This first article, still not complete, was written shortly after the referendum
result had been announced. It was also written before the world was hit by the Corvid 19 virus which has caused huge sums of money to be spent just trying to keep our economy afloat. Understandably, the analyses that follow have been severely impacted.

Has Immigration Been Good or Bad For The U.K?

While this analysis is not exhaustive, I have tried to be as fair as possible when looking at the pros and cons of different aspects of immigration into the U.K.

Immigration affects us all in very many ways. Indeed, it is hardly possible to think of any aspect of life in present-day Britain that has not been affected. Therefore, to make this analysis manageable I will restrict myself to considering how immigration has affected Education, the NHS, Social Services, Shopping, Housing and Transport.

Extent of Immigration into Britain

Since Tony Blair opened the floodgates of immigration, net immigration into the U.K. has been averaging 250,000 per annum, which equates to an extra 8 million people living here. Because those people in the main have been young people, already with families or wishing to start new lives and families, we also have to factor in the higher birth-rates of immigrants running at an estimated 4 children per family as compared with the just less than two children per family of settled British citizens. I believe a figure of an additional 8 million children is a fair estimate. Also, this estimate does not include the huge number of unregistered immigrants that have entered the UK illegally.

Education

It is a well accepted fact that most state schools are overcrowded. Some will say this is because they have to cope with the massive increase in students numbers brought about by immigration. Others will say it is the Government’s fault for not building more schools and training more teachers. But this is just an example of the famous chicken or egg conundrum. The schools were clearly here well before immigrants arrived so it is the fault of successive Governments for failing to keep up with the needs of growing communities. So, why have they not kept up? I assume it is all down to finance, both to build the schools and to staff and maintain them.

Above, I calculated that migrants tend to have more children than do the settled communities so a great number of these additional children will need a place in a nursery school or in a primary school. If just half of the new arrivals are under 10 years old, 4 million additional places will be needed across the 8 classes from 3 until 10 years old. If they are equally spread in age, half a million children will need nursery or school places in each of those years. How can one easily cope with such a huge bulge particularly when it is targeted at cities like London and Birmingham. If they were equally spread across the entire school age range, at 1500 pupils per school, we would need, 5,300 more schools. The average comprehensive school costs £25-30 million to build. Taking the more pessimistic figure, 5,300 schools will cost £159 Billion. Another significant cost is the staffing cost. Assuming 60 teachers are needed per comprehensive school and if a teacher on average earns £40,000 p.a., a further £13 billion p.a will be required. We can also estimate another £5 billion for maintenance, heating, lighting, cleaning etc. Another important factor to consider is that many of these children will not be able to speak or understand English and will need to be taught in their own language while they are learning English. This imposes another considerable cost of providing translators. Alternatively, some schools will take the cheaper way out and try to teach settled children and immigrant children in the same classes. This might benefit the immigrant child but it seriously disadvantages the English children who will have less of the teacher’s time directed their way so they will learn less or take longer to learn the same as another child who does not have the same disadvantage.

While some immigrants will go into the teaching profession, they cannot be said to bring an advantage to the Education system unless more than about 400,00 of those immigrants go into teaching since otherwise they are simply teaching the huge bulge they and similar people to themselves have created.

Conclusion.

Providing immigrant children with a good education has already cost or will cost £159 billion to build the schools they will need plus an ongoing p.a. cost of £18-20 billion. A not insignificant sum of money to find especially when, currently, there are huge unforeseen demands from elsewhere in the system.

The NHS

There are some who claim that the NHS would collapse without the assistance of immigrants and they have a point. There are certainly many doctors and nurses in the NHS, from hospitals to GP’s surgeries, who provide vital skills to the NHS and without whom the system would certainly collapse. That said, I believe successive British Governments have let Britain and the rest of the world down when they have preferred to recruit trained doctors and nurses from developing countries whose needs are far greater than are ours, simply because it is cheaper to do so than it is to train our own doctors and nurses. Frankly, it is a disgrace.
There is also a worrying variation in quality and abilities, especially among nurses, than there is among our own trained nurses. Also, even though an immigrant doctor or nurse might have excellent skills and have a great humanitarian manner, all that is lost if the patient cannot easily understand or communicate with the professional. A recent experience I can personally quote when I was in hospital for a hip revision operation and I was seen by one of the hospital’s GPs who was supposed to advise me on medications following my operation. He was from Africa and I understood nothing he said. When he went away and I was left with two nurses who had also been in attendance, I told them I had understood nothing he said so, please, could they tell me what he said. They could not help me because they had not understood him either. ‘He is very difficult to understand,’ one of the nurses confided.
That might be an extreme example but many lesser examples are often quoted, especially by older patients who might be slightly or seriously deaf and who are unfamiliar with foreign accents. So, as far as staffing is concerned, we owe a great debt to immigrant doctors and nurses.
What about the special problems immigrants bring? TB had been eliminated from Britain but many immigrants now arrive already suffering from the problem, but worse, they have been the cause of the disease spreading so that now it is endemic once again in many of our larger cities. Sickle cell anemia has been brought to Britain by Africans living in zones where malaria is endemic. Many immigrants arrive suffering from serious deformities as well as AIDs and psychological problems. So the NHS now has to provide life saving services for a much wider range of conditions than was ever known before, many of which are brought by immigrants. At the same time, developments in surgical interventions as well as in drugs, offer new and different ways to effect cures, but always at a significant cost.

