There has been an exchange of 'open letters' between Sir John Redwood (has there ever been a knighthood bestowed on someone who has damaged British interests as much as him?) and the government. He wrote originally on March 4th to Geoffrey Cox the Attorney General and republished it on May 10th because he hadn't received a response. Stephen Barclay, Brexit Secretary has now replied with a 10 page letter that you can read HERE. It is a humiliating lesson for one of our foremost and long standing Brexiters.
Redwood's smug know-it-all letter is HERE. It's written in that exasperated what-have-you-done-now tone beloved by those barrack room lawyers usually found holding forth in the back room of your local pub after a few pints where ignorance on all sides is a given.
In the opinion of the Tory MP for Wokingham the Withdrawal Agreement stops us leaving the EU and he exhorts the PM to go back to Brussels "and explain why the UK people and Parliament have opposed this Treaty, and ask them to think again if they want an agreement before we leave".
It raises all sorts of questions about the agreement and was greeted by his many followers as proof of The Vulcan's superior and forensic intellect. In fact it shows he's a half wit.
Barclay's reply has the withering tone of a school teacher having to explain something to a particularly thick pupil pointing out the numerous errors, misunderstandings and flaws in the imbecile's essay. It begins:
"I am particularly grateful to you for allowing me a further opportunity to explain the Withdrawal Agreement, because your email exhibits many fundamental misconceptions about its meaning, which might well inadvertently mislead its readers".
And it ends with this:
"I would urge you to correct these errors of legal interpretation in your future public pronouncements so that those who circulate your email may have the accurate facts on which to base their judgments of the overall merits of the Withdrawal Agreement"
In between is a careful demolition of just about everything Redwood said - a demolition probably written or seen by Olly Robbins who actually knows what he's talking about. It was almost certainly not written by Barclay himself, who probably doesn't understand it either. As an example, on the divorce bill, Redwood claimed:
"The bills will be decided by the EU and we will have to pay them. Any attempt to query them would be adjudicated by the EU’s own court!"
To which the letter explains:
"Since those obligations were created under EU laws and regulations, which is also our own law until we leave, it is hard to see how they could be assessed and calculated save by the application of that law"
Ouch! You idiot. It goes on in similar vein for ten humiliating pages. Redwood has scrutinised the Withdrawal Agreement almost certainly aided by Sir Bill Cash (another Knighthood that ought to be returned) but simply does not understand it.
Some of the points are exceedingly complex, particularly on citizen's rights where Redwood says the WA would create a class of super EU citizens enjoying benefits here that British residents do not. The letter goes on:
"These rules in no way affect the structure of the benefits system and what benefits the UK provides but will ensure, for example, that workers (and their employer) will only pay into one social security system at a time, and that those in scope will have the right to aggregate contributions and periods of insured residence for the purposes of meeting different states' benefit entitlement conditions. Since these rules exist to protect out own citizens in the EU, it is odd that you object to them"
Again, ouch!
It is clear Redwood (a) doesn't understand what the WA actually means and why and (b) has never in his long Eurosceptic career given one second's thought to the immense ramifications of his campaign to leave the EU. But he questions the details as if he does and has. It is the mark of a true Brexiteer.
Like many of his side in the Brexit debate, there is a total unwillingness to concede that leaving the EU is going to take years, be difficult, costly, complex and end up with many more losers than winners. I think we are all guilty of occasionally underestimating problems. One thing I have learned over the years is that the most difficult jobs are nearly always very easy - provided you aren't doing them yourself. This always reverses completely once you get the chance yourself when even the easiest tasks become strangely and phenomenally difficult. The trick therefore is to never to do anything yourself - like Redwood and Farage for example.
As an example of someone undertaking a task for which they are totally ill equipped, we might watch the Secretary of State for Wales attempting to sing the Welsh national anthem and making a complete fool of himself and think golly, why didn't he bother to learn it before standing up in front of the TV cameras and hundreds of people at a Welsh Tory conference.
Most of us learn from our mistakes, Brexiters don't do they?
Like many of his side in the Brexit debate, there is a total unwillingness to concede that leaving the EU is going to take years, be difficult, costly, complex and end up with many more losers than winners. I think we are all guilty of occasionally underestimating problems. One thing I have learned over the years is that the most difficult jobs are nearly always very easy - provided you aren't doing them yourself. This always reverses completely once you get the chance yourself when even the easiest tasks become strangely and phenomenally difficult. The trick therefore is to never to do anything yourself - like Redwood and Farage for example.
As an example of someone undertaking a task for which they are totally ill equipped, we might watch the Secretary of State for Wales attempting to sing the Welsh national anthem and making a complete fool of himself and think golly, why didn't he bother to learn it before standing up in front of the TV cameras and hundreds of people at a Welsh Tory conference.
Most of us learn from our mistakes, Brexiters don't do they?
