Peter Stefanovic: Johnson Now Travels World Telling Anyone Who Will Listen “Brexit Saved Lives” - Hold onto Your Seats

Dec 19, 2024

If a man looks like a clown, coifs his hair like a clown, and talks like a clown, then by golly, he must be a clown! – © Mark Alexander

Rob Groves: Could This Be the End of Brexit as We Know It?

Dec 14, 2024 | Donald Trump’s re-election is already having a massive impact all over the world, and post-Brexit Britain faces a moment of reckoning when Napoleon Bona-spur’s America First philosophy is implemented by way of trade tariffs and foreign policy. And within the UK, the Brexit tide had already turned, just weeks after that fateful advisory referendum in 2016. But now, the public mood has shifted even FURTHER, with a clear majority now wanting European freedom of movement back, now they’ve seen Brexit do the exact OPPOSITE of what it said on the tin, by INCREASING immigration into the UK.

The Labour government is struggling to put forward a coherent policy on Brexit, and questions about rejoining the EU loom, even coming from previously pro-Brexit voices. Can it be that the UK is ready to attempt to end its self-imposed cultural exile and to try to undo the trade sanctions 52% of its electorate voted to impose on themselves?

Michael Lambert: The Ongoing Madness of Brexit, with New Barriers to Trade with the EU

Dec 14, 2024 | Nowadays in the UK the police are often called to investigate minor incidents such as responding to online social media posts, silent protest, people holding signs which a very small minority might find offensive.

In the meantime. crime is increasing throughout the UK especially shoplifting and mobile phone snatching. The police say they are too busy to investigate.

Kerr Starmer has been in Saudi Arabia this week asking the Saudis to invest in the UK. They will not do so unless they see a real potential profit and all the world knows that the UK economy is in trouble.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, this week attended a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels. Having made it clear yet again that the UK does not wish to rejoin the Customs Union, the Single Market, or the EU, and will not agree to free movement even for students and young people. She sought better trading terms for the UK.

At the same time the EU has now introduced GSPR terms which will make it necessary for all goods exported to the EU or Northern Ireland to be tested in the EU and for every exporter to employ an approved agent with the EU to check that every consignment conforms with EU standards.

The EU signed a free trade agreement with MERCASUR, a group including Brazil, Argentina and others comprising 700 million consumers. Had the UK remained in the EU it would have benefited from this important deal.

In the meantime, the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, admitted on national television that Brexit has been a failure. Boris Johnson is also believed to have admitted to close associates that he deeply regrets Brexit.

Finally, Nigel Forage who, above all others, persuaded the British public to vote to leave the EU and who persuaded the farmers to vote ‘leave’ is now their champion appearing at their protests in Whitehall.


Begging the Saudis to invest in the UK will come at a very high price. Is Starmer so naïve that he doesn’t realise this? Saudi investment in the UK will accelerate the Islamisation of the country. Yes, of course they will want to profit from their investments in a business sense. But the Saudis will expect to profit from their investments politically and religiously, as well. Saudi Arabia, as we all know, is the home of Islam, and the Saudi king is the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. (Please click here.) There is no way that the Saudi royal family will not want to further the cause of Islam in the UK in return for their generosity.

We Brits are compounding our problems, day after day after day. – © Mark Alexander

Majority of Brexit Voters ‘Would Accept Free Movement’ to Access Single Market

THE GUARDIAN: Europe-wide polling finds UK and EU leaders now out of step with public opinion and pursue ‘ambitious reset’

A majority of Britons who voted to leave the EU would now accept a return to free movement in exchange for access to the single market, according to a cross-Europe study that also found a reciprocal desire in member states for closer links with the UK.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election as US president had “fundamentally changed the context” of EU-UK relations, the report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank said.

“There is a remarkable consensus on both sides of the Channel that the time is ripe for a reassessment of EU-UK relations,” it concluded, with closer relations being the most popular option in every country surveyed – and public opinion on the question well ahead of government stances. » | Peter Walker and Jon Henley | Thursday, December 12, 2024

We should never have left the EU in the first place. But for that troublemaker, Farage, and Cameron’s stupidity in calling for a referendum to appease the Eurosceptics in his party, we wouldn’t have left the Community. Leaving it was a duff move.

