Since the referendum
resulted in the country leaving the EU, five candidates came forward to vie for
Britain’s leadership. Theresa May had
the clear advantage of time to prepare for leadership of the country on David Cameron stepping
down, but I am not convinced she is the best person to negotiate terms with the
EU.
However, Liam Fox was the
first to be eliminated at the first round of Tory selection on 5th July, which triggered the withdrawal of Stephen
Crabb from the leadership contest.
On Thursday 7thJuly Michael
Gove with the lowest Conservative votes was eliminated, leaving the two women in
the leadership contest. Unfortunately
for Andrea Leadsom, who agreed to be interviewed for a newspaper, the reporter had an agenda to present her in an unfavourable light, quoting her saying she is a mum and
therefore would make a better Prime Minister than Theresa May. No one in their right mind would believe that of Andrea, who had shown herself as intelligent and a good debater for the Leave campaign, totally committed to fight for our country to leave the flawed European Union.
Although she hastened to
rebut the biased reporter's account at an impromptu press conference, the damage has already taken
effect and the TV media had a field day at her expense. Meanwhile, Theresa
May cashed in on the situation to put out her story that she actually mentored Andrea when she first came into
Parliament in 2010, confirming Theresa May’s upper hand. However, Andrea Leadsom is in a strong position to negotiate a good deal as she knows the EU inside out. What she said a month ago before the campaign started on the EU referendum shows her commitment and ability to take the country forward to a successful exit of the EU :
"We have huge strengths, not least that we have the best and most innovative financial services industry in the world. London – rated number one in the Global Power City Index for four years in a row – sits at the heart of this diverse industry that stretches from Aberdeen to Bristol, from Birmingham to Bournemouth, and even to Northampton, a bustling financial services area right in my own home town. An incredible two million people are employed in this enterprising industry right across the country and its potential is vast.
"We have huge strengths, not least that we have the best and most innovative financial services industry in the world. London – rated number one in the Global Power City Index for four years in a row – sits at the heart of this diverse industry that stretches from Aberdeen to Bristol, from Birmingham to Bournemouth, and even to Northampton, a bustling financial services area right in my own home town. An incredible two million people are employed in this enterprising industry right across the country and its potential is vast.
A free trading, democratic Britain has SO much going for her! Not only is
our language, English, the world’s international business language, but we have
the best contract law you’ll find anywhere in the world. Our judicial system is
consistently rated as one of the least corrupt in the world. All are enormous
advantages for businesses looking to start, expand or move here.
Let me be very clear. EU member states need continued free access to our
financial markets regardless of whether we remain politically bound to them or
not. The UK accounts for 40 per cent of all wholesale financial markets in
the EU, and European businesses depend on continued access to the wealth of
expertise and capital that resides here. No financial centre on the continent can even pretend to compete with
us – we compete globally, with New York, Singapore and Hong Kong, and that's
the facts.
We are a truly global player, and I believe if we have the courage to
unshackle ourselves from the EU on 23 June we will find we are not dependent on
the EU for our success but quite the reverse – the EU is holding us back,
preventing us from realising our full
potential in the world.
So I'm unimpressed to hear the Remain camp insisting that a vote to leave
means sterling will collapse, inflation will pick up, 3m jobs will be
lost, and now, the latest scare story, house prices will collapse.
My own view, (not an economic forecast but a real world view based on 30
years of experience) is that if we vote to leave the EU on 23 June, the boost
to confidence from our newfound freedoms, the prospect of proper control over
the costs of immigration, as well as the £10bn per annum "independence
dividend", will boost markets and investment and put the UK on a path to
long term economic success.
Meanwhile, let's keep calm. Nothing will change on 24 June after a vote
to leave. The truth is, every bit of EU law is enshrined in UK law, so nothing
will change for at least two years while we negotiate the on-going tariff-free
trading with our European neighbours, the arrangements for future immigration controls and caps, and the
plans for cooperation in intelligence sharing and counter terrorism.
Don't let anyone tell you these things won't happen. No matter how
furious individual European leaders might be that we've had the temerity to opt
for freedom and democracy, they still have to get re-elected at home. The
European leader who tells Germany's BMW workers, or Spain's Zara staff or
Sweden's Ikea employees that they can no longer sell tariff-free to the UK, or who
decides not to share information on known terrorist movements, will face
disaster at their own ballot box. It is not an option.
So I was incredibly disappointed to see that the very man charged with
overseeing our monetary policy, the Governor of the Bank of England, went out on a limb recently, to give some totally biased and
indefensible predictions about our economy.
Mark Carney’s political “intervention”
into the EU referendum debate has
been highly damaging for the Bank of England. For an institution with the very
grave responsibility of ensuring the short and long-term stability of the
country’s financial system whatever the scenario, the Governor's intervention
has actually increased the risk of high market volatility ahead of the
referendum.
A balanced assessment would have pointed out that there are many risks to
staying in. The Eurozone's debt crisis together with their migrant crisis are
on-going and unresolved issues of great magnitude, that will have huge
consequences for the UK if we remain in the EU.
UK voters have a fundamental choice to make: do we remain reluctant
partners in someone else's failing project, or do we continue to trade with
Europe, but also look outwards and embrace the 80 per cent of the world
that lies outside the EU, full of vibrant growing and opportunity.
Just heard the news that Andrea has today announced her withdrawal from the leadership contest, saying the country needs a leader as soon as possible to get the country up and running, giving Theresa May her best wishes and assuring her of her full support on becoming Prime Minister.
I should have published earlier Andrea’s speech which she gave a month earlier, outlining her brilliant plan to extricate the UK from the EU and putting various plans in place to take Britain forward into the world towards global trade and prosperity. Let's hope The new Prime Minister will do her best to get as good a deal as Andrea would have done. Better still, Theresa May should get together a team from the Leave Campaign to help negotiate a good deal.
Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty has indeed laid out the means by which a Member
State could leave the EU. However, if we
try to leave using Article 50, we might well find that we were never able to
leave. Under Article 50, there is a two-year negotiation period which could be
prolonged indefinitely by unanimous agreement of EU member states. Even if we
did manage to leave using Article 50, we could find ourselves with a ‘deal’
that still required us to pay contributions to the EU budget, having to accept
a large proportion of EU laws and with open borders to EU citizens.
The only sure way for
Britain to leave the EU is for our Parliament to repeal the European
Communities Act of 1972. This would
immediately return supremacy of law to our own Parliament and courts and free
us from control by the EU. Chaos would
not ensue because all EU Directives, which have been transposed into Acts of
Parliament, would remain in place. These could then be repealed when needed,
leaving what laws we might need to interact with the EU.
On Wednesday 13th July, David Cameron will go to Buckingham Palace to officially resign as Prime Minister, after which Theresa May will go to see the Queen to officially inform her of her new position as Prime Minister of Britain. We look forward to Theresa May to be appointed our Prime Minister and trust her to do the right thing for a Brexit Britain.
