I never cease to be amazed by politicians and their endless tortuous arguments about nothing at all.  There is great deal of posturing about Brexit. The Labour spokesman wittering on about wanting to know what the terms of the UK Government stance is going to be.  The answer is clear and everyone agrees, ‘the best we can get’.

What does that mean?  It’s simple, well not quite, but simple enough for an elected MP?

• Best trade conditions we can get – a customs union- details will need refining. The situation on financial services is a key area to be negotiated. There are endless implications on trading standards but UK is a leader. There may be costs or contributions demanded by the EU – maybe they’ll be worth paying, maybe not.
• Control of our borders – our border controls are completely unfit for purpose though every one denies this. (Mrs May former Home Secretary struggled here and she knows it.) We will take at least ten years to get this under control. Control means accepting people who we need, and people who need to be here on humanitarian grounds. Free movement will be phased out.  Sooner than later.
• UK laws will be UK laws, subject only to agreed treaties approved by Parliament.
• UK will remain an anti-terror intelligence hub for the west including Europe.
• We will sustain our Interpol links and criminal intelligence.
• Intellectual traffic will continue with the UK paying into the research funds in proportion to its input.
• UK will remain a leader in NATO, our defence expenditure will remain at 2% of GDP.
• There are many more issues of minutiae – all of which may be the subject of a Walloon objection. Who knows?

All this of course is a simple base but highly complex in the detail.  And there is no particular order of preference here as all these issues are interlinked.  But the principles are clear the UK wants to return to a concept of an independent state in a customs union or free trade area – full stop.  The UK does NOT want federalism in any shape or form (especially military).  The UK does NOT want fiscal union of any sort.  The UK does NOT want involvement in a single currency or the support thereof.

The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish views and influence are essentially no more important that the regions of England, considerably less than the city of London.

Nicola Sturgeon in particular threatens the UK with a breakaway if she doesn’t get what she wants.  Well tough!  Scotland is, by the will of the Scottish people, part of the UK.  Sturgeon cannot hold the UK Government to ransom every time the mood takes her. Both Scottish and Welsh regional governments should spend their time better managing the NHS and Education budgets in their control, than meddling in UK government business where regional MP’s are there to look after regional interests.

If the ‘Remain’ MP’s don’t get it, these basic ideas, then they should wrap up their tents and go home.  Their job is to constructively support the government in its efforts to get the ‘best’ results for the UK.  By all means argue about the detail but not about the principle which anyone with any common sense can see.

The Government could of course share the basic objectives. The PM must have freedom to negotiate, and come back to Parliament when she feels she will need approval and support.  The knotty issue will be if Parliament decides it knows better and rejects the final agreement as not being in the UK’s best interests.  Then I suppose it will have to be another referendum – God forbid!

Mrs Merkel knows what the terms will be. So what’s the secret?

‘I will.’  Two little words that mean so much.  Most of us remember our marriage vows, other will remember resolutions at the turn of the year or promises made to friends or teachers.  ‘I will ’

What we sometimes forget that a promise made is a debt unpaid and that keeping promises is sometimes much more difficult that we expect.  Easy to say but often hard to do, ‘I will’ requires a conscious commitment that can sometimes be washed away in the sands of time.

We are all brought up in the context of a belief system, and there are many of them. Each of them requires an ‘I will’ response which we carry consciously or otherwise through our lives. Despite this cultural mind-set we drift from what were once our core values.  We compromise the resolutions of our youth, we break our promises and often forget the ‘I will’ which was the bye word of our forefathers.

Internationally, do many nations to uphold values?  Do the great alliances EU or NATO and the UN have the collective will?  Despite them all, we watched passively the horrors of Bosnia, Srebrenica, Rwanda and now Syria and Yemen.

Now there seems to be suddenly accepted lack of collective will.  The will of the people is to avoid conflict even when war crimes are committed day after day whether in Yemen or Syria.  When children die and mothers starve, and hospitals are bombed, there is no will, no promise of humanity upheld.

Being reliable and sticking to our core values requires an act of the collective will, and to exercise that will we need leaders who will carry the weight of our consciousness and our belief of what is right.

‘What is right’ is sublimated too often into ‘what we want’ which is seldom coincident, when what we want is so often driven by greed, malevolence or even just self-protection. If there is a vacuum of ‘good will’ then that malevolence will win.

Is there someone, somewhere, who will lead us and say ‘I will stop the carnage’, ‘I will do what’s right’ simply because I believe in humanity?

It never ceases to amaze me that politicians can be so obtuse. The front bench opposition Foreign Secretary took up a serious share of ‘Question Time’ on the BBC to talk vacuous nonsense.

We shall respect the vote of the people, all the politicians bleat about the potential negativity of the outcomes.  It is as if they are the walking zombies who’ve been unconscious throughout the last four to five months. They are seemingly unable to break away from their previous mind-set that the EU, on balance is/was good.

Well tough, I wrote on this blog on the 25^th May, the following;

“When David Cameron promised a Brexit referendum he must have been unwell or at least seriously ill advised. 

Well here we are, the Tory party very close to melt down and the UK preciously close to a vote to leave Europe.

The consequences of the Tory party collapse is a serious long term issue that will perhaps will heal in time – say ten years assuming the Brexit vote is clear.  If the vote is very close as is predicted then God help the Tory party who will bicker on forever.  So no benefit there for the Conservatives or the country.

If the vote is for out, then again we can all see the Scots heading for the door and Ms. Sturgeon beating the drum for independence.  That will be no good to anyone not even the Scots.

So far not very good whichever way you look at this catastrophic political decision of the Prime Minister.

The vote then will be decided on ‘gut feel’ it will be entirely left to chance.  The intricacies and arguments surrounding the Eurozone, the Schengen zone, macro-economics, world trade et al. for the most part will be known and understood by a modest number of voters.  In short confusion reigns and our futures will be decided by an ill-informed (for the most part) and ignorant voters.   Democracy wins!

It seems that the Conservative party has got itself into a lose-lose situation.  Not the greatest political judgement by its leader.”

How prescient was that!

It must be obvious even to the half-witted politicians that we have to get the best deal we can predicated on, Control of our laws, Borders, and Courts.  The consequences may well mean we have to leave the single market.  We have to wait and see.

One of the issues which all the politicians seem to be ducking is the effect on the Euro and its comparative value both to the Dollar and the Pound. They will stabilise in time I suspect with the Euro at the bottom of the pile.

The negotiations will be horrendously complex and chaotic with each of the 27 EU countries attempting to get their spoke in.  Of course we don’t know what our plan is except that we want Sovereignty, control of our borders and laws, at the best terms we can get.- Simple, no, but empiric -yes.

Let’s get on with it.  The miserable opposition from Labour and the SNP is exactly that, they want their cake and they want to eat it.  Why don’t they grow up?

The UK Government, like all Governments is a bureaucratic leviathan. Actions ares driven by political will and delivered by a rigid and conservative civil service.  As far as the children stuck in the Calais refugee jungle and their rescue to join relatives already in Britain are concerned, one has to ask if the political will really exists at all.

Amber Rudd has much on her plate, as do all the members of Mrs May’s government however, on the 50^th anniversary of the UK’s greatest children tragedy of Aberfan you might think that compassion for lost children who’ve already been through hell, would be at the top of the agenda.  It seems not.

Rudd says she wants names and details of connections.  Well get a civil service person to get over to Calais and get cracking.  It should be well with our Governments’ ability to act with rapidity.  All these children are existing in dreadful conditions and all are vulnerable to all sorts of exploitation.  Let’s get a grip!

Yes of course there are many other just and deserving causes at home in UK.  These needs are not mutually exclusive.  The Calais issue is well defined and relatively easy to manage and these facts alone should be enough of an incentive.

Britain has always been an open and charitable community, what we seek here is simply that families are reunited and that children who are lost can be found again. Why wouldn’t we act and act quickly?