Catherine McBride OBE

Free Market Economist, Trade & Agriculture.
Briefings for Britain editorial group

Views my own. Retweets not necessarily endorsements.

[Catherine McBride OBE @CeeMacBee]

The EU Reset is bad for British taxpayers, British youths, and British businesses. This report by economist Catherine McBride OBE, published by the Great British Business Council, sets out what the UK gives up under the EU Reset and what it will cost.

EU Reset: What the Brexit Reset Deal Will Cost Britain
https://t.co/1UIpPeV3ek

[Catherine McBride OBE @CeeMacBee]

You would think the UK's "Climate Transition" Minister would know that this 'windy little island' has had almost NO wind for 3 days.

But she doesn't, probably because she is one of the 100s of MPs, public sevants, and climate activists attend COP in Turkey at UK taxpayers expense.

[Catherine McBride OBE @CeeMacBee]

Alternatively,
1. drop the ETS tax on electricity produced with gas,
2. drop the restrictions on new offshore and onshore gas developments, and
3. stop taxing oil and gas companies at 78% so they are incentivised to increase UK production.

[Catherine McBride OBE @CeeMacBee]

Forget Rejoining, the EU would gain nothing from that. Burnham is about to give them everything they want on a plate.

Under the Reset the EU can:
1. force all UK food and agriculture companies to obey EU rules, with no vote and no say;
2. prevent the UK from importing food from non EU countries;
3. force the UK to pay the EU for their 'policy works' and pay for the development of poorer EU countries;
4. force UK manufacturers to pay the same ETS costs as EU companies;
5. force the UK to add carbon taxes to important input materials that the UK no longer makes.

The EU will control UK money, UK laws, and even UK borders again, without giving the UK a vote.

[Richard Taylor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 @rtsrichard]

I don't need to work it out. I run a small business and import from and export to the EU and RoW.
Not bad for a one man band.

We haven't stopped exporting because of red tape, we still export.
But who's red tape? That causes the problem and in the proposed new SPS agreement that will remove most of it for seafood, but the problem is it will also open the door the other way, and at the moment the EU has significant animal health issues that we should keep on top of.

Hey though, here's an interesting concept. F**k them.
Sell the seafood eslewhere.
And retain our fishing rights.
Make all catching in UK waters have to land at a UK port.
You'll see the Iberian peninsula go apoplectic if they can't eat our fine langoustines while we import crap from Bangladesh.
Let them have the Asian seafood.
When I was in Hong Kong they had weekly flights of oysters and scallops coming in from UK. There's options to export.

As for the other matters, general trade is an issue, but not just to EU, to everywhere.
That's Government policy.
Higher taxes, higher energy costs, higher labour costs, higher inflation, higher costs of red tape....
Lazy people just blame Brexit.
It isn't Brexit.

And consider now, I sell B2B and B2C in to the EU.

Things haven't changed much B2B, just the tax point. I ship with a customs invoice - no burden really.
The receiving customer has a small clearance fee that is a fraction of 1% of the cost.
B2C they are clobbered especially since 10 days ago.
2 Euros tariff per item line on an order.
Buy 3 items, an extra 6 euros.
In addition to the admin fee
No skin of my nose, but the EU public are being milked - and for what?
To line the pockets of the bureaucrats.
It renders the IOSS system they set up to manage this as useless to the seller and buyer.
They are killing the continent.

Even with the Trump tariffs, shipping in to the USA is still far more easy for both me and the customer.
The middle east works like a dream, as does Japan, Thailand, even China.
It is the EU that is the cause as much of anything, of the slow decline in the European economies.

[Catherine McBride OBE @CeeMacBee]

Forget Rejoining, the EU would gain nothing from that. Burnham is about to give them everything they want on a plate.

Under the Reset the EU can:
1. force all UK food and agriculture companies to obey EU rules, with no vote and no say;
2. prevent the UK from importing food from non EU countries;
3. force the UK to pay the EU for their 'policy works' and pay for the development of poorer EU countries;
4. force UK manufacturers to pay the same ETS costs as EU companies;
5. force the UK to add carbon taxes to important input materials that the UK no longer makes.

The EU will control UK money, UK laws, and even UK borders again, without giving the UK a vote.

[Mujtaba Rahman @Mij_Europe]

This isn't surprising. None of the intermediate docking stations - customs union or single market - is politically viable given the trade-offs involved. Now @andyburnham has reopened the Brexit debate, the political logic was always going to point towards a recommendation for full-fat EU membership

For context: The French are currently opposing any form of decision-shaping - forget decision-making - role regarding the agri-food sector

The Norway option for the whole UK economy was never going to be politically saleable

All roads lead to rejoin

[ScepticalSista @ScepticalSista]

Absolute nonsensical cope. The City doesn’t want any of it. End of.

If there was growth and money to be gained the City would be all over Rejoin. But there isn’t. So they won’t. And won’t countenance Burnhams ideological stubbornness over facts.

[Rafe Heydel-Mankoo @RafHM]

Rubbish. Your bill is called the "English ETHNIC Identity Bill"

You criticised the flying of the English flag. Now you seek to deny the English their unique ethnicity, their ultimate & most intrinsic identity

Denying a group their ethnic heritage contributes to "cultural genocide" or "ethnocide" according to the 1944 definition

Polling shows that ALMOST ALL ethnic minorities in England still understand that "English" is a fundamentally ethnic identity to which they do not belong

It is only certain parts of the White British community - and activists like yourself - who seek to engage in ethnic erasure

Such a large percentage of White British people disagree with you, that it is dangerous to go down this needless path

Acts like yours are the reason for the growth of ethno-nationalism, not to mention political extremism. Their rise is a direct reaction to needless provocation from leftist elites

If one is born and raised in England, a person may be culturally English -- but that is wholly distinct and separate from being ethnically English. The two should not be conflated.

The two identities - ethnically English and culturally English - have happily co-existed for generations - with the historically tiny culturally English understanding their status and preferring to identity as civically and legally "British" rather than English.

This was done partly out of respect for the ethnic English, who accounted for 92% of the population of England as recently as 1991. But it was also because they naturally identified with their own ethnic group.

This is the only correct view. By way of illustration:

An Englishman born and raised in Japan, who was brought up in Japanese culture and who speaks Japanese with a flawless Japanese accent is clearly culturally Japanese -- but he remains ethnically English. That is an immutable characteristic.

In contrast with England, however, an immigrant to Japan can also be legally Japanese. Japan is a sovereign country of which he is a passport-holding citizen.

So this Englishman is culturally and legally Japanese but he is clearly not ethnically Japanese. I'd wager that 99%+ of Japanese people would agree with this - they'd say it was blindingly obvious

There is such an Englishman in Japan, actually. His name is Joshua Thomson, and he is a sensation for precisely this reason. He identifies as culturally Japanese but acknowledges he is not ethnically Japanese

But Englishness is an even more exceptional case. Unlike Japan, England is not a sovereign nation. It has no citizenship or passports. There is no nationality law.

One may be culturally English - as, say, the footballer Ian Wright is. But Ian Wright can no more be ethnically English than he (or anyone) can be legally English.

So that begs the question: what is the point of doing this?

What is behind this dangerous, provocative and completely unnecessary desire to erase / undermine English ethnicity, by far the most historically significant and consequential identity for creating the England we know and love?

Ethnic minorities are not calling for it. Poling shows that a mere 10% identify as English. The rest identify either as British or of the ethnicity of their ancestral homeland.

If anyone still believes the myth that the Liberal Democrats are a "centrist" party of "moderates" - falling somewhere between the Tories and Labour - this reprehensible policy by one of their MPs must surely blast it to smithereens.

Economically they may be more centrist than Labour - but culturally they are every bit as reckless and dangerous.

[Dariusz Wiewiórka @darekwiewiorka]

Premier puczu Tusk oficjalnie zapowiedział wprowadzenie cenzury internetu w Polsce !!!

Oczywiście jak każdy eurokrata mówi, że to nie cenzura ale wystarczy posłuchać co mówi:

„To, co dzieje się w świecie wirtualnym, wpływa na umysły i działania ludzi równie mocno, a czasem nawet mocniej, niż to, co dzieje się w świecie rzeczywistym. To, co jest zabronione i nielegalne w życiu realnym, musi być również zabronione i wyeliminowane ze świata wirtualnego.”

Ktoś ma jeszcze jakiekolwiek wątpliwości, że mamy do czynienia z dyktatorem?

Ja od dawna im nie ufam i przewidziałem to co robią i mam Starlinka i VPN, także jak wprowadzą terror unijny w Polsce będę dalej was informował.

[Steve Scrase @StevenScrase]

Think about the sheer cynicism of the timing. Today is 11 November—Armistice Day. Across the country, ordinary Brits are standing in silence at war memorials to honour the men who bled and died for this nation. And how does our state broadcaster mark the occasion? By splashing a grainy dark photograph across its front page with the headline: "New photos are 'essential evidence' of possible SAS war crimes, inquiry told".

They couldn't wait twenty-four hours.

What we are witnessing at the Afghanistan Inquiry is not the pursuit of justice. It is a coordinated, eight-year crusade driven by a triangle of activist journalists, human-rights law firms, and risk-averse Whitehall bureaucrats who view Britain’s elite warfighters with contempt.

Look at the machinery behind these headlines. For nearly a decade, a dedicated unit inside BBC Panorama—led by Hannah O’Grady and Joel Gunter—has worked in lockstep with human-rights solicitors at Leigh Day and anti-military NGOs like Action on Armed Violence to hunt the men of 22 SAS. When Inquiry Counsel Oliver Glasgow KC drops a selective line in court, lobby correspondents at Sky News and The Guardian transcribe it as gospel. Have we learned nothing from the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) farce? Back then, the exact same legal-media ecosystem dragged thousands of British soldiers through a decade of hell over alleged war crimes in Basra, burning £60 million of public money before the whole thing collapsed with zero murder convictions and lawyer Phil Shiner struck off in disgrace.

Now look at yesterday’s "bombshell." Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey, the Royal Military Police Gold Commander who ran Operation Northmoor, told the inquiry that photographs from 2011 Helmand night raids "cried out for examination", yet never sent them to forensic experts. Think about that for a second. Operation Northmoor lasted five years, cost over £10 million, had more than a hundred investigators, and ended in zero charges and zero convictions. Now, fifteen years after the event, the investigator in charge complains that his team didn't check the photos properly—and the media spins his admin incompetence as proof of an SAS cover-up!

Even worse is how this witch hunt started. As the Inquiry’s own disclosures have let slip, the initial briefings against the SAS didn't come from the operators taking fire in Taliban compounds; they came from staff officers sitting in headquarters and petty inter-regimental rivalries, amplified by an MoD legal bureaucracy terrified of the ECHR. Ever since judges extended the ECHR onto foreign battlefields, Whitehall’s permanent civil service has treated our soldiers as sacrificial lambs to appease international courts.

In 2011, the British state sent young men into the most lethal provinces of Afghanistan night after night to dismantle Taliban networks in pitch darkness. When they came home, the state handed them over to civilian lawyers with slow-mo replays and hindsight. As Brigadier Ed Butler, President of the SAS Regimental Association, rightly warned, this relentless lawfare is actively disarming Britain. Who in their right mind will volunteer for Special Forces selection tomorrow when they know that fifteen years later, a BBC journalist and a KC will be picking through photographs of a firefight to put them in prison?

The Tories talked tough for fourteen years, yet it was a Conservative Defence Secretary who set up the Inquiry and left our veterans at the mercy of the ECHR. Labour’s Attorney General is cut from the exact same cloth. Only Reform UK has had the backbone to draw a line in the sand—with Zia Yusuf and new Shadow Armed Forces Minister Angus MacIntyre (himself a 40-year veteran) pledging to end the persecution of our veterans within 100 days and strip human-rights lawfare out of combat operations.

On Armistice Day of all days, this national self-harm needs to stop.

[Andrew Gilligan @mragilligan]

A group linked to hard-left conspiracy theorists Byline Times has been given £266k of taxpayers’ money to promote “trusted news.”
https://t.co/whNKBUcMjI

[Bruce Hamill - Daily Update @BruceHamill_DU]

At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, we remember.

A reading of What It Is to Be British, a poem reflecting on the sacrifices made for our country, the values that bring us together and the Britain we hope to leave for future generations.

Poem by Stephen Windsor
Narrated by Bruce

To those who served, and those who never came home, we will remember them.

Lest we forget. 🌹

[Looking for Growth @lfg_uk]

You spent £10 million just for this to happen. 

Bridgend, 2021.

A brand new business park opens, with £10 million of funding from the Welsh government. 

This year, caravans poured in. 

Rubbish was left absolutely everywhere.

“It felt like an apocalypse was happening”

Horses and carts were racing down. 

Acts of public indecency took place next to the care home. 

After a while, a caravan exploded and they left. 

But the rubbish stayed. 

Not one business ever opened there.

11 football fields of rubbish. It’s stopped people from walking their dogs.

This is what happens when the government fails to prosecute.

Rubbish piles up. Lives get worse. 

This is not normal. 

What do you think?

[Net Zero Watch @NetZeroWatch]

50 years ago today, the first oil flowed from the Brent field in the North Sea — helping transform Britain into a global energy powerhouse.

Half a century after Britain celebrated its North Sea energy revolution, the Government is proposing a permanent ban on new exploration.

From celebrating our energy resources to leaving them untapped. How times have changed.

#CostOfNetZero

[Iain Duncan Smith MP Chingford & Woodford Green @MPIainDS]

Labour's hypocrisy on welfare is staggering. Throughout Covid, they demanded more spending at every turn. Now they're in government, they blame the Conservatives for the rising welfare bill while refusing to take the difficult decisions needed to bring it under control. Burnham @10DowningStreet talks about tough choices, but his own backbenchers won't tolerate meaningful welfare reform, putting political survival ahead of the national interest.

Instead, we get distraction politics, with debates about slavery and reparations diverting attention from Labour's failures at home. The question is simple: Labour is in government now. What are they actually going to do to bring welfare spending under control?

[spiked @spikedonline]

No, the mass shooting Kraków was not a ‘far right’ terror attack. Michal Oksinski had no obvious motive. Poland’s pro-EU establishment was far too quick to try to weaponise this tragedy. Cooler heads are needed, says Jacob Reynolds
https://t.co/5Ow2dYIVdx

[Dave Sharma @DaveSharma]

Real wages in Australia have fallen to levels last seen in 2011.

And they are not expected to recover until 2034.

If you are feeling worse off under this Labor Government, that is because you are worse off.

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

I’m not joking … today, the UN is due to re elect IRAN to the committee developing policies on women’s rights, human rights, counter terrorism and peacekeeping 🤷‍♀️

Britain allowed Iran’s nomination to proceed without objection in April (the US objected)

An absolute disgrace!

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Nearly half (48%) of African-born immigrants aged 20–64 living in Spain are unemployed, according to an analysis of third-quarter 2026 data from Spain's National Statistics Institute (INE).

Moroccans account for approximately 70–72% of Spain's African-born population. As of January 1, 2025, Spain had 1,647,610 African-born residents, more than 1.1 million of whom were born in Morocco.

The report covers African-born residents aged 20–64 and excludes second-generation immigrants born in Spain.

[Liza Rosen @LizaRosen0000]

Afghan men who received free housing, welfare and full UK support now fly back to Afghanistan to visit family and Taliban friends. They no longer pretend to be refugees. They know Britain will never cut the benefits.

The scam is obvious. Stop the madness!

The next British government must cut the entire foreign aid budget to zero.

Hundreds of millions go to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Gaza to Islamic states and populations that despise Britain, export jihad and treat non-Muslim women and girls as disposable.

That money is not compassion. It is a transfer from the British taxpayer to people who hate them.

Stop the moral theatre. The moment an illegal migrant tries to cross from France, turn the boat around. No processing. No hotels. No asylum games. They entered illegally. They leave immediately.

Britain should stop downgrading itself from one of the greatest nations of Western civilization to a hostel for third-world invaders.

[Catherine McBride OBE @CeeMacBee]

You would think the UK's "Climate Transition" Minister would know that this 'windy little island' has had almost NO wind for 3 days.

But she doesn't, probably because she is one of the 100s of MPs, public sevants, and climate activists attend COP in Turkey at UK taxpayers expense.

[Times Radio @TimesRadio]

The government’s £12 billion investment in wind farms will help "bring down people’s energy bills", says climate transition minister, Katie White.

But they have not announced any additional funding to upgrade the grid.