Published on This Blog in 2015. The 10 Principal Arguments Against Brexit. Let Us Examine Their Accuracy:

10 Myths Debunked About Leaving The EU - Better Off Out.

1. BRITAIN WOULD LOSE THREE MILLION JOBS IF WE LEFT THE EU.

10 Myths Debunked About Leaving The EU - Better Off Out.

1. BRITAIN WOULD LOSE THREE MILLION JOBS IF WE LEFT THE EU.

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

– If Britain withdrew from the EU it would preserve the benefits of trade with the EU by imposing a UK/EU Free Trade Agreement.

– The EU sells a lot more to us than we sell to them. In 2011 there was a trade deficit of nearly £50bn, which had risen to £109.2bn by 2014. It seems unlikely that the EU would seek to disrupt a trade which is so beneficial to itself.

– Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU must make a trade agreement with a country which leaves the EU.

– World Trade Organization (WTO) rules lay down basic rules for international trade by which both the EU and UK are obliged to abide. These alone would guarantee the trade upon which most of those 3 million jobs rely.

2. BRITAIN WILL BE EXCLUDED FROM TRADE WITH THE EU BY TARIFF BARRIERS

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-The EU has free trade agreements with 53 countries to overcome such tariffs, and is negotiating a further 74 such agreements.

-EU now exempts services and many goods from duties anyway. In 2009 UK charged customs duty of just 1.76% on non-EU imports. This is so low that the EU Common Market is basically redundant as a customs union with tariff walls.

3. BRITAIN CANNOT SURVIVE ECONOMICALLY OUTSIDE THE EU IN A WORLD OF TRADING BLOCS.

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-Major economies eg. Japan (the world’s 3^rd largest) are not in a trading bloc.

-The EU is not the place where most economic growth is occurring. The EU’s share of world GDP is forecast to decline to 15% in 2020, down from 26% in 1980.

-Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU, yet they export far more per capita to the EU than the UK does; this suggests that EU membership is not a prerequisite for a healthy trading relationship.

-Furthermore, Britain’s best trading relationships are generally not within the EU, but outside, i.e. with countries such as the USA and Switzerland.

-The largest investor in the UK is not even an EU country, but the US.

4. THE EU IS MOVING TOWARDS THE UK’S POSITION ON CUTTING REGULATION AND BUREAUCRACY.

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-EU directives are subject to a ‘rachet’ effect – i.e. once in place they are highly unlikely to be reformed or repealed.

-Less than 10% of Britain’s GDP represents trade with the EU yet Brussels regulations afflict 100% of our economy (the 6^th largest in the world)

-80% of the UK’s GDP is generated within the UK so at least 80% (90% if trade with rest of the world included) need not be subject to EU laws.

-In 2006 it was estimated that EU over-regulation costs 600bn Euros across the EU each year.

-In 2010, Open Europe estimated EU regulation had cost Britain £124 billion since 1998.

-Whilst Red tape savings are not direct cash savings, deregulation would result in a true ‘bonfire of regulations’ that could fund either sizeable tax cuts or additional public spending.

5. IF WE LEAVE, BRITAIN WILL HAVE TO PAY BILLIONS TO THE EU AND IMPLEMENT ALL ITS REGULATIONS WITHOUT HAVING A SAY.

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-We have very little say within the EU, and would have far more leverage outside EU as an independent sovereign nation and the world’s 6^th largest economy.

-The UK currently has only 8.4% of voting power ‘say’ in the EU, and the Lisbon Treaty ensured the loss of Britain’s veto in many more policy areas.

-Britain’s 72 MEPs are a minority within the 736 in the European Parliament (worsening to 73 out of 751 owing to Lisbon changes).

-With further enlargement (Croatia, Turkey’s 79 million citizens), British influence would be further watered down.

-As for continuing contributions by an independent Britain, Swiss and Norwegian examples show that the UK would achieve substantial net savings.SWISS CASE STUDY:

Official Swiss government figures conclude that through their trade agreements with the EU, the Swiss pay the EU under 600 million Swiss Francs a year, but enjoy virtually free access to the EU market. The Swiss have estimated that full EU membership would cost Switzerland net payments of 3.4 billion Swiss francs a year.

