On the Tory “mutineers”

The amazing thing about the “Tory mutineers” is that they are being portrayed by the media as rebels.  Rebel is certainly the wrong word.  Lets look at three of them:

Dominic Grieve  is one of the most forthright of the mutineers. Grieve is another victim of the suppression of news by the Broadcast Media.  He says that “..the economic policy to reduce the Public sector borrowing requirement to zero by 2020 has had to be abandoned” as a result of the referendum but shows no understanding of the fact that a continuing Balance of Payment Current Account Deficit is behind the failure of the UK to fill its coffers and be forced to so continue borrowing (See UK-EU Trade Data ). The deficits are appalling and related to the Single Market, not the Referendum.

He says with disdain that some who favour Brexit want an “external relationship with a trade agreement that may give us something far short of full single market access without tariffs or restrictions on providing services.”.  He says this without appreciating the scale of the damage being done to the UK economy by an absence of any restrictions on trade and capital movements:

This is cumulative damage, it gets worse year on year.  What is interesting is that Grieve simply assumes that completely open UK-EU Trade and Capital movement is good for the UK without checking on whether this is really true (See UK-EU Trade Data ).

As a lawyer Grieve seems to believe that, provided the EU has a process and form of law that is approved by due process then there should not really be a problem with membership of the EU.  This is the substance of his presentation to Cardiff University.  He notes that devolution and Northern Ireland are easier to solve within the EU without also noting that the current “solution” is an artefact of being in the EU.  Outside the EU we will simply need different solutions – see How to Leave the EU.

Most important of all, despite the fact that the preamble to the EU Treaties includes “Ever closer Union”, despite the fact that the Treaties are now largely about the mechanics of the Eurozone, he says that: “The EU is primarily a treaty about creating a single market.”  It clearly is not! The EU is based on a Treaties about creating a Union.  He doesn’t seem to have noticed that the Eurogroup has already achieved Fiscal Union and is pressing on to Political Union.  How would he deal with an EU composed of two nations, the UK and the Eurogroup, with the latter holding 85% of the votes and no vetoes on most matters for the UK?  On this he is silent.  Perhaps his silence is due to the fact that the broadcast media is suppressing all mention of Eurogroup Union.

Jeremy Lefroy has spent a lot of time out in Africa and sees global trading as a liberator.  This is the standard multinational corporate view and is a confusion of cause and effect: eliminate corruption and introduce the rule of law, regulated markets and education then you will have trade, some of which is global trade.  Good government allows countries to have global trade but access to countries by multinationals without good government just creates more corruption etc. (See Globalisation – who benefits).

Sarah Wollaston writes a blog in which she rails against the lack of funding of the NHS.  However, she does not seem to have read Simon Stevens’ explanation of the funding shortfall: growing and ageing population.  The IFS has pinned down  60% of increasing costs as due to population growth:

She should discover where this population growth originates.

She also bemoans the lack of cash for essential health services but is unaware of the trade deficit and Twin Deficit Theory being a major cause of austerity.

Wollaston swapped sides in the Referendum because of the statement from the Tory Leave group that £350m a week would be available after Brexit, some of which would be spent on the NHS.  She seems unaware of the fact that Project Fear predictions were not just wrong but hopelessly wrong and led to the irresponsible claim that Brexit would cost £2000m a week.

The Project Fear predictions:

The Treasury and IMF came out with new predictions just months after the Referendum:

It is hard to believe that Wollaston is acting in good faith given that the Treasury and other Project Fear lies have been fully tested as lies but the Leave claim of funding the NHS after 2019 is yet to be checked (although, to be cynical, lets wait and see).

Why do we have the Mutineers and such division in British society?  I am inclined to blame the Broadcast Media who are suppressing news about UK-EU Trade relations, Eurogroup Union, the fact that most corporation tax avoidance is a property of the Single Market etc…  The Journalists have sold out and the Chairman of the BBC during the Referendum was Rona Fairhead who was at the epicentre of the EU Tax Avoidance scandals.

The Mutineers:

Ken Clarke
Heidi Allen
Jonathan Djanogly
Vicky Ford
Dominic Grieve
Stephen Hammond
Oliver Heald
Jeremy Lefroy
Paul Masterton
Nicky Morgan
Bob Neil
Antoinette Sandbach
Anna Soubry
Tom Tughendhat
Sarah Wollaston