New home for the blog

We've moved beyond the campaign and the vote and as attention moves to executing a Brexit from the EU so it is the blog should move with it. Thanks for reading "Vote to Leave the EU" and I hope you will join me at my new home, "The Brexit Blog".

BRITAIN VOTES FOR INDEPENDENCE!

The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union.

We've done it. When we leave the EU we will at last create the conditions to develop real democracy in our nation. It will be a long and arduous task, but it must be done. The people have shown our political class is out of touch, so we need to take power back.

The first step on the long journey to independence will now need to be taken by the government. Brexit is not an event, it is a process. It will take time and careful handling to chart our route to full independence in a phased manner.

Having spent so long talking this country down to scare people into voting to remain, David Cameron now needs to talk up what this country can achieve. He also needs to scrap his rejection of single market participation and recognise it is the safest and most suitable layby to park in as Britain redevelops its competence in self governance and autonomy on the global stage.

The civil service now has a huge responsibility to stop David Cameron triggering Article 50 until after discussions with individual EU member states. We need to find areas of agreement that will enable us to remain in the single market after we have left the union. That will mean no negative economic consequences for us or the EU, but give the UK the ability to control migration with the emergency brake as part of the EEA agreement.

If Cameron presses ahead with the Article 50 notification without a pause for discussions, it would be nothing but a needless act of political retribution on the electorate, a Prime Minister actively trying to damage the country he leads.

More later about what needs to happen next. For now, I just want to take some time to let this seismic moment, something I have tried to help bring about for years, sink in.

Please use your vote to LEAVE the European Union

The day has arrived and the polling stations are open. The British people have a black and white choice between:

• Leaving the EU to regain our independence and our voice in the world, having direct influence in decision making at the global level, retaking control over our relationships with other countries around the world, establish trade agreements with other countries on mutually beneficial terms and, crucially, giving us the opportunity to fix the manifest democratic shortcomings in our country so that British people have real power in our country and can effect real change
  
  and
   
• Remaining an EU colony that takes laws we are not allowed to reject from a supreme unelected and unaccountable government in Brussels, being mute on the global bodies where decisions are made and voting as instructed by Brussels, having our relationships and trade with other countries run on EU terms regardless of our wishes and, crucially, having an ever shrinking voice within a bloc that is run to erode the ability of people to wield power a political elite and bring about change

 
The first option is by far the most democratic, positive, constructive and beneficial for the people of this nation. This extraordinary piece, "For democracy and freedom - vote leave" by Professor John Fitzpatrick, Director of Kent Law Clinic, explains the democratic need to withdraw from the EU. As Fitzpatrick says:

Settling for a good king rather than a bad parliament should, now we have been asked, be turned down.

We can change the parliament, but we cannot remove the king if he rules badly or unjustly. We can have a more democratic Britain, but it can only begin to become a reality if your ballot paper looks like this before you put it in the ballot box today.
  

  
Seize this moment with hope and confidence. Begin the work of making Britain a more democratic nation, by starting the process of taking back power for the people...

VOTE TO LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION

This might be the last time your vote decides who governs us

After many years of campaigning, inside and outside party politics, for the UK to regain its independence, the moment I've long fought for is here. A referendum, where the voters can decide who should run Britain.

The choice is clear.

Voters can choose to LEAVE and have a United Kingdom that is self governing and where laws are made by the representatives we elect and can vote to remove. A United Kingdom where our courts give the final judgement on matters. A United Kingdom that speaks with its own experienced and respected voice in the world. A United Kingdom that can exert direct influence on global bodies to promote rules and regulations that support British people and business. A United Kingdom that is confident and charts a responsible course in the world.

Or voters can choose to remain and have a United Kingdom that takes its laws from people from 27 other countries, who we do not elect and cannot remove. A United Kingdom that takes and implements legal decisions from a foreign court that has only EU interests at heart. A United Kingdom that must follow common, compromise policies in foreign affairs and defence, decided for us by appointed officials we have no democratic control over. A United Kingdom that is forced to remain silent on global bodies and where it still has a vote must obey instructions from Brussels about how to cast it. A United Kingdom that is a subjugated component of a developing EU superstate, which intends to create its own army, navy and air force and impose direct taxation on us without genuine democratic representation.

This is the choice before us all. This vital referendum is not about specific outcomes, such as the economy, or trade, or the NHS or even security. It is about us determining who decides those outcomes - people elected by and accountable to us, or people overseas who are not.

Please set aside the raft of claims and counter claims of the politicians who have hijacked the referendum campaign to service their own political ambitions and vanity. This is your referendum, not theirs. It is being held precisely because the matter before us is too great, too important, to leave to the politicians, so why should we play their game?

Please disregard the lies, disregard the spin, disregard the scare tactics, disregard the grouping of 'experts' serving their own vested interests, disregard dogwhistle appeals to base instincts, and disregard the interference of overseas politicians and organisations who only care for their own interests, not ours. There are simply too many grey areas deployed to distract us from the core, essential issue of democracy. There is only one thing in this campaign that is black and white...

deciding who governs the British people, and how.

This might be the last time your vote decides who governs us. It is a crucial and pivotal moment. We have the opportunity to undo the wrong inflicted on the British people in 1975, when voters were lied to about the EEC's true aims and the impacts on this country's sovereignty. We have since seen for what they were, the lies of those who wanted us to be subsumed into a European political superstate. The current false claims of exemptions, that have not been agreed by the EU and which can be rejected by the EU after this referendum, are a replay of 1975. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Don't make the same mistake our parents and grandparents made in 1975. We have the luxury of seeing the self declared aims of the European project. We understand that means the dismantling of the United Kingdom and the other member states as sovereign nations, with power placed into the hands of people we cannot hold to account or remove. Vote to take back our independence from those determined to remove it forever. The time has come. Your moment is now. Put democracy first.
 

VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU

A day of revulsion

The cold blooded murder of Jo Cox MP was as senseless as it was barbaric.

A woman in her prime has had her life snatched away by a maniac. A husband and two young children have had their family destroyed and their lives forever darkened by the actions of that man. My thoughts are with them as they try to come to terms with the huge loss they have suffered.

The murder investigation is ongoing, but there are some things we do know. We know that there is too much violence on our streets and too many people lose their lives at the hands of other people. We know that this murder will be given far more prominence than other equally terrible killings because of who Mrs Cox was. We know that initial reports of the circumstances of such heinous acts are often replaced later as facts become established and evidence is gathered, so jumping to conclusions isn't in anyone's interest.

Almost as sickening as the murder itself on Thursday, was witnessing the cynical, self serving self indulgence of some people who sought to make political capital out of Mrs Cox's death.

For people to use the murder as a weapon with which to bash a campaign they oppose (leave), claiming high profile people in that campaign have sought to make people feel rage and so cannot be surprised that this violent murder was the outcome, is disgusting and outrageous. Alex Massie and those cheap individuals who endorsed his now-removed article, are a disgrace.