Brexit is here at last – and it’s all thanks to you!

NINE years ago this weekend, Express Newspapers published a special edition with a frontpage banner headline reading: Get Britain Out Of The EU.

By PATRICK O’FLYNN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR

PUBLISHED: 00:03, Sun, Jan 12, 2020 | UPDATED: 11:30, Sun, Jan 12, 2020

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Image: Getty Images)

Our famous Crusader was pictured beneath with a speech bubble next to him exclaiming: “We demand our country back!” 

Inside were numerous articles by people such as Lord Tebbit, Nigel Farage, the economist Ruth Lea and columnists Leo McKinstry and Frederick Forsyth, setting out the case for breaking away from Brussels rule. A copy of the publication was given away free with every copy of the Saturday paper and many thousands more were circulated across the country via anti-EU campaigning groups.

The Express campaign to force a referendum on quitting the EU had actually begun six weeks or so earlier and we had already received more than 150,000 signed campaign coupons for delivery to David Cameron in Downing Street. 

But it was, I think, that special edition that really drove home to the Westminster political class that we were serious about the campaign and were confident of it catching fire with the British public. 

And despite no other national newspaper group joining the fray for years to come, it did just that. Hundreds of thousands more coupons poured in, leading to us presenting a mass petition to Downing Street and forcing a Commons vote later in 2011 in which 81 Tory MPs rebelled to back an In/Out referendum. 

Our coverage also coincided with Mr Farage’s Ukip surging in the polls and doing very well in parliamentary by-elections, drawing nearly all its support from David Cameron’s Conservatives and putting the PM in a very tight spot. 

With public fury still festering that the Lisbon Treaty, transferring more national sovereignty to the EU, had been railroaded through without a promised referendum, the pressure from the Tory grassroots for a public vote on EU membership itself grew ever stronger.

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage (Image: Getty Images)

In January 2013, Cameron finally buckled despite having publicly set his face against an EU referendum on numerous occasions at the Commons despatch box. 

Were he still prime minister after the next election, pledged Mr Cameron, an In/Out referendum would take place within two years of his second term starting. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the long campaign for Brexit got going. 

So it wasn’t really us – we were just doing our job of promoting the interests and beliefs of our readers. It was you. Every one of you who sent in a coupon or backed the campaign online is entitled to reflect this weekend that you did your bit in those early days. Back when many media commentators and politicians alike mocked the idea of Britain leaving the EU as a pipe dream which could never happen. 

You will, of course, know that many a twist and turn followed. For a start the political establishment tried to rig the contest by posting out a publicly-funded pro-Remain government leaflet to every household at the start of the campaign and co-opting senior public figures such as the Governor of the Bank of England into the Remain effort. 

And then, even after our glorious victory in June 2016, there came huge further efforts to block the people’s decision from being implemented. So it has taken until now – January 2020 – for us to stand, confidently, on the cusp of the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. 

Boris Johnson (L) and David Cameron (R) (Image: Getty Images)

But who can now doubt that in fewer than three weeks, at 11pm on Friday, January 31, the UK will indeed leave the EU? The continuity Remainers were routed in last month’s general election as the steadfast British people proved, definitively, that they had not changed their minds despite all claims to the contrary. 

A constitutional entanglement of some 47 years, ushered in by Edward Heath without prior public permission, will finally come to an end. 

Though still bound to it until the end of a transitional phase due to expire at the end of the year, we will no longer be signatories to the Treaty of Rome, with its stipulations about the primacy of community law and the pursuit of “ever closer union”.

We will take back control of our laws, borders and money and in doing so become much more like most self-governing democratic countries on the planet. It will be the biggest change to our national life in modern times. 

It should be acknowledged that many supporters of the “European project” were sincerely motivated, believing it was needed to stop further wars engulfing the continent. 

But many more people will feel that reversing the transfer of sovereignty to Brussels will honour much better those who gave their lives to preserve our national independence in two world wars. I know that such a thought was in the minds of many of you who backed our campaign from the off. 

