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Monday 3 February 2020

Prime Minister emerges from under his bushel

I have only one recommendation today - to watch the Prime Minister's Greenwich speech in full. This was not the painstakingly careful cautious Boris of the December hustings, the Boris protecting himself with a stuttering duffer act, but a keystone speech by a Statesman of undoubted intellectual grasp and vision. He damned the mercantilists and protectionists both, and spent half-an-hour championing the great freedom of trade, Smith and Ricardo. It will make uncomfortable viewing for the EU. He set out Britain's new place in the world as a newly independent State, deprecated the actions of both the EU and the US in blocking free trade and committed his government to catalysing trade against the sclerotic myopia that blinds both to its benefits. 

After half a century of travelling the wrong path, the UK is back on course (my underlining) -
.. we will always co-operate with our European friends in foreign and defence policy whenever our interests converge – as they often, if not always, will – this will not in my view necessarily require any new treaty or institutions because we will not need them for the simple reason that the UK is not a European power by treaty or by law but by irrevocable facts of history and geography and language and culture and instinct and sentiment.

And I say to our European friends – many of whom I’m delighted to see in this room – we are here as ever, as we have been for decades, for centuries, to support and to help as we always have done for the last hundred years or more and the reason I stress this need for full legal autonomy, the reason we do not seek membership or part membership of the customs union or alignment of any kind, is at least partly that I want this country to be an independent actor and catalyst for free trade across the world.
He also blasted the jejune slurs of the dysfunctional left for the pathetic untruths that they are. Our social and environmental protections exceed the EU's - he quoted chapter and verse, available for all to reference within the full text of the speech. Neither would we be selling the NHS to the US. And neither would M. Barnier get any rights at all over the UK's EEZ waters -
We are ready to consider an agreement on fisheries, but it must reflect the fact that the UK will be an independent coastal state at the end of this year 2020, controlling our own waters.

And under such an agreement, there would be annual negotiations with the EU, using the latest scientific data, ensuring that British fishing grounds are first and foremost for British boats.
The reality is that our own fishing industry has been run down for half a century, ever since Grocer Heath gave it away. That capacity won't come back overnight - not just boats and crews, but boatyards and slips, piers and moorings, processing and freezing plants, markets, transport infrastructure and the entire tail of the nascent industry. For as many years as it takes to rebuild UK capacity, we will licence EU vessels to catch fish in our waters. Those catch totals will only diminish - never grow - but how quickly or slowly depends in great part on the speed with which we will rebuild.

This will not always be easy. This is a yard I knew well in Newhaven that built fishing boats under 20m - it is still there (at least on Google maps) but many more are not, replaced by ubiquitous jerry-built waterside apartments with galvanised balconettes and through-colour renders.

  
The Prime Minister helped scotch fears that his team was about to trade away British waters for the commercial gents in the City. It seems the commercial gents are supremely relaxed about EU threats anyway - and only Globalist mouthpieces such as the CBI are raising this as an issue. As Roger Bootle writes in the Telegraph
The fishing industry will, I think, be the litmus test. Apparently, Brussels is going to try to secure continued full access to British waters by trading this off against access to EU markets for the UK's financial services industry. The fishing industry may be pretty insignificant economically - and especially in comparison to financial services - yet it has enormous political importance.

It was sold out by Edward Heath, the then prime minister at the last moment during the negotiations that took Britain into the EU in 1973. And fishing is of particular significance in Scotland. The SNP wants to keep Scotland in the EU. If we sell out the fishing industry again this will be seen as a massive betrayal, especially in Scotland.
As for the financial services industry, that is a different kettle of fish - as it were. The EU needs the City of London as much, if not more, than the City needs the EU. If the EU makes things difficult for British financial services firms then it will be cutting off its nose to spite its face. Meanwhile, the City will thrive, as it always has done, selling services, including new ones based on fintech, around the world.
Guido carries a full video of the speech. Sit back, clutch drink of choice and enjoy!
Prime Minister - Greenwich - 3rd February 2020 

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought his speech was rather good as well. Hindsight being what it is one can clearly see where we could have been by now had that awful May not been there chewing the cud for three years. Anyway, per ardua ad astra folks.

Steve

DiscoveredJoys said...

Boris' speech works for me. I think it is significant that he has chosen to make pursuit of Free Trade a guiding principle. It seems more probable now that instead of ending up with a 'Brexit in name only' we will end up with a 'no deal lite'.

I always though Brexit was important and beneficial for the UK. Perhaps it will be beneficial globally too.

JPM said...

"I would rather be dead in a ditch than not leave the EU on October 31st" etc. etc. etc. - Alexander Johnson.

DiscoveredJoys said...

@JPM

"I would rather be dead in a ditch than not leave the EU on October 31st" etc. etc. etc. - Alexander Johnson.

...and had it not been for the sabotage of the Remainers in Parliament we would have been.

JPM said...

So why isn't he in that ditch, even metaphorically?

Because, like Trump, he is a compulsive liar.

Isn't he?

DeeDee99 said...

Good speech; clearly setting out what our objectives are both to the EU and the wider world.

However, Free Trade mustn't mean that the likes of China are able to continue dumping their heavily subsidised steel on us. Some industries must be protected - in our national interest.

Anonymous said...

JPM. You still here?

I thought you’d have left for France by now.

Span Ows said...

yes, very good, almost starting to have hope that he will pull it all off...this sort of real - backed by facts - optimistism has been missing for years.

I posted on this as well and I think it worth listening to the questions as well. He doesn't let any of them 'ruin the moment' although at least three tried to. He also made clear - in answers to questions re terrorisim stabbings etc - he would stop the absolutely ridiculous automatic early release.

