Alan Sked is emeritus professor of international history at LSE. His views are his own, NOT those of LSE. Author of key work ‘The Case for Brexit’.
London, England
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Sunday Times reveals huge scandal concerning student loans. Thousand of students who can barely speak English enroll in dubious universities with no intention of taking courses but with the intention instead of taking out grants that they do not intend to repay. Many are Romanian
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On Have I Got News For You, Jo Brand insults our head of state by referring to her as ‘the fucking Queen’. Is this what our BBC license fee pays for? The BBC has already had to warn Brand. Now time to ban her?
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Some poor kid who claimed dual nationality after Brexit (like hundreds of thousands of British EU patriots) by taking an Austrian passport has discovered that he is now liable to Austrian military service. My heart bleeds for him.
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Cornish fishermen are abandoning EU markets for the domestic one as Cornish people buy huge amounts of fish, lobster and crabs from them. Great news!
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Apparently scores of civil servants are leaving the Home Office and Justice Department after the appointments of Braverman and Raab, whose views they dislike. What happened to civil service neutrality? Aren’t they taught this any longer? High time they were.
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Tony Blair calls Brexit ‘an unforgivable act of vandalism’. I wonder what he thinks the Iraq War was. And what overturning the outcome of a democratic referendum would be. Little wonder he is loathed up and down the land along with Campbell, Mandelson and the rest of his cronies.
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Only 24 tests out of 10,000 at Dover turned out positive. But Macron ruined Xmas for thousands just because he could. Damn him.
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In what looks like an astonishingly vicious decision the EU has refused mutual recognition of standards in cars, chemicals and pharmaceuticals to Britain, something which it agreed with Canada, Japan and other countries with which it has FTAs. Is this raw protectionism or hatred?
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Farage apparently intends to stand in Thurrock at the next election. The Tory majority there is extremely small However the local Tory MP is an avid Brexiteer who believes that we must leave on 31 October deal or no deal. So why stand against her? He should challenge a Remainer.
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Sir Sam Mendes and his co-writer of the new film 1917, assert that it is anti-Brexit and meant to remind us that British soldiers in 1917 fought for ‘a free and united Europe’. This is pure tosh. They fought to free Belgium, defeat Germany and defend Britain and her Empire.
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Pimlico Plumbers is now donating to the Lib Dems to stop Brexit. Boycott the firm. There is no shortage of plumbers. Give your custom to a rival.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked Boris for using inflammatory language and dividing Britain. If he MUST get involved in politics why cannot he preach to his fellow Remainers against overturning democratic majorities and trashing the constitution?
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She LIED about tripling student fees. She LIED about respecting Brexit. She VOTED FOR the bedroom tax. She SUPPORTED austerity. She now wants to CANCEL Brexit, our largest democratic vote ever. Jo Swinson. The ugly face of politics.
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Lisa Nandy, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary says that the EU has ‘moved’ in negotiations while Britain has ‘lost the plot’. In other words, Labour is backing Brussels against Britain. Nandy backs Brussels. I hope her electors remember this.
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The E.U. says that Britain must reveal its post-Brexit plans for state aid. None of its business any more.
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Congratulations to France for jailing former President Sarkozy for corruption. Scotland should take note.
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750,000 OAPs over 75 are refusing to pay their TV licenses. Costing the Beeb £117 million.
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Just saw SNP gasbag Blackford on TV saying that the Brexit Deal could cost Scots £1,500 each. More Mickey Mouse tartan economics. The SNP runs a government dependent on a £12 billion annual subsidy from English taxpayers. Independence would bankrupt Scotland overnight.
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The BBC is to increase the license fee by £4.Probably this is because it lost 860,000 license payers last year and 708,000 the year before.The basic Netflix subscription is £72 a year. From April the annual tv license will cost £154.50.Time to abolish the license fee altogether.
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The BBC is trumpeting ‘evidence’ that the UK will lose £70billion by leaving the EU. More dumb economic speculation based on failed models and biased assumptions dressed up as scientific proof. Expect more of the same from the BBC during the election.
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If the Sussexes accept the honour offered by the Kennedy Foundation they will be accepting that tge Monarchy is structurally racist. Surely they must refuse the accolade. They must either defend the royal family or are honour bound to leave it.
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Rees-Mogg warns that those who betrayed Boris will now seek to neuter Brexit. Too true. One of the Spartans has warned me: ‘This is a battle for Brexit,’
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A House of Lords Committee has recommended the abolition of free bus passes, fuel allowences and free TV licenses for OAPs. I would prefer to save money by abolishing the fanatically anti-Brexit House of Lords.
