The Pound Sterling Myth

Just as I write this article, the pound has risen against the US Dollar to $1.36 (its highest level since the Brexit vote), very close to what it was when results starting coming in from the local authorities in the EU referendum on the evening of 23rd June last year. I therefore write the following part of…

The New Project Fear

Since Theresa May's Lancaster House Speech in January of this year, two new Project Fears have sprung up. The first (from The Labour Party, EFTA4UK, Liberal Leave, Leave HQ and Dr Richard North) states that “We need to remain members of the EU's internal market after we officially leave the EU”, even though there are…

It may currently seem tempting for some but we shouldn’t leave *now* with no deal

Readers may recall that I posted an article entitled "No Brexit Deal is Better than a Bad Deal" and I still very much believe that no deal is better than a bad deal. However, a minority of leave voters are now stating that, because Michel Barnier currently seems to be negative and pessimistic about Brexit…

The “Brexit Punishment Argument” Debunked

Many remain voters make the argument that the EU will refuse to offer us a good free trade agreement (FTA) as this would incentive other member states to leave the union and that the EU will instead punish us for leaving and make an example out of us. This argument contains a number of significant…

Why David Davis is the right person to lead us out of the EU

David Davis was one of John Major's Government Chief Whips in the early 1990s, whipping Conservative MPs to vote for the integrationist Maastricht Treaty which created the European Union (EU). He made a speech in August 2012, praising both the single market and the customs union and saying that, if we were to leave the…

New Reviews of My Blog

Many thanks to everyone who has submitted reviews of my blog. You can read the reviews below. "This blog has incisive discussion on Brexit. It's also very well written and entertaining. It's becoming one of the go to places for informed opinion outside of the mainstream samey clogs. I wholeheartedly recommend it" (Robert Oulds FRSA,…

The Myth of an EEA Transition

We must leave the EU, its internal market and its customs union at midnight on 29th March 2019. The transitional period must be an “implementation phase” - it should be a short period after 29/03/2019 but before the deal officially takes effect to allow businesses in the UK and the rest of the EU to…

The Myth of an Emergency Brake

Opinion polling since the Brexit vote has shown that one of the three main reasons why the UK electorate voted to leave the EU was to end the freedom of movement of people which is, let us not forget, contained within the EEA Agreement which binds together all states which are members of the single…

Labour’s U-turn on the single market

Now the Labour Party's official policy is to seek continued membership of the single market after Brexit. I wrote a full-length and comprehensive critique of this policy in one of my earlier blog posts. However, this is a radical u-turn and contradicts their own manifesto and the words of Jeremy Corbyn (who ruled out single…

Was Cameron right to hold the EU referendum when he did?

I am generally opposed to referenda and am strongly opposed to frequent referenda. I don't think regular referenda are compatible with our representative democracy in which Parliament is supposed to be sovereign. They are often very divisive and bitter and can split the country right down the middle, causing divisions in friendship groups, relationships and…