This is taken from Roger Helmer‘s blog. The original can be found here.

Dear Sir John,

I am sure you will remember the memorable night in Huntingdon — in 1978 I think — when I had the privilege of voting for you as the Conservative Candidate for the Huntingdon Constituency.  I believe we have met once or twice since.

I have just read your piece in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, and it is such a litany of old, tired and discredited clichés, and slogans from years ago, that I really have to take issue with some of your points.

“Reckless to divorce ourselves from the world’s pre-eminent trading block”.  Pre-eminent?  The only major economic area in the world in long term relative decline?  Shouldn’t we be looking outward to the rest of the world (including the Anglosphere and the Commonwealth) where the growth and the opportunities are?  And who said “divorce”?  We simply want to be good neighbours, not bad tenants.  We want to be an independent, democratic, globally-engaged trading nation — not a province in a supranational structure, or a star on someone else’s flag.

“As a member state, the UK can and does influence on European policies”.  Not very often, John.  We are outvoted more than any other member state.  Sometimes our diplomats sigh and vote in favour of what they disagree with, just to avoid emphasising our isolation.  Again and again the British Government tries to object, but has to back down.  As an MEP for 17 years, I speak of what I know.  Mind you Cameron can get a concession on the tampon tax a few weeks ahead of the Referendum (in an evidently choreographed move).  But don’t expect more concessions if we vote to remain.

“On issues such as environment and climate change the UK can best progress …. with the Europeans”.  You have perhaps not noticed that EU energy and climate policies, with their obsessive reliance on intermittent and expensive renewables, are creating “an industrial massacre in Europe” (to quote former Industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani’s telling phrase).  We are driving energy-intensive industries out of the EU altogether, taking their jobs and their investment with them, and arguably increasing global emissions in the process.

“In the EU, the UK is better able to face up to the aggressive policies of other nations” — and later you cite Putin’s Russia.  Please John, stop singing off the old song sheet and try looking around you.  In which foreign conflicts has the EU helped us?  Of course Russia is to blame for its Ukraine invasion, but many would argue that the EU provoked the Bear by cosying up to Ukraine — then turned and ran when the Bear roared.  Look at the pathetic failure of the EU to address the migrant crisis.  Our security depends on NATO, not the EU, and of course we will remain in NATO.

”It would be sheer folly to put all this at risk”. To put all what at risk?  You argue that the British economy has done better than the EU average.  Great.  But you make no case that we have done better than if we had been outside.

“Suppose we left — what are the risks?”   And John, if we stay, what are the risks?  Will the €urozone implode?  Will migrant numbers overwhelm the EU’s administrative capacity?  Will Merkel give EU passports to her million migrants, just to see the back of them?  If Turkey joins the EU as promised, how many Turks will exercise the right to free movement?  Four million?  Five million?  It’s not unrealistic to expect a million in the UK.  And Turkey will solve its migrant problem by giving a couple of million Turkish passports to migrants and sending them west.  The real risk, John, is Remaining.

“The argument that the EU needs our market…is disingenuous.  More bluntly, it is sheer fantasy”.  Maggie said you can’t buck the markets, and she was right.  When we leave, we will be the EU’s largest customer, and largest net customer, in the whole world.  Bar none.  Yet you think they’ll put that at risk.  Despite the massive trade imbalance, you make some specious argument about percentages of GDP.  But percentages don’t pay the ferryman, John.  Folding money does.  And they can’t ignore the huge business we provide.

When Boris mentioned the Canada Trade Agreement, merely as a broad outline, he was immediately attacked because it includes a 10% duty on cars.  But we buy nearly double the value of cars from the continent as they buy from us.  If there’s any disruption to the cross-channel car trade, the CEOs of Mercedes and BMW and Audi will be kicking the Commission’s door in.   Digby Jones said we’d have a free trade deal in 24 hours.  Meantime on BBC World at 0ne today a Canadian Trade Negotiator said the reason the EU/Canada deal took so long was the time taken to sort out issues between 28 member states.  A UK/Canada deal would be much more straightforward.

Remember John that the Treaties require the EU to negotiate favourable trade terms with neighbouring countries.

“If we wish to do a deal in services — it may be a long time coming”.  You may be familiar with TISA,  the Trade In Services Agreement, which the UK would certainly accede to and is a much better platform for financial services than the EU alone.

“The price of any trade deal with the EU is we must accept free movement of people”.  Why?  Do Canada or Korea have free movement?  No.  So why should we?  And why is the EU the only major trading organisation (of course it’s not a free trade area) that seeks to conflate free trade with all sorts of extraneous factors?  Same comments on the EU budget.  Why?  Given the trade imbalance, they should pay for access to our market.

“Our departure would weaken Europe”.  I’m elected in the interests of British voters, John, so Europe isn’t my prime concern.  But Brexit will be a beginning, not an end.  Across Europe citizens are fed up with the EU’s stultifying model, with immigration and austerity.  I think that soon after Brexit we will see pressure from other member states for referenda, either to leave the EU, or at least to achieve radical change.  I envisage a Europe in ten or fifteen years of independent, democratic nation states, linked by free trade and voluntary intergovernmental negotiation.

Once again, Britain will have saved itself by its exertions, and Europe by its example.

Yours sincerely.  Roger Helmer MEP

The answer to this very vexing question has become clear to me recently. I have an admission, and that’s why I have asked the editorial team to use the ‘Staff Writer’ author name so I remain anonymous: I’m using a dating site. No, I’m not cheating on a wife, I’m not married, but this is the kind of thing one doesn’t shout about to the whole world.

The site I’m using, which is a good quality site and is populated with only the nicest people (mostly professionals, and they can all write properly, no txtspk), has a political drop-down selection in your profile. The choices are:

• Ask me later (I have seen the odd one)
• I have no interest in politics (50% pick this)
• Right of Centre (there’s a few, and it’s what UKIPpers have to use)
• Conservative (lots of this one)
• Labour (some of this one)
• Liberal Democrat (surprisingly a lot of these)
• Green (a handful)
• Socialist (more about them later)
• Left of Centre (used by socialists who don’t want to admit it)
• Communist (not seen any of them yet)
• Anarchic (nor seen any of them)

Noteworthy is the lack of UKIP as a choice.

I have communicated (mail, phone calls, and some initial meetings) with a few ladies who admit to voting UKIP as well! And, what is interesting is you can talk to any of them, whatever their persuasion, bar Socialists, and they will treat you like a normal human being who in a free world makes his own choices.

I found this quite surprising for those ticking Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green. They will happily have a political discussion with you and not get on their high horses … as long as you don’t get on yours!

Of course, those choosing Conservatives are the most likely to ‘score’, and many of them will admit to considering UKIP but be dissuaded by what the BBC or MSM told them, or didn’t tell them.

Those voting Green are also blithely unaware of the international socialist agenda of the Green Party, buried deep in its 2015 manifesto.

But, when it comes to Socialists, and closet Socialists (the “Left of Centres”), we are on a different planet. The minute they realise you are UKIP, or fervently want to get out of the EU, that’s it mate, you are persona non grata. You might have had half an hour or more of pleasant and relationship-building chat on the phone, and suddenly it’s like a switch is thrown. They can get quite unpleasant about it as well. You’re a “little Englander”, a “waycist”, have a “closed mind”, you’re not a decent human being basically, in their books.

That’s it. All over. They go stomping off the find a like-minded individual who will violently agree with their warped anti-democratic, politically correct, big government, green-taxing, open borders, Jeremy-is-wonderful and Obama-is-wonderful view of the world.

Why are they so different to everyone else? I’m not a psychologist, but I wonder if they are insane? Mind you, in their estimation, the rest of the world is insane for wanting true democracy, free speech, small government, cheap energy and transport, secure borders and politicians who aren’t called Jeremy or Obama.

We live and learn.

How should we celebrate a Referendum Win?

Should we celebrate? Of course we should but our celebrations need to tempered by the fact that we still need “our” government to comply.  Given the lies and scaremongering of the “IN” campaign and, in particular, David Cameron we need to remain vigilant and prepared to use all necessary means to ensure that compliance.

Some of us might remember from our school history lessons the events of 1215 and later leading up to the Magna Carta and its various later editions, now largely ignored by those in government. However the memorials at Runnymede still remain as a reminder. Those memorials carry the following inscription:

In these Meads on 15th June 1215 King John at the instance of Deputies from the whole community of the Realm granted the Great Charter the earliest of constitutional documents whereunder ancient and cherished customs were confirmed abuses redressed and the administration of justice facilitated new provisions formulated for the preservation of peace and every individual perpetually secured in the free enjoyment of his life and property.

I doubt that any of our politicians are regular visitors to Runnymede; I also doubt that many have even heard of it or the events which those memorials celebrate.  In any case most have certainly chosen to ignore that part of our history. The coming referendum is of far greater significance for our future than those long past events.

How might we celebrate?

Aside from the obvious and conventional ways of celebration we need to ensure that the day is not forgotten, particularly by those in government. One possibility would be a new national holiday on “Independence Day”. I’m sure that there is at least one existing bank holiday which could be moved and re-named without losing another working day.

Let us also not forget that we need to keep our politicians in line and remind them daily that they are there to serve the people, not to pursue their own agendas or those of the federal state across the Channel. One part of that reminding might be a new monument in Parliament Square bearing the original Runnymede inscription together with a clearly stated declaration of our independence. We can easily afford to pay for a grand structure out of our savings in EU contributions and could have a design competition to produce something which could not be ignored by those passing by.

The ongoing battle

Clearly there is much to be done in disentangling ourselves from the EU and its regulations so readily accepted by governments past and present. Those of us who remember life before the EU know that all EU derived law could simply be repealed; life could go on much as it did in 1973. Such a move would likely be opposed by the army of special interest groups which now exist. However I would argue that would be a good starting point; far better that we add our own necessary laws than try to eliminate the many unnecessary ones which have emanated from the EU. In any case I am uncomfortable with such decisions being left to the squabbling rabble in the HoC (with apologies to the very few who don’t fit that description).

Whatever the chosen approach – this is a major undertaking and needs to be planned, just like any major project such as the Channel Tunnel, HS2 or a NASA space flight. To quote a common saying: “to fail to plan is to plan to fail”. I doubt that there are any experienced project managers amongst our politicians; I can only bring to mind a few who had successful real careers prior to entering the world of politics.

Even in the wider world of government employees all we seem to see is spectacular failure to manage major projects. So it seems to me that a project management team needs to be put in place using people who have real world project management experience with a clear brief as to what is necessary. Of course they will need to be supported by others qualified in matters of law, accountancy and any other profession directly affected by the changes.

As of now I see no plan in place for what could happen after the 23 June. Maybe that should be taken as an indication that our referendum result, like that of the Dutch, is intended to be ignored.