This second article was written a month after the above article and is basically a comparison between Health Care provision in the UK and the EU and still before Covid.

Reciprocal Health-Care Arrangements between EU and the UK and the general consequences thereof.

1. It is important for readers to understand that while there is a sort of reciprocal Health Care arrangement between the UK and the EU at present, it is one that is very heavily biased in favour of the EU.
2. For a start, there are twice as many EU citizens living and working here in the UK as there are UK citizens living and working in the other 26 EU countries; the ball-park figures are 3 million EU citizens working here as against 1.5 UK citizens working in the rest of the EU.
3. Other than for emergency treatment, when a UK worker requires access to health services in other EU countries he or she has to fill in the appropriate forms and get an agreement from the NHS that it will meet the bill before the care is provided. The EU country provides the health care but the UK pays for it. More often than not, in order to get the treatment quickly, these British workers will return to Britain to be treated by the NHS which is not the case for EU workers living here who prefer the lack of complication and speed of the NHS
4 When an EU citizen needs access to health care here in the UK, they go to their local doctor or they go straight to a hospital where the treatment is provided, free at the point of need. Retrospectively the NHS sometimes tries to recover the costs from the other EU countries but only rarely are they successful.
5. In the year 2014-15, the UK paid £674 million to other EU countries to cover British health care in their countries. At the same time, with twice the number of EU citizens receiving health care here in the UK, we received back from those other EU countries just £49 million.
6. It is difficult to identify exactly why this state of affairs exists. It might be because we give treatment for conditions that other EU countries ordinarily do not so they refuse to pay for those. On the other hand, it might be because doctors and hospitals fail to ask the questions necessary to enable them to claim back their costs from other EU countries so they fail even to make a claim. It might also be the case that because we ordinarily give treatment as it is needed to our citizens, we are obliged then to give it to EU nationals as well. For those from outside Europe we have no such obligation, other than to provide emergency treatment for conditions contracted here in the UK but we fail miserably here as well. Non EU users of the NHS come mostly from Asia or from Africa and often arrive with extremely serious health problems that their home countries cannot or will not treat. Britain’s NHS is known the world over for its “free at the point of access” maxim and desperate people flock here to get access to our “free” health care. Their free health care comes at a cost, however and that cost is not one of money because that would be spent anyway. No, the cost is in the consequent lack of health care available to those UK citizens who have paid into the NHS through their taxes and who might be desperate to receive treatment for a cancer or a heart problem or a joint replacement but have to wait because a recent visitor needs treatment for AIDS, to give just one example. There are only so many beds and so much cash to go around and it is to bury your head in the sand to pretend that all the government has to do is build more hospitals, provide more beds and give our doctors and nurses more money.
7. It is a state of affairs that should not continue, indeed, it cannot continue if we are to stand any chance of giving timely and appropriate treatment to our own nationals.
8. Bleeding hearted liberals who trot out extreme examples – usually of small children with awful injuries – when making their case not to limit NHS services to any and all, are not to be trusted. They want us taxpayers to provide a free International Health Service to the rest of the world. Often they are simply making trouble for the government of the day, and just as often they have their own private health cover and have no need to use an overwhelmed NHS.
9. What we want is a health service that is not a free for all but is one that is only free to those with the correct use credentials and who are able to prove they have those credentials. Of course, special cases will still be considered but these really should be special cases.
10. I am aware that identity cards were rejected some years ago because too many people feared for their privacy. Since then, we have seen the rise and rise of the Internet, of Twitter and of Facebook. Through these we now know what people had for breakfast and how many times a day they go to the toilet. The privacy argument is completely shot. Also, now, we can make these identity cards even smarter than earlier. In addition to identity, these cards can be used as driving licences, they can also provide eligibility information for benefits and health care and they can be made much harder to counterfeit. For those properly in the system they would be updated as a person’s status changes allowing greater or less access to services. Identity cards will give us an opportunity to take back control of “run away” systems such as the NHS, social services and Benefits.
11. Only those with something illegal to hide or who live outside the law would wish to reject Identity Cards. This is Britain. We do not live in a totalitarian dictatorship. We are a democracy and have nothing to fear from our leaders who, largely, want to create a better more prosperous country for all its citizens. We must ignore those who would prefer to see Britain crumble into dust before they were willing to concede that Britain is presently in danger of running out of control and that we need to introduce measures to bring back order. If Identity Cards are not the answer, let them tell us what is the answer.
12. We cannot watch while Britain burns. We must do something to bring back control.

Bernard Gallivan
July 2017

This next article was written in October 2017 when, already, I could see the writing on the wall and I was beginning to panic that we would not leave the EU as we had been promised. What I wrote then is as true now as it was then which is why I cannot understand why so many of our politicians are so actively plotting to ruin the UK.