NORWAY CASE STUDY:

Norway only had to make relatively few changes to its laws to make its products eligible for the EU marketplace. In 2009, the Norwegian Mission to the EU estimated that Norway’s total financial contribution linked to their EEA (European Economic Area) agreement is some 340 mn Euros a years, of which some 110mn Euros are contributions related to the participation in various EU programmes. However, this is a fraction of the gross annual cost that Britain must pay for EU membership which is now £18.4bn, or £51mn a day.

6. THE EU HAVE BROUGHT PEACE TO THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

The Reality:

-Even now, the EU is only 27 nations of the 47 European nations listed as national members of the Council of Europe.

-The forerunner to the EU, the Common Market, didn’t come into existence until 1958, and then only with 6 nations, and yet there was no war between European countries from 1945 to 1956 (except the Hungarian revolution). Whilst peaceful international cooperation is welcomed at all levels, to say the EU is the sole guarantor of peace is an extremeexaggeration that is dishonest in its application.

-It is NATO, founded in 1949 and dominated by the USA, and not the EU, that has actually kept the peace in Europe, together with parliamentary democracy. Both of which are being undermined by the EU.

-The former German President Herzog wrote a few years ago that ‘the question has to be raised of whether Germany can still unreservedly be called a parliamentary democracy’. This was owing to the number of German laws emanating from the EU- which he assessed at some 84%.

-The break up of Yugoslavia was a major test of the EU’s ability to keep the peace. It was EU interference that helped trigger a major civil war and its dithering contributed to deaths of some 100,000 people. It was only decisive action by the US/NATO forces that stopped the violence. Peace was established by the US-brokered Dayton Agreement.

7. THE EU HAS A POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE BRITISH ECONOMY

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-British industries such as fishing, farming, postal services and manufacturing have already been devastated by Britain’s membership of the EU.

-EU membership costs UK billions of pounds and large numbers of lost jobs thanks to unnecessary and excessive red tape, substantial membership and aid contributions, inflated consumer prices and other associated costs.

– The Common Fisheries Policy has cost British coastal communities 115,000 jobs (Lee Rotherham, 10 years on)

8. BRITAIN WILL LOSE VITAL FOREIGN INVESTMENT AS A CONSEQUENCE OF LEAVING THE EU

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-In a 2010 survey on UK’s attractiveness to foreign investors, Ernst and Young found Britain remained the number one Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) destination in Europe owing largely to the City of London and the UK’s close corporate relationship with the US. EU membership was not mentioned at all in their table of key investment factors, which were (in order of importance): UK culture and values and the English language; telecommunications infrastructure; quality of life; stable social environment, and transport and logistics infrastructure.

-In any case, open access to the EU market would continue through a Free Trade Agreement in the manner of Switzerland and Norway whilst the UK would gain from higher growth, less regulation, more public spending and/or lower taxes and more suitable trade deals.

9. BRITAIN WILL LOSE ALL INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD BY BEING OUTSIDE THE EU

-Britain has a substantial ‘portfolio of power’ in its own right, which includes membership of theG20 and G8 Nations, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (one of only 5 members) and seats on the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors and World Trade Organisation.

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-The UK also lies at heart of the Commonwealth of 54 nations. Moreover, London is the financial capital of the world and Britain has the sixth largest economy. The UK is also in the top ten manufacturing nations in the world.

-Far from increasing British influence in the world, the EU is undermining UK influence. The EU is demanding there is a single voice for the EU in the UN and in the IMF. The EU has also made the British economy and City of London less competitive through overregulation, and negotiates more protectionist and less effective trade deals on behalf of the UK.

-The European External Action Service (EEAS) and its EU ‘Foreign Minister’ Federica Mogherini are undermining national diplomatic representation and the furtherance of British political and commercial interests through British embassies, which are being closed or downsized around the world.

