Saturday 23 April 2016

Barack Obama, our fair-weather friend, is wrong about the EU

Telegraph
You also have to be unusually well-engaged to understand that Obama’s foreign policy is disengaged: he has abandoned the Middle East and took a long time to care about Russian revanchism. So Barack’s advice comes from a very fair-weather friend. But few people will know that. ..... As the Telegraph pointed out yesterday, the EU is on the brink of collapse – it is British egocentrism to imagine we’re the only ones thinking of leaving.
The European Central Bank has had to institute pump-priming and low interest rates, squeezing savers. Greece is now a dead economy and, say experts, may have to quit the euro to reanimate its industry. Italy’s banks are rotten, bordering on collapse.
Meanwhile, the continent is attracting thousands of refugees and economic migrants: fuel to the fire......
Finally, there is that claim that the EU magnifies British influence. Obama writes: “You should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery.”
Mr President, you ought to know that the EU does not practice open markets but functions as a giant cartel protecting Europe against foreign competition. You should know that the EU constantly threatens the free operation of the City. You should understand that it has undermined British democracy by subverting Parliament."

Friday 22 April 2016

Barack Obama has turned his back on democracy

CapX
Almost alone amongst US presidents, Obama has turned his back on this fundamental duty, and instead showed peoples who are struggling for sovereignty the superior sneer of the cold, haughty academic that he really is. ......Which brings us on to Britain’s own attempt to recapture ultimate control over our sovereignty from the European Union. Faced with the knowledge that foreign judges sitting in Europe and elsewhere can overrule – and in seventy cases since 1996 have indeed overruled – our own courts (including the Supreme Court), the British people are finally staging their own uprising: The British Spring. It should therefore come as no surprise that President Obama has lost no opportunity to come to London this week to try to stymie it. His actions are totally consistent with the central theme of his entire presidency: namely, to support governments against people and establishments against democratic uprisings, wherever he finds them. He stands in direct opposition to the longest and proudest tradition of the US presidency, and the British people should treat with derision his counsels on this issue, as on so many others."

Your advice on EU isn't wanted, IDS tells Obama: Senior Eurosceptic leads protests at being told to accept open borders when the US does not

Daily Mail
The MP for Chingford and Woodford Green said: 'If he believes it would be unacceptable for the American people – those he is actually elected to guide – I fail to see how it is appropriate for him to recommend that the British people continue to relinquish their right to democratic self-governance.'

Obama’s Threat to Britain

Guido Fawkes
Obama insisted the referendum decision is British voters’ and theirs alone… and then came the bombshell threat. The outgoing President secured tomorrow’s headlines by warning a US-UK trade deal post-Brexit “won’t happen any time soon” and claiming Britain “will be at the back of the queue”. Of course it’s because we’re in the EU that we don’t have a trade deal with the US. How will voters react when they see the US President threatening them on the News at Ten?
Also worth bearing in mind that currently with no trade deal in place with the US, the UK is the biggest investment partner already and the US is the biggest investor in the UK ($324 billion). UK investment in the US last year was $282 billion. Over a million Americans work for British companies and over a million Britons are employed by American companies. We are already at the front of the queue doing $56 billion of transatlantic trade last year…

The gospel according to Obama: President preaches at the British people and issues extraordinary warning that 'the UK will be at the back of the queue' for trade deals with America if it leaves the EU

Daily Mail
But Justice Minister and Vote Leave spokesman Dominic Raab immediately hit back at Mr Obama.
He said: 'The President made clear that uncontrolled immigration into the EU is a threat to national security. I agree - that is why it is safer to take back control so that we can stop terror suspects from Europe coming into the UK.
'He argued that he thinks it is in America's interests for the UK to stay in the EU but what is good for US politicians is not necessarily good for the British people.
'We want more international cooperation after we Vote Leave, but the EU is not fit for purpose, and cannot cope with the multiple crises we face like terrorism, Syria and mass migration.
'The US would not dream of opening its border with Mexico, so it is hypocritical for President Obama to insist that we do the same with Europe.' 


