote Leave's campaign director, Dominic Cummings (salary of no more than £99,000) leaves himself open to an obvious question, if not the Norway Option as the first step in a planned, staged withdrawal that protects British business interests, then what?
The problem for Cummings is that he has no plan. So he is left flapping like a gaffed fish and tweeting comments that reinforce the point that, i) his campaign is using the referendum only as leverage for a reform deal, not in order to leave the EU, and ii) that he has no grasp of EU politics because his undefined wishlist is unobtainable. Here's what Cummings said:
On point 5, where is the roadmap and what exactly does he want negotiated? He doesn't say 'when we give notice we are leaving the EU' that negotiation should take place. Once again it is evident that his vision is a vote to leave triggering a more serious version of what Cameron claims to be doing now, which is getting crumbs from the table. Vote leave, but to what end? No plan, no roadmap, no commitment to permanent Brexit. Warning bells should be going off in the head of every person genuinely in favour of Britain leaving the EU.
Instead of a leave vote being an expression of the British people's wish to leave the EU, Cummings wants it to be a negotiating hand to secure a reform deal that gives Britain back some powers, but keeps this country in the EU in some form or other. This is clear in point 7, which begs the question, if the idea is to leave the EU, why does having influence in the EU matter? Outed by his own words, Cummings is caught up in his own web.
Cummings' wish for a new negotiated deal which removes the supremacy of EU law but without leaving the EU, is not achievable. He's paddling in a puddle of delusion. That much is made clear by Andrew Duff, who made this observation about David Cameron yesterday:
It is an outcome the blogs have been talking about since the principal architect of associate membership status, Andrew Duff, began talking about it in 2013. Interestingly, it is only in recent weeks, since the notion was picked up by the media, that Duff has censored the term from his own articles. He has made reference recently to 'a new form of affiliate membership' and in yesterday's piece spoke about Tory failures to articulate 'a serious alternative to full EU membership' (emphasis mine).
The destination is obvious to all but the most die-hard Vote Leave supporters. So the question now has to be, when will Cummings come clean, be honest, and tell people his campaign isn't about leaving the EU at all? When will Cummings' role as the Tories' useful idiot, helping Cameron to keep Britain in the EU, be recognised for what it is and treated accordingly?
The problem for Cummings is that he has no plan. So he is left flapping like a gaffed fish and tweeting comments that reinforce the point that, i) his campaign is using the referendum only as leverage for a reform deal, not in order to leave the EU, and ii) that he has no grasp of EU politics because his undefined wishlist is unobtainable. Here's what Cummings said:
1/ DC is talking Britain down - we could negotiate a free trade deal with EU & access to SM without accepting supremacy of EU law.
2/ Lots of countries trade with EU without accepting supremacy of EU law. Why does DC think UK is too weak/useless to do this?
3/ UK future shd be based on sci/education/global cooperation/new institutions - not the failed 1950s experiment in bureaucratic centralism.
4/ Wrong to think Single Market all good. Eg. The disastrous Clinical Trials Directive was a SM measure. So are the awful procurement rules
5/ After we #VoteLeave we'll do what DC shd have done - have proper roadmap & serious negotiation > better deal for us AND Europe AND R.O.W.
6/ Now the PM is inviting ideas about what to do after he's failed, we will be v happy to set out a roadmap of how UK future cd be brighter.
7/ UK is better & stronger than DC realises. His low ambition negotiation is holding us back & undermining our influence in EU & world
On point 5, where is the roadmap and what exactly does he want negotiated? He doesn't say 'when we give notice we are leaving the EU' that negotiation should take place. Once again it is evident that his vision is a vote to leave triggering a more serious version of what Cameron claims to be doing now, which is getting crumbs from the table. Vote leave, but to what end? No plan, no roadmap, no commitment to permanent Brexit. Warning bells should be going off in the head of every person genuinely in favour of Britain leaving the EU.
Instead of a leave vote being an expression of the British people's wish to leave the EU, Cummings wants it to be a negotiating hand to secure a reform deal that gives Britain back some powers, but keeps this country in the EU in some form or other. This is clear in point 7, which begs the question, if the idea is to leave the EU, why does having influence in the EU matter? Outed by his own words, Cummings is caught up in his own web.
Cummings' wish for a new negotiated deal which removes the supremacy of EU law but without leaving the EU, is not achievable. He's paddling in a puddle of delusion. That much is made clear by Andrew Duff, who made this observation about David Cameron yesterday:
He has also discovered that he cannot demand a unilateral derogation from EU primary law, which consists mainly of the EU’s founding treaties. And he now seems to realize that to try to change ordinary EU legislation is too risky and lengthy a process because of the mandatory involvement of the European Commission and European Parliament.That leaves Cummings' negotiated deal dead in the water. But perhaps that is by design, because the reform agenda he really wants pursued is the one that results in some form of associate membership of the EU. Matthew Elliott has called for a 'two tier Europe', Daniel Hannan has called for 'associate status'. They are two of the leading lights in Vote Leave, so they know what's really going on behind closed doors in that counterfeit campaign.
It is an outcome the blogs have been talking about since the principal architect of associate membership status, Andrew Duff, began talking about it in 2013. Interestingly, it is only in recent weeks, since the notion was picked up by the media, that Duff has censored the term from his own articles. He has made reference recently to 'a new form of affiliate membership' and in yesterday's piece spoke about Tory failures to articulate 'a serious alternative to full EU membership' (emphasis mine).
The destination is obvious to all but the most die-hard Vote Leave supporters. So the question now has to be, when will Cummings come clean, be honest, and tell people his campaign isn't about leaving the EU at all? When will Cummings' role as the Tories' useful idiot, helping Cameron to keep Britain in the EU, be recognised for what it is and treated accordingly?
8 Nov 2015
Cameron hides EU Associate Membership position in plain sight
The BBC is reporting today that David Cameron is to warn European leaders he will 'think again' about
the UK staying in the EU if his demands for reform are 'met with a deaf
ear'.
Cameron has been forced to send a letter to the European Council president, Donald Tusk, setting out the changes he wants for the UK, following repeated complaints that the EU has no clear knowledge of what Cameron's wishlist is.
The BBC quote a passage from a proposed speech Cameron is set to make on Tuesday, timed to coincide with the release of the details of what powers he wants to repatriate from the EU. Read the words carefully, (the emphasis in the text is mine):
Cameron wants people to form the impression from his speech that he would be willing to leave the EU if he doesn't get his way, but in truth he is giving himself cover to endorse a form of associate membership instead, which will keep Britain in the EU. Heads he wins, tails Brexiteers lose.
This shows there isn't a lot of difference between Cameron's position and that of Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings' business venture and phony Leave campaign, Vote Leave Ltd.
Elliott and Cummings want more reforms than Cameron is asking for, and their cynical campaign is about getting people only to vote to leave, but only so the result can be used to improve the bargaining position with the EU to secure more concessions. But both they and Cameron have the aim of Britain remaining in the EU at the end of the process.
In order to win a war it is vital to understand who your enemy is. Cameron, Elliott and Cummings are far bigger and more dangerous opponents of those who want Britain to leave the EU for good than even the Stronger In campaign. We know them and we can see their plan. Now we need to ensure genuine leave campaigners understand it and how to defeat it.
Cameron has been forced to send a letter to the European Council president, Donald Tusk, setting out the changes he wants for the UK, following repeated complaints that the EU has no clear knowledge of what Cameron's wishlist is.
The BBC quote a passage from a proposed speech Cameron is set to make on Tuesday, timed to coincide with the release of the details of what powers he wants to repatriate from the EU. Read the words carefully, (the emphasis in the text is mine):
"If we can't reach such an agreement [on reforms], and if Britain's concerns were to be met with a deaf ear, which I do not believe will happen, then we will have to think again about whether this European Union is right for us. As I have said before - I rule nothing out."The language is meticulously precise. The use of the word 'this' is no accident. It is an essential component in the sentence. Cameron is making a distinction between the EU as it is today, and the EU as it may be in the not too distant future following an eventual treaty and distinction between the 19 Eurozone and nine non Eurozone EU member states.
Cameron wants people to form the impression from his speech that he would be willing to leave the EU if he doesn't get his way, but in truth he is giving himself cover to endorse a form of associate membership instead, which will keep Britain in the EU. Heads he wins, tails Brexiteers lose.
This shows there isn't a lot of difference between Cameron's position and that of Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings' business venture and phony Leave campaign, Vote Leave Ltd.
