UK-EU Referendum: The UK's Way Forward-Don't Waste The Opportunity on June 23rd 2016 (originally published on Linked-in on the 25 May 2016)

UK voters have an historic opportunity to re-position the UK in to a more sustainable, better run country or, alternatively, continue in the fundamentally flawed, dysfunctional European Union.

We should not waste this opportunity.

For all voters, give some thought on the issues below, before deciding.

1. What DIRECT benefits do I get from being in the EU & how significant are these?
2. What INDIRECT benefits might I be getting from being in the EU and are these real?
3. What Direct or Indirect impacts of EU membership affect me?
4. Do I want to live in the UK with a population of 70 Million, or greater?
5. Where are all the incoming EU (and other) immigrants going to live, school their children, register with a GP, drive / park their cars and get fixed up after an accident or illness?
6. Would I prefer to have an immigration and asylum policy that works for the UK or continue sharing the EU’s "policy"? Remember in 2015 Germany unilaterally invited millions of asylum seekers / economic migrants in. These very unfortunate people will probably gain access to the UK.
7. Is the UK’s forecast GDP growth, strength of the Pound and business confidence sufficient justification to remain in the EU?
8. Is the Remain campaigns prediction of the collapse of the economy, should BREXIT occur, realistic?
9. If the Remain vote wins, we know what will follow; increased population, over-stretched NHS, GPs, schools, ever increasing house prices and clogged roads; but at least businesses & the economy will be fine, if you believe the forecasts.
10. If the Leave vote wins we are told the country will fall over the cliff; however, this is unlikely. Here’s a strategy in the event of a Leave vote:
11. The UK informs the EU it intends to continue business with EU countries as if it were part of the club & that it encourages (expects) EU countries to do the same. This would be a huge boost to the UK’s & EU’s economies and would take less than an hour to communicate.
12. EU Trade Agreements with non-EU countries will be adopted by the UK with those same non-EU countries; so, business as usual. This would also be a huge confidence boost to the economy & the EU.
13. All EU nationals working in the UK as of the 23rd June 2016 will get an open-ended work permit to continue living & working in the UK; however, they will not automatically get the option to become British Nationals. Likewise the UK expects all British Nationals, resident in EU countries, to be treated in the same manner.
14. A UK immigration policy is put in-place along the lines of the Australian scheme where staff places can be filled via immigration only after demonstrating no British Nationals are available to fill the positions. Companies bringing in overseas staff are directly responsible for their accommodation, schooling & medical costs. Such imported staff have to leave the country when their employment ends. These “economic migrants” do not automatically get the option to become British Nationals.
15. A new UK asylum policy is enacted whereby valid asylum seekers get a temporary renewable work permit plus benefits for a fixed period; however, they do not automatically get the option of British Nationality. Asylum seekers are expected to return to their home country once safe to do so. The UK will assist in re-patriation. Potential asylum seekers without hard evidence of their country of residence will not qualify for these conditions or benefits and should get held in secure basic facilities until either deported or confirmed as valid asylum candidates. Valid asylum seekers can only apply for immediate family members (siblings under 18 & parents), not the older generation, Aunts, Uncles etc.

Would you prefer the Remain scenario, or the proposed Leave scenario, described above?

Any forecast from Remain or Leave, which describes something that could happen, is meaningless unless substantiated by hard evidence. So you can safely discard 99% of the two group's predictions.

Neither camp has said what will be done in the event of a Leave Vote, which is a significant omission. Voters need to be actively spelling out what we want the United Kingdom to be in the near future.

So, we can actively work for a much better United Kingdom, get our own politicians working for us using our own principles, by voting to Leave the EU. The necessary changes aren't likely to happen if you vote to Remain in the EU.

I highly recommend Voters don't waste this hugely significant opportunity to improve the UK's prospects.

EU or Not EU, That is the Question (originally published on Linked-in on the 4 May 2016)

For those of you lucky enough to be a member of the European Union, I could do with some help.

I need to decide whether to vote to stay in, or come out, on the 23rd June.

It's a tough call.

So I thought, what is it that I directly benefit from, by being in the EU?

I'm struggling to come up with anything significant...

It's nice travelling through the EU without border controls and once in the Euro area only needing one currency.  Would I really miss this?

I enjoy meeting other EU nationals who have moved to the UK and work hard.  Is this a direct benefit to me?

I'm told it's essential the UK stays in the EU otherwise GDP will drop and business will become "quite difficult".

Then I see the UK's population growing through a combination of EU migration plus "other migration". The roads are clogged up, schools cannot cope with the numbers, the Health Service is nearly overwhelmed, property prices are sky high; all a bit of a mess and likely to stay that way, or get worse, as the population grows.

