Nigel Farage: "This Is The Clearest Proof Yet That The Great Brexit Betrayal Is Under Way"

Authored by Nigel Farage, originally published in the Telegraph

Theresa May is now the EU"s Stepford Wife: subservient and submissive to their every whim

So there we have it. Theresa May does not believe in Brexit. In an interview with Iain Dale on LBC, she completely collapsed, proving incapable of answering the question of how would she vote if there was a referendum now. She simply would not answer if she would support Leave.

Everyone listening to that interview knows that the reality is that May is still a Remainer. I don’t believe it’s possible to carry out this great, historic change against a huge amount of international criticism unless you truly believe in it. Nor, as it happens, does May: in a speech on June 1 she herself said: “To deliver Brexit you have to believe it”. This is the clearest proof yet that the Great Brexit Betrayal is under way.

It is only the latest piece of evidence in a whole procession. On Monday we also found out that Boris Johnson – supposedly Brexit"s loudest cheerleader in the Cabinet – has bottled it. Last month the Foreign Secretary stated in print his demand that the UK must leave the wretched European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Day One of our exit from the EU in March 2019. But then folded like a cheap suit by backing to the hilt Theresa May’s House of Commons Brexit statement – a speech which was itself further confirmation of the great betrayal.

This came to light in her answer to the rapier-like question from Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, in which she said that the UK will still be bound by ECJ rulings during the Brexit transition period, Jacob looked somewhat deflated by this answer. She also would not deny that any new EU laws would be applicable to us, simply trying to ignore the question by saying it was ‘highly unlikely’ this this would occur.

During her parliamentary address, May admitted to MPs that Britain will still be bound by the ECJ’s rulings during the Brexit transition period, currently set to end in 2021. Not only that, but she suggested this country will also have to accept any new EU laws which are dreamt up in Brussels during this time. 

In her world, this arrangement represents part of a “smooth and orderly process of withdrawal, with minimum disruption”.

To me, this demonstrates that May has become the Stepford Wife of the EU – conformist, subservient, submissive. It is woeful stuff.

The only good news of the day is that, at last, some contingency plans have been prepared for a no deal outcome. The only trouble is I simply do not believe that May has the courage to opt for this.

Depressingly, another supposed Brexiteer in the Cabinet, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, joined Johnson, hailing May’s “strong statement” in the Commons. To him, it was as though she had just made some important breakthrough for the good of mankind when all she had done was roll over and surrender for even longer our courts and laws to a distant power.

I realise that Johnson and Gove have assumed this new anything-goes position because they want to publicly support their troubled party leader at a difficult time and, by extension, remain in government for as long as possible. Anything to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street is the mantra.

But is there not something utterly shameless about their acquiescence? Indeed, does anyone seriously believe either man actually welcomes our remaining under the ECJ for the foreseeable future?

By putting themselves and, let’s face it, their careers first, Johnson and Gove have made clear that they have no serious interest in carrying out the will of the 17.4 million people who last year voted to leave the EU. To them, the lives of the citizens are secondary.

Boris is right https://t.co/UFK4BqGVW0

— Michael Gove (@michaelgove) October 9, 2017

In backing a proposition they don’t even agree with, they have done little more than make themselves look foolish and mocked the notion that we are an independent state.

What their actions show is that this is fast becoming Brexit in name only and, as I’ve written before, it should concern everybody that our politicians are caving in at the very time they should be standing firm.

What sort of message does it send to potential trading partners in the world that Britain is still bowing and scraping to the institution which in June 2016 we very publicly dumped?

Countries outside the EU will regard us as flaky, a shadow of ourselves, perhaps even untrustworthy. At the same time, some within the EU will smell blood, and will use our confused domestic political situation to punish us as they see fit. It is lose-lose.

With every week that passes we see May and her government dither and delay over one issue or another, and it is this sense that she is being worn down by her opponents in the EU that I find truly alarming. The fight appears to have gone out of her at the time we need it most. I wrote last month of May’s naivety in thinking that the EU even wants to do a deal with Britain. It is blatantly obvious they don’t, and that she should call their bluff and walk away. The time for appeasing Messrs Juncker, Barnier and Verhofstadt is over.

Yesterday, Theresa May became Theresa Maybe in that she left open the door to further concessions. Once again I find myself wondering whether, 16 months after we voted to do so, we have the leaders to complete the job.

It's Your Money But You Can’t Have It: EU Proposes Account Freezes To Halt Bank Runs

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

If there is a run on the bank, any bank in the EU, you better be among the first to get your money out.

Although it’s your money, the EU wants to Freeze Accounts to Prevent Runs at Failing Banks.

European Union states are considering measures which would allow them to temporarily stop people withdrawing money from their accounts to prevent bank runs, an EU document reviewed by Reuters revealed.

The move is aimed at helping rescue lenders that are deemed failing or likely to fail, but critics say it could hit confidence and might even hasten withdrawals at the first rumors of a bank being in trouble.

The proposal, which has been in the works since the beginning of this year, comes less than two months after a run on deposits at Banco Popular contributed to the collapse of the Spanish lender.

Giving supervisors the power to temporarily block bank accounts at ailing lenders is “a feasible option,” a paper prepared by the Estonian presidency of the EU said, acknowledging that member states were divided on the issue.

EU countries which already allow a moratorium on bank payouts in insolvency procedures at national level, like Germany, support the measure, officials said.

“The desire is to prevent a bank run, so that when a bank is in a critical situation it is not pushed over the edge,” a person familiar with German government’s thinking said.

The Estonian proposal was discussed by EU envoys on July 13 but no decision was made, an EU official said. Discussions were due to continue in September. Approval of EU lawmakers would be required for any final decision.

Under the plan discussed by EU states, pay-outs could be suspended for five working days and the block could be extended to a maximum of 20 days in exceptional circumstances, the Estonian document said.

Spooking Customers

I side with Charlie Bannister of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), who says “We strongly believe that this would incentivize depositors to run from a bank at an early stage.”

Why Might Customers Want to Run?

Here are a trillion reasons: Over €1 Trillion Nonperforming EU Loans: EU vs US Percentages.

Non-Performing Loans

Notes

• I am unsure why the graphs sometimes use different country codes than appears in the first column. Where different, I show both symbols. The list of country codes is shown below.


• Forb ratio stands for forbearance ratio.


• Cov ratio stands for coverage ratio: (Loans – Reserve balance)/Total amount of non-performing loans. It’s a measure of how prepared a bank is for losses.

Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland have a combined €606 billion in non-performing loans.

The entire European banking system is over-leveraged, under-capitalized, and propped up by QE from the ECB. Simply put, the EU banking system is insolvent.

That the EU has to consider such drastic measures proves the point.

EU Regulators Take Aim At London's Asset-Management Industry

Brexit negotiations officially began three weeks ago, and whether the UK will retain access to the European Union’s single financial market once they’re over is unknown. Yet that hasn’t stopped regulators on the Continent from taking a swipe at more than a trillion euros in assets, and thousands of well-paying finance jobs required to manage them, that they think belong on the other side of the English Channel.

As Bloomberg reports, the European Securities and Markets Authority issued a ruling saying that “letterbox entities” nominally based in the European Union but managed from abroad will no longer be tolerated.

“The proposal would affect UCITS, a type of mutual fund domiciled in the European Union, that hold about 9.1 trillion euros ($10.3 trillion) of assets. The European Securities and Markets Authority said in May that passports to sell funds - effectively, a stamp of approval allowing fund managers to offer a product globally - should be rejected unless major decisions are made by management based within the bloc.”

The regulator says its Brexit-inspired guidance is intended to prevent “a race to the bottom in oversight standards,” ignoring the fact that the funds can be managed from anywhere in the world. Bloomberg neglects to specify how these funds would be treated according to existing rules: Without this guidance, would these funds be forced to re-domicile in the EU if the UK loses access to the single market? It’s unclear.

“ESMA, which could publish a second take on its opinion this week, said the guidance was prompted by Brexit as it seeks to avoid a race to the bottom in oversight standards. While almost 1.1 trillion euros of UCITS fund assets are domiciled in the U.K., according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the implications may spread beyond the City of London. UCITS products are often domiciled in Luxembourg and Ireland, but their fund managers can be based anywhere in the world to focus on local markets.”

At least one asset manager is worried about the collateral damage to fund managers who are already based outside of the trading bloc, but choose to domicile their assets in the UK, Ireland or Luxembourg using the “passport” system.

