Politicians should have a vision. George H. W. Bush's perceived lack of one probably cost him a second term. Atlee's vision of a British Socialist Commonwealth condemned the UK to a painful exodus from the privation of WW2. Its legacy hampered our development. The Reagan - Thatcher vision was a time of hope, a vision of a renewal for the world demo...
With little discussion most of the world (the democratic west at least) is in a race to a net zero bottom. Scientific evidence is manipulated to 'prove' carbon damage. Normal climate variations that have existed since the world began are now labelled a 'Climate emergency'. Scientists who disagree are silenced by withdrawal of funding and or loss of...
Seventy five years ago George Orwell, in my view the greatest political thinker of the 20th Century, wrote the novel 1984. This was one of the most prescient books ever written, eclipsing most science fiction stories, in that it is so true to the age in which we now live, while, as a horror story it puts fantasies such as Dracula in the shade. Not ...
Whatever the choreography we have a clog dance not a ballet. Sunak's 'deal' is yet another fudge. Involving the King in politics and the manipulation, copied from the EU, demonstrate a cynical disregard for probity. The Northern Ireland Protocol is a travesty. No Independent nation can agree to be ruled by a political court (The ECJ) whose sole rem...
The values that have nurtured our law and democracy are increasingly under attack. Keir Starmer endorsing the move to enable people to declare that they are not the sex they were when born. He claims women can have a penis. He also, unsurprisingly was unable to define a 'Woman'. Supporting this idiocy, media reports of a rapist who claims he ...
For many years I have pondered the cunning, deceitfulness and often seemingly sinister actions of our elected Members of Parliament and Governments, I have tried to understand why they were so happy to surrender our country to rule from the European Union and why they are all so besotted with 'Net Zero' and spout a lot of nonsense about globa...
Since the referendum governments have squandered opportunity. We should be in a strong position, but a combination of Pro EU Tories, the Blob and the Civil Service has put democracy at risk. The daily attacks on Brexit citing idiotic opinion polls, demonstrate a determination by the opponents of democracy to take us back into the EU whatever the co...
The Bruges Group is pleased to republish this article by Barnabas Reynolds Brussels' rules are prescriptive and controlling, and are holding back British growth The Prime Minister must restore Britain's sovereignty over our laws The Government is seeking the power to remove some of the vast swathes of EU-inherited law by the end of 2023 in it...
Three quarters of a century ago, when Britain was fighting for her life and the freedom of Europe, no important body of opinion would have questioned the value of patriotism or the importance of preserving and cherishing our nationhood as a focus of resistance to Nazi totalitarianism. Pride in our heritage, our sense of connection with the past and...
For over a century the UK has struggled with political realism and to an extent, its identity. In 1918 the Labour Parties pamphlet 'Labour and the New Social Order' set out an essentially communist agenda. Beatrice and Sidney Webb's 1920 book ' Constitution For The Socialist Commonwealth Of Great Britain' fleshed it out. Many were taken in by talk ...
The short-lived Truss government came to power with a mandate to change Britain. She fought her campaign clearly stating her policy. She was lawfully elected according to the rules. Her policy was designed to produce growth. Cutting taxes was a part of the program. The respected US Tax Foundation in its 2020 report on UK tax wrote: "All things bein...
The UK faces problems, problems that to a great degree are the fault of the political and financial establishment. There is no point in blaming every ill on Covid and Ukraine indeed it is only to the latter crisis that the establishment response has been sure footed. Otherwise, the failures are legion. Brexit has not been fully implemente...
I was raised to consider the police to be the friends of ordinary people, there to protect us from criminals and thugs. As a youngster I found this to be true and later, as an adult I met many policemen, when playing in teams against them, at various sports, such as golf, tennis, squash, football etc. Now retired I know a number of retired officers...
One of the less-endearing qualities of the Conservative and Unionist Party (and I speak as a life-long Conservative voter), is the lemming-like compulsion to immediate change leader if things appear not to be going their way. 'Throwing out the baby with the bathwater' appears to be the inevitable jerk reaction by some MPs, regardless of the value o...