Ed Hoskins writes:

I am an ex-pat in France. In spite of the mess it’s likely to cause me directly, I am 100% for Brexit. The EU has far exceeded the mandate I and many others throughout the UK and Europe gave it from 1975 onwards.

The crazy thing is that the “Common Market” that was sold to the unwitting people of Europe in 1975 was all that was needed to maintain peace in Europe. The European peoples were duped because the real unifying intent of the EU ‘Project’ was never disclosed.

It is the EU’s overweening and vain political ambition of “ever closer union” that has destroyed the laudable aim of a real “Common Market”. The EU is bound to collapse under the weight of its undemocratic anachronisms within 20 years or less.

Some of the EU‘s major failures include:

• its currency experiment, the Euro. It has failed because of the inconsistent quality of the economies that have been co-opted into it, leading to severe youth unemployment and economic disaster in its Southern Nations;
• its uncontrolled borders, internal and external, are unable to exert control over malign influences;
• overregulation in all sectors of the economy with major burdens on business whether they have any trade with the EU or not;
• an overarching and unaccountable legal system undermining established National legislatures;
• it’s fatuous energy policies, which are destroying the economies of its participant Nations;
• appallingly naïve and dangerous foreign policy decisions such as those with the Ukraine;
• etc.

There is now huge democratic dissatisfaction within the EU nations, and it is escalating. Referenda in France, the Netherlands and Ireland have been simply ignored. The Dutch and the Finnish people have just defied Brussels. 25% of the French voted for Marine le Pen in the first round of their recent elections this year. The list of the disaffected goes on.

It seems that whenever the people are given a chance to oppose Brussels they take it. I trust it will be the same in the UK in June. As even Gorbachev himself has said, “the EU has gotten just as undemocratic as the old USSR”.

You can defy democracy and keep the cork in the bottle for only so long. In the end  the people will revolt. The fact that there is a referendum in the UK, the second largest economy in the EU, means that the questions are being asked ever louder right across the EU.

Whatever the outcome – just asking the question in the UK casts real doubt on the ‘European Project’. If the EU continues for the longer term, its demise could even turn violent.

If they achieve BREXIT the Brits will do all the people of Europe a huge favour. This will put down a marker that will accelerate the demise of the EU and show the way.

BREXIT could advance the collapse of the house of cards that is the EU, so it might only take 5 years instead of 20. Cutting the loss quickly will be much less painful.

As the Chinese sage Confucian’s curse says, “May you live in interesting times”.

Keep up the good work!

[Ed: posted and slightly adapted with the permission of the blog owner Rog Tattersall, where this article was published earlier.]

The government leaflet urging us to vote to stay in the EU is full of lies and deceit designed to put Britain’s membership of the EU in a positive light. 

Page 1:  An important decision for the UK

“The UK has “secured” a special status in a reformed EU”

Not true. Leading EU figures have confirmed time and again that Cameron’s so-called “reforms” are not legally binding. They are not therefore “secured” at all. In addition, the “reforms” Cameron re-negotiated were criticised by many UK politicians and commentators as being virtually worthless.

“We will not join the euro”

There is no guarantee that the UK will not be made to join the euro at a later date.

“We will keep our own border controls”

What this means is that the UK will be able to prevent immigrants from the Commonwealth (descendants of those who fought and died for us during two world wars) and the rest of the world. The UK can do nothing to stop 508 million EU citizens from living in the UK. Even worse, millions of migrants moving to the EU have an automatic  right to move anywhere in the EU, including the UK, after they have lived in the EU for 5 years.

“The UK will not be part of further European political integration”

Not true as this is not legally binding, as stated above.

“There will be tough new restrictions on access to our welfare system for new EU migrants”

This will apply for only 4 years! In addition, migrants come to the UK for the higher wages and not, in the main, for benefits.

“We have a commitment to reduce EU red tape”

This is another airy-fairy promise which has little or no chance of being implemented. As Lord Lawson has pointed the acquis communautaire is part of the EU’s DNA. It will never ever allow any reduction of its powers to control its members.  It is ludicrous to imagine that in a club of 28 nations each nation has its own rules.

Page 3: A stronger economy

Not true. The UK has a national debt of nearly £1.7 trillion. Osborne has been totally unable to eliminate the annual deficit which still runs at about £90 billion/annum.

“The EU is by far the UK’s largest trading partner. EU countries buy 44% of everything we sell abroad”

In fact, the rest of the world is our largest trading partner with 56% of everything we sell abroad!

(For a briefing on our trade with the EU see my note “UK – EU Trade: The Myth Exposed”)

“Remaining inside the EU guarantees our full access to its single market”

True but what this statement implies is a lie, as it gives the impression that we would not necessarily have access to the single market after BREXIT. In fact, every country in the world already has full access to the single market as Appendix 1 of Ref 1 (see link above)proves.

“By contrast, leaving creates uncertainty and risk”

Scaremongering. Leaving the EU enables the UK to open up trade deals with all 197 countries in the world, not just the 27 in the EU customs union which is rapidly reducing in effectiveness. Staying in creates uncertainty and risk as the UK has no control over EU decisions. It has failed to overturn EU decisions in 70 out 70 cases so far. Furthermore, the economies of the PIIGS are in dire straits and the UK is liable to bail them out when they collapse again. This is an outrageous misrepresentation of the most probable consequences of staying in or leaving.

“The EU’s single market has 500 million customers”

So what! The Commonwealth has well over 2 billion customers and the rest of the world has over another 5 billion customers. In any case the figure of 500 million customers is wrong as it includes the UK population which would exist if we were in the EU or not.

“The Single Market makes it easier and cheaper for UK companies to sell their products outside the UK …”

Not true. In 2014 the cost to the UK economy of being in the EU was estimated to be £185 billion. This must be seen as an overhead on the whole of the UK’s activities particularly exports to countries outside the EU. As to making it easier and cheaper: even the government has admitted in this leaflet that they need to reduce EU red tape, see above. These statements contradict each other.

“…. creating jobs as a result”

Not true. The EU has cost Britons untold numbers of jobs. Uncontrolled immigration has allowed millions of low paid workers into the country denying Britons employment and reducing wage levels as well. The EU has physically cost us thousands of jobs in the fishing industry and engineering. The lack of support to the steel industry due to EU rules is just the latest example.

“Being inside the EU also makes it more attractive for companies to invest in the UK, meaning more jobs.”

Not true. See the report “Where’s the insider advantage?” by Michael Burrage, published by Civitas. This analysis confirms that “There is no case that EU membership is good for UK exports or for foreign direct investment”. The government is lying yet again in this statement.

Page 4: Over 3 million UK jobs are linked to exports to the EU

This is another statement designed to give a false impression. At least they are not claiming that the jobs depend on being in the EU as Blair, Clegg and many others have done in the past! However, by their own figures it means that 27 million UK jobs have nothing to do with exports to the EU. Yet all 30 million or so UK jobs are subject to the EU’s red tape and the £185 billion/annum overhead of being in the EU. Hence OUT of the EU our economy can grow much faster as we a) will not have to give our money to our competitors in the EU and b) will be able to eliminate or substantially reduce the £185 billion per year overhead cost of being in the EU.

Page 5: Improving our lives – Cost of living

“….put pressure on the value of the pound…..risking higher prices ….”

This is likely to have a very short term effect. It also ignores the real facts. Our standard of living would rise after Brexit as the EU already charges UK householders up to an extra £1,000/year to pay, out of their taxed take home pay, for the CAP, VAT and EU green levies on our energy costs. That is double taxation over which we have no say or control. In addition, it costs all householders an extra £500 to pay for the UK’s contribution to the EU’s budget. After BREXIT we can import cheaper goods from the Commonwealth and elsewhere further reducing our cost of living.

Travel abroad

None of these examples depend on our membership of the EU as they can all be negotiated separately with the EU after Brexit. Remember EU citizens travelling to the UK want these benefits as well!

Page 6: If the UK voted to leave the EU, the resulting economic shock would risk higher prices of some household goods

Scaremongering. UK householders already pay nearly £1,000/annum to the EU to pay for the CAP, VAT and green levies on their energy bills. Out of the EU the UK can import cheaper goods from the Commonwealth and the rest of the world.

[Part II to follow]

Page 7 What happens if we leave?

“…10 or more years of uncertainty….”

This has never been justified by the government. What is certain is that staying IN the EU will result in uncertainty for the rest of our lives because we have no control over EU decisions!

“…less than 8% of EU exports come to the UK while 44% of UK exports go to the EU.”

Nevertheless the UK is the EU’s largest importer of EU goods and services. Since 1973 the current accumulated value of UK trade with the EEC/EU has cost us a deficit of over £1 trillion. With youth unemployment at nearly 60% in Spain and Greece, 41% in Italy and 36% in Portugal the EU simply cannot afford to lose its trade with the UK.

“No other country has managed to secure significant access to the single market, without having to: Follow EU rules over which they have no say; Pay into the EU; Accept EU citizens living and working in their country.”

Outright and disgraceful lies! Appendix 2 of the note referred to above shows that out of the top 35 fastest exporting countries to the 11 founding members of the EU’s single market the UK (the EU’s second highest contributor of net funds) came 28th. Only 9 of the countries above the UK had a trade deal with the EU. Only Norway and Switzerland were in EFTA/EEA and they were the only two countries which had to comply with the statements above and they came 25th and 23rd respectively.

“. ..Canada’s deal with the EU …has been 7 years in the making and is still not in force.”

This proves yet again that the EU is not able to negotiate trade deals with foreign countries successfully as it has to have them agreed by all 28 countries in the EU. The UK could negotiate more beneficial trade deals with foreign countries much quicker on its own.

Page 9: Controlling Immigration and securing our borders

“… we control our own borders which gives us the right to check everyone ..”

But not the right to stop them if they have an EU passport or are immigrants who have lived in the EU for more than 5 years. In addition, the ECHR has prevented the UK from deporting 900 criminals.

“… Make our benefits system less of a draw for EU citizens …”

Jobless EU citizens come here for UK pay where the minimum wage is £254/week. In Romania it is £55/week and in Bulgaria £49/week.

“…in return for … access to the single market … non EU countries … such as Norway … have to accept the right of all EU citizens to live and work in their country.”

Another outrageous lie. Every country in the world already has access to the single market as proved by Appendix 1 of my note referred to above. Out of the top 35 countries on the list only Norway has to accept free movement of EU citizens. This is a blatant lie yet again.

“Keeping us safer”

There is absolutely no reason why intelligence cannot still be shared between the EU countries and the UK after BREXIT. UK intelligence agencies are amongst the best in the world. It would be more in the EU’s interests to maintain intelligence co-operation with the UK after Brexit. This is another example of misleading scaremongering by the government.

