Brussels cannot bully Britain into accepting EU law, says CHRIS ROYCROFT-DAVIS
JUNE 23, 2016 was the glorious day that heralded the return of our country’s independence – just a year and a week ago, barely the blink of an eye in historical terms. Those of us who are proud to have been among the patriotic majority who voted to cast off the shackles of EU control will never forget that day for it is etched on our hearts.
Michel Barnier and David Davis outline Brexit negotiation plans
But over in Brussels, decadent home of the Eurocrats on their fat-cat gravy train, memories are much shorter. They have forgotten already what 17.4million British people voted for. Either that or they are too stubborn, too arrogant and too self-important to accept that democracy has broken out in one corner of the fiefdom over which they reign like all-powerful medieval monarchs.
It is hard even to guess what goes on inside the head of the EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. It can’t be a language problem because he speaks excellent English so why is it he just does not get what Britain voted for?
Has he not been listening to a word we have been saying? Does he not understand that Brexit means freedom from the EU having control over our laws, our money, our borders, our lives?
Brussels must understand that we mean business and we won’t be pushed around or threatened by anyone, let alone a Eurocrat
His latest ludicrous pronouncement, leaked to a Remainer newspaper, makes worrying reading. Not because we should be scared of what he says but because it indicates that the man sitting across the negotiating table from our own David Davis may be losing his marbles.
Barnier wants the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to have the indefinite right to bring legal cases against Britain and fine us for breaches of European law even after we have left the EU when its laws no longer apply to us. Just think about that: it is like selling your house, moving 200 miles and then being punished by your old council.
No sensible person would agree to that kind of demand, especially when it is backed up by threats of dire consequences if we insist on our rights. But then we are not dealing with sensible people, we are dealing with Brussels.
Conveniently overlooking the incontrovertible fact that one of the main planks of Brexit was that we should be freed from unelected foreign judges, Barnier decrees that the ECJ should be able to “request a lump sum or penalty payment” if we break agreements that have yet to be agreed.
Barnier also wants the Brussels superstate to have the legal power to be able to trawl indefinitely through the history books and suck money out of the British Government and UK companies by taking them to court for, in their mind, wrongdoing committed before Brexit happens in March 2019.
The aim is obvious: to use our hard-earned earnings as a cash cow to be milked to make up the £10billion black hole that will appear in the EU’s finances once we leave.
It is a crooked idea, riddled with political and legal chicanery and would declare open season on the UK. The more we succeeded outside the EU the more Brussels would demand from us – just as the Vikings once plundered our shores then as we recovered demanded Danegeld to stop them from pillaging all over again.
Barnier and his mis-named negotiating team – what kind of negotiation begins with one side making absurd, threatening demands? – have issued what they call a “positioning paper”. It gets its name from their idea that the UK should assume the position and take whatever the EU wants to inflict on us. As Corporal Jones would say: “They don’t like it up ’em!”
What this paper implies is that Britain, probably one of the most honourable and trustworthy nations in the world, cannot be trusted to stick to its word post-Brexit and demands that the House of Commons should legislate to make sure that the enforcement mechanisms of the European Court (in other words, Brussels’ big stick) have legal force on this side of the Channel.
Barnier just does not get it. Brexit is all about giving our Parliament the absolute power to make our laws for our people. It is not there to pass laws that make Brussels richer. And any way, our word is our bond. We don’t need such a law.
It is pointless Barnier warning we will struggle to adapt to life outside the EU. No we won’t – we have been used to the sweet taste of freedom for a thousand years and we can’t wait to get it back.
Once again we are seeing the Brussels behemoth in its true colours. It dismisses our offer to give EU citizens the right to stay here after Brexit because it does not actually care about its own citizens. To Brussels, the millions of French, Germans, Italians, Poles and Romanians living here are nothing more than bargaining chips.
Brussels must understand that we mean business and we won’t be pushed around or threatened by anyone, let alone a Eurocrat. We already have the script written years ago by Maggie Thatcher: “Non. Non. Non.”