-The Commonwealth is increasingly discriminated against by the EU policy on visas, so that non-EU Commonwealth citizens face having to obtain visas whilst citizens of even new EU entrants have automatic entry. Historic Commonwealth bonds with Britain are being lost.

10. LEGALLY, BRITAIN CANNOT LEAVE THE EU.

DEMONSTRABLY WRONG!

-Technically, Britain could leave the EU in a single day. Legislatively, this would be achieved simply by repealing the European Communities Act 1972 and its attendant Amendment Acts through a single clause Bill passing through Westminster.

-If the British people voted to leave in an In/Out referendum or by voting in a party with EU withdrawal on its manifesto, Parliament would have to respect the will of the British people and there would be no justification for delay or obstruction in either House.

-However, the process of setting up a replacement UK/EU Free Trade Agreement will take longer, though there would be no need for time-consuming negotiation of tariff reductions if the UK/EU Free Trade Agreement merely replicated existing EU trade arrangements.

-In addition, even the Lisbon Treaty’s Article 50 enshrines the right of member states to leave the Union, albeit in an unattractive manner. The same article requires the EU to seek a free trade deal with a member which leaves. Greenland established a precedent for a sovereign nation by leaving the EEC in 1985, and is prospering well outside of it. With Westminster still sovereign (for the moment), it is the British Parliament who will decide how and when Britain leaves the EU. BOO.

– If Britain withdrew from the EU it would preserve the benefits of trade with the EU by imposing a UK/EU Free Trade Agreement.

– The EU sells a lot more to us than we sell to them. In 2011 there was a trade deficit of nearly £50bn, which had risen to £109.2bn by 2014. It seems unlikely that the EU would seek to disrupt a trade which is so beneficial to itself.

– Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU must make a trade agreement with a country which leaves the EU.

– World Trade Organization (WTO) rules lay down basic rules for international trade by which both the EU and UK are obliged to abide. These alone would guarantee the trade upon which most of those 3 million jobs rely.

2. BRITAIN WILL BE EXCLUDED FROM TRADE WITH THE EU BY TARIFF BARRIERS

-The EU has free trade agreements with 53 countries to overcome such tariffs, and is negotiating a further 74 such agreements.

-EU now exempts services and many goods from duties anyway. In 2009 UK charged customs duty of just 1.76% on non-EU imports. This is so low that the EU Common Market is basically redundant as a customs union with tariff walls.

3. BRITAIN CANNOT SURVIVE ECONOMICALLY OUTSIDE THE EU IN A WORLD OF TRADING BLOCS

-Major economies eg. Japan (the world’s 3^rd largest) are not in a trading bloc.

-The EU is not the place where most economic growth is occurring. The EU’s share of world GDP is forecast to decline to 15% in 2020, down from 26% in 1980.

-Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU, yet they export far more per capita to the EU than the UK does; this suggests that EU membership is not a prerequisite for a healthy trading relationship.

-Furthermore, Britain’s best trading relationships are generally not within the EU, but outside, i.e. with countries such as the USA and Switzerland.

-The largest investor in the UK is not even an EU country, but the US.

4. THE EU IS MOVING TOWARDS THE UK’S POSITION ON CUTTING REGULATION AND BUREAUCRACY

-EU directives are subject to a ‘rachet’ effect – i.e. once in place they are highly unlikely to be reformed or repealed.

-Less than 10% of Britain’s GDP represents trade with the EU yet Brussels regulations afflict 100% of our economy (the 6^th largest in the world)

-80% of the UK’s GDP is generated within the UK so at least 80% (90% if trade with rest of the world included) need not be subject to EU laws.

-In 2006 it was estimated that EU over-regulation costs 600bn Euros across the EU each year.

-In 2010, Open Europe estimated EU regulation had cost Britain £124 billion since 1998.

-Whilst Red tape savings are not direct cash savings, deregulation would result in a true ‘bonfire of regulations’ that could fund either sizeable tax cuts or additional public spending.

