I really wish they'd stop this.

I have no idea if the above statistic is true or not. I have no intention of finding out either. I suppose I would start here if I had.

What these bozos haven't worked out is that falls in GDP as a percentage of global GDP applies to all the developed countries ... USA and Japan, primarily because developing countries (like China) are doing what developing countries are supposed to do... developing, which means their percentage share of world GDP is increasing - which means that developed countries percentage must drop.

But I am not going to wade into this debate. All I can do, and am willing to do, is sit back and watch the clowns fight it out, making complete arses of themselves. It doesn't actually produce anything or enhance anybody's understanding of the issues and forces the outsider to flip a coin as to who isn't the biggest dickhead.

In any such contest, that's not one grand larcenist Daniel Hannan is ever going to win. What it does do is provoke mongs of equal or greater magnitude, and no surprises that our friend Job Worth pops up to have a crack at it...

The most this elicits from me and any sane person is "meh". The point is, whether EU trade is 20% or 50%, it is large enough not to neglect and not in our interests to downplay. Our message is that it is entirely possible to leave the EU and maintain access to the single market, if not being actual members of the EEA - so trade and jobs are uinaffected. This is an argument Daniel Hannan himself has used, so why he's even bothering bickering over stats I don't know. He just doesn't think. It's no good setting out a message that we want to maintain good relations with the EU if at the same time we're sending out a vibe that EU trade is so insignificant we can afford to turn our backs on it.

All this kind of campaigning does is create a lot of useless noise that reaches no new ears and bores a lot of people so that they switch off. I suppose in this one instance it's better if Hannan does act as cannon fodder to keep dullards like Jon Worth off my lawn, (I don't have that kind of time to waste) but in terms of advancing our message, it doesn't help at all.

Leave.EU have been told about not playing this idiotic game, yet still they keep their house chimpanzee in charge of their twitter communications, and Vote Leave is busy making all the other classic careless mistakes we have spoken of ad nausaum. It is pointless trying to tell them anything so really unless you are prepared to pitch in, we can't count on any sane voices turning the tide.

There are days when my outlook is most belak, but when all of our bloggers are working in concert toward a specific argument on Twitter, we have shown that we can dominate and leave the main campaigns standing. Today has been one of those good days.

What we have seen is that eventually key campaigners are embarrassed into upping their game, so as much as we need to get our own EU alternatives out there, we also need to keep up the pressure on them. I believe Dominic Cummings has been getting a live fire schooling in how things work on the internet thanks to our team today.

We still need more people, but we're not recruiting anyone who happens to run a blog. We want you on message and we don't want to have to babysit you. You've seen what we produce so you can see we barely have any time for that. We can and will assist as far as we can but we want the best. We can help develop you but you will have to show a serious commitment. Leave the idiots like Hannan to argue the toss of how many camels can pass through the eye of a needle. We have serious work to do and we're not going to get any help.

The EU way is not the only way

One classic and exceedingly tiresome mantra of europhiles is that we need to be part of a large bloc to gain influence at the global level. With caveats, that's actually true. But where does it say we have to be part of the same negotiating bloc every time for every industry sector? Moreover, were is the advantage in doing that? Operating in strict regional blocs puts geographical limitations on things where no such limitations are necessary or desirable.

For this post, I'm going to borrow heavily from this paper outlining modes by which developing nations can increase their influence at the global level. At the WTO, Collective bargaining through coalitions, alliances or regional groups is a key mechanism that countries can use to influence outcomes in multilateral trade negotiations. For developing countries, membership in one or more coalitions can ease the challenges and constraints they face in negotiating and decision-making processes at the WTO, and boost their chance of influencing the agenda and outcomes of WTO negotiations in several ways.

First, coalitions can help countries build negotiating positions and proposals where their understanding of issues might otherwise be weak. By pooling resources, countries can gain greater access to technical assistance, share information, and gather more diplomatic and political intelligence. Second, by working together, the market size and political weight of a group of countries is greater than their individual weight. For instance, cotton producers of the world can easily conspire to compete with any major bloc.

Third, participation in coalitions can expand the prospect of representation of countries in key fora such as the WTO's "Green Rooms" and other small group meetings. Also, by nominating a suitable delegate to represent those groups, their interests can be represented in multiple places.

The Green Room refers to a process, rather than a specific location, in which heads of delegation seek consensus informally under the chairmanship of the Director-General. Ministers meet in a Ministerial Green Room in a bid to help find consensus on agriculture and industrial goods trade, while discussing the best way forward in future negotiations on services, rules and intellectual property. Ministers, ambassadors or senior officials who meet in the Green Room include the co-ordinators of all major groups in the WTO. This representation ensures that all positions, countries and regions, are represented in the negotiations.

Countries sometimes join coalitions simply to ensure that their specific interests are heard by that coalition or to raise their profile with trading partners. This tactic is possible because participation in most coalitions does not bind the member of the groups to that which a representative or other members of the group agree. Where countries seek an outcome to negotiations, the growing use of coalitions can be seen as advantageous because it can help build convergence among the broad WTO membership by facilitating learning and the forging of compromises

Finally, the growing use of coalitions is seen as a strategy for transforming the exclusivity of the WTO's "green room" process. Previously, closed-consultations included only a handful of developing countries on an individual basis. With the expanding role of coalitions, the composition of Green Room has grown such that key players and others relevant groups are more often represented, making for a more transparent, legitimate and effective consultation process.

However, there are guidelines to ensure that such broad representation always occurs (and there are many small group processes within and beyond the Green Rooms where it does not). Further, important systemic obstacles to effective developing country participation still remain and progress in the extent to which countries benefit from participation in small groups has been uneven. For instance, although some coalitions have improved their internal communication strategies and information dissemination, many such mechanisms within coalitions and their process for ensuring accountable representation remain weak. In addition, not all countries are represented equally in or by coalitions, and so still may lack a significant role in relevant debates.

That's where Britain comes in. Free of the EU we can pick and choose our alliances depending on the sector we wish to advance. Any coalition of developing nations that has Britain joining their cause is a bloc that carries weight in its own right. While we are not by any means a large market in the global sense, we have technical, intellectual and financial clout that is impossible to ignore.

On this blog we have spoken at length about the technical barriers to trade that stand in the way of trading with developing nations. Strategic investment partnerships at the global level are the they to opening up new markets, and more are likely to respect the distinct political and social distinctions than EU trade deals. The EU most certainly does not.

Selecting strategic partnerships is a more agile way to conduct trade and allows for concurrent development projects where Britain can act as a sponsor to coalitions of developing countries, and through its own free trade agreements can act as a proxy, helping developing nations gain access to new markets. We have often made reference to how remittances are the most effective means of developing emerging economies and strategic agreements on loosening of borders with partner nations does more for them than direct investment, and the relaxation of formal border controls in this regard actually helps prevent illegal immigration.

Leaving the EU does not mean an end to European cooperation, nor does it mean we would necessarily vote against the EU at the WTO, but independence at the very least gives us the option to protect our interests and do a better job of international development than the EU could ever hope to.

This way of doing things is also not limited to forming alliances with developing nations. There would be nothing stopping us entering alliances with any number of developed nations. Pick any you like. Cooperation on fishing via the NAFO with Norway and Canada gives us equal clout to the EU, and we can have that while perhaps choosing to ally with the EU against Canada on other matters. Opposition does not defacto mean hostility.