Sir Keir Starmer should do all within his power to get us back into the Community where we, as Europeans, belong. And with dispatch! Re-joining the Single Market would be a great first step to undo the damage already done. That will help ensure high food standards for this country, before the Americans under Trump’s leadership come with their hormone-injected meats, chlorinated chicken, and GMO foods.

The results of this polling is encouraging. Now, we must act. – © Mark Alexander

The Observer View on Trade Relations: Closer Ties with EU Is the Lever for Economic Growth

THE OBSERVER: Amid sluggish UK productivity and global insecurity, pulling closer to Europe is diplomatically and economically vital

Achieving the fastest sustainable growth in the G7 was the Labour party’s highest-profile pledge going into the general election last July. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that boosting growth is “at the heart of everything she does”. But there was concerning news last week with new figures showing the economy grew by just 0.1% in the three months to the end of September, falling significantly short of expectations.

Some business leaders have linked this anaemic growth to uncertainty in the run-up to last month’s budget. But it will largely still be a product of factors outside the new chancellor’s control, including the decisions of the last Conservative government.

It is nevertheless disturbing news for Labour as well as for the country. The Resolution Foundation forecasts disposable household income per person is forecast to rise by just 0.5% a year on average over the course of this parliament. The results of the US election sound an important alarm bell about the extent to which voters are willing to punish incumbent centre-left governments for failing to deliver noticeable increases in living standards. » | Observer editorial | Saturday, November 16, 2024

UK Must Choose between EU and Trump, Trade Experts Warn

THE OBSERVER: Pascal Lamy, former head of the WTO, says Britain will have to take sides if new US administration slaps hefty tariffs on imports, as fears grow over possible trade war

The former head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has said that the UK should side with the European Union over trade and economic policies rather than a Donald Trump-led US, as fears grow over a possible global trade war.

Pascal Lamy, who was head of the WTO from 2005 to 2013, said it was clear that the UK’s interests lay in staying close to the EU on trade, rather than allying with Trump, not least because it does three times more trade with Europe than the US.

His comments came after a key Trump supporter, Stephen Moore, said on Friday that the UK should reject the EU’s “socialist model” if it wanted to have any realistic chance of doing a free trade deal with the US under Trump and, as a result, avoid the 20% tariffs on exports that the president-elect has promised.

In an interview with the Observer, Lamy said: “It’s an old question with a new relevance given Brexit and given Trump. In my view the UK is a European country. Its socio- economic model is much closer to the EU social model and not the very hard, brutal version of capitalism of Trump and [Elon] Musk. » | Toby Helm, Political editor | Saturday, November 16, 2024

I've already made my choice. FA! – © Mark Alexander

Trump Will Force UK Choose between ‘Socialist’ Europe and the Free-market US | Senior Trump advisor

Nov 16, 2024 | “We have a smaller government where our taxes are generally lower than those in Europe, and that has worked well for the US, and I think it would work well for Britain.”

Labour must choose a free market American model and ‘socialist’ Europe if they want a trade deal with Trump, especially after Rachel Reeve’s “crazy” budget, says Stephen Moore, senior economics advisor to president-elect Trump.


Say NO to that SHITSHOW! All good things come from Europe, not America. – © Mark Alexander

Trump Wants to 'Aggressively' Spread Brexit throughout Europe | Yanis Varoufakis

Nov 13, 2024 | “He has an agenda…He wants to make Brexit spread all over the European continent.”

Trump will apply “aggressive actions” to the European Union as he sees it as “a clear present danger to the United States”, says former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

Armistice Day November 2024

Nov 11, 2024 | 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗘𝗨 𝗪𝗔𝗦 𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗗 𝗧𝗢 𝗔𝗖𝗛𝗜𝗘𝗩𝗘 𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗖𝗘

Michael Lambert: How Brexit Is Destroying the UK Economy

Oct 26, 2024 | Brexit has been a catastrophic disaster for the UK economy. Every day we see stories in the media about the many problems that Brexit is causing.

The government recently invited the CEOs of various multi-national companies to London to discuss possible investment in the UK. With so much of our infrastructure and so many of our businesses already foreign owned, the benefit for more multi-nationals controlling more of our economy is questionable.

