BREXIT Promoting a Better Future for Britain - Better Off Out

BREXIT

Promoting a Better Future for Britain

March 2015

Issue 1

In Conversation with UKIP MEP

Bill Etheridge

Introducing

Britannia Brexit

From the editor

Welcome This is the first edition of our new magazine, “Brexit”. We will be producing a monthly edition for distribution by email to all our supporters. We have lots of features for you in this edition. We are “in conversation with” Bill Etheridge, and in future editions will be meeting others prominent within the Eurosceptic movement. You can read about EU efforts to infiltrate our justice system. You can read about Dan Hannan’s new video. There is a competition to enter. And we are introducing young Britannia Brexit, Britannia’s younger sister. Please feel free to forward this magazine on to anyone you think might be interested. If we are to win the day in our campaign to take Britain out of the European Union we need to convince as many people as possible to our way of thinking. We can’t reach everyone, but with your help we might just make it. We will also be producing a printed edition on a quarterly basis for our members. If you are not already a member, details of how to join can be found on page 8. Finally, this photo of me shown above was taken at the battle monument at Lydford in Devon. In 997 the local Devon militia defeated an invading army of Vikings there. Generations of British people have fought to keep their national freedom. We must not let them down in our current generation. All the best

Rupert Matthews Editor, Brexit Magazine.

Brexit magazine is published and distributed by Better Off Out Ltd of HMS President (1918), Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0HJ. Letters to the Editor and other communications should be sent to the Editor, Rupert Matthews, via [email protected]

Social Media You can find us on social media where you can keep up with all the latest news, views and updates from our HQ.

Better Off Out

@BetterOffOut

About Better Off Out Better Off Out is a cross-party campaign, putting the positive case for the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. The campaign is supported by MPs, MEPs, business leaders, academics and thousands of Britons who believe that Britain would be Better Off Out. The mission of this campaign is to explain why the United Kingdom would be Better Off Out of the European Union and to fight for the UK to regain its freedom and independence from the unelected and unaccountable EU. And, incidentally, we are based on HMS President, which served in World War I as an U-boat hunter armed with guns and depth charges. Rather apt, we think.

Interview

In conversation

General Election would invigorate the Eurosceptic cause as never before. A crushing victory for the establishment pro EU parties would set our cause back many years

with ... Bill Etheridge MEP

Who or what do you think might be the biggest barrier to Britain leaving the eU?

Bill etheridge is UKIP’s member of the european Parliament for the West midlands. He was born locally and is proud of his Black country heritage, relishing the chance to enjoy a roast dinner and pint of Ruby mild when he is not representing his constituents in Brussels. We managed to grab a few words with Bill during a rare break in his hectic schedule. What factors have influenced your views on the european Union?

The only barrier to the UK leaving the EU is the determination of the establishment parties and media to stop the people of our country having a say. I believe the people of the UK are ready to take our sovereignty and our freedom back we just need to stay strong in the face of the inevitable establishment onslaught but I believe we can win our freedom at last. What arguments would you put forward to persuade undecided voters to vote “out” in a referendum?

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I believe the argument is a very straight forward one. We have The number of days one of the worlds largest I am first and foremost a economies. Nations are Bill had been an MEP believer in freedom and desperate to trade with us and democracy. I believe the bigger when we met him in access our relatively wealthy the state, the more powerful the conversation. consumers. We should not be government the less individually afraid of the future as an free we are. The EU is by its nature independent country but embrace the an anti democratic construct which can only opportunities for growth and for our own trade survive by constricting freedom. deals with nations all over the world as well as maintaining a good friendship with our EU neighbours. What challenges or opportunities do you Look to the future as a free and independent see facing the eurosceptic movement over nation standing strong in the world and the next year? confident in our future. We don't need the EU to set our regulations, our laws and our trading The greatest challenge facing the Eurosceptic terms for us. We are perfectly capable of doing movement is the danger of a continued it ourselves. The closer to home the decisions Cameron premiership. He is a lost cause a man are taken, the more accountable the decision who has sold out his party and his country to makers and ultimately the more democratic the EU dream. A large vote for UKIP in the the process.

Interview What role do you see yourself playing over the next year or so in the campaign to get Britain out? I will use my platform as an elected politician to constantly put forward the reasons and ideals behind why I think the UK would be better off out I will also challenge the pro EU nonsense we are constantly force fed by politicians and media

are too great a nation and too proud a people not to have heroic dreams. Lets look to the future with optimism and hope, seizing the chance to be free and to make our country the envy of the world again. How can our readers find you on social media? I'm on Facebook and Twitter.

Why do you believe in Britain? I believe in Britain and the British people. I think it is an honour to be British and whether you were born here or came here later to be British is a great thing. Our country has a very proud past and we must always remember our past achievements but that should not be to the exclusion of an ambitious future, To borrow inspiration from my hero, Ronald Reagan, we

FORTHCOMING EVENTS Freedom in the City with Peter Mullen On Tuesday 21 April Better Off Out will have a stand at the launch of Peter Mullen’s latest book “Once a Priest”. The launch will take place at the upstairs function room of the Counting House pub, 50 Cornhill, City of London. EC3V 3PD. The event is free and you do not need to book a ticket in advance. Just turn up and enjoy!

Freedom Festival North On Saturday 5 September 2015, Better Off Out will be at Freedom Festival North in Harrogate. Organised by our sister organisation, the Freedom Association, Freedom Festival North will allow those who attend a chance to rub shoulders with some of the most inspirational pro-freedom speakers from across the UK, and delegates will be able to play an active part in discussions and debates about the big political, economic and moral issues of the day. There will also be plenty of time to eat, drink, socialise and network with fellow freedom-lovers. Better Off Out staff will be present and we will be hosting at least one session during the day. All of this takes place in the relaxed surroundings of the Best Western Plus Cedar Court Hotel in Harrogate. For more information on the Freedom Festival North go to www.tfa.net and click on “events”.

Activities

Britannia Brexit

MERTHYR TYDFIL STREET STALL

We are delighted to be able to announce a new recruit to our cause: Britannia Brexit.

On Saturday 21st February the Better Off Out Roadshow went to Merthyr Tydfil to spread our You will probably be familiar message of a better future ahead with Britain outside the with young Britty’s elder sister, Britannia. You can see a European Union. We were picture of her on the 50p coin handing out leaflets in High in your pocket. She is a Celtic Street, Swan Street, Castle Street and other busy areas. goddess in origin and has appeared on British coins off and on for some 2,000 years. Now Young Britty has joined our campaign to take Britain out of the EU. You will be seeing her cropping up here and there. We are thrilled to have her on board.

Rory Broomfield, Director of Better Off Out, reported “We had a great reception from the people of Merthyr Tydfil. People were literally coming up to us to take the leaflets out of our hands, and at one point we had a queue of people wanting to give us their details and sign up as supporters of our campaign. Clearly our message that Britain would be “Better Off Out” goes down as well in south Wales as it does anywhere else.” You can sign up as a supporter by going to www.betteroffout.net and clicking on “Get Involved”.

LIMERICK COMPETITION This month our competition is to write a limerick with a Eurosceptic theme. It is entirely up to you what you write and what subject you cover. Please send your entry to the Editor, [email protected], before 30 March 2015. The best entry will win a Union Jack fashion scarf or tie. The winner will be contacted by email. The judges’ decision is final. By sending us your limerick you are giving us permission to use your limerick in our campaigning and for other related purposes. Here are a couple of limericks to get you started. There was an old man from Berlin Who said “They have taken me in, "They said the Euro “was for me and my Frau, “But in fact it’s helped Greeks mired in sin.”

In Brussels commissioners roam, to restaurant, bar room and home, They use all our cash To pay for their bash While we in our anger do moan.

leader over the next six weeks, Better off out will be delivering a quarter of a million leaflets to 25 areas around the UK. The leaflets will highlight three of the most important issues affecting the relationship between Britain and the UK. Here Better off out’s campaign manager Rupert matthews highlights one and argues that the eU should mind its own business. One of the few good things about the Lisbon Treaty - and let’s face it there weren’t many was that it gave Britain the right to opt out of all 135 pre-Lisbon Police and Criminal Justice Measures. In the spring of 2014 Home Secretary Theresa May did exactly that. But then things began to go wrong. It was soon clear that the British government intended to opt back in to most of them. As the summer of 2014 slipped by the arguments over which measures Britain should opt into, and which it should not, gathered force. At times the political debate generated more heat than light, but looking back it is clear that some issues were more important than others.