The great war time leader, Winston Churchill, once said: "democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried". he was seldom wrong in his political thinking, a sound working democracy ensures tyrants and despots do not have the chance to come to power. Sadly, through history and events today, there have been ...
Democracy is in serious trouble. Before Trump was sworn in, many Democrats took to the streets to protest. 'He is not my president' was their battle cry. The American people were presented with a choice between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. They had to elect one of them and the majority chose Trump. For democracy to function there must be loser ...
An energy crisis hit world economies and after almost three years the pain exploded in most countries. The exception was the USA. Acting pro-actively President Reagan slashed regulation to free the economy. He fired over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Breaking the strike. An action Paul Volcker saw as a 'watershed' moment in the battle ag...
The appointment of Chris-Heaton Harris as the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was greeted warmly by unionists, ever hopeful that at long last we would have a Secretary of State who cared as much about protecting the rights of unionists as those of nationalists. Moreover, there was a great hope that this UK Government would break with the sy...
The best way to honor the queen would be to take up her form of leadership—as service. She was vivacious and regal up until her final passing. But the queen exuded something even more profound—a surety in the way she led. The entire world watched (an estimated 4.4 billion, making it the most viewed event in history) and wept over the recent l...
The Acts of Union is the present constitutional foundation of the United Kingdom. As the late Lord Trimble, the unionist architecture of the Belfast Agreement, said: The Acts of Union is the Union. The Northern Ireland Protocol "subjugates" (in the words of the Court of Appeal) Article VI of the Acts of Union, and therefore it follows that it subju...
There is a disconnect between the media, politicians and the people of the UK. We are fed a daily diet of gloom. Hysterical millionaire 'experts' rant with messianic fervour. A plethora of experts, who helped cause the problem, seek to out do each other in their apoplectic zeal to blame others. It is as if they seek to reprise the late Jack Hawkins...
It is time to reset our expectation of democracy. We have drifted into a situation where people vote for politicians who, mostly, ignore their duty. That duty is to protect the nation and its people. To create an environment where, in security, hard work is rewarded and people can flourish peacefully under the law. Perversely, politicians have adap...
In a very revealing article many years ago called "Why I am Not a Conservative," a very famous libertarian let the cat out of the bag. He loudly denounced the argument for tradition and custom by calling for a form of anything goes liberalism and atheism. Some go even further, coming close to anarchy with their complete opposition to the state and ...
Democracy, liberty and the continuation of western civilisation is under threat. It is threatened by those we have elected to protect and nurture our society. A small number of self entitled politicians and bureaucrats take decisions without reference to their electorate. Sunak's decision to raise Corporation tax to 25% next year has everything to ...
Boris Johnson's fall is due to a combination of factors. The man who was London's Mayor for eight years seems to have forgotten the reason for that success. He chose able lieutenants to implement his policy. As Prime Minister he desperately needed them. Without them, everything from BREXIT to Tax Cuts stalled and it seemed increasingly that the gov...
The following analysis by Ben Habib is reprinted from: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/ben-habib-we-are-being-hoodwinked-again-by-the-northern-ireland-protocol-bill-3750685 Ben Habib is a Newspaper Columnist and former Brexit Party MEP I am having a profound sense of déjà vu. In 2019 I said the Prime Minister's oven ready deal was a...
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotlands first Minister, has been banging on, yet again, about holding another referendum on Scottish independence and is proposing to hold a plebiscite during October 2023. This is despite the fact she lost the so-called 'once in a lifetime' independence referendum in 2014. If the people of Scotland go mad and vote to break...
Sir William Cash MPRt Hon David Jones MPMartin Howe QCBarnabas Reynolds The constitutional and legal position of the United Kingdom in relation to the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland (the "Protocol") is founded on Section 38 of the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 ("EUWAA 2020"). There are also pertinent issues relating to international ...