“It could be a threat to the viability of UCITS at the global level,” Dan Waters, managing director at fund management association ICI Global, said in an interview. “There are trillions of euros, dollars, pounds of investments going back and forth right now” through the products, and there’s a chance that the regulator “could inadvertently build barriers around that.”

ESMA already warned back in May that “passports” to sell UCITS should be rejected unless major decisions are made by management based in the bloc. The agency, which does not have legislative powers, said it published the opinion to help “unify European regulators’ approach to fund registration following Britain’s vote to leave the EU.”

Though European politicians have expressed eagerness to grab slices of Britain’s financial industry since the UK voted to leave the trading bloc in June."

Luxembourg and Ireland, two other popular destinations where UCITS funds are domiciled, could attract thousands of jobs in areas from governance to compliance if UK firms are forced to re-register within the EU because of the ESMA guidance, according to John Skelly, a Dublin-based principal at Carne Group, an adviser that helps set up UCITS funds. The guidance is also an important milestone in the Brexit process: It marks the first time that ESMA has said a certain amount of fund-management activity should be based in the EU. Though critics say the order lacks specifics about exactly what functions must be performed from within the bloc.

Some legal experts believe ESMA’s ruling is another example of an overly intrusive government. Simon Currie, a London-based partner at legal firm Morgan Lewis who advises clients on setting up operations in the EU, said “the opinion seems to overreach.”

“It’s quite clear in the directives that you can delegate decision-making in connection with portfolio management to a third country.”

If it stands, the ESMA ruling would leave UK-based firms with two choices: They could either apply to re-domicile in the EU – a process that typically takes about nine months. According to the current Brexit timetable, firms have until next June to submit those plans based on the current Brexit timetable. Fund managers could also opt to abandon UCITS and opt for the less developed passporting regimes in Asia or South America, ICI Global said.

“When ESMA releases its refined opinion, it should help show how many more people investment firms will have to employ in the EU after Brexit if they want to delegate management of the funds to an entity in the U.K., said Matt Huggett, a partner at legal firm Allen & Overy specializing in asset management.

Still, some critics say the regulators" guidance has nothing to do with "best practices."

"...the earlier guidance “looks like an opportunistic move to attract jobs to particular jurisdictions,” Waters said.

"That looks to us like protectionism or regulatory nationalism.""
 

EU's Highest Court Upholds Sanctions Against Russia's Rosneft

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The European Court of Justice, Europe’s top court, on Tuesday ruled that sanctions imposed by the UK and the EU on Russia’s oil giant Rosneft are valid, in a ruling that also asserts the court’s jurisdiction over the common policy of the European Union (EU).

The EU imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, with economic sanctions slapped in July 2014 and reinforced in September 2014, including against certain Russian companies that include Rosneft.

Rosneft had challenged before the High Court of Justice (England & Wales) the validity, in the light of EU law, of the restrictive measures imposed by the European Council on it and the implementing measures adopted by the United Kingdom that are based on the Council acts. The European Court of Justice was asked to rule, in essence, if the acts of the Council and the United Kingdom are valid.

In its ruling published today, the court said that “The restrictive measures adopted by the Council in response to the crisis in Ukraine against certain Russian undertakings, including Rosneft, are valid.”

“The Court holds that the importance of the objectives pursued by the contested acts is such as to justify certain operators being adversely affected. Having regard to the fact that the restrictive measures adopted by the Council in reaction to the crisis in Ukraine have become progressively more severe, interference with Rosneft’s freedom to conduct a business and its right to property cannot be considered to be disproportionate,” the court said.

Following the court ruling, Rosneft issued a statement in which it said it was disappointed by the ruling, and that it considers the court decision “illegal, groundless and politicized”.

The Court refused to admit that the EU sanctions were imposed, in particular, to achieve hidden purposes and are, in fact, an instrument of competitive struggle. Nevertheless, the Court could not explain why the limitations, applied under the pretext of Crimea"s accession to Russia, involve access of oil companies to international financial markets, oil production at the Arctic shelf, development of tight reserves, deep-water and shale fields. The Company considers that the sanctions imposed against it by the EU states are primarily aimed at increasing risks of busines operations, obstructing implementation of Rosneft"s important projects and thus creating preferences for other oil market players.

