Britannia Radio

LETTER - Ashley Mote "sorts" his MP - with the truth on our EU trade!

Politics List

Well said, Ashley! This has already been said years ago, by many of us....

but Westminster just won't listen - and I don't expect they will now!

Unless......the Monday vote has slightly opened a door?

In which case, there is more room for some light to be shed.

Email to Damian Hinds, elected Tory MP for East Hants in 2010.

Now my representative in the House of Commons!

He voted against the referendum motion and I am not best pleased!

Dear Damian

Like many others I watched the entire debate – a first, at least for me!

Very revealing, and not for the best of reasons.

Allow me to correct a few facts – mainly those David Cameron got wrong, despite your bobbing up and down to catch the speaker’s eye.

Were you hoping to correct him?

There is a simple ancient Anglo-Saxon word for his errors, but I have a real horror of accusing any Prime Minister of wilfully misleading the House.

It is too dreadful to contemplate.

So Churchill’s phrase will have to do – Cameron indulged in several important terminological inexactitudes in his opening statement – and Hague –whom I know knows better – echoed them later.

In at least one particular respect – and I will concentrate on it - they wilfully mislead the House and based their defence on a provable fiction.

As a back-bencher, I suggest you cannot ignore that calumny.

They both claimed that British trade interests depended on EU membership.

They both referred to “half our trade” being with the EU.

NOT TRUE. AND GROSSLY MISLEADING.

I refer you to the government’s own Blue Book which publishes annual trade figures.

These are the facts :

1. Over 80 percent of all UK trade is within our own borders. Yet it is all exposed to EU regulations and controls.

2. Over half the rest is between the UK and the EU – BUT...

3. We import more than we sell to the EU. We have run a permanent trade deficit with the EU ever since we joined, bar one year – 1975.

4. The Blue Book includes as exports to the EU all exports to other parts of the world which happen to go through the container ports of Rotterdam, in particular, and Antwerp.

5. Thus our alleged “exports” to the EU are grossly distorted upwards and UK exports to the rest of the world are grossly distorted downwards.

6. This distortion has been well known for decades and successive governments have refused to correct what can only be described as a deliberate error.

Cameron’s use of it was truly shameless.

Furthermore, no minister has ever attempted to defend the corollary question, viz : Are you suggesting that, if/when we leave the EU Germany will refuse to sell us cars, French will refuse us champagne, Danes withhold their bacon, or the Spanish refuse our holiday bookings? Of course not.

They need us far, far more than we need them. We need to do what we should have done long ago. Leave.

We can, and should have said years ago : “We are leaving. We wish you well. Don't bother to send any more bills. And don't send any more rules. By the way, we will abolishing immediately the thousands of regulations hampering our enterprise and society – they are all secondary legislation and will fall automatically with the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972. We will amend all the primary legislation based on EU directives as soon as possible. Supporters will be obliged to make the case for keeping all such laws – if they can.

“Now. About trade. Here is our offer. Free trade both ways. No tariffs, no exceptions. If you refuse our offer, fine, but we will impose tariffs, too, if we need to defend our best interests. In which case you will be the losers.”

Damian, the EU is doomed.

As I said in my letter in the Daily Telegraph last week :

Sir

MPs and others supporting the option of renegotiating British membership of the EU forget one crucial fact.

The process of Asquis Communautaire is embedded in the treaties. It is a one-way ratchet. Once the EU has taken “competence” over an area of government, it cannot be returned to the member states. Any attempt to undermine such a fundamental principle will strike at the very heart of all the EU stands for – it is non-negotiable. [Last sentence omitted in the published version]

Our only realistic alternative to membership is to walk away, take our billions with us, and wish them well. If that is how Europeans want to govern themselves, that is a matter for them.

We were far better off as a global player – and can be again.

Europeans are our neighbours. They should be our friends. They cannot be masters in someone else’s house.

Ashley Mote

Damian – you really do need to catch up.

We can’t afford new MPs off the pace of change.

Happy to talk further, any time.

kind regards

Ashley