Fifteen years ago today – at 11:40PM – my Dad (above) died in Ward 29 of St. James Hospital, Leeds. The cause of death was a heart attack, but at 97 you have to die of something!
Since that time, many things have changed, both personally, nationally and internationally.
As the son of Bernard H.G Rogers, C.Eng. MIEE Consulting Engineer (Retired), I have noted similarities between Doctor Richard North and him.
Both “did/do detail” as is evidenced by Dr. North’s latest contribution to the UK’s stock of knowledge about Brexit.
GOTO: http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86928
The other similarity is that neither man could/can gladly tolerate fools! Which was a problem for Dad and which is a problem for Dr. North!
As a consulting engineer and a specialist in heavy current applications and infrastructure, Dad was an expert witness in the High Court and Court of Appeal. He and barristers (often Q.C.’s) “did detail”. Things had to be thoroughly researched and “i”s dotted and “t”s crossed!
God alone knows what Dad would have made of the current omnishambles that is the Brexit process!
That Chancellor Merkel – by her responses in London yesterday – is keeping her counsel about the latest UK “cake and eat it” offer cannot be used as a guide to anything definite. IF however there is a deal, it will appear to comprise something greatly inferior to Flexcit (EFTA+EEA). The UK economy will suffer as a consequence.
This raises a question: Would the EU be happy with the UK going for the Flexcit (EFTA+EEA) solution?
It is at this point one must recall the statements of several UKIP MEPs and many UKIP members: that when the UK leaves the EU, others may very well follow. The root cause of such a process can be found on the shores of Libya – the thousands of economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East wanting a better life in Europe. Those migrants who are Muslim are denied entrance to a number of former Warsaw Pact countries now EU member states. To the fury of the EU’s politicians elsewhere!
Such could come about but ONLY if Brexit was an economic success!
What Dr. North’s latest contribution shows that IF the UK “Flexcited” and was followed by those EU member states not currently part of the Eurozone, one would end up with TWO supra-national confederations on the continent of Europe. There would be the EFTA+EEA countries and there would be the EU (Eurozone+EEA) countries.
As the largest of these EFTA+EEA countries and having London which is a world financial centre as it’s capital, the UK would clearly be primus inter pares in EFTA and Germany would be Primus inter pares in the EU.
This would appear to be an attractive proposition!
This prompts the obvious question: Why is Madame Mayhem not going for it?
The most obvious is the question of Ireland. Brexit in ANY form other than the purgatory of transition CANNOT be achieved – Flexcit included! This is because the DUP will not tolerate a border between Ulster and Eire or one in the middle of the Irish Sea.
NB: The solution of course is for mainland Great Britain to Flexcit and for Ulster to remain in the EU’s Custom’s Union as well as in the EEA – but via the UK being a member of EFTA not the EU. This however would mean a border between Ulster and Great Britain.
Putting the DUP to one side, let us now examine the hypothetical situation of a UK Flexciting to be followed by the non Eurozone EU member states more closely:
The problem Ukippers would have with this – apart from their mistaken belief that this would be BRINO (Brexit in Name Only) – would be that such a development would contain the danger of the EU being reinvented to the East and North. In other words, it’s a sort of return to the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire!
The problem (viewed from the eyes of the politically correct liberal minded politicians in Norway, Sweden and the UK) is that the new EFTA members like Poland and Hungary have attitudes towards Muslims that are radically different from their own!
One of the things Ukippers will point out is that entering a supra-national confederation (such as EFTA+EEA or the EU) means accepting the will of the majority – which means one can be outvoted. Thus an enlarged EFTA could, over time having exercised an influence in the EEA, adopt policies on migration that the politically correct liberal minded politicians in Norway, Sweden and the UK would find abhorrent!
One policy that these former Warsaw Pact countries may wish to change is Freedom of Movement – inasmuch as it would not apply to Norway’s, Sweden’s and the UK’s Muslims!
The British Gazette is firmly of the opinion that there are a whole lot of things that are going on behind the scenes that the public are not being told about!