The Court ignored its own existing precedents when the decision on EU sanctions was revised by the same court due to lack of substantial evidence. For instance Iranian banks included in the EU sanctions list successfully appealed the EU regulation. The Court stated that they are not related to the nuclear program of the IRI that was the object of sanctions and the existence of the close ties to the government is not a satisfactory argument for including them in the list.

The Court refused to acknowledge that unilateral economic sanctions restrict trade by definition and contradict existing provisions of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between Russia and the EU, signed in 1994. The EU’s decision to impose the sanctions is, in fact, a legitimated refusal to fulfill its obligations under international law.

“This decision proves that in Europe the rule of law is being substituted with the rule of politics,” said Rosneft, whose chief executive Igor Sechin is a close ally of Vladimir Putin.

European Parliament Censors Its Own Free Speech

Authored by Judith Bergmann via The Gatestone Institute,

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  The rule strikes at the very center of free speech, namely that of elected politicians, which the European Court of Human Rights has deemed in its practice to be specially protected. Members of the European Parliament are people who have been elected to make the voices of their constituents heard inside the institutions of the European Union.

  
  


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  The rule can only have a chilling effect on free speech in the European Parliament, and will likely prove a convenient tool in trying to shut up those parliamentarians who do not follow the politically correct narrative of the EU.

  
  


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  By lifting Le Pen"s immunity while she is running for president of France, the European Parliament is sending the clear signal that publicizing the graphic and horrifying truth of the crimes of ISIS, rather than being received as a warning about what might soon be coming to Europe, instead ought to be punished.

  
  


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  Where does this clearly totalitarian impulse stop and who will stop it?

  
  

The European Parliament has introduced a new procedural rule, which allows for the chair of a debate to interrupt the live broadcasting of a speaking MEP "in the case of defamatory, racist or xenophobic language or behavior by a Member". Furthermore, the President of the European Parliament may even "decide to delete from the audiovisual record of the proceedings those parts of a speech by a Member that contain defamatory, racist or xenophobic language".

No one, however, has bothered to define what constitutes "defamatory, racist or xenophobic language or behavior". This omission means that the chair of any debate in the European Parliament is free to decide, without any guidelines or objective criteria, whether the statements of MEPs are "defamatory, racist or xenophobic". The penalty for offenders can apparently reach up to around 9,000 euros.

"There have been a growing number of cases of politicians saying things that are beyond the pale of normal parliamentary discussion and debate," said British EU parliamentarian Richard Corbett, who has defended the new rule. Mr. Corbett, however, does not specify what he considers "beyond the pale".

In June 2016, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, addressed the European Parliament in a speech, which drew on old anti-Semitic blood libels, such as falsely accusing Israeli rabbis of calling on the Israeli government to poison the water used by Palestinian Arabs. Such a clearly incendiary and anti-Semitic speech was not only allowed in parliament by the sensitive and "anti-racist" parliamentarians; it received a standing ovation. Evidently, wild anti-Semitic blood libels pronounced by Arabs do not constitute "things that are beyond the pale of normal parliamentary discussion and debate".

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas receives a standing ovation at the European Parliament in Brussels on June 23, 2016, after falsely claiming in his speech that Israeli rabbis were calling to poison Palestinian water. Abbas later recanted and admitted that his claim had been false. (Image source: European Parliament)

The European Parliament apparently did not even bother to publicize their new procedural rule; it was only made public by Spain"s La Vanguardia newspaper. Voters were, it appears, not supposed to know that they may be cut off from listening to the live broadcasts of the parliamentarians they elected to represent them in the EU, if some chairman of a debate subjectively happened to decide that what was being said was "racist, defamatory or xenophobic".

The European Parliament is the only popularly elected institution in the EU. Helmut Scholz, from Germany"s left-wing Die Linke party, said that EU lawmakers must be able to express their views about how Europe should work: "You can"t limit or deny this right". Well, they can express it (but for how long?), except that now no one outside of parliament will hear it.

The rule strikes at the very center of free speech, namely that of elected politicians, which the European Court of Human Rights has deemed in its practice to be specially protected. Members of the European Parliament are people who have been elected to make the voices of their constituents heard inside the institutions of the European Union. Limiting their freedom of speech is undemocratic, worrisome and spookily Orwellian.