5. IF WE LEAVE, BRITAIN WILL HAVE TO PAY BILLIONS TO THE EU AND IMPLEMENT ALL ITS REGULATIONS WITHOUT HAVING A SAY

-We have very little say within the EU, and would have far more leverage outside EU as an independent sovereign nation and the world’s 6^th largest economy.

-The UK currently has only 8.4% of voting power ‘say’ in the EU, and the Lisbon Treaty ensured the loss of Britain’s veto in many more policy areas.

-Britain’s 72 MEPs are a minority within the 736 in the European Parliament (worsening to 73 out of 751 owing to Lisbon changes).

-With further enlargement (Croatia, Turkey’s 79 million citizens), British influence would be further watered down.

-As for continuing contributions by an independent Britain, Swiss and Norwegian examples show that the UK would achieve substantial net savings.

SWISS CASE STUDY:

Official Swiss government figures conclude that through their trade agreements with the EU, the Swiss pay the EU under 600 million Swiss Francs a year, but enjoy virtually free access to the EU market. The Swiss have estimated that full EU membership would cost Switzerland net payments of 3.4 billion Swiss francs a year.

NORWAY CASE STUDY:

Norway only had to make relatively few changes to its laws to make its products eligible for the EU marketplace. In 2009, the Norwegian Mission to the EU estimated that Norway’s total financial contribution linked to their EEA (European Economic Area) agreement is some 340 mn Euros a years, of which some 110mn Euros are contributions related to the participation in various EU programmes. However, this is a fraction of the gross annual cost that Britain must pay for EU membership which is now £18.4bn, or £51mn a day.

6. THE EU HAVE BROUGHT PEACE TO THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT

The Reality:

-Even now, the EU is only 27 nations of the 47 European nations listed as national members of the Council of Europe.

-The forerunner to the EU, the Common Market, didn’t come into existence until 1958, and then only with 6 nations, and yet there was no war between European countries from 1945 to 1956 (except the Hungarian revolution). Whilst peaceful international cooperation is welcomed at all levels, to say the EU is the sole guarantor of peace is an extremeexaggeration that is dishonest in its application.

-It is NATO, founded in 1949 and dominated by the USA, and not the EU, that has actually kept the peace in Europe, together with parliamentary democracy. Both of which are being undermined by the EU.

-The former German President Herzog wrote a few years ago that ‘the question has to be raised of whether Germany can still unreservedly be called a parliamentary democracy’. This was owing to the number of German laws emanating from the EU- which he assessed at some 84%.

-The break up of Yugoslavia was a major test of the EU’s ability to keep the peace. It was EU interference that helped trigger a major civil war and its dithering contributed to deaths of some 100,000 people. It was only decisive action by the US/NATO forces that stopped the violence. Peace was established by the US-brokered Dayton Agreement.

7. THE EU HAS A POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE BRITISH ECONOMY

-British industries such as fishing, farming, postal services and manufacturing have already been devastated by Britain’s membership of the EU.

-EU membership costs UK billions of pounds and large numbers of lost jobs thanks to unnecessary and excessive red tape, substantial membership and aid contributions, inflated consumer prices and other associated costs.

– The Common Fisheries Policy has cost British coastal communities 115,000 jobs (Lee Rotherham, 10 years on)

8. BRITAIN WILL LOSE VITAL FOREIGN INVESTMENT AS A CONSEQUENCE OF LEAVING THE EU

-In a 2010 survey on UK’s attractiveness to foreign investors, Ernst and Young found Britain remained the number one Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) destination in Europe owing largely to the City of London and the UK’s close corporate relationship with the US. EU membership was not mentioned at all in their table of key investment factors, which were (in order of importance): UK culture and values and the English language; telecommunications infrastructure; quality of life; stable social environment, and transport and logistics infrastructure.

-In any case, open access to the EU market would continue through a Free Trade Agreement in the manner of Switzerland and Norway whilst the UK would gain from higher growth, less regulation, more public spending and/or lower taxes and more suitable trade deals.

9. BRITAIN WILL LOSE ALL INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD BY BEING OUTSIDE THE EU

-Britain has a substantial ‘portfolio of power’ in its own right, which includes membership of theG20 and G8 Nations, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (one of only 5 members) and seats on the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors and World Trade Organisation.