Thirty years ago, twenty-three Conservative Members of Parliament voted against the Maastricht Treaty. Our main concern was that it opened the door to the abolition of the Pound and its replacement with what became the euro. Some twenty-seven years later in two-thousand and nineteen, twenty-seven Conservative Members of Parliament voted against The...
Take back control, they said. The UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership was their means of doing so. In response to the 11th hour intervention from the European Court of Human Rights which led to the flight being cancelled, the Home Secretary Priti Patel said "We will not be deterred from doing the right thing and delivering...
Michael Neu is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Politics and Ethics at the University of Brighton. He writes, "Defenders of just liberal violence … fail to see that any attempt analytically to separate their philosophical arguments from the politics of their time – the attempt, essentially, to engage in apolitical moral philosophy about matters of ...
Anthony Coughlan is known to most of us for his heroic work for the National Platform of Ireland, which campaigns for Ireland's independence from the EU. As Michael Quinn writes, "He has tirelessly campaigned against the centralising and unaccountable EU bureaucracy; articulating instead the alternative case for a Europe of independent and co-opera...
Being ambushed on his birthday to listen to a small group singing 'Happy Birthday' and sip a glass of wine may have been foolish of the PM. It does not count as crime in rational people's book. 10 Downing Street is a huge office. The Police issued 126 fixed-penalty notices naming only three recipients. The other 123 were presumably issued to specia...
If Elon Musk succeeds in ending the left liberal bias on Twitter, which he will find hard, perhaps he might turn his attention to ‘NextDoor’, the local internet, where the same morons are allowed to run riot. Although I never touch social media, as so many of its users have obviously forgotten to take their tablets, I have used ‘NextDoor’, as one can advertise goods for sale, or seek information on local tradesmen etc. However it does also open the door to postings on any subject, so the woke, and other idiots, frequently add comments on a number of social issues, but always from the left liberal point of view. Any of us who respond are then subjected to abuse, with no effort being made to answer anything we say, the comments being full of claims, and no substance.
Remainers accuse Leavers of xenophobia, to doubt man made climate change causes the extreme environmentalists to call us scientific illiterates at best, although more usually morons, any statement pointing out that the British Empire was not all bad, and that one should leave the past to the past, is greeted with accusations of racism, as does any questioning of allowing thousands of illegal immigrants to land on our beaches, while if one dares to question the left consensus on sexual matters, particularly ‘trans’ issues this provokes completely over the top abuse.
I recently encountered this latter crowd when I dared to mention ‘so called’ trans men, pointing out that one female inmate of a prison had been raped by one such, as had a female occupant of a hospital ward. This generated hysteria, with me accused of being a rabid right wing transphobe, which some were unable to answer because they were so upset. Poor little snowflakes!
One particularly moronic woman posted the following “Your hate and fear is palpable. Your comments are abhorrent. You have absolutely no idea with regards to “ trans” personal issues and use media propaganda and stereotyping to spread hate, fear and paranoia. This is the same type demonising of the Jewish race and paranoia and hate that was spread in 1930’s Germany, U.K. and many other countries due to Fascism. So that illustrates exactly what you are. A Facist through and through filled with hate. Or in other words a sad little man”. This directed at someone who hates Nazis, and fascists, and who has always supported Israel!
This same lunatic followed up with “You have no hate yet you hate trans. You say you want to protect the rights of free speech but free speech begins with tolerance. Tolerance of everyone in our society not just the people we decide should have free speech. Women fought for rights and so do trans fight for rights. A trans person doesn’t choose who they are - they simply are the way they are. Those who aren’t trans are lucky enough to know who they are but I don’t expect you to understand that or to understand the mental anguish or persecution that many trans endure and yet you choose to judge and persecute trans people more by what incidents you read depicted propaganda in the media. Yes Goebbels and Mosley would have been extremely proud of you. Your hate is evidenced by your hate comments. You are the bigot. I believe In tolerance and equality. I think a trans person has just as many rights as the next person as a human being first and foremost and should be treated as such. The difference is I know trans people and value them. I also know women and value them. Just as much as I know men and value them. Each one is a person and as such are all entitled to rights. You don’t see any of them as people. You just divide them into labels that’s the difference and one label disgusts you. As for trying to protect women- don’t make me laugh. That’s your justification you tell yourself for your hatred. Keep lying to yourself because I can assure you no one else believes you”. This latter comment was because I dared to defend J K Rowling, and said that I supported the hard won rights of women.