Elliott and Cummings want more reforms than Cameron is asking for, and their cynical campaign is about getting people only to vote to leave, but only so the result can be used to improve the bargaining position with the EU to secure more concessions. But both they and Cameron have the aim of Britain remaining in the EU at the end of the process.
In order to win a war it is vital to understand who your enemy is. Cameron, Elliott and Cummings are far bigger and more dangerous opponents of those who want Britain to leave the EU for good than even the Stronger In campaign. We know them and we can see their plan. Now we need to ensure genuine leave campaigners understand it and how to defeat it.
3 Nov 2015
Vote Leave CEO was director of the Britain in Europe Campaign Ltd
This blog has consistently explained that all available evidence demonstrates that the Vote Leave campaign has no intention of Britain leaving the EU for good.
Instead it is clear that they are campaigning for a leave vote only to give leverage to David Cameron to help secure more EU reforms to remove the need for Brexit. This has been backed by mainstream media stories that explain what Dominic Cummings' game really is.
This has resulted in Cummings and Robert Oxley refusing to answer any points on Twitter. It has also resulted in Mark Wallace of Conservative Home claiming it is all a conspiracy theory, despite his inability to produce any evidence that defeats my argument.
Now we have information, publicly accessible on the Companies House website, showing that until 1st October 2015, the newly silent CEO of Vote Leave, Matthew Elliott, was a director of a limited company called The Britain in Europe Campaign Ltd.
We very quickly received a request sent via another blogger from a senior Tory politician and Vote Leave associate, to kindly please stop sharing this information on the internet. According to this person, The Britain in Europe Ltd name was purely a blocking move. There are a few problems with this person's assertion.
Firstly, why did Matthew Elliott only resign as one of its directors two weeks after Vote Leave was incorporated with Companies House? Second, why was he a director of it for four years when the company continues today with William Norton as sole director? Third. if the company was a blocking move, why has the 'britain-in-europe.com' internet domain, or variations of it, not been registered? Fourth, why are there not variations of the name in terms of limited companies?
Here we have a man...
In any case, taking a company name doesn't block anything as the name of the limited liability entities rarely if ever is the same as the name of the campaign. There is no reason to have a company incorporated with that name unless the aim is to have it reserved for use.
Too much doesn't add up about Vote Leave. The more we scratch beneath the surface, the more we see reasons to believe it isn't about leaving the EU at all, rather it's a mere trojan horse for people with a pro-EU membership reform agenda. Vote Leave is not on the same side as those people who want Britain to leave the EU for good.
Instead it is clear that they are campaigning for a leave vote only to give leverage to David Cameron to help secure more EU reforms to remove the need for Brexit. This has been backed by mainstream media stories that explain what Dominic Cummings' game really is.
This has resulted in Cummings and Robert Oxley refusing to answer any points on Twitter. It has also resulted in Mark Wallace of Conservative Home claiming it is all a conspiracy theory, despite his inability to produce any evidence that defeats my argument.
Now we have information, publicly accessible on the Companies House website, showing that until 1st October 2015, the newly silent CEO of Vote Leave, Matthew Elliott, was a director of a limited company called The Britain in Europe Campaign Ltd.
We very quickly received a request sent via another blogger from a senior Tory politician and Vote Leave associate, to kindly please stop sharing this information on the internet. According to this person, The Britain in Europe Ltd name was purely a blocking move. There are a few problems with this person's assertion.
Firstly, why did Matthew Elliott only resign as one of its directors two weeks after Vote Leave was incorporated with Companies House? Second, why was he a director of it for four years when the company continues today with William Norton as sole director? Third. if the company was a blocking move, why has the 'britain-in-europe.com' internet domain, or variations of it, not been registered? Fourth, why are there not variations of the name in terms of limited companies?
Here we have a man...
- whose every public utterance has been about EU reform, never about leaving the EU
- who in June was declaring that if a two tier Europe (something akin to associate membership) was achieved he would support it
- who has gone on the record setting out his entrepreneurial ambitions to harvest voter intentions and touchpoint issues on a database that can be sold
- who has gone invisible since Vote Leave launched due to his position causing embarrassment to the position Vote Leave want people to think they hold
In any case, taking a company name doesn't block anything as the name of the limited liability entities rarely if ever is the same as the name of the campaign. There is no reason to have a company incorporated with that name unless the aim is to have it reserved for use.
Too much doesn't add up about Vote Leave. The more we scratch beneath the surface, the more we see reasons to believe it isn't about leaving the EU at all, rather it's a mere trojan horse for people with a pro-EU membership reform agenda. Vote Leave is not on the same side as those people who want Britain to leave the EU for good.
2 Oct 2015
Philip Hammond's slippery little con trick
The Telegraph's Peter Dominiczak has published a piece in the last hour reporting that Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has warned that British people will vote to leave the European Union unless Brussels gives "substantial and irreversible" reforms to the UK.
But Hammond is being slippery. This isn't the government telling the EU to give Cameron what he wants or else they will take Britain out of the EU, this is Hammond saying that the British people will vote to leave unless the EU gives concessions. He is playing 'watch the birdie' to distract people from the real story, which is the government using delaying tactics to string along the sham renegotiation as the concept of associate membership of the EU is finalised. The piece says that:
As part of the performance, Hammond has reportedly made clear to his counterparts across Europe that British voters will leave if there are not “robust” guarantees that any reform package is “irreversible”. This is the con trick writ large. Interestingly, Dominiczak has not quite let Hammond get away with it, pointing out in its next paragraph:
Going back to Hammond's recent pronouncements, he keeps playing up one element in particular... the issue of ever closer union. He is clearly preparing the ground for what constitutes a successful renegotiation. Cameron clearly wants to come back and declare he has secured a promise to exclude the UK from ever closer union. That is what the notional EU associate membership is designed to deliver. Cameron would be claiming to demand something the EU has already largely developed to enable the Eurozone countries to push on with fiscal integration.
David Cameron's renegotiation is a sham and Hammond is trying to keep people looking in another direction in case it becomes obvious that the EU, not Cameron, is dictating events.
But Hammond is being slippery. This isn't the government telling the EU to give Cameron what he wants or else they will take Britain out of the EU, this is Hammond saying that the British people will vote to leave unless the EU gives concessions. He is playing 'watch the birdie' to distract people from the real story, which is the government using delaying tactics to string along the sham renegotiation as the concept of associate membership of the EU is finalised. The piece says that:
In a significant hardening of the Government’s language on the prospect of a British exit from the EU, Mr Hammond made clear that the UK Government is not bluffing when it tells leaders on the continent that a Britain could opt to leave.It isn't a hardening of the government's language at all. It is a cynical continuation of Hammond's bluster about the 'stalled' renegotiation where EU leaders have bemoaned the British government not committing a single demand to paper because, incredibly, it has no hard and fast demands about what it wants from the EU! Small wonder really, because Cameron is pinning all his hopes on a new two-tier Europe giving him something he can pretend is a great victory for him.
As part of the performance, Hammond has reportedly made clear to his counterparts across Europe that British voters will leave if there are not “robust” guarantees that any reform package is “irreversible”. This is the con trick writ large. Interestingly, Dominiczak has not quite let Hammond get away with it, pointing out in its next paragraph:
Jean-Claude Piris, the EU's former top lawyer, said that Mr Hammond’s demands for a legally-watertight package of reforms are impossible because they could simply be reversed by future governments.That's the polite version. What Piris actually said was more far reaching. When asked if there was a name for a political commitment to change the treaty at some point in the future, he said:
Yes, it’s called bullshit. There is no possibility to make a promise that would be legally binding to change the treaty later.What Piris is saying is not that future governments could reverse the reforms, but that the EU cannot be bound by a mere 'promise' to make any agreed changes to the treaty. This is Cameron's big concern. He needs the two-tier treaty outline in place to declare he has achieved something through his renegotiation. As Piris makes clear, Cameron can't go into a referendum with legally meaningless pledges.
Going back to Hammond's recent pronouncements, he keeps playing up one element in particular... the issue of ever closer union. He is clearly preparing the ground for what constitutes a successful renegotiation. Cameron clearly wants to come back and declare he has secured a promise to exclude the UK from ever closer union. That is what the notional EU associate membership is designed to deliver. Cameron would be claiming to demand something the EU has already largely developed to enable the Eurozone countries to push on with fiscal integration.