Brexit – Latest Situation.

We learned a few days ago that the negotiators on the E.U. Team are inclined to the view that insufficient progress has been made on the three stumbling blocks (the rights of E.U. citizens working in the U.K., the so-called divorce bill and the Irish Border problem) in order for talks to progress to the next stage. We also know that Mrs May then went to Brussels to speak with Mr Junker to try to kick start the stalled discussion and to encourage a more positive attitude from the E.U. Like her predecessor, she claims to have secured something tangible from her meeting when we can see she has done no such thing. Once again, the E.U. leaders sent her away with nothing. They are enjoying seeing the leaders of our once proud nation going back time and again, cap in hand, as supplicants. Clearly, their intention is to humiliate Britain because we are determined to leave their club. But to hide their true motives, they tell us we have not made sufficiently generous offers on any of the three issues barring the way to further talks.

We must make no such further offers. Instead, for every day they delay allowing trade talks to begin we must reduce the £20 billion offer by £1 billion. Because money is so central to their true intentions, this is probably the only way to concentrate their attention. While it is impossible to be aware of all the detailed ramifications of these three stumbling blocks, we do know in outline what has been proposed by the U.K. to try to meet the requirements of the E.U. Let us examine these three issues one by one to see if they really are stumbling blocks.

The Rights of E.U. Citizens working in the U.K.

The Prime Minister has stated that E.U. workers here in the U.K. will receive exactly the same rights and privileges as British workers will receive while working throughout the E.U. Bear in mind that there are between three and four times as many E.U. workers here in the U.K. as there are British workers working in the E.U. To any reasonable person what has been promised seems perfectly acceptable and sensible – but not to the E.U. negotiators. They also want all grievances these E.U. workers might have to be heard and tried in the European Court of Law. But they don’t demand that E.U. citizens working in the USA or China or Japan or Australia or indeed anywhere else in the world must also be tried according to European Law? Of course they don’t. They know what answer they would get to any such demand and it is the same answer they must receive from the U.K. They are “trying it on” and because we have, quite correctly, refused their quite unjustified demand, they claim insufficient progress has been made in this area. They are clearly delaying for the sake of delaying.

The Divorce Bill.

Together with Germany, Britain has been the only country in the E.U. to have consistently paid into the E.U. budget more than we have received back. Indeed, over the 44 year period that we have been members, in today’s money we have made excess contributions approaching £1/2 trillion, a truly staggering amount. We have made it possible for Spain to have a high-speed rail network when we can’t even afford one ourselves and have improved the infra-structures of most other E.U. countries when our own infra-structures are in desperate need of finance. Let us also not forget that Britain contributed a generation of young men who died as soldiers in the Great War and we lost our Empire and were made paupers by World War Two, both times when going to the aid of Europe against German aggression. Not for us a war reparation fund to draw on as Germany and many other nations could and did. We were left with a country in ruins but we got on with the repairs ourselves, even though it took us decades to make good the damage. Putting that to one side, Britain has promised to pay whatever outstanding commitments we have with the E.U. We also agreed to pay £20 billion as a divorce settlement because we know our leaving will create a large hole in the E.U.’s budget. But this, apparently, is not enough. Turning all known negotiating systems on their heads, the E.U. negotiators want us to tell them what commitments we will pay for rather than them telling us what obligations we have. If we agreed to their outrageous request we know whatever figure we name will not be enough and they will repeatedly come back to demand a never-ending more. Because we have refused to play their stupid game, they now claim insufficient progress has been made on the divorce settlement. Quite obviously, they are looking for any excuse to delay the real talks.

The Irish Border.
I must admit that this problem is presently beyond my and indeed Britain’s competence to solve because we first need to know what form our trading agreement with the E.U. is before we can determine how best to accommodate the agreement. However, in essence it is no more difficult than that which exists between E.U. countries and their non E.U. neighbours. It is also our problem to solve and the E.U. should either allow trade talks to proceed to facilitate a resolution to the problem or stand aside. Again, this obstacle is being used as an excuse to delay.

Why does Brexit cause such concern?