We asked you to believe in Britain and you showed that you had never stopped.

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1227201/Brexit-news-latest-Leave-eu-Boris-Johnson-Ursula-von-der-leyen

Terrorism, Brexit, and the Migrant Crisis: Three Stories That Defined the Decade

Three deeply intertwined stories that drove political and social change this decade, and in time may come to define European political history of the 2010’s — terrorism, Brexit, and the migrant crisis.

OLIVER JJ LANE

1 Jan 2020

The most politically turbulent decade for Europe since the end of the Cold War is drawing to a close — but what will these ten years be remembered for?

It has certainly been a difficult time, if not the most difficult yet, for the European Union. The early years of the decade were dominated by the Union’s enforced policy of ultra-austerity on its southern members, particularly Greece. Suspicion at the disregard the Union appeared to treat the citizens of some nations with after Greece was later reinforced when the European Union installed its own “technocratic” government in Italy in 2011, after the government of the day hadn’t played by Brussel’s rules.

Following the collapse of the elected government of Silvio Berlusconi, Brussels made a former European Commissioner the Italian Prime Minister, creating the first of three EU-backed technocratic Italian governments. These moves and others continue to linger in the minds of Eurosceptics across the continent years later.

Yet perhaps even greater developments may colour memories of the decade — the deadly terror attacks striking against European cities and peoples, the decision of one European politician to unilaterally declare the continent open to mass migration, and the all-consuming debate on Britain’s withdrawal that hasn’t even happened yet.

As we enter a new decade, events that define the last:

The Migrant Crisis

RIGONCE, SLOVENIA – OCTOBER 23: Migrants are escorted through fields by police as they are walked from the village of Rigonce to Brezice refugee camp on October 23, 2015 in Rigonce,, Slovenia. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Future historians may well remember the 2010’s — ironically — as the “Wir schaffen das” or ‘we can do it’ decade. This phrase, uttered by Germany’s Angela Merkel in 2015 was in response to criticism that already prodigiously generous Germany not doing enough to help migrants.

That, and the expressions of Germany’s so-called Welcome-culture were interpreted as an open invitation by many — so many, in fact, that over a million illegal migrants and ‘refugees’ are known to have crossed into Europe in just one year, with over 800,000 of them crossing into the continent by sea.

Germany opened her borders to all comers in 2015, de facto throwing the borders of Europe open unilaterally, and in doing so triggered the Europe Migrant Crisis. The summer’s news was of the enormous suffering caused by Angela Merkel’s carelessness — the thousands killed on unseaworthy boats sent by ruthless human-traffickers making the most of her largess to make quick money — and of great columns of people marching north.

While in a sane world the migrant crisis shouldn’t have been possible, a combination of factors including the European Union’s much-vaunted but now discredited open borders scheme and Germany suspending the EU laws which were designed to prevent migrants crossing the continent looking for the most generous country rather than the first safe one, meant it was.

At times, the through-flow of migrants heading north through the Balkan route and central Europe was so great the number of illegals being waved through national borders was tens of thousands every single day.

While some countries opened their borders, others resisted being co-opted into Germany’s mass migration scheme. Hungary, one of the last stops on the way north and a key road and rail hub for illegals heading to Germany saw up to 10,000 migrants a day in mid-2015, but the completion of their southern border fence in October of that year saw daily arrivals suddenly fall to pre-crisis levels, more or less overnight.

Registered, known illegal immigration to Hungary fell from 391,000 in 2015 to just 1,184 in 2017.

As the left in Europe mourns the end of a decade which saw the collapse of their political movements and the rise of the populist right across Europe, it is worth noting far-sighted left-politicians foresaw what damage to their own credibility the migrant crisis would do. European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans — who is still in post and these days delights in meddling with the Brexit process — warned in 2015 that unless the establishment could find “sustainable solutions” to the migrant crisis, there would be a surge of right-wing populism across Europe.

