Your assertion that an ‘Emergency Brake’ can be applied under Articles 112-3 just does not hold water.

To quote from Richard North (who together with Christopher Booker instigated this ridiculous ‘Flexcit’ plan), applying such a brake would be excessively difficult. (see: http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85340):

“Open Europe, on the other hand, believe that Mr Cameron should “stay clear of an ’emergency brake’ on EU free movement”.

An emergency brake, says this “think tank”, would be targeted at flows of new EU migrants not the existing stocks, aimed at “destabilising flows”. This, though, it says, remains a vague term that could mean many different things, and pinning down a precise meaning could prove incredibly tricky.

However, that is to accept the Open Europe characterisation, allowing it to frame the debate. What they skate past is the volume issue where, as we saw recently, net long-term migration to the UK was estimated to be 260,000 in the year ending June 2014, up from 182,000 in the previous 12 months.

That alone is sufficient to apply the brake, and that is a perfectly legitimate application for the measure. The real questions are how and under what circumstances it should be applied. And it is here that Open Europe have no suggestions, and only difficulties to offer.

In fact, it is indeed very difficult to apply. In a country where we have 34 million overseas visitors annually, and visa-free access from EU member states, it would not be possible to exclude visitors.

Once in the country, it would then be very difficult to exclude them from the workforce. There exclusion would be determined only by their date of entry, and there is currently no ready means of identifying when individuals entered the country. Should they apply for a National Insurance number, they would have to be given.

On that basis, an “emergency brake” would look to be unrealistic. But there again, this applies to the current state of the art. Already it is being proposed that entry and exit records are kept, whence it would be quite possible to exclude particular nationals from the legitimate workforce. Simply, they would not be issued with NI numbers.

Similarly, there is already a measure coming into force, via the Immigration Act 2014 which prevents private landlords renting accommodation to illegal immigrants.

Similarly, the government has produced a legal right to work database, which could be adapted to take on new categories of foreign nationals. Mandatory checks should reduce drastically the number of workers employed without entitlement. ”

North has explained that the concept would be very difficult to employ because we cannot stop visitors from the EU coming to Britain but then goes on to suggest that the problem could be reduced by a Government system of recording who enters and leaves Britain. This together with various ‘right to work’ databases and controls on landlords would ease the situation.

You and I both know that there is a complete lack of inertia from the Government in implementing these plans. They all should have been implemented years ago as any sane Government would have done. Even if the Government somehow found the will to do this, even setting aside the usual incompetence, it would take years to implement.

As a former Military man, you are perfectly well aware that our security problems from immigration are immediate and cannot wait for such an occurrence. Our only possible defense is to place an immediate and unilateral moratorium on any immigration until the business is made viable.

You go on to say that your Norwegian and Swiss ‘chums’ are quite happy with their lot, but it was only a year or so ago that the Swiss attempted to secede from ‘Free Movement’ and were told quite categorically that it ain’t gonna happen. Helle Hagenau of the Norwegian ‘Opposition to the EU’ is quite explicit in that the general population wish to leave EFTA/EEA because, typically, the EU does not play fair with the EEA Agreement and is more likely to walk rough shod over it even more than they already do with Lisbon.

I do not know whether you followed the link that I gave you to an independent poll (http://www.tradersadvocate.com/pages/orphan_pages/ExclusiveBrexitPollUpdateDoTheMat#.VzTFBvkrLctQFNNhfXV2xNByV59WiTWPmwIq6i_1V7yg==&c=a79d40izd0vLZVeCSBV1Y9DtMBzwD77waTkdpHLmqr6LTk672QBhww==&ch=TG28xZRjb_kDUcaxHJ0fV4UdW2Pr8zADOZI3lYvZ6yhiOnkGDClkuQ==) but the hypothesis put forward is a really powerful one.

The pollster suggests that even the 50-50 leave/remain polling figures do not take account of voter complacency and it is the ‘leave’ campaign that has by far the greater commitment and only a 5% difference in voting can win or lose the referendum. Recent reports in the newspapers that public polls put out by the likes of Mori have shown a lead for the Brexit side for 5 consecutive weeks.

By all means, continue to tell the waverers that an EEA Agreement will solve all their worries and persuade them to vote out but please, desist from voicing this ruinous course too much in public.

A resounding vote to leave the EU will leave us without the need to go any other route than to true freedom and the odds are already on our side.

I have started a petition on the Government website to preclude Cameron for these negotiations which so far has achieved over 10,000 signatures but as yet, six days later, have not received a response as promised from the Government. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/121579

Perhaps, as you appear to consider it a matter of importance that the right people are sent to Brussels that you might endorse the petition.

The EEA has to comply with well over 500 parts of the EU ‘Acquis’ including ‘Free movement’ which will leave us with the perils of uncontrolled immigration. You also know that the EU frequently flouts the EEA Agreement, even more so than the Lisbon Treaty. Helle Hagenau of Norway’s “Nei til EU (Opposition to the EU)” Campaign has warned that recent trade deals between Norway and the EU have been forced to accept conditions outside of the EEA Agreement in order to get them through. She also says that there is a strong popular movement for Norway to pull out of the EEA altogether though it is proving difficult because of the intricacies of trans-National agreements

I am afraid, Godfrey, that you have been seduced by Richard North’s ‘Flexcit’ plan which has always advocated that Britain joins the EEA as an interim move before final secession from the EU at some unspecified date. We all know, just as you do, that once inside the EEA, there will be no popular or political will to go through the referendum process a second time.

In any case, there is no need to go the route that you advocate. My site, theunituk.org.uk regularly features an independent, online poll that publishes weekly results that make a nonsense of the around 50/50 state as published by the various public polls.(http://www.tradersadvocate.com/pages/orphan_pages/ExclusiveBrexitPollUpdateDoTheMat#.Vy9bYPkrKUl). Contributors (verified by email) are asked to say whether they expect Brexit to occur and the figures (published since March) regularly show the expectation, both from UK and non-UK voter that the Brexit vote is around 80 -90% for Brexit.

The pollster recognises that much of the high percentages are cause by the fact that those who want to leave are generally more committed and are therefore, more likely to vote.

However, the current edition under the heading “Exclusive Brexit Poll Update: Do the Math” hypothesises that even using the public poll consensus of 50-50, there is an extremely good chance that Brexit will occur:

“In this theoretical example, I will explore why public polls should not be taken at face value as potential turnout needs to be factored in. For example. let’s assume the split in public polls is 50-50 and the assumption is that 80% of those favoring Leave will vote in the referendum. The Remain side would then need to at least match the 80% turnout to make the 50-50 public polls an accurate assessment of the potential vote. However, what happens if the turnout on one side (e.g. Remain) is below that of the opposition.

Example:

Assuming 80% turnout for Leave

If the turnout for Remain is 75%, it would mean that the public poll would need to show Remain in the lead by 53.33%-46.67% to be a 50-50 split in real terms due to the lower turnout for that side.

Given that those wanting to leave are generally more committed, they will vote whatever happens whereas of the undecided, many may come over to the leave side, some may even not bother to vote and there is a general figure in most of the public polls that 4-5% have stated that they definitely will not vote at all.

The ‘Silver vote’ is more likely to vote to leave and there are a considerable number. The real clincher may be that many of the Younger voter who may decide for staying will be more concerned with the Glastonbury Festival which occurs at the same time.

So, please, no more of this negative thinking that will leave us in just as much of the proverbial as staying in the EU.

Hi David, I am maintaining this site for Godfrey – we haven’t discussed what to do with comments yet, but I’ll pass this on for you 🙂

Best Regards