When, 16 months ago, Britain was asked to vote on whether we should leave the E.U. it was not a question that came as a real surprise to most U.K. citizens. We had been complaining about the undemocratic state of the E.U. for many years. We had also expressed our concerns about the policy of allowing free movement of people across the E.U. because of the strain it put on our budget and our infrastructure; we being the worst affected of all the E.U. nations by the huge influx of people. We went along with but have never liked the way we lost our sovereignty and we never trusted the Euro. We have also been out of step with many decisions accepted by the other 27. We have been and still are regarded as being an awkward nation because we refuse to remain silent when we disagree with decisions. This make us un-loved by those who might lose a project or some money when we refuse to roll over. There are many and varied reasons why people here in the U.K. do not like or trust the E.U. That said, if the E.U. had been at all sympathetic to our concerns, especially when they knew there was the strong possibility we would vote to leave if they continued to dismiss our concerns, we would never have voted to leave.
It is obvious why E.U. leaders are desperate to hang on to the U.K. They want our money. Without us the other members either have to pay a larger membership subscription or the E.U. has to cut funding to many of the smaller nations in the E.U. This is why they have been making so many dire predictions about what will happen to Britain if it leaves. Then, when their predictions failed to materialize they are so determined to make life difficult for us the expect we would be desperate to be allowed back into the fold. In this endeavour they have been aided and abetted by those Remainers who refused to accept the democratic vote and have been agitating for another vote ever since, as well as by those politicians with an axe to grind or with strong European interests who allow their anger or their personal interests to come before the good of their country. The trouble is, the Remainers and the failed politicians only see one half of the situation. They see only a downside should the worst predictions occur although, by opposing the vote, they help to ensure the worst predictions will come about. They also get in the way of the U.K. getting the best exit terms. Some genuinely believe that Brexit will be bad for the British economy and they might be right in the short term, especially if they continue with their moaning. Many of these now advocate a soft Brexit which effectively is no Brexit and no say. They fail to see that while there is an element of insecurity and uncertainty about Brexit, there is absolute certainty about remaining in the E.U.; the certainty that thing will only get worse for Britain. Should we have voted to remain, all our problems, like the NHS being unable to cope with the continued upward pressure of demand; like our schools not being able to provide sufficient places for the children of the increasing number of immigrants flocking into the U.K will continue and will increase and we will be unable to take back control of our country that is in serious danger of spiralling out of control. These are certainties. Less certain but very likely is the possibility that the E.U. will collapse. It is already in serious trouble with Greece. Added to which, we are in such trouble because other countries like Spain, Romania and Poland, to name but three (all in the Euro and unable to devalue to improve their economies) have huge problems of unemployment , particularly among the young. The E.U. system is not sustainable so it is better for us to get out now.
On the other hand, by leaving now, even if because of the shortsightedness of so many people we fail to get the best terms for ourselves – we might not even get any terms – we will still be able to thrive in the longer timescale. We will once again have our country back under our own control and we will be able to take whatever decisions are necessary to rebuild our nation.

Where do we go from here?
The simple truth is, we are not in a real negotiation with the E.U. because Mr Barnier has been given no negotiating powers. He has been told by the other 27 countries what they want, as well as how long we must be made to dangle from their hook and he is trying his hardest to fulfill his brief. I am also sure I am not the only person to recognize what is going on. Sadly, we have already wasted 16 months of nugatory posturing and vapid negotiations that were never going to achieve what we expected. The E.U. is determined to make us pay a hefty price for having the temerity to wish to leave their cosy club and they even have the effrontery to blame the U.K. for Brexit when they and they alone are the real culprits. If you have not already worked it out for yourselves, let me explain. For a start, we never joined the E.U. We were simply assimilated into it. We were never invited to vote on whether the E.U. should use its own currency and lucky for us we were one of the few not to use it. The down side has been that the decision placed us on the outside of all financial decisions. Nor were we allowed to vote on whether there should be free movement of people throughout the E.U. As the European nation with one of the largest populations but smallest land masses, is also the country that attracts the most immigrants. This was always going to be a big problem for us because of the English language. Nevertheless, if those un-elected, power hungry politicians at the centre of the E.U. had not changed the EEC that we joined, into the pseudo state that is the E.U. of today, an E.U. that robs all members of sovereignty and imposes impossible demands on some members, and if they had been at all sympathetic to David Cameron when he went, cap in hand, to ask that we be allowed to operate a less damaging (to the U.K.) immigration system – remember, they sent him home with nothing – he would never have called for a referendum and we would never have voted to leave the E.U. I defy anyone to correct me because you think my analysis of where the blame lies is incorrect. They then tried to frighten the U.K. with dire warnings of total collapse if we went ahead with Brexit and they have done everything in their power since to hinder our exit by inventing all manner of rules and regulations that are not written down anywhere. For a supposedly friendly organisation, they have acted and continue to act disgracefully.
We owe the E.U. nothing and the way they have presented themselves to the U.K. these last sixteen months adds to and reinforces all the arguments that were put forward as reasons why we should leave the E.U. Unfortunately, as stated above, it has been an uphill struggle. We have already wasted far too much time trying to negotiate with an organization that has no intention of concluding a deal with us and faced with such obduracy, we must now actively plan to leave the E.U. We must start spending money to secure our borders, which spending will have to take place in any case whether or not we secure a good deal. We must also start actively seeking new markets for our products as well as new markets to buy from. Again, this is work that will be needed regardless of the deal we get from the E.U. Let us also not forget that the E.U. has categorically told us, time and time again, that we will not be allowed free access to the Single Market unless we abide by all the requirements laid down for such access, namely free movement of people and accepting E.U. sovereignty, both of which are the equivalent of a no Brexit but with an even worse outcome for us. Let us, once and for all, accept what they tell us about access to the single market and get on with establishing new markets. If they relent later because they finally see that they will only be damaging the interests of their members if they continue to deny us access, so much the better. Putting such a possibility to one side, we must now, give them fair warning that we will not be hung out to dry any longer and unless substantive talks begin on trade before the end of this year we will discontinue negotiations and will cease membership forthwith. We won’t pay a divorce bill and the E.U. will also lose our membership fees for the next two years. Instead, all this money will be available to spend securing our new markets and resolving problems as they arise.
It is now time to get tough.