David Cameron's renegotiation is a sham and Hammond is trying to keep people looking in another direction in case it becomes obvious that the EU, not Cameron, is dictating events.
27 Jan 2016
Elliott and Cummings: Their masters' men, or the illusionists' assistants
One question that has not been answered is why Dominic Cummings started making claims on Twitter and in the Economist about Article 50 not being the only legal route out of the EU, and what he is trying to achieve by it.
Failure of a country to uphold its treaty obligations can result in the other party/parties refusing to keep their obligations to that country. That can have serious repercussions, and also lead to bodies like the WTO withholding protection in trade disputes due to Britain's non performance of the contract it agreed. It can also result in other countries having no confidence in Britain honouring its obligations as we try to form future agreements.
It is illogical for the campaign director of an organisation (Vote Leave) that keeps talking about a better deal on things such as trade, to advance the rejection of legally binding mechanism, the effect of which would adversely impact trade. There has to be some rhyme or reason behind Cummings' eruption.
By combining information from several sources it is possible to see a bigger picture, one that shows us the co-owners of Vote Leave appear to be coordinating with close associates in the very Tory party leadership that is working to keep Britain in the EU.
That Vote Leave's CEO, Matthew Elliott, is an establishment insider and Downing Street favourite, was hand picked by David Cameron to run the No to AV campaign, and was so close to having a job in Cameron's Number 10 that he was even shown his future desk, is no secret. Nor is the fact Elliott reportedly made regular visits to Number 10 as he established Vote Leave, and has refused to withdraw his comment that if Cameron can agree an EU deal for a 'two tier Europe' associate membership of the EU that his organisation 'would be very much in'. Cameron is Elliott's master and that is where Elliott's steer comes from. Much has been written regarding Elliott's real motives and absence of a desire to leave the EU. But what of Cummings?
It has been more difficult to understand what Cummings' direction and motives are. He seemingly stands for nothing beyond the referendum vote itself, has refused to answer any question asking whether he supports Brexit no matter what, and seemingly out of the blue has recently launched an unexpected assault on the notion of following the prescribed Treaty on European Union Article 50 process of withdrawing from the EU, even going so far as to invent the idea that there is a plan to 'immediately' invoke Article 50 after a vote to leave.
But it wasn't out of the blue. It has all the hallmarks of coordination. By understanding who Cummings' closest associate in the Cabinet is, then bringing together a piece from the Sunday Times on 17 January with a piece from the Better Off Out website earlier this week, a startling alignment becomes clear and explains what is driving Cummings.
The Sunday Times piece, titled 'PM’s secret EU masterplan' reports that David Cameron has a secret plan to 'deliver three surprise "rabbits from the hat" in his renegotiation with Brussels' when EU leaders meet on 19 February. It sets out the three 'rabbits' and who is responsible for making them appear:
These rabbits from hats tally with the Vote Leave rhetoric of rolling back EU law and having a new deal with the EU (not the same thing as Brexit). Michael Gove's pivotal role in bolstering the reform and remain agenda is what stands out. Gove is supporting the renegotiation and now it seems he is actively supporting Cameron's stated aim of keeping Britain in the EU. Gove has turned pro-EU membership, as so many Tories will in order to put career and party before principle.
What of the Better Off Out article? Titled 'In or Out? Flip-flops and fudges in the EU referendum debate', it seeks to highlight the positions of some of the key members of the Cabinet. This is what Better Off Out has to say about Michael Gove:
If a reputed man of principle can flip flop in such brazen fashion, it would not be a stretch of the imagination to see his biggest admirers follow him down the same path. What Gove has been reportedly charged with delivering concerns challenging and overriding EU law and, at the exact same time, it just so happens that Cummings has taken up the cudgel against Article 50, challenging existing EU law. What a stunning coincidence! This is high politics and even though the evidence is circumstantial, there is no coincidence here.
Cummings claimed there are other legal and political routes than Article 50. When challenged to set out what these are, he has remained silent. That silence makes sense if, as it now seems, Cummings has no idea yet what they are and is waiting for a steer from Gove about what the judicial rabbits will look like. By doing so, instead of looking towards Brexit and using the existing, legal and safe solution to take Britain out of the EU, Cummings and Vote Leave are shooting for alignment with the government's aim of the 'two tier Europe' hankered after by Matthew Elliott. In all likelihood, even the Vote Leave board may not have grasped exactly how the group is being manipulated to further Tory party ambitions, despite moves to remove Elliott and Cummings (£) from the campaign on Tuesday.
Elliott and Cummings are playing Debbie McGee to Cameron and Gove's Paul Daniels. They are the assistants to the illusionists, smiling and gesturing to the top hat in readiness for the big reveal.
It is bad enough that Vote Leave has failed to pursue a clear and unambiguous Brexit agenda thus far. Even a hint of evidence suggesting they are working in tandem with a government that is devoting all the machinery of the state to keeping Britain in the EU should be serious cause for concern.
On its own what has been outlined above does not constitute a smoking gun, but it could yet prove to be. It fits with what we've been reporting about Vote Leave and it certainly has a nasty smell about it. At the very least everyone now knows to look out for a Gove-Cummings nexus.
Failure of a country to uphold its treaty obligations can result in the other party/parties refusing to keep their obligations to that country. That can have serious repercussions, and also lead to bodies like the WTO withholding protection in trade disputes due to Britain's non performance of the contract it agreed. It can also result in other countries having no confidence in Britain honouring its obligations as we try to form future agreements.
It is illogical for the campaign director of an organisation (Vote Leave) that keeps talking about a better deal on things such as trade, to advance the rejection of legally binding mechanism, the effect of which would adversely impact trade. There has to be some rhyme or reason behind Cummings' eruption.
By combining information from several sources it is possible to see a bigger picture, one that shows us the co-owners of Vote Leave appear to be coordinating with close associates in the very Tory party leadership that is working to keep Britain in the EU.
That Vote Leave's CEO, Matthew Elliott, is an establishment insider and Downing Street favourite, was hand picked by David Cameron to run the No to AV campaign, and was so close to having a job in Cameron's Number 10 that he was even shown his future desk, is no secret. Nor is the fact Elliott reportedly made regular visits to Number 10 as he established Vote Leave, and has refused to withdraw his comment that if Cameron can agree an EU deal for a 'two tier Europe' associate membership of the EU that his organisation 'would be very much in'. Cameron is Elliott's master and that is where Elliott's steer comes from. Much has been written regarding Elliott's real motives and absence of a desire to leave the EU. But what of Cummings?
It has been more difficult to understand what Cummings' direction and motives are. He seemingly stands for nothing beyond the referendum vote itself, has refused to answer any question asking whether he supports Brexit no matter what, and seemingly out of the blue has recently launched an unexpected assault on the notion of following the prescribed Treaty on European Union Article 50 process of withdrawing from the EU, even going so far as to invent the idea that there is a plan to 'immediately' invoke Article 50 after a vote to leave.
But it wasn't out of the blue. It has all the hallmarks of coordination. By understanding who Cummings' closest associate in the Cabinet is, then bringing together a piece from the Sunday Times on 17 January with a piece from the Better Off Out website earlier this week, a startling alignment becomes clear and explains what is driving Cummings.
The Sunday Times piece, titled 'PM’s secret EU masterplan' reports that David Cameron has a secret plan to 'deliver three surprise "rabbits from the hat" in his renegotiation with Brussels' when EU leaders meet on 19 February. It sets out the three 'rabbits' and who is responsible for making them appear:
These rabbits from hats tally with the Vote Leave rhetoric of rolling back EU law and having a new deal with the EU (not the same thing as Brexit). Michael Gove's pivotal role in bolstering the reform and remain agenda is what stands out. Gove is supporting the renegotiation and now it seems he is actively supporting Cameron's stated aim of keeping Britain in the EU. Gove has turned pro-EU membership, as so many Tories will in order to put career and party before principle.
What of the Better Off Out article? Titled 'In or Out? Flip-flops and fudges in the EU referendum debate', it seeks to highlight the positions of some of the key members of the Cabinet. This is what Better Off Out has to say about Michael Gove:
The former Education Secretary, when asked in 2013 whether he would vote for Britain to leave the EU at that point, replied: “Yes, I’m not happy with our position.” Despite his reputation as a man of principle, however, Gove was as good as outed at the weekend by a report in The Sunday Times. FLOP
If a reputed man of principle can flip flop in such brazen fashion, it would not be a stretch of the imagination to see his biggest admirers follow him down the same path. What Gove has been reportedly charged with delivering concerns challenging and overriding EU law and, at the exact same time, it just so happens that Cummings has taken up the cudgel against Article 50, challenging existing EU law. What a stunning coincidence! This is high politics and even though the evidence is circumstantial, there is no coincidence here.
