Toby on Tuesday

'But he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day'

Independence Day results:

National – 17,410,742 votes for Leave (51.9%) and 16,141,241 votes for Remain (48.1%)

Hambleton – 29,502 votes for Leave (53.7%) and 25,480 votes for Remain (46.3%)

Ryedale – 17,710 votes for Leave (55.3%) and 14,340 votes for Remain (44.7%)

Scarborough – 37,512 votes for Leave (62.0%) and 22,999 votes for Remain (38.0%)

Thank you to all who worked so very hard for this outcome.   In the words of Winston Churchill -

"In War: Resolution.

  In Defeat: Defiance.

  In Victory: Magnanimity.

  In Peace: Goodwill"

 
Until next Tuesday!

Toby
 

Toby on Tuesday

'This Scepter’d Isle'

In Shakespeare’s Richard II John of Gaunt declares,

 

“This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,

  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

  This other Eden, demi-paradise,

  This fortress built by Nature for herself

  Against infection and the hand of war,

  This happy breed of men, this little world,

  This precious stone set in the silver sea,

  Which serves it in the office of a wall

  Or as a moat defensive to a house

  Against the envy of less happier lands,

  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

 

Now today there are too many in both 10 and 11 Downing Street, across Whitehall, working in the BBC and throughout our so-called Establishment, who see Shakespeare’s verses as racist.   They will all be voting Remain on 23rd June.   But if like me you see them as among the greatest glories of our language you must vote Leave, and encourage all your friends to vote Leave, on 23rd June.   Only by doing so can we secure “this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” for our children and for our grandchildren!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'A failed Utopia'

At last the Penny (or in this case the Euro) is starting to drop.   Thanks to the threat of Brexit, signs of sanity are starting to break out in the whole crazed Euro project.   Now Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, is one of the five Presidents who really run the EU.   From 2007-2014 he was Prime Minister of Poland, leading a deeply patriotic country that during the Second World War was the staunchest of Britain’s allies and without the courage of whose pilots the Battle of Britain might have been lost.   Indeed it was over Poland that we finally entered the war in 1939.   And sandwiched as they are between Russia and Germany, the Poles have learned to be cautious and circumspect.   So it is significant to say the least that during the past fortnight, Donald Tusk has made two speeches that could in large measure have been drafted by UKIP.  They are a warning shot to the Euro-zealots throughout the Continent and without our Referendum they would certainly have never been made.

 

In one he declared, “I don’t need to explain to anyone present here what dramatic consequences, also economic, would be brought about by Brexit...But we know that there are more threats, and the migration crisis has shown how difficult it is today to agree a common European answer and foster common determination in the decision process...We must and can avoid this scenario.   The condition is to depart from utopian dreams and move on to practical activities...Forcing lyrical and in fact naive Euro-enthusiastic visions of total integration, regardless of the obvious goodwill of their proponents, is not a suitable answer to our problems.   Firstly because it is simply not possible, and secondly because – paradoxically – promoting them only leads to the strengthening of Eurosceptic moods, not only in the UK.   As one of the key players of European integration Hubert Vedrine recently said, ‘You see governments and parties all over jumping up and down asking for more Europe, more Europe – if you want people to massively reject Europe, just keep on.’   An ideological drive forward can end in a disaster.”

 

And in the other, Donald Tusk again echoed UKIP when he stated, “It is us who today are responsible for confronting reality with all kinds of utopias.   A utopia of Europe without nation states, a utopia of Europe without conflicting interests and ambitions, a utopia of Europe imposing its own values on the external world.   A utopia of Euro-Asian unity.   Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm.   Disillusioned with the great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now.   Today, Euro-scepticism, or even Euro-pessimism, have become an alternative to those illusions....That is why let us refrain from exaggerated rhetoric, because exaggeration, in whatever direction, is a heavy sin in politics.”

