Tuesday , March 19 2024

Ben Kelly

Ben Kelly is a Political writer, editor & #Brexit campaigner who resides in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. He is the Web Editor of Conservatives for Liberty and blogs in his personal capacity campaigning for Brexit at The Sceptic Isle.

In response to the common misconceptions of the EEA option

The EEA option a.k.a The “Norway option” involves joining the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and trading with the EU via the European Economic Area (EEA) as a means of achieving an economically secure, de-risked Brexit. It greatly simplifies our time limited negotiations, protects our economy, answers the Northern Irish and Gibraltar …

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Managing immigration with the EEA: The Liechtenstein solution

One of the most important issues in the post-referendum debate on Brexit is whether or not we should remain in the Single Market to facilitate negotiations and ease our transition. The clear, sensible and rational answer to this is “yes”. However, it is assumed that we would have to accept …

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We are not the sick man of Europe anymore. We are still a country to be reckoned with. Vote for independence.

Britain is no longer the sick man of Europe. You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise given the miserable, defeatist Remain rhetoric. It is the Eurozone that is sick. Sacrificed for the dream of a single European polity. France has erupted into riots and social upheaval over some very modest …

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Regaining our trade policy: Why we need agility

Britain needs to be agile, adaptable and able to act independently in an increasingly competitive, globalised world. When I say the EU is “cumbersome” I mean that due to the fact that the EU is a bloc of 28 countries all with their own interests, and the EU itself has …

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Can our rotten and binary political discourse sink any lower than this?

It has been a miserable, disheartening and ugly few days. At the centre of this is a murdered woman and her grieving family and friends. Let’s not forget that. That trumps all. Allow me to acknowledge that. There is nothing more important.  It has left me shocked, uneasy and unable …

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George Osborne has disgraced his office and is no longer fit for the job

The stock market likes continuity and clear projections and in the aftermath of a Leave vote there will be a period of unavoidable uncertainty. This is why business come out for remain; they don’t like change that is beyond their control and they don’t want any kind of uncertainty no …

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Brexit will be a victory for intergovernmentalism over supranationalism

A lot is made of Winston Churchill’s 1946 speech in Zurich when he called for a united Europe. EU federalists claim him as one of their own and consider him a “founding father” but it is clear, as I discussed in a previous post, that the Churchill model of a …

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Brexit is the key; Norway is the doorway

As the referendum debate heats up there are a thousand reasons and more being discussed regarding why we should leave the EU; but there is very little discussion amongst the general public as to how we leave the EU. Europhiles have been hugely successful in conflating EU membership with Single …

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The false dichotomy: An independent Britain will not be isolationist or inward looking

More than 300 prominent historians have signed a letter warning against Brexit. Their intervention continues the long europhile tradition of framing the EU referendum debate as a false dichotomy. To further their argument they deal only in binaries in a thoroughly disingenuous fashion in order to portray all Brexiteers as …

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The EU is not a democracy and it never will be

The European Union is not a democracy. In-fact, it is anti-democratic. It is founded upon an explicit intention to override popular democracy and neutralise the constraints imposed on government by the electorate. It has its roots in a utopian ideology that envisions a supranational government run by technocrats and officials …

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President Obama backs Remain, but would the US accept a supranational government?

President Obama has urged the UK to remain in the EU, the institution forged from the “ashes of war”. Evocative references to the war made up a strong element of his article in The Telegraph and the “spilled blood” of American soldiers were justification for his interference in the debate. Citing …

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The limited powers of the European Parliament and Council of Europe

When discussing the UK’s influence in the EU, a point of debate is our voting power in the Council of the EU. Under the new Council voting system the UK now has a 13% share of the vote, however the powers of the Parliament and the Council are limited in …

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The Vice-President of the European Parliament says Cameron’s deal is not binding

‘Who counts as the “the European Union” here? Member state leaders have met within the framework of the European Council, but their agreement is in no way a document of the European Union, but a text of hybrid character, which is unspecified and not legally binding.’ Alexander Graf Lambsdorff is …

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The abolition of roaming charges: A global initiative

The EU boasts about having reduced your roaming charges and Europhiles market this like a crowning achievement, unsurprisingly it found it’s way into the government’s leaflet (which I will discuss in more detail in upcoming  posts) While it is clearly patronising to believe people would give up on our status …

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Restoring independent policies: Climate change and energy

Read The Market Solution pamphlet in full Initially an integral component of the environment movement, from the late 1980s, climate change has emerged as a separate policy domain with its own body of law. Despite the EU’s heavy involvement in resultant policy, little change might be expected in the UK …

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Restoring Independent Policies: Environmental Policy

Read The Market Solution pamphlet in full More so than perhaps any other policy area, environment is an amalgam of international, EU and domestic measures, although new environmental legislation is still a shared competence. We might expect an independent policy to concentrate more on the national interest, although the Government’s …

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