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France and Germany are piling pressure on the EU to make no concessions to any new British PM on the Irish Protocol. Our friends in Europe!
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It turns out that the UK invested £21 million in the AstraZeneca plant in Holland after the Dutch Government refused to put in £8.5 million. Now the EU wants to stop it exporting vaccines to us.
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Germany has gone round the back of the EU to gain 30 million extra doses of vaccine. True solidarity.
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Jo Swinson says Boris’s proposals are not serious and that he is not a serious prime minister. This from a mendacious mediocrity who would overturn the vote of 17.4 million voters without a second thought. Who in their right minds would take her seriously?
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Great news. Huddersfield University has been fined £800 and told to apologise for investigating a tutor over his views on transgenderism. It is the first case of its kind by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. Long live free speech!
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British negotiators have told the EU that the Royal Navy will board EU fishing vessels if they breach the rules of any future fishing settlement.
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The government has plans to make photo IDs compulsory for voting to end election fraud.
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The EU has demanded the establishment of a permanent office in Belfast to police the UK’s conduct of the Withdrawal Agreement. The U.K. has turned down the request.
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Just watched a wonderful programme on Thatcher at her height. Magnificent leader. I still cannot believe the Tories ditched her. Brexit is her posthumous revenge on the Howes, Heseltines, Clarkes and Majors and the rest of these deplorable backstabbers.
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China orders 300 million more tonnes of coal to be mined in a year. Completely obliterates our efforts to save the planet.
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French Foreign Minister says that EU must protect the Irish border and the Single Market and ensure that the UK doesn’t become ‘a ruthless economic competitor’. The truth at last!
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According to the Mail on Sunday, Merkel is behind the EU’s hard line. She is quoted as wanting ‘to make Britain crawl across broken glass rather than compromise’. Just another German bully then. But she will end up the loser.
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The Lib Dems—our new Fascist Party—have voted by a huge majority to cancel Brexit by revoking Article 50 thus ignoring the largest democratic vote in UK history.Would they also cancel Scottish independence after an indyref2? Swinson, a Scottish MP,must tell her fellow Scots now.
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Magistrates acquitted an Extinction Rebellion activist of vandalising Cambridgeshire County Council ‘s HQ on the grounds that she was defending homes and property from a climate emergency. Our laws no longer work.
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Frost tells Boris to reinstate fracking as a policy to provide cheap, stable energy supplies. More than 30 MPs and peers back him.
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So, Sir Nicholas Soames ends his parliamentary career by putting Brussels before Britain. His grandfather must be spinning in his grave. What a descent! From Marlborough and Churchill to Soames. From Britain’s greatest leaders to an obese gravedigger of British independence.
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Surely Ian Blackford MP, Westminster leader of the SNP, must be the most long-winded bore in Parliament. He is ill-informed, intellectually severely challenged and a human dirge.
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The Home Office is under pressure to explain why four members of a Rochdale Pakistani grooming gang have not yet been deported despite losing a £1 million taxpayer-funded appeal against deportation. Over to you Sajid Javid. Maybe you could explain during the next Tory debate.
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Gordon Brown has said that he has been in touch with Macron and others and that EU is preparing to extend the 31 October deadline unilaterally to confound Boris. Remainers really want it extended indefinitely of course so that we never leave the EU. We should just leave now.
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Truss plans to sack half the cabinet according to the Telegraph including Patel, Raab, Eustace, Spencer, Barclay, Gove and Sunak. Good start!
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The ERG is suggesting that Boris should hold back the £20 billion in Brexit payments we still owe the EU till difficulties over N. Ireland are sorted out. Great idea!
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BBC diplomatic correspondent says Britain after Brexit ‘will be at sea on its own’, a ‘small minnow among the big fish’. Eh? We will still be in NATO, the UN Security Council, the G7, WTO, IMF, OECD, the Commonwealth and another 170 organisations. Bloody idiot!
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As a direct result of E.U. troublemaking with supplies, Nissan will now produce more of its batteries in the UK. Brexit has changed from a risk, says the firm, into an opportunity.
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Guardian claims that government’s bill will fatally undermine human rights. Whatever did we do in this country before the ECHR existed? We abolished slavery, torture, hanging, and discrimination against gays and immigrants all by ourselves. We don’t need European supervision.
