In-depth chat with Lord Redwood – Here’s what some Facts4EU supporters experienced

A personal chat – The Rt Hon the Lord Redwood and supporters of Facts4EU

1. The Economy

Comparisons between UK and US economic growth rates over the past thirty years are unflattering. In the early 1990s UK wealth per capita was 90% that of the US. Since then it has declined to 60%, representing an ongoing downward trend. That is the historic context to the crisis in which we now find ourselves.

The situation is made worse by a whole host of damaging interventions by this government including taxes on fuel, windfall taxes on oil and gas companies, carbon taxes and emissions trading costs.

Britain has witnessed the hollowing out of much of its industrial base from ceramics and glass to steel and petrochemicals.

2. Net Zero

‘A land of coal and gas sitting in a sea of oil and gas’

It hardly needs stating that the government’s decision to press ahead with its net-zero policies have simply exacerbated an already precarious economic situation.

We are surrounded by oil and gas and yet the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband insists that ‘green’ energy is the way forward including heat-pump based tumble dryers which are both more expensive and may be more costly to run in cold weather.

3. Defence

The situation is no better in relation to national security. For example we are faced with the ludicrous situation where the Ministry of Defence have already decommissioned four Royal Naval frigates before new ones have come on stream to replace them.

Furthermore, the crisis in the Gulf has only served to highlight the already weakened condition of the Royal Navy. From the very beginning of the conflict, HMS Dragon encountered deployment difficulties, with emergency maintenance delaying its departure for the eastern Mediterranean by more than a week.

At the same time, the UK’s perceived reluctance to defend its overseas territories has not gone unnoticed by allies and adversaries alike. Both Argentina and the United States have made pointed remarks in relation to the future status of the Falkland Islands, reflecting growing concerns over the deteriorating state of Britain’s South Atlantic defences. In their current condition, the islands appear alarmingly exposed to potential external pressure or intervention.

4. Overseas Territories

Despite their election pledge to protect British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, the government appears to be doing all it can to get rid of them.

• They attempted to give away the Chagos Islands with a £30bn dowry attached.
• They withdrew a crucial refuelling plane from Falklands airport and have left the Islands dangerously exposed despite new Argentinian claims to the territory.
• They have drawn up a sell-out treaty with the EU to make Gibraltar a colony of the EU, allowing Spanish officials to intervene in border control as well as giving away tribute monies to Spain.
• They failed to send naval cover to Cyprus at the outset of the conflict in the Gulf raising questions about their commitment to the island.

Would you like to be invited to online events like this?
Or be invited to an event in Parliament, hosted by a senior politician who supports us?
You can be on the invitation list.

To be a full-time, effective voice in opposition to what’s happening to our country,
it costs around £15,000 per month.
We receive far, far less than that and really need more readers help us.
Please donate today so we can recruit more staff and make even more of a difference.

Any credit card user

Paypal Users Only – Choose amount first

Don’t leave this to someone else. You are that ‘someone else’.

5. EU Reset

Lord Redwood has written extensively across multiple platforms on the folly of the government’s EU reset.

Higher Education

In relation to higher education, the decision to replace the Turing Scheme with Erasmus will cut the number of UK students who benefit, exclude UK students from non-EU overseas universities, and will cost taxpayers ten times as much from the second year of the scheme after a first year “discount”.

The initial cost is set to cost the UK taxpayer an estimated £570m in its first year (2027), potentially rising to £800m a year thereafter.

Energy Costs

The EU’s carbon taxes and emission trading schemes will mean higher energy costs, a further cost of living squeeze and more closures of UK industrial plants and consequent job losses.

Annual Fee

As if that were not enough, the UK will also have to pay an annual fee (as yet undisclosed) into the EU Budget.

Regulatory Alignment

To cap it all, we are told that the UK seeks ‘dynamic alignment’ with the EU’s Single Market – a precursor surely to rejoining the EU itself and a clear breach of the government’s election manifesto commitment not to reverse Brexit.

Q & A

In the audience discussion afterwards, Lord Redwood answered numerous questions from our Special Members and expanded on some of these themes.

UK Economy

Such is the dire state of the public finances that UK longer term borrowing rates under Rachel Reeves have been higher than the one-day, brief, Liz Truss peak for the whole time from Jan 2025 onwards.

In time this will feed through into higher mortgage rates which will have a further direct adverse effect on people’s living standards.

To prevent this, the government will have to make cuts to public expenditure, otherwise the bond markets will compel them to do so.

UK Energy

Nuclear

Owing to years of prevarication and delay, the UK’s nuclear energy capacity remains woefully inadequate. All but one of our nuclear reactors is to be closed and even if we build new ones, it will not offset the likely loss of our existing ones.

Owing to the complex installation of piping, cabling and systems, as well as inflation and supply chain issues Hinkley Point C is delayed until at least 2030 and will be considerably over budget.

A huge scale-up in nuclear production is needed but our prohibitive planning laws and dismal infrastructure record have made this very difficult.

Oil & Gas

The UK marginal rate of tax for oil and gas is now a staggering 78% even though we have quantities of both under our feet. Yet instead of drilling, the government has decided to import oil and gas from Norway or further afield, creating still greater CO2 emissions in the process. The policy makes no sense at all.

Green Energy

The fabled explosion of jobs and investment in green energy has yet to materialise in the UK. The only jobs being created are in China which exports solar panels and wind-turbines to the UK at enormous financial and environmental cost to us all.

Brexit

In a final tour-de-force, Lord Redwood tackled head-on the government’s assertion that Brexit cut UK GDP by 4% – or even 8% by some Ministers at certain times – implying they could recover that if only we were to rejoin the EU.

The OBR analysis they base this on, he explained, was a forecast out to 2035 of us losing 0.25 per cent of productivity growth each year, accumulating to 4 per cent less productivity gain by 2035. They did not forecast a sudden 4 per cent loss in GDP or indeed any actual loss of output.

Indeed the UK’s GDP growth figures were very similar to those of France, Germany and Italy and he concludes that Brexit has made no difference to the UK’s overall GDP.