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The Democracy Movement retweeted
🙀John Healey contradicts Andy Burnham on rejoining the EU
Channel 4: Just finally, I mean Andy Burnham has been very clear he wants Britain back in the European Union in his lifetime. Do you?
Healey: I'm older than Andy Burnham. I don't expect to see that
[Healey is 66; Burnham is 56]
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Taking VAT off electricity bills is, of course, a welcome step. It is also a #BrexitBenefit.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
One of the more irritating aspects of the Remain campaign was the lazy characterisation of all Brexit supporters as little Englanders who hate Europe.
I've worked in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Romania. I've led teams of IT guys from all over Europe and worked happily with them. I've travelled all over Europe for business and pleasure. My first travel abroad as a teenager was to France and Italy. I can get by speaking French and speak some basic German. I proposed to my wife in Greece. I love Europe in all its diversity, its different languages, cultures, landscapes, history, food. I'm in France right now, for the second time this year.
What I don't love is the attempt to obliterate all of this genuine diversity by merging it into one huge superstate run by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, remote from the people being governed, on the shaky pretext that it was necessary to prevent another war or to allow free movement of citizens.
To me, wanting that for Europe is hating Europe.
(Ironically it's the EU along with NATO that is now cheerleading for yet another war in Europe).
And there are many, many Brexit supporters like me.
The unwillingness of Remain supporters to recognise the difference between 'the EU" and "Europe" was one of the more baffling and infuriating aspects of the referendum campaign.
And it remains true even today. It's as if they've never thought very deeply about any of it.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
This illustrates my point. Most of the country had moved on by & large.
But not extremist & influential remainer politicians like Osborne, Major, Burnham & more.
Now the rest of us are going to have to pay the price for their unwillingness to accept the 2016 referendum result.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Some of the 'Brexit benefits' in today's Budget...
1⃣ strong commitment to 'Buy British' (hard to square this with EU procurement rules)
2⃣ additional funding for 'PuFIns', such as the British Business Bank (hard to square with EU rules on state aid)
3⃣ more cuts in UK tariffs on imports of food, drink and energy (not possible if the UK were still a member of the EU, or even a customs union)...
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Burnham keeps going on about how we ended up with a "harder Brexit than was promised at the Referendum". Nothing was promised at the EU Referendum other than that the government would implement the decision the public made.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
What has the OBR said today on Brexit in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) accompanying the Budget? Not a lot...
1⃣ As expected, the OBR has ducked any assessment of the UK-EU 'reset', simply saying "the economic impact will depend on the outcome of these negotiations' (EFO, p.77)
2⃣ There is just a passing reference to "rising barriers to trade after EU exit" as one of the many shocks which have hit the UK since 2008 (EFO, p.10)
3⃣ The word 'Brexit' itself only appears three times in the entire EFO, each in the context of the "post-Brexit change in the migration regime"
4⃣ Unless I've missed them, I can't find any reference to the assumed "4%" long-term hit to productivity or the assumed "15%" hit to the UK's global trade; these do still appear in the OBR website's collection of 'Brexit analysis', last updated in July, but the OBR doesn't seem keen to draw any more attention to them... 🤔
#Budget2026
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Why was the EU referendum decision not about our "long term future"? I think most will have considered it to be exactly that. That's also what we were told. We've since only been out for six years. This is all so shockingly dishonest, duplicitous and anti-democratic from this PM.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Most fundamentally, if you arrive in a Downing Street promising to pass power down from the centre to the people, but instead pass it up to Brussels, you aren’t Mr Localism any more.
Rejoining the EU might help Labour squeeze the Lib Dems - but it would also mean gutting Andy Burnham’s own policy agenda, from devolution to reindustrialisation to trade to regulation. My latest for @theipaper inews.co.uk/opinion/burnham-…
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Not only that, those Labour votes were cast on the basis of a manifesto which was and remains to stay out of the EU
The Democracy Movement retweeted
There is a fundamental problem with another referendum on EU membership.
Those who want another one, didn't accept the result of the last one. So why should leave voters not only let them have something that they didn't honour last time, let alone honour any outcome this time?
The Democracy Movement retweeted
No they won’t. They’ll put it in their manifesto and when they win, they’ll say we voted for it.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
The UK joining the EU might benefit just over 10% of firms (the ones that export to the EU), but it would harm nearly 90% of firms (the ones that don't export to the EU). We already have a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. Let's leave things where they are.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
NEW
There is some confusion over Andy Burnham's position on Brexit
Earlier this morning:
Reporter asks: "Will you allow the UK to join the EU freedom of movement without a referendum?"
Andy Burnham says: "No. And I wasn't saying that", adding that he would "never move ahead of the British public when it comes to Brexit".
11.30am Lobby briefing:
Number 10 will now not say whether the British public will get a referendum on rejoining EU freedom of movement.
A spokesman says: "The process will be set out in due course ... He wants to have an open debate about this.... there are no options on the table."
What do you think? More now on @GBNEWS.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
2024 voters backed Labour on the basis of staying out of the EU, incl red wall voters returning. Hoping to win in 2029 by entirely reversing that policy, rather than on competence & domestic delivery, would be an extraordinary gamble. Esp as poll support for rejoin is so shallow.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
…
And remember remainers told us that UK financial services would be decimated by Brexit.
In fact, financial services exports to the EU have increased significantly, most likely helped by regulatory divergence possible only because of …
... Brexit!
The Democracy Movement retweeted
Andy Burnham has told the Sunday Times that he is open to readopting free movement as part of a closer relationship with the EU. This would be an utter affront to all those - including the millions of working-class voters in Labour's traditional heartlands - who voted for Brexit. At a time when our immigration system remains completely broken, it would also be a calamitous own goal. Under no circumstances should the Labour party go along with it.
The Democracy Movement retweeted
The Prime Minister speaks of an honest conversation, and yet the arguments to reverse brexit all sound like we'd be returning to the Europe of 2016. That just isn't true. The Europe we'd rejoin today wouldn't be one where centrists like Angela Merkel were in positions of leadership. Today, the AfD is surging and could take control in Germany, Marine Le Pen in France, Italy is governed by the populist right, hard-right parties are in power or gaining ground across much of Europe. This is a profoundly different political landscape to the one we left, and it is the heights of dishonesty not to hold this fact at the forefront of any conversation we have now.
We're seeing this conversation presented around returning to our young people all that brexit robbed them of. Again, we're having this conversation as though we're still looking upon the Europe of 2016. The Europe of 2026 is aflame, the young people are revolting against perceived economic injustices. An honest conversation would acknowledge this fact.
At a time when British politics is the most fractured it's ever been, reopening this debate, especially in the selective, rose-tinted manner in which it is being discussed, risks driving even deeper divisions through our society.
Is this really the government's priority?
Our young people need growth, opportunity, and a future they can believe in. They need a government focused on delivering these things, not one hellbent on reigniting one of the most divisive debates in modern British politics.
I am by no means opposed to closer ties with Europe, nor the economic benefits they might bring. But an honest conversation about Europe must begin with the Europe that exists today, the Europe we see on our screens, being set ablaze by its youth, not the one we remember from 2016.