WHO DO YOU WANT TO CONTROL UK

JUSTICE?

was not allowed any discretion. They could not inspect the evidence, ask for assurances of a fair trial nor even object that the supposed ‘crime’ did not exist. Crucially, the EAW was not restricted to use for terrorism or other major crimes. It can be - and has been - used for almost anything. One poor chap found himself extradited for paying a credit card bill late. Less important issues also got raised. Typical was the EU law making illegal ‘publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes’. This caused problems partly european Arrest Warrant because it was so vaguely worded that it could The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is one of catch a school debating society discussing those classic EU measures that sounds a good historic issues and partly because it sought to impose typically Roman law restrictions on idea, but which has turned out to be anything free speech that are not known in British but. It was introduced in 2004 in the wake of common law. the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York. At the time the EU promised that the EAW was being Most of the fuss, however, centred on the sointroduced only to combat terrorism and other called Armenian Massacres of 1915. Scholarly debate has raged for decades as to how many very serious international crimes that could not be dealt with adequately by a single state. Armenians were killed by the Turkish government and why, but what made the issue The EAW changed the extradition rules so politically charged is that Armenian groups between EU member states so that a court in and the Greek government alleged that the one state could demand, not ask for, the event amounted to a genocide, while Turkey, extradition of a person from another. which has applied to join the EU, refuses to Importantly, the state doing the extraditing

leader European Union generally prefer to be run by a bureaucracy which will, they hope, impose good and effective rules on everyone and so create a modern Utopia. Those of us who want Britain to leave the EU would rather by ruled by our own elected government which, for all its faults, is at least answerable to us. Showdown in Parliament Theresa May put herself on the side of the Utopians who prefer that Britain be ruled from It all came to a head amid scenes of chaos in Parliament in November. The government first Brussels. For me the whole sorry saga was yet another reason why Britain would be Better promised a separate vote on the EAW, then Off Out. refused to hold one claiming ‘procedural issues’. Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, ruled the government motion was valid but termed it “contemptuous”. Labour leapt in to delay the vote until the procedural mess could be sorted out. MPs on all sides were angry, and David Cameron had to cut short the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall to dash back and vote. In all the British government chose to opt back in to 35 measures.

accept that a genocide took place. Greece, of course, wants to keep Turkey out and uses the Armenian issue as just one more pretext. But amid all the political posturing, legitimate historic debate was getting stifled and free speech trampled under foot.

Truth behind the mask Behind the detail of these events lies the basic dispute that lurks behind nearly every argument about the EU: Should Britain subordinate itself to a mighty supranational authority or seek to find bilateral links with other countries? Those who favour British membership of the

Activities

HOW TO JOIN BETTER OFF OUT Better Off Out is a non-party political positive campaign working to take Britain out of the European Union. By joining as an Associate Member you will playing a more active role in working for a better future for Britain. You will also receive: * Printed quarterly magazine via post * Invitations to events, many at discounted prices * Free co-membership with our sister organisation The Freedom Association. To become an Associate Member, send a cheque for £30 to Better Off Out, HMS President, Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0HJ or phone 020 7936 2232 with your credit card details.

Letters to the Editor Note: Letters to the Editor should be sent to [email protected]. Dear Brexit Magazine, As Chief Executive of the Freedom Association, I would like to welcome you to the campaigning community working to take Britain out of the European Union and restore our national independence. This can be a crowded field at times, as the mood in the country and the debate move in our favour, but your arrival as a monthly voice of reason is very welcome indeed. You were kind enough as to let me have sight of this, your first edition, before it went out and I am impressed by the high quality of articles and content. I wish you all the best for the future and would urge your readers to write in with their views and comments, both on the magazine and on the continuing debate as to why Britain would be “Better Off Out”. Yours Simon Richards Cheltenham.

Wrong Then, Wrong Now Dan Hannan MEP, a supporter of Better Off Out, has produced a short video highlighting what people who now support Britain’s membership of the EU said only a few years ago about why Britain should join the Euro currency. It makes for interesting viewing. Go to www.youtube.com then search for “wrong then, wrong now”. Well worth a look!