Terrorism

TOPSHOT – Authorites inspect a truck that had sped into a Christmas market in Berlin, on December 19, 2016, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens more.
Ambulances and heavily armed officers rushed to the area after the driver drove up the pavement of the market in a square popular with tourists, in scenes reminiscent of the deadly truck attack in the French city of Nice last July. / AFP / Odd ANDERSEN (Photo credit should read ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)

The 2010s for Europe was a decade pock-marked by the horror of radical Islamist terror, with a large number of high-profile, high-casualty attacks visited upon its cities and people, and dozens more intercepted by the security services before they could come to fruition.

Indeed, the decade began with an attempted attack — fortunately for its intended target, failed– on January 1st 2010, when a Somali migrant armed with an axe tried to kill Danish artist Kurt Westergaard in his home. The motivation for the attack is one now all too familiar in Europe — Mr Westergaard had drawn a cartoon of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Later, nearly the entire editorial magazine of a French satirical magazine were gunned down in their own offices during a weekly meeting. Again, their crime had been to be undiscriminating in their lampooning, having made as much fun of Mohamed as of any other prophet or god. The vast majority of European mainstream media outlets chose to be cowed by the attacks rather than stand in solidarity with the dead, refusing to publish the images the men and women of Charlie Hebdo had been murdered for.

More attacks followed, and at an accelerating pace as the decade wore on. 2013 introduced Europe to a new kind of terror when a pair of Islamist converts rammed their car into a soldier on a London street and attempted to decapitate him with kitchen knives. While the name of Drummer Lee Rigby lives on, the car-knife attack became the weapon of choice for Islamist killers this decade and is now better known to ordinary people across Europe. Requiring no complex planning or acquiring illegal weapons or explosives, the method was promoted by the Islamic State themselves as ideal for killing the unbelievers.

While many terror attacks against Europe were perpetrated by so-called “homegrown” radicals — arguably a product of the doctrine of multiculturalism encouraging balkanised communities going their own way, rather than pulling together and integrating into national cultures — this has not always been the case. The gunman at the 2014 Jewish Museum attack had fought in the Syrian civil war before coming to Europe, and some of the attackers in the 2015 Bataclan massacre — in which 131 were killed with Yugoslavian AK47-clones and explosives — had also fought in Syria, thought to have entered Europe while posing as refugees during the migrant crisis.

Taking the automobile method to its logical conclusion, 2016 saw two truck attacks, using the largest and deadliest vehicles on the road to kill the largest number of Europeans. In the French city of Nice on their national day, a Tunisian migrant drove a rented 19-ton truck into crowds enjoying a seafront promenade party. Driving at over 50 miles an hour, 86 were killed.

This was followed up months later when a failed asylum seeker — who too had come to Europe on a migrant boat — murdered the Polish driver of a semi-truck and used the hijacked vehicle to drive through the Berlin Christmas market, killing 11.

The late part of the decade also saw a string of attacks in the United Kingdom. There was a vehicle-knife attack in Westminster in March 2017 which culminated in a police officer being stabbed to death inside the British Parliament’s own walls, and the Manchester arena bombing which targeted children and their parents as they left an Ariana Grande concert which killed 22 and injured over 800.

Then London was revisited with another vehicle-knife attack at London Bridge later that year, where eight died. The scene would be targeted a second time in 2019 with yet another attack as a recently released extremist went on a knife rampage before being subdued by members of the public armed with improvised weapons.

The routine responses to these attacks has, too, become part of the grim background of European urban life in the 2010s — the inevitable ‘Love [insert city name]’ posters, teddy bears and tealights. Anti-terrorism barriers and police officers dressed like military special forces are now an apparently permanent feature of our streets. But as London mayor Sadiq Khan likes to point out, it’s all part and parcel of living in a big city.

