Bruges Group Blog

During my time in UKIP, one of my duties was as the Chairman of my local branch in Walsall, one of our members, living locally, was, at the time, from New Zealand and was living in the town. He has since returned to his antipodean home and these days we keep in touch by e-mail. He is quite an active and very likeable character and often includes se...

 How Brexit got done and the Tories were undone, by Tim Shipman, 926 pages, hardback, ISBN 978-0-00-870996-9, William Collins, 2024, £30. This splendid book is the fourth and final volume in Tim Shipman's magnificent account of Brexit. Shipman was the political editor of the Sunday Times from 2014 to 2022. Brexit was the product of broader tre...

 Brexit: from the backstop to Boris, by Tim Shipman, paperback, 698 pages, ISBN 978-0-00-830894-0, William Collins, 2024, £26. This is the third in Tim Shipman's magnificent account of the 2016 referendum and its after-effects. All Out War, published in 2016, and Fall Out, published in 2017; the final volume, Out, is to appear in June. The ref...

 A week before Christmas in 1968 I turned 21 and from that moment I was eligible to vote, which ironically was around the time Parliament began making plans to reduce the voting age to 18. My first time I could vote was in the May 1969 local elections, I went to vote with my dear old dad in the local church hall and, as I did for many years af...

SUPPORT NICK TIMOTHY'S BILL TO STOP BLASPHEMY LAWS BY THE BACK DOOR  Last week a banner was raised in Parliament, signifying the beginning of a fightback, against the government's manic concern over "Islamophobia". Nick Timothy MP (Con.), presented a Bill to amend the Public Order Act so that freedom for any criticism, even harsh, derisory and...

By Michael Rainsborough   The Rise of the Dark Lord Had the Free Speech Union had been around back then, I would, no doubt, have stormed in with lawyers, righteous indignation and the soundtrack of Rambo (First Blood, not the later lesser movies). When I spoke with the Dean again the following week, I reiterated my disagreement with his facile...

By  Michael Rainsborough But I am mulling over of the idea of the GDR as an article of faith. Communism, at least of the East German variety, was a closed system of belief. It was a universe in a vacuum, complete with its own hells and heavens, its punishments and redemptions meted out right here on earth. Many of the punishments were simply f...

 On 23rd June 2016 (St George's Day) the people of Britain voted to leave the European Union. This was an historic moment. We could say this was the 7th Brexit in history. And it is not complete yet, as we shall see. In effect, this was not the first Brexit, not the first time that Britannia separated her destiny from that of Europe. In 43 AD ...

"Finished", "stuffed", "toast" . These have been the words and worse that many otherwise loyal Conservatives used about their own party recently. However, now that the election has been called in spite of such pessimism, there is hope for the beleaguered Tories.:  A week is a long time in politics, said Harold Wilson, so how much longer a...

The National Interest  Advancing freedom, Brexit, and the British national interest.  Speakers include;Sir Christopher Chope MP, Bernard Connolly, Barry Legg, Barney Reynolds, The Rt Hon. the Lord Lilley, PC and Sir Bill Cash MP. Location:Pall Mall Room, Army & Navy Club36-39 Pall Mall, St. James's, London SW1Y 5JN Speakers ...

There is an old saying for organisations that are over managed, which is: 'Too many chiefs and not enough indians'. No doubt such a saying these days falls foul of the P.C., woke, right-on campaigners and mad leftie nutters, who will want anyone cancelled for saying such a thing. However, as I stay clear of all social media as I feel it is the inte...

Why do we ape America, but so badly? Let's start with our 'big brother': On Tuesday, an editor at Fox News (fascists!) subtitled a live feed 'WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.' The banner was taken down within seconds and the editor told to get his National Insurance card stamped or whatever they ...

From Our Man In Thessaloniki Greeks go to the polls on Sunday to elect their national legislature. Voting is compulsory, even for Greeks abroad (as so many are, since the economy crashed), but the obligation is not enforced and the turnout in 2019 was less than 58%. Foreigners who are permanently resident may also take part (something that our Sir ...

It was often said about the anatomy of a bumble bee, when looked at its shape and size of wings, that they should not be able to fly, but do. There are lots of things like bumble bees that should not work but do, the House of Lords in the days before Tony Blair got his meddling mitts on it worked reasonably well. In those days the majority of membe...

Rishi Sunak's government is consistent in one thing. It makes promises to implement policies clearly aimed at public support, only to, within a short period, to unfailing announce that it will not after all go ahead, or that oi might, but only at some indeterminate point in the future. Far from providing a reason to vote Conservative it is generati...

Three years ago today (2nd May) my MP wanted to demonstrate her responsivity to her constituents, which makes a welcome difference from the types that have allegedly represented me in the past. Unfortunately, we have locally an equivalent to Theodore Roosevelt's 'hyphenated Americans': some people who wish to embroil us in foreign matters beca...

As we approach the Coronation we can expect much malign and ill-informed comment from people who do not understand our political system. One reason for their ignorance will be the deplatforming of speakers who could put them right, such as the redoubtable David Starkey, shunned by the woke for their misrepresentation of an impatient and infelicitou...

The delicate balance of the Good Friday Agreement should be protected  By Derrick Berthelsen Reprinted by permission of the Critic Magazine There are many reasons to vote against the Windsor Framework changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Several excellent articles have been published outlining why — in this and other periodicals — but tod...

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...

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 ...

 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...

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...

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...