Sunak and Hunt seek to betray Brexit voters with new 'Swiss-style' EU deal.
New British PM Rishi Sunak is pushing for a Swiss-style EU deal that would see the UK realign with EU rules and regulations.
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What to Expect from this Post:
- Sunak vs Truss
A brief review of the 2022 Conservative leadership election between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
- Swiss-Style Deal
Remainers, Sunak and Hunt, push for closer ties to the EU with their proposal for a Swiss-style deal.
- Rise of the Reform Party
As the Conservatives seek to become Labour-lite, Reform Party hope to capitalise on legacy parties mistakes.
Sunak vs Truss
Well, it had been coming.
Liz Truss, who only severed as British PM for 44 days before Sunak and Hunt’s Remainer-coup, was the Brexit candidate in the Conservative leadership election following Boris Johnsons’ resignation.
Her cabinet was also made up of senior Brexiteers, including the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch and Kwasi Kwarteng.
When Chancellor Kwarteng announced his mini-budget in September 2022, all hell broke loose.
Hedge-funds, who had been given advanced notice of the Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget, proceed to short the pound, leading to a huge crash that spooked the country, especially mainstream media, who immediately called for Truss’ head.
However, the IMF’s own data, contrary to their interventions, shows that Brexit Britain is outpacing EU rivals in practically every metric:
A campaigner for NEXIT (Netherlands Exit from the EU), Gabriel van de Bloemfontein told the Express:
The problem here is that the europhiles are living in denial.
The EU hoped that the UK would totally collapse in every way possible, and they are very angry that it did not happen in more than six years after the Brexit vote, despite the constant project fear about a possible economic meltdown.
The Brussels bureaucrats and their europhile media channels still continue these claims, because their biggest worry is that other EU countries will follow the British to leave the European Union, as Euroscepticism is on the rise everywhere.
Despite the statistical data supporting a strong UK and the IMF’s admission that their initial forecasts were wrong, Kwarteng resigned and his replacement was neither a supporter of Liz Truss’ campaign nor a Brexiteer.
Here is Nigel Farage’s reaction to Jeremy Hunt replacing Kwarteng:
For more information on Brexit, Liz Truss’ government and how the UK ended up in this chaotic mess, read my previous article:
Swiss-Style Deal
The Sunday Times broke the story that ‘unelected’ British PM, Rishi Sunak and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt were keen to push for a Swiss-style EU deal.
This follows another Times article in which Sunak assured President Biden that an EU deal would be reached (a far cry from earlier attempts to get Boris Johnson to trigger Article 16 and building on the Remainer expectations for a Sunak premiership):
Rishi Sunak has told President Biden he will reach a deal with the EU on Northern Ireland by April.
The president raised his concerns about the Good Friday agreement during a meeting between the two leaders at the G20 summit in Bali, as Britain prepares a law that allows it to unilaterally override parts of the post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland.
Biden did not specifically mention the law, but the US has longstanding concerns that the legislation could destabilise peace in the province.
The Sunday Times reported that:
Senior government figures are planning to put Britain on the path towards a Swiss-style relationship with the European Union.
The move, intended to forge closer economic ties, is likely to infuriate hardline Conservative Brexiteers.
Brexiteers response to the revelation was as predicted, especially because this kind of deal would align the UK much closer to the EU than Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.
Lord Frost, formerly the UK’s Chief Brexit Negotiator, said:
Any approach requiring the UK to align with EU rules to get trade benefits, whether as part of a Swiss-style approach or any other, would be quite unacceptable. Boris Johnson and I fought very hard to avoid any such requirements in 2020 and ensure the UK could set its own laws, and we should not contemplate giving this away in future.
The Sunday Times report went on:
The model…involves more liberal EU migration, and payments to the EU budget, with the bloc in recent years also pushing for the European Court of Justice to have greater oversight in the relationship. The Swiss have frequently debated restricting free movement from the bloc, but in the most recent referendum opted to keep it.
To which, Director of the Vote Leave campaign and Tory peer, Lord Cruddas asserted:
This is a reversal of the 2016 EU referendum when over 17 million people voted to leave the EU.
I am ready to mobilise the Vote Leave team to stop it. We are ready to fight for the Brexit the electorate voted for.
Likewise, Nigel Farage blasted the Sunday Time's report:
It was Farage who coined the term ‘BRINO’ (Brexit in Name Only) when talking about Theresa May’s three failed attempts to ram her deal through Parliament and it took him starting the Brexit Party, and winning the final European Parliament election that the UK would participate in, to finally end her premiership in 2019.
Sam Coates of Sky News concurred with Farage when he said that Sunak’s deal looked suspiciously familiar to May’s.
Coates went on to note that Sunak had voted in favour of all of May’s Brexit deals despite the first attempt to get it through Parliament resulting in the largest defeat any British government has ever suffered.
Raoul Ruparel, Director at Boston Consulting Group and formerly a Special Adviser to the PM (2016-2019) added to Coates commentary:
Harry Cole, Political Editor at the Sun, continued the pile-on:
The wide-ranging fury of Brexiteers and political commentators alike forced a government response, which was to essentially distance Sunak from the proposal:
However, the damage had already been done to the PM’s Brexit credentials.
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Rise of the Reform Party
During the pandemic, several new, right-leaning parties sprung up in opposition to the Conservatives.
This included Lawrence Fox’s Reclaim Party, but it was Nigel Farage’s short-lived Brexit Party that was repurposed by Richard Tice and rebranded, the Reform Party, that has actually made a difference.
Since Rishi Sunak’s occupation of 10 Downing Street, over 4,500 formerly Conservative voters have already flocked to join Reform.
There were even reports that the Conservative party’s website crashed as members sought to cancel their memberships.
Tice claimed that they had joined Reform because they were drawn by the party’s pledges to “lower taxes” and their commitment to stop illegal migration.
The latest polling shows that Reform party have so-far garnered 6% of the vote, 2% down from their all-time high of 8% a few weeks ago.
Below is Tice’s response to Jeremy Hunt’s budget, which reversed practically every policy from the Kwarteng mini-budget.
This is Reform Party’s attack ad against both legacy parties as commentated on by Brexiteer, Mahyar Tousi.
Though Reform Party are still a relatively small competitor to the Conservatives, they should not be ignored.
Tories will be wary of how successful Nigel Farage was with his “insurgency party”.