The Telegraph published an article of mine on line yesterday explaining why the trade figures disprove the Remain forecast of economic damage from trade friction. This is the trade story of the last ten years.

In 2016, the year of the vote, the UK exported £542Bn and imported  £581 bn, a deficit of £ 39 bn. Last year the UK exported £894bn, an increase of 64%, and imported £937bn, an increase of 61%. The deficit was £43 bn. These were good increases, and were led by large increases in our exports of services to non EU countries. So  much for all the predictions that our trade would be badly hit by Brexit. Our exports particularly of services have taken off in recent years.

Last year the EU counted for just 41% of our exports, with the rest of the world at 59% and increasing. Services also accounted for 59% of our trade and is rising.  Our trade in goods with the EU is experiencing declines in our exports of some key items, not thanks to Brexit but thanks to the net zero policies. Our largest exports to the EU have included oil, gas, and refined oil products, but the UK is set on closing down its oil and gasfields and has just shut two large refineries owing to dear energy and net zero bans. Export of diesel and petrol cars has also been an important contributor and that trade will stop by 2030 as all those new  cars are being banned in the UK. We should expect our export of goods to the EU to fall as a result. Meanwhile we should expect our imports from the EU to rise as we come become ever more dependent on them for our electricity and our food, whilst we will also import more vehicles from the EU and China who will fight for market share. The EU last year already accounted for 49% of our imports compared to 41% of our exports.

In 2024 our trade with the EU showed a major deficit of £97 bn whilst our trade with the rest of the world produced a healthy surplus of £53 bn. This shows the UK is not uncompetitive worldwide, but does have an unfair trade issue with the EU. They are reluctant to buy our services in the same quantities as elsewhere with language, legal and  protectionist barriers against us. They use their rules and continuing influence on us through the Northern Ireland Protocol, Windsor Framework and our reliance still on inherited EU law to allow them unfair advantage in food and farm products, to allow them a disproportionate share of our fish, and to give them a big advantage in exporting electricity to us.

So after Brexit our exports to non EU flourished, our imports from EU continued to expand and our overall trade rose substantially, contrary to all the forecasts from Remain. The tragedy is some of our exports to the EU are being hit and will be hit more by the government’s passion to throttle back the energy, oil products, and petrol and diesel cars that used to be important lines  for us to sell to the EU. It almost looks as if UK policy is designed to cut our exports to the EU to be able to claim Brexit did not work. Given the way government is deindustrialising us and making us a big energy importer, it is great news our liberated trade in services is now advancing rapidly and is providing most of the cash for us to be able to be import dependent on an unfriendly EU for much of our food and energy. We could change the damaging policies that bring that about, but lack the will or the ability to do so.

The PM and the Labour party claim  they have done well at foreign affairs whilst their domestic record is rated lowly by the voters. If only. Giving away  the crucial freehold of the Diego Garcia base was a disaster in the making. Giving in for a costly and unhelpful EU re set was bad for growth and UK taxpayers.

Nor has the UK advanced peace in the world. The UK has decided with its current government to side with the EU over central foreign policy issues when the US President is trying to negotiate peace in both Ukraine and the Middle East.

The decision to work with other allies to announce recognition of a Palestinian state which does not exist and which neither of the combatants in Gaza wants made peace negotiations by the US and Arab intermediaries more difficult.   The attempt to negotiate a coalition  of the willing to police a peace that does not exist in Ukraine was an irrelevance to the situation.

In Ukraine the UK has cut Russian oil and gas out of its own trade and placed wide ranging sanctions on other products. If the UK wants to help bring about a peace it needs  to get other European countries to do the same. Several  EU countries are helping fund the Russian war machine by buying Russian energy or derived products.Their statements of support and sympathy for Ukraine sound hollow given their trade conduct.

The UK has always spent more than the recommended NATO minimum on defence. It needs to help the US get other European members spending up, and now needs to make a big increase in its own to honour obligations and meet the new proposed targets.

France has sought to lead European efforts on Ukraine over the last year. France has  provided only small amounts of money and military aid to Ukraine,  much less  than Germany or the UK. The UK should put pressure on France to do more.