Span Ows said...

JPM 17:40, I am guessing from you idiotic pap that you are still crying over the 'lies' on the bus as well.

John Brown said...

A very good speech by our PM and I particularly liked the way he called the EU’s bluff on insisting upon a level playing field in order for the UK to obtain an FTA by showing how the UK’s standards are better than the EU’s and how the UK has a much better record on such issues as state subsidies than other major EU countries.

He omitted to mention that the corporation tax rate for many EU countries is well below that of the UK.

Tom Paine said...

He’s saying all the right things. It was an excellent speech. It remains to be seen if he can deliver I wish him luck.

Anonymous said...

Goodbye Gibraltar

#162

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/communication-annex-negotiating-directives.pdf

JPM said...

Anon, why?

There are far more of us than there are of the fanatics such as haunt these sites.

Given the demographic, their numbers dwindle ever more rapidly too.

I don't hang around the the BetFreds of Batley or of Basildon anyway, so I hardly see them anyway.

Anonymous said...

Remainers don't die apparently. Must be some magic elixir that supporting the EU provides.
It's sneering like this that galvanised the Leave campaign. Keep going old chap.
Jaded

JPM said...

It's just facts. Look at the demographic of the votes, anon.

There aren't new generations of people schooled with pre war geography books, where a large part of the world was pink, coming along to replace those who turn up their toes either.

And thanks for supporting my earlier suggestion as to the real reason for much of the Leave vote.

It's good though, that the European Union is in effect offering a Two State Solution to this hopelessly divided country, with its Associate Citizenship proposal - can't wait.

Dave_G said...


If the EU is all it is claimed to be (by some) then support for it would be upwards of 65%.... Real life suggests otherwise (50/50 at best, some report under 50% support) but we'll never really know as the EU eschews voting and would make people vote again if they lost since 'people don't understand the question'.

The EU is in a Leave/Reamin situation with the Remain side refusing to acknowledge the problems their own policies are creating - witness the pan-EU protests.

It's this disconnect from reality that will bring the EU down as sticking ones head in the sand is not a 'solution'. Nor is 'more of the same'.

People like JPM will be the cause of the EUs demise, not the saviours of it.

I think JPM has a 'Clinton comlex' - refusal to accept facts. And is likely as maniacal as her too...

Andrew Douglas said...

It’s time to scotch JPM's call to demographics as proof that Remain will ultimately win.

1. As people get older they value pragmatism over idealism, ie become more conservatism. The ranks of patriots lost to death are constantly replenished by people growing up.

2. It’s no longer about Remaining, but Rejoining. A much harder argument, as what we would be rejoining would have moved away from us, and presumably on worse terms.

3. All the evidence (including the Remain campaign) suggests that support for the EU was at best tepid, and relied upon not risking the benefits of the status quo. Well the status quo has changed now. Get used to it.

4. With a massive reduction in EU derived immigration, the votes won’t be swinging in a rejoinerly direction.

Span Ows said...

Nicely stated Andrew.

JPM, the demographics of the Dec 2019 match - almost exactly - that of the referendum: youth and younger age groups voted for Corbyn. Think about that for a minute or two.

JPM said...

I'm not in any way campaigning for the UK to rejoin the European Union, because without fundamental constitutional change, along with much else, its presence would continue to be as damaging to the project as it has been for much of its membership.

In the broad circles in which I move, most people whom I meet are not Leave voters, however, and those whom I do meet are generally reasonable, moderate people, not silly obsessives.

Unknown said...

So your 'broad circles' by your own admission don't generally include the 52% - Are you sure you don't work for the BBC?

JPM said...

The fifty two percent is of those who voted in the referendum old boy, which translates to just twenty-six percent of the population.

That fifty million of us who did not vote Leave provides plenty of company, and as I said, most Leave voters are not like the fixated fantasists who frequent these threads anyway.

The ones in the village local generally fall into the sentimental nostalgic bracket, and are rather charming.

So we're going nowhere.

DiscoveredJoys said...

@JPM

Using your bizarre calculations if 50 million did not vote Leave then 51 million did not vote Remain.

Anonymous said...

I liked the Johnson speech but find the government's pronouncements on petrol cars and other green issues somewhat disconcerting.
M.

Dave_G said...


JPMs 'movement in broad circles' therefore includes a large percentage of minors - according to his distribution of people who didn't vote leave....

Bill Quango MP said...

I doubt if associate membership is ever seriously proposed, that take up rates for uk citizens would account for more than 1% of the population.

Which is fitting. As it is the 1% who are most in favour of it.

Oldrightie said...

I used to consider "Cheesy" comical. Now just a sour, pathetic individual with the status I reserve for those I consider a waste of human skin. Do take a break. Come back when we have rejoined the EUSSR. I expect to be long gone from this mortal coil by then. Albeit heavily replaced, I suspect by those much younger than I. Ergo loathers of the EUSSR, lovers of Europe.

Elby the Beserk said...

All very good. Sadly, irrelevant, as BJ's insane NetZero and electic car and taking out gas boilers will reduce the economy to rubble.

Never mind eh?

Elby the Beserk said...


Anonymous JPM said...
"I would rather be dead in a ditch than not leave the EU on October 31st" etc. etc. etc. - Alexander Johnson.


3 February 2020 at 17:07
==============================

Boring for England again I see. It was not Johnson's fault we didn't leave then, rather the establishment who were hell bent on stopping Brexit, or in May's case, making any exit meaningless - BRINO.

What's your point in posting that? Apart from confirming your status as a barrel-scraping troll