Gerard Batten, the pug faced leader of UKIP, was the guest speaker at an SOS Brexit meeting in Peterborough recently. From the local paper (HERE) it looked like a sparsely attended Help the Aged meeting for low IQ skinheads, but that's UKIP isn't it? They are preparing for the betrayal and Batten told the geriatric audience that, “If this government does not deliver Brexit, they will open the gates of hell.” Some of them appeared to have entered the meeting through the very gates he was talking about. You get such a nice class of elderly, unrepentant, slack-jawed sinner in Peterborough don't you?
Laughably he says he had prepared a plan for Brexit, another one of the dozens and dozens of Brexiteers who all had "a plan". If you haven't written a plan for Brexit you're nothing are you? It's the very least you can do. Gerard modestly tells his audience:
“I designed an exit plan explaining how it could work, but Mrs May has rejected every part of it as she doesn’t want to leave either, and it is definitely in her plans for our military to be run down to next to nothing and to be replaced with a European Army.”
You can read his "plan" HERE. It's 119 pages long which is about as much twaddle as you can take in a sitting. It's nothing of course compared to the 400+ pages of Flexcit written by Dr North or the 1032 pages of Change or Go by Matthew Elliot. Crikey, it's no more than an afternoon's work for a dedicated Brexiteer. The problem of course is that no two plans are alike.
A few quotes to save you the trouble of reading it if you're short of time:
On the campaign:
The Remain side waged a campaign of fear, lies and misrepresentation (I knew you'd like that one)
The leave campaign was of course a model of truth and scrupulous honesty. All the overspending, cheating and criminal behaviour was by remainers who had infiltrated the leave campaign in order to discredit them afterwards.
On Article 50
The UK has no legal or moral obligation to use Article 50 as its leaving mechanism. The primary concern of HM Government should be to implement the decision of the Referendum as quickly as possible, and by means that are in the British national interest, and not in the interests of the European Union.
This is the go in hard approach. Repeal the 1972 European Communities Act with a short 2 page bill a sample of which he gives in Appendix I (Note: The actual bill was 107 pages), before you do anything else. This would create such a diplomatic fracture I doubt there would be any negotiations this century. He really is as dim as a Toc H lamp which puts him in the same category as Bill Cash.
On the negotiating objectives:
HM Government should make an offer the EU cannot refuse – or which it would be very foolish to refuse. It should offer continued tariff-free trade to the EU – just without the freedom of movement of people. This offer can be made in ten minutes, and agreed in an afternoon.
Oh my God! How stupid can you get?
On German car makers and French Wine producers:
The largest tariffs on non-EU goods are motor cars (9.9%), and agricultural produce averaging 15%. If these were applied to the UK this would adversely affect German car manufacturers and French wine growers. In such an event, the producers of these products are likely to prevail directly on their governments, and the EU, to reach an accommodation with Britain on continued tariff-free trade.
This is the David Davis they-need-us-more-than-we-need-them argument. Anyone seen any sign of it happening? No, I thought not.
On rolling over the EU's Free Trade Agreements:
The existing EU trade treaties could be ‘rolled over’ to the UK so that we can continue to trade with these countries on the existing terms. The countries concerned are hardly likely to refuse this since it is to their benefit to continue.
So far we haven't 'rolled' over a single one.
On WTO membership:
When we leave the EU, the government can submit new draft schedules to the WTO that replicate as far as possible our current obligations.
We've tried that and 20 WTO members have objected to splitting the EU Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs) so we now have years of negotiation to go through to get our schedules approved. It won't prevent us trading but it will tie up a lot of resources.
On standards after Brexit:
The argument has been raised that the EU might try to punish Britain by refusing to certify UK goods that satisfy EU product rules under the Mutual Recognition Agreements. However, it does supply certification to other countries such as the USA, China and Japan, and not to do so to Britain would amount to an absolute denial of market access. Outside of the EU the UK could reach an agreement on mutual recognition of standards as other nations have done.
Batten doesn't understand EU law. Mutual Recognition Agreements apply ONLY to EU members. No third country has an MRA. The have Mutual Recognition of Conformity Assessment - something totally different. The EU will never give a MRA to the UK.
On the Irish border:
It doesn't actually mention the Good Friday Agreement at all and there is no reference to how border checks are carried out on goods and animal products although it quite specifically spells out we should leave the single market and the customs union. I assume he, like all the other Brexiteers didn't see it coming and never gave it a thought. Bear in mind this is the major sticking point.
The Common Travel Area is mentioned briefly because he seems more concerned about immigration than anything else (which should tell us something) but I note his Wikipedia entry says, "Batten expressed the view on Twitter that Ireland, "a tiny country that relies on UK for its existence", is "the weakest kid in the playground sucking up to the EU bullies". He advocated the revocation of the Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK."
He is a former BT salesman by the way, with ambitions to be an international statesman, but don't hold your breath for that.
I went to the very end expecting to see scrawled in childish handwriting, sloping down towards the corner Gerard Batten aged 9 - but it's just got a very brief bio of the man himself.
Finally Word of the Day:
batten, noun: - long flat strip of squared timber or metal used to hold something in place or as a fastening against a wall. synonyms: bar, bolt, clamp, rail, shaft;
Sums him up perfectly doesn't it?