Brexit

WESTERHAM, ENGLAND – JUNE 23: Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP and Vote Leave campaigner holds up the ‘Daily Express’ as he returns to his home after buying newspapers of the United Kingdom on June 23, 2016 in Westerham, England. The United Kingdom is going to the polls to decide whether or not the country wishes to remain within the European Union. (Photo by Mary Turner/Getty Images)

If the 2010s were the Brexit decade, then Nigel Farage must have been the man of the decade. What other individual can claim to have had such a profound and widely felt impact on the whole continent in the past ten years — quite apart from how it has utterly dominated British politics, Brexit has near totally paralysed the European Union itself.

Every major European summit for years has been consumed by Brexit discussion, repeated Brexit deadlines and the false sense of urgency that always accompanies the down-to-the-wire negotiations Brussels runs on have run roughshod over every other concern. Most frustrated by this has clearly been France’s Emmanuel Macron, who clearly saw his domestic rise to power as an insignificant stepping stone on his mission to totally reform Europe.

Hence his being by far the keenest European leader to get Britain out of Europe as soon as possible — if his poll ratings are anything to go by his time as French president are numbered and with that his chance to make his mark on history. This is all great news for the actual people of Europe, of course, who might take the view the less Eurocrats in Brussels are capable of actually doing the happier and easier their day to day lives can be.

Brexit itself had been on the slow-boil for decades, the nascent Eurosceptic movement — having all but vanished in 1973 after the county voted to stay in the European community on the basis of a pack of half-truths from then Prime-Minister Ted Heath who withheld the truth he knew about the future direction of Europe — getting a kick-start with the Maastricht treaty in 1992. Signing the European Union into existence, the push by the British government to support the move and take the country into ever-closer union with Europe all but split the Conservative party.

Nigel Farage — then an unknown — was one of many to leave the Conservatives at the time over their direction on Europe. A founding member of the UK Independence Party in 1993, Mr Farage has been a persistent character of this decade, having come to national attention after suffering a broken sternum, broken ribs, and punctured lung in an air-crash on the morning of the 2010 general election.

While all will remember the 2016 referendum, 2014 was the year Britain’s fortunes turned with respect to the European Union. In the European Union parliament elections of that year, UKIP became the first party other than Labour or the Conservatives to win a national election in over a century, setting alarm bells ringing among the establishment parties in Westminster.

Desperate to not have his leadership torn apart by the European issue as it has John Major’s in 1992, then Prime Minister David Cameron promised an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union as a means to appease Eurosceptics in the 2015 general election. This was an easy promise for Mr Cameron to make — neither he nor the pollsters expected him to win the vote outright, and another coalition government would give him ample opportunity to renege on the pledge.

Yet he romped home with 24 more seats, so Mr Cameron gave Britain the referendum he’d promised. Again an easy decision for him — the Prime Minister, all his colleagues, the people they socialised with, other world leaders, and the pollsters all believed he’d easily win the vote, and in doing so would put the issue of Europe to bed for another generation. To make the gamble a sure one, the government threw its full weight behind the remain side, wrote to every household in the country explaining why the European Union is a good thing, and indulged in what was then called project fear.

Well, we know how that went. Yet almost four years later the United Kingdom still hasn’t left the European Union but seems all but certain to do so and new Prime Minister Boris Johnson is promising a decade of growth, prosperity… and Brexit.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/01/terrorism-brexit-and-the-migrant-crisis-three-stories-that-defined-the-decade/

Video: Where did Brexit come from? | CNBC Explains

Where did Brexit come from? | CNBC Explains

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The Brexit vote has shaken modern politics forever, with the U.K. set to be the first country to ever leave the European Union. But after more than 40 years of membership, how did we get here? CNBC's Tom Chitty and Silvia Amaro explain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgaL0jOQNR8

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage will not run in UK election

Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's upstart Brexit Party, said on Sunday he would not stand in next month's election, choosing instead to campaign countrywide against Prime Minister Boris Johnson's EU divorce deal.

03 NOV 2019

FILE PHOTO: Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage is interviewed after speaking during the Brexit Party general election campaign launch in London, Britain November 1, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

“I have thought very hard about this: How do I serve the cause of Brexit best?” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

“Do I find a seat and try to get myself into parliament or do I serve the cause better traversing the length and breadth of the United Kingdom supporting 600 candidates, and I’ve decided the latter course is the right one.”