After all this I replied in some anger, although without abuse, yet I then found that the ‘moderators’ had removed me from the forum for a week, because I had breached their laws on politeness. These latter must either be more snowflakes, who cry if they hear anyone arguing, or else just products of our modern education system, who believe all the rubbish the liberal left spouts. I suspect the latter.
What is clear is that most of these imbeciles are not themselves ‘trans’, but are merely virtue signalling to prove how wonderful they are (they think!). I expect that the few who do come under the ‘trans’ heading would rather be left alone to get on with their lives, but they are just cannon fodder for the mainly white, middle class, university (if you can call them that these days) educated idiots.
These people cannot be stopped from ranting, but it would be of great help if the silent majority, who rightly regard them with contempt, would join me in hitting back. If enough were then censored by the ‘moderators’ it would make a good case for closing the whole cesspit down.
This week has been another shocking reminder how far adrift today's Conservative Party are from the principles enunciated and implemented by its greatest peacetime leader Margaret Thatcher. To me personally, this has been dramatically emphasised by the loss of Westminster City Council to the Labour Party. Some thirty years ago as the Finance Chairm...
Is there a need for a rethink of the 21st century direction of travel of globalisation, the concept of a global village, 4IR, communitarianism and supranationalism, as conceived at the end of the previous century? Vulnerabilities of scale The devastating impact of the pandemic on economics, trade, logistics and the global supply chain, plus the imp...
Boris has offered his heart-felt apology to the nation for inadvertently breaking lockdown rules, for which he has been fined, but that is not enough for his political enemies unsurprisingly. Wednesday's PMQs were marked by a tiresome repetition by Opposition MPs demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, using up precious parliamentary time ...
Voters are looking at Rishi Sunak's chaotic mini-Budget and concluding: the party stands for nothing at all. Every so often, a member of the Question Time audience manages to capture the current mood. It happened when an elderly gentleman told a bickering Nigel Farage and Eddie Izzard to "shut up" during a programme filmed in the run up to th...
When Parliament fell to debating various versions of a Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU some of us had no wish to enter binding arrangements with the EU that could continue to prevent us making sovereign decisions for ourselves through elections and Parliamentary votes. I along with 27 other Conservative MPs voted three times against ...
It is constantly claimed that the purpose of the Irish protocol is to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, but that is a lie. The real purpose is to disrupt the existing economic integration between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and instead promote integration between the province and the Irish Republic, and the chosen mechanism for...
Backs down on NI Protocol, then withdraws proposed rule changes, but wins in Appeals Court. The Government is busy on Ukraine but what about the integrity of the UK? Despite past assurances of being willing to suspend the Northern Ireland Protocol it continues in place after the British Government revealed its true self yesterday. Firstly it ...
Millions of column inches have been filled with Partygate. When government imposes draconian measures on your civil liberties through legislation and then ignores them themselves, this is understandable and in the public interest, so more than "fair game". I have noticed however that Labour sleaze gets rather less attention. With Rachel Reeves and ...
Recently, I tweeted as below. It is not exhaustive, this is Twitter after all but it serves as a useful starting point for a piece I did not think needed to be written, such has been my own "compliance" in the con. Canada has full despotism. New Zealand is descending further into tyranny. Germany has been muzzled by Putin’s gas yet suppresses its o...