Barriers to trade since the UK left the EU are causing serious and long-lasting damage to our economy and yet the Labour government under Kier Starmer insists that they will be not ever return to the EU and that instead they intend to "tear down barriers to trade", barriers which they have no authority over and cannot tear down.

Keir Starmer continues to refuse to consider agreeing to the EU's offer to allow UK students to take part in limited one- or two-year exchanges with EU students, thereby denying our youth an outstanding opportunity.

If we are ever to return to the EU, it will require a substantial majority of the country to be in favour. Sadly, there are still many people who are stupid enough to argue that Brexit was a good idea and that we are better off out of the EU.

Two commenters to my last video are examples of the extreme stupidity of such people.

Talks on UK Rejoining EU Could Start in 10 Years’ Time, Says Peter Mandelson

THE GUARDIAN: Labour peer says in meantime it is essential to try to reduce damage of Brexit deal struck by Boris Johnson

Peter Mandelson has suggested the UK could start talks on rejoining the EU in 10 years’ time, much earlier than Keir Starmer believes.

Lord Mandelson told an audience in Edinburgh the “truth is that [reversing Brexit] could be a conversation which starts in 10 years’ time”, but only if EU member states were willing to consider it.

He said that in the meantime it was essential for the UK’s productivity and growth to reduce the damaging impact of the Brexit deal struck by Boris Johnson “as best we possibly can”.

Mandelson’s remarks, at a lecture for the thinktank Reform Scotland, are in contrast to the prime minister’s prediction before the general election that the UK would not rejoin the EU, or the single market or customs union, in his lifetime. » | Severin Carrell, Scotland editor | Friday, October 11, 2024

EU to Offer New Youth Mobility Scheme in Test of Labour ‘Reset’ with Brussels

THE GUARDIAN: Officials warn repeat of Tory rejection could dent new government’s hopes of pacts on defence and agriculture

Fresh proposals to allow young people to move between the UK and the EU will be presented to the British government within weeks, in what is seen as a key early test of Labour’s “reset” in relations with Brussels.

Informed sources say the first draft of a new version of Ursula von der Leyen’s April proposal has already been discussed by member states and will be put to a working group in Brussels next week. » | Kiran Stacey and Lisa O'Carroll | Friday, September 20, 2024

For God’s sake, Führer Starmer, don’t do a Sunak on us and screw this chance up! Carpe diem! And when these young people come here, let them enjoy a fag! Quit the cr**! – © Mark Alexander

UK Citizens Travelling to EU Next Summer Will Have to Pay €7 Visa-waiver Charge

THE GUARDIAN: Scheme will mirror US Esta and apply for travel into Schengen area, with those aged under 18 or over 70 exempt from fee

UK citizens travelling to the EU next summer will have to pay a €7 visa-waiver charge after the EU revealed its timeline for the introduction of new border checks and entry requirements for some visitors.

Ylva Johansson, the EU home affairs commissioner, confirmed that the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (Etias), which will require UK citizens (and those from other visa-exempt countries such as the US, Australia and Canada) to apply for a waiver before entering the bloc, was now likely to come into force by May 2025.

The Etias will mirror the US Esta, and require non-EU citizens to apply for the €7 travel authorisation before entering the Schengen area, which includes 27 EU member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. It will last for three years or until your passport expires. » | Jack Simpson | Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Ooh! Look! Here comes another one of Farage’s Brexit benefits! – © Mark Alexander

Former Estonian President on Why Hungary Should Leave the EU – Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Aug 11, 2024 | Is Hungary stretching the EU’s patience to its limit? Under prime minister Viktor Orbán’s leadership, it has exercised veto rights to block Ukrainian military aid and Russian sanctions, delayed the Nato accessions of Sweden and Finland and shrugged off EU asylum regulations. For the EU, Hungary is a diplomatic headache – and one that may be about to get worse. Do they have a place in the European Union? The Spectator’s editorial manager Lukas Degutis is joined by former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves to explain how Hungary has become a ’nuisance country’ and how concerned the EU should be with Hungary’s relationship to Russia.

Brexit: What We’ve Lost

Jul 24, 2024 | When in the EU, free movement gave Britons the right to live, work, study or retire anywhere in the EU, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein.