 

Together these two speeches represent an astonishing concession by one of those at the very summit of the EU project.   But Donald Tusk is an historian.   He has studied how ideologies can lead to disaster, how the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution which all began in those naive visions, full of hope, led only to death, bankruptcy, tyranny, war and human misery.   And he will know that the EU project now runs the risk of the same outcome across the Continent of Europe.   The cry of “More Europe” will only deepen the abyss into which it is now staring.   The Leave campaign was the catalyst for Donald Tusk’s two speeches which received so little coverage in our press.   And a big Leave majority on 23rd June can become the catalyst for a truly reformed Europe, based on nation states working together, co-operating, trading, playing to their strengths, keeping their identities, rather than some over-arching supranational monster, sucking the life out of the once great Continent.   To save Europe from itself in this way will be the true prize in this Referendum and fulfil Britain’s historic role as the power which has always restored balance and equilibrium to the whole Continent!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Il Principe and the Pauper'

Last week I wrote about the creation of a European Army, the logical outcome of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty’s plans for an EU defence union.   And just after this month’s Referendum Frederica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, will present her foreign and security strategy paper to the European Council.   We’ve a pretty good idea just what it will say, even though it is NATO and not the EU which has kept the peace in Europe since World War 2 .   And the reaction of our own heroic armed forces to being given their orders in future by an unelected Eurocrat, whose ascent to power came through Italy’s Communist Youth Federation, and not by the NATO command structure is just as easy to predict.   But today I want to write about another unelected Eurocrat, Mario Monti, former Prime Minister of Italy and now Chairman of the EU’s High Level Group on Own Resources.   His mandate is to increase the EU’s budget to deal with the Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis and the terrorism crisis.   And a fortnight ago the groundwork began for direct EU taxation across all 28 member states.

On 25th May, the EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee made an announcement which has received astonishingly little coverage and yet is crucial to all our futures.   For it called for every one of us to have a “European Taxpayer Identification Number” to keep track of every EU citizen.   In its own words, “Proper identification of taxpayers is essential to effective exchange of information between tax administrations.   The creation of European Taxpayer Identification Numbers (EU TINs) would provide the best means for this identification.   It would allow any third party to quickly, easily and correctly identify TINs in cross-border relations and serve as a basis for effective automatic exchange of information between member states’ tax administrations.”   In essence these EU National Insurance-style numbers would give Brussels the ability to track every EU taxpayer and lay the foundations for a new supranational direct EU Tax.   The report also calls for the EU to take over member states’ corporate taxation powers with a common corporation tax base.   The costs of the EU project are rising exponentially and Signor Monti is clearly looking to us all to bear them through some form of direct EU taxation.

And where the pure creative genius of Signor Monti’s plan lies is in its application to the Italian financial crisis, fast overtaking the Greek crisis as the point of maximum danger for the Euro project.   To say that the Italian banking system is on life support is an understatement.   17.9% of all Italian bank loans are in default, compared to 4.2% in France and 3.2% in Germany.   Italy’s largest bank UniCredit’s share price has fallen 40% so far this year and its chief executive has just resigned.   Trapped in the straitjacket of the Euro and unable to devalue, growth in the Italian economy has averaged just 0.2% a year since 1999.   Labour cost competitiveness has fallen by 30% against Germany’s since 1999.    Unemployment in much of Italy’s South is well over 50% and youth unemployment across the country as a whole is running at a tragic 37%.   Government debt is running at 134% of GDP.  Last year depositors in four small failed banks lost their life savings.   I could go on, but this is a country with an economy in disastrous freefall.   No wonder its former Prime Minister is looking to the EU, and not least to the two largest budget contributors Britain and Germany, to bail it out through some form of EU-wide direct taxation.

It was an earlier Italian politician, Niccolo Machiavelli, who declared, “If injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”   Both Signorina Mogherini and Signor Monti seem to have taken to heart the counsel of old Machiavelli, the ultimate political manipulator.   By seeking to subsume our armed forces into an EU defence system, Britain’s capacity for self-defence will finally be made redundant.   And by imposing EU wide direct taxation to shore up the failures of the Euro in Southern Europe, the capacity of our own economy for sustained recovery will be at an end.   Of course, Italy should be allowed to restore the Lira, reschedule its debts and work its way back to growth, but that would be to question the whole Euro project itself.   Far better to call for “more Europe”, land the bill at the feet of those backsliding Brits through EU direct taxation and watch our pusillanimous politicians fall into line.   David Cameron has claimed that Britain will not have to contribute to future Euro bail-outs, but of course a system of direct EU taxation with transfers to Southern Europe would not count as a bail-out at all.   Old Machiavelli would have been hugely proud of Signor Monti – and of Signorina Mogherini – seeing them as pure geniuses in the very finest tradition of European politics.   And they have clearly learned their lessons from old Niccolo, the master himself! 