Farage, an anti-EU campaigner who has stood for parliament unsuccessfully seven times, set up the Brexit Party this year and swiftly won the most votes in Britain in European elections in May.

His announcement this week that the party would contest every seat on Dec. 12 was seen as a potential setback for Johnson.

It risks splitting the vote of Brexit supporters in an election that will once again pit those who want to leave the European Union against those who want to stay, more than three years after Britain voted to quit the bloc in a referendum.

Farage previously led the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The threat that it might siphon off Conservative votes played a major role in persuading then-Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the 2016 referendum.

Johnson, who wants to win a new mandate to enact his divorce deal with the bloc, said he had ruled out a pact with every other party because it would only make it more likely that opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn would become prime minister.

Johnson’s Conservatives are leading in the polls, but with the country still starkly divided over Brexit, the outcome is highly unpredictable.

“NOT BREXIT”

Farage said Johnson’s EU deal was “not Brexit” because it would leave Britain tied to EU institutions and rules.

“If Boris was going for a genuine Brexit, we wouldn’t need to fight against him in this election,” he said.

The government says a withdrawal agreement is the best way to smooth the transition to a future free trade deal.

Voters opposed to Brexit are divided among several opposition parties, while Johnson has aimed to rally Brexit supporters behind his Conservatives.

The pro-EU Liberal Democrats will announce a “remain pact” with the smaller Green Party and Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru in up to 60 seats in a bid to deny Johnson a majority, the Sunday Times said.

Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson told Sky News’ Sophie Ridge on Sunday: “I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the numbers are accurate but we’ve been having those discussions.”

Labour, currently Britain’s biggest opposition party, has said it will renegotiate Johnson’s withdrawal agreement, and then put its deal to the public in another referendum.

Farage, whose party is supported by between 7% and 13% of voters according to recent surveys, said he had wanted to create a “leave alliance”, but his appeals to the Conservatives had gone unheeded.

Johnson, who played a leading role in the 2016 referendum campaign to leave the EU, became prime minister in July after Theresa May failed to win backing for her withdrawal agreement.

He confounded his critics by agreeing a new deal with the EU in October but failed to pass legislation in parliament in time to meet the latest deadline for leaving the bloc, on Oct. 31.

His own failure to deliver Brexit was a “matter of deep regret”, he told Sky News, but his deal was now the only way to get Britain out of the bloc.

“The only way out of the EU now, the only way to get Brexit done, is to go with the deal that we’ve got,” he said.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-election-farage/brexit-party-leader-nigel-farage-will-not-run-in-uk-election

Europe's populist nightmare won't end with Brexit

London (CNN)The UK's failure to leave the European Union has created an almighty headache in Brussels.

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN

Updated 1325 GMT (2125 HKT) May 12, 2019

Three years since the UK voted to Brexit have led to nowhere useful. Having missed two deadlines already, Brits are now obliged to take part in European elections on May 23 -- two months after they were supposed to be shot of the EU once and for good.

In two weeks, voters across the Union will elect 751 Members of the European Parliament. Historically, turnout in these elections is low. The small numbers that vote often do so to register their protest.

The anger at Brexit not yet being delivered plays into the hands of euroskeptics. Brexit was scheduled to have happened on March 29 and the UK was supposed to have nothing to do with these elections.

In 2014, Nigel Farage's anti-EU UKIP came first place in the UK's European elections. This put euroskeptic pressure on the then Prime Minister David Cameron, and ultimately forced him to call for the Brexit referendum. And we all know what happened next.

In 2019, Farage's new Brexit Party has an even easier job. Brexit betrayal is a powerful message, and Farage is once again expected to finish first.

England was already divided. Brexit is only making it worse

Euroskeptic parties won't do well only in Britain. The most recent polling from Europe Elects predicts that these parties could win up to 35% of seats in the European Parliament. Previously, euroskeptics have failed to coordinate at a European level, meaning their level of influence within the EU was always limited.