Cummings claimed there are other legal and political routes than Article 50. When challenged to set out what these are, he has remained silent. That silence makes sense if, as it now seems, Cummings has no idea yet what they are and is waiting for a steer from Gove about what the judicial rabbits will look like. By doing so, instead of looking towards Brexit and using the existing, legal and safe solution to take Britain out of the EU, Cummings and Vote Leave are shooting for alignment with the government's aim of the 'two tier Europe' hankered after by Matthew Elliott. In all likelihood, even the Vote Leave board may not have grasped exactly how the group is being manipulated to further Tory party ambitions, despite moves to remove Elliott and Cummings (£) from the campaign on Tuesday.
Elliott and Cummings are playing Debbie McGee to Cameron and Gove's Paul Daniels. They are the assistants to the illusionists, smiling and gesturing to the top hat in readiness for the big reveal.
It is bad enough that Vote Leave has failed to pursue a clear and unambiguous Brexit agenda thus far. Even a hint of evidence suggesting they are working in tandem with a government that is devoting all the machinery of the state to keeping Britain in the EU should be serious cause for concern.
On its own what has been outlined above does not constitute a smoking gun, but it could yet prove to be. It fits with what we've been reporting about Vote Leave and it certainly has a nasty smell about it. At the very least everyone now knows to look out for a Gove-Cummings nexus.
1 Jan 2016
2016: The year true Brexiteers need to stop Vote Leave
Media hacks and prestigious talking heads are excitedly pontificating that this will be the year the referendum will be held. That may turn out to be the case, although there are very good reasons to believe we won't be going to the polls over EU membership until 2017.
One thing that will almost certainly happen this year is that a group will become the designated lead campaign group, thus having official status. At this time there are two recognised contenders working to become the 'leave' designated organisation, but another group is expected to enter the fray in the coming weeks.
Although not perfect and in need of some gravitas, the 'Leave.EU' group formed by Arron Banks, is genuinely committed to Britain leaving the EU completely and for good. Therefore they are allies in this fight.
The same cannot be said of the Matthew Elliott/Dominic Cummings money making venture, 'Vote Leave'. The group is populated at its highest levels by people professing to be 'eurosceptic' but who want Britain to remain in the EU as long as there are reforms. To understand the mindset of Vote Leave, just consider the words of its co-owner (it is a Ltd Company) CEO and founder, Matthew Elliott:
Associate Membership of the EU, also described as 'two-tier Europe' is what the EU and David Cameron are preparing for Britain. This mean Vote Leave's owner and CEO is, to all intents and purposes, aligned to the position of David Cameron and the 'remain' grouping. This is no surprise as the man is Cameronian part of the Westminster establishment furniture, about whom Isabel Oakeshott wrote in Conservative Home:
Elliott's position is undeniable. He actively supported and encouraged the concept of negotiated reforms resulting in Britain staying subject to EU control while leader of Business for Britain, and his position has not changed.
Newer readers may not have seen our previous posts that provide evidence of the duplicitous nature of Vote Leave, and its deceitful intention of winning a vote to leave at the referendum only so David Cameron can use it to secure more reforms while keeping Britain in the EU, so here are links to just three of them that underline the charges against Vote Leave:
Winning the referendum in order for Britain to leave the EU is going to be hard enough without having people who don't actually want us to leave the EU running the official designated lead campaign for the leave side. They have to be exposed for what they are and prevented from enriching themselves while undermining the Brexit cause. Everyone genuinely committed to Brexit needs to help stop Vote Leave.
One thing that will almost certainly happen this year is that a group will become the designated lead campaign group, thus having official status. At this time there are two recognised contenders working to become the 'leave' designated organisation, but another group is expected to enter the fray in the coming weeks.
Although not perfect and in need of some gravitas, the 'Leave.EU' group formed by Arron Banks, is genuinely committed to Britain leaving the EU completely and for good. Therefore they are allies in this fight.
The same cannot be said of the Matthew Elliott/Dominic Cummings money making venture, 'Vote Leave'. The group is populated at its highest levels by people professing to be 'eurosceptic' but who want Britain to remain in the EU as long as there are reforms. To understand the mindset of Vote Leave, just consider the words of its co-owner (it is a Ltd Company) CEO and founder, Matthew Elliott:
Associate Membership of the EU, also described as 'two-tier Europe' is what the EU and David Cameron are preparing for Britain. This mean Vote Leave's owner and CEO is, to all intents and purposes, aligned to the position of David Cameron and the 'remain' grouping. This is no surprise as the man is Cameronian part of the Westminster establishment furniture, about whom Isabel Oakeshott wrote in Conservative Home:
Elliott's position is undeniable. He actively supported and encouraged the concept of negotiated reforms resulting in Britain staying subject to EU control while leader of Business for Britain, and his position has not changed.
Newer readers may not have seen our previous posts that provide evidence of the duplicitous nature of Vote Leave, and its deceitful intention of winning a vote to leave at the referendum only so David Cameron can use it to secure more reforms while keeping Britain in the EU, so here are links to just three of them that underline the charges against Vote Leave:
Winning the referendum in order for Britain to leave the EU is going to be hard enough without having people who don't actually want us to leave the EU running the official designated lead campaign for the leave side. They have to be exposed for what they are and prevented from enriching themselves while undermining the Brexit cause. Everyone genuinely committed to Brexit needs to help stop Vote Leave.
12 Oct 2015
Vote Leave campaign: The truth they are desperate to hide from people
Inconvenient as it may be for the Vote Leave campaign, wholly owned and run by Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings, there is enormous doubt about its suitability to be designated as the official leave campaign.
This stems from the fact that Elliott has expressed views and aims that are fundamentally contrary to those of someone who wishes Britain to leave the EU.
One of Elliott's contradictions concerns what he would do if David Cameron achieved some form of Associate Membership deal for Britain, which would leave this country in the EU. Elliott's view is shown below:
Blogger, White Wednesday, raised this again directly with Dominic Cummings on Twitter. Cummings declared that if Cameron came back from his renegotiation with a two-tier Europe deal, Vote Leave's position is that people should vote to leave, which directly contradicts what the 'formidable' Elliott said above. The Twitter exchange from yesterday (Sunday 11 Oct) is shown in full below:
As you can see, Cummings is claiming Elliott's position hasn't changed. This means either Cummings doesn't know what his own boss wants, or Cummings is misleading people about Elliott's views. But of an explanation there is no sign. Despite me asking three further times when Elliott's position had changed, Cummings has ignored the question. It's worth noting Cummings has been on Twitter and tweeted me since these questions were asked:
However, since 8.20am, in keeping with his selective vision and radio silence of yesterday, Cummings has still provided no answer. The hatch has been battened down and they are hoping it will all fade away. But it won't.
The public has a right to know what the media's favourite to lead the official Leave campaign really thinks and the reasons why he wants to lead the Leave campaign despite every public utterance being in favour of remaining in a reformed EU.
Some people will be frustrated by this piece. Many will argue that everyone on the Leave side should come together to work to the common goal of winning the referendum and leaving the EU. Some will describe this as sniping as harmful to the cause, while others will say this is a circular firing squad that will undermine efforts to achieve Brexit. But the fact is the rival campaigns have different agendas. This is not an effort to undermine a rival, but an effort to expose and defeat an opponent.
Regardless of the quality or inaccuracy of some of Leave.EU's campaign work so far, Arron Banks and his team genuinely believe that Britain should leave the EU no matter what, as a point of principle, and they are investing money, time and hard work to help enable it to happen. For them leaving the EU is a cause. That's how it should be. They are allies in this fight.
But when it comes to Matthew Elliott, it's impossible for any rational person to make a similar argument. He has spent years arguing, pressing and calling for Britain to remain in a reformed EU, opposing those of us who have been consistently made the case that Britain should leave. That isn't the behaviour or mindset of someone who believes in leaving the EU. Never has he said Britain should leave the EU on principle.
Yet as he has always planned and his media contacts have long trailed, he's position himself to lead the official Leave campaign. Like an agile chameleon, he has transformed himself in an attempt to seize control of something he has stood against having always pushed his line of staying in the EU with reforms. Take a moment to let the enormity of what has happened to sink in. A man who has been pushing for Britain to stay in a reformed EU always had the intention of controlling the campaign of people whose views he rejected. Why?