Until next Tuesday! 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'The Four Horsemen..'

Last week I wrote about two wise men, Archbishop Carey and Sir Richard Dearlove, and their concern over Britain’s migration crisis.   Since then Sir Richard, who is the ex-head of MI6, has stepped up his warnings about what he describes as a “terrorist virus”, in particular from Turkey’s imminent visa-free access to the EU which he describes as “like storing gasoline next to the fire one is trying to extinguish.”   Even the European Commission in a leaked document has spoken of “increased mobility into the Schengen area of criminals and terrorists who are citizens of Turkey, or who are foreigners based in Turkey.”   It has also acknowledged that the Turkish mafia, which traffics vast volumes of drugs, sex slaves, illegal firearms and refugees into Europe will enjoy “direct territorial expansion into the EU.”   Yet despite all this, the European Commission is hell-bent on its policy for Turkey and other desperately unstable countries.

 

Now the “Remain” camp has rightly questioned what a post-Brexit Britain would look like?   The answer is simple – we would become a normal country again with control of our own borders, we would resume our membership of the World Trade Organisation and the European Free Trade Association, we would remain in the European Economic Area and use some of the new funds released to strengthen our commitment to NATO.   We would aim to trade and live well with all other countries, inside and outside the EU, especially our friends and allies in the global Commonwealth.   And we would reclaim much of the sovereignty lost since 1973.   But equally, the “Leave” camp is entitled to question what a post-“Remain” Britain would look like?   Here, there are two crucial reports that anyone serious about our country needs to study.   The first of these, issued on 22nd June, 2015, is called The Five Presidents’ Report.   It appears over the names of the EU’s five Presidents – President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the Euro Summit Donald Tusk, President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem, President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi and President of the European Parliament Martin Schultz.   And in essence the report lays out the EU’s strategy for a centralised United States of Europe by 2025.   In language all-too familiar to Euro watchers, the “convergence process should be made more binding through a set of common high-level standards that would be defined in EU legislation.”   Because the Lisbon Treaty is self-amending, a new treaty would not be needed before the creation of this centralised superstate that will subsume Britain should we vote to “Remain.”

 

And the second report, not due to be published until after 23rd June but a draft of which has leaked out, is a German Government White Paper on European security and defence as an alternative to existing NATO system.   It outlines the steps for co-ordination of Europe’s national militaries with permanent co-operation under common structures.   It calls for “the use of all possibilities” available under the Lisbon Treaty’s proposals for a defence union.   It calls for establishing deep co-operation between willing member states, the creation of joint civil-military headquarters for EU operations, a council of defence ministers and better co-ordination of the production and sharing of military equipment.  In the words of Roderich Kiesewetter, a Bundestag foreign affairs committee member, “The creation of a European army is a long way off, but it is a strategic necessity to implement important steps to pave the way towards it now.”   In late June a foreign and security strategy paper will be presented to the European Council.   And on 6th May the European Court of Justice ruled that the European Commission had the legal right to punish any employee who might “damage the institution’s image and reputation”, thereby supressing all freedom of speech within the EU system.   Recently Boris Johnson got into very hot water for language he used in what was really a plea for internationalism and not supranationalism in Europe.   But these two reports make one wonder whether he might just have had a point after all.