That could be about to change. Matteo Salvini, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the far-right Lega Nord, which governs in coalition with the populist 5 Star Movement, has for months been trying to bring all euroskeptic parties together. If successful, he could create one of -- if not the -- largest bloc inside the EU parliament.

Euroskeptics have historically had less in common with one another than they've had in common, so it's unclear if Salvini can pull this off.

Catherine De Vries, Professor of Political Behaviour at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, thinks that the current momentum behind the skeptics could lead people setting their differences aside.

"If they all do well... some might join it (Salvini's block), because there is an incentive to join a bigger group."

That incentive is the ability to influence EU policy, rather than sit on the margins and protest.

Matthew Goodwin, Professor of Politics at the University of Kent and co-author of the book "National Populism," says many European populists have shifted from wanting a Brexit of their own to believing instead that they can influence Europe from the inside.

"What they will be is a more disruptive political force within the EU parliament," Goodwin said. "Most likely pushing for the return of powers to nation states, stronger border security, more help with dealing with refugees and probably more democratic and transparent institutions."

Goodwin says the battle between the European mainstream and the anti-EU populists is only going to accelerate as there's nothing to suggest that it's a short-term protest.

"The long-term trends that are driving these changes -- increasingly detached political institutions, a high rate of immigration, strong feelings of economic and status loss among white workers, weakening bonds between old mainstream parties and voters -- these are deep-rooted and have been coming for years, if not decades," Goodwin said. "...(Populism) looks to have much stronger anchors in our society than many are willing to think about."

The European elections could well result in some immediate pain for those in Brussels. But it won't end there.

There is an established pattern in European politics of center-right parties borrowing populist ideas to cling onto voters. The most obvious is example is the 2014 UK Independence Party (UKIP) win leading to the Conservatives offering a referendum on European Union membership.

But, as De Vries explains, it's sometimes more subtle. She points out that Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, has recently been "downplaying the significance of the EU elections."

Why? Because polling suggest that his nationalist rivals, the Forum for Democracy, could well defeat his governing People's Party for Freedom and Democracy.

The fishing town where Brexit can't come soon enough 02:48

This would give a party that has campaigned for a Dutch exit from the EU, tighter border control and a ban on Islamic face veils a credibility it has yet to achieve. So, downplaying the impact of these elections, making it look like nothing more than a protest vote, suits Rutte.

If he can couple this with soft aping of the populist rhetoric, even better. And Rutte has form here, after he moved more to the right in 2017 in response to pressure from rivals.

Slowly, as mainstream, governing parties borrow the positions of the fringes, the dial shifts and we eventually arrive at a new normal. And this is where it all gets a bit complicated for Brussels.

Fifteen years since the last major expansion of the Union -- when 10 new countries were welcomed to the fold -- the vision of ever-closer union has lost some of its shine.

It's possible that the drive for less Europe has already begun.

"The negotiation has started. The question is how far will those concessions go? How much will the mainstream give to the populists?" Goodwin said.

Brexit disaster is making Britain a weird place to live in

It could be in the EU's interests to address this new reality, before it's too late. "It all depends on how strong they get. Having 30-35% of seats is one thing; having 40-45% in 10 years is another," Goodwin adds.

And this is the key point: Euroskepticism might have sparked Brexit in the UK, but right now in other European nations it means remaining in the EU and reforming it. And if the EU is to stick together, its leaders would be wise to accept that this might be their new reality.

After all, populists are currently in government in places like Italy, Austria, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, some states of Germany and even the US.

As Goodwin says, they are "inching into the corridors of power," giving us case studies in what populists forming policy actually looks like.

After the parliamentary elections, the EU will elect new presidents of the European Parliament, European Commission and European Council.

Where their predecessors will be remembered for trying to keep the union on the same page as it navigated Brexit, the biggest threat the EU has ever faced, these new leaders may find themselves having to tussle with a bunch of politicians more belligerent than the UK. But, unlike the Brits, the EU will be stuck with them for a very long time.