Millions of Britons made use of these freedoms over the decades. British citizens and their families living and working in another EU country had the right to access that country's state healthcare and education. Free movement also meant that citizens from the rest of the EU could easily come to the UK to fill job vacancies that we simply didn’t, and still don’t, have enough Britons to do.

Free movement was never broken, and it didn’t need fixing.

▪ 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀, EU citizens couldn’t just arrive in another EU country and claim benefits – they had to have sufficient funds of their own to travel and to stay.

▪ 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀, EU citizens could be rejected or ejected if they were considered to pose certain risks to the country.

▪ 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀, EU citizens could enjoy the right to stay in another EU country for up to three months only, so long as they didn’t become a burden to the state.

▪ 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀, EU citizens could only legally stay longer in another EU country if they were jobseekers; workers; self-employed; students; self-sufficient; permanent residents (i.e. legally here for more than five years); or family members of one of the above.

What a brilliant system, that served our country well – either for citizens coming here, or our citizens going there. Now that all ended for the UK, because British governments (Tory AND Labour) interpreted the referendum Brexit vote as meaning the end of ‘free movement’. Even though, just as for non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland, we could have kept free movement without having to be an EU member. And even though voters were never specifically asked if we wanted to end free movement with our continent. Our governments just assumed we did. But consistently, polls show that Britain would prefer to retain our freedom of movement with our continent.

[Source: Best for Britain]

Our current government, under Keir Starmer, has categorically ruled out bringing back free movement of people. In April, both Labour and the Tories immediately rejected an EU offer of a post-Brexit deal to allow young Britons the right to live, study or work anywhere in the EU for up to four years.

[Source: The Guardian]

Isn’t it time our governments stopped unilaterally interpreting the referendum result and instead let us, the people, decide?

© Report and video compilation by @JonDanzig‬ Video programme provided by the ‪@europeanparliament‬ ▪ 𝗝𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝘇𝗶𝗴 is an independent campaigning journalist and film maker who specialises in writing about health, human rights, and Europe. He is also founder of the information campaign, Reasons2Rejoin

Why Britain Joined the EU

Jun 5, 2024 | On D-Day we remember how brave men and women from many allied countries fought the final battles against the Nazis to bring the most brutal world war to an end in Europe. Peace came at last as a direct result of their enduring efforts.

Tens of thousands of lives were tragically and horribly lost in the pursuit of that aim. But how was lasting peace achieved between European countries that, for centuries, had been more used to resolving their differences through violence, war, and subjugation?

The European Community, established during the post-war years and now called the European Union, played a key role. Yes, NATO helped to protect us from external threats. But it was the European Union that brought sustained security and peace between its members.

By collaborating and cooperating, in peace and democratically, to decide on the running and future direction of our continent, European countries found and agreed solutions to common problems.

It worked. Never has a shot been fired between EU member states. An amazing achievement, for which the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. So, when people ask, ‘Why was the EU started?’ the answer, first and foremost, was peace. Yes, trade was one of the means, but peace was the primary goal. And it’s why Britain joined the European Community. To work together, peacefully and democratically, with our European allies to recreate our post-war continent based on democracy, human rights, free market trade and the rule of law.

Did people truly understand this when ticking the ‘Leave’ box in the 2016 referendum?

Europe Is Family

July 23, 2024 | It was 72 years ago today - on 23 July 1952 – that the Treaty of Paris came into effect. It formally established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Known as the Schuman Plan, it was originally proposed by French foreign minister Robert Schuman. He called for the creation of a single authority to control the production of coal and steel in France and West Germany (now Germany), to be opened to membership of other European countries. The purpose? To help secure lasting peace between European countries that were previously more used to resolving their differences through violence, war, and subjugation.

France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries came together to create an interdependence in coal and steel, so that one country could no longer mobilise its armed forces without others knowing. This eased the deep distrust and tensions between European countries following the most devastating war the world had ever known.