As we see in Moldova there is a struggle  against Russian expansion through elections  as well as a war against Russian aggression  in Ukraine. Russia sees it the other way round as their struggle against EU expansion. The EU needs to do more itself to deter Russia and to demonstrate it only expands when it has the support of the people in the candidate countries.The UK is in a better position like the US to be an honest broker for peace rather than an EU campaigner,

Labour made a few big promises which cut through with voters and are still popular with voters. Unfortunately instead of delivering them in every case the problem has got worse and they are further from target

1, Smash the gangs. Instead they watered down and repealed previous measures, to see a big surge in illegal arrivals by boat

2. Control inflation. They inherited it at 2% and have  helped it almost double. Big tax rises and some pay awards have forced up prices. They offered £300 off energy prices sometime this Parliament but have spent the first fifteen months paying ever dearer prices, pushing up the retail prices.

3 Help more people into decently paid  jobs. Instead unemployment has surged and vacancies fallen as their taxes on business and jibs hit home.

4 Build 1.5 m homes in five years, a third more than the previous government, In the first  fifteen months completions have fallen and are way below the target rate. They think more planning permissions will sort it, but builders have plenty of available permissions. They cannot find enough buyers or make enough profit.

5.Be the  fastest growing G 7 economy. We were in the first half of 2024 but since the  new government higher taxes and borrowings have slowed the economy badly.

6. End chaotic Ministerial resignations and misconduct. Instead we have seen plenty of departures and embarrassments including Deputy PM, political Ambassador to USA, Transport Secretary, Chief  of Staff to PM etc

7 Introduce financial stability and lower government borrowing rates. Instead we have seen substantial rises in 10 and 30 year interest rates despite base rate coming down a bit. There has been speculation about a debt crisis given the high levels of spending and borrowing.

8. Not put Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance up. They have decided to freeze Income Tax thresholds for longer so we pay more tax as inflation bites. They imposed a big hike in Employer National Insurance. They put up other taxes which have done damage and in some cases collected less revenue as a result.

The public wants the government to deliver on these eight pledges.They want a well run government avoiding tax rises, creating financial stability, growing the economy faster and getting borrowing costs down. They want to be able to afford a home of their own and want an end to mass migration.

They do not want digital ID, ever dearer energy and de industrialisation from extreme net zero policies.

When will we get any of those?

Let me make clear I share the left’s aim that no child should lack good food, clothing, a warm bedroom and a good school. Each child usually gets that because they have the even more important asset of loving parents who will provide for them. Provision of the basics need backing up with love and support, to help the child achieve their best and get some fun out of life.

UK policy rightly seeks to keep most children under the care of their parents. The state only takes the difficult decision to take over responsibility for the child in extreme cases where the parents have shown they are not willing or able to provide, and especially where they are a direct threat to the child from neglect and violence. The state is a better substitute than such parents, but the outcomes for children in  state care are often worse than the average of children brought up by their parents. The state cannot supply the love, continuous support  and warmth of a normal mother or father.

Practically all UK children have no money or very little money, as they cannot take paid employment and are not trusted with substantial sums by their parents. Tackling  child poverty does not mean giving money to the children to provide for their housing, food and entertainments. It means ensuring the parents have enough money to pay for their children’s food, clothing, accommodation and other costs. So to resolve the difficulties we need to study parent or family poverty.

The hard cases are where the parents do have the money but treat the children badly and do not spend enough of the family income on the children. These are a small minority, and result in difficult cases over whether the children need to be taken into care.

Most cases of family poverty are cases of the family income being too low for all the demands upon it. Some are from bad budgeting and spending priorities made by the parents. The idea of the two child cap was to say to parents on low or no income that they need to limit family size to avoid more pressures on the family budget. Most  working parents on higher incomes do limit the size of the families they have to one or two children because they recognise they cannot afford more or they do not have the accommodation they would need for a larger family. The benefit system recognises that people can have children by accident, or can have a family of one or two and then fall on hard times, so they deserve full  benefit support for themselves and their children.

The main policy we need to tackle child poverty is the policy of promoting work for more people. Family poverty is concentrated in the group of people who do not have jobs at all, who have to rely on benefits. The second important policy is to promote better paid work to tackle those who are in jobs but whose income is too low to meet all the family needs.

The government says it shares these two aims, which should be the core of any policy to tackle family poverty. The way to help more people into jobs was successfully implemented by the last government, making big reductions in unemployment. It has been well set out by the Centre for Social Justice and by Iain Duncan Smith who pioneered Universal Credit to make sure it would always be worthwhile for people to get a job.

To get wages up we need much tougher restrictions on inward migration to stop the flow of people to take low paid jobs from abroad and to depress pay rates. We need growth policies as set out on this website to encourage more investment in technology and training to support people into more productive  jobs. Helping people get more skills and promotions boosts their incomes. Raising UK productivity allows higher real wages to be paid.

See my Express article re ID cards

If NATO escalates with Russia and starts shooting down her planes it has to be ready to fight a full war. It may well be that Putin  the bully backs off, but it is a risk.  I’ve little doubt NATO would in the end win such a war, but there is also no doubt there would  be massive loss of life and damage before victory was secured. I am certainly against the UK on her own shooting down a stray Russian plane provoking NATO somewhere over NATO’s eastern border. There is no need for us  to take such a risk.

Given the structure of NATO any NATO member would be ill advised to take the risk without being  sure the US would commit her forces to any resulting fight. If Putin thought the US would not turn up he might well call European NATO’s bluff. In the end the European powers could defeat Russia, but it would take time to get the economies onto a war footing and to get anything like the scale of army and weaponry Russia has already committed to Ukraine. If the US backed the shooting down then there is much reason to suppose Putin would back away.

The immediate response to Russia should be as it always has been to provocative intrusion into our waters and airspace. Put force alongside them and make clear they could be destroyed if they showed more evidence of ill intent.

The UK should concentrate on defending its own airspace and the seas around our islands. History taught us in 1914 and 1939-41 that we could not rely on the US to come to our aid on the battlefield. The US only entered the second world war after much reluctance by US voters because Japan stupidly attacked the US fleet forcing the US into the war. In the post war world of NATO the US and other allies did not come to our military assistance to defeat the illegal invasion of the Falkland islands by Argentina. It was outside the NATO area but that need not have stopped them helping us. We needed our own forces, and just had enough to do the job thanks to their skill and bravery.

The priorities for our increased defence spending must be an Iron Dome over the UK islands to protect us from incoming drones, missiles and planes. It must include enhanced cyber capabilities and much larger and more diverse drone squadrons. It should  include enough submarines and support vessels for our two carriers to be able to police our home waters and have expeditionary capability beyond. It also needs a larger army.

There is much misunderstanding on this side of the Atlantic about the nature of NATO membership. NATO fully respects the sovereignty of each member. Unlike the EU it does not require members to do anything they do not wish to do, and has no legal powers to enforce its policies. Many Europeans think that because the Treaty says an attack on any one is also an attack on the rest the US would automatically come to their aid and fight their war for them. This faux pas has led  many European countries to  provide insufficiently for their own defence whilst sheltering under the US umbrella.

Article 1 favours NATO members finding peaceful means to settle disputes and warns against them using any threat of collective force in international relations that the UN would not approve. The crucial Article 3, much forgotten, urges each member to build up their own individual defence capacity.

Article 3

“In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.”

The better known Article 5 does indeed says an attack on one is an attack on all, but it goes on to make clear that does not require all to respond by declaring war on the aggressor and joining the battles.

Article 5

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .”

In other words whilst NATO can ask each nation to join in a war, each state can decide instead to simply issue a condemnatory statement, impose sanctions, or seek diplomatic redress as it sees fit.

With the US spending around two thirds  of NATO’s  budget and supplying a higher proportion  of the fighting resources the other members are right to be concerned about committing NATO to any action where the US may decide to exercise its right not to contribute. The European members are now increasing their spend .  President Trump has been insisting that European members of NATO make a much enlarged contribution to their own defence, as he wishes the US to be less committed to the defence of Europe. So far most of the countries have not made much increase in their capabilities and are very dependent on US heavy lift, air cover, missile protection and the rest. President Trump thinks they need to be spending 5% of the their GDP on defence whilst most have only just got to 2%.

I will consider tomorrow whether the UK  should be willing to shoot down a Russian plane. The context for the decision should be a cautious approach as Poland, Germany and the other eastern members of NATO are much better placed to respond to daily testing of the eastern borders of NATO adjacent to Russia. It would be more normal to intercept and  conduct the Russian plane out of the area. The UK should concentrate on using its current resources to respond to any Russian drone/missile or aircraft intrusion into our airspace which we are much better placed to do from our own airfields and installations. Our usual practice is to intercept and conduct Russian planes out of our airspace promptly, which is a measured response.