Toby on Tuesday

'A Lie Becomes The Truth'

“When it becomes serious you have to lie!”   Those were the immortal words of Herr Juncker, President of the European Commission, when discussing the EU’s development.   And his advice has clearly been taken to heart by our very own master of spin, our Mr. Cameron, when combining fear with fiction in his preposterous work of EU propaganda that has been coming through our letterboxes at a cost to taxpayers of £9.3 million.   But of course the original master of spin, from whom both Herr Juncker and Mr. Cameron seem to have learned their craft, was none other than Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Germany from 1933 to 1945.   He was the one who first dreamed up guidance for today’s politicians such as, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”, “Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will” and, “A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth”.   Our own admirably impartial Electoral Commission has ruled that using public money for Mr. Cameron’s document is “not in the spirit of a fair referendum and should not have been done”, which is a telling understatement.   So I thought that I would try a little truth test on the mind-numbing assertions to which we have all been subjected in a document of which Joseph Goebbels would certainly have been proud.

Let me offer you three examples from this work of fiction, which has been decried by our independent Electoral Commission and is an insult to the intelligence of the British people, and also the related facts.   The document’s very first claim is that, “The UK has secured a special status in a reformed EU.”   The truth is that, in the words of Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Mr. Cameron’s paltry deal is “not legally binding” and “nothing more than a deal hammered out down the local bazaar” which could soon be rejected by the European Parliament.   Of course it was the same ever-charming Graf Lambsdorff who declared that it was “a mistake to admit the British into the European Union!”   The document’s next fictitious claim is that, “we will keep our own border controls.”   This would be laughable if it were not so serious when 140 million citizens of Turkey and Ukraine are about to receive the right to visa-free travel into the EU’s 26-nation Schengen zone.   And once inside Schengen, EU passports can easily be bought in Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, three of the most corrupt nations on the planet, entitling the purchasers to come straight into the UK just like anyone else in the EU, obtain National Insurance numbers and access exactly the same benefits as every UK citizen.   And after five years in the Schengen zone they can come here anyway.   Finally, the third example from this work of fiction is that after Brexit we would lose access to the EU’s Single Market, as if the EU were primarily an economic and not a political construct.   The fact is that on 24th June we could rejoin Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein in the Swiss-based European Free Trade Association, a fine organisation founded by Britain, and remain in the European Economic Area with an EU trade deal to reflect our status as its principal customer.   After all, Switzerland exports four and a half times as much per head to the EU as does the UK without needing to be a member.   These are just some of the falsehoods that litter this dismal document and those associated with it should hang their heads in shame.

But to return to the father of modern political propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.   On 22nd April, 1945 with defeat looming in World War Two, together with his wife Magda and their six children, Goebbels moved into the Berlin Fuhrerbunker to be close to Adolf Hitler.   There on 29th April Hitler appointed him Reich Chancellor.   On the following day Hitler shot himself.   Then on 1st May Goebbels and Magda administered cyanide to their children before taking their own lives.   However, Magda Goebbels left another son who survived the war, Harald Quandt, from her earlier marriage to the prominent industrialist Gunther Quandt.   And in post-war Europe the Quandts’ industrial empire went from strength to strength, based principally on their holding of some 46% of BMW, so that they are now thought to be the richest family in Germany.   And the EU’s relentless expansion into Bosnia, Turkey and Ukraine, at huge cost to the British taxpayer, is due in large measure to German industry’s incessant need to obtain and control new markets for its products, not least the Quandt family’s BMWs.   We should think on these things when the tendentious propaganda from Mr. Cameron lands on our doormats.   And the printer responsible for this tawdry document is Williams Lea, now owned by Germany’s Deutsche Post DHL, which itself receives substantial grants from the European Commission.   So welcome to the wonderful world of the new Europe!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'EUkraine'

The Ural Mountains are a range that runs through western Russia from the Arctic Ocean in the north down to the Ural River and Kazakhstan in the south.   And the minerals that they contain are vital to the Russian economy.   Now, in his bombastic speeches which have become all-too familiar, David Cameron has often declared that he wants to see a European Union that “stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals.”   If he wishes us to take him at his word, which presumably he does, then David Cameron is arguing that the EU should absorb not just the whole of Ukraine, once part of the Soviet Union and where the people in the eastern half of the country remain loyal to Moscow, but also much of western Russia.   That is the logic of his remarks and, when combined with the preparations now well underway for the creation of a “European Army”, this must be a cause for serious concern.