With Westminster politics now on shutdown until 21st February, we can finally draw breath and reflect on the rise of Keir Starmer's standing as a future Prime Minister, not least in opinion polls when benchmarked against Boris Johnson. Starmer is enjoying a sustained period of Labour leading the Tories in the opinion polls, since their self inflict...
Since Heath bamboozled us into joining the Common Market successive governments of all parties have treated the electorate and democracy with contempt. John Locke, in his Second Treatise of Government, declared: "The Legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated power from the People, they who...
"Never glad confident morning again" This was the phrase used by Nigel Birch in the Profumo debate of June 1963 to encapsulate the situation in which Prime Minister Harold Macmillan found himself. Four months later, Macmillan decided to resign. I have always been struck by the similarities between Macmillan and Johnson. They both went to Eton and B...
Instinctively, I am sceptical about public inquiries and the like. Having lived long enough to see successive governments use inquiries as a means to avoid difficult questions "in the moment" and then avoid the same difficult questions when the findings of the inquiry are reported as "it is all in the report and we will learn the lessons from it", ...
Whether the PM had gatherings/meetings/parties at No 10 and/or Whitehall is merely 'froth' or 'fluff', compared with the events unfolding throughout the country and the world. It is this unbalanced focus on trivia that has increasingly annoyed me, to the extent that I have been motivated to put metaphorical pen to paper, in an attempt to highlight ...
Hate: why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship, Nadine Strossen, OUP, 2018. Nadine Strossen is Professor of Constitutional Law at New York Law School and she was the national President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008. As she points out, "Discussions about 'hate speech' have been clouded by conclusory c...
In defence of democracy, Roslyn Fuller, Polity, 2019 This is a great book. Roslyn Fuller, the Director of the Solonian Democracy Institute, punctures with evidence and wit the arrogance and pomposity of those politicians and academics who tell us what to think and do. After the two 2016 shocks, the majority vote to leave the EU and the election of ...
It has been a week of melodrama in the latest instalment of the soap opera that is the Conservative & Unionist Party. Talk of a "pork pie plot", so called as the Rutland & Melton MP, Alicia Kearns, one member of the 2019 new intake of Conservative MPs was allegedly pivotal in it, was seized on by the mainstream media whose appetite for the ...
Spartan victory: the inside story of the battle for Brexit, Mark Francois, paperback, 464 pages, ISBN 9798484798391, Kindle Direct Publishing, 2021. Mark Francois, the MP for Rayleigh and Wickford in Essex, and chairman of the European Research Group, has written a fascinating account of that part of the battle for Brexit that was waged in th...
Who could have predicted that of all the Downing Street scandals of the last two and a half years, the parliamentary Conservative party would finally divide...over an actual party? In the name of public health, Boris Johnson and his government punitively repealed and restored basic civic autonomies as they pleased. Now it transpires that at a time ...
DFor libertarians, it has been another alarming week as the political class continues to use emergency measures to control their populations and the COVID-19 narrative. In France, (absolutely not because there is a presidential race in April), Emmanuel Macron has admitted he wants to "piss off" his country's 5M unvaccinated, exacerbating the divide...
The news on the18th December that Lord Frost was resigning his position as our EU negotiator due to his unhappiness with the decisions the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson was making, was one of the worst things to happen in these strange times. I personally was devastated. I have written to Lord Frost and reproduce my letter below. Dear Lord Fr...
Parliament is now in recess until the New Year. Unless of course the Prime Minister decides to impose further restrictions on the English population's civil liberties. Having already moved to (so called) Plan B COVID-19 restrictions, rumours abound at the time of writing that plans for a 2 week circuit breaker lockdown are well advanced. It has bee...
"We were the 28 MPs who saved Britain, we saved our nation and this is the inside story of how we did it." The Rt. Hon. Mark Francois MP The Bruges Group led the intellectual debate for Britain to leave the European Union and now we have the story from within, the story of the ERG from an MP who was at the heart of Brexit. 28 Members of Parliament ...
As Boris hatred reaches yet another crescendo the media, opposition parties and remainers in the Civil Service and assorted Quangos hugged their self perceived purity. Like a pack of crazed Wolves scenting blood, they moved in for the kill. The impending power disaster. Possible wars in Ukraine and Taiwan. The woke destruction of culture and free s...
Well that escalated quickly. I have felt for a long time and said for a while that the Conservative & Unionist Party is now misnomered. Even I am staggered by the depths now being plumbed. The globalist, green, high tax, high spend, manifesto breaking agenda is not conservatism. It is now a CONINO party (Conservative in Name Only). Jeremy Corby...
With 5 months to go until France goes to the polls to elect their next president, the stalking horses have begun to fall, leaving behind 3 main challengers (including 2 women) to Emmanuel Macron: Marine Le Pen, Valérie Pecrésse and following unprecedented polling prior to confirming his candidacy, Éric Zemmour. Whilst all representing differen...
After a lengthy period of mediocrity (even to the point of substantial anonymity away from London) since winning the leadership of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer's fortunes have taken a substantial upturn since the Owen Paterson debacle. Whilst Starmer with his forensic, albeit leaden footed questioning at PMQs has from time to time landed a bl...
How many times have you been told, thought, heard or said "you can't say that"? As a minimum, with every passing month it will happen more and more to many of us. Comedians and authors are increasingly self censoring for fear of "offending" their audience. When did we lose the right to be offended? We rail against politicians not giving a straight ...
The argument put forward by Brexit critics in the past, and now, is a combination of such: 1) The world moves in large, multilateral blocs – hence being part of the EU, the closest possible multilateral bloc, means the UK can stay an active part of the world economy. In an era where big collective action must be taken, from bulk buying PPE in a pan...
The decision by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal that the national constitution has primacy over EU law - a decision supported by the PiS government - has sent shockwaves around the EU establishment. The Tribunal decided that Articles 1 and 19 - referring to an 'ever closer union', and the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) respectively - ...
After the 2016 referendum, when did people stop just holding a firm or ambiguous position in a debate and become formed into parties? Whereas people were expected to move forward for the common good, following the result, they continued to believe their 'side' was for the common good and the other 'side' the opposite. As a consequence, some of thos...
The sun had shone all day, the people we had been meeting every time the Brexit battle bus stopped all of us anti EU, pro-Brexit campaigners, would pile out and meet mostly receptive people who were declaring they were going to vote to leave the EU in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum. We had spent an hour or so on Worcester market and were on t...
How refreshing to return from Party Conference which was held in a state of near normality. The only element which was not completely normal was that there were less people. That I think was due to the fact potential attendees were worried it would in the end be cancelled or that vaccine passports would be demanded in some form. This in a nutshell ...
Where is the evidence that this ruling has saved anyone from being exposed to sub standard or dangerous products? We have heard so much from the EU Big Wigs and European politicians about how important it is to have checks on goods going from one part of the United Kingdom to another – mainland UK to Northern Ireland - it is therefore vital to...
At Conservative Party Conference this year, we are delighted to be hosting the 'Liberty Zone' on Monday 4th October 2021 at the Science and Industry Museum, Liverpool Road, Manchester, M3 4PF. We are holding our annual Party Conference event this year alongside Time 4 Recovery, a group set up to pressure the government with oppositi...
Hands up, who still thinks the Conservatives are a low tax party? If your hand is up, might I suggest you put it swiftly down and start writing some letters to the 321 Tory MPs who this week voted in favour of the biggest tax hike since the Second World War. Someone ought to inform them. Someone also might want to disband CCHQ come the next general...
Different opinion polls ask different questions. Survation's surveys of Scottish opinion ask, "should Scotland remain in the United Kingdom or leave the United Kingdom?" This question rightly offers both options. This follows the Electoral Commission's guidance that "A referendum question should present the options clearly, simply and neutrally." R...