The above was all said in 2017. Now, 5 years later, we have made such little progress, it is clear that in addition to those dedicated remainers, who continue to damage the UK, have never given up, we are being led by chumps who understand nothing about negotiations.  Else, why are we where we are?

Bernard Gallivan
October 2017

I wrote this article in January 2018, 18 months after the referendum, at which time, regardless of the damage they were doing to the country, Remainers were doing their worst to thwart Brexit. They and the BBC were now using terms like “falling over a cliff edge”, “crashing out”, and “being disastrous for the UK”, all meaningless terms unless qualified by facts but, of course, the facts never emerged because there were none to support the hyperbole.

Remainers are Ruining Britain.

Through their constant, daily, insidious campaign of blaming Brexit for every minor setback that occurs both here and elsewhere in the world while ignoring all the good, positive things that are happening, they make the possibility of Britain obtaining the best possible deal from Europe that bit more difficult. It is their avowed intention to stop Brexit ever occurring and they are determined to ignore the democratic national vote that clearly demonstrated the majority of people in Britain want to leave the E.U. They treat us with incredible rudeness and disdain when they tell us we didn’t know what we were voting for, as if only they know what is right for us. I am convinced most of those who voted to leave the E.U. did so for many good and varied reasons while those who voted to remain did so for one reason only, fear of the future. They ignore the fact that except for a brief 40 year period, Britain has always stood on its own feet and traded successfully with the entire world; something we will soon be doing again. They also ignore the fact that the trading community we joined 40 years ago is a far cry from the E.U. as it is today and is even further from what it intends to become. They also seem oblivious to the fact that had we joined the Euro-Zone, as many of these self same Remainers advocated at the time, Britain would now be the basket-case of Europe, even more so than is Greece. As has happened with Greece, we would have been unable to devalue our currency to mitigate the worse effects of the 2008 financial crisis but because we were and are so much more exposed, financially speaking , than is Greece, God only knows where we now would be. It certainly would not be the relatively comfortable position were are presently in. And before any of these silly Remainers jump on that last sentence to show how out of touch I am, let them consider where we might so easily now be – which is up to our necks in something nasty. And that is an indisputable fact. At present, it all depends on how far E.U. leaders, out of spite, are prepared to damage their own economies simply to ensure the U.K. suffers for daring to leave their cosy club. It is easily within their gift to negotiate a deal that works for everyone but an overwhelming desire to make Britain pay might well cloud their decision making. Indeed, having already seen the extent of their pettiness, my guess is that that they will continue to be mean-minded and only the beleaguered citizens of the other 27 countries, who can also see the shallowness and weakness of their representatives, might eventually come to Britain’s aid, if only through enlightened self interest.
Never forget, it is not the U.K’s intention to turn its back on Europe. We only intend leaving the E.U. So, let us for one moment consider where we would be if we rejoined the E.U.as these Remainers want us to do. I suggest that, because they want us under their control, the E.U. would insist that we could only rejoin if we also joined the Euro-Zone as well as Schengen. Is that what we want? It certainly isn’t what I want and neither would any sane person. We would simply be placing ourselves at the mercy of those unelected bureaucrats who run the E.U. and whose intention it is to create a European Super State. The very idea is frightening. On the brighter side, perhaps they won’t insist we join the Euro-Zone or Schengen, and would allow us back on the same terms as before. Again, is that what we want? The Remainers certainly want it but have they thought for one moment what that would entail? The E.U. would continue to encourage new members to join and would continue to stride towards their vision of a European Super State. Of course, because we have already detached ourselves from both the Euro and Schengen, we would have virtually no control over the direction of travel and would not be included in any financial discussions but we would still be made to pay an increasingly large share of the cost of an expansion which we don’t want and over which we have no control.
I wonder if those who give credence to vocal arch Remainers can remember the shoddy pedigrees of their heroes, especially when it comes to making important decisions? Such an examination is revealing and is probably our best predictor of the quality of their present views as well as of their future decisions.
Even though he has no credibility whatsoever and should properly have been tried for war crimes, Tony Blair refuses to hold his tongue. That man has single-handedly done more to bring Britain almost to its knees that any man in history. Even Hitler did less. I sometimes wonder if they are all just bad decisions on his part or if he really is deliberately trying to sabotage Britain. We all remember that during the MP’s expenses debacle, the only person whose expenses were not examined was the one person who probably had most to hide. His expenses claims had accidentally been shredded, we were told. Even the online versions had somehow disappeared. Is anyone stupid enough to believe that? Then we have the Kelly incident. I ask myself, who had the most to gain from that poor man’s “suicide”? From wars to immigration; from finance and even to the MMR vaccination, that man has done and continues to do Britain and the British public no favours whatsoever. And why would he when he is busy feathering his own luxurious nest. As someone said, if Tony Blair is the answer, it must have been a bloody stupid question.
Let us not forget Gordon Brown; the man who presided over the biggest bust in history. Of course, that was after he sold off the majority of our gold reserves for a miserable song and crippled the Broadband industry in Britain by holding the ISP’s to ransom. Again, he would do well to keep his head low and hope most will eventually forgive and forget his disastrous time in office.
Then we have Nick Clegg. This man is used to making statements, no matter how silly, because he knows no one takes either him or his party seriously and no one expects him to deliver on anything, and he’s still at it. Of course he came a bit of a cropper when he went into coalition with the conservatives and was given the honorary title of Deputy Prime Minister, the closest he is ever likely to get to a position of power. That put a brief end to his promises – except on student fees, of course – but he, too, never has learned to keep his mouth shut even when he doesn’t know anything about the subject; and being married to a Spaniard does not confer any special Brexit qualifications. Also. What do you make of a man who insults the older generation simply because some voted against his wishes. He now fervently hopes they will soon die off. What a disgusting attitude.
How about all those depressed, unhappy conservative politicians who have been passed over and ignored. George Osborne, Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke spring to mind but there are others. What else is left for them but to try to upset those who have upset them. Their views must be seen as the views of very disgruntled men and women out to cause trouble if they can. They must never be taken seriously.
While I am tempted to ignore Sadiq Khan, because he spends so much of London’s money on surveys that pretend to support the view he wants his paid consultants to deliver, his constant bitching needs to be addressed. It must be disappointing for the vast majority of Londoners to see the way he wastes their money on personal vanity projects An example is his recent photo opportunity holiday to the Sub Continent. I’m sure they would far prefer a Mayor who spends his time helping to develop and project our wonderful capital to the world as did his predecessor, than one who spends his time playing politics and grabbing photo opportunities.
Finally. while pretending to be even-handed, the BBC continues to give air time to the motley crew mentioned above. We all remember the way the BBC held election debates by choosing equal numbers of “fors”, “againsts” and “don’t knows” but then allowed the “don’t knows” to be taken over by those claiming to be a “don’t know” while all the while being a “yes” or a “no” voter, which could be seen from audience responses to the very first question. Sadly, even the BBC cannot be trusted to be fair when speaking about Brexit.
Brexit is a fantastic opportunity for Britain once more to establish itself on the world stage. It’s where we were for the hundreds of years before we joined the E.U. and it’s where we can so easily return. Of course, it would be beneficial to secure a good deal with the E.U. when we leave. Unfortunately, such a deal becomes more and more difficult as the siren voices of Remainers give support to an already mean-minded E.U. and serve only to spoil negotiations. Nevertheless, even if, in the unlikely event we fail to secure a decent deal and are forced to walk away, that will by no means signal the end of the U.K. We can and we will succeed, with or without the E.U.