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The EU is complaining that Lord Frost will be too confrontational in ongoing negotiations. What? After their attempt to impose a hard vaccine border, their shellfish ban and their refusal to negotiate on services?Gove was far too cuddly. Let’s hope Frosty will show more backbone.
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Corbyn says that Boris would put the NHS up for sale. Really? It is the biggest loss-making industry in the country needing tens of billions of pounds to be infused into it every other year. So who would buy it? Trump? Not in a million years. Why does anyone believe this crap?
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According to the Telegraph, if Britain is forced to remain in the EU, it will veto the EU budget and send a Eurosceptic to Brussels as Commissioner—maybe even Farage. What fun!
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London Mayor Sadiq Khan has approved eye-watering rises for the bosses of Transport for London. The head of customer services gets 74% up to £292,137. The head of property development gets 39% up to £307,871. The head of engineering gets 17% up to £328,965. Champagne socialism!
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The Sunday Times says the government will scrap the BBC licence fee, force it to become a subscription channel, reduce its ten television stations and force it to sell off its radio stations although BBC 3, BBC 4 and the World Service will be protected.Its web will be scaled down
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Steve Baker’s refusal to accept a minor role in the Brexit Dept. is totally understandable. Why is he not in the cabinet instead of Amber Rudd? It doesn’t make sense. He played a pivotal role in stopping May’s deal from getting approved. Rudd backed it. She never backed Boris.
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Labour is now backing Brussels in the negotiations. Ed Miliband says we should agree to EU terms regarding the level playing field. ‘They’ll keep the white flag flying high.’
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Lord Ahmed, The first Muslim councillor in Rotherham and the first Labour Muslim peer is to stand trial on charges of sexually abusing children.
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Theresa May has complained in the Commons that David Frost isn’t qualified to replace her protege Mark Sedwill as National Security Adviser. But Sedwill would have surrendered our sovereignty to Brussels and did not object to growing Chinese influence here.Three cheers for Frost!
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Amazing how the Remain camp is still trying to bring down the government over coronavirus. Its lack of patriotism however is again backfiring. People are just turned off by the BBC, the Guardian and their fellow travellers. The BBC should lose its licence fee.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg to table law preventing banks closing accounts for political opinions. Quite right.
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48% of Scottish voters believe that Scotland puts more money into the U.K. than it gets out. In fact each Scot is subsidised by £2,500 minimum by the Treasury in London. Sheer ignorance propels Scottish politics.People also believe that Sturgeon handled the pandemic well. Amazing
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New BBC Chairman says that license fee is the least worse option and that the BBC wasn’t that biased against Brexit. In other words the Establishment has got its way again. Defund the BBC!
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BBC’s Question Time last Friday couldn’t find a single person in its audience who had voted for Boris. There probably wasn’t one among the BBC staff either. Just goes to show why we should no longer be forced to pay a license fee for it.
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Macron is now insisting on each lorry driver at Dover getting the original Covid test which takes 24 hours to get a result. Anything he can do to screw us he does. I trust we will soon repay him.
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Michael Gove gets ever more slimy. He is now claiming that a vote against May’s deal will mean no Brexit and a second referendum. He also claims that the country is swinging behind May. No one should believe a word this man says. He is a political snake.
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Given Boris’s resignation there is absolutely no need for the Privileges Committee to continue its investigation. This is just raw vengeance now. Beneath the dignity of Parliament and the members of the Committee.
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According to the Belgian Parliament a No Deal Brexit would cost Italy 139,000 jobs, France 141,000 and Germany 291,000. The French finance ministry has added a price tag:€11 billion for Italy, €14 billion for France and €30 billion for Germany. (Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph)
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Since the euro was formed in 1999, the Italian economy has grown by only 9%, the French by 35%, the German by 32% and the British by 45%. Viva Britannia!
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The EU is terrified of an independent competitor off its shores, which will have lower tariffs, lower taxes, greater enterprise, global links, better fintech and the City as well as intangible assets: the rule of law, the English language, political stability and love of liberty.
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According to a new poll, 61% of Brits believe illegal migrants should not be able to seek asylum.
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Funny how Sunak — the ghost Brexiteer— is now being backed by the whole Remain media and Establishment. One wonders why.
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Sir John Major is demanding that Article 50 should be revoked. Why should anyone listen to him? He took us into the ERM which cost us billions. He signed us up to the Maastricht Treaty which made us E.U. citizens and paved the way for the euro. He lacks any political credibility
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The dreary Emily Maitlis on Newsnight once again pushes the fantasy that the Leave vote in the 2016 referendum was meaningless. People apparently did not know what they meant by Leave. They certainly know that the BBC is not an objective broadcaster.