-The UK also lies at heart of the Commonwealth of 54 nations. Moreover, London is the financial capital of the world and Britain has the sixth largest economy. The UK is also in the top ten manufacturing nations in the world.

-Far from increasing British influence in the world, the EU is undermining UK influence. The EU is demanding there is a single voice for the EU in the UN and in the IMF. The EU has also made the British economy and City of London less competitive through overregulation, and negotiates more protectionist and less effective trade deals on behalf of the UK.

-The European External Action Service (EEAS) and its EU ‘Foreign Minister’ Federica Mogherini are undermining national diplomatic representation and the furtherance of British political and commercial interests through British embassies, which are being closed or downsized around the world.

-The Commonwealth is increasingly discriminated against by the EU policy on visas, so that non-EU Commonwealth citizens face having to obtain visas whilst citizens of even new EU entrants have automatic entry. Historic Commonwealth bonds with Britain are being lost.

10. LEGALLY, BRITAIN CANNOT LEAVE THE EU

-Technically, Britain could leave the EU in a single day. Legislatively, this would be achieved simply by repealing the European Communities Act 1972 and its attendant Amendment Acts through a single clause Bill passing through Westminster.

-If the British people voted to leave in an In/Out referendum or by voting in a party with EU withdrawal on its manifesto, Parliament would have to respect the will of the British people and there would be no justification for delay or obstruction in either House.

-However, the process of setting up a replacement UK/EU Free Trade Agreement will take longer, though there would be no need for time-consuming negotiation of tariff reductions if the UK/EU Free Trade Agreement merely replicated existing EU trade arrangements.

-In addition, even the Lisbon Treaty’s Article 50 enshrines the right of member states to leave the Union, albeit in an unattractive manner. The same article requires the EU to seek a free trade deal with a member which leaves. Greenland established a precedent for a sovereign nation by leaving the EEC in 1985, and is prospering well outside of it. With Westminster still sovereign (for the moment), it is the British Parliament who will decide how and when Britain leaves the EU. BOO.

WW2 - What Was The True Cause of This Conflict?

 The causes of World War Two were principally derived from three things - all of which are common mistakes:

1) The first was claiming 'a peace dividend' as if no other wars could possibly ever happen. The damage caused by this policy across Western nations cannot be overstated.

2) Accepting all of Hitler's abuses of the Treaty. He armed, he began an airforce and he took over disputed lands which had been taken away from Germany.

3) That acceptance of rearmament and allowing Hitler's 'salami slicing' tactics of lands claimed had to be challenged - and it was not. This was cowardice of the worst type - and what a price had to be paid for it.

Military force, employed at the very start of Hitler's machinations would inevitably have stopped Adolph in his tracks. WW2 would not have happened - in Europe, at least.

Extreme weakness was displayed by war-weary nations who were also afraid because they doubted that their weaponry was good enough any longer. It wasn't - Hitler had been permitted a head start.

The pathetic League of Nations was simply ignored by Hitler as it showed no teeth.

Why, In The Name of Sanity, Would We Ever Rejoin A Crumbling, Toxic, Perverse, Corrupt, Woke, Malicious, Inefficient, Criminal Gang Like This?

ANDREW NEIL: Why would we want to rejoin the EU when citizens of America's poorest states earn more than the French... and the Italians can't even afford pasta?

By ANDREW NEIL

UPDATED: 28 July 2023

A future generation will take Britain back into the European Union, opined Tony Blair this week. I wouldn’t rule it out.

The polls show buyers’ remorse among many who voted to leave (a clear majority say they would now vote to rejoin) and even the most committed Brexiteers struggle to list what benefits leaving has brought us.

But even our Europhile former prime minister doesn’t expect it to happen any time soon and those who pine for a return, say sometime in the 2030s, ignore a rather important question: will the EU be worth rejoining?

In the never-ending and debilitating debate between Leavers and Remainers, which still plays too large a part in our national discourse, one rather fundamental fact is always overlooked: for Europe, the history of the first two decades of the 21st century has been one of relentless economic, political and military decline, with no evidence that the EU’s governing elites know how to stop it, much less reverse it.

Advocates of a renewal of our membership also fail to point out that the terms of rejoining would be nowhere near as good as what we had before leaving.

A future generation will take Britain back into the European Union , opined Tony Blair this week. I wouldn’t rule it out, writes Andrew Neil (pictured)

There would be no rebate this time on our multi-billion-euro membership fees, for example, but we would be expected to sign up in principle to swapping sterling for the euro. That will make folks think twice about rejoining, whatever the polls currently say.

Those who call for a halfway-house arrangement until we’re ‘ready’ to rejoin — by going back now into the EU’s single market and customs union — can’t explain why it would make sense to become a rule-taker, as (unlike when we were members) we would have no say whatsoever on the Brussels rules we’d be expected to obey.

But these considerations pale into insignificance compared with a much bigger question: will the EU even be worth joining in ten years’ time?

Consider how much the EU has already declined relative to the United States. Fifteen years ago, according to the IMF, the GDP of the Eurozone was just under $14 trillion, while the U.S. economy was marginally bigger.

Today, the Eurozone’s GDP is just under $15 trillion, a modest rise by any standards. But the U.S.’s GDP has roared ahead to $25 trillion, making its economy 60 per cent bigger than the Eurozone. That’s a lot of relative economic decline for the Euro area in just a decade and a half.

The failure of Europe to keep pace with America has taken its toll on living standards. The average EU country is now poorer per head than every state in America bar Idaho and Mississippi.

The latter, the poorest state in the Union, is often referred to as America’s Third World but — with an average per capita annual income of $50,000 — the citizens of Mississippi are better off than their counterparts in France.

The continued economic dominance of America as the world’s richest, most productive and innovative major economy is as remarkable as the EU’s relentless decline in all these departments.

In 1990 America accounted for 25 per cent of global GDP, the EU a little above that. Today, America still accounts for 25 per cent of global GDP but the EU’s share has consistently slipped. It is now just over 14 per cent and falling.

There used to be a global consensus that China would overtake America as the world’s largest economy during this decade. Goldman Sachs, which is reliably wrong on such matters, once confidently predicted that this would happen by 2026. Now it suggests 2035, if then. Other forecasters think it won’t have happened even by the middle of the century.

America has outperformed the EU on every economic indicator that matters. Since 1990 the U.S. working age population has risen from 127 million to 175 million, a rise of almost 40 per cent, while Europe’s has gone from 94 million to 102 million, a rise of only 9 per cent.

For Europe, the history of the first two decades of the 21st century has been one of relentless economic, political and military decline

Not only are there more American workers, they are also more efficient. U.S. labour productivity has risen by 67 per cent since 1990, Europe’s by 55 per cent.

They also work more hours. The average American worker puts in 1,800 hours a year and gets three weeks holiday (four if they’re lucky). The average European worker does 200 hours fewer and gets six weeks holiday (or more).

Of course, Europhiles will argue that Europe’s more relaxed lifestyle is superior to America’s relentless work ethic. I understand the point; we all want to take August off at the beach.

But, over time, Europe’s emphasis on lifestyle and doing less work (a growing trend across the continent) takes its toll in terms of generating the wealth needed to pay for the world’s most generous welfare states — and it means folks have less money to spend.

That is already apparent in the Eurozone, where consumer spending has fallen by 1 per cent since 2019 in real terms, whereas it has risen 9 per cent in America on the back of a strong labour market and rising pay packets.

Real wages have fallen 3 per cent in Germany these past four years, and 3.5 per cent in Italy and Spain, but are up 6 per cent in America, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

This squeeze on spending power is taking its toll. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the French were cutting back on red wine, the Spanish on olive oil, the Germans on meat and milk — and the Italians were complaining they couldn’t afford pasta (which is the very definition of an Italian crisis — and, sure enough, the economy minister convened a crisis meeting).

If current trends continue, by the middle of the next decade the gap between America and Europe in terms of economic output and per capita incomes will be as big as today’s gap between Japan and Ecuador.

This is not the projection of some Right-wing U.S. think tank but the considered judgment of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy. It is a depressing prospect, which illustrates why rejoining the EU might not be as easy a sell as its boosters assume.

Of course, America has plenty of problems of its own: huge inequalities, epidemics of gun violence and opioid addiction (which together explain America’s low life expectancy), filthy, declining city centres and crumbling infrastructure in a culture too often prepared to tolerate public squalor alongside private affluence.

But, unlike Europe, it is not in economic decline and not likely to be any time soon. The world’s five biggest corporate spenders on research and development are all American. Together they spent $200 billion last year, leaving Europe in the dust.

That’s why your laptop and smartphone are American inventions, as is the AI chatbot you will increasingly use.

America dominates the digital economy of the 21st century as it ended up dominating the industrial economies of the 20th century. Europe is an also-ran.

That is not about to change, either. Eleven of the world’s 15 best universities are American. The EU does not have one institution in the top 15. Indeed, it has only one in the top 30.

Nine out of ten of America’s richest billionaires made all their money out of companies they built from scratch. Five out of ten of Europe’s richest inherited their wealth.

There is little comfort for Europe in the latest indicators. The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent in the second quarter of this year. The German economy, the biggest in Europe, stagnated, after declining in the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of this year. German economists talk gloomily of a ‘prolonged slowdown’.

The IMF forecasts Germany will be ‘the worst performing major economy in 2023’. When the same body attached that label to Britain, I recall Remainers, BBC presenters and Labour politicians shouting it from the rooftops. I suspect they’ll keep schtum this time round.

No doubt Brexiteers are lapping up this article, so far. But here’s the rub. When it comes to our own dear Blighty, we are in the slow lane with the rest of Europe, not in the fast lane with America. Brexit has made little discernible difference. We remain hogtied to European decline.

I see nothing being proposed by the Sunak/Hunt government that will change that. Indeed, its high tax/big government approach to politics, coupled with a penchant for interfering in too many areas where it should mind its own business, is more likely to align us with European sclerosis for the foreseeable future.

Labour is unlikely to do any better. In fact, there is a distinct possibility, because it barely understands any of this, that it will do even worse.

If, as the polls strongly suggest, the Tories will soon be in opposition — and so will have more time on their hands to do some serious and original thinking — can I suggest that top of their list of rethinks should be a plan for how post-Brexit Britain can be more like America and less like Europe in terms of economic dynamism and innovation.

If they can’t come up with a fresh, radical agenda to achieve that, then frankly, they shouldn’t bother trying for a comeback.

Broad Shock As He Gives Up Cricket For Commentary.

Stuart Broad to retire from cricket after Ashes as England hero has 'new job lined up'.

Stuart Broad has announced that he will be retiring from cricket after the fifth Ashes Test is completed.

By ARCHIE GRIGGS

If Only, Mel, If Only.

The end of the climate change obsession?

Don't hold your breath. But small signs of a sea-change are visible.

MELANIE PHILLIPS JUL 24 ∙ PREVIEW

Three days ago, I compiled here a small checklist of policy goals that would define the true centre ground and give Rishi Sunak his best if not only chance of winning the next general election which, as things stand, he is projected to lose in a defeat of epic proportions.

One of those goals was to end “Net Zero” carbon emissions and challenge the “climate change” myth as damaging, exaggerated and untrue. All over Europe, politicians are tumbling to the realisation that the public are in revolt against the climate change obsession. This is not only making them poorer, colder and having to drive electric cars that regularly break down but is also totally pointless, because China and Russia are still burning fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow (which without doubt there will be, regardless of the climate hysterics) and any British reduction in “carbon footprint” would have negligible impact in preventing The End Of The World. 

Now Prime Minister Sunak has indicated that he will scale back Net Zero. Forgive me for sounding churlish, but I’m not holding my breath for an outbreak of sanity...