No time to waste if Boris is to deliver for Brexit Britain
IT’S good to see seven postBrexit Bills featured in the Queen’s Speech yesterday, including trade deals with Australia and New Zealand and the Brexit Freedoms Bill intended to slash any EU red tape that remains on the statute book. On top of that, Boris is getting back on track with law and order, promising an end to disruptive protests by climate change extremists.
As last week’s local election results demonstrated, northern Leave voters are still holding faith with the Conservatives but it’s about time the Government started delivering on its core values. Faced with a crippling cost-of-living crisis, it’s important voters start seeing some of the benefits of Brexit.
“From data reform to gene editing to financial services,” said the PM to the Sunday Express, “these Bills will allow us to thrive as a modern, dynamic and independent country, and this government is getting on with the job of delivering them.”
GENE editing to produce disease-resistant crops and livestock was banned by the scare-mongering EU yet it has enormous benefits for worldwide agriculture and could see the UK take a lead in this innovative technology, worth billions to Britain. Trade deals with both Australia and New Zealand will scrap tariffs, allowing the UK to export more to these prosperous parts of the world and hopefully ensure we get some cheaper food and wine in return.
The Brexit Freedoms Bill is aptly named as it is intended to remove any lingering EU bureaucratic constraints on British business, said to be worth £1billion in more efficient business dealings and encouraging inward investment.
Brexit was an enormous leap of faith for many voters and now more than ever, after the enormous sacrifices of lockdown, Britons need to start savouring the opportunities brought by liberating ourselves from the sclerotic EU. We need to become a more agile and inventive country, and that includes not being limited by ideologically driven fear-mongering.
For too long, Green bullies, like Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, have held the UK to ransom, punishing hardpressed families trying to get to work or go on holiday with widespread protests hitting our vital infrastructure and services.
In the Queen’s Speech, the Public Order Bill includes a new criminal offence of “locking on” to prevent activists from chaining themselves to buildings or vehicles, while the blocking of airports or railways will carry a 12-month prison sentence and unlimited fines.
“The law-abiding, responsible majority have had enough of anti-social protests carried out by a self-indulgent minority,” says Home Secretary Priti Patel. It is a great pity then that fear of green protest appears to have limited the ambition of the new Energy Security Bill by not pressing boldly ahead with fracking and new gas exploration. Expensive new nuclear reactors and more wind and solar energy will not solve our current energy crisis, whereas shale gas would deliver both new jobs and lower bills.
It’s not true, as Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng keeps saying, that home-produced gas would fail to deliver lower bills because it would be sold on the world market. Last month, the US market spot price of gas was $6.6 per million Btu (British thermal units) whereas the EU natural gas import price was $32.20. If Boris wants to grow us out of our current economic crisis, the UK-wide levelling up industries he wants to kick-start need cheaper home-produced fuel and there is no other alternative to that than to start drilling.
Despite this misstep, Boris is to be congratulated for pushing ahead with Brexit-linked legislation that can give us a competitive edge on the global stage. One cannot doubt his patriotism and enthusiasm for seeing Britain succeed but there’s no point exchanging EU shackles for the constraints of net-zero.
THE working people of northern and Midland Leave-voting constituencies reward political common sense but look dimly on middleclass affectations that hinder their aspirations. That is one of the reasons they still don’t trust Sir Keir Starmer to improve their daily lives, and Labour is becoming increasingly a party more in tune with southern “woke” concerns.
With Brexit-backing bills, the Queen’s Speech is pointing us in the right direction – but there is no time to waste over the next two years to prove Boris is not all talk but can deliver real improvements to our everyday lives based on our courageous Leave vote in 2016. If he can do that, he will deserve a second term in government.
‘We need to become a more agile and inventive country’