Brian Monteith

Telegraph & Scotsman writin' Cigar chompin' Jaguar drivin' Vino quaffin' Hibees followin' Zeppelin lovin' Wagner goin' free-marketin' Ex MEP 2019-20 & MSP 99-07

[Brian Monteith @TheBluetrot]

Britain’s care crisis needs the free market, not the state

"Let’s remember, the country is broke, there is no money and our officially admitted national debt is about to break £3tn"

A new death tax is the last thing we need! My latest @Telegraph column https://t.co/L1deSlEK95

[Brian Monteith @TheBluetrot]

Why everyone should rally to the defence of cigar smokers

"At no point did I think, “wow, look at that packaging, I must have those smokes” or “the portrait of an old monarch makes that cigar irresistible”."

My latest @TheScotsman column https://t.co/ZsMZVf72RD

[Forest @Forest_Smoking]

Brian Monteith, a former Forest spokesman in Scotland, despairs over plans to force cigars to be sold in plain packaging, and warns alcohol will be next.

@TheBluetrot

https://t.co/KtF9iBto0w

[The Democracy Movement @DemocracyMovemt]

Reality is dawning. Most powerfully of all, the Iceland referendum has punctured the idea that the EU is the future. A further damaging blow, following Brexit. But when will today's failing EU finally be pushed into the past?
#democracy #Europe #EuropeanUnion

[Brian Monteith @TheBluetrot]

...not least because less than 12% of UK SMEs export to the EU. Even 98.2% of that cohort would be statistically surprising given the bad experiences some British businesses had of the mistermed 'single market'.

[Julian Jessop @julianHjessop]

Looking forward to seeing the detailed polling behind the European Movement's claim that "98.2%" of UK businesses want to rejoin the EU’s single market.

Even Syria's Bashar al-Assad only claimed 97.6% support in a rigged Presidential vote in 2007... 🤔

[Julian Jessop @julianHjessop]

Looking forward to seeing the detailed polling behind the European Movement's claim that "98.2%" of UK businesses want to rejoin the EU’s single market.

Even Syria's Bashar al-Assad only claimed 97.6% support in a rigged Presidential vote in 2007... 🤔

[Ards Brexit @ArdsBrexit]

@SimonCalder Passports weren’t required for travel between Great Britain and the Island of Ireland for hundreds of years until 1924.

Before that the Irish used British Passports.

The CTA was fully implemented in 1925.

The ROI’s failure to control their borders has necessitated the change.

[The Reformer Scotland @TheScotReformer]

Who are the “Working Class Tonies”?

Jonathan Stanley describes socially mobile, economically active voters who have played by the rules — yet increasingly feel let down on housing, public services and living standards.

Read more 👇
https://t.co/2qscA1iExb
#SocialMobility #UKPolitics #TheReformer

[Cut My Tax @CutMyTaxUK]

This Parliament has taxed more than any other on record and we've still got just under three years to go.

An informative graph from The Spectator.

And Labour and its think-tank allies are still droning on about yet further tax hikes.

[Danny Kruger @danny__kruger]

Today I am tabling amendments to the Representation of the People Bill to end Commonwealth voting, restrict postal voting, end foreign language election materials, and crack down on coercive ‘family voting’. 

It’s all designed to restore the principle that we are one nation, speaking a common language, taking part together in one electoral system - a system built on the principle of individual voting and the secret ballot. 

2.5 million non-British citizens from Nigeria, Pakistan, India and elsewhere - people here on temporary work visas, family visas, student visas, i.e. by definition not fully attached to our country - have the right to vote in Parliamentary and local elections because of their Commonwealth links. That is wrong and we will insist you must be British (or Irish) to vote in a British election. 

We increasingly see elections being fought on ethnic and sectarian grounds, with appeals in foreign languages, often for causes - Kashmir, Gaza - that are nothing to with Britain or the remit of the politicians being elected. We will insist that all regulated election material must be in languages that are native to the British Isles. 

A quarter of all votes cast in the last General Election were by post. This is flagrant abuse of a system designed for people physically unable to get to the polling station, and it enables the harvesting of votes by community elders in support of sectarian causes. We will restrict postal votes to members of the Armed Forces and diplomats serving away from home, and to people genuinely unable to vote in person. 

Independent observers at the Gorton and Denton by-election reported unprecedented problems with ‘family voting’ - people being shepherded through the polling station by others - while the 2026 local elections in Birmingham had over 50 incidents reported to the Presiding Officer. We will empower officials in polling stations to insist people vote alone - and if they plainly can’t understand the voting system, their ballot will be set aside altogether (with the right of appeal to a magistrate). 

Voting is a conditional right - conditional on membership of the British nation, on independence from undue influence, on understanding the democracy you are part of. These conditions used to be implicit; due to mass migration we need to make them explicit. I hope other parties will support these amendments next week. If not, if elected, we will introduce our own Elections Integrity Bill to safeguard our democracy.

[Gully Foyle #UKTrade @TerraOrBust]

The UK is

⚫ Growing more than France & Germany
⚫ A magnet for tech/finance investment
⚫ Avoiding the industrial stagnation affecting much of the continent

"Predictions of immediate economic collapse after the 2016 referendum were plainly exaggerated"

https://t.co/WRhZAdGYs4

[Julian Jessop @julianHjessop]

"Healey to shelve his own defence spending target of 3% of GDP by 2030" 🤔

A theme may be emerging: difficult choices are being deferred until next year, as part of a fundamental spending review or 10-year plan, leaving October’s Budget as more of a holding exercise?