Then, in 1957, the Treaty of Rome created a common market between West Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, uniting those countries economically and politically.
The UK wasn’t part of this initiative, but just four years later, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan applied for us to join. He said to the British people at the time: “In this new European Community, bringing together the manpower, the material resources, and the inventive skills of some of the most advanced countries in the world, a new organisation is rapidly developing with the ability to stand on an equal footing with the great power groupings of the world. “By joining this vigorous and expanding community and becoming one of its leading members, as I am convinced we would, this country would not only gain a new stature in Europe, but also increase its standing and influence in the councils of the world.” He warned, however: “For Britain to stay out and isolate herself from the mainstream of European strength would, I believe, have very damaging results both for ourselves and for the whole of the Commonwealth. “There might be no immediate disaster, but we could not hope to go on exerting the same political influence.”

Since then, and until 2016, EVERY British Prime Minister, from Harold Macmillan to Edward Heath, Harold Wilson to Margaret Thatcher, John Major to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown to David Cameron, supported our membership as being in Britain’s best interests. But since 2016, EVERY Prime Minister – yes, even the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer – has said we must stick with Brexit.

But can anyone point to any Brexit bonus? Ridiculous barriers between us and the rest of our continent benefit no one, neither here nor in Europe. We should re-join our family in Europe and once again FULLY take part in the running and future direction our continent. We may now be the prodigal country, but Europe will welcome us back if we can learn from the enormous mistake of Brexit and help others not to make the same one.

© Report and video cover by Jon Danzig.
Video programme by the European Commission

EU Wants to Read Your PRIVATE Messages – But Outrage STALLS Final Vote

June 24, 2024 | The EU council of ministers has failed to pass a very controversial new regulation known as Chat Control. It would require apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram to scan private messages before they are sent to the receiver in an attempt to combat the spread of unlawful content on these apps. The proposal by Swedish commissioner Ylva Johansson would allow all pictures and videos sent on these apps to be scanned and it would put an end to fully private and encrypted communication in the EU. In the council, the vote failed (but barely) due to the resistance of Germany and some other member states that argue that this is a huge and non-proportional violation of the basic right to privacy in the European Union.

Starmer’s Growth Plan ‘Doomed’ without Access to EU Markets, Warn Economists

THE OBSERVER: Labour leader told if elected he will have to rejoin the customs union to meet party’s manifesto pledges, while 56% of voters say Brexit was bad for economy

A Labour government under Keir Starmer will fail to maximise the UK’s economic growth unless it takes the country back into the European Union’s single market and customs union, leading economists and diplomats have said.

The warnings come as an Opinium poll for the Observer finds that 56% of voters now believe Brexit has been bad for the UK economy as a whole, compared with just 12% who believe it has been economically beneficial.

Some 62% of people questioned also believe Brexit has contributed to higher prices in shops, against 8% who think that it has had the opposite effect. » | Toby Helm and Phillip Inman | Saturday, June 22, 2024

This is precisely what I have been saying on this forum, and in many comments elsewhere, since the very beginning. Even Economics 101 teaches us that one cannot expect economic growth when walking away from the largest single market and customs union which this world has ever known, and which is on one's doorstep. Where is your growth going to come from? A nation should do the bulk of its deals with its nearest markets whenever possible.

The idiots who pushed Brexit clearly had never heard of the adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’! Moreover, those right-wing loons failed to understand that one of the Single Market’s founding architects was no other than Margaret Thatcher herself. (She must be turning in her grave!)

We can all thank Nigel Farage for the lunacy that was, is, and will forever be Brexit. He screwed up big time. And Cameron did for running scared of him, too. The Tories screwed up under Cameron, and have screwed up ever since as well, truth to tell.

The best thing Farage can do now is hang his head in shame. Perhaps, as a face-saving measure, his American chum will give him sanctuary in Florida. – © Mark Alexander

Is This the Most 'Dishonest' General Election Campaign in Memory? | LBC

Jun 1, 2024 | Lord Heseltine says electoral candidates are being 'dishonest' by not talking about Brexit.

I am totally disenfranchised because no party is offering to take us back into the EU, where we belong. Brexit was a ridiculous move, a move which is impoverishing the nation, and will continue to do so. Lord Heseltine is absolutely right about Brexit; though I disagree with Lord Heseltine's assessment of Rishi Sunak. For me, Sunak, being an arch-Brexiteer, has been part of the problem, not part of the solution. I, for one, cannot vote for any party which dodges the issue of Europe, and refuses to confront, head on, the absurdity of Brexit. – © Mark Alexander