Elliott and his closest colleagues have conveniently set out the most likely reason themselves. They've formed companies between them, used Elliott's position in the No to AV campaign to get official positions which has then allowed them to award contracts to themselves (h/t Boiling Frog) which is a massive conflict of interest.
But they have gone further, with an objective of building a database containing voter preferences, key issues and intentions from around 500,000 data records into one containing over 10 million records, but with a target of 20 million voter records, unprecedented in UK politics. The value of this data to political parties and campaigns is huge and the proceeds from selling it would be lucrative. The nationwide campaign ahead of a referendum will not only result in jobs and contracts for Elliott's friends, but essentially it will also enable the harvesting that data.
For Elliott and his inner circle leaving the EU is a massive business opportunity. That's is not how it should be. They are not allies in this fight. And every time they are questioned or challenged about this as shown at the top of this post, they go silent, refuse to reply, and hide away hoping it will all quietly go away.
Taking all this into consideration, is Vote Leave an appropriate organisation to lead the official Leave campaign? People can draw their own conclusions.
This stems from the fact that Elliott has expressed views and aims that are fundamentally contrary to those of someone who wishes Britain to leave the EU.
One of Elliott's contradictions concerns what he would do if David Cameron achieved some form of Associate Membership deal for Britain, which would leave this country in the EU. Elliott's view is shown below:
Blogger, White Wednesday, raised this again directly with Dominic Cummings on Twitter. Cummings declared that if Cameron came back from his renegotiation with a two-tier Europe deal, Vote Leave's position is that people should vote to leave, which directly contradicts what the 'formidable' Elliott said above. The Twitter exchange from yesterday (Sunday 11 Oct) is shown in full below:
As you can see, Cummings is claiming Elliott's position hasn't changed. This means either Cummings doesn't know what his own boss wants, or Cummings is misleading people about Elliott's views. But of an explanation there is no sign. Despite me asking three further times when Elliott's position had changed, Cummings has ignored the question. It's worth noting Cummings has been on Twitter and tweeted me since these questions were asked:
However, since 8.20am, in keeping with his selective vision and radio silence of yesterday, Cummings has still provided no answer. The hatch has been battened down and they are hoping it will all fade away. But it won't.
The public has a right to know what the media's favourite to lead the official Leave campaign really thinks and the reasons why he wants to lead the Leave campaign despite every public utterance being in favour of remaining in a reformed EU.
Some people will be frustrated by this piece. Many will argue that everyone on the Leave side should come together to work to the common goal of winning the referendum and leaving the EU. Some will describe this as sniping as harmful to the cause, while others will say this is a circular firing squad that will undermine efforts to achieve Brexit. But the fact is the rival campaigns have different agendas. This is not an effort to undermine a rival, but an effort to expose and defeat an opponent.
Regardless of the quality or inaccuracy of some of Leave.EU's campaign work so far, Arron Banks and his team genuinely believe that Britain should leave the EU no matter what, as a point of principle, and they are investing money, time and hard work to help enable it to happen. For them leaving the EU is a cause. That's how it should be. They are allies in this fight.
But when it comes to Matthew Elliott, it's impossible for any rational person to make a similar argument. He has spent years arguing, pressing and calling for Britain to remain in a reformed EU, opposing those of us who have been consistently made the case that Britain should leave. That isn't the behaviour or mindset of someone who believes in leaving the EU. Never has he said Britain should leave the EU on principle.
Yet as he has always planned and his media contacts have long trailed, he's position himself to lead the official Leave campaign. Like an agile chameleon, he has transformed himself in an attempt to seize control of something he has stood against having always pushed his line of staying in the EU with reforms. Take a moment to let the enormity of what has happened to sink in. A man who has been pushing for Britain to stay in a reformed EU always had the intention of controlling the campaign of people whose views he rejected. Why?
Elliott and his closest colleagues have conveniently set out the most likely reason themselves. They've formed companies between them, used Elliott's position in the No to AV campaign to get official positions which has then allowed them to award contracts to themselves (h/t Boiling Frog) which is a massive conflict of interest.
But they have gone further, with an objective of building a database containing voter preferences, key issues and intentions from around 500,000 data records into one containing over 10 million records, but with a target of 20 million voter records, unprecedented in UK politics. The value of this data to political parties and campaigns is huge and the proceeds from selling it would be lucrative. The nationwide campaign ahead of a referendum will not only result in jobs and contracts for Elliott's friends, but essentially it will also enable the harvesting that data.
For Elliott and his inner circle leaving the EU is a massive business opportunity. That's is not how it should be. They are not allies in this fight. And every time they are questioned or challenged about this as shown at the top of this post, they go silent, refuse to reply, and hide away hoping it will all quietly go away.
Taking all this into consideration, is Vote Leave an appropriate organisation to lead the official Leave campaign? People can draw their own conclusions.
19 Jan 2016
Why is the media ignoring the Vote Leave story?
In recent days, the campaign director and co-owner of Vote Leave, Dominic Cummings has written clearly that Vote Leave's plan is for Article 50 - the only legal and treaty-bound method of quitting the EU - not to be invoked after any vote to leave in the referendum. In short, if people vote for Britain to leave the EU, he opposes the only action that can begin the process of leaving.
Vote Leave director, Daniel Hannan has spoken explicitly about using a leave vote to secure "proper concessions", some form of "associate membership" and seeking an "opt out of some of the areas of EU policy". He has done so more than once. This is a man who people thought wanted to leave the EU, calling only for some piecemeal reforms. That is about staying in the EU, it is not about leaving the EU.
Prior to all this, Vote Leave's CEO, founder and co-owner, Matthew Elliott, went on the record to say that “If the Government gets a two-tier Europe, we’re very much in”. He ran Business for Britain, which had and still has an agenda of Britain staying in a reformed EU, an organisation that then spawned Vote Leave as a vehicle to deliver reform via the leverage of a vote to leave. The intention has never been Brexit. Elliott, Cummings and Hannan never speak of Brexit after a vote to leave, only of 'negotiations' for a new deal.
The Vote Leave campaign is not campaigning to leave.
It is a story.
So where are the bloody journalists?
Is it that the journalists don't 'get it'? Or is it that the journalists are so close to the Vote Leave team, constantly rubbing shoulders and enjoying congenial conversation with them inside the cosy Westminster bubble, that they don't want to make life hard for their chums by pointing out that Vote Leave is deliberately undermining the objective of leaving the EU?
Decide for yourself.
Vote Leave director, Daniel Hannan has spoken explicitly about using a leave vote to secure "proper concessions", some form of "associate membership" and seeking an "opt out of some of the areas of EU policy". He has done so more than once. This is a man who people thought wanted to leave the EU, calling only for some piecemeal reforms. That is about staying in the EU, it is not about leaving the EU.
Prior to all this, Vote Leave's CEO, founder and co-owner, Matthew Elliott, went on the record to say that “If the Government gets a two-tier Europe, we’re very much in”. He ran Business for Britain, which had and still has an agenda of Britain staying in a reformed EU, an organisation that then spawned Vote Leave as a vehicle to deliver reform via the leverage of a vote to leave. The intention has never been Brexit. Elliott, Cummings and Hannan never speak of Brexit after a vote to leave, only of 'negotiations' for a new deal.
The Vote Leave campaign is not campaigning to leave.
It is a story.
So where are the bloody journalists?
Is it that the journalists don't 'get it'? Or is it that the journalists are so close to the Vote Leave team, constantly rubbing shoulders and enjoying congenial conversation with them inside the cosy Westminster bubble, that they don't want to make life hard for their chums by pointing out that Vote Leave is deliberately undermining the objective of leaving the EU?
Decide for yourself.
30 Jan 2016
Open letter to Mark Wallace, editor of Conservative Home
Dear Mark
I read with interest your piece in Conservative Home yesterday, which set out to be a defence of your friends and colleagues at Vote Leave. One can understand such loyalty. However, it is hard to accept your version of events and attempt to sanitise the recent history of Vote Leave in the way you have. So I
In your piece, one passage in particular stood out and necessitates the record being set straight. You wrote:
"The dispute is, inevitably, a complex mixture of strategic differences (should the campaign be primarily about immigration, or based on a more optimistic presentation of an alternative outside the EU), personal differences (Cummings has history with various of the people involved), party differences (Leave.EU is essentially an outgrowth of UKIP) and disagreements about who should be the leading voices of the Leave campaign."Sorry, but this is delusional nonsense and complete misrepresentation of the facts.
