British government censors Brexit essay author

The prize-winning author of an essay on the UK's exit from the EU has been censored by the British government.

Iain Mansfield works as Director of Trade & Investment at the British embassy in Manilla wrote the essay - which says that the UK economy will be £1.3bn better off outside the EU - for an IEA competition that was looking for the best analysis of a post-EU UK to inform the debate on our membership. Mansfield won the €100k prize but was banned from conducting any interviews and ordered to take down his blog on economic affairs, even though he had obtained permission for both.

The LabLabCon rely on misinformation and scare tactics to convince people that we have to stay in the EU. They claim that 3m jobs will be lose if we leave the EU even though the research they quote said 3m jobs were linked to free trade with the EU, not membership of the EU. They claim that without unlimited EU immigration we would run out of doctors and nurses and people to do menial jobs even though we have over 3 and a half million unemployed people already living here. They claim that the EU is responsible for half a century of peace in Europe despite there being a constant stream of conflicts, civil wars, invasions and even genocide throughout the EU's entire existence.

Mansfield has been "locked down" because the europhile British establishment is scared of people getting the facts and undermining the cosy conspiracy of misinformation and complicity that prevails in the three old parties and throughout the civil service.

EU wants power to sack journalists

The EU wants to force the creation of a media regulator in the UK with statutory powers to fine journalists and remove their accreditation.

A panel of EU fascists has criticised the British government for not creating a media regulator and recommended that one be forced upon us, answerable to the EU Commission to "ensure [it] complies with European values".

The timing of this latest assault on democracy and freedom by the EU couldn't be better.  The media will be reporting on Cameron's in/in sham referendum speech tomorrow and they're likely to be less than positive about the EU and his unswerving commitment to our membership when they're directly attacking the media.

EU planning to censor international credit rating agencies

The EU Commission is planning a crackdown on the international credit rating agencies after they downgraded Portugal's credit rating the other day.

By dropping a country's credit rating, it makes it more expensive for that country to raise money through selling bonds.  Government bonds are basically promises to pay a certain amount of money on a certain date - it's effectively a government asking for a loan without any monthly repayments.

The lower a country's credit rating, the higher the amount of interest investors will want because there's a higher risk they won't get paid.  It's just like when you take out a credit card - they have a headline interest rate that you will get if your credit rating is good but if it's bad you'll end up paying a higher rate.  And if your credit rating is awful then you have to go to the kind of high risk lender that advertises on low budget satellite TV channels.

A country's credit rating doesn't matter so much unless it's trying to raise money from selling bonds, like eurozone countries are right now.  The downgrading of Portugal's credit rating a few days before it was due to issue billions of pounds worth of new bonds will cost the Portuguese government a lot of money.  Instead of paying €1.04 for every €1 of bonds they sold two years ago, they're now going to have to pay at least €1.11.  It's only 7 cents but if Portugal issues €5bn in 10 year bonds, they will have to find €5.55bn when they mature in 2021.  They haven't got €5bn now, it's a big risk to assume that they're going to have €5.55bn in 10 years time.

Obviously the amount of money eurozone countries have to pay to borrow money, the less chance there is the euro can be saved so in desperation the EU Commission is preparing new laws to stop international credit rating agencies from giving bad news about EU countries.  As with many new laws that come from the EU, this one is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what's happening in the real world.

It seems strange there is not a single rating agency coming from Europe. It shows there may be some bias in the markets when it comes to the evaluation of the specific issues of Europe.
- Emperor Barroso, President of the Imperial Commission

Fitch Ratings and Fitch Solutions, as well as Algorithmics, a leader in enterprise risk management solutions, are part of the Fitch Group. The Fitch Group is a majority-owned subsidiary of Fimalac, S.A., headquartered in Paris, France.
(Source)

Far from helping eurozone countries, this will increase the risk of investing in government bonds from EU countries.  If they can't get accurate information about the risk of an investment then investors will steer clear of eurozone bonds or demand even higher interest rates to protect themselves from unknown risks.

EU wants to censor the internet

The EU has announced its intention to create a single EU cyberspace with Chinese-style censorship based on an EU blacklist of websites with "illicit contents".

Setting aside the sheer technological impracticality of censoring the internet for most of a continent, how do you deal with content that is illegal in one country but not another?  Any website that glorifies Nazism is illegal in Germany and Austria but not in England or Portugal.  Technically, a game such as Enemy Territory that allows you to win battles as Nazi's is illegal in Germany - would we find such games banned in the whole EU because it's illegal in Germany?

What about blasphemous websites that are illegal in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands and Scotland but not in the rest of the EU?  We couldn't effectively censor blasphemous websites in the UK because blasphemy isn't illegal in England and Wales but is in Scotland.

How about libellous websites?  In England libel is a civil matter so the libellous website isn't illegal unless the libeller is sued but in Denmark it's a criminal offence and is illegal as soon as it's published.  Will potentially libellous websites be blocked across the EU because they're illegal in Denmark?

Without a common legal system and a common statute book, there is no way the internet could be censored with a single EU blacklist without depriving people of legal content because it's illegal in another country or exposing people to illegal content because it's legal in another country.

What we most definitely do not want and do not need is EU censorship of the internet.  It's all well and good saying "think of the children" and "it will combat fraud and terrorism" but it won't protect children and it won't stop fraud and terrorism because even in China, with the world's most oppressive internet censorship, pornography, pædophilia and fraud is still abundant on the internet.

The internet is one of the very few things that is in common ownership of the entire world's population and not the property of any state or corporation and it should stay that way.

Breaking News: England Expects shut down by EU

It's no secret that Federal Europe hates blogs - they don't like the idea of a source of topical information and commentary that they can't control. Hence their calls for regulation of blogs.

Sadly, they have found a way of silencing Gawain Towler, the author of England Expects. Gawain works for the Independence and Democracy group in the EU Parliament and is bound by their rules which says he isn't allowed to do anything that brings Federal Europe into disrepute or otherwise gives the impression that the undemocratic, corrupt European Union is anything other than the best thing since sliced bread. I'm paraphrasing here but you get the picture.

Unfortunately, the threat of being fined up to four months' salary by Federal Europe's propaganda police means that he has got to stop writing his blog and another independent voice of dissent has been drowned out by the eurofederalists.

It's a sad day indeed but Gawain is free - as is anyone else on the inside of this corrupt organisation - to contact us in complete confidence and we'll quite happily spread the word. Contact details in the sidebar.