Clearly these global mechanisms do require improvement, but that is more likely to happen with Britain acting as an independent agent, and we can show global leadership in reforming WTO processes, and we can make it more fit for purpose ensuring that we get a better deal than the EU negotiating on our behalf every single time. There are plenty such instances where we have more business interests in common with Mexico and Indonesia than Bulgaria or Portugal.

The vision is one of a global forum where everybody gets a say, and alliances can promote global industries, bringing new partners into the fold, increasing their wealth as well as our own. It is a more modern approach than setting boundaries on an arbitrary geographical basis and nobody loses by industrial sectors advancing together rather than the EU walled garden doing its own thing and shutting itself off from the world.

The deal on the table come the 2017 referendum is to be on a tight leash to the eurozone, continuing to have only a partial voice and limited voting powers at the global level, largely because europhiles thinks we lack clout and that the EU is the only game in town. This is demonstrably untrue and a pretty miserable way of looking at things. In fact, as we see the new treaty consolidating power over the eurozone, it is likely that in financial affairs at the global level, our concerns come second to those of the eurozone. Our chances of protecting the City are slim without the leverage of a veto.

On the other hand, we can leave the EU, retain single market access and engage fully at the global level, partnering with anyone we so choose to bring about a global single market and to enhance those emerging markets that can pull Africa out of poverty. When you look at the two visions side by side, there is not contest. Staying in the EU is to turn our noses up at the opportunity of a lifetime, opting for a sub-optimal status quo that sees us gradually losing influence at the top table as the EU seeks to replace delegations of member states wherever the ECJ says it can.

As we have already examine, there is too much at stake to have all the major decisions made by large, ossified blocs and putting the decision making over our key industries into the hands of bodies who do not necessarily share our interests is in every sense dangerous as well as antidemocratic. Big bloc trade deals are yesterdays news. The future is a global market place of independent actors working together of their own free will rather than entire nations being subjugated to the supranational ambitions of an elite cult bent on building the new European empire.

We need to be heard as a voice in our own right, Europe needs us to do that and so does the world. In this we can show global leadership and perhaps shake the EU out of its stagnation in the process. The EU idea is one dating back to the 1920's, it's gone as far as it can and will find itself increasingly at odds with how things are done in the modern world. It's last hurrah was the creation of the Eurozone region, which will soon act as a single global entity, and while we cannot change that, and will have to cooperate with it, there is no compelling reason why we should be on a leash to it and settle for international obscurity.

It's not just a twist of rhetoric to say that europhiles are little Europeans closing themselves off from the world. That is a real and demonstrable mindset. It really is they who are the dinosaurs standing in the way of progress, and it is their paranoid superstitions and lack of faith in humanity that hold us back. David Cameron's offer of permanent subjugation shows a lack of faith in Britain's abilities to shape the world and asks that we settle for second best - to be part of of a globe where Mexico and Norway have a voice, but the world's fifth largest economy does not. Does that sound like a good deal to you? If you ask me, it sucks, and Mr Cameron can keep it.

Embrace diversity - Leave the EU

As promised, this post is a bit of an explainer. It is important that we have our facts right and I thought it was time to clarify a few things. It probably won't clarify anything except for the one point we make repeatedly. It is complex and messy and very easy to get it wrong.

A lot of Brixiteers have the wrong end of the stick when they say Britain has no vote at the WTO. It does. The European Commission negotiates on behalf of the 28 countries of the EU as a single entity and then compels member states to vote for the common EU position.

So then there's the question of how come Cameron has been signing trade deals with China when trade is an exclusive competence of the EU. Well, the short version is Cameron is signing trade deals, not trade agreements. We can make all the deals we like so long as they are inside the parameters defined by the agreements the EU makes on our behalf. Where imports are concerned, we can agree to import something only so long as the EU has agreed that Chinese production standards are recognised.

Eurosceptics carelessly state that outside the EU we'll be free to make trade deals with the rest of the world. It's a hackneyed piece of rhetoric that is not nearly precise enough. What independence means is that we will be able to freely negotiate the terms of trade and will have an independent veto at the WTO.

That said there are distinctions between a veto and a reservation, where Norway might well agree to a measure, conditional on certain opt outs, A measure can go forward but certain aspects will not apply to Norway. Britain has no such right of reservation.

Under these conditions Norway has been able to apply the reservation on trade agreements that all health sector personnel must speak Norwegian. The actual text has it as "Health personnel must speak Norwegian and have passed an examination in certain national topics. Course and examinations are held in the Norwegian language. Foreign examinations giving equivalent competence may be recognised. There are specific conditions relating to the approval of authorised health personnel as specialists within a limited area in the field of health. Information in patient records must as a main rule be written in Norwegian language."

This is not to say that the UK could not secure likewise but would have to go via the EU to achieve it rather than dealing direct. I can't actually say for certain if the UK does have the same opt outs and would welcome reader input on that score, but it's actually besides the point. Here we have a WTO agreement where Norway deals direct and clearly does get what it wants. 

And this is largely the point of Brexit, to have a fairer, faster and more democratic system of world trade rather than having to go through a middleman every single time. And when you're dealing direct, there is a shortened chain of accountability. Large blocs mean the compromises for expediency are often too great, and too much happens without public scrutiny or democratic oversight. 

One such example is the push for common sugar levels in soft drinks - a push headed by the BEUC, a super lobby group made up of NGOs and national lobby groups (instead of governments) from every EEA nation, including Norway. It is this body that submits recommendations and evidence to the WHO, who in turn form global conventions resulting in EU directives or regulation invoking Codex standards. When this comes to fruition, the only time our media will mention it is when it has already been implemented. Much of the process is completely obscured from view.

In reality the europhile claim that Norway has no voting powers on those regulations is really neither here nor there. It is in at the top helping to write the regulations - or at least Norwegian NGOs are. It can use its own powers of "veto" at the debate stage before any recommendations get as far as the WHO let alone the EU. Norway is involved at the WHO level and so it has influence there too.

What's problematic for us is that Europhiles often demand examples of where Norway has used a veto. If only it were that simple. In most cases, things don't even get as far as an official vote if there is a dispute, so if you want to find examples of Norway wielding its influence you have to dig right into the bowels of meetings concerning the most obscure and diverse subjects. The same is true of Britain. In our case, we are represented by "Which?" - who work closely with our own Department of Health.

This dynamic is also true of automotive standards within UNECE, which is a consultative process involving Norway, where again, it's not quite as simple as convening for a vote. Europhiles imagine the process to be much like the EU parliament where drongos sit there pressing buttons all day. That's why simplistic tweets can end up causing headaches. This is a field that requires a certain level of knowledge and a great deal of precision.

To say that we would have a vote at the top table is a nice piece of rhetoric, but how it works depends on which top table, which lobby group, which committee and on what subject. I could spend the entire referendum campaign trying to map the nexus of them, many of them overlapping and still not have moved out of the confines of one single industry. 

So what's the take home point from all this? Quite clearly we see that the EU is not the top table and in fact to have real influence, you need to be fully engaged in all of the respective global forums, some which span well outside just EEA countries, where non-EU states can forge alliances, sometimes following the EU's lead, but at other times moving to block the EU. It is highly fluid and the EU adds another layer of bureaucracy and delay.

The fly in the ointment for us is at the lobby group level. While the EU definitely does want to replace the member states at the UN/WTO level, it does not as yet have an interest in replacing member states or national NGOs from the consultation process - so in fact if we have bad, nannying and invasive regulation it's because we have bad nannying and invasive NGO's, not funded by the EU, but by our own government - or even worse... you, unwittingly.