Where this is relevant is that David Cameron, along with 26 of the 27 other EU leaders, has recently signed up to a new Ukraine-EU “Association Agreement.”   With a population of 45 million in Ukraine, this takes the EU deep into Russian Europe, offering Ukraine visa-free travel and generous financial incentives funded in large measure by British taxpayers.   In time honoured EU fashion, trade is being used as a pretext for political expansion with Ukraine being offered a “Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area.”   This is a real commitment for Britain, yet it has scarcely been reported let alone debated in Parliament, while our voters will be open to all the risks involved in a partnership with this dangerous and unstable country.   Now, only one country in the whole EU has had the integrity to offer its voters a referendum on this latest piece of EU empire-building and that is Holland, one of the project’s original founder members.

And on 6th April the voters of Holland went to the polls to pass judgment on the proposed EU-Ukraine agreement.   On a low but sufficient turnout, 61.1% of the Dutch electorate rejected the EU’s deal, with just 38.1% in favour.   The Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, declared that while the vote was not binding his government would have to “reconsider the deal.”   An official in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, stated that “Dutch Eurosceptics could not take Ukraine hostage to express dissatisfaction with the EU.”   The truth is that, as always, the EU will ignore public opinion and press on with its ambition to create an aggressive superstate running from the north of Scotland down through Turkey to the borders of Iraq, Iran and Syria in the south and right up to Russia’s Ural Mountains in the east.   

The combined population of Ukraine and Turkey amounts to some 125 million, all shortly to enjoy visa-free travel into the EU.   Recently John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, said, “The European project is fundamentally flawed.   I think its best days are probably behind it and there will be increasing tensions.   Britain can’t control its borders – it’s ridiculous to say it can.   If I were British, which I’m not, I’d vote to leave.   You have lost your sovereignty.”   Now it was John Howard who secured the Queen’s role as Australia’s head of state in his own 1999 referendum.   We should heed his words, vote “Leave” on 23rd June and, supported by our friends across Europe, including Holland, and the Commonwealth, become a free and independent people once more!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Take the current when it serves' 

 

Recently I wrote about two countries which are about to join the EU – Bosnia, where the First World War broke out in 1914 and which has enjoyed visa-free travel to the Schengen zone since 2010, and Turkey, where visa-free travel starts in June, despite the warnings from the courageous King Abdullah of Jordan that it is deliberately “unleashing ISIS terrorists into Europe” and “the fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy.”   In both cases, the process for EU membership is well underway.  Today I want to write about a country that has successfully left the EU – Greenland.   As the world’s largest island with only a tiny population dependent on its fishing industry, the potential for Greenland is enormous.   And in 1982, following a dispute over the folly and injustice of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, to which Ted Heath had signed up Britain, Greenland had a referendum on continued EU membership.   53% of Greenland’s voters opted to leave, around the same proportion of British voters who I believe will opt for “Leave” on 23rd June.   The same fear tactics and pressures were brought to bear on Greenland then, but the good sense of its people prevailed.   And what is significant is that in 1984 Greenland and the EU signed the Greenland Treaty which allowed for an amicable withdrawal and continued trade, precisely what Britain should now be seeking.   So a precedent already exists for the way ahead for Britain.

Now where this is relevant is that when Michael Howard was leader of the Conservative Party, Conservative policy was to withdraw from the Common Fisheries Policy.   Today, as Lord Howard of Lympne, he has declared his support for leaving the EU.   But as soon as David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party, he followed the Ted Heath line and dropped the policy.   And in so doing he condemned our fishing industry to the continuation of a deeply destructive system that embodies all that is wrong with the EU.   Until 1973, Britain enjoyed the finest fisheries in Europe, representing 70% of the Continent’s fishing grounds.   But under the EU’s quota system, we now have only 13% of the EU’s whole fishing quota.   We have to import vast quantities of cod, haddock and other species which have always formed part of our national diet.   Ted Heath’s government had no authority to give away our territorial waters in 1973 and this great crime, for crime it was, must now be put right.   And under EU rules huge quantities of good fish are simply destroyed.   Last year’s “reform” of the Common Fisheries Policy has already failed and the scandal of discarded fish continues unabated.   £2.5 billion a year of fish sales have been taken out of our economy, while industrial fishing techniques which destroy marine life continue to be permitted under EU law.   And while the UK fleet, which is made up mainly of smaller fishing boats, receives only 4% of the English quota, the five largest foreign-controlled industrial fishing vessels take 32% due to quota sales, a figure that is simply unacceptable.   Electric pulse trawling, which the EU allows, destroys marine life and the ecology of our seas.   If you really need an allegory for the sheer awfulness of the EU, then just look at our membership of the Common Fisheries Policy.   If we still had any gumption left as a country, this alone should have led us to follow Greenland out of the EU years ago.

