Lord Adonis (OGL V1)
VIDEO BELOW (WITH TEXT PROVIDED FOR THOSE WHO PREFER TO READ)
That arch-Remainer, Lord Adonis, is now telling us that the 2016 EU referendum was all about allowing the government to start a negotiation.
Talking to Niall Paterson on Sky News, Lord Adonis said that the 2016 EU referendum did not give the government the mandate to take the UK out of the EU.
All it allowed them to do, he claimed, was start a negotiation with the EU.
The presenter asked if the public had not already told the government to get on with leaving the EU and Lord Adonis replied:
“That’s not the case at all.”
“What happened two years ago was a vote on whether or not we wanted the government to start the process of negotiating leaving the European Union. But nobody could see the terms.
“We had no idea what was going to happen to our trade, what’s going to happen to the whole future of our organisation in terms of security. All of these big issues that matter. We couldn’t know that.”
He also said that:
"Parts of the media, particularly the BBC, are regarding it as a done deal that we’re leaving the European Union. Well, it’s absolutely not a done deal at the moment."
So, according to him, the wording on the referendum ballot paper that said should the UK remain a member of the EU or leave the EU with the answers available being Remain or Leave suddenly becomes can the government have permission to negotiate leaving with the EU?
No, the intention was clear, the question was clear – and the answer emphatic! Leave! And its no good Adonis and his cronies trying to redefine what the people voted for – the book 1984 warned us against that sort of thing!
According to the Times, the John Lewis chairman has said that UK businesses need to get 'match fit' for Brexit and drive productivity up.
Sir Charlie Mayfield said that after a decade of stagnation, a decade of resurgence was needed and that:
"Brexit does make this more urgent. We are going to be competing in the world more than we were previously. Our ability to do that is going to depend on our ability to drive productivity forward."
Does that mean that many of our large companies had got lazy and flabby within the EU?
Now, here's a good one for you. When Remainers tell you that the UK economy is going to flatline after we have fully left the EU, ask them why then are railway operators owned by foreign governments trying to snap up our rail franchises?
That's right:
"Britain’s rail system is braced for a new wave of anger from politicians and the public after it emerged that operators owned by European governments are lining up to bid for more franchises." Reports the Telegraph.
They would not be lining up to invest in a loser would they? So they obviously see that a profit can be made from the UK needing to move people and goods around the country in the years to come. Now, isn't that a vote of confidence in the UK from EU member states?
In a flash of the blindingly obvious (to normal people that is, not to the average social justice warrior), the new housing minister, Dominic Raab has stated that immigration has pushed UK house prices up by 20 percent over the last 25 years.
Now, in 1993, the price of an average house according to the Nationwide was £51,050 and in 2018 it stands at £211,792, which is of course vastly more than 20%. It's actually 4.15 times the price or a 315% price increase. But that does not take inflation into account.
Now, according to the 'this is money' inflation calculator, that £51,050 average house price in 1993 would be the same as £100,563 today.
Or the other way round, if the only driving force was inflation then an average house that costs £211,792 today would have cost £107,514 in 1993, which is twice what the average price really was back then.
But using £51,050 in 1993 as the base price and factoring out inflation, the average house value increased by £111,229 from £51,050 to £162,279, which equates to 3.18 times the price or a 218% price increase.
In 1993 the UK population was 57,713,900 and in 2018 it is around 66 million an increase of about 15 percent. More people means you need more houses and if you don't build enough houses – prices will rise!
Around five million of that population increase (as far as I can make out) is the result of net inward migration. That five million is the lion's share of the 8.3 million increase at about 60% of the increase. And the question is, had those five million or so people not chosen to come to the UK, how much would house prices have risen?
All this points to net inward migration pushing prices up by far more than just 20% since 1993. And if the number of people coming in only raises house prices by 20% then its fair to say that domestic population increases only allow for say another eight percent, so where's all the rest of the hundreds of percent house price inflation we're seeing actually coming from? After all, if there were more houses than people then prices would be dropping and dropping fast!
As I pointed out, the real driver is supply and demand. If we want house prices to come down for our children and grandchildren to have an affordable place to live with current population levels, then we need to start the most ambitious programme of building the world has ever seen, which is going to cost lots of money we don't have – green belts will have to go too. Or we limit the numbers coming in! Choices, choices!
Now, I’m sorry to have to do this to you, but I have to raise the spectre of Tony Blair – again!
He’s now asking the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to step in and do ‘everything possible’ to stop Brexit.
He told Business Insider’s German edition that:
“It would be a mistake of historic proportions if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.”
And then he went on to admit that both the EU (which he of course referred to as 'Europe') and Germany have a lot to lose if barrier free trade was not maintained. But he also said that we must keep liberal democracies together:
"….in times when authoritarian structures are resurgent."
Has he no concept of irony? The fastest growing authoritarian structure on the planet has been the EU itself!
But this is significant in that Blair has had to appeal to Merkel. Why? Because, if all the EU27 states were really singing from that same Brexit hymn sheet, then he would not bother with one national leader.
I think Blair smells in the political air that Merkel may be wobbling under public and business pressure to start thinking a good deal with the UK would also benefit Germany. But Tony Blair want to keep merkel on his preferred track of punishing Brexit.
