

Let's change the record in 2016 03/01/2016

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A happy new year from all of us at LeaveHQ. It is with regret that we start the year casting an eye on our own side. We take no pleasure from it and wish it were not necessary but regardless of any other contribution campaigners make, it has to be known that the kind of contemptible trash retweeted by Arron Banks of Leave.EU is not to be tolerated.



He should take be mindful that he is an ambassador of the cause and that his tweets are seen as endorsements. No serious operator should be tweeting such tawdry and vulgar material. If it isn't abundantly clear why not, then it is better if such players withdraw from the campaign. We would not be using this platform to say so were it not so very serious.



Meanwhile, both of the major Leave campaigns have allowed themselves to be sucked into statistical minutia and nonsense arguments. Membership costs is such a farcical debate to be sucked into because it makes us look weak. It says that we have no real complaints other than petty bickering over chump change.



The net figure for membership contributions is closer to 8.2bn, we can afford it, and some of that pays for services that add value - services that we would wish to retain as members of the single market even if we left the EU.



To argue that we are one of the wealthiest most developed economies in the world and then bicker over pitiful sums is a petulant approach to the campaign and it undermines the idea that we are globalists looking for wider participation in the world. Do the Leave campaigns think that is going to come for free?

We do have a very serious problem with the EU. It goes by the name of France. A nation that should have had its own Thatcher in clearing out the militancy and fraud in France's maritime sector. The French for years have been letting port strikes damage EU trade and British assembly lines, costing the UK alone over £1bn in trade just this year alone. That is without looking at the extensive damage to the trade of other EU states.



Meanwhile France has allowed the asylum crisis to fester as a decoy so the media looks elsewhere - when they should be focussed on the very real undeclared trade war France has been waging on the UK for the last two decades. For sure, we saw some shocking photos of asylum seekers climbing onto queueing lorries, but it is often forgotten why those lorries are backed up for miles in the first place.



We have seen enough from both Leave campaigns to conclude that their complains are old fashioned, petty and ignoring the very real problems we have with the EU. It's time for them to wake up.



We accept the need for decent European and global regulation and we do a seriously good job of implementing it and enforcing it. That is not something we would seek to change. However, Britain stands accused of wanting our cake and eating - but that is exactly what the French do in reality and the EU will never lift a finger to correct it. In most measurable respects the single EU labour market exists in name only because of jingoistic and bureaucratic resistance.



In this, we don't get an equitable deal because we have no independent vote or veto at the global regulatory bodies - and consequently we have zero leverage in getting the EU to bring France to heel. That is intolerable and a manifest failure of the EU to do what it is actually for.



It's time to get out so that we can strengthen Efta as an opposition bloc and so that we have serious leverage that presently lack. That is, in fact, the only way to ever get a functioning European single market. Without freedom of alliance/association we are entirely subordinate and we take what we are given.

Our position is that we want to end the surpranational supremacy of the EU over the UK so that we have a full voice in shaping a global single market, in which the EU will be a member, rather than a domineering tyrant. We want to expand and reform the single market and get better regulations.



It is our unshakable view that this can only come about with the UK participating fully at all of the top tables, using its leverage and freedom of association. That leverage is the only way we can reform it and make it the property of the world. Not only is that better for Britain, that is better for the EU and all of Europe. It will shake the EU out of its myopic complacency.



However, instead of demonstrating the opportunities of Brexit and the tangible benefits, Eurosceptics are instead whinging over nothing of substance - and have fallen for the decoy by debating peripheral issues. We even have the thoroughly risible Vote Leave campaign moving to leave the single market as well as the EU. If that isn't petty isolationism, what is?



It is time for eurosceptics to ask themselves if they really want political change or not. If that be so then they need to grow up and focus on what matters - and what can realistically be achieved. If the referendum campaign is an excuse for a generic right wing moan about everything under the sun without presenting an alternative, then we can expect to lose and lose badly. It will be no less than we deserve. Our position is that we want to end the surpranational supremacy of the EU over the UK so that we have a full voice in shaping a global single market, in which the EU will be a member, rather than a domineering tyrant. We want to expand and reform the single market and get better regulations.It is our unshakable view that this can only come about with the UK participating fully at all of the top tables, using its leverage and freedom of association. That leverage is the only way we can reform it and make it the property of the world. Not only is that better for Britain, that is better for the EU and all of Europe. It will shake the EU out of its myopic complacency.However, instead of demonstrating the opportunities of Brexit and the tangible benefits, Eurosceptics are instead whinging over nothing of substance - and have fallen for the decoy by debating peripheral issues. We even have the thoroughly risible Vote Leave campaign moving to leave the single market as well as the EU. If that isn't petty isolationism, what is?It is time for eurosceptics to ask themselves if they really want political change or not. If that be so then they need to grow up and focus on what matters - and what can realistically be achieved. If the referendum campaign is an excuse for a generic right wing moan about everything under the sun without presenting an alternative, then we can expect to lose and lose badly. It will be no less than we deserve.