 

On 3rd February, David Cameron declared to the House of Commons, “I am not arguing – and I will never argue – that Britain couldn’t survive outside the European Union.   We are the fifth largest economy in the world.   The biggest defence player in Europe with one of the most extensive and influential diplomatic networks on the planet....I rule nothing out.”   Since then, and after his failed “renegotiation”, he has threatened us with war, jihad, President Putin and no doubt soon a plague of rats and the four horsemen of the apocalypse, should we dare to vote “Leave”.   Something must have changed and I suspect that it is his dawning realisation that Britain is being swept up against our will into an aggressive superstate called Europe and he has decided to go along with it.   Even though the security case for Brexit, vividly described by Sir Richard Dearlove, is now compelling, our own vain Prime Minister is so fixated on his cosy telephone conversations with President Obama and Chancellor Merkel that he is prepared to sacrifice our country just so that they can run on for a little longer.   The British people might just have something to say about that on 23rd June!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'The Canterbury Tales'

The last Archbishop of Canterbury to express his faith in strong, clear language, unhedged with sophistry and politically correct equivocation, was George Carey.   He was Archbishop from 1991-2002.   And it is not surprising that he has called for a “Brexodus”, in which the British people find the promised land even if a time in the wilderness must be endured.   And in an article of great importance he writes, “We are an island people, proud of our heritage and history.   We have been generous, happy to share our riches with newcomers on the understanding that they own our history and share our values.   Yet there is now huge pressure on our population, due to an unasked-for experiment in uncontrolled immigration that has seen millions added to the population of the UK in the past two decades.   We now have no choice but to take back control of our borders.”   And Archbishop Carey’s warning takes on a new urgency after the revelation that for years the Government has been deliberately falsifying the true number of migrants coming into Britain, all with access to our buckling public services.

 

It is now clear that the anecdotal figure of around a million new arrivals a year into the UK is correct, yet our public services have been planned around falsified official figures.   For it has been revealed that the Home Office has deliberately excluded “short-term migrants”, those supposedly planning to stay in Britain for less than a year, from the numbers.   Put simply, the official figures state that just over a million migrants came here from the EU between 2011 and 2015.   Yet in the same period 2,234,000 new National Insurance numbers were issued to EU nationals.   And the Government has finally conceded that the discrepancy is due to the exclusion from the statistics of those claiming to stay here for less than a year.   Last year, 800,000 EU citizens arrived here, so if you add some 200,000 non-EU arrivals then the figure of an annual population increase of around a million is correct.  And this figure can only grow exponentially as the EU expands to take in all those unstable and impoverished countries to its South and East.

 

Last week I wrote about the EU’s decision to offer visa-free travel to nearly 130 million citizens of Turkey, Kosovo, Georgia and Ukraine, as a prelude to their full membership of the project.   Those at the top of our Government are clearly determined to see Britain in a political union with all of these, so we should at least try to learn something of them before 23rd June.   President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, with its population of nearly 80 million, is plainly the most worrying.   He is an infinitely determined man who is using the threat of uncontrolled migration to hold Berlin’s feet to the fire.   When mayor of Istanbul, he was imprisoned for inciting religious hatred by reciting these words at a rally:

 

The mosques are our barracks,

The domes our helmets,

The minarets our bayonets,

And the faithful our soldiers...”

 

Erdogan is also a patient man who is now President of his country, on which his grip is tightening.    And, despite the warning from the good King Abdullah of Jordan that “The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy...Turkey keeps getting a slap on the hand, but they are let off the hook”, on 4th May Turkish became an official EU language.   The global elites who are pressing for a Remain vote on 23rd June have their bodyguards and their drivers, their personal security and their protection.   The ordinary men and women of Britain do not.  Recently, Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of the Secret Intelligence Service, declared “Brexit would bring two potentially important security gains:  the ability to dump the European Convention on Human Rights – remember the difficulty of extraditing the extremist Abu Hamza of Finsbury Park Mosque – and, more importantly, greater control over immigration from the European Union.”   For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we must all take to heart the advice both of Sir Richard and of the truly excellent Archbishop Carey who, although his language is plain, clearly speaks in St. Paul’s words with “the tongues of men and of angels!”

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Schengen and Shenanigans'

Last week I wrote about the Euro-currency as it approaches its endgame in Greece.   Today I want to write about the endgame of the Schengen zone, that other totem of EU ideology.   For Wednesday 4th May, 2016 will go down in history as the day when the EU finally committed suicide.   For that was the day when the Brussels Commission approved visa-free travel to the 26-nation Schengen zone, and in consequence to Britain and Ireland too, for nearly 130 million citizens of Turkey, Kosovo, Georgia and Ukraine.   All are unstable and dangerous countries, but the most unstable and dangerous is probably Turkey, with its borders onto Iran, Iraq and Syria.   And just to underscore what has happened, on 4th May Turkish became an official language of the EU, while the Commission issued a press release which declared that Turkey’s “accession process will be re-energised, with Chapter 33 to be opened”..before 30th June...”and preparatory work on the opening of other chapters to continue at an accelerated pace.”   And to confirm the legal position, any citizen of all four countries will shortly be able to enter the Schengen zone for up to 90 days for tourism and up to 180 days for business.   And any holder of an EU identity card – not even a full passport – has absolute right of entry into Britain.   

So it’s not surprising that one principal growth industry in Bulgaria and Romania is the creation of fake identity cards and the forgers can expect a rush of new business once all that visa-free travel starts at the end of June, just after our Referendum.   Now it’s well worth reading an article by Adrian Mogos on the Balkan Insight website which reports that, “For a few hundred euros I obtained a new Romanian identity complete with a new name of Turkish origin.   For the next few months I was no longer Adrian Mogos, but Murad Alin Erdogan from Timisuara.   Why choose a Turkish name?   Because most illegal immigrants crossing Romania are Turkish and I wanted to follow in their footsteps.   It was not difficult to obtain a fake identity card, nor to use it”   Now the most celebrated Mr. Erdogan of all is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, who has already announced plans to create a new Islamic Union, led by Turkey.   So for nearly 80 million Turkish citizens, plus all those who have arrived there from Syria, Iran and Iraq, they can soon have a visa-free jaunt to Bulgaria or Romania, a cheap EU Identity Card and then it’s off to the races in York or Thirsk or Epsom or Aintree, all with the help of the British taxpayer!

And even the EU itself has admitted that there is no system in place to detect visa-free entrants from those four countries who overstay their welcome beyond the approved 90 or 180 days.   So it’s not surprising that the most committed advocates of a “Remain” vote in June are starting to get a bit windy about the EU’s chaotic migrant system where, as with the Euro-currency, ideology is about to hit reality   Even Yorkshire’s sole Conservative MEP, the pro-Remain Timothy Kirkhope, has acknowledged that proper entry and exit checks should be in place before the deal with Turkey gets underway.   As a former immigration minister, he should at least understand what is happening.   In his own words, “Getting a system in place where there is order and discipline is absolutely essential.   Unless you have a system in place to check in and check out, it’s not possible to run any kind of sensible immigration system at all.   It sounds very reasonable to say it is just for 90 days, but how the hell do you know it is just 90 days, and how at the end of 90 days do you locate and remove them?”   Welcome to UKIP Mr. Kirkhope, but the truth is that the EU has no system in place to monitor all those new arrivals, let alone departures, and the policy is firmly underway.

Understandably the nations of Europe are now busy jettisoning Schengen as quickly as they can.   Outside the EU, Norway has reintroduced border checks, while Switzerland now has 2,000 soldiers in tanks patrolling its border with Italy as the migrant route moves there.   And within the EU, Sweden now controls its border with Denmark, which itself now controls its border with Germany.   Austria has built huge fences at four of its border crossings and reintroduced checks at the strategically vital Brenner Pass, while France, Belgium and even Germany have reintroduced border controls.   So much for the Schengen dream of a borderless Europe.   These are the natural responses of countries seeking to survive, but the Schengen dream of a border-free Europe is dead.   I have no doubt that in time sanity will prevail and the great Continent of Europe will recover, indeed Britain’s task as in the past will be to help it towards its recovery.   But the ideological EU project finally brought its own existence to an end on 4th May, 2016 when it opened its borders to so many who wish it harm.   And once Britain has voted for “Leave” on 23rd June, then a sensible Europe can start to emerge from the ashes of the whole insane EU project!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby