CIBUK Newsletter
It’s been almost two months since our last newsletter, in which we proudly announced the appointment of Lord David Frost as a new patron to the board of CIBUK.
A great deal has taken place during the intervening period including our Chairman’s in-depth interview with Lord Frost himself, of which more below.
In other news, your Communications Director headed off to Buckingham University at the end of March for the annual two-day Freedom Festival courtesy of the Margaret Thatcher Centre, a programme founded in her name to uphold freedom, democracy and the rule of law. As the Centre proudly acknowledges, ‘She delivered; now it’s our turn.’ Here too, Lord Frost proved to be the highlight, delivering a keynote speech to open the conference which set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
Elsewhere, our principal research affiliate Brexit Facts4EU.Org continues to produce outstanding daily reports on vital issues, and we are indebted to our other affiliates for highlighting important on-going developments which we list in a range of recent articles below
‘I refuse to believe we can’t turn this around’
Our sincere thanks to Lord David Frost who kindly gave up valuable time to talk to us about his vision for the country and for the Conservative Party.
In a fascinating, wide-ranging interview with our Chairman, Lord Frost discusses his views about the state of the Conservative Party and the guiding philosophy it needs to adopt to win back alienated and disillusioned voters.
He then develops these themes in a series of policy proposals ranging from reform of the economy to net-zero and immigration.
On the state of the Conservative Party
“It is certainly fair to say it’s got a pretty broad church with not much religion…”
On reconnecting with voters
“If people vote for us because they are Conservatives, then we should do the honour of believing that and deliver some Conservative policies.”
On the Economy
“Tax and spending is far too high. That’s the starting point…Cut the state, cut the dead hands of the bureaucracy, bring back markets and enterprise.”
On Net Zero
“We are pushing up the costs, driving business out of Britain to countries who have different sets of priorities and it’s all going to end in tears.”
On Legal Immigration
“‘It’s too high… We should have made the rules much more restrictive. And we just haven’t. And that must be done.”
For maximum viewability, we have split the interview into five parts:
Part I – On the Conservative Party, core beliefs, reconnecting with voters, and whether he will run
Part II – On the cost of Net Zero, immigration, the ECHR
Part III – On the NHS, education, cultural issues, judiciary, civil service
Part IV – On Brexit, retained EU laws, Northern Ireland, international trade
Part V – On taxes, defence, and the upcoming election
‘She delivered; now it’s our turn’
The two-day Freedom Festival, held at the end of March each year in honour of Margaret Thatcher, is, not surprisingly, unequivocal in its support of her ideas and guiding philosophy.
As the title of the conference implies, its very purpose is to promote and defend the cause of freedom which forms the very basis of our social, political, economic and cultural life.
Among the distinguished speakers were Lord David Frost whose keynote speech was centred around four key freedoms
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Freedom to run our own affairs
- Defence of the nation-state following the Brexit vote
- International co-operation rather than national subordination
- A defence of ‘vertical’ government answerable to voters over ‘horizontal’ government based on summit agreements between heads of state
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Free speech
- Under attack as never before in academia, the media, the workplace, in Scotland and through the Online Safety Act
- Proposes Free Speech Bill to be enshrined in law – akin to the US First Amendment to guarantee protection
-
Economic Freedom
- Re-kindle the importance of free trade and enterprise
- Scale down government intervention (Renters’ Reform Bill; vaping legislation; net-zero targets)
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Freedom to transmit
- To build, pass on our values/heritage/nation to next generation
- All the above are under threat as never before
- We will stop caring about our country if we cannot pass these things on
There is not the time or space here to do full justice to the speech let alone the entire conference. Suffice to say all of these themes were explored in great detail over the weekend by experts in their field.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the University of Buckingham and its Vice-Chancellor Professor James Tooley for courageously upholding the cause of freedom at a time when so many other universities appear to be heading in the opposite direction.
We can only hope that those organisations who currently oppose such ideas, realise the error of their ways and react accordingly.
In other news
Crisis of Bureaucracy in the NHS
We are indebted to our affiliate Brexit Facts4EU.Org for for their in-depth report on the bureaucratic stranglehold which appears to be throttling the NHS.
To give one example by way of illustration, in the years 2020-2023 it is calculated that NHS staffing numbers increased by 212,000 while the number of doctors increased by just 24,000.
So startling were these statistics they even made it into a GB News report hosted by Martin Daubney.
‘Sailing into Oblivion’
With a general election likely to be called later on this year, a mixture of anger and despair appears to be the settled feeling among voters at the choices on offer to them from the two main parties.
Writing for the Bruges Group, contributing author Michael Wood summons up the mood in the enclosed article which highlights the existential threat now hanging over the United Kingdom.
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