LIVE24SEVEN // Spotlight On Business THOUGHT S FOR F E B RUAR Y 2 0 1 7 Digby Lord
So, Dear Reader, the Notice to be served by our country under Article 50 of the Treaty of Rome in order to trigger the two year notice period for leaving the European Union is now just a few short weeks away…
‘and about time too!" I hear millions saying as, at last, reality is given to the democratic wish of the British people expressed last June.
IWhat will we notice after the Notice is served?
Well...not a lot frankly.
What will we notice after the Notice is served?
Well...not a lot frankly.
If I were advising Monsieur Barnier (the French Eurocrat, a tautologous expression if ever there was one!) on negotiating this enormously important deal (and there are a fair few UK Civil Servants who obviously wish they were; batting for the other side or what!) I would tell him to do absolutely nothing. Just wait. As we approach the two year deadline, the plan would be, Les Rosbifs will want us more than we'll want them and they will give in to our punishing demands and be grateful for a few crumbs off our table,
Jones
(he UK has previous on that one; just ask the fishermen of our nation about how Heath & Co surrendered our wonderful fishing industry in 1973 in our pathetic eagerness to join "the EU gang").
The UK Government should leave not a second wasted in setting up trade deals with that extremely important part of our planet, the bit that's bigger than the EU, the bit that's more important than the EU, the bit that's growing and not going backwards, the bit that's where we already do more trade than with the
EU...the
RoW...the Rest of the World. The Remoaners go on about how we are not allowed to negotiate with any country until we are out of the EU, but we can set it all up, surely?! And what exactly are they going to do about it if we do? We should behave like good Europeans and break the rules…Monsieur Barnier's Countrymen know all about that!
Mrs May and her team should then very publicly (a cracking speech in, say, Berlin should do it) ask if it is possible to remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union, but take back control of our borders and have our judges no longer submissive to the nameless, faceless wonders in Luxembourg. The (sadly predictable) response will be a resounding, "Nein!" Presumably on the basis that, "If you do that, they'll all want it". Go figure Frau Merkel! Maybe slavish, inflexible adherence to a bankrupt 60-year-old ideology isn't what several democracies in the EU
want...and if you continue to ram it down their throats you'll only have yourself to blame when more and different electorates vote against your ideology when they can and the whole caboodle blows up in your face.
The Prime Minister should then, again very publicly (a speech in Sunderland or South Wales should do nicely) conclude that whilst those still indulging in the GRS (for instance, the Financial Times has become the Propaganda Sheet for the Great Remain Sulk with balance and objectivity massive casualties) will say they respect the democratic wishes of the Electorate but, they clearly do no such thing since above all else what people voted for was control of their borders (not "no immigration") and control of their Justice System, even at a cost to their wallets. That will mean leaving the Single Market. That is giving meaning to the democratic wish of the UK Electorate.
Mrs May should then publicly conclude that the only course open to the country, forced upon her by the ideological intransigence of unelected people in Brussels, is to leave the EU without seeking continued membership of the Single Market or the Customs Union.
In the last remarks of that speech she should say that she therefore accepts that if no deal is done on tariffs and other non-tariff barriers to trade then the World Trade Organisation rules will apply and so let's just stop the posturing and go home; we will wait for the two year period to elapse and we're off to the races with every Ford Focus (from Valencia in Spain), Mondeo (Cologne in Germany), Skoda (Czech Republic) and Volvo (Sweden) becoming at least 10% more expensive in the UK at once. The deals we will do with the RoW will of course make non-EU made cars even cheaper in the UK than they are today. Oh and please Monsieur Barnier, tell BMW that their 7-Series just got 10% more expensive as against a Jaguar XJL in BMW's second largest export market. Get the picture? If the light doesn't
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