Obama Lets Rip In 'Blockbuster' EU Intervention

Sky News
Although Mr Obama said he hadn’t come to the UK "to fix any votes", he abandoned all diplomatic restraint about not meddling in another country’s politics. And he let rip! ......This has been the most controversial and provocative intervention in British politics by an American president in living memory. "

Tuesday 19 April 2016

EU Facts: George Osborne's 'Brexit costs you £4,300' dossier decoded

Telegraph
By contrast, Open Europe, a think-tank, has suggested that getting rid of red tape could mean gains worth as much as 1.3 per cent of GDP and turn Brexit into a net economic positive for the UK.   The Open Europe paper may be hard for the Treasury to dismiss, since it was co-written by Mats Person, now an EU adviser to David Cameron in Downing Street."

7 risks in voting Remain - Daniel Hannan @DanHannanMEP

CapX
1. Deeper integration
2. More bailouts
3. A European Army
4. Rule by Euro-judges
5. Shrinking Europe
6. Refugee quotas
7. Treated with contempt      

The Government is doing everything in its power to rig the EU Referendum

Telegraph
Last week, just before the rules imposing limits on expenditure by the authorised Referendum campaign organisations, that faction splurged more than £9 million on the distribution of its dodgy dossier to every household in the country. More than Vote Leave, the Brexit campaign, will be allowed to spend in the ten weeks of the campaign.
It would have been far more informative and certainly more fair had Mr Cameron admitted that the laws made in Brussels override our UK law made in our Parliament and that our "Supreme" Court is inferior to the European Court.
The Government has done everything it can to rig the whole campaign to favour the Remain campaign, but despite that, the polls (for what they are worth) suggest that the two sides are pretty evenly divided and that the outcome may yet be decided by events between now and the referendum."

Why I think Brexit is the right choice - Michael Gove

Spectator
It is a fact that the EU is a multi-national federation with no democratically elected leader or Government, with policies decided by a central bureaucracy, with a mock parliament which enjoys no popular mandate for action and with peripheries which are either impoverished or agitating for secession."

Tory MPs’ Verdict on Osborne "Fair to say Project Fear turned into Project Utter Crap today"

Guido Fawkes
Now Osborne is claiming tax will go up. This is getting childish and ridiculous. Next, plague of frogs if we #Brexit?#VoteLeave  "

Britain’s political class risks losing the authority to govern

CapX
Bruce Anderson is backing the Prime Minister David Cameron in his efforts to persuade the UK to stay in the EU. He explained why in a recent piece on CapX. Anderson’s friend, Lord Salisbury‎, a former Leader of the House of Lords, and a board member of CapX, disagrees forcefully and published an open letter in reply to Anderson. After a series of correspondence, Salisbury offers his concluding thoughts today."

Thursday 7 April 2016

EU referendum: £9m cost of taxpayer-funded leaflet warning about the 'damage' of Brexit angers Eurosceptics

Telegraph
Mr Johnson, who attends Mr Cameron’s political Cabinet, called the leaflet a “complete waste of money” and said that it is a “biased and hysterical warning”.
Vote Leave, which is chaired by Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, said it was a “disgraceful” use of public money and immediately accused Downing Street of announcing the leaflet “to distract from accusations over David Cameron’s tax affairs”.

Let’s be brutally honest: this remain campaign is failing

Guardian
In contrast, the remain movement has so far been lacklustre, to say the least. Almost everyone seems to have left it to the prime minister. But David Cameron is hardly Mr Popular, and seems to be mimicking his general election behaviour: periodically rolling up his sleeves, and saying he’s getting on with it."

Do Remain campaigners think they’re the only ones with kids?


What strikes me as dodgier is to insist that we should vote Remain “for our children”. Do Euro-integrationists imagine that the rest of us don’t have children? Or that we don’t care about them?
Helen Lovejoy, the pastor’s wife in The Simpsons, has a tendency to shriek “Oh won’t somebody please think of the children?” in support of wholly contradictory positions. The writers of that venerable sitcom are brilliantly parodying the way in which some campaigners substitute facile moral posturing for rational persuasion. It’s the sort of thing that raises an occasional round of applause on Question Time (“Speaking as a mother, I find it disgusting…”) It’s a trifle disappointing when David Cameron indulges in the same tactic. "

Juncker Mail: Taxpayer Charged £9.3 Million For Pro-EU Leaflets

Guido Fawkes
26 million households will be sent the government’s pro-EU leaflets before the referendum at a cost of £6.4 million, with another £2.9 million spent on a social media campaign. The taxpayer is funding the Remain campaign on a massive scale…  "