I had the opportunity to speak to the Honorable John Manley, a long serving Cabinet Minister in the Canadian Government, having served in key posts such as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister of Foreign Affairs – among others. John Manley is also known for having authored the Manley Report on Afghanistan in 2007 and having been...
The claim that a dark and heaving nightclub delivers the perfect breeding ground for Covid isn't particularly contentious. Lots of people packed tightly together, snogging, singing and shouting in a confined space with poor ventilation is perhaps the Department of Health's worst nightmare. Now, if you want to keep clubbing in Britain, the governmen...
Economic victory in a free trade world will always go to the strongest economy – and the disparity is growing. Against this a new concept has emerged: technology sovereignty. This recognises that IT infrastructure lies at the heart of a modern society. And it's about far more than access to broadband. Networked computers are not only essentia...
Is America's precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan just a temporary setback, or does it signal a strategic retreat, an abdication from its role as world leader? If so, it will leave a gaping void, a vacuum that others will want to step in and fill. To be a world leader a country needs not only muscle (economic, military, demographic) but also a m...
Since Boris Johnson was elected with a thumping majority of 80 events have over taken his premiership. It was assumed that the biggest political headache would be Brexit. That proved not to be the case and in less than 3 months Coronavirus was upon us and all that has entailed. Sadly we have just copied the actions of the Chinese Communist Party, w...
The failure of the SNP to gain a majority in the elections to the Scottish parliament has forced them into a huddle with the equally separatist Greens – and into a series of increasingly unpopular policies. Dubbed a 'coalition of chaos', the new alliance in August between the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party has been born out of...
The recent withdrawal of the U.S. and its ally forces from Afghanistan has been nothing short of being consequential. The ambiguity of Afghanistan's future has already been deemed a loss for the U.S. thanks to extensive media coverage and the Taliban's rapid conquest of the nation, despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring it a successful...
My fellow Americans: Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts wit...
It is sad that of all the members of the House of Lords, only two had the guts to make a stance against the enforced anti-bullying and sexual harassment training course which has been inflicted on all Peers. For the powers that be in the House of Lords, to insist all our Peers take part in this training, is presuming that all 800 or so member...
Xi Jinping's acceleration of the shift towards an increasingly jingoistic Chinese foreign policy reflects a strengthening of Xi's position in China. Throughout the past 12 months, Chinese foreign policy has changed course in an aggressive manner. China spread propaganda about Australian soldiers committing war crimes in the Middle East and lashed o...
Panelists: Barry Legg (Chair), Lord Dodds of Duncairn, Sir Bernard Jenkin MP, James Webber Lord Dodds, former Westminster Leader of the DUP: On the recent resignation of Edwin Poots: resignation provides the opportunity to "move forward…in a more constructive way"The imposition of the NI protocol has been the main contributory factor to ...
Panelists: Barry Legg (Chair), Lord Dodds of Duncairn, Sir Bernard Jenkin MP, James Webber Barry Legg, Chairman of the Bruges Group: Our next speaker is Bernard Jenkin. Bernard is Chairman of the House of Commons Liaison Committee, on which all select committee chairmen sit. Previously, he was Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee,...
Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinchaft conference Berlin 1942 and the Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftstag (MWT) This was the report and conference by the leading Nazi economists during WW2 which planned a European Economic Community: http://www.jar2.com/Files/Nazism/The_Europeische_Wirtschaftsgemeinchaft_Berlin_1942.pdf When I started looking i...
The new Atlantic Charter, signed by the Prime Minister and President Biden as a 'reaffirmation' of the Special Relationship, is a somewhat mixed bag. The Atlantic Charter of 1941 envisioned a postwar world order we're all too familiar with, from respecting national sovereignty and democracy overseas to the aim of lowering tariffs. This 'New' Atlant...
Today marks 34 years since one of the most memorable and historic speeches ever made by a US President, and one that changed the course of history, it is of course when President Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and told General Secretary Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". Now as we face today's challenges, our leaders shoul...