Bernard Gallivan
January 2018

An article that is a plea for common sense.

World Population. Truth and apologists

When our politicians discuss the need for more houses or more schools, hospitals, roads, and so on, they conveniently skip a discussion of why these new facilities are needed. The problem is particularly acute here in Britain because we already have a higher population density than elsewhere in Europe, except for The Netherlands and Malta and there are few other nations in the world, except for a few small island nations, that have anywhere near our population density. With an annual increase in our population of 230,00 legal migrants – god only knows what the actual increase is – we are told we need to build 250,000 new houses each year to accommodate our growing population. Of course, a proportionate increase in school places, hospital beds, jobs, etc will also be needed. So far so un-contentious.

For many years I have pondered the difficulties of doing what our politicians want while wondering why they never address the problem of an exploding world population. They also never identify what would be a sensible upper limit on Britain’s population; one that allows us sensibly and comfortably to house, feed and care for our population. They don’t want to discuss the subject. Worse, one is considered to be even worse than Hitler for bringing the subject up. Why? Surely it is a very important subject that affects everyone. Indeed, why don’t academics want to tackle what would be a fascinating PhD topic? Perhaps there are no grants to research such a subject. Again, if not, why not?

Britain’s rising population stems from two sources. The first is from new migrants and the second is from first and second generation migrants who continue to have large families. Britain’s settled population is actually falling in number. These are facts and should be un-contentious but I know some will already be bristling with anger that I have had the temerity to address the subject. These are people who are not willing to accept the truth. Sadly, the first source of our growing population will never stop, or more correctly, will only stop when Britain is so crowded we can no longer afford to be as generous with our benefits as we are at present and when Britain is a mean, horrible place to live and their own countries have finally become more attractive to them. The second source of our growing population will also continue but, hopefully, will eventually slow down as parents realize they can only give their children a better start in life if they restrict the size of their families.

Unless our politicians are prepared to grasp this particular nettle, Britain is doomed to be overrun by the rest of the world. Britain as we know it will disappear. There really is no other alternative. Our green spaces will disappear; farms will shrink and we will be reliant on the rest of the world for our food. The GM revolution will not give us the huge increase in food yields some claim. GM will make farmers more productive but only by a small percentage which will be compensated for by the reduction in the size and number of our farms as land is gobbled up to house, school and medically treat our growing population.