“EU cooperation makes it easier to keep criminals and terrorists out of the UK.”

Another outrageous lie. The chief of EU police Interpol has estimated that there are at least 5,000 jihadists at loose in the EU. ALL of them can come to the UK on EU passports and we would not know them or even be able to keep them out if we did.

“The European Arrest Warrant …”

The EAW is a nightmare. It has effectively torn up our cherished Magna Carta and the quicker we get away from the EU “justice” system where everyone is guilty until proved innocent the better. There is absolutely nothing to prevent the UK and the EU co-operating on terrorism and extradition of suspects after Brexit and it will cost us an awful lot less!

Page 14: “The UK is not part of the European border-free zone. We control our own borders.”

Not true. We do not control immigration from 440 million EU citizens or millions of new migrants into the EU who have the right to come here after 5 years. Turkey joining the EU will open the door to another 75 million possible immigrants to the UK.

Page 15: The benefits of EU membership

“… the EU exists to promote economic security, peace and stability”

The EU exists mainly to form its main objective: a United States of Europe. The UK will be abolished and will become a part of this new “empire”. The Westminster parliament will be neutered and all major decisions will be made by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

“The UK has secured a special status in the EU”

Rubbish. The so called special status is relatively meaningless as the EU still controls all the areas it did before and we still have to pay vast sums to the EU.

“The UK has kept the pound, will not join the euro and has kept control over our borders.”

All meaningless statements as the UK has absolutely no control over EU decisions.

“For every £1 paid in tax, a little over 1p goes to the EU.”

Apart from that, being in the EU costs our economy about £185 billion/annum about 11% of GDP and this figure does not include large capital costs due to EU regulations such as the unnecessary EU water directives which cost the UK £48 billion. It also does not allow for liabilities due to the collapse of other EU countries finances and banking systems. Currently Greece will need another bail-out soon and France has been described as “the biggest problem in the Eurozone” by German officials. There is also the staggering cost due to EU pensions which are not being funded adequately, particularly in France and Germany. This will entail our descendants working all their lives to support many millions of EU pensioners. The government comment conveniently ignores all our financial liabilities due to our remaining in the EU.

“Opportunities for you and your children”

There is no reason why UK citizens will be barred from going to live, work or study in the EU after Brexit. EU citizens will still be allowed to come to the UK, but under controlled conditions.

“It also guarantees many employment rights”

Why do we have to give the EU a fortune to guarantee employment rights? We are supposed to have a government in Westminster that was supposed to pass laws which benefited the UK population. We do not need foreigners to do this for us.

“The UK is a strong, independent nation”

Outrageous lie!  How independent is a nation that has to go to its masters in Brussels to plead for permission not to have to put 5%VAT on tampons?

“The EU magnifies the UK’s ability to get its way ….”

Rubbish. The UK has failed 70 times out of 70 to get the EU to change its decisions. The UK only has a 12% vote in EU decisions which will reduce further when Turkey joins the EU.

“The EU helped prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons: and is leading the world on climate change.”

So what? That still does not explain why we have to be a member of it!

Page 16: “EU membership brings economic security, peace and stability”

Like belonging to a club of nations most of which are bankrupt with colossal debts, whose share of the world economy is drastically reducing, where riots are commonplace, and which is flooded with immigrants including at least 5,000 jihadists who can all come to the UK any day they like when they get EU passports. Remember it took only 2 or 3 terrorists to blow up Brussels airport and the Paris metro station. How much damage can 5,000 do to the UK?

I have to confess, I quite like Jeremy Corbyn.

He strikes me as a genuine, principled well-meaning guy. (God forbid he ever becomes Prime Minister, mind.) In particular I like him because he’s a maverick, and I like mavericks. Those who are prepared come out and say what they believe is the truth, however controversial and uncomfortable for the establishment – that the Emperor really does have no clothes.

The people I really hate are the plastic media-polished yes-people of the Blairite left – those who pretend to represent the disadvantaged in society while weaving a veneer of politically correct language to justify the actions of the same old power-hungry ultra-wealthy elite.

I’ve met Jeremy Corbyn. He was my MP when I was a Labour activist in Islington North around the turn of the millennium. He seemed like a nice bloke. I often used to see him riding his bike past my flat. Islington council was a hotbed of ambitious New Labour councillors at the time, including Mary Creagh, who was far more obsequious towards him then, plus the woman who oddly seemed to follow me to Cardiff to become my AM. Perhaps after Thursday she’ll be putting her second home in Wales on the market and returning to London Luvvie-Land (if the Lib Dem candidate’s desperate campaign of daily leaflets pays off.)

What has been notable over the past 12 months has been the barefaced spitting hatred directed towards Corbyn by the bulk of parliamentary Labour Party, despite his popularity among the rank and file. Interestingly this comes to a head, not around wasting taxpayers’ money, censorious victim identity politics or the contradictions between liberal and Muslim values, but always on the most hawkish and status quo-defending issues.

I was a leftie, and a Labour Party activist, for a number of years. Indeed “some of my best friends” are still lefties. I believe this has bestowed to me an understanding of what average left-of-centre people, and Labour Party members, think – and they tend to be anti-war, anti-nukes and anti-militaristic.

So what changes when these people become Labour MPs?

When all those New Labour MPs backed Bliar in bombing Iraq, despite it being blatantly obvious even to the average voter watching from my living room that the war was based on a lie – the act which caused me to leave the Labour Party in disgust – I assumed that those MPs were doing it for the selfish sake of their careers. Logical but cynical. Today Labour MPs defy their leader and seemingly jeopardise their careers to support war.

Why?

Perhaps they expect Corbyn to be deposed imminently and defying him will count as brownie points in his favour.

Perhaps they are wined and dined by defence contractors.

Perhaps they are taken aside by MI5 and told that now they are MPs they have a responsibility to Great Britain and her traditional role in world politics.

Perhaps they’re scared of what the Daily Mail will say about them (even though newspaper circulations are plummeting and I don’t know anyone under 50 who buys a daily newspaper).

Perhaps someone takes them aside and reminds them that they wouldn’t want their sexual secrets emblazoned across the front pages.

Perhaps they’re not the same as your average leftie or Labour Party member in the first place, having been born into moneyed families, come up through elite educational institutions and fast-tracked through a career in politicised organisations.

Perhaps it’s that, at £75K pa, MPs paid may be paid a fantastic amount compared to your average Sun reader, but not compared to the corporate bosses, news editors and media stars they rub shoulders with. They therefore look for additional sources of income – newspaper columns, advisor roles and comfortable jobs when they leave politics. They need to ingratiate themselves with their new paymasters. Some points of view go down well. Others don’t.

So I’ve been looking to Corbyn to make a stand. To his credit he opposed air strikes against Syria, despite losing the vote and suffering mass rebellions in among his own MPs and cabinet. I found myself fully agreeing with him that most countries in the world get by without nuclear weapons and haven’t been invaded yet. The £130bn the Trident replacement would cost us could far better be spent on hospitals, mitigating austerity, paying down the deficit, etc.

These recent battles seem to have knocked stuffing out of him though.

Despite being a lifelong Eurosceptic, Jeremy Corbyn has recently come out proclaiming ‘the Socialist case for staying in the EU’. One suspects he can’t face months of the kind of hostility from his own MPs that he faced over Syria. This is one area where Corbyn is at odds with most lefties (at least the young trendy middle class ones) mind. At least we can comfort ourselves that Labour’s campaigning for the Remain side is likely to be half-hearted. Even 38 Degrees can’t make their mind up which side of the fence to come down on.

Then there’s the whole fraught business that has recently blown up about over alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. In a matter of days we had the Naz Shah affair, followed by Ken Livingstone’s attempt to take the heat out of the situation by raising the subject of Hitler and Zionist collaboration with the Nazis.

Jeremy Corbyn has been a longstanding Pro-Palestinian campaigner and critic of Israel. Indeed he has shared platforms with some rather dodgy characters, some of whom he describes as his friends. Going by the events of recent days though, he doesn’t seem to have the stomach for this particular fight.

I’m getting into dodgy and sensitive ground here. It would take a long digression to detail all the arguments on the one hand about the treatment of the Palestinian people, and on the other hand Israel’s right to defend itself from Islamic terrorism. Being anti-Jewish and criticising Israel are two different things and there seems to be a deliberate to attempt to claim that they’re the same thing.

Much as we may like to think of terrorism as simply insane, evil and irrational, it takes a grievance to motivate people. For many across the Muslim world that grievance is Israel and what has been done to the Palestinian people. We need to understand that powerful Israel-supporting lobbies influence US, and from there Western foreign policy and as a result terrorist reaction, deaths of our servicemen and everyday security measures. If we think that is a reasonable price to pay for a country we want to support, OK, but we need to acknowledge it.

Corbyn has few friends in the establishment if he is to fight causes such as this. Even the BBC switches tracks away from its normally leftist agenda to close ranks and support the hawkish establishment when it comes to trans-Atlantic foreign policy and militarism (which makes them even less worthy of respect in my view). This is the same BBC who will never mention the word ‘Muslim’ in its reports of a resurgence in anti-Jewish attacks, letting its audience assume they’re down to the same old evil white ‘far right’.

I can only start to imagine the pressure Jeremy Corbyn is under.

If the Labour party suffers big losses on Thursday, the Blairite MPs will use it as a pretext to blame Corbyn – I suspect that was their plan all along. In reality it will be the Blairites who have intentionally damaged party. Like in the 1980s – much as the you can mock Foot and the 1983 Labour manifesto being ‘the longest suicide note history’, the killer blow was delivered by the Labour right with the ‘Gang of Four’ walking out in a blaze of publicity to form the breakaway SDP.

Personally I will revel in seeing Labour lose at the polls. Corbyn may have outlived his useful purpose though.

Ed: We’d like to remind readers that the opinion of the authors are not necessarily those of the editors. The article below however represents the feelings of many people here in the UK and thus ought to be read, even though we do not encourage or support violent actions.

I recently bought a bulk load of ammunition on the cheap (we have a problem with deer where I live), good old .308. I like to buy my ammunition on the cheap, it all seems to work, so why pay more? This particular lot of ammo came in brightly coloured boxes and it was called: ‘Zombie Max,’ marketed by the manufacturer as the very thing for the coming Zombie Apocalypse. Brad Pitt even made a movie about the Zombie Apocalypse which I refused to watch, a craze that I always thought totally ridiculous: now I’m not so sure.

A couple of points I’d like to make about the Third World, from experience, so bear with me.