Vote Leave has not at any time, anywhere, given any presentation - optimistic or otherwise - of an alternative outside the EU. They deliberately go so far as calling for a leave vote, but with no declaration that Brexit should inevitably follow. Indeed, I have previously asked you to provide evidence they have, and you broke off from the Twitter exchange.
Vote Leave, in the shape of Cummings, is even now actively working to dismiss the only legal method of withdrawing from the EU (Article 50). Daniel Hannan, a Vote Leave director, constantly speaks of his desire for Associate Membership of the EU, which would keep us firmly in the EU and under the jurisdiction of the ECJ. Matthew Elliott has ignored repeated requests to withdraw his comment that in the event of reform leading to a 'two tier Europe' he and his group would be 'very much in'. Finally, every time any of Vote Leave's leading lights have been asked if they actually want to see complete and permanent withdrawal from the EU, they have refused to answer and broken off discussion.
So let's have some honesty. These are not the actions of a group seeking Brexit. Talk of 'safer choices' and 'better deals' is no substitute for a clear and unambiguous statement that Vote Leave is working for Britain to leave the EU completely and permanently. The reason they refuse to do this is because the intention, as set out by Cummings and by Boris Johnson, is to use a leave vote to press for further talks and concessions after which Cummings' second referendum would be used to reverse the original leave vote.
Vote Leave is a cuckoo in the Leave nest. It is holding back progress by those who genuinely want Brexit. The sooner Vote Leave disintegrates and its band of closet reformers depart the stage, the sooner we can focus on a campaign to convince people we have a better future outside the EU and Britain’s chances of leaving the EU can be significantly increased.
Yours
Mr B
22 Oct 2015
Vote Leave: The obfuscation to play down their objective continues
Returning readers may recall a blog post we published 10 days ago explaining why there is enormous doubt about Vote Leave's suitability to be designated as the official referendum leave campaign. Now there is no doubt. Vote Leave must not get the designation as the official leave campaign.
The piece noted above shows the Twitter exchanges with Vote Leave co-owner and campaign director, Dominic Cummings which culminated with this:
Cummings didn't reply to the question. With that in mind, I began asking the head of media for Vote Leave, Robert Oxley, a yes/no question about whether Vote Leave pledge to fight to leave the EU no matter what 'reforms'/'deals' Cameron presents to the British public. There was no reply to that either, despite a good number of retweets and my posing the question several times.
However, Cummings did decide to reply last night to a separate question concerning Vote Leave's plans regarding the referendum.
It was a piece of misdirection, because they have not ever said they will campaign to leave the EU, only to vote to leave in the referendum. Vote Leave have said on their website that people should vote to leave the EU, even if Cameron presents a 'deal' offering Britain some form of associate membership of the EU.
But Vote Leave have stayed doggedly silent every time they are asked if they will fight for Brexit no matter what.
Vote Leave only ever go as far as saying we should vote to leave in the referendum, but they never refer to leaving the EU. The evidence suggests they only want people to vote to leave in order to strengthen Cameron's hand in pushing for a reform deal that keeps Britain in the EU. So, as we need to ask very explicit questions to pin Dominic Cummings down on this point, we replied with the following two tweets.
No reply yet...
Vote Leave's website deploys a range of soundbites, such as 'need a new relationship', 'new UK-EU deal based on free trade and friendly cooperation', and 'better, friendlier relationship with the EU'. But they do not say Britain should LEAVE the EU, and they don't call for that outcome. So what is Vote Leave's end game? We don't need to speculate. They state it on their website
€lliott and Cummings' campaign is significant not for what they say, but for what they don't say. Nowhere do they say anything about leaving the EU, and that is because they want a reform deal that keeps Britain in a 'reformed' EU.
Vote Leave is the ultimate Judas Goat, a campaign seeking the support of people who genuinely want to leave the EU, while having no intention of bringing about that outcome. In its own way it is a form of entryism, trying to control the campaign to leave in order to change its principles and stop Brexit coming to pass.
If €lliott and Cummings win the designation as the official leave campaign, we will either lose the referendum, or win it but see their campaign backing Cameron to secure reforms so Britain will remain in the EU, almost certainly in the two-tier structure €lliott has already declared he wants to see.
The challenge is clear. Before we can defeat Cameron and the pro-EU BSE campaign, we have to defeat €lliott and Cummings' counterfeit operation. If you want Brexit, they are not on your side.
The piece noted above shows the Twitter exchanges with Vote Leave co-owner and campaign director, Dominic Cummings which culminated with this:
Cummings didn't reply to the question. With that in mind, I began asking the head of media for Vote Leave, Robert Oxley, a yes/no question about whether Vote Leave pledge to fight to leave the EU no matter what 'reforms'/'deals' Cameron presents to the British public. There was no reply to that either, despite a good number of retweets and my posing the question several times.
However, Cummings did decide to reply last night to a separate question concerning Vote Leave's plans regarding the referendum.
It was a piece of misdirection, because they have not ever said they will campaign to leave the EU, only to vote to leave in the referendum. Vote Leave have said on their website that people should vote to leave the EU, even if Cameron presents a 'deal' offering Britain some form of associate membership of the EU.
But Vote Leave have stayed doggedly silent every time they are asked if they will fight for Brexit no matter what.
Vote Leave only ever go as far as saying we should vote to leave in the referendum, but they never refer to leaving the EU. The evidence suggests they only want people to vote to leave in order to strengthen Cameron's hand in pushing for a reform deal that keeps Britain in the EU. So, as we need to ask very explicit questions to pin Dominic Cummings down on this point, we replied with the following two tweets.
No reply yet...
Vote Leave's website deploys a range of soundbites, such as 'need a new relationship', 'new UK-EU deal based on free trade and friendly cooperation', and 'better, friendlier relationship with the EU'. But they do not say Britain should LEAVE the EU, and they don't call for that outcome. So what is Vote Leave's end game? We don't need to speculate. They state it on their website
Whatever the politicians claim, the best thing to do is to vote 'leave' and force the politicians to start negotiating.This is exactly what Daniel Hannan called for in his recent article on Conservative Home we covered the other day. Having spent years making out he wants Britain to leave the EU, he explained how nothing would make him happier than for David Cameron to come back from Brussels with a deal that he could support, before going on to say that as a result of campaigning to leave, if the polls swing far enough to the 'leave' way, and a David-Owen-type deal follows, Brexit will become unnecessary.
€lliott and Cummings' campaign is significant not for what they say, but for what they don't say. Nowhere do they say anything about leaving the EU, and that is because they want a reform deal that keeps Britain in a 'reformed' EU.
Vote Leave is the ultimate Judas Goat, a campaign seeking the support of people who genuinely want to leave the EU, while having no intention of bringing about that outcome. In its own way it is a form of entryism, trying to control the campaign to leave in order to change its principles and stop Brexit coming to pass.
If €lliott and Cummings win the designation as the official leave campaign, we will either lose the referendum, or win it but see their campaign backing Cameron to secure reforms so Britain will remain in the EU, almost certainly in the two-tier structure €lliott has already declared he wants to see.
The challenge is clear. Before we can defeat Cameron and the pro-EU BSE campaign, we have to defeat €lliott and Cummings' counterfeit operation. If you want Brexit, they are not on your side.
8 Oct 2015
Andrew Duff... the best ally Brexiteers have in the fight against Cameron
Andrew Duff is a Liberal Democrat arch federalist. He was MEP for East of England until defeated in the European elections last year.
As a Visiting Fellow at the European Policy Centre and President of the Union of European Federalists, he is a true EU insider. His connections and access to people who really know what is going on in Brussels is beyond contest.
With that in mind, when Duff writes a piece focusing on the David Cameron's 'renegotiation', the EU reaction to it and what can or cannot be achieved, he is worth reading. He has written one such piece for the German Verfassungsblog. It is worth reading in full, but below are some key sections along with some commentary of my own to put things in context.
Elliott and his friends, 'Elliott's Four', stand to make a lot of money from the campaign if they win official Leave campaign designation by awarding themselves positions and contracts as they did in the No to AV campaign, enabling them to hoover up huge volumes of data. The Tories stand to gain electoral and political intelligence about millions of voters from the purchase of that data from Elliott's Four and with Elliott at the helm the Leave campaign will almost certainly be as badly run as the No to AV campaign, and lose.