This is what will happen in two or three generations if the trajectory of our development continues on its current path. It is a nightmare scenario but not for me. I will not see it but my grandchildren will. Sadly, by that time, they will be so used to living in what ex President Trump has called ‘a shithole country’. They won’t even realize how our politicians have let them and Britain down. Of course, there is always the possibility that by that time the emerging African and South American nations will have got their acts together and will no longer be fighting and massacring each other. Perhaps they will, by that time, be successful, wealthy, democratic countries and all those migrants who came to Britain and other parts in Europe will begin reversing the movement and will want to return to their ancestral countries. Of course, by that time, Britain will be no better than a poor third world country over-built by concrete and with few green spaces and even fewer trees, stuck on the edge of Europe.

Only if politicians can be persuaded to do the job we pay them to do will there be any hope of modifying the current race to the bottom. We must insist they face the problem caused by an exploding world population and that they protect us from the effects of that explosion. We must also resist calls from Germany (whoever is in charge there) to shoulder our share of the huge influx of migrants Merkel had created by her ill-thought-out offer to house the world’s migrants but when she realized the folly of her declaration she couldn’t back out quickly enough when she saw the size of the problem she had created. She then wanted the rest of Europe to clean up her mess.
Any sane person can see that we also have to do some arithmetic to work out what numbers are appropriate for our country and then stick to them. There is no other hope for Britain.

Bernard Gallivan

January 2018

 

 

The Lib Dems and their role in Brexit

At the time of the Brexit Referendum in 2016, the Lib Dems were very few in number. Out of 663 MPs, they had fewer than ten MPs in Westminster and a small rump following in Britain that was getting smaller by the day. There were only 3 Lib Dem MPs after the 2017 General Election. They were in serious danger of being annihilated. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop Tim Fallon, the then leader of an almost extinct party boldly stating, when the result was first announced, that the Lib Dems would do everything in their power to stop Brexit. Demonstrating what an unprincipled, undemocratic party they are which fully deserved to be wiped off the map, He was determined to use his tiny party to try to overturn the clear majority for Brexit. It was also a message that did not chine well with the electorate as the 2017 result clearly demonstrated. It was a statement unheard of ever before in British politics. Previously, the UK had always operated on clear democratic principles and in living memory, only one of two parties has ever been in government. Whichever was the losing party might have thought they knew better and that, for the good of the country, they should be in government but, in the past, they always accepted the decision of the electorate. The smaller, also-ran, parties simply resigned themselves to chipping away at whichever party was in power, as we expected them to do. They certainly didn’t mount campaigns to remove the government of the day just because they had lost an election. Frankly, the Lib Dems have acted disgracefully. And this is the party which, only a few years earlier, had clamoured loudly for an in-out referendum on or membership of the EU. Jo Swinton was one of the more prominent making the case for the referendum, something she now conveniently forgets. The term “shape-shifters” comes to mind.

That said, they would never have even got to first base in their campaign were it not for the many conservative MPs who, disregarding the solemn promises they twice gave to the electorate, revealed what hypocrites they are when, most recently, they backed the Lib Dems and voted against their own party. This latest move was a calculated act of defiance which had to be addressed and the Prime Minister, showing what a brave, principled man he is, removed the whip from those defectors even though he knew the consequences for his actions would not be well received. Previously, this small core of hard remainers had spoken out with impunity under Mrs May’s premiership and had become used to making their damaging remarks without having to suffer any consequences. It is noteworthy that all those speaking out against the government never produced any evidence to back up their claims that Brexit would be the worst thing ever for the UK. They simply spouted project fear remarks designed to frighten people into their twisted way of thinking. They even disregarded, and continue to disregard, government produced statistics (from the National Statistics Office – NSO) that clearly show that during the 45 years the UK has been in the EU, we have lost our steel producing capacity and manufacturing base, many businesses have gone to the wall and largely we have become less competitive and have stagnated while pouring billions if not trillions of pounds into the EU coffers and into the economies of other member states through their outrageous tariffs – most readers probably don’t even know that we have a current annual trading deficit with the EU of £95 billion. As economists regularly show, the Bank of England’s forecasts have been and still are grossly over-egged against Brexit and, just as regularly, are shown to be pie-in-the-sky thinking. I won’t even bother to mention the ex-Chancellor’s deliberately misleading forecasts.

Without ever producing any evidence to support their claims that Brexit will be bad for jobs and for our economy – even though employment has never been higher and inward investment is better than any other EU country, Brexit nay-sayers under Mrs May’s premiership were allowed to make outrageous comments in parliament against Brexit and against the policy of the party of which they were supposed to be members, and to do so repeatedly without punishment or reprimand of any kind. They used emotive phrases such as “crashing out”, and “falling off a cliff” when all we were doing was proposing to leave in an organised way. Basically, the then PM, against what, almost daily, she was promising in parliament and on the radio, agreed with the disruption and discord the nay-sayers were causing. Anything that would delay or even cancel Brexit she was happy to accept. So, she was more than happy to go along with the lies and distortions they were peddling. Which is why the country is now in such a mess and why two thirds of the electorate now say they don’t trust politicians and that the lot should be sent packing into oblivion.