And there is a huge psychological advantage as well for Britain in coming out of the Common Fisheries Policy.   Under international law we would have the right to reclaim the 200-mile exclusive economic zone under our control, as well as our 12-mile zone for UK fishermen.   We could restore our fishing industry and our boat-building industry, and recapture the sense of our being an outward-looking, adventurous maritime nation again, open to the world beyond the disaster that is the EU.   And our nation’s security could be strengthened by rebuilding our Border Force patrol fleet.   Believe it or not, we now have just three Border Force patrol vessels for a coastline that is as long as America’s East Coast, although America’s Border Force patrol fleet is the same size as her Navy.   We can become a seafaring people once more when we vote “Leave” in June.   As voters weigh up the risks and advantages in a “Remain” or “Leave” vote in June, and are inundated with information and misinformation, they must sometimes think that they are being asked to choose between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.   Well, I would say that there’s a very simple answer to the choice between forming part of a political union with Bosnia and Turkey or following Greenland out of the EU – the time has come to turn our backs on the Devil and set out onto the Deep Blue Sea!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

take the current when it serves
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Toby on Tuesday

'No laughing matter...'

Anyone witnessing the surreal shambles which those who govern us have created can only be reminded of the classic 1930’s comedy “Another Fine Mess”, with George Osborne playing the role of Stan Laurel and David Cameron that of Olly Hardy.   You can almost hear our Dave yelling at little George those memorable words, “Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into!”   With last year’s overall majority behind them, it takes carelessness of a high order to land any Government in this state.   As Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith was that rare beast, a politician with a strong moral compass and a clear sense of what he hoped to achieve.   In a cabinet dominated by flaky PR men and fixers, his authenticity stood out like a beacon, so to have forced his resignation over last month’s Budget was a serious blunder to put it mildly.   And although that resignation was triggered by a cut of some £4 billion over three years to disability benefits rather than over the EU, it is worth looking at the EU dimension to this debacle.

 

What we do know is that in 2004 Iain Duncan Smith, moved by his time spent in Glasgow’s Easterhouse estate, notorious for its levels of child poverty, chose to devote his political life to tackling the underlying causes of poverty.   He therefore created the Centre for Social Justice in a search for innovative solutions.   In time its policy group released two major reports, “Breakdown Britain” and “Breakthrough Britain”, on the themes of ending economic dependence, unemployment, family breakdown, addiction, educational failure and indebtedness.   Unsurprisingly perhaps, the European Court of Justice deemed a good many of the proposals to be “unfit for a modern democracy” and “frighteningly authoritarian”, although what standing the ECJ had to pass judgment on serious proposals for ending poverty in Britain through encouragement of productive work was unclear, to say the least.   Despite this, Iain Duncan Smith’s radical ideas became mainstream and much of the credit for the high level of employment now being enjoyed in Britain must go to the Centre for Social Justice’s pioneering work.   But what caused him finally to snap last month was the way in which the Treasury continued to chip away at his department’s budget, while ring-fencing favoured expenditure, not least on Overseas Aid and the EU.   

 

This year, the Overseas Aid budget will run to some £12 billion and this is due to rise to around £16 billion in 2020.   And our net contributions to the EU (including welfare payments sent abroad to dependents of EU migrants) after our rebate and transfers to the UK from the EU is running at a similar level.   Economists speak of the “multiplier effect” of public spending which can boost the UK economy, but all of this spending is precisely the opposite as it is money that leaves the UK for good.   Although we are, after Germany, the second largest contributor to the EU budget, our influence in Berlin and Brussels is precisely zero, as is clear from this year’s “reform”, when our Dave let himself be completely stitched up by Frau Merkel.   Yet like Overseas Aid the cost of our EU membership can only grow relentlessly in the years ahead, not least when the looming accession costs of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Turkey are added.   And of course the net EU budget contribution is really just an additional form of Overseas Aid.

 

So it is hardly surprising that Iain Duncan Smith finally reached the end of his tether.   Now last week I wrote about the gifted Atkinson brothers, Rowan, as in television’s Maigret, the master detective of 1950’s Paris, and Rodney, the great sage of Europe.   And there is a curious link here to Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Lancashire) and Olly Hardy.   For the Atkinsons’ entrepreneurial grandfather, who was at the cutting edge of new media in his own time, owned a cinema in North Shields which had been managed by a certain Arthur J. Jefferson.   Now Arthur J. Jefferson was none other than the Father of Stan Laurel and in 1908 he wrote a short play called “Home From the Honeymoon” on which “Another Fine Mess” was based.   All these connections give life its flavour and from the talented Atkinson brothers, through Arthur J. Jefferson’s “Home From the Honeymoon” and then Laurel and Hardy’s “Another Fine Mess”, we come to the graceless duo of Osborne and Cameron, with their botched Budget and their cack-handed efforts to give away our country to the failed construct of the EU – which is really no laughing matter at all!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby