Toby on Tuesday
‘Falsehoods and Fallacies’
UKIP’s greatest achievement so far is to have forced David
Cameron into conceding a referendum on EU membership before the end of
2017. Without UKIP, a sense of inevitability would have surrounded our
being drawn deeper into the swamp of the whole failing project. And
the other day the shape of David Cameron’s negotiating strategy became
clear when Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary and strong
supporter of the EU, let the cat out of the bag. What he said was that
the referendum was planned for September 2016 to avoid a clash with
next May’s Scottish, Welsh and council elections. He added that “the
government had choreographed a big row with the French after February’s
European Council meeting…Public expectations from renegotiation need to
be realistic (and be downplayed at the outset) and then be exceeded.
Other EU governments should recognise the need for UK ‘wins’, preferably
following some ‘rows’!”
Of course, all this nonsense is completely unnecessary, just as our
membership of the EU was completely unnecessary in the first place. In
essence the EU is a political, and not an economic, project which the
British people joined on the basis of a clear deception. In 1960, the
UK was a founding member of EFTA, the European Free Trade Association,
along with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland.
Iceland joined in 1970, Finland in 1986 and Liechtenstein in 1991.
But in 1973 the UK and Denmark left to join the EU, as did Portugal in
1986, and Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. Yet the truly
significant moment came as early as 1972, when EFTA signed its own free
trade agreement with the EU. That is to say that, at precisely the
moment when we were being told that, to trade in Europe, we had to be an
EU member, the EU itself was signing a free trade agreement with EFTA,
of which we had been a co-founder. And since then EFTA has itself
signed free trade agreements with nations and customs unions across the
world, from which the four remaining members, Iceland, Liechtenstein,
Norway and Switzerland, derive great benefit.
So with the so-called “renegotiation” underway, the time must have
arrived to embrace our EFTA membership once more, an arrangement about
which we can be positive instead of carping about the EU in a negative
way. And the precedent for the UK must surely be that of Switzerland
which has retained all the benefits of trading throughout the EU without
losing control of its borders through the deeply-flawed concept of
“free movement of people.” All this has been spelt out clearly in a
powerful new pamphlet from UKIP’s Trade Spokesman, William Dartmouth,
MEP for the South-West and Gibraltar. Entitled “The Truth about Trade
outside the EU” and with the sub-title of “Why leaving the EU takes the
UK into a world of new opportunity”, the pamphlet will be circulated
throughout UKIP’s branches over the coming weeks. It is packed with
compelling statistics, not least the chart that shows that, per head of
population, Switzerland exports nearly five times the value of goods to
the EU as does the UK. As William says, “Our future must not be built
on falsehoods”. We must expect to be lied to and deceived to an
astonishing extent over the next year by all those with an interest in
our staying trapped inside the EU project. The counter-arguments and
essential facts are all contained in William’s remarkable pamphlet,
which I commend to anyone serious about reaching the truth behind our EU
membership!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
‘A complete collapse of intelligence’
Here in Yorkshire, we are exceptionally lucky in having two
outstanding UKIP MEP’s in Jane Collins and Mike Hookem. They
complement each other and both have brought practical experience of the
real world to their new lives in the European Parliament. Mike’s
background is in the Armed Forces, where you would have thought that he
had seen something of the murky side of life. But our Armed Forces,
still the finest on the planet, live according to their own strict code
which could not be more removed from that of the EU. So even Mike was
astonished by the scale of sheer criminality when the other day he was
threatened with a handgun by an illegal immigrant in a camp outside
Dunkirk. These migrant camps in Northern France, driven as they are by
people-traffickers and other villains, are now the most potent images
of our EU membership, images that no amount of hand-wringing by
powerless ministers, desperate not to offend our so-called “partners”,
can eradicate.
But today I want to write not about illegal immigration through
Calais but rather through Istanbul in Turkey, which has received
literally billions in “pre-accession funding” as it presses on with its
application for full EU membership. Now, in order to seek influence
across Africa and the Middle East, Turkey has created an e-visa entry
regime. This is open to 89 countries including Afghanistan, Eritrea,
Somalia and Sudan. It requires just the completion of a simple e-form,
a fee payable online and a flight into Istanbul using either Turkish
Airlines or Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines. For its part, Turkish Airlines
flies to virtually the whole Islamic world, including Somalia. And it
is calculated that there are now some 100,000 temporary migrants in
Istanbul, preparing for the next leg of their journeys into Greece and
then on to Northern Europe, not least to Britain. For them, the
Istanbul route is a fair bit more expensive than the boat across the
Mediterranean, but a good deal more straightforward. It is also highly
profitable for Turkey.
Even Frontex, the EU’s borders agency, has finally acknowledged that
Turkey’s e-visa regime is open to “countries of origin for irregular
migration to the EU…an increasing number of people arriving in the EU
from Turkey…are using forged and fraudulent travel documents.” The
truth is that the whole EU dream is turning into an unqualified
nightmare and we will only regain control of our borders when we bid
farewell to this terminal disaster. And it seems well-nigh incredible
that our own weak Government, urged on by the U.S. State Department, is
still seeking Turkish accession to the EU, despite the ongoing war
against the Kurds. Now, as Mike Hookem knows better than most, this
year sees the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign in the First World
War. Peter Weir’s 1981 film “Gallipoli”, starring Mel Gibson, still
resonates after more than 30 years. As the film showed, the principal
cause of the disaster of Gallipoli, the Turkish peninsula at the tip of
the Dardanelles straits, was a complete collapse of intelligence. As
we seek to stem the tide of illegal immigration from Turkey and
elsewhere a century later, an equal collapse of intelligence, albeit of
another kind, is again the dominating feature!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
‘Brazen lies and false declarations’
Last week I wrote about the very best of the very best, those
enterprising Yorkshire men and women behind Business for Britain.