As a Visiting Fellow at the European Policy Centre and President of the Union of European Federalists, he is a true EU insider. His connections and access to people who really know what is going on in Brussels is beyond contest.
With that in mind, when Duff writes a piece focusing on the David Cameron's 'renegotiation', the EU reaction to it and what can or cannot be achieved, he is worth reading. He has written one such piece for the German Verfassungsblog. It is worth reading in full, but below are some key sections along with some commentary of my own to put things in context.
Tory stitch up
Some important truths that Duff shares include the fact that the party conference season has shown that Cameron cannot expect the ‘pro-European’ opposition forces of Labour, the Liberal Democrats, SNP or Greens to weigh in cosily behind a partisan Tory renegotiation. He goes on:As things stand, it looks as though the prime minister will be fighting a fairly lonely referendum campaign with the backing of some but by no means all representatives of business and the City of London – and with his own government and party split asunder.This is because the campaign is an overtly Tory stitch up. That's why hangers on like Matthew Elliott, are being backed by Tory grandees who are also supporting Cameron. It's an absolute con.
Elliott and his friends, 'Elliott's Four', stand to make a lot of money from the campaign if they win official Leave campaign designation by awarding themselves positions and contracts as they did in the No to AV campaign, enabling them to hoover up huge volumes of data. The Tories stand to gain electoral and political intelligence about millions of voters from the purchase of that data from Elliott's Four and with Elliott at the helm the Leave campaign will almost certainly be as badly run as the No to AV campaign, and lose.
The sham renegotiation
Belated recognition of these apparently unforeseen difficulties has forced Cameron to delay presenting his EU partners with a substantial catalogue of explicit demands. Instead, he and his team are going about Europe talking of ‘baskets’ of issues such as transparency, vetoes for national parliaments and reserve powers for non-eurozone states to block the eurozone majority: no texts have yet been tabled. The result is that nobody quite knows what the British are doing. London’s vague and often conflicting messages are mystifying.This more than anything underlines what genuine Eurosceptics have long argued, that the renegotiation is a sham, it's all for show. Behind the spin there is no substance. Cameron isn't serious about a new deal, he is a paid up member of the Remain club and he won't demand anything meaningful. Cameron's team is giving the impression of being busy while doing nothing. Duff goes on:
At the EU institutions, indeed, other important matters are more pressing than Brexit.While the sham renegotiation and run up to the referendum gives the UK media the kind of bust up it loves to drool over, observations about the relative lack of importance of the Brexit saga in Europe is an inconvenient reality. The EU has bigger fish to fry. For the EU this isn't an important matter because they know Cameron isn't serious. It's all theatre.
Ever closer union
Duff also deals with the commitment to ever closer union. Dismissed by Nick Clegg as 'flim-flam before you get to the meat and potatoes', and routinely dismissed by Europhiles desperate to conceal the truth as a matter only taken seriously by the British and just a preamble and nothing else, Duff as a true EU insider is happy to be open about its true nature (bold emphasis is mine):Amid this general British grumpiness there is the very specific demand to extricate the UK from the historic mission of the Union to ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’. This issue is not merely of marginal significance, as is often alleged by pro-Europeans who should know better. The phrase has always appeared in the preambles of successive European treaties, but was upgraded in the Maastricht treaty (signed by Cameron’s predecessor as Tory prime minister, John Major) and given pride of place in Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union.
Worthless binding promises
Another valuable piece of Duff's commentary concerns the worth of binding pledges to address any demands Cameron eventually makes, in a forthcoming treaty. The EU approach to such pledges is exposed for all to see (further bold emphasis from me):There is no precedent in the history of the EU of a member state ripping up its existing treaty obligations. It is true that both Denmark and Ireland were granted special Council decisions and (non-binding) declarations in the effort to overcome negative referendum votes on the Treaties of Maastricht, Nice or Lisbon. But these were concessions designed to permit treaties that had already been signed by every head of government to enter into force. The supplementary agreements were mainly of a tautological or oxymoronic nature – affirming that the treaties meant in fact what they said – although some took the form of promised future additions to treaty texts. (A similar agreement after the signing of the Lisbon treaty was made with the Czech Republic concerning the Charter of Fundamental Rights but was never delivered.) It is important to note, however, that none of those special measures amounted to new opt-outs; none made any substantive change to the treaties as agreed; and all were crafted, with a mixture of high politics and low cunning, to accomplish a successful ratification of a treaty change which deepened the integration of Europe.Such honesty cannot be found among Cameron and his team. It would not help their case for remaining in a dishonest and anti democratic union that revels in tricking people in order to further its own interests at their expense, and making promises it has no intention of keeping.
Treaty change reality
What Duff goes on to talk about isn't new for those who have carefully monitored the EU Referendum blog, but is nonetheless dynamite because it is a Europhile admission of reality that reinforces what will not be possible, despite Tory assurances to the contrary.To be fair to David Cameron, he has been talking for ages about the need for treaty change. He must now accept that the next general revision of the treaties will not begin until after 2017 when the French and German elections and the British referendum are out of the way. So the temptation now looms to go for a limited bilateral treaty between the UK and the EU to ‘resolve the relationship’, as Hammond puts it.
Yet this is another false trail. Such a new treaty would have to amend the UK’s treaty of accession to the European Community which was signed by the then Conservative prime minister Edward Heath on 22 January 1972. The preamble to that treaty says its signatories were ‘united in their desire to pursue the attainment of the objectives’ of the Treaties, and ‘determined in the spirit of those Treaties to construct an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe on the foundation already laid’. That statement, incidentally, rather gives the lie to those British eurosceptics like David Cameron who pretend that the decision to join the EEC was about a common market only. But it suddenly carries greater weight as one of Heath’s Tory successors seeks to remove it.
Article 6 of the Act attached to the accession treaty says:
The provisions of this Act may not, unless otherwise provided herein, be suspended, amended or repealed other than by means of the procedure laid down in the original Treaties enabling those Treaties to be revised.So short cuts are ruled out. Today, the relevant revision procedure is found in Article 48 TEU which lays down that an amendment to or derogation from Article 1 would require all the works: a constitutional Convention (if the European Parliament so insisted, as it would), followed by unanimous agreement between and ratification by all twenty-eight member states of the Union according to their own constitutional requirements (which in many cases means referenda).
Associate Membership or Brexit only, reform not possible
Again, not new to readers of EU Referendum, but no doubt this will be breaking news to Matthew Elliott's special enrichment vehicle and the cor blimey gang over at Leave.EU:Try as they might, the cleverest EU lawyers will find no route to satiate the British desire for an irreversible, legal guarantee that would change the nature of the European project. The likelihood increases, therefore, that the Brexit renegotiation is doomed to fail and that the referendum results in a vote to leave the EU. Once that happens we are plunged into Article 50 territory and complicated secession negotiations lasting about two years. The end product will be a ‘withdrawal agreement’ in the form of a bilateral treaty between the UK and the EU. It will be negotiated by the Commission and concluded by the Council, acting by qualified majority without the British, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament. If treated with care, that new treaty might possibly comprise a package deal to craft a new form of affiliate membership of the Union that might suit the UK as well as other determinedly anti-federalist, non-eurozone states. Once the full facts are known, a second referendum should not be ruled out.Once again, it is worth reading the whole original piece as there are other valuable insights that can help inform an effective Leave campaign. Duff's candour does little to help Cameron and the Remain campaign, rather it makes him one of the best allies the Brexiteers have in the fight to leave the EU. It cannot be overstated how vital it is to understand your opponents, and to that end Duff is great resource to have.
28 Oct 2015
The facts about the Norway Option
Britain Stronger in Europe (they mean the EU, but are desperate to mislead people) the people at British Influence, and David Cameron are working aggressively to rubbish the so called 'Norway Option'. Why? Their hope is that if they talk it down, people will dismiss it as an initial alternative to EU membership. They even call in aid Norwegian politicians, but are careful only to use those who want to join the EU, while ignoring the many who do not. What are they so scared of?
In short, copying Norway (a member of EFTA) would mean continued single market access after leaving the EU, a veto over EU directives and the ability to help write the laws and regulations made at international level before they are passed down to the EU to implement. If Britain had these things, why would we need to be stuck with the EU they are trying so hard to keep us a part of?
There are two main strands to their disinformation campaign...
Wrong. Norway and the other EFTA countries have more influence over the rules and regulations that are turned into laws. In fact, they actually get two bites of the cherry in influencing their shape. As a non-EU country, Norway represents itself on the world stage. Unlike every EU member state, Norway has seats on the international bodies where rules are developed and decided, before being handed down to the EU to implement. EU member states are not allowed to represent themselves, the insists on having a single position for all 28 member states, which is a generally a diluted, compromise position.
But then as members of the EEA (single market) the EU consults Norway and the other EFTA countries on the measures to be implemented, giving them an opportunity to influence the shape of the implementation. So Norway has more than just a say, it also gets to shape the rules from the outset and again at implementation. This gives Norway far more influence than any EU member state.
Wrong. The number of legislative acts that apply to EU member states is far greater than applies to Norway and the other EFTA countries. The details are not collated centrally for easy reference, so Dr Richard North put a huge amount of time and effort into collecting the information in one place for comparative purposes.
North found there are over 20,800 legislative acts in force that apply to EU member states. However Norway and the other EFTA countries only have around 5,500 legislative acts that apply to them. He covers this in his roadmap for staged withdrawal from the EU, Flexcit (see from p172).
Wrong. The money paid by EFTA on behalf of its member countries, which includes Norway, is a contribution to help the functioning of the single market. EFTA's budget showed that in 2014 the total contribution for the single market was CHF22,360,000.
Converting those Swiss Francs into pounds gives a total of around £16 million. 55 percent of that total contribution was borne by Norway, which equated to around £8.4 million. Details here.
The claim the Europhiles keep making is something along the lines of 'Norway pays two-thirds as much per head for access to the Single Market as the UK pays as a full member of the European Union'. It simply isn't true. The single market contribution divided by the population of Norway means the cost for every man, woman in child was actually £1.66. This is a far cry from the £115 claimed by BSE.
You may be wondering how BSE arrive at such a grossly inflated figure. That's simple, they use a sleight of hand where they fold in voluntary contributions Norway makes that have nothing to do with the single market and most of which doesn't even go to the EU! Here's how...
BSE, Cameron and the others include in their false figure a number of voluntary payments called "Norway Grants", made by Norway to eastern enlargement countries to help with their post-Communist economic rehabilitation. In the six year period 2009-14, these voluntary grants amounted to €804 million and have nothing to do with the single market. That money does not go to the EU, it is not part of the EU budget. Details here.
BSE and Co have also included monies paid into the EEA grants system, which again does not go to the EU, but rather the independent Financial Mechanism Committee, which is again nothing to do with the single market. When added to the Norway Grants, the country made a total contribution of around €1.7 billion.
Additionally they have added in Norwegian voluntary contributions to various EU and inter-regional programmes, such as Erasmus+. Horizon 2020 and Copernicus, which again are nothing to do with the costs of the single market. In fact countries even outside the single market participate in these programmes.
Yes and no. It is not the panacea.
Yes, because it represents the best first step on the journey out of the EU. It means single market access without most of the political control by Brussels. As such it serves well as an interim solution as Britain re-develops the capability to self govern in those areas previously controlled by the EU.
No, because long term Britain can aim for a much better settlement where the single market is built on intergovernmental cooperation, through UNECE in Geneva. That would mean we could administer our international trading arrangements without having to give political control to a treaty organisation like the EU, which has political integration as its main objective.
If the pro-EU politicians in Norway and the EFTA countries can fool voters into supporting something like associate member status, then the EEA would effectively end and EFTA would be disemboweled. Norway would have to give up its seats on the executive committees of the main international bodies, because as part of the EU, it must let the EU speak for it, thus losing influence to shape regulations by being removed from the top table and escorted out of the room.
As one of the wealthier countries its EU contributions would almost certainly be far greater than what they pay now for the single market, for eastern European development, for grants and for programmes. By the time voters see what has happened, it would be too late. It would be locked in to the pathway to political integration.
In short, copying Norway (a member of EFTA) would mean continued single market access after leaving the EU, a veto over EU directives and the ability to help write the laws and regulations made at international level before they are passed down to the EU to implement. If Britain had these things, why would we need to be stuck with the EU they are trying so hard to keep us a part of?
There are two main strands to their disinformation campaign...
- Influence: They claim Norway has no say over EU laws, but has to implement them all anyway
- Cost: They claim Norway has to pay much more per head to access the single market
Influence
Norway has no say over EU laws
Wrong. Norway and the other EFTA countries have more influence over the rules and regulations that are turned into laws. In fact, they actually get two bites of the cherry in influencing their shape. As a non-EU country, Norway represents itself on the world stage. Unlike every EU member state, Norway has seats on the international bodies where rules are developed and decided, before being handed down to the EU to implement. EU member states are not allowed to represent themselves, the insists on having a single position for all 28 member states, which is a generally a diluted, compromise position.
But then as members of the EEA (single market) the EU consults Norway and the other EFTA countries on the measures to be implemented, giving them an opportunity to influence the shape of the implementation. So Norway has more than just a say, it also gets to shape the rules from the outset and again at implementation. This gives Norway far more influence than any EU member state.
Norway has to implement all EU laws
Wrong. The number of legislative acts that apply to EU member states is far greater than applies to Norway and the other EFTA countries. The details are not collated centrally for easy reference, so Dr Richard North put a huge amount of time and effort into collecting the information in one place for comparative purposes.
North found there are over 20,800 legislative acts in force that apply to EU member states. However Norway and the other EFTA countries only have around 5,500 legislative acts that apply to them. He covers this in his roadmap for staged withdrawal from the EU, Flexcit (see from p172).
Cost
Norway pays a huge cost to access the Single Market
Wrong. The money paid by EFTA on behalf of its member countries, which includes Norway, is a contribution to help the functioning of the single market. EFTA's budget showed that in 2014 the total contribution for the single market was CHF22,360,000.
Converting those Swiss Francs into pounds gives a total of around £16 million. 55 percent of that total contribution was borne by Norway, which equated to around £8.4 million. Details here.
The claim the Europhiles keep making is something along the lines of 'Norway pays two-thirds as much per head for access to the Single Market as the UK pays as a full member of the European Union'. It simply isn't true. The single market contribution divided by the population of Norway means the cost for every man, woman in child was actually £1.66. This is a far cry from the £115 claimed by BSE.
You may be wondering how BSE arrive at such a grossly inflated figure. That's simple, they use a sleight of hand where they fold in voluntary contributions Norway makes that have nothing to do with the single market and most of which doesn't even go to the EU! Here's how...
Massaging the figures, misleading the public
BSE, Cameron and the others include in their false figure a number of voluntary payments called "Norway Grants", made by Norway to eastern enlargement countries to help with their post-Communist economic rehabilitation. In the six year period 2009-14, these voluntary grants amounted to €804 million and have nothing to do with the single market. That money does not go to the EU, it is not part of the EU budget. Details here.
BSE and Co have also included monies paid into the EEA grants system, which again does not go to the EU, but rather the independent Financial Mechanism Committee, which is again nothing to do with the single market. When added to the Norway Grants, the country made a total contribution of around €1.7 billion.
Additionally they have added in Norwegian voluntary contributions to various EU and inter-regional programmes, such as Erasmus+. Horizon 2020 and Copernicus, which again are nothing to do with the costs of the single market. In fact countries even outside the single market participate in these programmes.
Is the Norway Option the way to go?
Yes and no. It is not the panacea.
Yes, because it represents the best first step on the journey out of the EU. It means single market access without most of the political control by Brussels. As such it serves well as an interim solution as Britain re-develops the capability to self govern in those areas previously controlled by the EU.
No, because long term Britain can aim for a much better settlement where the single market is built on intergovernmental cooperation, through UNECE in Geneva. That would mean we could administer our international trading arrangements without having to give political control to a treaty organisation like the EU, which has political integration as its main objective.
Footnote: The perils of Associate Member status
If the pro-EU politicians in Norway and the EFTA countries can fool voters into supporting something like associate member status, then the EEA would effectively end and EFTA would be disemboweled. Norway would have to give up its seats on the executive committees of the main international bodies, because as part of the EU, it must let the EU speak for it, thus losing influence to shape regulations by being removed from the top table and escorted out of the room.
As one of the wealthier countries its EU contributions would almost certainly be far greater than what they pay now for the single market, for eastern European development, for grants and for programmes. By the time voters see what has happened, it would be too late. It would be locked in to the pathway to political integration.
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