Three years before she became Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher addressed a meeting of the Exeter Conservatives. During her speech, she set out what freedom means. Among other things, she noted that it "is the right to move freely within a country - or to leave it."* It is not for me to presume what the great lady's opinion would have been on ...
Alexander Adamescu is to be extradited from the UK to Romania, on an accusation of having, with his late father Dan Adamescu, bribed judges in Romania in 2013, in a case concerning a construction company. He asserts that the real reason is political - that his father and he controlled an opposition newspaper, Romania Libera, and Romanian Prosecutor...
A Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate. The three degrees which are considered a must have for a career in academia. Any person who knows the hard work and discipline it takes to receive a degree, will acknowledge how intense it is to gain all three. I am myself in my seventh year of university and in the second year of my doctorate. It really hasn't b...
There are some things in life that should never mix, pineapple and pizza, baking soda and vinegar, but perhaps more than both of those examples is sport and politics! This last year has emphasised that more than anything, from taking the knee before every single sporting event to the supposedly controversial opinion of male athletes competing in wo...
The hollowing out of Irish independence: how the Irish people were made citizens of an EU Federation, by Anthony Coughlan, pamphlet, 16 pages, The National Platform, January 2021. The indefatigable Anthony Coughlan has produced another fine contribution to the debates about Brexit, Irexit and the EU. He is a lifelong campaigner for Irish independen...
Holyrood elections to the Scottish Parliament are now just days away and the debate on Scottish independence is predictably heating up once again, especially as now there is a second pro-indyref party in the form of Alba, led by former SNP First Minister, Alex Salmond. The debate often skirts around one issue, currency and it's rather a significant...
Twilight of the Gods" was Richard Wagner's last in the cycle of music dramas called, "The Ring of Nibelung," which is based on old Norse mythology prophesying war among beings and gods that results in the burning and remaking of the world. It is always deeply dissatisfying when a negative prediction comes true—especially predictions which are meant...
Friday just gone marked the end of an era for not just Britain, but the whole world. The death of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh will be mourned by people from all four corners of the world, for he was a staple of British society and a true great Briton. For such a staple of Britishness, and arguably the most recognised Briton after HM The Qu...
By Morten Dam The long serving eurosceptic stalwart and Danish MEP from 1979 until 2008 has passed away. After a time of illness he died in Arresødal Hospice in the north of Zealand, Denmark. Jens-Peter Bonde has been an influential eurosceptic voice for over a decade. He was a founder of Danish People's Movement Against EU in 1972 and has be...
The main character and inventor in the H.G. Wells book, 'The time Machine', decided to travel through time to 800,000 years into the future looking for a period without conflict. If I was given the opportunity to travel through time it would be into the past as the future looks increasingly to be a very unpleasant place to be. The way things are go...
John Longworth was the Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce; he was also an MEP and co-Chairman of Leave Means Leave. A great problem with many politicians and most civil servants is that they don't understand business. The reverse is probably also true. The enterprise economy is alien to the political class and they tend ...
All except its acolytes knew (and accepted) that, but how spectacularly have the EU Imperialists lived up to expectations. In a recent article (Liberal Fascism's Last Hurrah?) I wrote: "The EU has never been interested in a mutually beneficial deal. To deal with that I offer something I learned in negotiating with a variety of corrupt countries' re...
On the matter of extraditions to EU member States, the new Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the UK and the EU, coming into force on 1/1/21, has added the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the benchmarks of fundamental human rights. This opens new possibilities for contesting unjust and arbitrary arrest warrants from those States, as I...
I spoke to former Labour MP for Vauxhall, Kate Hoey, now Baroness Hoey of Lylehill and Rathlin (County Antrim, Northern Ireland), after sitting for 30 years as a Labour MP and spearheading Labour Leave during the referendum and the subsequent years until her retirement from the House of Commons in December 2019, she was made a life peer i...