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The Queen’s portrait was removed from the Middle Common Room of Magdalen College, Oxford after a vote by its MCR Committee, which held her to be a symbol of colonialism. As a former MCR President of Merton, Oxford’s oldest college, I am appalled. She presided over decolonisation!
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If the Mail is right about foreign collusion in the drafting of the Surrender Bill perhaps Boris could have Grieve, Letwin, Bercow and co. arrested for treason and then declare a state of emergency during which we could achieve Brexit and abolish the Supreme Court. What fun! No?
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Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister says Albanians should be banned from making asylum claims here. So what’s stopping him?
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Boris is planning to take Britain out of a major part of European Human Rights law, perhaps repealing the Human Rights Act. This will really rile Remainers.
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Braverman has warned police they are losing public confidence over the Just Stop Oil protests. They must step up, she says. Good for her. We need her.
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Harry says that royals don’t marry for love. Eh? Will and Kate? Charles and Camilla? The boy seems badly damaged.
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The mendacious Swinson says the Lib Dems have been consistent since 2016 in opposing Brexit. Not so. She herself, Tom Brake, Vince Cable, and all of her party’s leaders claimed immediately after the referendum that Brexit should be implemented. Videos are widely available. Liar.
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So some universities are facing financial wipeout if Chinese students don’t turn up. UCL, Manchester and Liverpool seem worst affected. There was a time of course when British universities were there to look after the interests of British students. The good old days.
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The BBC Chairman says that scrapping the licence fee would ‘weaken the nation’. Brexit, however, showed that the BBC didn’t believe in the nation. Too late to play the patriotic card now mate!
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Our five living former prime ministers are all agreed that any cut to the foreign aid budget would be wrong. But they are all discredited. All failed. Why do they still think we want to hear from them when they have lost all credibility?
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Ken Clarke has just told ITN news that he will vote to bring down Boris’s government. Tory traitor. His loyalty has always been to Brussels.
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GPS have passed a vote of no confidence in NHS leaders after being ordered to see patients face to face. Dreadful.
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Claire Perry, the energy minister, who earns £210,000 a year plus an allowance of £23,000 has claimed expenses of almost £10,000 for her ‘children’ —aged 17, 19 and 22, two of whom go to university. She has also had her official credit card suspended for breaking the rules. Out!
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Rory Stewart says a citizens’ assembly of 50,000 people should advise Parliament on what to do if it cannot resolve Brexit. Excuse me, but 17.4 million citizens already gave it the advice it asked for. Idiot.
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The Spectator is suggesting that May’s deal will be defeated by 441 votes to 221. I just hope she then resigns.
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Equity, the actors’ union, has condemned Lawrence Fox as ‘a disgrace to our industry’ for speaking out against against moronic woke comments on Question Time. It asked all members to denounce him. More proof of the lack of free speech in our trade unions.
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The EU tells us that the free movement of capital, goods and services requires the free movement of people. Bullshit. Did its free trade treaty with Japan or with Canada require this? Of course not.
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Leaders of the 1922 Committee have told May that the party has turned against her and that she must resign immediately. She refused to discuss her position with them and sat stony faced. The Tory decline in the polls continues.
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My guess is that Macron hates Britain for leaving the EU. He fears France will follow. He told Andrew Marr that given the chance the French would vote to leave. They voted against the Constitutional Treaty in 2005. Maastricht only passed by 51%-49%. Unpopular, he fears Le Pen.
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Sue Barker says the BBC sacked her then asked her to lie about it. So? Usual BBC standards at work.
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Home Office told Jenrick that he should not have made public the fact that small boat migrants included men associated with terrorism. Beggars belief. Our mandarins are not fit for purpose.
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Barnier has just said that without May’s Deal there will be no transition period and none of the trust needed to build a relationship between the U.K. and the EU in the future. More blackmail from Brussels.
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Lawyers who lodge hopeless attempts to overturn deportation decisions will have to pay government costs in future according to government plans. Good idea.
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Only a third of Germans trust Britain since Brexit. I wonder how many of us trust the Germans?
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Michel Barnier is getting more upset than usual. The clock is ticking, he repeats but adds that Britain cannot refuse an extension while running down negotiations. Oh yes it can.
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Britain is pulling out of the Galileo sat. nav. system and will build its own. Good. We developed and put billions into Galileo and were then told that outside the EU we couldn’t be trusted to use it. Ironically Galileo cannot work without the assistance of UK military bases.
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