I believe we still have healthy trading relations with most commonwealth countries .
Britain leaves the European Union
- Thread starter Blackleaf
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This is why we voted Leave
The EU’s legal action against the UK is an outrageous attack on sovereignty.
PADDY HANNAM
2nd October 2020
Spiked
The latest unelected nobody to take charge of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has made a ludicrous announcement: the EU is beginning legal proceedings against the UK. The move comes after the British government missed an EU-imposed deadline for removing parts of the Internal Market Bill, which, if enacted, could break international law.
An obvious question to ask is, who cares? EU legal cases tend to take a fair amount of time, certainly much longer than the time that remains in which to negotiate a deal. We will have left the transition period, in one way or another, by the time any potential court case could be resolved.
Not only that, but the EU’s legal process can eventually lead to cases being heard in the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Freedom from the diktats of the ECJ has always been essential to restoring British sovereignty post-Brexit. It would be weak and wrong, therefore, for the government to regard any findings it produces on this question as binding.
Indeed, the idea of the EU disciplining the UK after we have left is both intolerable and absurd. Are the EU’s leaders still not taking seriously our intention to leave? Or do they just hope the looming prospect of a legal case will force 11th-hour concessions from the UK and make a deal more likely? Perhaps they just want to punish Britain for having the gall to leave in the first place.
Regardless, the EU’s move is incoherent: the EU is hardly consistent in enforcing its own rules on member states, let alone obeying international rules. For example, the EU’s member states are forever divided on how harshly to enforce its fiscal rules. This year, a ruling by Germany’s top court implicitly placed German national law above EU law. And overall, Germany is facing 83 infringement proceedings relating to potential breaches of EU rules. France is facing 63. Yet France’s Europe minister, Clement Beaune, had the gall to react to the legal action against the UK by saying, ‘respect for the law and the word given is a condition of trust’.
This all demonstrates the trifold problem with EU law. Firstly, these laws are intolerable for any truly independent nation – for example, the EU’s restrictions on state aid, which are holding up the negotiations. Secondly, they are inconsistently enforced, which undermines trust in the laws themselves. Finally, and most importantly, they suffer from a serious legitimacy problem, because of the enormous democratic deficit that exists between European voters and the EU laws their governments are expected to follow.
There is, then, no reason why Boris and Co should pay any attention to these latest EU theatrics. To live up to the slogans ‘Take Back Control’ and ‘Get Brexit Done’, we must disentangle ourselves fully from the EU’s legal system. The government should call the bureaucrats’ bluff. And we should not be afraid of leaving without a deal. If that is the cost of regaining sovereignty, so be it.
Paddy Hannam is a spiked intern.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/02/this-is-why-we-voted-leave/
The EU’s legal action against the UK is an outrageous attack on sovereignty.
PADDY HANNAM
2nd October 2020
Spiked
The latest unelected nobody to take charge of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has made a ludicrous announcement: the EU is beginning legal proceedings against the UK. The move comes after the British government missed an EU-imposed deadline for removing parts of the Internal Market Bill, which, if enacted, could break international law.
An obvious question to ask is, who cares? EU legal cases tend to take a fair amount of time, certainly much longer than the time that remains in which to negotiate a deal. We will have left the transition period, in one way or another, by the time any potential court case could be resolved.
Not only that, but the EU’s legal process can eventually lead to cases being heard in the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Freedom from the diktats of the ECJ has always been essential to restoring British sovereignty post-Brexit. It would be weak and wrong, therefore, for the government to regard any findings it produces on this question as binding.
Indeed, the idea of the EU disciplining the UK after we have left is both intolerable and absurd. Are the EU’s leaders still not taking seriously our intention to leave? Or do they just hope the looming prospect of a legal case will force 11th-hour concessions from the UK and make a deal more likely? Perhaps they just want to punish Britain for having the gall to leave in the first place.
Regardless, the EU’s move is incoherent: the EU is hardly consistent in enforcing its own rules on member states, let alone obeying international rules. For example, the EU’s member states are forever divided on how harshly to enforce its fiscal rules. This year, a ruling by Germany’s top court implicitly placed German national law above EU law. And overall, Germany is facing 83 infringement proceedings relating to potential breaches of EU rules. France is facing 63. Yet France’s Europe minister, Clement Beaune, had the gall to react to the legal action against the UK by saying, ‘respect for the law and the word given is a condition of trust’.
This all demonstrates the trifold problem with EU law. Firstly, these laws are intolerable for any truly independent nation – for example, the EU’s restrictions on state aid, which are holding up the negotiations. Secondly, they are inconsistently enforced, which undermines trust in the laws themselves. Finally, and most importantly, they suffer from a serious legitimacy problem, because of the enormous democratic deficit that exists between European voters and the EU laws their governments are expected to follow.
There is, then, no reason why Boris and Co should pay any attention to these latest EU theatrics. To live up to the slogans ‘Take Back Control’ and ‘Get Brexit Done’, we must disentangle ourselves fully from the EU’s legal system. The government should call the bureaucrats’ bluff. And we should not be afraid of leaving without a deal. If that is the cost of regaining sovereignty, so be it.
Paddy Hannam is a spiked intern.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/02/this-is-why-we-voted-leave/
Coffee House
Brendan O’Neill
The collapse of the Cambridge Analytica conspiracy theory
8 October 2020
The Spectator
So there you have it. Cambridge Analytica was ‘not involved’ in the 2016 EU referendum. The digital marketing firm that Remainers love to hate did not swing the British electorate towards Leave, as we were constantly told. In the words of the Guardian, no doubt uttered through gritted teeth, Cambridge Analytica did not ‘directly misuse data to influence the Brexit referendum’.
These are the conclusions of the Information Commissioner’s extensive three-year investigation into Cambridge Analytica. Throwing a big bucket of cold water on the chattering-class belief that Cambridge Analytica stealthily and probably illegally harvested people’s online data in order to manipulate our minds and make us vote Leave, the Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said yesterday that, in truth, CA was not a significant player in the referendum, ‘beyond some initial enquiries’.
What’s more, Denham and her office found no evidence to back up one of the key stories about CA – that it colluded with Russia to shift Brits towards Leave. Denham, in her letter to MPs outlining the findings of her investigation, says her staff uncovered no ‘additional evidence’ of Russian involvement in the referendum on the Cambridge Analytica computer servers they pored over.
Oh dear. It is difficult to recall the last time a theory collapsed so spectacularly. All those stories we were told about Cambridge Analytica — that it virtually puppeteered the electorate, that it was the shadowy force behind Brexit, that it cosied up to the Ruskies — have fallen apart. There is no hard evidence for these wild takes about CA.
Indeed, the Information Commissioner’s Office concludes that CA used online data in a fairly standard way. ‘On examination’, it says, CA’s methods were ‘well-recognised processes using commonly available technology’. That was always one of the most striking things about the anti-CA hysteria of the past four years – it struck many of us that this company was only doing what other political campaigns, including Barack Obama’s, had done, in terms of tapping into online data in order to build up potential audiences for political messages.
Are there questions to be asked about the security of our data on social-media sites? Of course. But the idea that CA was doing something uniquely sinister, that its digital marketing was somehow more evil and dastardly than other companies’ digital marketing, just doesn’t stack up. Neither does the idea that it deployed its sinister methods to swing Brits towards Brexit.
It is difficult to overstate how central the puffed-up, fact-lite Cambridge Analytica story was to the Brexit-bashing worldview of certain newspapers and campaigners. The Guardian even has a section on its website called ‘The Cambridge Analytica Files’, listing all the pieces it published on this apparently malevolent, Brexit-orchestrating organisation. CA whistleblowers were fawned over by liberal campaigners and the Twitterati.
The Observer, one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the borderline conspiracy theory that Brexit is the handiwork of nefarious data-mining companies and shady Russian elements, published pieces claiming that a ‘shadowy global operation’ involving CA and others ‘influenced the result of the EU referendum’. Oh really?
There always was a whiff of desperation to the Cambridge Analytica obsession. For some bruised, dazed liberals, horrified by Brexit, the tall tale about CA’s Machiavellian antics became the go-to explanation for why Remain lost the referendum. It couldn’t possibly be that millions of rational Brits, more than capable of thinking for ourselves, decided that it was time to leave the EU. No, something darker must have taken place. We must have been brainwashed. We must have been ‘got at’. Our data and our minds must have been mined by massive companies and possibly even Russian bots, telling us ‘VOTE LEAVE’.
It was a deeply patronising view, depicting the electorate as putty-minded fools and calling into question the legitimacy of the largest act of free and fair democracy in the history of this country. That was always the twisted irony of the CA obsession: the anti-Brexit lobby told us that CA was harming democracy, but in truth it was their own ridiculing of the British electorate and efforts to criminalise the vote for Brexit that threatened to damage democracy in this country.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article...-of-the-cambridge-analytica-conspiracy-theory
Possibly at the macro level but almost zero from the retail finance industry. Canadian brokerages have a two tiered system where buying US funds can be done for $9/trade or less and it is $250/trade to deal with any other foreign stock exchange. Sixteen foreign stock exchanges with trillion dollar market caps, 14 with obstructed trade barriers to Canadians.
Scotia Itrade trader told me 3 foreign trades is a busy day. US was not considered a foreign trade. RBC refuses to initiate international trades but will sell US holdings all day long. Questrade is $195/trade.
Zero money being invested by ordinary Canadians in Australia or New Zealand or even England. 99% of all small Canadian holdings and investments are funneled through the NYSE.
Canadian Banks are global organizations focused on profit. The NFL has a seat on the RBC board of directors. It all comes down to Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan ability to control financial markets.
The bank act is sorely in need of revision. No discussion of the Canadian economy should ignore the $50 billion in annual profits. Imagine if that money were to go back into the economy but instead it goes to the Caymans.
Boris Johnson says UK should prepare for a no-deal Brexit and 'Australia-style' future
BORIS Johnson has told Britain to "get ready" for a No Deal Brexit saying the UK will leave with "high hearts and complete confidence" after EU leaders refused to give ground at a critical meeting of leaders.
Mr Johnson slammed Eurocrats for failing to come to the table after "45 years of friendship" but stopped short of walking away from talks entirely
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1294462...
BORIS Johnson has told Britain to "get ready" for a No Deal Brexit saying the UK will leave with "high hearts and complete confidence" after EU leaders refused to give ground at a critical meeting of leaders.
Mr Johnson slammed Eurocrats for failing to come to the table after "45 years of friendship" but stopped short of walking away from talks entirely
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1294462...
No Deal Brexit 
Let’s Go NOW Boris 
Respect Democracy! Would have liked Canada to step up and support Britain in light of we pay some twat to represent the Queen and all. Head too far up the USA poop generator to think about it. Odd given the Mark Carney connection and all imo.
Nigel Farage's Brexit Party has been relaunched as the anti-lockdown, pro-Brexit, Reform Party
Do not be surprised if Mr Farage becomes our next Prime Minister. People have had enough.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tzp4oNjvDg&t=8s
Do not be surprised if Mr Farage becomes our next Prime Minister. People have had enough.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tzp4oNjvDg&t=8s
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It's more the European trade deal and Trudie sucking up to the EU than supporting the decision of the UK citizens
Brexit Begins
Blue British Passports Are Officially BACK 
Marvellous. Now democracy begins...
Good to see news about Canada and the UK with an upcoming trade deal.
Will be surprised if it goes as far as similar access to the LSE as for the American exchanges but would love to see it.
Will be surprised if it goes as far as similar access to the LSE as for the American exchanges but would love to see it.
What colour were your passports before?
Brexit Begins
Marvellous. Now democracy begins...
And I thought you guys were already brexited.
As a state of the EU, rather than an actual sovereign country, the British passport was burgundy, just like all other EU states. It wasn't actually a British passport. It was an EU one. The EU passport is burgundy. Now that we're out and independent again, we are returning to our blue passports.
Britain sort of left the EU on 31st January, but since then we have merely been in a transition period which ends on 31st December. So Britain properly leaves the EU on Friday 1st January 2021.
They're maroon / burgundy. New ones have rolled out over the depletion of the previous EU design.
The Remainers weren't happy about the EU burgundy passport going. They kicked up a right fuss.