The likes of Cancer Research can often be found submitting evidence to the WHO with regard to e-cig regulations. Unless you have a particular eye on such charities and NGO's and their position, you have no idea what is being done on your behalf. The obvious question here being to whom are they accountable - and the answer is nobody. To get better regulation there is a great need to reform the consultation process and put NGOs under greater scrutiny.

That begs the question as to whether it would be much different outside of the EU, and I would have to say probably not - or only marginally. Certainly democratising the process of global regulation is ambitious to say the least. So if it makes so little difference, why bother leaving the EU?

Well, turn it around. Why bother having the EU since all it does is delay the process and muddy the waters? The EU will take its lead from its own lobby groups, some of them EU funded, in order to arrive at the common EU position. If a coalition of NGO's and the WHO decide upon a convention that we will always adopt as law, why not do that via a global system that allows us to register reservations? Even our own NGOs have a fairly good idea where the red line is as our representatives are still children of their background. 

The effect of the EU on this process, by removing the right of reservation, is to create that European internal market, stripping away all those niggly little national exceptions, and while that's great in theory, in practice it eradicates all those idiosyncrasies that define our distinct identities, eventually creating a dismal monoculture, but also threatening things like patient safety and road safety - as there are clear cultural differences where convergence has to evolve rather than through force of regulation. 

There will always be strong arguments for regulatory convergence. Why wouldn't we want a European or global standard on labelling of medicine bottles? But these are real world practical examples. Where it gets dangerous is when areas of law are subject to the EU's ideology of creating a single state and a single European demos, where the ends justify the means. That will necessarily mean that reservations demanded for the sake of safety or preservation of valued cultural differences will take second place to the theoretical dream of a European monoculture.

It ignores the basic nuances that because we drive on the left and have narrower roads things will necessarily be different, and what works for most of Europe with its wide boulevards will not work for Shepton Mallet or Ripon. This is how we ended up with much larger lorries than our roads can cope with. We have lower bridges, narrow winding roads - and all of these things make up our heritage and our rural character. Gradually, our distinctiveness will be eroded.

At this point in the post it sounds like I'm about to break into a chorus of Land of Hope and Glory, but actually, identity and culture are still critical to tourism and agriculture is an adjunct to that. Certainly without WTO reservations, Norway wouldn't have agriculture to speak of. And certainly the long stretches of flat and open land in Eastern Europe cannot be regulated in the same way as Cumbria or the Somerset Levels. The flooding of 2014 are a clear example of what happens when remote regulation takes precedence over local knowledge.

Without a means of securing opt outs and reservations we only ever have legal absolutism - a system which all but exterminated small slaughterhouses in the 1990's. All very good for the giant corporates, but not so good for the small producers. When you see a label that says Lincolnshire sausages that no longer means you're buying sausages from Lincolnshire per se. It just means there's a massive rendering plant in Lincolnshire, probably owned by Americans churning out identikit processed foods by the tonne every day. All of our distinctions matter to us and who we are and they are essential to quality of life. 

Admittedly as the pace of globalisation speeds up and populations grow, necessitating larger and faster food production, some traditions will become extinct and progress will erase distinctions, but if we are going to have that global single market, it should be one geared to facilitate faster and better trade where everybody has a voice, and not driven by the paranoid zealotry of those who think Europe should be cleansed of its many identities in order to escape war. As an idea, it's toxic as much as it's complete bollocks. The only reason the EU has lasted this long is because it has successfully deceived its peoples that it is a trade bloc and little more. 

As much as it sounds like lofty and whimsical rhetoric to say we need to go global and we need to embrace globalisation, we actually do need to be thinking about how we can dispense with  the ideas of the last century and open up these global forums so that everybody is speaking on equal terms instead of forming gigantic bullying blocs who compete with each other, Reducing technical regulatory decisions to just a handful of remote powers is actually pretty terrifying.  

Do we really want a single entity making decisions for nearly half a billion people? Is that what we're calling democracy these days? If millions of people can have their landscapes and cultures threatened and even erased because several million more who live thousands of miles away say they must then to me that sounds more like the tyranny of the majority.  

We do not want every last detail of our lives reduced to a decision of bland managerialism. Without our distinctiveness, we are nothing as a species. For an institution that has been ramming diversity down our throats to the point of making it a thought crime to believe otherwise, it seems curiously committed to exterminating all those things that make us diverse. 

I want to keep a Europe where the French smell of garlic and make ponderous cars. I want to keep a Germany that makes bonkers techno and cars for arseholes. I want to keep an Italy that makes disgusting cheeses and bad pop music. I want to keep the Spain that makes awesome lagers and fish pies. I want to keep the Poland that does whatever Poland does so that one day I can go there and find out. I do not want a European monoculture and I think Europe will always be safer if Britain is allowed to be Britain. It's time to start trusting people and celebrating our nations rather than abolishing them. A Europe stripped of its distinctiveness and its democracy is a Europe that most certainly will go to war.   

Cameron has nothing to offer us that we cannot beat

For me, attacking the Remain campaign is more an academic exercise. It's an opportunity to learn and grow my understanding of how things work. In terms of campaigning, it serves very little value. Our success or failure hinges on whether we can can show that what Cameron puts on the table is a sham and that we have a better idea.

In fact, attacking the decoy campaign is just busywork that fills in the lulls in campaigning. The central effort has to be educating the public that there are no negotiations and that Cameron will call whatever he is presented as his great victory. It's actually rather a shame because working out the details of how global trade is done and how the EU works, along with examining the weird pathology of europhiles is far more interesting and a lot more rewarding.

That's the problem though. It's misdirection. The arguments over the respective merits of the EU are going to fall by the wayside and so are the central issues. Ukip had a major woody for the immigration issue over summer, but as predicted it has dropped off the agenda. As much as the media is bored of it and has moved on, the new parliamentary session has filled the airwaves with a different set of fads. A few more political rows like child tax credits and all this summers miserable images of dead foreigners on the beach will be a distant memory and the EU will spend our money to ensure it stays that way in the run up to the election. Moreover, even if this referendum were a question of issues, we would certainly limit our appeal by taking a specific position on a number of contentious issues. Certainly Ukip didn't think it through and nor did Vote Leave.

So really what we have to do is focus on the task at hand which is to undermine Cameron as a credible figure, expose the charade and ensure we have a better alternative to what Cameron is offering. What we can offer is single market access as well as a voice at the top tables. Europhiles say that we want to have our cake and eat it - to have all the benefits of the "EU" without the compromises. Well, put simply, to a large extent we can. We fully admit there is not going to be a bonfire of regulation but we will be in the driving seat where and when it matters.

If we discuss the EU at all in any detail it should be to demonstrate that the EU is merely the middleman, delegating to some pretty useless organisations to produce regulation and that power in the EU has only one direction of travel - upwards and to the centre. As much as it already has taken our vote at the top tables, it will not be satisfied until it has all of them. We can demonstrate why that is a very dangerous place to be. We can also show that those areas where it assumes sole competence it does more harm than good.

But more than that it;s about a competing vision. Our outlook is that global markets are going to require global governance and we cannot wall ourselves off from the world in a self-contained continental bloc and that we have to engage with the bigger and more dynamic global markets. To get the best from the new trading dynamics we need to be in at the top tables making our voice heard, picking those alliances best suited to our needs and protecting our interests where our individuality is threatened.

Now that we've had confirmation of what the EU has in mind for our future, we can see the proposal for what it is. A powergrab from the eurozone states and keeping the rest on a leash, where we will likely take a back seat to the needs of the Euro. That's third rate influence and europhiles are doing us a disservice by saying we can't manage for ourselves at the global level.

Norway;s independence means it has several cooperation agreements with Russia regarding the environment and natural resources, which the EU does not have access to which gives Norway certain leverage. There is no reason why we cannot pick our our alliances too. Certainly the EU is not building any bridges. There is no reason why the UK could not use independence to act as a broker. A long standing British tradition.

We must call out the europhile hypocrites. They say it's terrible for us to be like Norway as they have no vote at the EU level - yet somehow it's perfectly fine for Britain, the world's fifth largest economy, not to have an independent vote at the top tables where global trade rules are made. This is a bizarro logical inconsistency that they must explain. It's a simple choice - Cameron's bogus new deal which looks pretty much the same as the old one, or we can have all the benefits of an open Europe without being shut out from the global forum.

Being as objective as I can, I cannot see any advantage to being on a leash to the eurozone and Cameron is going to try and sell us the idea that this is somehow an improvement. Are we going to let him?

Y'don't say!

In the Daily Mail today we see the first real hint that somebody in the legacy media gets what is happening.

As part of their cynical strategy to keep Britain in the EU, Mandelson and Osborne want the referendum to be held at the last possible moment. The vote will not take place until 2017 — most likely in autumn. And crucially, Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission President, will by then have set in motion a series of treaty changes for the next stage of integration as the EU develops into a superstate. 

These changes, foreshadowed in the so-called Five Presidents Report last June, are central to the Mandelson/Osborne masterplan. The report envisages yet further integration among 19 countries in the single currency eurozone, binding them so tightly (financially, socially and politically) that, in effect, the eurozone will become a single country. Not being signed up to the euro, Britain will not be part of this group and will be given a so-called ‘escape clause’, freeing us from any further moves towards closer union. It is vital to stress the importance of these developments.

It means that David Cameron will be armed with powerful weapons to argue for Britain’s continued membership of the EU, even if he fails to win the concessions for Britain that he has said he aims to achieve. He will be able to argue, very plausibly, that EU membership gives the UK the best of both worlds: that is, we remain part of the wider European trading area, while escaping the onerous burdens of membership of a new European superstate. 

What’s more, the Europhiles will be helped by Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is expected to give her blessing to Britain having ‘associate status’. The Yes camp — with Osborne and Mandelson plotting behind the scenes — are convinced that all this will convince the majority of the British people to vote to remain in the EU. Also, they expect the No campaign to be destabilised by these apparent concessions to the British people. In any case, they scent divisions in the ‘Leave’ camp, with some wanting to quit the EU at all costs, while others are prepared to remain if reforms are achieved.

This of course is not news to readers of this blog or EUreferendum.com. We have been writing about this for months. You would also have heard me on LBC two weeks ago saying exactly this. We are well prepared for these predicted events so there will be plenty of material for Dominic Cummings to steal without crediting the authors. I suppose that gives him more time to squirrel away campaign funds with his chum Matthew Elliott.

We still need you

In a certain context, the kippers have half a point when they say I'm over-intellectualising. Debates on the British Influence Facebook page lead to all the key points being lost on most europhiles because it is so abstract to their wholly two dimensional perceptions of how global trade works that it;s largely pearls before swine. I have to explain the basic syntaxes before I can begin to argue the point. Then once I have explained the basics, they continue to argue with me from the position of ignorance, using terms they have only just been equipped with. This is when you're dealing with zealots.

Certainly, arguing the finer points of UNECE voting protocols is more an object of academic curiosity than productive public debate. The only reason I bother having such arguments is firstly to test the opposition and secondly to refine my own knowledge when they ask questions to which I have no answers. In this game knowledge is credibility.

It ought to be easy to outsmart europhiles because I have yet to meet one who can argue honestly and when they are defeated in debate, they fall back on the familiar and tired mantras. In the final analysis, their entire case rests on mantras, platitudes, falsehoods and deception.

The problem we have is that some very prestigious people and institutions knowingly repeat such wilful distortions and won't argue on our territory because they know full well how badly they will lose the argument. Thus we must conclude that while knowledge is paramount in order to win the intellectual argument, we must also attack the prestige of individuals and institutions who speak in the EU's favour.

Certainly the Vote Leave campaign does only a half decent job in demonstrating that all those making dire prognostications for Brexit are those same people who promised the same if we did not join the Euro. I question the effectiveness of thsoi though. The battle to "keep the pound" was a long time ago, people do not remember the political conditions of the time and to most it is ancient history. Our side fighting on those grounds feels a bit like crowing over distant accomplishments - which makes eurosceptics look like what they mostly are - political hasbeens. Britain is not going to join the Euro, we have won that battle, it isn't topical and it's boring. The very last thing we want to do is bore people. When I see such memes on Twitter I just think "big fat meh".

If we are to discredit people, it means we have to address the issues and arguments of the present and in all ways question their political judgement. The problem our side has is that none of the people on our side could be trusted to run the country and while the opposition are marginally worse, they are the people who actually do run the country. Such prestige is not easily overcome and I seriously doubt that can be achieved by tacky Twitter memes.

This is again why coordinatated teamwork is essential to decapitating prestige. Real life concerns related to paying the bills prevented me from being part of the effort to take down Mark Carney and his political intervention which shows why we need more bloggers and tweeters working to a particular brief. I'm giving it all I've got and then some, but there is only so much an individual can do.

In this regard we are badly let down by the Vote Leave campaign in that there has been no effort to engage a grassroots online movement and train them with a strategy. When it's run by thieves who are so aloof that they barely check their own emails it's not surprising they would neglect to form an online strategy. This is why I am repeating my plea for more bloggers to come forward. If you are already planning on pitching in, then we also need you to be recruiting from within your own online constituency.

While the more complex arguments are pearls before swine, we still need to be making sure our own people are informed and in full command of the various arguments. It means we have to be precise and have our facts right down to the letter. The Elliot operation will continue to make careless mistakes so it will fall to us to mop up after them, using any communication channel we can access.

The referendum is not going to be won on the basis of whether we can block market access to dangerous Chinese automobiles but when we argue such things and argue that europhiles are inward looking dinosaurs, there must be substance behind the rhetoric. Some way, some how, the public will get word of whether we have the intellectual goods in order to vote our way. Ukip's election failure is clear evidence of this. It may have won a substantial protest vote but a great many kippers would be first to admit that Ukip utterly failed to secure the confidence of voters on the basis of their intellectual message. They are now an object of ridicule, losing votes and members at every contest.

The bottom line is that we need to be clear, decisive, consistent and credible. Cheap memeography may well get the retweets, but such idle slacktivism is not going to reach any new ears and it is only going to satisfy those who are already persuaded. We are going to need credible content, strong arguments and topical material. This is going to require coordination, message discipline and meticulous attention to detail.

Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliot think this can be won with a casual slapdash approach, chucking up billboards on the cheap and pocketing the difference. That is not going to be enough. If we want to win, we shall have to craft our own campaign and just hope that Vote Leave won't undermine our efforts too much. In that we have the advantage in that we run a round the clock operation and do not clock off at weekends. Unlike Matthew Elliott, we don't have campaign funds to spend on a weekend jolly.

A bizarre coincidence?

Vote Leave - all at sixes and sevens

Here follows an extract from Vote Leave's newsletter...

“We will be publishing a lot of work over the next few weeks about how we can have a better UK-EU relationship. For example, there are important arguments concerning regulation that we will address soon. Vote Leave is not 'a campaign to scrap regulations'. The arguments concerning regulation are more complex than the media suggests. Further, they have changed over the past 15 years as the global regulatory system has evolved. Many 'EU regulations' actually come from global bodies. An important argument for leaving the EU is that we would then regain our ability to influence global discussions about global rules at the global level. There are good arguments for having some common global standards, e.g. the modular, standardised shipping container system has been a huge success. As the global economy integrates and becomes more interdependent, there will be more global rules and platforms. This strengthens the argument for Britain engaging at the global level rather than confining itself to the parochial meeting rooms of Brussels”

So Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliott are quite happy to steal ideas and take credit for them while trousering the cash. That's all very well in that we are not in it for the money and winning the referendum is our primary concern, but you can imagine how it sticks in the craw that we do this work on a budget of nothing while toiling in obscurity, being attacked from all sides.

These are the people who along with Daniel Hannan have conspired to silence this blog and muzzle eureferendum.com. A devious pair of thieves they are.

Meanwhile, I'm sure I won't be the only person to note the inherent inconsistency when Business for Elliott's campaign "leader" is saying the precise opposite to the above. This will become ever more evident as they continue to bleat about the nine shillings and sixpence per household leaving the EU might save (as illustrated on their pisspoor website) and the usual crap about controlling our borders. That's what happens when you don't have a Brexit plan or a strategy. Curiously though, that is what Cummings is paid for. Perhaps he should resign and let somebody competent do the job.

The China problem

How well I remember the 2008 credit boom. Everything was plentiful and cheap. Our markets were flooded with cheap Chinese goods from DVD's, portable stereos to lawnmowers. Most of which were crap and will now reside in a landfill somewhere, probably back in China. We got ourselves heavily indebted to by useless junk that we didn't need and didn't work very well either.

I remember well the petrol lawnmower I bought. Just pulling the starter cord ripped out most of the workings and the cast chassis cracked within two months. So to do I remember 1995 when our markets were opened to cheap and lethal Chinese fireworks. As a budding teenage pyromaniac and vandal, I was delighted!

That is not to say all cheap Chinese imports are bad, but those europhiles who want to exalt the virtues of the EU-China trade agreements cannot then do likewise for supposed EU safety regulations and its environmental record. In fact in any instance, the EUs environmental record, excluding the wasteful Chinese trade triangle, is abysmal.

While we supposedly have CE markings you know from your own experience that just about any piece of plastic tat from China is now permitted to carry one, and its value has gradually been eroded over the years. As to Chinese automotive safety... fuhgeddaboudit!!

It's not as bad as it was as China has recently started a New Car Assessment Program, C-NCAP, with standards that will allegedly soon match those of Europe. That's Europe, not the EU. That's because the standards are made and set by UNECE. Only through regulatory convergence will China be allowed to export its cars to the EEA.

But as with the CE mark, there are growing concerns that China may do likewise with C-NCAP. While we are broadly supportive of the idea of a global single market, we are extremely wary of that process happening without our voice at the top table - as is happening while we are in the EU.

UNECE standards are based on a wide consultative consensus on vehicle safety issues between the government, industry and consumers, calling in expertise from all the major Western academic institutions. CATARC which runs C-NCAP on the other hand, is a government-affiliated institute and operates largely in secret - and obviously in a foreign language which takes it out of the Western sphere of transparency. Grumble about the EU all you like but transparency is one thing in its favour. Everything I have pieced together in my own cumbersome way has been by referring directly to EU documentation. We're certainly not going to get it from our media - so as ever, we must turn to the blogs.

Chinese Automotive blogger ChinaAutoWeb has some serious concerns about C-NCAP asking if the system is a scam purely to gain access to European markets. "The program lacks neutrality and fairness due to its for-profit activities. For those automakers who choose to pay for the crash tests of their own models, the program routinely selects as test cars models of top trim levels, which come with more safety features, even if those models are rare on the market."

"Compared with NCAP tests in other parts of the world, the tests C-NCAP carries out are often insufficient, less strict, and based on compromised requirements. C-NCAP administers three tests: frontal of 100% and 40% overlap and side impact, omitting pedestrian protection, rear impact, and side impact pole tests. And it usually crashes cars at a lower speed than other NCAPs, opting for 50km/h in the frontal test–compared with 64km/h in Europe, Australia and Latin America, and 56km/h in the US. What’s more, a model can get credits for many extra-test factors, such as how many airbags it has, whether the seatbelt reminders are installed, and the way it gives out these extra credits often seems non-consistent and arbitrary." Alarming stuff.

As we have noted on this blog trade doesn't really happen between nations and blocs anymore. Opening our markets is no longer about agreements to drop tariffs between nations because they are minuscule anyway. Trade deals now are all about removal of technical barriers to trade - ie regulatory convergence. In this dynamic, the talks for a Mutual Recognition Agreement with the Chinese automotive industry will take place between UNECE and CATARC. In this, because its a trade matter the EU has exclusivity so it can force us to vote for the agreement even if we don't want it - and I can think of several reasons why we wouldn't.

The inherent risks there are that we could be forced into a MRA with China, and we open our markets to cheap and unsafe cars because the EU says so. Outside of the EU, like Norway, we would have a veto at the UNECE level. That's real influence. Being subjugated by the EU is dangerous. Since the new trading dynamics is inter regulatory agency mergers and MRAs, we need to be at the top table with our own voice and our own veto to protect our own standards and where necessary protect those industries that are strategic national assets.

Europhiles ask "Is it better to step back and let the big countries set all the rules?" - whereas I ask what could possibly worse that having two massive global regulatory agencies setting the rules without having a voice in that? As antidemocratic as that is, what it usually means is big money talks at the top and we end up allowing cheap and dangerous imports. Europhiles need to set out in detail why that is a good thing. Again, the advantages are lost on me.

Don't get your hopes up. We're staying in the EU.

I suppose now that the idiot Dominic Cummings has decided to ignore the expert advice of eureferendum.com, and lying in the process by saying Matthew Elliott would not be an active campaign player, I suppose our chances of leaving the EU now are nil. If Lord Lawson's witless prattle is the best they've got then we are going to lose two-to-one as some predicted. If deregulation is what they're going with then we have lost the credibility we needed to win.

Not only is deregulation highly implausible, and in many respects undesirable, to say that we will depart from single market rules means that we have lost the ability to reassure the public. Our side is sending out mixed signals and a wholly incoherent message. That's what happens when you don't have a plan and no message discipline.

I have said just recently that the job we have instead is to ensure the loss is not as severe so we can at least keep the movement alive after the referendum. That may not now be possible - and it might be our fault.

As much as we have criticised Ukip for not having a Brexit plan, and wasting so many years, I am starting to think it's our fault for not doing Flexcit sooner. We saw all this coming and it is all unfolding precisely as we predicted, with a lame duck leave campaign that is little better than Ukip. Given the time it takes to get our message out from our obscure little corner of the internet, we should have acted long before now.

We are now seeing kippers latching on to our work, having had no intellectual leadership from their own party or the main campaign, and predictably, they are getting it wrong. We haven't factored in the time it will take for them to get it right. They're saying stupid things like "Britain doesn't have a seat at the WTO". We have never said this, and now we're getting flack as if we had said it because of Kippers. We have said something that could be interpreted that way but as with everything we do there is a small but important distinction to make. I'm going to run a series of explainers during the week that should clarify this.

The truth be known, we needed Flexcit years ago and we needed to be a lot more prepared than we are now. It was always going to be that the scummy SW1 set would hijack the Leave campaign, and it was always a safe bet that Ukip would take their moronic bleating to an entirely new level of stupidity. Going into this unprepared means that despite our best efforts with our small team of bloggers, we will still lose by a massive margin. We totally deserve it too.

Kipppers want to blame eureferendum.com for overcomplicating things and confusing people. We've been told oh-so-many times that we are over intellectualising and that we have to dumb it down for their benefit. Actually it's all very simple once we explain it. It's just that kippers don't want to engage in anything that doesn't speak to their various preconceived bigotries. God forbid they should actually have to think about what they are saying and coordinate a coherent message. We are, however, flattered that they recognise our influence.

While we do not have the presence of any of the big campaigns, it is interesting to note that the entire edifice of the Remain campaign is focussed on the the Norway Option specifically - because it is we who work round the clock, never taking a day off to ensure that our solution is THE solutions on the lips of every serious Leaver. No big budget campaign can rival the power of ideas in the hands of a committed few.

We don't get the hits because kippers have conspired to ignore us, and the SW1 crowd are too busy stuffing their wallets with campaign cash to notice anything we have said, but the Norway Option is the one proposition that frightens the Remain camp because it exposes the global governance they would prefer was hidden from view. It exposes the EU as a redundant middleman and a taker of law, not a maker of it. More than that, the Norway Option has multiple fallback positions in that the option is part of the leaving process, not the destination in itself. They haven't seen this coming yet.

Even though the new EU treaty proposal takes the Norway Option off the table, the debate still lodges the globalisation argument. We have anticipated the game plan of the real opposition - David Cameron, who will attempt to sell us the new EU treaty proposal as a reformed EU, in which he has supposedly insisted on certain concessions. The validity of this claim will be the real referendum debate. It doesn't take much to reframe the argument in that there is still global law making process outside of the EU and we are not a full participant while we are members of the EU. It will be a choice between EU subjugation or global engagement.

By this point, the kippers will have no idea to what I am referring, because they have spent all this time grunting about foreigners, but you who I am speaking to know full well the potency of the globalisation argument - and that's what we have to run with however "complicated" the part timers think it is. If you've used our arguments in a live fire environment then you already know how well it works.

You might ask why I'm even bothering since I am so convinced the Leave campaign is going to screw the pooch for us. It's a good question I've been asking myself a lot lately. Ultimately, the two year long debate gives us the opportunity to raise the profile of global governance. We may not be leaving the EU this time around, but the loss will kill the eurosceptic movement stone dead. It will be disarmed and discredited. That's a good thing.

The thirty year old arguments that don't work will be flushed down the toilet. From the ashes will rise a new breed of Leaver, armed with the knowledge that the EU is seeking to replace the nation state in the global governance mechanisms in all those places where it hasn't already. A movement decoupled from the dinosaurs whinging about bent bananas and dark skinned Muslim folks could well succeed where eurosceptics have failed. If we were to win this time around, we needed to have realised this much sooner.

But the bottom line is I never walk away from a fight. We are throwing everything we have at this and we still need you to get the job done. We have a very short time to re-educate Leavers and at the very least get them to ignore the main campaigns and Ukip. It's down to us now and we're not going to get any help from anyone. I still need more bloggers. We have a few good ones lined up and ready but we need more, and we need you to be up to date, and up to scratch.

Meanwhile, I will be working on a new campaign website that contains condensed versions of the Flexcit arguments and much of what you have seen on this blog. I'm doing it on a very limited budget and I'm going to struggle to make it as slick as Leave.EU, but we live by the rule that content is king - and by that measure I can make the promise that when I am ready to launch, it will be the best.

It may be that Arron Banks wakes up and gets in the game. There is still a dialogue going on there and we may yet support their efforts, but on current form, Leave.EU is a non-starter. We don't have time to waste and have to assume the worst because thus far, we have not been wrong about our gloomier predictions. Even though we are going to lose, this is still a fight worth fighting.

Lord Lawson is a bloody fool

"Richard North & EUreferendum are likely to bamboozle and confuse undecideds with long winded egotistical waffle and lose us the EU Referendum." tweets a Kipper.

That's actually kipperspeak for "we'd rather just grunt about foreigners than engage in anything more complex". That said, we would be the first to admit that our writing is longwinded and it does bamboozle. It certainly bamboozles us just trying to figure it all out. But we have figured it out, and it is the job of an effective campaign to communicate what we have learned as simply as possible rather than retreating to the comfort zone of hackneyed eurosceptic memes. 

We could not have been any clearer that winning the intellectual argument for Brexit is paramount and simplistic arguments are not going to reach any new ears. Winning hinges on having a credible message and ditching the traditional eurosceptic baggage. You can win over the core vote with it but the media will be looking to scrutinise our arguments closely. If it is shown that our arguments are built on a house of intellectual sand then we're going to lose hands down. 

One such example of that scrutiny is Oliver Kamm in The Times today. Kamm is often wrong about a great many things but on this, he is no fool. He writes:

Economists refer to a “trilemma” in international finance. Ideally, a country would want three things in finance: stability, access to international markets and sovereignty. Yet these are incompatible. In practice, it’s possible to have two of these options, but not all three.

If we chose national sovereignty, there would be be a trade-off in reducing financial stability. Conceivably, that would be a price worth paying. Here, though, is a cautionary tale of the unanticipated consequences of regulation. Among the reasons for London’s importance as a centre for eurobonds — debt instruments denominated in a currency other than that of the country in which they’re issued — was differences in national regulations. An onerous regulation called Q introduced in the United States in the 1960s limited the interest that could be paid on time deposits. This meant that US residents had an incentive to keep dollars outside the country. The resulting demand led to the creation of a thriving business in eurodollar deposits. Borrowers and lenders welcomed the ability to trade under a lighter regulatory regime. The City has been glad of the business ever since.

That’s the best argument I can make for national sovereignty in financial services. It’s not very good. Or, rather, it might apply to a smaller financial centre that wants to specialise in particular sectors. EU regulation on alternative investments — the business of hedge funds — has had more than a hint of panic and overkill. Because hedge funds are so mobile, they might conceivably flock to London from Geneva if Britain were outside the EU.

However, a global financial centre like London doesn’t operate in the same way. If it sought to create a competitive advantage through deliberately light regulation, it would cease to have the benefit of access to cross-border finance. EU countries would argue that Britain’s financial sector was a threat to stability and so would reduce the access of British banks to their markets.

Markets that have big financial sectors relative to the rest of their economy increasingly emphasise tough regulation. If anything, the Bank of England has been tougher on regulation than is required under the Basel accords on bank capital. If Britain were outside the EU, there would be no tearing up of bank regulations. Nor should there be.

This is exactly what we have been saying. There is an obvious case for a common regulatory framework and full sovereignty is a concept that exists only in the imaginations of the uninformed. Sovereignty on such issues is an issue that plagues all the nations of the world and not just the EU states as they all struggle to reconcile the globalisation process. As an argument the case for deregulation just doesn't fly. First off are the questions of what would you deregulate and how? Those are serious questions that require serious answers that few on our side are equipped to answer convincingly. The consequences of doing so are unimaginable.

Central to winning the referendum is reassuring the public and the opinion formers that Brexit would not cause significant disruptions, which is why we have maintained we would stay in the single market and continue to abide by the rules. The real reason to leave the EU is that the rules are not made by the EU. They are the product of global conventions and to have real influence there, we need to maintain our presence at the global level. The EU demonstrates today that it has every intention of replacing member states at that level. That is what a decent campaign would be spending its efforts on communicating - however complex that may seem. 

But a decent campaign is precisely what we don't have. Business For Elliot's (B4E) "Vote to Leave" campaign is making the flawed deregulation argument without the slightest clue of what that entails with no thought as to how it will be received by opinion formers. Yesterday morning on Radio 4, B4E spokesman, Lord Lawson, was making those same facile arguments without any mention of the international dynamic - and in one thoughtless brainfart managed to undo the reassurance argument. He was clearly speaking on autopilot, trotting out the same tedious and careless mantras. 

As we have noted recently, the SW1 crowd have hijacked the campaign with the main ambition of making a lot of money and will do so by minimising overheads. That means expending zero effort on researching and communicating an effective campaign message - and because the kippers lack any kind of message discipline and have given no thought to their core message, they will obligingly repeat and retweet. It shows that the Brexit argument is based on anything more than a petulant whinge without a credible alternative or a plan. This has certainly not gone unnoted by The Times.  

An effective campaign would have a plan and a strategy and would have briefed their key spokesmen not not make such careless arguments. But this they have not done. Kippers might then wonder why I am openly hostile to them when they bring their clueless snivelling to me on Twitter, saying we should fall into line and applaud like clapping seals to a message that most certainly will lose the referendum. The essence of their complaint about us at EUreferendum is that it's most inconsiderate of us to write things that tax their tiny brains that require a modicum of effort. 

It's not very sporting of us to say that we have been badly let down by the likes of Elliot and Ukip, and our speaking outside of their comfort zone embarrasses them. What they are essentially saying is that they are happier just whinging and promoting the same tired old eurosceptic tropes. Winning is not on their agenda. 

I am the first to admit that communicating our message is not going to be easy. Richard North and I speak daily, discussing how we can get this message out with a budget of zero, while being actively undermined by a campaign that does not know what it is doing - and has given no thought to strategy or message. It seems impossible now. This last week, both of us have been tempted to walk away from it completely. Christ alone knows why we haven't. I think the kippers would prefer it if we did, which is as good a reason as any not to. We will continue to hold up their mirror so they can see their own ignorance in its full glory. 

A fast track to international obscurity

I was just remarking the other day how little relevance the Guardian had to anything you might call grown up politics. The same can also be said of The Daily Telegraph. There was a time when I would buy the print version for the morning train ride to Harrogate, but even if smartphones had not been invented, I still wouldn't part with money for one. In fact, I was just offered a free copy at my local shop and declined the offer. They can't give it away. I can get Telegraph content for free by bypassing the view limit paywall and I still don't bother with it.

More than that, since I was persuaded a couple of years ago to take up Twitter, I have not looked back. Twitter serves as my new bulletin board where I learn of events about the same time they do, if not before, and have an array of good bloggers to consult for analysis. I'm not nearly as up to date on Middle East affairs as I would like to be, but I will go to Kyle Orton on Twitter before I consult any of the muppets like Con Coughlin at the Telegraph. Who needs them?

My morning internet routine now bypasses the "news" papers altogether now and the only site I really go directly to is Euractiv.com which seems to be the place to go for grown up relevant news these days. Ultimately, it's a question of news priorities. If you recognise that the EU is the supreme government of Europe then that is where our attention must go. Since this is an epiphany our local London based media has not yet had, there is no reason to include their witless musings in the online public debate.

You could point with neon signs to what is actually happening and still they continue to pontificate from their position of ignorance, untainted by news from the real world. We had Phillip Hammond, Foreign Secretary on Radio 4 admitting plain as day that any negotiated agreement for EU reform would come in the shape of a binding commitment to write such reforms into a future EU treaty - thus admitting there is in fact no renegotiation of existing treaties and no such negotiation presently underway. That will not stop either Radio 4 or the Telegraph pontificating on negotiations that exist only in their imaginations.

And then we have this report from Euractiv this morning, drawing our attention to a move by Juncker to create a single seat for the eurozone in the International Monetary Fund - a controversial idea that has been put aside for many years. I urge you to read the whole article and the notes beneath. That's what you call keeping people informed. What is not mentioned is that this move will likely coincide with the new EU treaty, to which Cameron's bogus "reforrms" will be appended.

This is very much the EU's modus operandi - salami slicing at the global presence of member states, and Eurozone membership is a fast track ticket to international oblivion. It seeks to speak on our behalf as the supreme government - and while it's the IMF this time around, how long before it makes a move on turning its observer status on other international bodies into a consolidated presence with its own vote?

You couldn't have any clearer indications as to what the future EU is going to look like and what its own ambitions are - and just how sealed Britain's fate is in all this unless we leave. Subjugated to the eurozone until such a time as we can be erased. One by one, the EU will assume supremacy over competences until Britain is voiceless on the global stage. Second tier in Europe, third rate in the world. Europhiles need to be clear on why this is a good thing for Britain. It escapes me completely.

To whom are they accountable?

According to Euractiv, The EU paid up to six times too much for fish under its flagship ‘fishing partnership agreements’, a new report by the Court of Auditors found Tuesday (20 October). They also accuse the European Commission of failing to ensure there was enough reliable data on the programmes - which affect developing nations around the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic and the Pacific - to ensure a new policy that fish stocks there were truly replenishable and sustainable. In the worst example, the EU paid six times too much for tuna in its partnership with Mozambique, due to over-optimistic calculations about the likely haul.

Whilst not accusing any of the partners of fraud, the Luxembourg-based Court, which monitors and evaluates EU spending, concludes that “the real cost paid was frequently higher than the price negotiated". The discrepancy comes because the EU pays partners in the developing world a fixed sum in advance for fishing rights, based on previous catch quotas.
But, in fact, those quotas were often wildly optimistic, auditors found, leaving the EU to pay the fixed level set in advance, even when actual catch came in way below expectations.

Even worse, under the Fisheries Partnership Agreements (FPAs), the EU was left to pay extra if the total catch exceeds that in the agreement, but there was no ‘claw-back’ mechanism if the haul falls below expectations - as in the case of Mozambique and elsewhere.

Not for the first time has the EU made a cod's ear of global fisheries. Any keen EU watcher knows full well how EU management of fishing quotas has utterly decimated the West African coastal economies, which is in part a contributory factor to the Ebola outbreak as civil society has broken down.

As to actually preserving tuna fish, again it is founding wanting. Just recently we've been looking at EU regulations and how the technical law making is inherited from further up the global chain, but the same is also true of EU council decisions, which are an often overlooked area of EU law. In one such decision pertaining to the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Senegal we are unsurprised by what we find.

The aim of the Protocol is to grant fishing opportunities to European Union vessels in Senegalese waters taking into account available scientific assessments, in particular those of the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF), and in accordance with the best scientific advice and the recommendations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The EU delegates to ICCAT having no inherent expertise of its own.

Again, we ask what the EU is actually for? Evidently it is not very good at trade and if we are going to delegate to international organisations then the UK has proven itself perfectly capable and willing in that regard. Why not cut out the middleman?

But then there's a much greater concern here. To whom are these international organisations accountable? The ICCAT's own record in preserving Tuna stocks is so bad that even the WWF, one if it's transnational bedfellows, has publicly condemned it. A panel hired by the commission to review itself actually said that the commission’s management, particularly of bluefin tuna, “is widely regarded as an international disgrace and the international community which has entrusted the management of this iconic species to ICCAT deserve better performance from ICCAT than it has received to date.”

It seems to me that if we actually care about fishing then we need to have our own voice at the global level, not only for undoing some of the damage of the CFP, but to prevent the EU and it's careless delegations from wrecking the seas of Africa and the Atlantic. The EU and the international community has proven incapable of securing good deals for us and has manifestly failed in preserving fish stocks. It's bad for the seas and it bad for us. Unless we leave, they will rape the seas to extinction while ripping us off in the process.

Rule 34...

Rule 34 is an internet adage in the "Rules of the Internet" list of protocols and conventions which asserts that if something exists, there is porn for it. Nothing you can conceive of has not been corrupted. The same is also true of global regulation. To test this thesis I have happened upon a new game similar to "I spy".

Pick any object at random in the home or the office or out and about in the streets and you will find regulation for it. Just looking at my audio monitors in front of me on my desk and I can find at least two directly related sets of regulations. And as with all regulations I've looked at so far, I'm now struggling to find a single one that is not somehow the product of the international regulatory machine. From electrical safety standards to electromagnetic shielding through to energy efficiency, there's a raft of regulation that every day products must comply with.

That much is not going to be news to readers of this blog, and every day the case that the EU is is a redundant taker of law rather than a maker of it grows stronger. Even broader EU directives instructing governments to form laws of their own do so in accordance with international conventions and global industrial standards. Once you start digging for this dynamic you start to find it everywhere.

What this underscores for me is the simplest response to the europhile assertion that Norway has no say in the making of EU rules is simply to ask why it would want a say at that level? With a veto of its own, it can steer the lawmaking process long before it is handed to the bottom feeders in the European Parliament.

There is a vast machine of regulation making rules for just about everything globally, where non EU states are well ahead of the curve in implementing them. Even third world countries are ahead in some respects as they are very much the plaything of the sustainable development agreements and conventions.

I think I've been making the "top table" arguments for going on two years now, trailing in the wake of www.eureferendum.com, but only now am I beginning to grasp the scale and complexity and the power and scope of the global machine - and its significance in the globalisation process. As it happens, other eurosceptics picking up on this field of study are getting it a little bit wrong, but I actually don't blame them. It's difficult to piece together and what is sometimes true is not always true as the associations and alliances are fluid depending on the subject area - and how badly the EU wants control over it.

Moreover, if people are even dimly aware of what's going on then they are well ahead of the curve and certainly better informed than any europhile I have thus far crossed swords with. Howsoever, when time permits, I will be looking to detail some of these distinctions as we have made a big deal of our side getting our facts right. That's not easy either. Of what is available we find most reference material on the subject is either samples of academic tract, obscure press releases and international studies textbooks starting at some pretty eyewatering prices. While this stuff is notionally in the public domain, it is still very much a specialist area - and hardly surprising it does not feature in the vistas of our infantile media.

Once you've grasped the significance of inter-agency alliances (and corporate lobbying within) and how those can outpace the expansion of the EU internal market and aspirational agreements like TTIP, you see a whole other world open up where the EU is a bit player, struggling to keep pace, and excluded under the weight of its own bureaucratic inertia.

Certainly the smug, self-satisfied europhiles who scoff at this most provable thesis have proven themselves to be the the inward looking and parochial ones when it comes to a global outlook. We will see them go into full denial mode as more and more Leavers pick up this thread and start exploring it further. The one consistent quality the Remains all have in common is their willingness to lie - and lie they will. Nothing is a greater threat to their walled garden Europe ideal because the truth reveals it is built on foundations of intellectual sand.

While I still expect to lose the forthcoming referendum through the incompetence of the lead campaign I still think this will be a landmark event, when the old guard eurosceptic movement dies off to make way for the new globalists who will oppose the EU on the basis of what the EU stands in the way of - a global single market and real free trade.

As we remain shackled to the EU as a second tier member it will become apparent that we're relegated to third rate influence, excluded from the global community and stifled within the EU. The next time our membership of the EU is up for debate, if we have lodged into the public consciousness just how much the EU obscures the real agenda from view, then this will not have been a total waste.

Not even scratching the surface...

A new CEBR report projects that giving British firms greater access to "European" markets in energy, transport and digital services, combined with new global trade deals, could add £58 billion a year to the UK economy by 2030 – that’s nearly £1,000 per person, claims "British Influence".  

"could add", they say. But actually they are just guessing. They have no idea. Moreover, they have no idea how long it would take to complete, or even whether it would succeed. How long have TTIP negotiations been going on now? And while it may pass eventually it will be a shadow of its former self.

Curiously, on the first day of my new job I'm looking at a project centred around an emerging trade consortium initiative headed by Royal Mail dealing specifically with access to Chinese markets. The precise nature of the project I am not at liberty to discuss in any detail, however, it has opened up a few new lines of enquiry.

Some of what I'm looking at pertains to intellectual property which is absolutely a competence of those global entities we've spoken of in recent weeks. While not a new dynamic at all, I'm bumping into more and more examples of inter-regulatory agency pacts that bring us much closer to a global single market.

One such example is this one from 2008 between WIPO and ARIPO. The World Intellectual Property Organization and the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on October 2, 2008 in Geneva, to strengthen and expand cooperation between the two organizations. The MOU covers traditional areas of cooperation relating to capacity building, as well as a special project to boost ARIPO’s patent information capacity.

Pretty mundane stuff. But this is the engine of globalisation. Similarly dry is the HKTDC/WIPO memorandum of understanding on green technology innovations. The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) signed an MOU on 10 April, 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland. Through the strategic partnership, the HKTDC and WIPO will jointly promote the trading of intellectual property via their respective online marketplaces, the Asia IP Exchange (AsiaIPEX) and WIPO Green. With the signing, WIPO Green becomes the 23rd partner of the HKTDC’s AsiaIPEX.

Like we say, the world is creating a single regulatory area of its own with more and more pacts between non-state actors, unbundling various concerns from intellectual property rights to renewable technologies. It's a more agile and dynamic approach that the EU's big bang approach. Every moment we are in the EU we are missing out on that while we wait for the stodgy old EU to creak into gear. I don't think we can afford to wait.

Just one MOU between China and any one of the many non-state actors or consortia can bring entire ranges of products onto the Chinese market. Tmall, China's answer to Amazon (and a magnitude larger in scale) has a potential market over six hundred million people. In terms of market access, this is unrivalled.

This is of course, a superficial analysis as much is covered under the China EU cooperation agreement and this progresses step by step in much the same vein, but when all eyes are on the likes of TTIP, there is a whole strata of global trade going on under the radar of our media and our political machine, without the slightest understanding of the seismic shifts in global trade where the nation state and the supranational bloc is being usurped by inter-organisational pacts. Were it not for the day job I could get quite carried away exploring this. One thing is abundantly clear - the EU is not the be all and end all of trade, and the Brexit debate isn't even scratching the surface.