The same may apply to property taxes, business rates, infrastructure spending, council housebuilding, and social care funding.

This is not a bad approach: there is a lot at stake, and it is important to get it right. But it could also leave the door open for a 2027 general election if the economy improves, the spending and tax changes are substantial enough to require a new mandate, and Burnham thinks he can win one...

https://t.co/DYMvnZI0Zs

[Cut My Tax @CutMyTaxUK]

Figures presented to the Government before Labour’s first Budget in 2024 revealed the Treasury assumption that the more that the rate of capital gains tax was raised, the less revenue would result.

Treasury data, published in response to an FOI Request submitted by the Tories, show that the Treasury assumption is that the amount available to be taxed through capital gains would decline by 3.6% for every 1% drop in the amount an investor can take home from asset sales. Calculations based on those figures show that the revenue-maximizing rate of CGT is 21.7%.

Of course that does not take into account the wider economic damage caused by this unnecessary tax.

[Julian Jessop @julianHjessop]

... and another

[Julian Jessop @julianHjessop]

Ps the Independent has plenty of form here. For example...

[Julian Jessop @julianHjessop]

"True cost of Brexit on UK trade revealed..." 🤔

Another duff Brexit "exclusive" with numbers which fail a basic sense check.

Apparently, export volumes to the EU have fallen 15.9%, while exports to the rest of the world have fallen by (a far larger) 37.2%. Must be Brexit then... 🙄

But let's imagine Logistics UK claim of a "£11.7bn trade gap" is accurate. That would be less than 2% of the UK's annual exports of goods and services. The OBR's assumption of a 4% hit to GDP was based on a (far larger) 15% fall in total trade. So the OBR's far too pessimitic, then?

Finally, note the article quotes all the usual suspects - Best for Britain, the European Movement, and the LibDems - who must be on speed dial for all of these "exclusives"...

https://t.co/vwaYmXtrWd

[Britain Unbound @BritainUnbound]

Our Advisory Council member Richard Johnson @richardmarcj has written on how the commentary in the British press on the Canada-US trade war has exposed a Brexit double standard.

You can read his piece here (first published on Unherd and reproduced with permission)...

https://t.co/xiDHvYAy8C

[The English Remnant @Englishremnant]

27th August 1816 - The Bombardment of Algiers.

A British fleet under Admiral Lord Exmouth, supported by a smaller Dutch squadron, bombarded Algiers after demands to release enslaved Christians were refused. After hours of fierce fighting, the Dey capitulated, more than 1,000 Christian slaves were freed, and Algiers agreed to end the enslavement of white Europeans, a major British-led blow against the Barbary slave trade. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[Richard Johnson @richardmarcj]

I've written for @unherd about the curious discovery of the importance of sovereignty by some liberal commentators, now that Trump threatens Canada's, but who thought it expendable in the Brexit negotiations...

'[F]or many on the Remain side of the argument, sovereignty was an illusory concept. What mattered were the economic benefits of exchange with the EU. Sovereignty was expendable. Increased economic output from lower trade barriers mattered above all else. The former Bank of England economist Danny Blanchflower memorably declared, “You can’t eat sovereignty”....

[C]ommentators who once suggested that “sovereignty” was some kind of Right-wing fantasy are now praising Carney for standing up for Canadian sovereignty against the US.

Many such examples can be found in the Guardian. Jonathan Freedland once denounced British Leavers as suffering from a “sovereignty delusion” but has praised Carney’s “defiant patriotism” against Trump. Rafael Behr diagnosed a “syndrome: a Brexit model that makes a sacred principle of sovereignty” from which the gains were “nil, while the costs are mounting”. He has since criticised the Trump administration’s “protection racket”, adding that “the price is paid in sovereignty”. Earlier this week, the Guardian leader heaped praise on Canada for “fighting for its sovereignty while the US appears to be fighting for cheaper goods”.'

https://t.co/RUbcANdURJ

[Richard Johnson @richardmarcj]

David, if you read the transcript I shared, you will see that the New York Times journalists are discussing how it would be unacceptable from a Canadian sovereignty perspective to allow the US to impose external tariff requirements on Canada, in exchange for trade access with its largest trade partner.

This was basically what was advocated by the supporters of the all-UK EU backstop. Under the November 2018 Withdrawal Agreement, if the backstop had come into operation, the whole UK would have been placed in the EU customs union. It would have required the UK to align its external tariffs with the EU Common Customs Tariff, as well as EU rules on origin and customs valuation.

At the time, those who argued that this would entail an unacceptable abrogation of British sovereignty were treated by many commentators as extremists.

Obviously the contexts are different, but the point I am making, which perhaps you didn't quite catch, is that the same journalists who thought arguments about the importance of sovereignty were fatuous in the UK-EU negotiations are now cheering on Canada for making arguments about its sovereignty, arguing that Canada is prepared to bear a financial cost (higher friction with US-Canada trade) to maintain the principle of Canadian independence over setting its own external trade rules.