VIDEO BELOW (text provided for those who prefer to read)
In a sign that the message my be hitting home, the EU is now looking to grab emergency powers to deal with a no-deal Brexit.
The EU Commission has drafted dozens of proposals for EU institutions to be given emergency powers to deal with a no deal Brexit that will be issued over the coming weeks.
"EU diplomats have been told the measures would cover a wide range of areas, with particular significance for trade quotas, the car industry, transport companies, the bloc’s space programme, financial services and professional qualifications." Says the Financial Times.
Now, before everyone gets excited, this is really just a mirror of what our own government is doing via legislation here in the UK. You know, the so-called 'Henry VIII powers', which will give ministers a little legal wiggle room to manoeuvre after Brexit day.
But the UK has been planning this for ages and only now does the EU seem to have cottoned on, which should worry EU citizens! And one hopes for their sake that they are not going to legislate in haste and regret it at leisure – actually no, I hope they make a mess that we can profit from!
Now, the UK government is bracing itself for defeats in the House of Lords today as the EU Withdrawal Bill starts its passage through the upper house.
Some of the areas where the Lords are trying to keep us under the EU thumb include one to try and keep us in a customs union, one to try and tie the UK into EU protection for workers and consumers and another to give parliament a vote to somehow decide on whether or not the UK can actually leave the EU without a deal.
On the customs union issue – we don't need one and we must not let ourselves be fooled by Remoaning Lords back into the EU via this back door, which would keep us well and truly shackled to the ECJ.
On EU protection for workers and consumers, the UK is quite capable of dealing with this itself using the very parliament that the those peers sit in – and if they are not capable of that then move aside so we can replace you with people that can do the job!
And as to a vote to allow parliament to somehow keep us in the EU, that goes against the whole referendum process. Should the deal that the EU and UK negotiate between them not be good enough for parliament and they vote it down, then the UK leaves the EU without a deal – that's what's in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – that the House of Lords agreed to trigger!
Anyway, it has been pointed out that just ten of our fanatical pro-EU peers put forward a huge 388 amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill.
"The research by the Change Britain pressure group, which wants a full break with Brussels, showed that Labour peers Lord Judd and Lord Adonis along with Lib Dem Lord Wallace of Tankerness had tabled the most amendments." Reports the Express.
It also points out that one peer, Lord Judge, had tabled 62 amendments and has previously claimed:
"We are peers, we should not bow to the demands of the people."
Yup, sounds like an undemocratic Remoaner to me!
And the Chairman of Change Britain, the Labour politician and former MP Gisela Stuart, said:
"It’s deeply disapointing that these peers are using parliamentary procedure to pursue their own agenda of stopping Brexit. Whilst 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU, a handful of unelected Lords are presumptuous enough to believe they can overturn the result and keep us under Brussels control.
"Rather than refusing to respect the referendum result and trying every trick in the book to reverse it, peers should accept the democratic decision of voters and work to get the best Brexit deal."
As a spokesman for the Department for Exiting the EU said, this is a bill to give the UK legal continuity after Brexit Day, not a vehicle for trying to frustrate the will of the people!
And just in case you doubt the true intentions of the EU, have you ever heard of a trading bloc needing its own laser weapon?
Laser weapons are normally associated with nation states defence programmes or for shadowy villains in James Bond movies.
What you don't expect is for an organisation that we keep being told is for trade and economics that won't have its own army to start commissioning the building of its own mega-laser.
And there are fears that the EU is trying to rip off the UK's £30 million Dragonfire system before Brexit says the Sun.
The EU Commission president, Jean Claude-Juncker wants a plan to come forward by June for a 100-kilowatt “European high power laser effector”, which will attract 90 million euros from EU funds.
So you Remoaners, the EU has massive unemployment and economic problems in the south, as well as a looming black hole in its budget after Brexit and they want to build laser weapons? That tells you all you need to know about the EU, its priorities and its intentions!
But further, who would own those weapons? Who would deploy them? Who would operate them and crucially who would order their use?
Defence is the responsibility of nation states in conjunction with bodies like NATO, not organisations that are touted to the UK public by Remoaning politicians and others as just existing for a bit of trade!
Now for some of balance. The European Court of Justice ruled yesterday that travellers can now claim against airlines for travel disruption caused by wildcat staff strikes. In the past airlines have relied on claims that these strikes are an extraordinary circumstance that they cannot be held liable for – the ECJ has now ruled against that defence. Good news for travellers …….. but bad news for airlines – and I wonder if Ryannair's Michael O'Leary still likes the EU today?
Now for Brexit economic doom and gloom!
Following on from yesterday's news from the Office for National Statistics that employment was up, wage growth was up and the deficit was down, today the ONS reports that inflation fell last month.
The Consumer Prices Index including homeowner/occupier costs, called CPIH, fell from 2.5% in February to 2.3% in March.
And the base CPI fell from 2.7% in February to 2.5% in March.
But the bad news for budding home owners is that average house prices are still rising at a pace far above inflation. In the year to February the ONS said that, although the rate was slowing, house prices still rose by 4.4%.
The average house price is now £225,000, an increase of £9,000 on last year.
Sadly, it gets harder every year for youngsters to get on the housing ladder.
