Important corrections to Anne Marie Morris’s ‘newsletter’

Newton Abbot MP, Anne Marie Morris, has released her weekly column. It was so packed with untruths and gaslighting statements that it just had to be unpicked.

The UK has been an independent nation for three years this January”.

Hmm. It was already an independent nation, actually. Think the word you are looking for, Anne Marie, is ‘isolated’.

“The media are forever saying Brexit was no success story. Really? Have we really forgotten the roll-out of the Covid vaccine ahead of the lumbering EU?”

Pointing out the truth hurts the Brexit cultists and all they can trot out is this vaccine lie. They’ve been told over and over again that it’s a lie; perhaps unsurprisingly, they are happy with lies. And this ‘Brexit benefit’ is their favourite lie of all.

What about the new flexibility to create freeports, with all the competitive advantages they offer for British businesses to boost trade and create new jobs?”

This is another absolute gotcha: the UK set up seven freeports after 1984, including at Liverpool and Southampton, but these were phased out in 2012 by YOUR PARTY, Anne-Marie! And freeports might tick all the boxes for the libertarian, free-market junkies, but there has been a backlash against them because:

Source: summary of the findings of a study commissioned by the EU’s Special Committee on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance into money laundering and tax evasion risks in freeports and customs warehouses

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“We have avoided 7,391 new EU laws and will be sunsetting the EU legislation entrenched in our legal system – we can now choose where to align and where to diverge. We were ahead of the game on environmental legislation and employment rights before we joined the EU; we can and will do so much better setting our own standards. There is a global market out there to be taken advantage of.”

It’s meaningless to cite numbers of new laws. Many will be highly specialised and specific to certain industries or fields of activity. By contrast, your party, Anne-Marie, has introduced a sizeable chunk of draconian legislation, including voter suppression measures, curbs on peaceful protest, bans on strikes, limiting access to judicial review, upping police powers, allowing water companies to continue to pump sewage into our rivers and seas for years to come, etc.

It’s very dangerous indeed to have an automatic sunsetting clause. You have no idea which laws will go, simply because you have not got round to reviewing them. It’s a recipe for anarchy and chaos. Would you do business with a country whose laws – no-one knows which – are subject to arbitrary obliteration on a certain date?

Does anybody fall for the con that you want to have higher standards in employment, environmental protection, animal welfare and human rights? Don’t pretend to people that you think competitive advantage can be achieved by being kinder, better and cleaner, rather than worse, harsher and dirtier! How stupid do you think we are?

“We now have new trade deals with Australia, New Zealand and others which we did not have as a member of the EU. We are currently negotiating accession to the CPTPP Trans Pacific Partnership, which would give us access to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies. The opportunity for trade with countries outside of Europe was always greater than the opportunities within Europe.”

Oh, Anne-Marie! You really are on a gaslighting binge! The trade deals with Australia and New Zealand were great….FOR AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND! Even George Eustice said the Australia deal was crap! They sold our farmers down the river! And all so that Liz Truss could get an Instagram pic, signing any UK advantage away.

There’s always a lot of talk about ‘fastest-growing’ … but you know what? Most businesses would rather have a 5 per cent increase in a great lump of trade in a massive market, than a 50 per cent increase in a teeny market, thousands of miles away.

“Clearly set against this is the cost of imports from Europe. As our closest neighbour and as a member of ‘the club’, that was where most imports came from. These are now subject to a new trade deal with Europe. The Northern Ireland protocol isn’t working, but there is hope in sight of a breakthrough.”

Northern Ireland is doing rather better than us as it’s still a member of the club, enjoying the privileges of membership. And you say ‘the club’ to make it sound elitist and dodgy, don’t you? But it was a great club to be a member of, which is why so many countries like Ukraine want to join. The benefits of EU membership dwarfed the costs, whereas Brexit… (see further down)

“We also wanted to free up our industries, strangled by EU laws, to be more competitive. The so-called ‘Edinburgh reforms’ in the financial services sector will free up £100bn for investment. We will do this by changing restrictive solvency rules (Solvency II) which, while well-intentioned when they were introduced after the financial crisis, have been shown to be unnecessary. Of course, it’s important to protect investors, but so many new checks and balances have been introduced to prevent excessive risk-taking: this one-size-fits-all sledgehammer just isn’t needed. Given the importance of the financial services sector to the UK, this really matters.”

Yay Let’s go back to pre-2008 wild west conditions, ̓cos that worked out so well…for the money guys. The rest of us? Not so much. So transparent!

“And for farmers, we are seeing the evolution of a new agriculture support scheme. The Common Agriculture Policy across Europe was complex and did not flex to meet the needs of our small British holdings. The new scheme introduced in 2020 will include a new sustainable farming incentive scheme, a local nature recovery scheme and landscape recovery which will focus on habitat restoration. The full details are awaited. As a scheme firmly under our control, we can amend this further going forward. I hope we will incentivise food production, which will give us greater security in these challenging times.”

If I was a farmer, I’d be having a daily meltdown.

‘While subsidies were cut by an average of 22% for farmers last year, the money paid out through the SFI [sustainable farming incentive] equated to only 0.44% of the total funding plan for farmers, leaving farmers asking where the money is going. This year, the cuts are set to be even more stark, with the government planning to slash payments by 36%.’

The Guardian

Your government has done nothing to help them weather the fuel cost crisis. Food security? You’re having a laugh! Tomatoes???

“We have left the Common Fisheries Policy and as a result have increased the amount of catch available to UK fishermen. The quota EU fishermen can catch will reduce in tranches over the next few years, meaning that by 2025 the EU will have their share reduced by 25 per cent. North Sea UK catch levels for cod will go up by 63 per cent this year, with increases for several other species. We have also stopped EU vessels carrying out electric pulse fishing in UK waters. We are also proposing by-laws to ban bottom-trawling in marine protected areas. More will follow.”

You want to have a word with fisherfolk…if you dare. ‘Fisheries minister’ Mark Spencer has refused to give any assurance that the UK will have an exclusive 12nm (nautical miles) limit when the Brexit fisheries deal is renegotiated in 2026, reports Tim Oliver in Fishing News.

“So while we would all like to have seen even more, let’s be proud of what we have achieved – and all that despite Covid and the Ukraine-driven energy troubles. Too many blame Brexit, not these world events, for our current woes. Think again. And remember we no longer pay £17bn to the EU annually – and we will be making no contribution to the EU’s current recovery plan, running into what would have been a contribution of £10s of billions from the UK!”

Oh the £17bn! The £350m a week for the NHS! Where did it all go? £37bn on failed test, track and trace, £billions on rubbish PPE etc. Brexit has COST the equivalent of £1800 per person, or £20,300 per business, since January 2022.

And as we become once more ‘the sick man of Europe’, with falling living standards, a widening wealth gap, fuel poverty, the lowest growth in the G7, a collapsing health service and more foodbanks than you can shake a stick at, if not for Brexit the UK would most likely have been a beneficiary of the recovery plan!

Wow! Never mind, Anne Marie: when you lose your seat in the next election, you can continue your career of writing rather bad fiction. Oh…and here’s what can happen when you deregulate to suit your mates and donors: