A bogus choice

Very often us in the Leave camp struggle to determine whether it's media bias or simply structural ignorance when it comes to the Brexit debate. Any time this issue makes it as far as the mainstream media it is couched between the establishment and the inane gruntings of Ukip. There is no attempt on the part of the media to expand the debate beyond light entertainment, and we start to wonder if they are even aware there are other dimensions to it.

Perhaps the media have collectively decided that the best bet for staying in the EU is to give Farage all the airtime he could possibly want. It was always the favourite tactic of the BBC to present the very worst spokesmen for the No side in 1975.

If Farage had any self awareness at all he would go into hiding for the next two years. Having failed to secure more than 14% of the vote, there is a goodly chance that the more he speaks the more severely we will lose a referendum. Of course, kippers might ask who else I would nominate to speak on the matter. That's a seriously good question.

Newsnight last week showed us that Own Paterson isn't up to the job because he cannot commit himself to an exit plan, thus he must speak guardedly around selective arguments - and sadly, he's the closest there is to an informed MP.

The bottom line is that the Leave campaign hasn't got any good spokesmen. The closest there is to a capable spokesman in the mainstream sphere is Daniel Hannan, whose lack of strategic ability has him all over the shop, undermining his own arguments every time he speaks. Opinion formers will be looking closely for inconsistency and both Hannan and Farage are a goldmine of contradiction. Ultimately the mainstream campaign is a write off. Our only saving grace is that the Remain campaign are equally stupid and equally loathsome. 

Hopes are fading that the main campaigns will shape up and there are some very serious questions about the motivations and the competence of Vote Leave Ltd. As far as it goes LeaveHQ.com and out team of bloggers are only ones even remotely on the ball and we are completely ignored by the media. We have to face facts that this referendum is just a plaything to fill airtime for our media. You could tell them exactly what was happening in reality but they would reset to factory defaults within moments. Any message they do not want to hear shall not be heard.

In that regard, the establishment has closed ranks to freeze out the people. If you're not in the gilded circles or the right London gang, you don't get a look in. Thus this will be a stolen referendum where our voices are not heard. While they will say from a procedural perspective that we had a free and fair referendum, there is nothing fair about this, and that's why when we lose, this issue will not die. While the media controls the agenda and the flow of ideas the public will remain in the dark. That is distinctly unfair.

In the final analysis, it is those producers in the media who know little about anything who assume that their viewers and listeners know even less than they do who dumb down and cheapen the debate. Perhaps it is not wilful bias like the BBC, but it is grossly distorting and it is a cancer on our democracy.

Getting there...

A lot of my work from the last six months will form the basis of blog content for the main campaign website we have just released. When I set it all out logically on the site it makes me realise that we do have a pretty solid intellectual product and the resource to argue the points in ways that no other outfit can. If we had even a fraction of the budgets the main players have, we could win this.

We don't expect it to make a big splash in terms of broad appeal, but that was never our intent. It's pitched at a wholly different audience aimed at broadening the appeal of the message and setting out a progressive case for brexit.

I fully intend to feature all of our bloggers on it. I'm presently working on a sidebar and will be making a point of referencing our bloggers instead of mainstream legacy media sites. I'm hoping it will be at the centre of a feedback loop where your content becomes our content and vice versa.

I still have a few technical bits of tinkering to do behind the scenes and for some reason this sidebar refuses to work. I'm fighting some unfamiliar code with a headcold which I am unwisely nursing with a bottle of Glenlivet. Though even as it stands I think we have a pretty good site and it will improve as we add more resource to it. Again, suggestions and requests are most welcome.

The style of the blog will be a little less verbose than this one and I will try to keep the points concise and link to external sources rather than my long rambling essays. At some point soon I will, sadly, have to step down and do dayjob stuff so I will be recycling content from here and other places. We're certainly not short on pieces about Norway. What I do suggest though is that we start phasing the terminology over to The UNECE Option. That will take a little coordination on our part to make sure people understand what we are talking about.

Ultimately, our job is to raise the standard of debate among Leavers. The base is easily secured by the activities of Leave.EU but our mission to reach new ears remains the same. We have to win the intellectual battle and ensure we have a credible message and a workable alternative to the EU. As we saw from last week's Newsnight car crash, the establishment Tory campaign is not going to do us any favours and they won't attack their own. We shall have to force their hand in upping their game. We now have the tools and we can set the agenda. Let's go rattle their cages. 

LeaveHQ.com

I could ask until I'm blue in the face for input. Only when a project goes live does the criticism come in thick and fast. Thus I am using such a dynamic to my advantage.

We have seen the Vote Leave Ltd website which is a bog standard template site with some boilerplate eurosceptic tract tacked onto it. We are not impressed. We have also seen Leave.EU, which is a good deal more sophisticated but is let down by second rate content and an ill-focussed campaign.

Clearly there is a gap in the market for a campaign resource site and that is what the Referendum Planning Group seeks to provide. Over the last few days I've been building LeaveHQ.com.

Eagle eyed Brexiteers will see straight of the bat that I have used exactly the same Bootstrap base template as Leave.EU for no other reason than it is a good platform from which to start. Content is king.

I am the editor of the website and will control the content, but unlike either of the main campaigns I see this process as a dialogue between our group and you the reader. Not only will constructive and polite criticism be welcomed, it will be acted upon or at least debated. First off, the Home screen needs to be a bit more than flat text and I am aware there are some aesthetic adjustments that need looking at which is why I am keeping this launch low key. I very much welcome suggestions. When we are satisfied we have a product worthy of making a noise about, we will coordinate on Twitter and go large with it.

The main campaign websites give the reader very little incentive to make repeat visits and are only concerned with linking to mainstream media sources. We are not concerned with mainstream media. Their content is worthless, their facts are wrong and we do not allow them to set our agenda. The gossip of the SW1 bubble is not our concern. Our campaign is a dialogue of the people, by the people and we take leadership from no-one. The agenda is ours to set.

For the time being, I don't need you to retweet this post and send it far and wide. This is an appeal to the readers I already have for their valued input and assistance. Meanwhile if any of you techies have any suggestions as to optimising the website, I am also happy to listen. I have never claimed to be the world's best web developer. Ultimately, I see this website as your website. I am your servant to command. It can be better, but you are the missing element.

The EU: Claims Vs Reality

There are a number of central claims to the Remain campaign. In this article we examine them one by one. Their claims just don't stack up.

"Around 3.5 million British jobs are directly linked to British membership of the European Union’s single market – 1 in 10 British jobs."

We're not sure this is quite right. We think it's closer to five million jobs that depend on free trade as part of the single market, and may be substantially more. But all anybody can do is guess. But really it's dishonest to say that these jobs depend on the EU. The EU is not the single market. We would retain single market access were we to leave the EU. No government would find it politically possible to close our markets, and the EU would have similar difficulties. It's in nobodies interests.

"The EU negotiates trade agreements with the rest of the world. Outside the EU Britain would have to renegotiate trade deals alone. While the EU is the world’s largest market, a UK outside the EU would not be a high priority for other counties to negotiate a trade deal."

This is dishonesty on stilts. Plenty of countries have free trade deals with powers like China. Moreover, we would not have to renegotiate trade deals alone. We can use the EU's own trade deals as members of the single market, but we may also choose alliances and coalitions at the WTO level to secure better terms. Brexit means we get to choose who we trade with and on what terms.

In recent years we have seen a departure of the US automotive industry to Mexico which trumps the US on free trade. Mexico has agreements with 45 countries, meaning low tariffs for exporting cars globally and favourable deals on the import of components, for which both the US and the EU have protectionist barriers. Mexico achieved this through a by a process of separate agreements, unbundled rather than the type of big bang deals the EU prefers. That is the new model of global trade. The EU does things the old way.

"British families enjoy lower mobile phone roaming charges, lower credit card fees, cheaper flights and proper compensation when flights are delayed or cancelled. These sorts of benefits could not be achieved by Britain alone."

Central to our case for leaving is that much of what we assume to be EU benefits are actually agreements at the global level. It's certainly no coincidence that Africa and China have recently dropped their roaming charges. It stems from a convention agreed at through the OECD. If anything the EU has caused significant delay to its implementation. Moreover, the level is in the detail. Often the EU waters down global agreements and environmental protections. We believe we should be dealing direct at the top table rather than going through the EU middleman. Here the EU is dishonestly taking the credit for a global revolution.

"Through commonly agreed EU standards, national Governments have achieved improvements to the quality of air, rivers and beaches. Good for Britain and good for Britons holidaying or living abroad!"

Most of these standards are agreed at the global level by the WHO, UNEP and major British NGOs. They are then adopted by the EU verbatim. All the EU does is either water them down or delay them. Some of these measures are actually counter productive or inferior to our own standards. Outside the EU we would have an independent veto at the global level. We need a stronger voice at the top table to make sure we get the right results for our unique island.

"The EU has taken on multinational giants like Microsoft, Samsung and Toshiba for unfair competition. The UK would not be able to do this alone."

They are right when they say the UK could not do this alone. But as we shift to a more globalised world, with a global single market emerging with truly multinational corporates enjoying the agility of global trade, even the EU cannot act alone. This is why, like roaming charges, there is a need for global cooperation. In terms of unfair practices, we need a much stronger role at the WTO. Soon we will see an OECD convention on tax avoidance. The EU can clamp down all it likes within its own borders, but in a global marketplace, we need full intergovernmental cooperation. Britain would obviously play a part in that.   

"Freedom to work and study abroad – and easy travel"

There is a broad spectrum of opinion on freedom of movement. On the whole we see it as a good thing albeit requiring a bit of an overhaul. As participants in the European single market we will probably keep open borders. Brexit will, however, give us the freedom to initiate reforms to the global asylum rules that tarnish the principle of free movement.

"The EU has helped secure peace among previously warring western European nations. It helped to consolidate democracy in Spain, Portugal, Greece and former Soviet bloc countries and helped preserve peace in the Balkans since the end of the Balkans War. With the UN it now plays a leading role in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and democracy building."

We think NATO can take more credit for keeping the peace. As for "consolidating democracy", it's a meaningless expression from an institution that is itself not a democracy. What the action in Libya showed us is that the EU is incapable of reaching agreement on a common foreign policy and could not obtain consent from Germany to bomb Libya. Thus the EU diplomatic machine was acting without a full EU mandate, while the military action was the result of intergovernmentalism under the NATO flag. We'll leave it to you to decide if that was a good idea. The point is, the EU could not reach agreement on military action - and probably never will. In this regard pooling of sovereignty leads to procrastination, self delusion and delay while people die. Britain is a much more effective global actor when working independently through the UN securing allies from around the world.

"Equal pay for men and women is enshrined in EU law, as are bans on discrimination by age, race or sexual orientation. This benefits Britain and British people who live in other EU countries."

We would argue that again the EU is a redundant middleman as far as this goes. Much of the work in this regard is carried out by the International Labour Organisation at the global level. Most of the EU regulations and human rights provisions mention ILO conventions and rules by name. In most instances, the EU is a law taker, not a law maker. We think Britain should be dealing direct. The EU likes to take credit for this work as our media is only dimly aware of the international dimension, but in reality is causes delays as the EU struggles to reach a common position. The law we implement is much weaker as a result of compromises. 

"As 28 democracies, and as the world’s biggest market, we are strong when we work together.
Britain is represented in many international organisations in joint EU delegations – giving Britain more influence than it would have alone. The EU has played a major role in climate, world trade and development."

They say the EU is the world's biggest market. But it's not going to stay that way. And really when you look at how trade is developing, the world is the world's biggest market! In a global marketplace, it's far better if countries with common interests can meet at a time of their choosing to remove tariffs and technical barriers to trade. A large body like the EU often dictates the terms and the timescales, often electing to push through big bang trade deals while the rest of the world progresses with one small deal, a sector at a time. That means any emerging industry that isn't at the top of the EU's own agenda loses out.

As a major technological and intellectual innovator, Britain needs to be taking a leading role on the global stage, convening meetings of those nations and non-state actors who have an interest in nurturing emerging economies and new ideas. We're not able to do that in the EU. Britain is better off freely choosing its alliances and coalitions - and it's always going to be more democratic if Britain has an independent vote at the top tables.

"Common rules for the common market make it unnecessary to have 28 sets of national regulations".

The assumption here is that only those 28 nations have a common set of rules. This is not true. Most of the regulations are made by global bodies, most notable, the ILO, the IMO and UNECE. There are sectors where there is a global single market emerging with over a hundred countries using the same regulatory frameworks. We would prefer that Britain was an independent actor at the top tables adding its considerable expertise to the process - and we want that process to be directly accountable to our own parliament. With the EU signing accords and conventions on our behalf, it is making decisions for nearly half a billion people. Even with the best intentions, the European Parliament could never truly protect the interests of all its peoples. The global regulatory precess is nowhere near democratic enough, and the EU is the chief obstacle to democracy in this regard.

"The UK is the second largest beneficiary of EU research funds, and the British Government expects future EU research funding to constitute a vital source of income for our world-leading universities and companies."

Try as we might, we have no idea why EU advocates seem to think Brexit means the end of all international cooperation. If anything, leaving the EU marks a new dawn in intergovernmentalism. The EU's research programmes are extensive and make a huge contribution but they are used as a means of strong-arming members into surrendering certain controls over their own affairs. It is our view that this prevents such cooperation from moving forward and expanding and really we should be looking at a global system that looks beyond the confines of the EU. Not forgetting of course that when the EU says it pays our universities - it's not lost on any of us that it is in fact our own money.

Conclusion

In conclusion we can see that the europhile case is built on the lie that the EU is the single market, and that Britain is weak and can't survive without surrendering it right to self-government. The case for the EU also seems to depend of obscuring the globalisation dynamic from view.

EU advocates seem to be predominantly inward looking on little Europe, seemingly unaware of globalisation. It is a myopic vision locked in the ideology of yesteryear and seems to ignore the last thirty years of technological progress that has seen developing nations bursting into the global market. Trade is global and so is regulation and we need new and more transparent institutions in light of that. Europhiles want their "European Community". We want a global community and a community of equals that works on cooperation, not subjugation.

Presently, our voice is silenced by the EU. At best we have 1/28th of a voice and only 1.2 MEPs per million people. Europhiles would call that democracy - but any system where the voice of over sixty million people can be overruled cannot by definition be democracy. Voting rituals alone don't make a democracy and when the voices of so many are drowned out, that peace the EU claims to keep will not last.

This referendum is a chance to correct a historical mistake and to retake our place in the world as a true democracy. One way or another we will eventually leave the EU. This referendum is an opportunity to do it peacefully, amicably and without disastrous repercussions. 

Lite blogging

I am stricken with the lurgy and there are times when it's best to unplug. This is one of them. The Vote Leave campaign has essentially sided with the PM on the Norway Option and now my inbox is full of bilge I don't have the strength to indulge. For my own sanity I am going to unplug for a couple of days to work on a new campaign website. It's almost finished and in fact would be finished if I didn't have to manually replicate the SQL database behind it.

We've seen the Vote Leave Ltd website and we're not impressed and though Leave.EU is competent web design, the content just isn't up to scratch. We live by two rules. Where design is concerned, less is more and ultimately, content is king. The new website will embody those principles and more to the point; will give the reader a reason to revisit.

Unlike Leave.EU and Vote Leave Ltd, we are not conceding the ground on the Norway Option and we're going to come back at them hard. Meanwhile, our operation is running on fresh air. If you fancy doing something useful, please do head on over to www.eureferendum.com and hit the donate button. I can make the best website in the world but without backing to promote it, we will struggle to get the message out. If we want to win, we cannot afford to let the self-appointed SW1 crowd hijack this referendum.

British influence?

Today I've been looking into various medical sector regulations and directives, again with the intention of demonstrating that the EU is a law taker, not a law maker. What we find is several strands of law, some which are readily replicated on a global basis, others... not so much.

For instance when it comes to standardisation of codes, procedures, equipment and terminology, it falls very much into the usual trade dynamics, where there are several mutual recognition agreements with countries around the world under the aegis of ISBT128. In that regard there is a semi-functioning global single market.

When it comes to ethics, practices, treatments and rights - fuhgeddaboudit! The likelihood of an ethical convergence between the USA and anybody at all is somewhere around nil. The Americans are staunch defenders of doing things their way. It's not surprising TTIP has stalled as many times as it has.

Meanwhile, the likelihood of convergence between Africa, Europe and Arabia are also fairly slim. Even within Europe we find several registered opt outs to global conventions and treaties. There are guiding principles forged by the WHO which are not binding but very much form the blueprint for new treaties.

Where rights are concerned we find they arrive in Europe as Council of Europe treaties, which is notationally intergovernmentalism. The Council of Europe is not an EU institution. In such efforts to bring about ever more precise human rights, we find than nation states can and do refuse to ratify such agreements. At other times they will sign but have the right of reservation and may list procedural opt outs.

There is actually nothing wrong with that in principle. Except of course that the EU is its own legal entity at the Council of Europe and may also ratify such treaties over the heads of member states. Thus while the non-signatories are not bound by the treaty provisions, the EU is bound by them and the EU makes directives to which the member states are bound - Another example of the democracy by-pass. So you might ask, what's the actual point of the Council of Europe ratification process if we end up obeying anyway? The answer... none at all.

Norway Option is still a go

Blowing our chances

Dominic Cummings and Vote Leave wussed out of a very winnable fight against the PM yesterday. They conceded the ground like the snivelling cowards they are, afraid to confront the PM on his most blatant lies. This is mostly because Dominic Cummings isn't intellectually equipped to understand such a things as a strategy and instead left the goal wide open for Lying Lucy Thomas to ask roughly the same questions we would ask. Which fictional free trade agreement is this Dom? Is there a real world example outside the realms of your imagination?

The real matter of course is that Cummings is a Tory after all - and breaking ranks and running a proper campaign would have meant calling the PM and liar and undermining his credibility. You won't catch one of the Tory inner circle doing that. Fortunately, we Norths will because we never back down and we've always hated Toryboys. They are cowards and they are not to be trusted. Meanwhile Leave.EU, as we see above, has fallen into the trap too.

So really, it looks like it is as we always thought it would be. We're left to make the running with the only Brexit plan worth talking about and the best team of bloggers on Twitter. Cummings doesn't own the space and nobody sane watches Newsnight so who honestly cares what the part timers say?

As we have noted about a billion times, it doesn't matter that the Norway Option is sub-optimal because it is a stepping stone as part of the Brexit process - thus none of the petty complaints really apply. It still offers the best reassurances that will likely secure a win vote. So what if the not yet official leave campaign can't get their tiny brains round it. We'll just take a leaf out of British Influence's book and carry on as if they'd never said a word. They ignore us, we can ignore them.

As for the europhiles, they'll say Vote Leave has disowned the Norway Option. Our reply is that they have not received the nomination, they are not the lead campaign and they are every bit a one man band as Ukip. The voice of Vote Leave is the voice of Dominic Cummings, nobody elected him, and he speaks only for himself. We couldn't give a tinkers damn what they say. Nothing they have even touches Flexcit.

As for the morons who retweet their memes, they're just noise and they're not the votes that matter. Our mission is still the same - to reach those voters an airheaded campaign like Vote Leave never could in a billion years of trying.

Cameron shafts himself

David Cameron says the Norway Option won't work for Britain. The Europhile view is that it would put Britain on the fringes of Europe without any real say. Yet when Mr Cameron presents his "reforms" he will offer us "associate membership" where we have more or less the same relationship with the EU, but as a second tier member, excluded from policy making that affects the eurozone, subject to all the rules of the EU with only a partial voice where we can be outvoted - and frequently are.

On the other hand, we can have the EEA\Efta Norway Option and have full single market access along with a veto over the rules, a full voice and an independent vote at the top table, and a chance to influence the rules before they are handed down to the EU.

If Cameron is saying the Norway Option is bad for Britain, it is for him to demonstrate why permanent subjugation and gradual removal from the international bodies that make the rules is somehow better. Of the two options on the table, I know which one I would choose.

We don't want to be globalisation's bitch

I am going to put this as simply as I possibly can. We need to leave the EU. Europhiles say we'd have to obey all the rules even outside of the EU. That's true we do have to obey quite a lot of rules - but the rules are global because there is an emerging global single market. The rules are the product of working groups, lobbyists, corporate trade associations NGOs and to a lesser extent governments.

Only when the rules are decided in the consultation process are they ever put to governments and blocs like the EU, which time most of the negotiating has already been done. When it gets as far as the EU parliament all they can really do is tinker round the edges.

To get the best for our own industries in forging the rules that will be obeyed by Australia, Canada, USA and the EU (to name a few), we need to be in at the top global tables with our own right of veto and an independent vote. The EU is not the top table.

This is a process that has been going on for decades and in the last twenty years has grown massively in size and scope, governing just about everything imaginable. In all the major global forums the EU has observer status and through a process of majority voting decides what the EU position is, and because we are in the EU we are forced to vote for the common EU position with no opt outs or right of reservation.

Supposedly Norway is the country that had no say in the rules, but on every single global forum we find Norway in at the top securing opt outs and negotiating better rules long before they get anywhere near the EU. Norway has a massive energy sector which gives it certain clout, backed by a large academic and industrial pool of expertise. Because it is not aligned with the EU in all matters it has its own agreements that the EU could not secure, not least cooperation agreements with Russia on energy and the environment. If Norway can, so can we.

As members of the EEA, (the single market) Norway has the best of both worlds, having full access to the market while having a much more potent voice at the top table in deciding which rules it will follow. For sure it doesn't have commissioners or MEPs, but really, it has no need of them. It protects its own interests by being fully engaged at the top tables.

Meanwhile, Britain has a muted voice being subjugated by the EU. The EU is very often a major cause of delay in implementing global conventions which means the rest of the world is already enjoying the benefits of global trade accords while the EU drags its heels. As bad as that is, the nso called reformed EU creates a two tier EU where non-Euro member states are pushed into a second tier of the EU and so we are in essence pushed away from the top table within the EU as well as all the global forums making us a third rate power.

They say we need to be part of a large bloc and pool our sovereignty in order to get the best, but in reality pooling our sovereignty translates into procrastination and delay as well as bureaucratic inertia. We don't get the best for Britain and the EU doesn't get the best for Europe as everything is compromised according to the lowest common denominator. Moreover, a bloc that makes majority decisions for nearly half a billion people, often excluding the wishes of entire nations cannot by any measure be considered a democracy even if it notionally has a voting process. Voting rituals do not necessarily constitute democracy.

Moreover, there are other ways to use leverage on the global stage, not least through the use of WTO coalitions and alliances - and when nations with common interests work together they provide a necessary counterweight to the EU's hegemony. There can be little worse than a world where one bloc holds most of the cards.

If we are to secure a global single market then we must be in at the top, shaping it so that everybody is heard and ensuring that those global institutions are transparent and democratic in ways there are presently not. We need a global community of equals cooperating rather than entire blocs being dictated to by a supranational elite. We need nations to be able to freely pick and choose who they cooperate with in whichever sector they please. Nobody benefits from building an iron wall around Europe.

This is the future of global trade and this is what we are presently missing out on. The EU is just a middleman that obscures all this from view, as this blog has gone to considerable lengths to demonstrate, and while we remain subjugated by the EU, an institution with every intention of replacing member states on all international forums, we will gradually be erased from the global stage. We will be globalisation's bitch and completely impotent on the world stage - and then we really will be "obeying all the rules without having a say".

The Norway Option is here to stay

Here follows as short extract from the Vote Leave newsletter.

The Prime Minister is travelling to Iceland today to warn about the dangers of the 'Norway option'. He claims that if the UK left the EU and negotiated a deal like Norway's there would be 'significant downsides'. This is disingenuous. The UK will not need to accept the 'Norway option'. We will be able to get our own deal. David Cameron should stop doing down Britain.

David Cameron wants Vote Leave to commit to the 'Norway option'. We have not and will not. After we Vote Leave, Britain will negotiate our own agreement - we will not just take one off the shelf. Many countries around the world and in Europe have a free trade deal with the EU without being subject to the supremacy of EU law. Britain can do the same.

Here we detect the dead hand of Dominic Cummings. This is ignorance on stilts for reasons outlined here. Only someone speaking from a position of supreme ignorance could assert "Britain will negotiate our own agreement". Easier said than done in the time frame allowed, and fraught with complexity which means all manner of uncertainty and disruption. That alone loses us the referendum as we are not able to specify the likely terms of separation.

By entering the campaign without setting out certain reassurances, the campaign content is left guessing as to what Brexit may or may not achieve, without any coherent message - producing a number of inconsistencies. The Remain campaign will take this apart with great ease.

From a technical and legal perspective, the Norway Option is the only option that could realistically be replicated inside the two year negotiation period under Article 50 which is why we propose it. It offers certain reassurances and guarantees. The model is a proposed as an interim measure in order to ensure continuity of the regulatory framework and access to the single market. Whatever Cummings has in mind can not make any such guarantees and leaves everybody guessing. That's a referendum loser right there.

By adopting the Norway Option we can then set about the process of further disentangling ourselves from the EU. Forty years of integration is not undone so easily thus the Norway Option is the most pragmatic way of doing it. It is sub-optimal, but that's really not the point. That only matters if it is the destination and not a stepping stone in the process. And that really is the point. Brexit is a process, not an event.

Even if the political meme that "Norway has no say in the rules" were true, it would still be the only safe route out of the EU. What it does give us immediately is a vote and a veto at all the top tables where the real regulatory agenda is set. That alone is worth having even if we have to make compromises on various eurosceptic sacred cows for the time being.

Strategically it's a better position to take because when Cameron does present something along the lines of associate membership and promotes it as the best deal for Britain, we get to offer more or less exactly the same but with independent voting rights and a veto on the international stage. The best of both worlds with no uncertainty. 

Failure to adopt the Norway Option as part of the process means the Leave campaign turns down the opportunity of having a debate we can win hands down and to open up a conversation about the influence of global organisations. The Remain campaign is not in the least bit equipped to deal with it, not least because they are barely aware it exists. We on the other hand have years worth of evidence with which to meet their baseless conjecture. 

But no, Cummings has spoken. We are instead going to play guessing games with vague aspirations based on a a whimsical idea of how things work which exists only in the imagination of one Dominic Cummings. What is notable here is the arrogance of the man in dictating the terms of the Leave Campaign. It should be noted that Vote Leave has not yet received the Electoral Commission nomination and he speaks only for himself and a handful of SW1 cronies, none of whom have a mandate from anyone. The Vote Leave campaign does not own the space or set the agenda either. 

In fact since both Leave.EU and Business for Elliott have been mute about the Norway Option, the PM and the europhile outfits are in fact attacking the RPG efforts, in that it is we who are pushing it hard on Twitter while the part timers pump out Twitter memes and the usual eurosceptic tripe. If the Norway Option didn't frighten their horses, why are they throwing so much effort into attacking it?

That said, there is no good reason to care what Cummings thinks or what Vote Leave says. We are here, we are not going away and as far as the internet is concerned, we will continue set the agenda because the others have no intellectual capital, and have thus far shown no leadership in setting out any ideas. They have done nothing to help those who are fighting and winning critical arguments. The kippers have gone AWOL and the part timers who retweet Vote Leave memes in that bovine way are not going to be able to fight the case made by Cummings not least because if he doesn't know what it is, how can anybody else?

Cummings can make all the pronouncements and decrees he likes, but he does not control the message and if he thinks he's we're going to drop everything and follow his lead then he is sorely mistaken. We cannot unite behind a flawed message and certainly not one devised by a treacherous thief like Cummings.

Why should we listen to these people?

The EU is saying it has reduced your roaming charges. Europhiles crow like this is a crowning achievement. For starters it's a little patronising to think we would gladly give up our status as a nation state in exchange for cheaper overseas phonecalls (the main beneficiary of which are MEPs) - but actually it's another example of the EU obscuring the international stage from view. Here we have Safaricom doing exactly the same, almost a year ahead of the EU - and here we find China following suit along with the Gulf States. Now why do you suppose that is? It's almost like the EU doesn't make the rules it implements!

Well, again, it doesn't. This is very much a global convention being put into practice, devised by the OECD and ITU. It could have happened a lot sooner were it not for the delays introduced by the EU.

As with the legislation on plastic carrier bags, the EU has proven it is well behind the curve in implementing global agreements and we could get the benefits of them much sooner while having a much greater say at the global level were we not in the EU.

Again we note that most MEPs are unaware of the global aspect, just as we noted yesterday that our own MPs remain clueless. As we have outlined many times, the EU is a redundant middleman that slows down global progress - and it even has the nerve to even take credit for such achievements. Meanwhile, our elected representatives who genuinely know nothing about it have the audacity to tell us where Britain's interests lie.

All hands to the pumps? Not if we're in the EU.

This is an interesting document. Or at least it's interesting if you are at all interested in the control and management of ship ballast water and sediments.

Since the introduction of steel-hulled vessels around 120 years ago, water has been used as ballast to stabilize vessels at sea. Ballast water is pumped in to maintain safe operating conditions throughout a voyage. This practice reduces stress on the hull, provides transverse stability, improves propulsion and manoeuvrability, and compensates for weight changes in various cargo load levels and due to fuel and water consumption.​

While ballast water is essential for safe and efficient modern shipping operations, it may pose serious ecological, economic and health problems due to the multitude of marine species carried in ships’ ballast water. These include bacteria, microbes, small invertebrates, eggs, cysts and larvae of various species. The transferred species may survive to establish a reproductive population in the host environment, becoming invasive, out-competing native species and multiplying into pest proportions.

Scientists first recognized the signs of an alien species introduction after a mass occurrence of the Asian phytoplankton algae Odontella (Biddulphia sinensis) in the North Sea in 1903. But it was not until the 1970s that the scientific community began reviewing the problem in detail. In the late 1980s, Canada and Australia were among countries experiencing particular problems with invasive species, and they brought their concerns to the attention of IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC).

The problem of invasive species in ships’ ballast water is largely due to the expanded trade and traffic volume over the last few decades and, since the volumes of seaborne trade continue to increase, the problem may not yet have reached its peak yet. The effects in many areas of the world have been devastating. Quantitative data show that the rate of bio-invasions is continuing to increase at an alarming rate and new areas are being invaded all the time.

The spread of invasive species is now recognized as one of the greatest threats to the ecological and the economic well being of the planet. Or so they say. This rather sounds like one of those global problems requiring international regulation. And it very much is. The document linked to above is a submission made on behalf of Intertanko (The international tanker owners trade body) to the International convention on Ballast Water Management.

This is topical because this week is the 2015 Tripartite Meeting Discussions. The meeting was attended by 100 high level representatives of the industry, including chairmen and executives of the Round Table Associations (BIMCO, ICS, Intercargo and INTERTANKO) and OCIMF, IACS with its Class Society Members and CESS with the Shipbuilder Associations. The IMO adopt regular amendments to the Ballast Water Management Convention which is the baseline for all such regulations on the matter.

The regulations pertain to the types of water treatment equipment, the classification of ballast systems and the regions where ballast water can taken and dumped - and the permitted frequency. To give you an idea of the scope and complexity, it's worth a quick flick through the Norwegian sector management regulations and the risk assessments on the various protected species add another layer of complexity. It has many crossovers with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), consulting the EU and the US EPA - and the BWM convention forms the basis of their rules and subsequent regulations. Implementation of it is a deeply political process.

If we look at the specific tract of EU regulations we find that the EU does mentions the convention by name, thus again, any further revisions to the convention will eventually become EU law. So when we hear the meme that Norway doesn't get a vote it doesn't matter. They are involved in the global process along with a dozen other independent countries including Australia, which give rise to the revisions in the first place. 

While it is an international problem that requires an international convention it also requires local management while respecting the needs and requirements of habits, ports and shipping companies. While there are moves to sub aquatic national parks and protected regions, nation states may have their own respective special measures and already adequate protection systems. Norway is one such example, where it has been able to secure exceptions and opt outs according to its own unique needs. Where delicate habitats are concerned, one size most definitely does not fit all.

Now I could spend all day on this post and further expand on the dynamics, but I really urge you to explore the matter for yourself. Many of these organisations are entirely anonymous - and I'll bet they are as alien to you as they are to me. But if we scratch the surface we can see that they are blocs of very large household name corporates and oil companies and NGOs producing vast tracts of regulation independently of national governments.

Only when the regulations are drafted are they presented to blocs like the EU and nations like Norway for political scrutiny. It shows that the EU, as we have already outlined, is a law taker and not a law maker and it delegates the production of technical regulation in precisely the same way everybody else does. 

The notion that the European Parliament adds any substantial scrutiny in committees to such regulation is amusing. Insofar as MEPs and their aides like the technical knowledge, competence and basic sentience to apply themselves to such a task, the majority of the horse trading has been done at the international level.

Certainly those who would criticise Nigel Farage for not turning up to fishing committee meetings have only a limited understanding of how things work. Given how much is already decided, I don't think I would bother turning up either - and you would probably find me sat in a Strasbourg bar as well. (Though not the same one.)

If you want real influence you have to be supporting your own industries, urging them to get into the many trade associations who sit at the top table. That way you get to intercept potentially harmful regulation before it gets anywhere near the European Parliament. Any strata of regulation you care to mention and I can show you Norwegian involvement somewhere in the chain. 

To judge the process by way of who gets a vote and who bothered to turn up to a vote in the EU is a pretty poor judge of the process and it ignores the fact that most of the work has already been achieved by delegations from interested parties. The modifications to Ro-Ro ferry regulations following the Estonia ferry disaster is one such example. 

Of course, that europhiles and sceptics alike are largely ignorant of this entire process gives you an idea of how little the public understands the global dimension to the regulatory process and how much the existence of the EU obscures it from view, as we explored earlier today. In terms of having a seat at the top table, the back rooms meetings of the European Parliament don't come anywhere close. 

The fact that all these organisations exist with barely a mention in the media and are scarcely acknowledged by our political class - and wilfully obscured by EU functionaries - tells you that the global mechanisms of law making, opaque as they are, are not nearly transparent or democratic enough. The presence of the EU parliament in the process is neither here nor there when it comes to actual democracy in the process. The ability to veto and secure exceptions on a national basis is about as good as you can get at the moment and that doesn't happen for us specifically because we are in the EU. 

That is not to say we do not have our own delegations in at the top tables, only that where the issue is a core EU competence, or where the ECJ decides the EU can take over, we are forced to adopt their own position and those EU member states with no interest in the specific a matter can be used to bully us into taking a position that is bad for our maritime sector.

As we have noted, alliances outside the EU are our best defence against being bullied by the EU - and it is very necessary that there is a counterweight globally to the hegemony of the EU. To say that we can wield influence at the heart of the EU by being in a relationship where it can subjugate us at will is an abuse of the English language. 

From critical environmental issues, to maritime safety to working practices and labour markets, from car wing mirrors to sugar levels in food, we are seeing the globalisation of law making and while we are on a leash to the EU we are a second rate power on the global forums. In all respects we are seeing a global convergence of laws on critical matters, and that is no bad thing. But local control and an active role at the top tables is always going to produce the fairest and most democratic results. This is something not even a reformed EU can even give us. 

Everyone is wrong about the "tampon tax"

Because our media don't bother with foreign news, they wouldn't have noticed that both Canada and Australia had the "tampon tax" row back in summer. Those who make reference to it at all will claim that Canada abolished the tax. That is not in fact true. It's a clever piece of accountancy but it remains largely unchanged.

Course The Times along with our political class attribute it to the EU, but a quick glance at Google and we see that there is a long list of countries who apply taxes to that strata of produce which suggests it is very much the product of a global convention.

As far as we can tell it relates to how the materials are classified globally and registered with the WTO. The EU has probably done about as much as it can without escalating it to the classification level (World Customs Organisation - Code 19 IHS). The EU applies the reduced rate of VAT - which is as far as it can go unilaterally.

Once you change the WCO classification you can kill the taxes globally, but given that the material classifications apply to many other products - that won't be an easy task and won't be entirely free of politics. The EU may apply an accountancy trick to make it disappear off the agenda, but we need to turn to the global forums to resolve the issue rather than lobbying the EU to look into it.

Once gain the EU obscures the international dimension from view and it shows that our politicians and our media are not remotely equipped to inform us or make decisions on such matters. They are not endowed with the necessary knowledge to tell us how we should vote come the referendum. In this and all such instances, we should ignore them. Period.

What is Dominic Cummings afraid of?

We now have confirmation that the Vote Leave will not pursue the "Norway option". This is actually neither here noir there in that the group has not secured the electoral commission nomination yet and speaks only for itself. Not only will they not pursue it, Dominic Cummings is militantly against it.

Precisely why the establishment Remain campaigns want us to go down that path I don't know, and who says they do? Suffice to say that one way of the other the Leave campaign is going to have to specify eventually how it envisions our relationship with the EU. When it finally comes to this, having had no coordination in the campaign and having failed to set out a plan, Cummings will find that whatever promises he as made may not be possible, thus undermining all his prior efforts.

Certainly, we can see that the Remain campaign will lie through their teeth in attacking any option we put on the table, so why not go with the most politically realistic one? How well their rhetoric sticks depends entirely on the effectiveness of the Leave campaign.

I would argue that the Remain campaign are making so much noise about the Norway Option specifically because it's the most credible. Certainly it's the argument our team are most confident of winning and are fully prepared to fight. The "Norway has no influence" meme just does not stick whichever way you want to look at it.

It is a matter of legal and technical and historical fact that by any avenue an article of law becomes Norwegian law, Norway has been fully involved in the process, it does secure WTO reservations and it does have a veto.

Europhiles argue that Norway has "never used the veto", and that's largely because it doesn't need to. Measures often do not go to a vote unless there is a consensus in the committee stages. Moreover, Norway is involved in all the regulatory bodies thus ensuring it has a voice in shaping the regulations before it even enters the law making process.

Of course, this is not so easily communicated by way of cheap Twitter memes, specifically because Norway has many different types of vetoes and rights of reservation that are entirely context specific and we'd be here all night if I attempted to explain them.

There are examples of where the EU has pressed ahead with demands and Norway has rolled over. The end of the Efta blocs protectionist measures on alcohol imports is one such example, where Norway eventually caved into market liberalisation. But this all depends on who is in power in Norway at any given time. When it has a europhile party in power, they gladly drop their knickers on the EU's command, and so europhiles can say with some justification that Norway does accept a lot of rules without "having a say".

In supporting their hypothesis, there are any number of authority figures within Norway who would be only too happy to see Norway as part of the EU so will gladly repeat the mantras that Norway accepts laws without being able to block them, but these are the same politicians who wouldn't actually know if blocking such rules is possible because they didn't actually try - and some Norwegians are seriously pissed off about it.

We have written countless articles on Norwegian influence and anywhere you want to look, from sustainable development, human rights to food additives and car wing mirrors, you will see Norway actively engaged, often chairing international conventions. If Norway can, then the UK, the fifth largest economy in the world, most certainly can.

An effective Leave campaign with a decent budget should have no problems whatsoever exposing the pernicious lie that Dominic Cummings is evidently terrified of. Perhaps it's the "decent budget" aspect he's worried about what with all his Tory pals having their fingers in the till? I couldn't possibly comment.

But even IF the Remain campaign was right about this, we know the Norway Option is sub-optimal and it has not been suggested that Norway's relationship is the destination. It is merely the most headache free interim stage because Brexit is a process, not an event. It's the fastest way out of the EU with the maximum reassurance.

Cummings on the other hand prefers to wing it on the basis of only a limited knowledge - thus is most likely going to lead the campaign up the garden path, making unrealisable assertions that the Remain campaign will go to town on. Without the necessary expertise to counter it - and without his ambitions having any basis in reality, he alone will be the man who loses this referendum. I hope he can live with that.