The Government recommends the UK stays in the EU for trade reasons plus the uncertainty created by leaving. Neither of these directly impact me.

I know of one small UK company that stopped producing brilliant motorbike trailers because they could not afford the EU certification process. I'd quite happily by the trailer without this certificate, but I'm not able to. It appears small businesses tend to suffer under EU regulations.

So please help me out; what direct benefits am I getting from being in the EU?

Solutions to Mass Immigration to the European Union in 2015? (Originally Posted in Blogger on the 7th September 2015)

The mass immigration into Europe in the late Summer of 2015 was a humanitarian disaster which highlighted how poor some of the European Union's policies & rules are.

Sadly politicians appear to have been caught out by this.  Clearly the Asylum and Economic Migrant rules are lacking in this situation and the way Schengen EU countries have variably ignored or sporadically followed the rules, makes the EU look farcical.

So what’s the solution?

Mass emigrations caused by conflict (i.e. sustained significant fighting) urgently need a workable humanitarian solution.

Smaller scale emigration, caused by government mismanagement, can probably be addressed via the existing asylum / economic migrant procedures.

A solution to conflict driven mass immigration could be:

• An EU funded Migrant Budget needs to be established with mandatory member contributions proportional to Gross Domestic Product, for example 0.5% of national GDP.
• EU countries can apply for Migrant Budget in order to construct & operate Migrant Reception Centres (MRC). Sufficient MRCs are required, across the EU, to cope with thousands of migrants in short periods.
• All migrants entering the EU are directed to the closest MRC with capacity. The costs of doing this come from the Migrant Budget.
• The MRC provides basic secure accommodation, food & medical assistance whilst evaluating each migrant’s status against the relevant Asylum and Economic Migrant categories.
• Migrants with valid national documents; once confirmed as such, can then apply to an EU country for a Temporary Residence Visa (MTRV) valid, for example, for 3 years, in order for there to be time for the conflict to be resolved.
• Migrants without national documents cannot enter this system. This is designed to discourage the arrival of migrants without valid national documents.
• Migrants who cannot prove their country of residency remain in the designated MRC, where they are helped to secure proof of their nationality. The incentive of achieving an MTRV and exiting the MRC for a host country should keep the number of “state-less” migrants to a minimum.
• For migrants on an MTRV; if their home country conflict has not resolved after 3 years an annual extension of the visa is available.
• Migrants on an MTRV are allowed & encouraged to work using the same domestic legislation for out of work nationals.
• Migrants on an MTRV qualify for the same benefits as Nationals.
• If the Migrant wishes to return to their home country, financial help can be provided in the form of air tickets. The cost of this is charged to the Migrant Budget.
• Once the Migrant’s home country’s conflict has ended (as determined by the EU host countries national government) and the MTRV period is coming to an end; the Migrant’s air-fares can be paid by for by the Migrant Budget, in order to facilitate repatriation.
• Migrants on an MTRV cannot apply for permanent residence or nationalisation via the standard process.
• But, if, once their home country’s conflict has ended, Migrants on an MTRV can demonstrate they can support their entire family via employment through becoming fluent in the host country’s language, plus a minimum of 12 consecutive months of sufficient salary (i.e. not requiring any benefits); then the Migrant and their immediate family can apply for residency leading ultimately to nationalisation. If not, then repatriation is mandatory once the MTRV period expires.

Obviously none of this is going to happen in a time-frame for the situation in 2015; however, the EU urgently needs to get a grip on immigration policy.  I suspect none of the EU countries’ Governments, when asked in private, would actively choose to take in large numbers of economic migrants whether from conflict areas or not. 

With the heightened focus on immigration into the UK, adding valid asylum seekers plus large numbers of economic migrants, is a political nightmare.  This is exacerbated by the UK’s Government's 2015-17 programme for an EU Membership referendum together with the clear failure of the EU Rules on dealing with mass inward migration.  The anti-EU parties will likely have a field day over the failure of current EU rules and floundering politicians.

I’m not holding my breath on this. The current EU Human Rights, Asylum & Economic Migrant regulations will, almost certainly need revising.  National politics is a very slow process and EU progress is grindingly slow; however, the huge volume of suffering might just galvanise European Union politicians to put in-place a workable system…quickly.

In the meantime expect lashings of moral guilt and an emotional fudge; without reform, it'll lead to a long-term mess.

What Total Population Do Residents Want for the United Kingdom? (Originally published on Blogger on 6 November 2015)

Let’s start with a question:

Assuming you’re a British National, say over 30 years old and there was a referendum today with the simple question:

Do you agree the country should increase in population to approximately 70 million people by 2027?”  YES   NO

How would you vote?

According to the BBC News article on the 29^th October 2015, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34666382) the majority of the predicted population growth in the UK will be from immigration, presumably from the European Union (EU), together with a minority from asylum seekers and professionals coming to work.

What’s actually behind the UK’s population growth?

Two things: Allowed EU migration together with actual UK Government policy.

Put in the simplest terms, the Government needs money from income & corporation taxes to run the country.  As the workforce ages, stops working and stops paying taxes, the services Government provides (particularly the NHS and Pensions) increase in cost as the workforce declines; unless of course, more people are added to the workforce.

There you have it!

A fundamentally flawed, unsustainable policy that almost guarantees population growth.

In the UK, the first significant manifestation of Government policy to increase tax revenue was encouraging women (housewives) to go to work.  Those of you around when this policy came in would be forgiven for not remembering hearing the Government state the actual reason for the policy; because they didn’t!  It was presented as an equality issue, thereby masking the real reason.

You might remember the furore over uncontrolled immigration during the Tony Blair / Gordon Brown Governments?  Jack Straw subsequently described his Government’s immigration policy as appalling; which it was.  Why was immigration and population growth such a low-level topic for Labour during this period?

Because the Economists & Policy Makers present population growth to Politicians as THE SOLUTION to Government revenue and national GDP growth, even though it’s fundamentally flawed and unsustainable.

How smart is that?

There is a common theme of Economists & Policy Makers ignoring fundamental issues leading to policies that side-step the real issues, introducing new issues and making the situation worse than if nothing had been done.  Take subsidising renewable energy as a good example.  The principal issue with energy sources is the cost of pollution.  Add-in the actual cost of pollution remediation to fossil fuels and they are not economic.

Very simple. 

Nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind & wave energy have minimal costs associated with pollution and therefore should be the energy sources being used.  Progress in reducing our damage to the World will be ineffectual until Economists, Policy Makers & Governments adopt and implement holistic, environmentally neutral energy policies where pollution is remediated in real time and cost.  It’s not rocket science, but getting to this status will likely take another 50-100 years.  Establishing the principal that pollution remediation is mandatory is the crucial first step towards the proper economics of energy.

Back to population growth.

The real challenge for the United Kingdom is to decide what total population it should have, rather than continue following the current, flawed programme.

Before this can happen some smart people need to identify a new approach to Government services and funding that is sustainable without constant population growth.

I can hear you say; “this is not realistic”.

This may be beyond the expertise of most Economists, Policy Makers and almost certainly Politicians; however, if we surrender then we have to accept the current approach leading to significant population growth.

It’s natural for people to choose the path of least resistance.  Politicians have effectively done this in deciding to increase the working age population via migration.

We currently have an opportunity to get our Politicians to understand we don’t want an increasing population and that the Government needs to change its approach whereby there’s an agreed total population and Government services are provided as a direct function of a capped population, together with corporate tax revenue.

Inevitably this means Government services will have to be smaller and people will likely have to use private insurance and more efficient privately supplied services.  It’s unlikely that Government itself can become significantly more efficient, although this should be attempted.  I suspect the NHS’s commercial efficiency is Fourth Quartile, using large amounts of our money to little effect.

In summary, the UK Government, like most other advanced countries (Germany is a case in point), needs to focus on establishing a revenue & service that reflects an agreed total population in a sustainable manner.

This will take decades to achieve and, because it’s significantly longer than the political term, laws that establish the basis for Government, including a maximum population, balanced budgets and pollution remediation in real time, need to be cast in stone.

Any proposed changes to these fundamental laws must have a referendum, otherwise the UK could, for example, suffer another period of uncontrolled population growth such as happened during the last Labour Governments.  In effect these basic laws need to become constitutional so they cannot be repealed or modified by any majority Government.

There shouldn’t be any major issues moving to this approach because it is win-win for the main political groups in the UK; socialist, capitalist, and green.

And it's morally correct, so let’s go for it!

Any wealthy philanthropists out there who want to put some serious money behind re-positioning democracy into the agenda described above; please get in contact…

I’m not holding my breath....

The UK May 2015 General Election - Thank you Scotland for a new Conservative Government? (Published in Linked-in on the 9th May 2015)

So, the unexpected actually happened and the UK now has a majority government.

How did this happen?

It happened largely because the (Left-wing) Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) were hugely successful in throwing out most (Left-wing) Labour MPs in Scotland, meaning the Labour party, as a whole, had no chance of competing with the Conservatives.

So I'm not sure how Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP, can actually reconcile the fact that their success has actually returned a majority Conservative government which, prior to the election, she said would be the worst possible result.  I'm sure she'll manage to say something about this, when pushed...

One good aspect is that the SNP will not be in any position to directly influence the next government; however as I mentioned in my Guide to Voting, ahead of the election; the newly elected SNP MPs will need to work much harder and demonstrate they can deliver all their promises on Scotland.  I'm not holding my breath on this.

Allied to the Left-wing parties falling out, two other issues contributed to the Conservative victory: the promise of a referendum on membership of the European Union and the possibility of Labour & the SNP joining forces in a coalition (even though both leaders denied they would do this).  These two Conservative Party strategies were masterful.

Sadly the normally sensible & pragmatic Liberal Democrat supporter appears to have disappeared, which is a real pity. Nick Clegg, the leader has resigned; as he should.  But you'd like to think the typical Lib-Dem supporter is a bit smarter than abandoning the party because of it needing to work in a coalition.

As for UKIP, the results are about right. Some people supported them but most did not.  They are fine for the European Parliament but not for Westminster.  Mr Farage did the decent thing and resigned.

On the topic of resigning, Ed Milliband also did the decent thing and resigned.  Labour has had a wasted 5 years and looks like another 5 years to come. At least some of the things Tony Blair said have some basis in fact; Labour needs to be in and capture the centre ground, not left of centre.

Lastly, there are a lot of MPs out of a job; some of whom have not had a proper job in their life.  Now's the time for these people to actually become one of those "hard-working British people" they've been referring to.

Personally I would have preferred a continuation of the Conservative Lib-Dem coalition; however the next least worst scenario is a Conservative majority government.

The United Kingdom's existence is still under threat; however the likelihood of another referendum on Scottish independence, is quite low.  But the botched elements of devolution already in existence plus the additional steps, in the pipeline; sadly means Nationalism will not be declining.  It will take 5-10 years for Scottish voters to realise the SNP is no better than Labour and hopefully that Nationalism is the wrong road to travel down.  I'm not holding my breath on this one, either.

A Guide to Voting in the UK's May 2015 General Election (published on Linked-in on the 25th April 2015)

The premise for this guide is the Voter wishes to reside in the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future.

Voting Liberal:

• Means you have understood that the Liberal's 2010 manifesto became redundant as soon as they joined the coalition with the Conservatives; so you’re probably pragmatic & smart.
• Means you understand that the Liberals have been a positive influence on the coalition and that the UK should benefit from this continuing

Voting Conservative:

• Means you’d like a continuation of the coalition era policies, perhaps even with the Liberals again?
• Means you understand the need for a formal dialogue with Europe about the key areas that are failing badly. And that in a democracy there are times when the people should be asked their opinion in a referendum
• Means you would like the UK to continue, preferably without any form of nationalism. We are a team which is greater than the sum of its parts.  Nationalism needs to be defeated and not allowed to re-appear, by smart collaborative & effective policies.  A big ask.

Voting Labour:

• Means you are happy to elect an inexperienced party leader with (champagne?) socialist influences together with a potential Chancellor who was present in the last Labour government and witnessed the financial carnage in 2008 when working with Gordon Brown.
• You believe they will actually deliver on the numerous “promises” which tend to end up needing large budgets, don’t actually fix issues, resulting in higher debt and increased dysfunctionalism

Voting Scottish National Party:

• Means you believe the SNP, all of a sudden, are smarter and better than the Scots in the Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties, ever have been.
• You believe that the SNP’s MPs can deliver better services, education, roads, hospitals; lower taxes plus more and better jobs, where other party’s (Scottish) MPs have singularly failed to do this.
• Means you believe Scotland will be a better (small) country through letting SNP MPs push for full independence, again. Leading to another hiatus in business & significant uncertainty.
• Ultimately it means you do not understand how the UK works. All votes for the SNP have a negative impact on securing a competent government for the UK
• Means, being a nationalist, you are not interested in continuing with the United Kingdom.

Voting UKIP:

• Means you are basically anti-immigration and anti-EU plus, you blame the Labour Party & Coalition for allowing this situation to arise.
• Means you don’t mind that your vote won’t produce a positive result in terms of securing a competent government that could actually start to address these issues
• Means you don’t mind that UKIP don’t have any real experience at Westminster and their policies are minimal and poorly constructed. Not a good recipe for success.
• Ultimately it means you do not understand how the UK works. All votes for UKIP have a negative impact on securing a competent government for the UK

Voting Green:

• Means you are giving precedence to Green issues over all others and potentially preventing the establishment of a competent government
• You understand that the Green's policies are not particularly practical and they have little experience of policy implementation, or government as a whole.

So, being a democracy means each Voter can cast a vote that will likely lead to the UK going backwards and even hasten the destruction of the Union; or park current "grievances" and vote positively for a competent party with a track record in restoring the UK to prosperity.

Don't waste your vote but just as importantly don't vote to (potentially) go backwards and/or risk the Union.