We have seen a dramatic heating up of the situation since Boris Johnson took charge. His dynamism, courage and popularity across the country has shocked the Lib Dems and others into paroxysm of madness. What they never thought would happen, suddenly seemed more than possible, so their lies and distortions have gone into overdrive. With the active cooperation of a renegade Speaker, new laws have been brought into being targeting just one man – the Prime Minister. And if he refuses to comply with these new laws, they say he will be thrown into prison. I’m sure before that ever happened at least 17.4 million people would be prepared to follow him into prison through acts of civil disobedience – I certainly would.

Politicians think they are being clever but they overlook the fact that it is the people who are sovereign, not parliament. When they received a clear directive from us, the people, that they specially asked us to provide, and then promised to deliver because they were already at an impasse over the issue, they were duty and honour bound to follow through on the result of the referendum regardless of what their personal views might be. If they disagreed strongly enough with the directive, they could always have resigned and handed over their seats to someone how did agree with it. What they couldn’t be  allowed to do was actively try to overturn the directive from within parliament. Of course, in our democratic country, they are fully at liberty to try to stop it from outside parliament but not from within parliament. Mrs May seems to have overlooked that fact which is why she allowed so many conservative MPs to oppose the directive. She was hypocritically promising to deliver Brexit and should have explained the simple facts to those who disagreed with the directive and told them to shut up or to get out. She explains her deceit by pointing to the Withdrawal Agreement she so foolishly signed off before double checking with her cabinet and the rest of parliament. Claiming she had negotiated a WA and was willing to back it, she never explained that it was a dreadfully undemocratic agreement that would have spelled the end of the UK. That she failed in her duty and told so many bare-faced lies in the process is why she will go down in British history as the worst PM ever to hold that office. Indeed, it is scarcely believable that a British Prime Minister would actively side with those trying to stifle and suffocate the UK into submission and to lock us into a seriously bad agreement for ever and a day.

Politicians, trying to be politicians, talk about our friends across the Channel but would a friend act as hostilely and disrespectfully towards another friend as those in the EU have acted towards us? Would a friend try to manoeuvre their friend into a seriously difficult position from which there was little chance of escape? I do not believe our “friends” across the channel are our friends at all. I do not believe they even wish us well. They want to punish us for wanting to leave their cosy little club and for taking away the billions of Euros we contributed and which others in the EU now have to try to make up. They also want to see us humbled. But the EU is in a difficult position, They want to humble us and make an example of us to deter others following us, but they also want our money, even if they don’t want us. They see us as difficult competitors sitting right on their doorstep. Only the other day Junker complained that the UK had never been Europeans. And only two days ago, Mr Verhoffstadt said that the world had changed and trade was more and more being conducted between empires like the American empire, the Chinese empire and the European empire. Apparently, there is no room room left for small, individual nations. One wonders where the likes of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil will do. I hope, when this mess is finally resolved, that Mrs May will stand trial for the disgraceful part she has played in this shameful saga.

To stop the Brexit that we, the people wanted and voted for, new laws have been brought into effect with little or no oversight. These are bad laws and must immediately be repealed. Instead, we need a new set of laws about the duties and limitations of the Speaker to stop a repetition of what recently has gone on. Also, news laws must urgently be brought into effect that obliges MPs to give up their seats and to put themselves up for re-election should they decided not to support the party they were elected to serve under and particularly so if they defect to a different party or become independent.

The Lib Dems started this disgraceful mess but they have not lacked for support in parliament. Indeed, on paper they are now gaining in strength day by day. It is clear that many conservative MPs have  always been closet Lib Dems who, regardless of the evidence, are masochistic, dyed in the wool Europhiles. It doesn’t matter how much money the EU demands from the UK, how they restrict our trading, or how many laws they impose on us, or even how they insult us, they are happier sunning themselves in the EU bubble than they are actively helping to run what has been one of the greatest countries in the world. Let someone else do the work and take the blame when things go wrong, seems to be their idea. They should never be in the government of anything, let alone of a great, dynamic country.

If politicians continue to try to interfere with the work of the PM and, heaven forbid, actually stop Brexit this time around, there will be a reckoning. At the very next General Election, I expect the 17.4 million voters who chose to leave the EU as well as the huge number of voters who, while voting remain, believe we live in a democracy and that the result of the vote should be honoured, will kick out any and all those MPs who refused to support the Boris Johnson’s Government as it has tried to deliver what the people wanted, and especially all those who defected to other parties. We must be as tough with our representatives as they have been duplicitous to us. The Whitehall swamp must be drained. Britain deserves better than most of the self-serving, know-alls who really know nothing, but who are happy enjoying the trappings of office as well as the fat salaries they would never be able to secure in the private sector. We deserve better than the uneducated, passionately angry, opinionated, self servers we have allowed to take over parliament. Did you even see such a childish demonstration in the Commons when it broke up recently with the singing of The Red Flag, Scotland the Brave and a Welsh hymn. It was a demonstration of how far parliament and parliamentarians have fallen.

 

Bernard Gallivan

September 2019