To anyone who thinks MPs have the slightest idea about Brexit, they only need to read this article (HERE) by Nigel Evans, Conservative MP for Ribble Valley on the Brexit Central website. At first he was apparently happy with the Chequers white paper but after Donald Trump's visit he's extremely concerned about it. To change your mind on a detailed 100 page document because of comments by a man who hasn't read or understood it is quite something. And anybody relying on words from the mouth of Trump shouldn't be allowed in any public office anyway. The POTUS is clearly totally spaced out on his own ego.
Evans' problem is he thinks we won't get a trade deal with the USA because of something in the white paper. He even tells Liam Fox to "find out what blocks the White Paper has on inhibiting the UK from doing a trade deal with the US" as if he can't do it himself.
If he learned to read, he will find there's nothing in it to prevent any trade deal. What will block it is the USA demanding we adopt their food standards, something his own DEFRA Minister Michael Gove says we are not going to do (HERE) and which the UK consumer doesn't want anyway. Why we would want to lower our food quality to that of a nation where half the population look like they're wearing inflatable fat suits but aren't, he doesn't say. Perhaps he's keen to see more people who need to be lifted in and out of bed by heavy duty mechanical handling equipment.
Mind you, Liam Fox is happy to eat Chlorine washed chicken and hormone fed beef (HERE) so the Trade Secretary needs to talk the Environment Secretary.
The sheer determination in these people to give up the best trading arrangements we have with our close European neighbours, 500 million strong, and effectivey connected to us by a short rail link, for an inferior free trade deal with a technically backward country of about two thirds of the population, 3000 miles away is hard to understand. Especially, one led at the moment by an unpredictable, xenophobic sociopath with paranoid delusions whose avowed objective is to put America first, form alliances with Putin, as Russia undermines US democracy (HERE), and damage NATO. It really is madness. Incidentally, you might like to have a laugh at this story about Trumps "negotiating skills" (HERE).
And quite bizarrely Evans says, "even worse, Donald Trump said that he would have to talk to the EU to do some sort of deal [with the UK]. We did not vote to leave the EU to delegate our ability to negotiate trade deals with the USA, in any part, to a foreign power"
"The American Ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, already intimated that the US were looking at 0% rate tariffs in a trade deal but clearly if we can’t import certain goods on the say so of the EU, then where are our freedoms?"
This is just plain stupid. Once we become a third country we can import what we like from wherever we like. Evans is so dim he doesn't actually realise this. The problem is that if we do lower our standards to import chlorinated chicken or GM foods from the USA, we won't be able to export to the EU and many farms will go to the wall. That's the choice and we would have sovereignty to do it. But seriously, who would? Nigel Evans? I don't think so.