Creating top-of-the-range products and selling them across the globe,
they build employment and prosperity here for the benefit of all. By
contrast today I am going to write about the very worst of the very
worst, or at least someone who must be a contender for that particular
title, namely the late Sir Edward Heath. It was Edward Heath who, as
Prime Minister from 1970-74, took Britain into the then European
Economic Community. I don’t propose to write about the various police
investigations now underway, but instead want to say something about his
proven crimes. And of course his greatest proven crime, from which we
continue to suffer, was to have given away our sovereignty on the basis
of a brazen lie.
In 1970, Lord Kilmuir as Lord Chancellor wrote privately to Edward
Heath about the proposed EEC accession. What he said was, “It is
clear…that the Council of Ministers could…make regulations which would
be binding on us even against our wishes, and which would in fact become
for us part of the law of the land. For Parliament to do this would
go far beyond the most extensive delegation of powers, even in wartime,
that we have experienced and I do not think there is any likelihood of
this being acceptable to the House of Commons. We should have
therefore to accept a position where Parliament had no more power to
repeal its own enactments (in other words that it was no longer a
Parliament)… we could only comply with our obligations under the Treaty
if Parliament abandoned its right of passing independent judgment on the
legislative proposals put before it…In this respect Parliament has in
substance, if not in form, abdicated its sovereign position.” Yet in
1972 Edward Heath declared on television that, “There will be no loss of
essential national sovereignty.” Kilmuir’s letter, ignored by Edward
Heath, only became public many years later. And when in 1990 Edward
Heath was asked, again on television, whether he had known that his 1972
declaration had been false, he replied, “Of course, yes!”
As Prime Minister, Edward Heath also started negotiations with
Franco’s Spain for the transfer of democratic Gibraltar to a fascist
dictatorship, against the express wishes of its people. He offered
Spain political and cultural access to Gibraltar to start the process of
“persuading” the Gibraltarians to relinquish British sovereignty.
Likewise, he had an obsession with the Chinese Communist Party, busy at
that time executing thousands of dissidents a year. His defence of
Chinese totalitarianism was, “You can’t have a democracy with so many
people!” No doubt he had this precedent in mind when planning for a
Europe of 500 million people in the “post-democratic age.” I can’t
claim to have known Edward Heath myself, but I met him on several
occasions, notably when he twice came to speak for me when I was
standing as a Conservative candidate. It always puzzled me that he
chose to address me as “Tony”. I mentioned this in a light-hearted way
to someone who was close to him and he replied, “Oh, when Ted really
dislikes someone he always deliberately gets their name wrong!” But
what he intended as an insult, I have always taken as a badge of honour
for, in a reasonable and balanced world, an insult from Edward Heath can
only be seen as the ultimate compliment!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
‘Business for Britain’
This week I’d like to introduce you to Alan Halsall, a classic
example of the very best kind of innovative Yorkshire entrepreneur.
Now Alan has spent much of his career rescuing and rebuilding the Silver
Cross company, based in Skipton. Founded in Leeds in 1877, Silver
Cross had run into difficulties when Alan acquired it in 2002. Since
then the company has been reinvigorated with nearly 100 employees,
one-third of whom work abroad, making baby transport and other
baby-related products. These include its iconic prams, pushchairs, car
seats, nursery furniture, bedding, toys and gifts. The company sells
in over 50 countries, is especially strong in China and has a retail
boutique in the Ocean Terminal Centre, Hong Kong. Its offices are in
Skipton, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai. And it has just entered into a
shareholding partnership with China’s Fosun Corporation, which will
strengthen its distribution in the Far East and its employment
opportunities in Skipton. Silver Cross is now a truly global business
of the future, based here in Yorkshire.
I mention all this because Alan is Co-Chairman of Business for
Britain, a new national organisation with strong Yorkshire connections.
What may have radicalised Alan is his own experience of trying to sell
Silver Cross prams in France, where he believes French pram
manufacturers are using spurious safety grounds to ensure that his prams
are excluded from the French market in blatant flouting of the EU’s
free trade rules. In his own words, “When we tried to export our prams
to France we found that they were required to meet additional safety
standards for the French markets, even though they conform to all EU
safety standards required. As a result we had to pay thousands of
pounds to ship the stock which we had sent out for sale to French stores
back to Britain. We had to pull out of France. It was annoying and
expensive.”
Now Business for Britain describes itself as “independent and
non-partisan, involving people from all parties and no party.” Alan’s
Co-Chairman is John Mills, one of the Labour Party’s key donors. If
you google www.businessforbritain.org, you can find out more about the
campaign but its stated position is, “It is clear that the EU needs to
change. It is also increasingly accepted that if it refuses to do so
then Britain should leave.” As well as having the finest possible
Yorkshire Co-Chairman, Business for Britain’s regional operations around
the whole country are being co-ordinated from Richmond by the excellent
Julie Moody, who is really very good news indeed. So with Alan as
Co-Chairman and Julie as Regional Director, Yorkshire brains, energy and
creativity are at the heart of what must be a successful campaign.
As for my part, I shall be supporting Alan and Julie to the best of
my ability alongside my good friend Martin Vallance of UKIP Richmond.
There will be many Euro-realist voices heard over the coming months, but
UKIP and Business for Britain will be two of the most eloquent. And
as for Silver Cross itself, the truth is that Britain needs literally
thousands of new businesses like Silver Cross, selling top-of-the-range
products around the world, free from the dead hand of the corporatist
and protectionist EU. To achieve this is the mission of creative
Yorkshire entrepreneurs with a global outlook like Alan Halsall – they
are the very best of the very best!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