I sometimes live in Brazil as I have a Brazilian wife. One night while walking home late, I was violently and brutally mugged, a Japanese stranglehold (or similar) from behind. This is a lethal attack not many people would know how to respond to it, but I do, although it’s still a long shot. I was hurt, someone tried to cut my wallet straight from my pocket with a razor, my glasses were smashed, clothes torn, I was covered in blood and had a broken arm: one of my attackers was horribly maimed, his friend ran away. I didn’t mean to hurt my attacker so much (I did report myself to the Police), but there’s only one effective response I know to such an attack and it has to be done instantly and with much aggression: I had no choice. A couple of weeks later, outside my home, a sixteen-year-old girl was shot dead by a mugger. When he was caught by the Police, he just said: “that’s what happens when you resist being mugged, you get dead.” No remorse, as if he had every right in the world to kill this girl.

The first point I’d like to make is: ‘this is the Third World.’ Polarisation is the hallmark of the Third World. Some of the nicest people I know are Brazilian, but for every one of them there seems to be a hundred, violent, murderous, thugs, pimps and other assortments of ignorant and unpleasant people on the streets. This is one of the symptoms of having a population much bigger than an economy can support and educate. The UK is starting to show just such characteristics. This is something which the bleeding heart Liberal Lefties that espouse mass immigration,choose to ignore or are completely naïve about. When we’re invaded by literally millions of low IQ, unemployable denizens from  the Third World gutters, I think that constitutes a ‘Zombie Apocalypse.’

Secondly: after the attack, I told very few people about it, but did tell one or two in the UK as I felt the need to talk about such a traumatic experience. I couldn’t help but notice that people were much more worried about my attacker than me. People have become so brainwashed with Political Correctness that they feel it’s OK to brutally attack a white man, but it’s not OK to defend myself, thus feeling much more sympathy towards a brutal mugger.  I have an old friend, he’s a retired officer from the Parachute Regiment, he put this into perspective for me, saying: “what happened was very unfortunate and they’d have killed you, but you chose life.”

‘Chose life,’ the wisest words I ever heard!

I am very proud of my cultural history and of who I am. I am very sick of whining Marxist, Liberal, Lefty types trying to denigrate our race and our many achievements. If that makes me a racist, then I’m proud to be called a racist.  There are some powerful people in this world who, because it suits their political or personal objectives, would like to erase thousands of years of cultural development within a lifetime. It won’t work. When this whole lunatic experiment fails, as it already is starting to, it’ll be one of the most violent times in human history. Everything has its day and the European Union is also on borrowed time.

Angela Merkel’s invitation to millions of third world migrants is a very cynical and malicious attack on the people that she is supposed to represent. Merkel too will have her day, but by the time she goes, she’ll have done Europe more harm than Adolf Hitler if she hasn’t already. The mainstream media are horribly controlled, but I can dig out information from other sources. Sweden is at the point of collapse as a result of the migrant invasion, women are scared to go out at night for fear of being beaten and gang raped. There is a rape crisis in Germany and throughout much of Europe as well as other violent crime. We have a plague of child rape and exploitation in the UK, for example in Rotherham. That Europe is going to burn I have no doubt. That our women and children can be brutally raped and our governments try to hush it up is disgusting and shameful: it’s like saying that they don’t matter.

Hundreds have died in Paris and Brussels; ISIS are planning to spray radioactive waste on our cities: how many hints do we need before realising that we’re at war and being invaded?

We desperately need to vote to leave the European Union if we’re to have a hope of surviving!

In the UK, the Muslims want to introduce Sharia Law – how could we have allowed this madness to happen? Sharia Law should not be tolerated. We have enough problems of our own without being shackled to a dysfunctional European Union, eventually being forced to accept their Third World hordes.

We’re finished as a nation if we don’t reject this doctrine of Political Correctness and start to defend ourselves. I’d urge you to wake yourselves up from your trance and:

Choose life!

If the Referendum vote in Britain turns out to be ‘Remain’, then, of course, we are going to have a lot more world-wide visitors coming to live with us – from the EU most certainly, refugees from the Middle East and Africa and people from other countries who just want to have a better life. Good for them! After all, we are a multicultural and multilingual nation, aren’t we? Well, that’s what the recent Governments have preferred.

But there is a problem. Many of the people who have arrived over the last few decades tend to live with their own people. This is not a new idea and has happened in many places in the past. For instance, after the Ottoman conquest of Turkey in 1453, Constantinople had separate settlements for Greeks, Armenians and Levantines as well as for their own Ottoman people. In Europe for many years most large cities have had a Chinatown; now there are Algerian areas in France, Turkish ones in Germany, and in most EU countries, their Muslim residents gather in their own areas. Naturally, with many more incomers to Britain, this will continue here as well. The national and religious groups, each with their own schools, places of worship and, in some cases, their own laws, will increase. Even Trevor Phillips, formerly Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, writing in the Daily Mail has noted in talking with people he calls decent, hard-working and unprejudiced, ‘…the apparent reluctance of some migrants to mix socially outside of their neighbourhoods’. But, after all, most do come into to a society which has a different culture, language and religion and they naturally prefer to live together. So that is quite normal — ‘birds of a feather…’ as the saying goes.

But what of those of us who are of British stock? Could we, perhaps, create our own ‘group area’ somewhere? Of course, some people might say this is a racist idea, but obviously it is not. How in fact how could it be?  We should be living in just one corner of England while giving the rest to be settled by other peoples from around the world. That’s not racist, just generous.

That is, of course, if the European Union would permit us to have our own living space!

If so, perhaps the English could have a Reservation or Native Tribal Land in East Anglia, just as the Native Americans have in the States? Say, a boundary is dropped from the old port of King’s Lynn on the Wash in Norfolk, curving down to Ipswich and Felixstowe, both ports on the River Ouse in Suffolk, although it is unlikely that the EU would permit us to include the Ferry Port of Harwich from across the river in our proposed Tribal Reservation. But this is sure to be a large enough area for those who might wish to live in their own ghetto or quarter, since many people would probably prefer to remain where they are and rub along with the various international groups around them. For instance, of all the Native American peoples, only about one fifth actually live in their own Tribal Lands.

We should, of course, have to live under the equivalent of the United States’ ‘Bureau of Indian Affairs’, presumably to be called the Bureau of English Affairs, and many people now living in East Anglia might wish to move or would have to move (lands in the US were cleared before the Native Tribal Lands were established).  But if these difficulties could be addressed, it would be a useful place for the rest to live!

Norwich, the county town of Norfolk, is already the Regional Administrative Centre and has the well-known University of East Anglia. It also has its own Cathedral as does Bury St Edmonds, a medieval market town. The whole of East Anglia has many miles of beautiful beaches and fishing ports and, while there is rolling countryside in Suffolk, much of Norfolk is fenland which has been drained and where the flat, hedgeless area is great for growing crops.

Also in Norfolk is the Queen’s own estate of Sandringham, and since she and the monarchy would no longer rule the UK – being reduced to the role of just a tourist attractions would be demeaning – she could always move to live there permanently.

If the EU permits this to happen – Britain is, one must remember, only one nation state in twenty eight so it would depend on how the other twenty-seven felt about the proposal – and as the incomers flow north and west throughout Britain, Wales and Scotland might perhaps also think about creating their own Tribal Reservations.

The only questions left are: am I being serious, or am I being sarcastic?

And, will the UK vote to Remain in the EU or to Leave?

Out on the streets, it is becoming plain that the majority of the people willing to approach us have already firmly made their minds up which way they will vote. National polls more or less say it is “Even Stevens” with a substantial number of “Undecided voters”.

How to persuade this last category to vote our way? Their vote is crucial.
I have been having a receptive audience, helped by the recent crass intercession of Mr. Obama.

Many clearly remember the news conference, at which he and our oh so co-operative Prime Minister revealed a right royal stitch-up. It was instructive to watch Mr. Cameron virtually tick off bullet points as Mr. Obama fired them; taken from the previously agreed agenda. How Cameron avoided blushing when the President administered the coup de grace “You`ll have to get to the end of the queue”, I do not know. I was first sickened, then annoyed and just plain furious as the full import of this calculated insult sank in.

So not only were we to crawl to the diktat of our “Special Exceptional Friend”; but we were to get back in our BOX, you know the one “The EU Retirement Home for Failed European Nations”; the crafty blighter had sussed out that the old colonial master was threatening to make a return to the world stage and link up with his old Commonwealth pals.

Have a rival out on his patch creating mayhem –“ no way Hosay,” especially not after US policy for more than the last century has been to divest and punish the UK for its past colonialism, and particularly US humiliation, as they perceive it.

So how to ensure the EU retains the UK captive?

Certain sections of the British political establishment believe “we are not good enough” i.e. we are no longer fit to walk upon the world stage and “punch above our weight” – how about a project labeled “Fear and Uncertainty”?

Well we`ve had that in spades Cameron and his cohorts have painted fantastic, dreadful scenarios and outcomes based on Supposition, Lies and Propaganda -barely what one would call a fact amongst them.

But I can forecast for the Remainians a definite “certainty”; there will be the certainty of “uncertainty” – how do I know? The American President has told us so; he is going to make sure there is at least 10 years of it.

There will be the continued certainty that:-
a) It will be a life sentence of hard labour under a totalitarian regime sine dei.
b) You will eventually be subject to Corpus Juris – Habeas Corpus etc will go. And our judicial system based on Magna Carta will be ripped up. Sic transit democracy.
c) You will cede your permanent seat on the Security Council to the EU.
d) Your renewal of normal association and trading with the Commonwealth will be forfeit.
e) The ability of Parliament to make its own laws will still be gone.
f) Your services Army, Navy and Air force will be absorbed into EU-branded bodies i.e. they will not be able to act independently.
g) You will remain citizens of the EU, subject to the whim of your masters
in Brussels.
h) British Jobs for British workers will be a thing of the past.
j) TTIP will eventually be signed, which will only favour big business, multinationals and be a Banker`s Ramp, National courts will be bypassed and disputes will be settled by tribunals, which can set gigantic fines for loss of profit, with no redress for your national govt.
k) The Opt out from our use of the Euro will probably go eventually and probably our rebate too, so will control over our own taxes. Bank deposits will be at the mercy of the junta (ref. Cyprus settlement now accepted as the default pattern for dealing with similar recalcitrant members). Our debt and deficit at the moment are amongst the highest in the EU, it wouldn`t take much to end up like Greece, with the bailiffs in and controlling our economy (there… I`ve discussed the economy).
l) You will be compelled to enter the European Song Contest forever and that`s the closest you`ll get to the Australian part of the Commonwealth.
m) Supervening all, you will never regain control of your own borders.
Cross border Immigration will probably remain or worse around 1/3million
annually,. You know the damage that is already causing overstrained
services, NHS, Schools and housing? Think replacing Coventry or Leicester every year!
n) NO Sovereignty – every last bit gone, Parliamentary democracy gone -Your MP will remain a cipher, tool of his party and not representing the needs of his electorate in the slightest. You might be able to kick this lot out every 5 years, but you won`t be able to do that with the junta (Commission) in Brussels
p) Agenda 21. I don`t know much about it, something to do with World Government, and so I don`t know enough about it to comment, but if you stay in the EU, I believe it will not be to your advantage -forever.

Readers of this diatribe may point out that views I have expressed are highly individualistic and that I am wrong to see Mr. Obama as such a catalyst.
I plead that I am not alone, I wonder if anybody has read the words of a Conservative “Big Beast” who has recently joined the ranks of the LEAVErs.
Mr. Michael Ancram, ex Chairman, ex deputy Leader of the Conservative party and former shadow Foreign Secretary?

He pointed out that the American President had a perfect right to look out for the interests of his country, and said: “There is nothing wrong in pursuing one`s country`s interests. What was offensive and counterproductive was for Mr. Obama to present it as being of concern for the British people.”

It was not and is not. The President`s disingenuousness is only the latest in a string of mendacious tactics adopted by the Remain campaign, as they have been overtaken by panic, their lies have flown thicker and thicker, but for 40 years now I have been lied to about the EU. And I`ve had enough”

Of course all our effort now is focused on the EU Referendum, and to an extent we must put aside other issues that don’t directly help the cause.  My pet subject is energy, and I have tried not to allow it to distract from the Brexit Campaign.

Yet energy is a key argument for Brexit.  Current energy policies, dictated by Brussels, are closing down proven, reliable and cost-effective coal capacity, and replacing it with expensive, unreliable and intermittent renewables, which impose massive hidden costs and inefficiencies on the system.  Leaving the EU is a necessary condition for creating a rational energy policy, but it is not a sufficient condition.  We should recall that all but five of our Westminster MPs voted for the absurd and massively costly Climate Change Act in 2008.  So we also need a change of heart in the House of Commons.  Perhaps we’ll have to wait until the lights go out before our MPs get the message.

Current EU/UK energy policy has driven up energy costs.  It’s caused plant closures and job losses in many industries – not just in steel at Port Talbot.  It’s forcing major industries to move offshore to more favourable – and more rational – jurisdictions, taking their jobs and investment with them.  The Remain Camp has no answers to these questions.  I propose to tackle Energy Secretary Amber Rudd on these issues when I debate with her in Hastings later this month.

But current policies are also threatening the most almighty energy shortage in the UK.  The Institute of Mechanical Engineers (not normally given to scare­mongering) warns of a huge shortfall in electricity supplies  as we are forced to close coal-fired power stations by the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive, and to close ageing nuclear plants.

A story last week illustrates this point perfectly.  The supermarket chain Sainsbury’s is actually building its own power stations so that it can guarantee electricity supply during black-outs.  They can already power ten supermarkets themselves, with further capacity to follow.  Their senior executive Paul Crewe says “he has sleepless nights” because of his fears about energy security.  It’s not just the lights going off – it’s the freezers too.

It’s one thing for politicians to pontificate and debate over issues like energy security.  But it emphasises the urgency of the issue when hard-headed businessmen are prepared to make major investments to protect themselves against the inevitable power-outs.

Another recent story concerns Professor Sir David MacKay.  He had a hugely distinguished academic career, and from 2009 to 2014 was Chief Scientific Advisor to DECC.  In 2008 he self-published a book entitled “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air” The book was well-received, and the first 5000 print run rapidly sold out.  While presenting his views in a balanced and neutral way, he left readers in little doubt of his reservations about renewables.

Tragically Sir David died recently, at the early age of 48, of inoperable stomach cancer.  But before he died, he gave a final interview to science writer Mark Lynas, in which he was more direct regarding renewables than he had previously been, stating in plain terms that wind and solar power are a waste of money.  He favoured low-carbon energy, but urged nuclear and carbon capture.  He put the case very simply: if we have enough low-carbon capacity to get by when renewables aren’t delivering, then we simply don’t need renewables at all.

The truth is, we have never “invested” in renewables.  We have simply wasted money on grand gesture politics.  This is misallocation of resources on a remarkable scale.  And the money comes out of your pocket.

The five presidents’ report

That’s the title of a report put out by the European Commission and written by Jean Claude Juncker in close cooperation with Donald Tusk, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Mario Draghi and Martin Schultz, and was prepared at the request of the Summit of euro area leaders of October 2014 and the European Council of December 2014.  It is dated 22 June 2015.  I’d like to quote you some of its text.

The introduction starts:

The Euro Summit of October 2014 underlines the fact that ‘closer co-ordination of economic policies is essential to ensure the smooth function of the Economic and Monetary Union’.

And goes on to describe the nature of a ‘deep, genuine and fair economic and monetary union’.

The euro is more than just a currency.  It is a political and economic project.

Progress must happen on four fronts: first, toward a genuine economic union that ensures each economy has the structural features to prosper within the monetary union.  Second towards a financial union that guarantees the integrity of our currency across the monetary union and increases risk-sharing within the private sector.  This means completing the banking union and accelerating the capital markets union.  Third, towards a fiscal union that delivers both fiscal sustainability and fiscal stabilisation, and finally towards a political union that provides the foundation for all of the above through genuine democratic accountability, legitimacy and institutional strengthening.

There you have it, in a nutshell.  The whole of the European project has one aim – to create a single European country.

In practice, this would require member states to accept increasingly joint decision-making on elements of their respective national budgets and economic policies.

In other words, national governments are going to lose the ability to set their own economies and do what the EU tells them!

And how are they going to do this?

Stage 1 (1 July 2015- 30 June 2017) In this first stage the EU institutions and euro area member states would build on existing instruments and make the best possible use of the existing treaties.  In a nutshell, this entails … completing the financial union … and enhancing democratic accountability.

Perhaps I don’t know the proper meaning of the word ‘democratic’ – I certainly don’t see anything democratic in the way the EU is run at present.

Stage 2: In this second stage concrete measures of a more far-reaching nature would be agreed to complete EMU’s economic and institutional architecture. … Significant progress towards these standards – and continue adherence to them once they are reached – would be among the conditions or each euro area member state to participate in a shock absorption mechanism for the euro area during this second stage.

I don’t like the sound of that ‘shock absorption mechanism’.

Final stage (at the latest by 2025) At the end of stage 2 … a deep and genuine EMU would provide a stable and prosperous place for all citizens of the EU member states.

In other words, every member of the EU would be locked into the EMU.

This is the choice we are faced with on June 23.  There is no question that we could remain in the EU as it is now.  There will be no ‘Remain’ because immediately the United Kingdom votes to stay shackled to the European Union the next stage of full European integration will be put in place.  The European Union will let the brakes off and go helter-skelter down the path to full financial, fiscal and, yes, political union.

And where will the UK be?  Nowhere.

Below I quote the last fifth of a lecture delivered by John Tyndall, Esq. F.R.S. to the Royal Society on Friday 23rd January 1863, unabridged.

On Radiation through the Earth’s Atmosphere.

“No doubt, therefore, can exist of the extraordinary opacity of this substance (water vapour) to the rays of obscure heat; and particularly such rays as are emitted by the earth after it has been warmed by the sun. It is perfectly certain that more than ten per cent, of the terrestrial radiation from the soil of England is stopped within ten feet of the surface of the soil. This one fact is sufficient to show the immense influence which this newly-discovered property of aqueous vapours must exert on the phenomena of meteorology.

This aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man. Remove for a single summer-night the aqueous vapour from the air which overspreads this country, and you would assuredly destroy every plant capable of being destroyed by a freezing temperature. The warmth of our fields and gardens would pour itself unrequited into space, and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost. The aqueous vapour constitutes a local dam, by ‘which the temperature at the earth’s surface is deepened: the dam, however, finally overflows, and we give to space all that we receive from the sun.

The sun raises the vapours of the equatorial ocean ; they rise, but for a time a vapour screen spreads above and around them. But the higher they rise, the more they come into the presence of pure space; and when, by their levity, they have penetrated the vapour screen, which lies close to the earth’s surface, what must occur ?

It has been said that, compared atom for atom, the absorption of an atom of aqueous vapour is 16,000 times that of air. Now the power to absorb and the power to radiate are perfectly reciprocal and proportional. The atom of aqueous vapour will therefore radiate with 16,000 times the energy of an atom of air. Imagine then this powerful radiant in the presence of space, and with no screen above it to check its radiation. Into space it pours its heat, chills itself, condenses, and the tropical torrents are the consequence. The expansion of the air, no doubt, also refrigerates it; but in accounting for those deluges, the chilling of the vapour by its own radiation must play a most important part. The rain quits the ocean as vapour; it returns to it as water. How are the vast stores of heat set free by the change from the vaporous to the liquid condition disposed of? Doubtless in great part they are wasted by radiation into space. Similar remarks apply to the cumuli of our latitudes. The warmed air, charged with vapour, rises in columns, so as to penetrate the vapour screen which hugs the earth; in the presence of space, the head of each pillar wastes its heat by radiation, condenses to a cumulus, which constitutes the visible capital of an invisible column of saturated air.

Numberless other meteorological phenomena receive their solution, by reference to the radiant and absorbent properties of aqueous vapour. It is the absence of this screen, and the consequent copious waste of heat, that causes mountains to be so much chilled when the sun is withdrawn. Its absence in Central Asia renders the winter there almost unendurable; in Sahara the dryness of the air is sometimes such, that though during the day “ the soil is fire and the wind is flame,” the chill at night is painful to bear. In Australia, also, the thermometrie range is enormous, on account of the absence of this qualifying agent. A clear day, and a dry day, moreover, are very different things. The atmosphere may possess great visual clearness, while it is charged with aqueous vapour, and on such occasions great chilling cannot occur by terrestrial radiation. Sir John Leslie and others have been perplexed by the varying indications of their instruments on days equally bright—but all these anomalies are completely accounted for by reference to this newly-discovered property of transparent aqueous vapour. Its presence would check the earth’s loss; its absence, without sensibly altering the transparency of the air, would open wide a door for the escape of the earth’s heat into infinitude.”

The most important passage is this:

“It is perfectly certain that more than ten per cent, of the terrestrial radiation from the soil of England is stopped within ten feet of the surface of the soil.”

At 10 feet therefore, at least 10% of the Earth’s radiation has been transferred to the water vapour in the air and 90% remains. At the height of Nelson’s column of 170 feet, only 16% of this radiation remains and at twice that height, less than 3% remains.

The “blanket” is just high enough to contain the highest tree, a redwood which stands at 379.7 feet, and saves vegetation from being roasted during the day and often free from frost at night.

This lecture was given in 1863 and by 1995 corrupt politicians and pressure groups had managed to influence sufficient scientists to have the nonsensical Global Warming Theory treated as fact, have it published in schoolbooks and even now still try to fool populations that carbon dioxide is a poison.

For example the United States Environmental Protection Agency formally declared CO2 a dangerous pollutant. This “Dangerous Pollutant” is of course necessary for the life of all vegetation and mankind and the above declaration just demonstrates how foolish the political class can be.

The variation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere follows (by 200-500 years, it has been said) the natural change in global temperature due to the cyclic variation in the behaviour of the Sun. It cannot be possible for it to precede the mega effect brought about by changes in the Sun’s output.

Compare this “blanket” of moisture laden air with water content of some 20,000ppm at 20°C, to atmospheric carbon dioxide at either 300ppm in 1860 or 400ppm today. Does a change of 100ppm make any difference to world temperatures? Of course not, and over desert regions there is no moisture present to prevent the earth from radiating its heat into space after it has been warmed during the day.

It is worth repeating  how excess heat from the Earth is disposed of;

“Imagine then this powerful radiant in the presence of space, and with no screen above it to check its radiation. Into space it pours its heat, chills itself, condenses, and the tropical torrents are the consequence. The expansion of the air, no doubt, also refrigerates it; but in accounting for those deluges, the chilling of the vapour by its own radiation must play a most important part. The rain quits the ocean as vapour; it returns to it as water.”

Politics has corrupted science. Case proven.

The politically correct never cease to tell us that mass immigration is a net benefit to Britain. By this they mean that immigrants pay more in taxes than they cost in publicly funded services. To make such an assessment the following statistics would be needed:

1. The amount of income tax and National Insurance paid by immigrants. Because of the type of work involved – seasonal, work offered by foreign gangmasters and so on – it is reasonable to assume a  disproportionately  large proportion of those working in the black market are immigrants. There is also a practice of immigrants working and paying tax until they exceed the single person’s tax allowance in a tax year, ceasing to work in the UK for that tax year and then reclaiming all the income tax paid at the end of the tax year. That rebated tax  needs to be deducted from the tax paid figure held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
2. The costs arising from the native population who are denied jobs which immigrants have taken. This will involve the benefits native workers have to collect because they cannot find a job, the costs of having to move to a new area to either seek work or because the new benefits cap will not meet their rent and the costs of having to take children out of one school plus the costs of registering with a new GP because a family is forced to move .
3. The cost to the native population of a reduction in wages caused by immigrants increasing the pool of labour. This will mean less tax paid and more in-work benefits
4. The cost of benefits drawn by immigrants when they are not working.
5. The cost of benefits drawn by immigrants when they are working, for example, working tax credits, housing benefit.
6. The cost of NHS care given to immigrants.
7. The cost of education given to immigrants, this to include the additional costs arising from those with poor or non-existent English.
8. The cost of benefits, education and NHS care for the children of immigrants born in the UK.
9. The costs of benefits paid to immigrants to support children born abroad and living abroad.
10. The inflation of housing costs caused by immigrants and their children born in the UK increasing the demand for housing.
11. The costs involved in a decline in the quality of NHS care and educational standards because of the pressure placed on the NHS, schools and higher education by immigrants. The inadequate English of many immigrants employed in the NHS in particular must reduce the efficiency of the service and increase the likelihood of error. The difficulty of teaching in schools with huge numbers of pupils lacking English as a first language speaks for itself.
12. The costs involved in the British economy generally from a loss of efficiency through the inadequate English of immigrants and their lack of understanding of British customs. It may be cheaper for an employer to employ an immigrant in terms of wages, but,  especially where the immigrant is dealing with the public, there must be a substantial the loss of efficiency in terms of  extra time taken to conduct conversations with customers, misunderstandings of what is wanted and an inability to explain  to customers what is on offer.
13. The loss of expertise to Britain of skilled Britons who seek work abroad because of opportunities the UK being blocked by immigrants, for example, newly qualified British doctors and nurses have encountered difficulty in obtaining British posts despite the frequent claims of NHS staff shortages ( while positions at British medical schools are cut and large numbers of foreigners recruited (
14. The costs – which can be lifelong – of the loss of work experience for Britons unable to get work at all, whether skilled or unskilled.  This is particularly important for the young.
15. The costs in terms of wear and tear on the roads because of increased traffic arising from immigrants.
16. The cost of criminal activity amongst immigrants.
17. The cost of criminal activity amongst the descendants of immigrants.
18. The costs of guarding against Islamic terrorism.
19. The costs of the remittances made by immigrants and their descendants to their ancestral countries.
20. The costs of meeting the requirements of the “anti-racist” legislation which puts considerable burdens employers. These are particularly severe for any employer who is funded in whole or part by the taxpayer. Such employers have to not merely be non-discriminatory,  but they have to prove that is what they are as a result of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 ( The police are particularly keen to show how PC they are (
21. The cost of dealing with visa requests, asylum claims, claims regarding family reunions and claims based on compassionate grounds. The costs include employing civil servants to process claims to stay in the UK, the cost of staffing of immigration tribunals, the costs arising from the court time taken by the cases  which go to the courts, the  legal costs of those trying to stay in the UK (which are normally paid by the taxpayer), the cost of running immigration detention centres and the cost of removing people from the UK .
22. The ongoing cost of the descendants of immigrants – potentially through many generations – of racial and ethnic groups who continue to display high levels of unemployment, high benefit dependency, low-skills, poor educational attainment, low payments of tax and  abnormally high levels of criminality.

I defy anyone to find a piece of research which comes close to including all those costs or even a majority of them.

Of course the economic arguments are not  the most important thing about mass immigration which is that it changes the nature of a society because immigrants arriving in large numbers from the same country will invariably colonise parts of the country and resist assimilation.  Nonetheless, it is important to thoroughly examine the weaknesses in the economic claims made by the politically correct because it is their favoured ploy to try to pull the wool over the public’s eyes.

The costs fall most heavily on the poor, the rich being, as yet, largely untouched because they arrange their lives so that they do not encounter the supposed joy of diversity and have no need to seek work in a competitive situation.

How can we honour, celebrate and remember a life of service to the good of others tragically cut short?  In time flowers die and memories fade away. Words are often said in the political sphere to give apparent substance to pure wind. Is this the best we as a society or as individuals can do?

Jo Cox, Member of Parliament, died whilst trying to bridge the gap between government and governed, reaching out to the people of her constituency. Without this gap being bridged there can be no democracy.  And in this country we have a long tradition of government by consent, where each person has an equal vote and it can make a difference.  But where we are today this tradition, which has come at a terrible price through the struggles and sacrifices of many over many years, needs to be constantly replenished or it will wither away, lost to neglect and the actions of those who have other ambitions.

A living tribute is to reinvigorate the ideas, values and institutions that improve our society and set an inspiring example to the rest of the world.  A living tribute is to take and build upon what is best of ourselves and our heritage and pass it on in better condition to the next generation.

A living tribute is to accept that we all bear a responsibility, in our own ways with the skills and abilities we have, to make our own lives and those of others better.  A living tribute is to believe that we can make a difference.   Yet at times this needs to stand back, to observe, to analyse, develop solutions and together with others make them work.  And sometimes that means moving out of our comfort zones, hearing what we don’t want to hear and working with some people we really don’t understand or want to be with.  And often we don’t have the answers.

Perhaps above all, a living tribute is to strengthen and reinvigorate the cause of democracy. In its name ultimately an inspiring life was lost.  In doing so we remember the many others and what they did for us, and the world.  Indeed from roots in this country democracy, freedom, justice and the rule of law have spread out to other countries.

Professor Robert Tombs explained in The English and Their History, which tells the story of the rise of parliamentary government in England and gradually extended to the whole of the United Kingdom. By the early 18th century, he writes: “Foreign admirers thought that England had somehow stumbled on a working political system which both encouraged and was sustained by science, commerce, reason and liberty.”

So to take the great cause forward that links free people and their struggles everywhere, from John Ball (1381) who lost his life in name of liberty and equality, to Joseph Priestley, the 18th-century political radical from Birstall whose statue bears floral tributes to Jo to Abraham Lincoln who in his Gettysburg Address (1863) re-iterated words from John Wycliffe (1384 shown below in bold) in the event of terrible human loss: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

[Ed: This previously posted article has been updated slightly to reflect the situation in our country post-Brexit.]

Our country has a long tradition of measures introduced to limit the power of rulers; to prevent their continuation of abuses and exploitations, and to grant rights and protections to the people; the most famous include Magna Carta, (1215), the Petition of Right, (1628),the Habeas Corpus Act,(1679), the Bill of Rights, (1689).Yet, this work is incomplete; many of us recognise that there is something rotten at the heart of our government, ruling Establishment and democracy.

So, we need a new Bill of Rights. The following example seeks to address obvious potential abuses and exploitations by our rulers; and efficiently ‘pull’ them towards increasingly high standards of performance and innovation, rather than try to ‘push’ them into compliance with a multitude of prescriptive rules, which they may circumvent.

 A Bill of Rights for the British People

(to promote democracy and good governance for all the People)

Introduction and Purpose

We, The People, have the right to a government that, at all times, works selflessly, competently, prudently and humanely in our interests under law, democratic accountability and transparency.

Following a long period in which our rulers have abused us and exploited our trust, honesty, tolerance and industry, we wish them to adopt a Bill of our Rights to prevent such happenings in future.  Our Bill of Rights will give us a standard to measure their performance against and objectives for them to work continually towards, in the light of current knowledge and invention; also to facilitate and empower early warning. We will not accept their ‘promises’ and ‘spin’ as true measures of their performance; nor contemptuous treatment.

Our Overriding Right

Government shall at all times be, of The People, for The People, by The People.

Our Rights state what we expect to be achieved, but not how our rulers (including their agents, sub-ordinates etc.) are to carry them out, for which they are to use their best and prudent endeavours.

Our Rights – What we expect from those who rule over us:

Promoting Democracy

• That they treat us, our wishes, hopes and fears with due respect;
• That they protect and improve democratic government for all good, honest citizens;
• That they practice no deceits nor actions by stealth upon us;
• That they protect freedom: of speech; of conscience; from persecution; of the Press;
• That they protect our ancient rights and freedoms; nor give foreign courts and bureaucrats etc… supremacy over our own courts and Parliament;

Good Governance

• That they safeguard the benefits of our present condition and make it better, not worse;
• That they work with utmost integrity, competence, professionalism, prudence, economy, precision, clarity and democratic accountability to satisfy declared aims;
• That they always work in our interests, not theirs, to preserve Life, Liberty and Property and facilitate our pursuit of happiness, wellbeing and safety;
• Note: Property includes in its widest scope: personal wealth; our country; culture and heritage; traditional freedoms; values; communities and organisations; uniqueness; inventions; other forms of non-financial wealth or value to us.
• That they are prudent and economical with our money; that taxes and debts are always minimal, do not cause hardship and are subject to our scrutiny and agreement; that debts are not incurred without adequate means of repayment being present;
• That they do not place on future generations and us in distant future years debts, taxes, financial burdens or other hardships detrimental to enjoyment of life;
• That burdens, including financial and legislative, placed upon us are with our consent and minimal, and are removed when their imposition or cost is no longer justified;
• That no statute etc. is introduced or remains without full open scrutiny and refinement; including assurance of successful implementation, assessment of risks and negative or detrimental effects upon us, and that these are adequately mitigated;

Prevention of Abuses

• That they accept duties of care, accountability, transparency and humanity towards us; that their activity, policies and behaviours etc. alone or together with others do not cause harm or loss to us and are open to examination, ultimately, by us;
• That the rule of law of our country is upheld and applies equally to all;
• That they cause no scandals,including in pursuit of personal gain, to our cost or loss and against our standards of honesty and trust;

Partnership with the People

• That they help facilitate our ascent as a free and dignified people with our own identity;
• That they leave us to do what we can do best alone or in organisations of our creation;
• That they seek ways to work with us, The People, as equal partners for the benefit of all;
• That they facilitate unity, responsibility, enterprise and the rule of just, equitable laws;
• That they protect us and our borders from miscreants, criminals and those who would destroy us, and when these persons are found amongst us they do not award them rights to remain and profit at our expense.

Remedies

For failures, we reserve the right, at any time, to install new representation, government and/or systems of government through democratic means involving secret ballot and/or referenda.

Amendments

We reserve the right to amend and extend this Bill of our Rights, by due democratic process, under law, when circumstances deem it necessary; including remedy its shortcomings, to address a new or unforeseen circumstance or in the light of current knowledge and invention.

Conclusion

This Bill of Rights is a foundation upon which to help build a prosperous, free, democratic and peaceful country for all people governed well by The People and a beacon of hope to everyone.

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So – we won the EU Referendum.

Some have worked for years, nay, decades, like Nigel Farage and a number of UKIP members, to achieve this victory.

Some have worked for years, slogging away at the EU coalface: the UKIP MEPs. I may be biased, but to be fair, I’ll ask: has anyone represented by a Tory or Labour MEP ever received as much valid information about the Brussels shenanigans, as much reasoned and documented arguments for leaving as the UKIP MEPs provided?

Some have worked incessantly in any way they could to reach the normal people, the voters who have given Cameron a resounding NO on June 23rd. These are the grassroot activists who’ve manned stalls, leafleted everywhere until their boots dropped off, who debated in village halls and in shops and pubs, who talked and reasoned and argued.

These are the ones wot won it, not the posh Vote Leave organisers – even though many of us swallowed our hurt pride and stood with them for the sake of winning.

These are the ones without whom Cameron and the Remainians would indeed have won.

I’m not going to dissect the two campaigns, but I must point out that from the moment Vote Leave got the nod by the establishment people in the Electoral Commission, UKIP, Leave.eu and Grassroots Out swallowed their pride and went to work with them. Meanwhile, the MSM and the Tory ‘Leavers’ froze out Nigel Farage, UKIP, and anybody connected with them. They simply didn’t exis; the debates they took part in were not reported, their arguments weren’t heard in London.

Only twice did Nigel Farage suddenly become prominent in the MSM: at the Thames Flotilla event, gatecrashed by the boom town twat, and at the unveiling of the immigration poster. Both times he was denigrated and smeared as always. Well, you were there, you know what went on – and no, I won’t dignify the shroud-waving for “Saint Jo” with one more word.

So here we are, three days later and the Tory posh boys won’t have anything to do with Nigel Farage, never mind that without him they and we wouldn’t be where we are. But there’s worse …

In comment article after comment article in the MSM, analysing the result critically or benevolently, Nigel Farage is either not mentioned or if he’s mentioned at all, it is with the usual slurs and smears we’ve now come to know and expect. UKIP MEPs, by the way, don’t exist.

Now that Cameron has resigned, the Tory Leavers are pedalling back furiously. “No Brexit government,” says BoJo now. No role for Nigel Farage in the ‘negotiating team’, hints Gove. “We didn’t mean it,” says Hannan about controlling immigration.

They are protected by the MSM, so there are no critical reports about that. Nigel’s admission however that the NHS wouldn’t get the £350 million we save every week: omigawd! Never mind that he told the reporters that he got that argument from Vote Leavers – the establishment is now back to their normal modus operandum, which is in ancient Roman speech: “Farage esse delendam,” that is: Nigel Farage must be destroyed. The Left is back to labelling him and all OUT voters as racists – because wanting to leave the EU is racist, innit!

So what about the millions of voters voting OUT? The forgotten Old Labour voters can now be disregarded again by both sides. The disaffected Tory voters will be welcome back in the Tory fold. None of them matter now: there are leadership battles to be fought, there are troughs to be defended or newly found! Negotiations with Brussels take second place, and voters come a very distant last.

We’re back to where we started: the London establishment sees itself in the driving seat again. They can drag everything out, in Parliament and Whitehall. The resounding ‘Vote Leave’ argument by the Tories, that it’s about democracy, sounds hollow and insincere.

Did the stupid people, the ignorant voters really think democracy mattered? Not for the establishment! Not for BoJo, Gove, Hannan … and not for all those writers in the papers who late last week got off the fence and plumped for OUT. Back to ‘normal’, they think …

We cannot and must not let that happen.

Sorry, all you activists – keep your boots polished, your pens and PC keyboards ready: your work isn’t done yet.

Victory on June 23rd was indeed only the “End of the Beginning”, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill.

If we want our country back there are more battles ahead.

We cannot let this victory become nul and void, cannot allow the traitors in Parliament, the establishment and the media do their utmost to scupper it.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. That’s the price we now must pay, to take our country back from those who will betray us yet again.

The naivety of the media is astonishing. After decades of official cover-ups, the idea that the Chilcot Report is going to tell the truth is simply absurd.  It is highly unlikely to be any more revealing than the pointless Franks Report on the Falklands War, produced by the notorious Bilderberger and German agent Oliver Franks.

Franks, who did his best to aid the German war effort during World War II as a civil servant at the Ministry of Supply, set up at the behest of fellow German agent Sir Edward Bridges, had the rare distinction in Whitehall of having three members of Germany’s Cambridge Spy Ring, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, on his staff! To have employed just one was unusual – to have had all three assigned to him was a significant espionage achievement.

The media appear to have fallen for the age old padding trick. If you want a whitewash, but suspect people are on the alert for one, you drag your inquiry out and make your report as long as possible. It’s been done before, but in fairness no one has ever succeeded quite like the Chilcot team in padding an official document like this one. At a time when there are concerns about the environment, it’s a shameful waste of trees.

Sir John and I have never met. We were due to meet at the Intelligence Conference in Washington in 2005, when I was going to speak about Iraq’s links to 9/11. He pulled out, or, more likely, was ordered out. Even then there was desperate official anxiety to cover up the truth about Saddam’s involvement in 9/11. I offered to give evidence to his inquiry, but they weren’t interested, nor were they interested in any witness in possession of the facts about the involvement of the Iraqi Mukhabarat in 9/11, nor for that matter the earlier WTC1 attack.

There will also be no reference in the report to British involvement in the supply of nuclear components to apartheid South Africa. What’s the connection, I hear you ask? The connection is that three of the South African nukes ended up in Iraq. The apartheid nuclear programme was covert of course. The boys in Pretoria had lots of cash to distribute in connection with their hush-hush nuclear programme and a rather large wodge of it ended up in London.

Some of the people involved in the negotiations had political ambitions and ended up in government, so this was obviously a no-go area for Chilcot.  The inquiry only went after soft targets, like Tony Blair, and they won’t have gone after those too hard, since some of them will know where the skeletons are buried, and I don’t just mean Saddam’s.

I tried to save Saddam’s neck, by the way, offering to negotiate clemency if he came clean about 9/11, but he wasn’t interested. Either that, or the intermediary representing him was told to sacrifice him.

You will search the index of the report in vain for an entry relating to the DVD. Since Saddam was a DVD asset and the Ba’ath Party was created by the Abwehr in the 1930s as part of Germany’s drive to secure access to Middle East oil supplies, to write about Iraq without mentioning either the DVD or Germany would be completely absurd. Since the inquiry process has been an absurdity from the beginning, however, there is no reason to suppose that the report will not be in the same vein as the hearings.

Sir John is nothing if not dedicated, with respect. Having been told by the Cabinet Office to produce an absurdity he will have wanted the report to be a complete absurdity.

It was of course German pressure, applied through DVD assets in Washington, which turned Iraq into a tragic farce. Having lost their man Saddam, the Germans had one of the biggest hissy-fits in history. They were determined that the country should descend into chaos and they succeeded. Britain and America will be the fall guys of course, again. Our media and political class are pitifully ignorant of world affairs and easy to fool.

There will be a crescendo of criticism in the media of Britain and America, and of President Bush and Tony Blair. I guarantee there will not be a breath of criticism of Germany, even though the Ba’ath Party was their party, the overthrow of Iraq’s stable constitutional monarchy was their idea and it was Germany which wanted chaos in Iraq after 2003 and got it.

Another No Go area for Chilcot will have been the fabrication of the notorious Abu Ghraib ‘hood’ photo by the Syrian Mukhabarat in Damascus. It was too hot a topic for the Chilcot Inquiry, just as it has been too hot a topic for the mainstream media. The media have back-pedalled since it was exposed as a forgery – when was the last time you saw it in print – but have never apologised for getting Allied soldiers killed by smearing them with a crude Syrian forgery. As one of the Defense Intelligence Agency officers who investigated it told me, “Michael, it’s not even a good forgery”. It wasn’t.

The media also gave wide circulation to even cruder forgeries purporting to show atrocities being committed by British soldiers, without ever apologising to the British Army, indeed they contributed to the shabby cover-up. They also widely circulated false claims of war crimes concerning the death of the Iraqi terrorist Baha Mousa, many of which were ventilated in another farcical official whitewash, sorry inquiry.

I was fairly close to these events, as they happened, and know whereof I speak.

I would advise people against buying the report, even if you live in a lovely little thatched cottage in the country and need some whitewash. I intend no offence at all when I say that had the government or the Cabinet Office wanted a serious inquiry into the Iraq War they would hardly have appointed Sir John Chilcot.  

The seemingly impossible happened on 23 June 2016. A majority of the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. Britain’s exit from the European Union will soon be under way, perhaps over a two year period. What then is to be the future of UKIP when its founding purpose has been achieved?

One must look at the areas that voted to leave. These are areas where neither the Labour nor the Conservative parties speak for the people. Leaving the European Union is a prerequisite for national renewal but it is not guaranteed with the same political establishment in Westminster. The task for UKIP should be to win seats in the House of Commons at the next general election, not only to secure national independence but also to represent the decent working people of Britain who have been ignored and derided by a condescending and sneering elite.

The north of England, the Midlands and Wales, traditionally regarded as the Labour heartlands, all voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union yet are represented by a party that was resolutely in favour of remaining. There is an obvious disconnection between the people and their representatives. Almost everything the contemporary Labour party promotes makes the lives of the people in these areas worse off. Their enthusiasm for mass immigration ‘to make the UK truly multicultural’ and ‘to rub the Right’s nose in diversity’ should disqualify the Labour party from representing the people of the heartlands ever again. Andrew Neather wrote those words without any remorse despite the upheaval it has caused for Labour’s core constituency. These voters are crying out for an alternative to the pernicious doctrine of equality and diversity.

An end to mass immigration is not necessarily affirmed by leaving the European Union. It is quite conceivable that David Cameron’s successor will negotiate British membership of the Single Market while maintaining freedom of movement. Even if Britain secures an opt-out from the freedom of movement clause there is no reason to believe that annual net immigration will fall down to the tens of thousands. Immigration from outside the European Union is still well over a hundred thousand annually. It seems unlikely that the Conservative party will stop the abuse of the asylum system where people claim refugee status after passing through safe countries and are simply shopping around for the most favourable welfare state to reside in. Nor are they likely to end the racket of family reunification and sham marriages. It is inconceivable that the Conservatives have the political will to deport the estimated one million illegal immigrants residing in Britain. It seems almost certain that immigration, both legal and illegal, will not be under control by the end of this parliament and working people will continue to suffer from its ruinous effects.

Will the insane climate change agenda end post Brexit? The only practical effect of the energy policies to reduce carbon use and thereby halt climate change has been to push millions of people into fuel poverty and make British industry less competitive. The poor consumer who cannot afford light and heat suffers from this extreme act of folly as do those out of work after their employers have been forced to close. It is doubtful that either the Labour or Conservative parties will challenge the environmentalists so working people will continue to suffer needlessly from the effects of artificially inflated energy costs.

It would be out of character for the Conservatives to seize this opportunity to thoroughly reform the economy. An end to inflation and enacting a policy of sound money and balanced budgets is a distant dream. The huge and endless government deficits reduce investment into the real economy, lowering the overall level of prosperity and damaging the prospects of working people. To fund profligate government spending we have a cartel of banks, aided and abetted by the Bank of England, inflating the currency by imposing a hidden tax and destroying the savings of ordinary people. The housing bubble which is a consequence of inflation is pricing millions out of the property market. Owning a home is becoming a pipedream for far too many people now. Indeed the younger generation is in many ways worse off than their parents because of an overpriced housing market – a devastating blow for our economic system’s credibility. Every generation should expect to be better off financially than their parents as the economy progresses. Economic stagnation and financial impoverishment should not be countenanced. The working people of Britain are desperate for better representation that will ensure their living standards improve. Sadly it seems likely that in the immediate future the British people will continue to be impoverished by the establishment’s financial irresponsibility.

It is doubtful that the establishment will stop apologising for Britain and her history. The denigration and repudiation of the achievements of Western civilisation from the mainstream media and the education system will in all likelihood be allowed to continue unabashed. Of course anyone should be free to denounce Britain as having contributed nothing to the world except imperialism and racism. However, no one should be furnished by the taxpayer for doing so. A political party that is unashamedly patriotic would be refreshing and popular with the majority of the British people.

If UKIP is to survive and prosper after Britain’s inevitable withdrawal from the European Union it is most likely to be as a radical right-wing populist party that does not shy away from challenging mass immigration, equality and diversity, environmentalism, bureaucratic tyranny and general impoverishment while standing up for the interests of British working people against the globalist elites. None of these positions would contradict UKIP’s democratic and libertarian principles as laid down in the party’s constitution. If the party were to adopt such a strategy it could well capture huge swathes of Labour held seats in England and Wales at the next general election. A new opportunity has opened up for the party and it is up to us if we are to seize it.

Around half an hour after Nigel resigned as leader I typed ‘UKIP’ into Google which returned a first page of results in which the Party’s website was surrounded by the news of Nigel’s resignation.

The UKIP website had no mention of this significant political event, almost as if it had not happened at all.

In his resignation speech Nigel mentioned the needed improvement in professionalism within the party, a factor that is so embarrassingly highlighted by this simple issue. Sadly, this is not an isolated instance and it is important to remember that what the party is now, in terms of success, is predominantly due to Nigel Farage and where it is in terms of organisational competency is predominantly due to those who have held positions of authority up until now including, perhaps, some who may also see themselves as a future leader.

Michael Portillo, last week, acknowledged Nigel as the highly influential party leader he has been, despite having only one MP, despite the skewed electoral system and despite the constant misrepresentation of his views. He has stood head and shoulders above others simply because he did it with the system against him as opposed to being with him. Michael Portillo also raised the real question of ‘what is the point of UKIP now’. So I’ll answer that and in the process outline the qualities, I believe, the new leader will need.

I have to say at the outset that I don’t, at the moment, see any of the ‘usual suspects’ as being the right person so who will emerge? One thing is certain, that to succeed the new leader must be able to identify and utilise those skills of people around them and within the party, there will not be another Nigel.

There is a vacuum in British politics that we have not experienced before. The Tories move us ever more toward a society that exacerbates the wealth division and pursues policies that do not necessarily serve the quality of life of the majority of British citizens. Gross GDP is the new god despite the plunging productivity and depression of wages due, in part, to mass immigration that we now have the means to temper. We are set, under Tory rule, to serve GDP above all else.

The Labour party is running away from its electorate as fast as it can into the arms of the ‘British left’. That’s not to suggest that they have anyone of appropriate integrity or vision in their parliamentary ranks either and any version of the existing political status quo will further damage our ability to move safely forward. The Liberal Democrats, Greens and the like will always play their bit part roles so the answer to ‘what now for UKIP’ is clearly to fill this hole and present a real alternative vision unfettered by the long term vested interests of the existing political elite.

To do that we must be bold as we always have been about getting out from under the disastrous European Union but, now we do not have a Farage.

Despite my recognition of Nigel’s successes, I truly believe that his standing down was and is a necessary evolutionary step to create the opportunity for UKIP to choose a new leader with the skills and abilities to take the next step. They will have a different tone, a sharp wit and be able to lay out a strategy to win the hearts and minds of the people.  Alternatively, we could pick a dud as the party did before when he last stood down in 2009. It really is make or break. The election process isn’t helpful to ‘outsiders’ so it will be unusual were an unknown candidate to emerge but, not impossible.

So what needs to be done?

Our party is flawed from the constitution up. It worked well all the time the party was effectively seen as only Nigel Farage mainly because the 3.8 million votes in 2015 were principally gathered by him. The massive and committed constituencies who do the local leg work are virtually ignored by the party central yet still turn out because of a belief in the fundamental principles. However, they are generally older people, so having won Brexit it is time to spread the agenda and paint a picture of a fairer and more dynamic society, severely limiting the influence of vested interests and placing more power and authority into the hands of the people. The party needs to appeal across the spectrum and the way to do that is multidimensional.

The party’s constitution, rule book and structure must be re-set to establish a clear communications structure between the constituencies and the party governance. That can be done over time but, the fundamental messaging has to be immediate. We have to tell everybody what the new principles are, we must be bold and imaginative and have a leader that can present effectively in an unfriendly environment, to be engaging, be capable of instant, courteous and pertinent observations in debate but, above all, have an unflinching vision of a more egalitarian society with increased opportunities for all.

We will not always attract universal support for the things we know to be right but we must have fully prepared arguments to win over sceptics and tentative supporters alike. The challenge is not small. We have to have a more inclusive mechanism for policy creation. It must allow input from members as well as the great and the good. As a party we aren’t very good at using the skills and abilities of those who support our aims. Some of our members have very specific and well developed skills but the party doesn’t even attempt to tap into that rich vein. A principal use of thoughtful and educated supporters is as a repository to establish ‘Red Teams’. A red team is a group of people unconnected with a specific policy idea and their job is to try and break it. This is contrary to a the more usual approach of leaders and their immediate group who only listen to people who agree with them. That’s how the nonsensical ‘repeal of the smoking ban’ crept into the 2015 manifesto to the delight of the opposition who would prefer to talk about that than any other issue.

Policy creation needs to begin now. Manifesto commitments should no longer remain a secret until mysteriously revealed a couple of weeks before an election. When we introduce new political concepts they will take time to bed into the nation’s consciousness. Some debates we’ll need to win, so it is essential that people know what we stand for some way out.

Having policies ‘stolen’ is an overblown concern and quite flattering. The antidote to this perceived threat is to present so many original ideas and innovative policies that our opponents won’t know whether to steal any at all or which ones to steal first. That’s a better way to proceed.

The party also need to consider how to actively harvest supporters in addition to members, and also to clarify the benefits of membership (and add some) as there aren’t too many at the moment.

Having won Brexit we need a new and substantive calling, so the next major campaign has to be the extension of a fairer democracy including:

• A more representative and proportional electoral system (see www.makevotescount.co.uk ) not necessarily one of the flawed PR systems. F2PTP isn’t high on the political agenda of electoral reform despite meeting representative and proportional criterion better than any other system.
• The reform of political party and election funding which will mean public money. This is an argument that can be won as the alternative would forever negate this fairer concept of democratic engagement. Arguments should be won on their merits not on the size of bank balances. We must not underestimate the opposition to this from those with something to lose.
• An independent body from which all factual information connected with electoral campaigning must be drawn. Lies, damned lies and statistics should at least have an authoritative source.
• An internet voting option.
• The extension of local and national referenda.

We should commit to a royal commission on social healthcare and move the discussion away from a single and bureaucratic organisation (NHS). The health of the nation is not best served by a fundamentally reactive organisation doomed to be underfunded forever.

Above all though, UKIP will remain committed to independence, although no longer from the EU, but for the individual. Sometimes called social mobility, the ability of people to succeed depends principally on education and opportunity, so a plan is needed to advance this cause.

Do we have the right person waiting in the wings? Will an outsider come through and enthral people with new ideas and a positive future outlook, or will one of the sitting tenants simply get to occupy a chair that would be far too big for them?

Michael Portillo was right, we are at a crossroads, but we have an opportunity to make this third force in British politics a second or even a first one.