A letter to the Editor of the Times which was published on 30th December 2011.
With economic forecasting having rather less predictive power than tips for the 3.30 at Newmarket, one must admire the confidence with which the Centre for Economics and Business Research makes its selections for the league table of major economies in 2020, eight years away (report, Dec. 26th). Russia and India are advanced to 4th and 5th places in the world, which would require an average annual rate of growth of almost 12 per cent, a figure not achieved even by China during a period – now ending – when the West has displayed an almost inexhaustible appetite for its goods.
Brazil is shown as overtaking Britain for 2011 although the GDP figures for Britain are not in, and official figures for Brazil are usually two to three years in arrears, even if one could rely on their being collected on the same basis to three significant figures as displayed in the Centre’s league table.
Perhaps the CEBR should try horse racing.
Question from Angela Simmonds
Migration Watch has just reported that the vast bulk of net immigration into this country has come from outside the EU, so why the huge emphasis on leaving the EU as a cure for the immigration problem in UKIP’s latest video on the subject?
Prof says . . .
I feel it is doubly unfortunate that the voice-over in UKIP’s latest video on immigration was scripted to say in the closing remarks that the first thing to do is to leave the EU. Nobody in the country believes this is an imminent possibility and so the DVD is only helping to spread a mood of helpless resignation to the swamping of the British people by foreigners.
As it is, the coalition is claiming the credit for restricting the flow of some classes of non-EU immigrant, which will help a little, but won’t touch the flow from Africa and the Indian subcontinent (containing together about 2.5 billion people) due to marriages, other “family reasons”, and the continued flow of asylum cases let in by the judges.
UKIP has a policy on which many of us fought the last General Election and this is for a complete halt to all immigration for settlement for 5 years while the country has the chance to formulate a population policy and deal with the huge backlog of illegals. We aways made it clear that pending our leaving the EU, this halt would apply where we could apply it, i.e. to non EU immigrants, which are now revealed to be 80% of all immigrants to the UK.
It is key to UKIP getting acceptance as a major force in British politics that it pushes in the direction of policies it believes in, even if, because of EU membership, it can’t get the whole loaf.
Another current example is this:
Removing the UK from the European Convention is entirely do-able without leaving the EU, despite the myth being propagated in some legal circles that the Lisbon Treaty forbids it. (In fact the Treaty does not touch any aspects of the UK’s administration of justice under the protocol 30 opt-outs.) UKIP should put its weight behind leaving the ECHR, which would be hugely popular in the country. Even if in the short term Cameron bodges some fudge to keep us in, UKIP will get the credit and exposure for advocating the move, and create a reputation for standing up for the British people, which will help even in council elections.
Comment
From Effiong on 27th October 2015 at 10.42 pm
Effiong says:
When I was 17, and first passed my driving test, I delivered pizza around Martlesham, Kesgrave and the surrounding rural area. I support the freedom of movement of people, but don’t think for one second that this doesn’t have an effect. How many 17 year-olds are there out there who now cannot work because someone else is prepared to do it more flexibly and often cheaper – minimum wage prosecutions have gone down under this Government, but breaches haven’t…
This is a substantial paper by Prof Stephen Bush on increasing UK manufacturing by 50%.
It was written on 2nd February 2010 for the UKIP policy group on “Jobs, Enterprise and the Economy” for the parliamentary election campaign.
To read the text of a summary or the pdf of the whole paper, please click on the link “Produce and Prosper” which will take you to the paper on the Britain Watch website.
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published around 7th April 2001.
It is surprising that Don McKinnon, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, should give credence (report, April 5th) to the absurd notion that anyone but the British monarch could be Head of that organisation.
In so far as there is any legal basis for the Commonwealth it is to be found in the Statute of Westminster (1931) which defined it as a “free association of autonomous countries . . . united by a common allegiance to the (British) Crown”.
When India renounced its allegiance to the Crown in 1950 it accepted the King (not simply King George VI) as Head of the Commonwealth. The Royal Style and Titles Act (1953) gave legal effect to this development by adding “Head of the Commonwealth” to the British monarch’s titles. All former parts of the British Empire which have become republics have consequently had to apply, as India did, to remain in the Commonwealth when they assumed republican status.
In essence the Commonwealth is defined by the British monarch’s being Head of it. Remove that residual link and the Commonwealth will disappear with it.
