Those Flexcit links in full

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In what I don’t think came as any surprise to anyone who’d been paying the slightest bit of attention, neither the exit campaign nor the Government had even the slightest inkling of a plan as to what to do if the people actually voted to leave. Really given they did exactly the same thing for the Scottish referendum that they’d do so again is of no shock. This has caused quite a bit of consternation amongst those that voted remain and people that expect our Government to display any degree of competence. Well the good news is that there are really quite well thought out plans out there and they’re free to download so a clever politician could just use them and not tell anyone. Equally you could read these plans and if you think they make sense urge your MP to go and do the same, having a plan will make the markets happier and make things better for everyone all round.

For those paying attention I have previously spoken of the creators of this plan is less than glowing terms and I stand by that – but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a well thought out and bloody sensible plan (you don’t have to like the messenger to appreciate the value of the message) . So here you go all the Flexcit links you need:

I’d recommend reading the first two at least, and maybe start you MP out on the second or third.

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Three excellent post #Brexit posts

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Stand togetherI’m still organizing my thoughts about the result of the EU referendum, particularly in the face of all of the vitriol and anti-democratic bile currently coming from those that voted to remain (so much for a kinder, gentler politics). So I’ll be returning to this in due course. In the meantime here are three truly excellent comments on the matter which capture quite a lot of what I’m thinking.

Rich Nolan on what the referendum was and wasn’t

What the referendum was:
A vote to leave the political institution the EU.
What the referendum was not:
Anti-Europe
A vote to leave Europe
A vote to not be Europeans
An endorsement of the Tories/Farage/Hitler.
A rejection of the free market in Europe
A statement against internationalism.
An endorsement for any manifesto (including whatever bollocks was spouted by the various campaign groups on immigration and the NHS)
A vote for England to leave the EU and a vote for Scotland to stay.
The ballot paper had ONE question on it, ‘Should the United Kingdom leave the European Union?’ and that is the only mandate which can be taken from it.
It’s time to pick ourselves up, be proud and move forward in a spirit of liberty and internationalism. Hopefully both sides can let go of the rancour and bitterness to go into renegotiations positively. It’s time to redefine what it means to be European and hopefully put forward a positive example for the other countries who may soon be implementing referendums of their own.

Brendan O’neill on the EU’s racism:

Just about had a gutful of Remain commentators saying the masses’ vote against the EU has sanctioned racism. These Remainers voted for an institution that discriminates against African and Asian migrant workers in favour of white European ones. They voted for an institution whose Fortress Europe policies have contributed to the deaths of thousands of Africans at sea. They voted for an institution whose agricultural policies have pummelled food industries in Africa (causing thousands of people in Swaziland to lose their jobs and Mozambique to lose £100m a year on its GDP, for just two examples). They voted for an institution whose restrictions on GM products have prevented African nations from creating a plentiful food supply: such “hypocrisy and arrogance comes with the luxury of a full stomach”, as one Kenyan scientist put it. And they voted for an institution that has *paid* African dictators to keep their horrible, pesky peoples from coming to Europe. Racist much?
Please, stop with the racism stuff. Your beloved EU is not some happy-clappy multicultural outfit. It is discriminatory, it fucks over Africa, and it forces non-white migrants into the most degrading, life-risking situations. You voted for that, and we voted against it, so come down off your high, white horse.

Pete North on what we actually want from negotiations with the EU.

What we actually want from negotiations with the EU is the maximum level of cooperation and openness with the EU possible. Brexit was never about ending cooperation with the EU. This was about removing the subordination aspect so that we are partners and friends and not supplicants. To that end, Ukip and the Tory right are now more my enemy than ever. I do not want to see pointless and bureaucratic immigration controls introduced in order to pacify Ukippers.
I do not want to see us pointlessly setting up new institutions to produce regulations almost identical to those of the EU. I do not want to see an end to Europol and I definitely see no value in messing around with long standing areas of cooperation which work about as well as they are ever going to. So we do not seek hostilities with the EU. We will need to moderate our attitudes to it and we will need to push hard to make sure we don’t close up shop to Europe.
We will need to reach a national consensus on how we go forward and with the vote being as close as it was, the wishes of remain voters must be taken into account.
As to those concerned about immigration, Efta does give us more of a say and more flexibility and leaving the EU does give us leverage to reform the EEA agreement in the future. But the issue here is not immigration. It is about disentangling ourselves from the EU. We must treat immigration as a secondary issue and one for discussion at a later date.
If you are Ukip inclined then it is incumbent upon you to restrain yourselves and learn the difference between EEA freedom of movement and open borders. They are not one and the same. Brexit does give us some new powers but for the time being the focus is on securing a safe and amicable transition and you hobby horse will have to wait til the dust settles. By continually picking at the scab you risk endangering the whole process.
There are several approaches to dealing with immigration, but they are all comprised of multiple incremental policies that require joined up thinking. There is no silver bullet single policy and this empty mantra of “Australian based points system” is worthless rhetoric. It’s expensive, it doesn’t work and will probably lead to more illegal immigration with fewer immigrants paying tax. It really is time for Ukippers to grow up.
The EU is not our enemy, we have friends in Europe and they all want to see this resolved peacefully and without damaging our economies and without damaging Europe’s political reputation. We should not seek to antagonise. A lot is at stake here and the world is watching. How well this works is as much to do with how we react as much as how our politicians behave.
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Reasons to vote Brexit – 1, 2, 3

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With apologies to the late, great Ian Dury for the title, I thought I might lay out why I’m in favour of leaving the EU as a matter of record and with no hope nor intention of trying to convince anyone else. I will warn you know this post is probably going to ramble quite a bit as the question of whether to leave the EU or not isn’t in some ways the simplest of things. I should observe to begin with that I’m a bit of an idealist, with classic liberal leanings and a tendency to min-archism.

So as people who’ve read this blog or follow me on facebook/twitter I’m quite firmly of the opinion that we should leave the EU. Please note that that’s the EU, not Europe, not EFTA not the EEA or anything else just the EU. This distinction has been clouded quite a bit by both sides but mainly by the remain camp. We’re part of Europe geographically, mainland Europe will be our neighbours no matter how we vote, so the idea that we’ll stop trading or co-operating with them is laughable at best. but on that note lets start by looking at the economic argument – first and foremost both sides are making meaningless pledges and the experts are guessing as much as us – because there is no precedent to base any prediction on. However lets put that aside, lets assume that leaving the EU will have bad economic consequences for at least the medium term – that’s no reason not to leave. I find it amazing that people that normally argue that there is a social aspect to wealth creation are now just all about the financial consequences. I’m also horrified that this nation has been so reduced that economics trumps all, abolishing the slave trade wasn’t a smart move economically but it was the right thing to do, giving everyone the vote cost money but was the right thing to do. The UK has a proud history of doing the right thing regardless of the cost, so to bow now before mere financial pragmatism is a betrayal of a long history and a sorry state of affairs.

The other argument I see a lot of is that there are many problems facing the world, that require global solutions. If this is this really the case, and in many instances it may well be, then why do we want to lock ourselves into a regional body diminishing our voice? Surely to tackle global problems we should be sat at the global table speaking clearly and leading the way to solve those problems? Not merging our voice into a single muted EU voice? If we agree with the EU position why would we want to reduce our vote and voice by letting the EU speak for the entire continent when we could be making additional arguments in support of the EU’s position or even arguing for even stronger action? If the problems are global then the right place to talk about them is globally not regionally in the EU.

When it comes to laws and regulations, there is nothing to stop us adopting things the EU do that we think are good, but again increasingly in a global market the EU is just rubber stamping global decisions. So why do we need the EU as a middle man when we have a place on the one global bodies could influence the decisions there and no depend on the EU to speak for us and to duplicate the same rules? Leave argue that far too many of our rules come from the EU, which is a good reason to leave, remain argue they don’t so what’s the advantage of staying if the EU has so little influence on us?

The UK is a net contributor to the EU, so everything around the UK that was “EU funded” could have been funded by the UK directly with less administrative drag. It’s just that success governments of all flavours haven’t done so, which is a UK problem not an EU solution. The EU is just painting over the issue and using expensive paint to do so.

All of the things the EU is alleged to improve turn out to be ways of either side stepping Westminster or being an expensive middleman between global bodies and local implementation. If there are problems in Westminster we should solve them there, not count on a top heavy EU to do the work for us. If things need to be solved at a global level we should be working there not muting our voices in an EU committee. On numerous matters of human rights and social justice the UK has been and is a world leader with the EU holding us back, no minimum wage in the EU, tax on tampons and energy enforced by the EU.

There is nothing to stop the UK co-operating with the rest of the world on any matter we choose, from pollution to terrorism to human rights, we don’t need the EU to do this for us. We could open our borders to the entire world rather than just the Eu if we went our own way, rather than being held back to a parochial protectionist world view by the EU. We could open our trad to the third world rather than imposing import tariffs on them, we could provide aid to the other countries with out the cost of EU bureaucracy. There is nothing that the EU does that we can’t on do on our own faster, better and more efficiently. The only reason to think we can’t is if you think that the UK electorate won’t support it and that the UK Government is beyond redemption. If you think that how do you ever imagine that the Eu can be improved or that the EU electorate is any better, except that they’ll hold us down in a numbing bog of mediocrity, where nothing much bad happens but neither does anything much good – whilst the rest of the world moves one.

So if you have no confidence in your fellow country men, no confidence in changing your Government and think that adding extra layers of bureaucracy and state control can actually improve matters then by all means vote to remain part of the EU. If on the other hand, you thing that we should be outward looking to the entire world, tackling global problems at a global level and can lead the way by example in matters from technology, to the environment to human rights then I’d suggest to you that we should leave the parochial inward lookign bureaucratic EU and resume our place at the global tables trading and working with the entire world not just our nearest neighbours.

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