Our old friend John Longworth has popped up again. He is viscerally and certifiably anti-EU and would happily see the channel tunnel blocked, a Trump-like wall built down the east coast and the word European banned altogether. Nothing of value ever came from the continent according to him. He is seriously disturbed and tweeted the other day suggesting EU rules were actively working against us in the battle to stop the coronavirus pandemic.
Here it is:
He got quite a backlash with many people claiming every word was a lie.Many of the measures we have taken re COVID 19 are not permitted by the EU - border control, state aid including tax, removal of precautionary principle re drugs and equipment. Plus the EU is financially a busted flush now. Thank goodness for Brexit— John Longworth (@john4brexit) March 29, 2020
A Reader in International Dispute Resolution at King's Law School, Holger Hestermeyer tweeted a response, demolishing all of Longworth's claims. The EU have already approved our business bail out packages "under the State aid Temporary Framework to support the economy in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak adopted by the Commission on 19 March 2020."
And he points out we never joined Schengen so we have always been able to control our own borders anyway. Notwithstanding this, even the Schengen countries are reinstating temporary border controls in some cases, with EU approval.
Finally, on the precautionary principle, something Longworth has had a bee in his bonnet about for years, Hestermeyer points out we are in the transition period anyway and still applying EU law in full. Brexit has made no difference whatsoever.
As for the EU being a busted flush, words like kettle, pot and black spring to mind.
Let's not forget that Longworth announced his new 'think tank' recently called The Centre for Brexit Policy (CBP) and this is the sort of thing which it will be pumping out. A press release on March 21st claims that coronavirus will 'transform Brexit negotiations' because the pandemic will trigger a crisis in the Eurozone. This 'crisis' has been forecast by Brexiteers more or less weekly since the Euro was launched twenty years ago. It's a bit like the warnings in 1955 that the European Community wouldn't and couldn't succeed.
Longworth is a dangerous man.
You might also want to take a look at the Fellows who belong to the CBP. Fruitcakes one and all.
Richard Tice isn't among them, although he would probably be welcomed. He tweeted on Monday that the Chinese are selling us contaminated ventilators. The tweet has been deleted but several people captured a screenshot as you can see here:
When will Richard Tice and his LeaveEU cronies stop being racist? Is that even possible? How low can this man go? pic.twitter.com/ETW8GPnGC4— Bee Positive #YellowRose (@BeaumontBee) March 30, 2020
It's hard to know who Tice wants to trade with. The list of countries he hasn't insulted at one time or another gets smaller and smaller.
Coronavirus
The latest figures came out yesterday and show a big leap in the daily mortality at 381. New cases rose by 3009 and the number of tests has gone up to 8,243. We are still approaching the peak.
I also note the BBC carries a report this morning about the business support measures announced by Sunak the week before last. It seems as usual that what was widely welcomed initially is not quite as good as it sounded at the time. How often have we heard that? If government announcements were subject to advertising standards they would never be out of court.
Andy Verity, the BBC's Economics correspondent, says a fifth of small and medium sized businesses will run out of cash because they're unlikely to benefit from the unprecedented support offered by the government. This could mean 800,000 businesses going under.
There are going to be a lot of disappointed employees very soon who thought their jobs were safe only to discover they aren't.