“Stronger Together” Public Rally The Campaign for an Independent Britain are holding a rally on Saturday 11 April from 2pm to 5pm. There will be speakers from the Bruges Group and Better Off Out as well as others. The rally is being held at The Emmanuel Centre, 9-23 Marsham Street, Westminster, London SW1P 3DW. We hope to see you there.

Feature

THE SCAREMONGERS Global Britain has produced a report that exposes the scare tactics of those who want to keep Britain trapped inside the eU. many of those scare tactics are based on half-truths, misrepresentations and dodgy statistics. co-author of the report, Brian monteith, writes here about his work.

electorate into shutting their minds to the possibility of change and prevent a rational debate taking place. To counter this the business group Global Britain and the grass roots campaigners Democracy Movement have issued a joint report “The Scaremongers” that provides the reasons, facts and figures why the reverse is true. It is staying inside the EU that will put jobs at risk and it is by leaving the EU that the UK will gain more influence on bodies such as the WTO – where its seat is taken by none other than the EU representing all 28 members at once. The arguments are simple but bear repeating so that people begin to dismiss the myths, in summary they are:

Firstly, the EU is more dependent on being able to export to the UK’s highly significant As we approach the general election in May market than we are on selling to the European there will be many old myths revived to try Single Market. This is one of the reasons why and scare the British public into seeing things Brussels would be extremely unlikely to want a certain way. One of the biggest and most to erect trade barriers should we quit, even persistent myths comes from the pro-EU lobby were this legally possible under WTO rules – that claims without continued membership by which it would not be. A trade war along the the UK some three million British jobs could lines Clegg and Miliband suggest would be be lost. illegal.

For example, Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister has repeatedly made the statement that 3m jobs “rely directly” on EU membership and are “dependent” on Britain’s EU membership, modifying it later to 3m jobs being “at risk”. No better is Ed Miliband, the Labour Party leader, who as recently as the 2014 CBI conference stated that 3m British jobs are “connected” to the UK’s EU membership. It is little more than a deceit practised on the British people. It is designed to psychologically intimidate the British

Secondly, the EU is an economically and demographically declining area based on a dated, centralised ‘one size fits all’ model of harmonised law-making that, critically, goes well beyond trading needs. That is because it is a political project to create a political union – not an economic project committed to free trade. The growing regulatory burden, on both our private and public sectors, the increasing demands for financial contributions (now in excess of £21 billion gross), the imposition of expensive energy policies, slow movement on

Activities trade deals and the prospect of the eurozone majority voting as a single bloc in the future all mean Britain’s influence and economic prosperity will be put at risk if we allow ourselves to become subject, increasingly, to EU central economic governance.

those global institutions where the EU represents all the member states collectively. It would make more sense for Britain, like Norway and Switzerland who are both outside the EU, to represent itself at the global level.

British policy makers, members of the Instead, and thirdly, our future economic well- business community and politicians need to being depends on gaining access and selling to stop looking with religious-like intensity through the prism of the European Single the faster-expanding markets that lie beyond the EU. Thanks to the WTO and the explosion Market. Exports to the EU market are of in the number of bilateral free trade deals that declining significance to Britain and that trend have taken place in recent years, there are now is structural not cyclical. We need to re-focus towards the rest of the world so we can secure relatively few impediments to world trade. a prosperous future for our people – that’s 75% of all trade in goods is now tariff free. where jobs lie – anything else is a myth. This is rendering the EU’s post-war era customs union model increasingly obsolete. A clear majority of UK exports – in the ratio of 60/40 – now go to non-EU countries and the gap is growing. Co-author The Scaremongers

Brian Monteith

Contrary to the myth, employment growth could be even stronger if Britain was free to adopt bilateral arrangements of its own, outside membership of the EU, as it could focus on providing a regulatory framework that is appropriate for the UK economy and wider society and which has the democratic consent of the electorate. Britain has no authority to create such advantageous deals until it leaves the EU, meanwhile the EU drags its feet in establishing deals with markets such as China. Fourthly, Britain will gain international influence. A growing percentage of crossborder issues and regulatory requirements are determined now by bodies at the global level through organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the numerous offshoots of the United Nations. At present we have very little influence in Brussels as we only now have 8% of the votes and zero influence on

Outside the Eurozone, Britain has 700,000 fewer workless households than in 2010. think how much better we would be if we left the EU completely. Source: The Conservative Party