The rule can only have a chilling effect on freedom of speech in the European Parliament and will likely prove a convenient tool in trying to shut up those parliamentarians who do not follow the politically correct narrative of the EU.

The European Parliament lately seems to be waging war against free speech. At the beginning of March, the body lifted the parliamentary immunity of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. Her crime? Tweeting three images of ISIS executions in 2015. In France, "publishing violent images" constitutes a criminal offense, which can carry a penalty of three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros. By lifting her immunity at the same time that she is running for president of France, the European Parliament is sending the clear signal that publicizing the graphic and horrifying truth of the crimes of ISIS, rather than being received as a warning about what might soon be coming to Europe, instead ought to be punished.

This is a bizarre signal to be sending, especially to the Christian and Yazidi victims of ISIS, who are still largely ignored by the European Union. European parliamentarians, evidently, are too sensitive to deal with the graphic murders of defenseless people in the Middle East, and are more concerned with ensuring the prosecution of the messengers, such as Marine Le Pen.

So, political correctness, now effectively the "religious police" of political discourse, has not only taken over the media and academia; elected MEPs are now also supposed to toe the politically correct line, or literally be cut off. No one stopped the European Parliament from passing this undemocratic anti-free speech rule. Why did no parliamentarian out of the 751 MEPs raise red flags about the issue before it became an actual rule? Even more importantly: Where does this clearly totalitarian impulse stop and who will stop it?

US-UK Trade Talks To Begin Immediately In Defiance Of EU Rules: What's Trump Up To?

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Congratulations to UK prime minister Theresa May for poking a finger into the eyes of EU nannycrats.

EU rules say members cannot negotiate trade deals until exit from the block is finalized, but you can kiss that rule goodbye.

The Wall Street Journal reports British PM Theresa May Says U.K.-U.S. Trade Talks to Begin Immediately.

High-level talks between the U.S. and the U.K. on strengthening trade ties will begin immediately, Downing Street said Saturday, following British Prime Minister Theresa May’s meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday.

Mrs. May’s office said a team of U.S. and U.K. officials would start scoping out what can be achieved together before the U.K. exits the European Union. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who Mrs. May met in Ankara on Saturday, made a similar commitment to increase trade links with the U.K.

The British leader has said the U.K. is reshaping its role in the world as it leaves the EU, including by renewing its relationship with both new allies and longstanding ones. But her trip to Washington and Ankara prompted criticism from some opposition lawmakers, who said she was cozying up to leaders whose values didn’t align with those in Britain.

Mrs. May on Saturday declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s executive order on refugees, saying the U.S. policy on immigration is a matter for the U.S. This prompted criticism from opposition lawmakers.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, said Mrs. May should have stood up for Britain by condemning Mr. Trump’s order. “It should sadden our country that she chose not to,” he said.

Tom Brake, a Liberal Democrat lawmaker, said of Mrs. May’s reaching out to Mr. Trump and Mr. Erdogan: “This is a deeply alarming sign of her priorities for diplomacy in post-Brexit Britain,” Mr. Brake said. The pro-EU Liberal Democrats said Mrs. May is seeking trade deals with “unsavory leaders.”

While the U.K. is in preliminary talks on trade in more than a dozen countries, under EU law, the U.K. can’t finalize any trade deals with other countries while still a member of the bloc.

The U.K. has tested the limits of that rule. Over lunch at the White House on Friday, Mrs. May and Mr. Trump agreed to maintain the same trading relationship the U.S. currently has with the U.K. in the immediate aftermath of Brexit to ensure stability for businesses, Downing Street said. Mr. Trump has said he wants to agree as soon as possible to a trade deal with the U.K.

Testing the Limits or Clear Violation?

It’s hard to say why Theresa May cozied up to Erdogan (simple defiance of the EU? NATO?) , but it makes sense to start trade negotiations with the US now.

Working out a deal now to be signed the moment Brexit is official seems more like a violation of rules as opposed to “testing the limits”.

Regardless, what the hell can the EU do about it?

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported Theresa May will not find it easy to broker a US-UK trade deal … “British agriculture and financial services may suffer at hands of Capitol Hill”.

That all depends on what Trump’s primary motive is doesn’t it?

If Trump wants to assist in the collapse of the EU, he might be willing to give the UK a very favorable deal.