We're leaving a sinking EU Titanic on our Brexit lifeboat, rowing to a bright new future

By Nigel Farage (The man who started it all)

It is done. I have given my final speech in the European Parliament, handed in my security pass, and left Brussels for the last time as an MEP. After 20 years of trying to get rid of my job, I have succeeded, and it feels fantastic. At 11 o’clock tonight, our nation will pass the point of no return, enacting the wish of the majority which was first expressed back in June 2016. The EU, however, is only just getting to grips with the situation.

As I and my fellow (now ex) MEPs sat in the assembly on Wednesday, I sensed the other politicians were more scared of us and our departure than we were of them and the finality of it all. Is it any surprise? The UK economy is the equivalent in size of the EU’s 19 smallest economies. Our exit from the single market could hole the entire rotten project below the waterline, and while the Titanic sinks, our nation will be on a lifeboat rowing to a bright new future. Their fear was reflected in their behaviour.

During a lengthy debate on Wednesday, many said they regretted Brexit and warned that the EU must adapt or more countries will quit the bloc. On cue, Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit Co-ordinator of the European Parliament, piped up with a solution: more European integration and no opt-outs for any countries. Deluded to the last.

When she spoke, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, tried to sound tough. Any trade deal with the UK could only happen if there is a regulatory level playing field, she threatened. She was booed loudly by Brexit Party MEPs. Gosh, how they will miss us.

Next came a moment which captured the small-mindedness of the EU. For more than 10 years my colleagues and I have placed small Union Jack flags on our desks in the chamber. But an usher told me recently that no national symbols are allowed. In my valedictory speech, I said that through our example of leaving, we would lead the way for other countries to follow. I then picked up a small Union flag and, with the redoubtable Ann Widdecombe and others, stood and waved goodbye.

At this, a humourless and self-important Irish MEP called Mairead McGuinness (First Vice-President of the European Parliament, don’t you know) cut off my microphone. In 20 years I have seldom been cut off, but the speed with which this jobsworth acted was telling. There was some cheering and clapping from our crew. McGuinness said we should take our flags and go, which we did. We headed straight to the bar.

On the pro-EU British side, the mood was very different. After the vote backing the terms of the UK’s departure, the Liberal Democrats led singing of Auld Lang Syne. It seemed fitting that they chose the very song played as the Titanic sank. Some cried, which did not surprise me. What other job would most of these people get where they are treated as VIPs, given chauffeur-driven cars and huge expenses? Remember: there are 10,000 “officials” in Brussels who are paid more than the British prime minister. Is this not reason enough to be glad about Brexit?

Getting to this stage has been tough. To have reached it is cause for celebration, and we will do so tonight at 11pm. Yet many Tory Leavers now seem embarrassed by Brexit and almost apologetic about tonight’s gathering in Parliament Square - despite thousands wanting to mark this historic occasion. I cannot understand why this should be but I would urge them to come and join in as we move to the next chapter in our nation’s history.

On Monday, the European Commission publishes its negotiating mandate. It will try to keep the UK trapped in the EU rulebook. Boris Johnson must see what a weakened position the EU is in. Britain is too big to bully. From now on, we must call the shots. He must also remember the promises he made in the general election: an end to transition in 2020 and no regulatory alignment.

Because of Johnson’s large parliamentary majority, Brexiteers need an insurance policy. So the Brexit Party, in conjunction with a new think tank, will continue its mission: to praise when necessary and raise the alarm if needed. I will not walk away. I am ready to catch the ball if the Tories drop it again.

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Baroness Scotland [who is black] is hit by £2.5m cash snub as New Zealand pulls funds from her Commonwealth Office because it has 'no confidence in how she's running it'

Embattled Commonwealth chief Baroness Scotland's hopes of keeping her job suffered a blow yesterday after a snub by a member country.

New Zealand has pulled the plug on its annual £2.5million funding for the Commonwealth Secretariat because of 'significant weaknesses in its approach to managing procurement', a spokesman for its foreign ministry said last night.

The rebuff emerged after £160,000-a-year Commonwealth Secretary General Baroness Scotland was strongly criticised by internal auditors for granting a lucrative consultancy contract to a firm run by a Labour Party friend.

The organisation's audit committee accused her of 'circumventing' usual competitive tendering rules by awarding a £250,000 commission to KYA Global.

The firm is owned by fellow Labour peer Lord Patel of Bradford, who served alongside Baroness Scotland as a minister in Gordon Brown's government.

Lord Patel's company was contracted to carry out a review of the secretariat. But the audit committee said the firm was 'apparently insolvent' at the time with debts of nearly £50,000.

New Zealand, one of the secretariat's biggest contributors, made the decision to block funding last month.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, 39, is the Commonwealth's most high-profile female political leader.

Baroness Scotland, 64, has been branded 'Baroness Brazen' and 'Baroness Shameless' for her lavish spending.

She has been under fire since it was disclosed in 2016 that she spent £338,000 refurbishing her grace-and-favour apartment in Mayfair, central London.

It later emerged that £590,000 of the UK's foreign aid budget had been spent on Marlborough House, the secretariat headquarters, in two years. She was also attacked for appointing political allies to key posts.

It came as a senior official forced to quit his secretariat job while working under Baroness Scotland won nearly £300,000 compensation.

Baroness Scotland, who was born in the Dominican Republic, retains the backing of Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean, but faces the risk of being dumped before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda in June, which will be attended by Prince Charles.

The disclosures have left her hopes of winning a second four-year term in her post hanging by a thread. Her first term ends on March 31.

Britain occupies the rotating chairmanship of the Commonwealth, giving Boris Johnson a major say over who is secretary general.

Tory Party co-chairman James Cleverly, a close ally of the Prime Minister, and whose mother is from Sierra Leone, is said to be among Baroness Scotland's powerful enemies in the Government. Mr Cleverly is said to have been highly critical of her at meetings of Parliament's all-party Commonwealth group.

The investigation into Lord Patel's KYA Global contract was carried out by accountancy giant KPMG at the request of the Commonwealth High Commissioners, the secretariat's board of governors.

KPMG found that the consultancy contract was given to Lord Patel in April 2016 – days after Baroness Scotland was appointed – on 'her personal recommendation' because he had 'a high level of proven trust with the secretary general'.

She asked one of her deputies to fill out a form waiving the usual competitive tendering rules, which she then approved.

According to KYA Global's accounts, it had assets of £971 and debts of £48,762 at the time.

The audit committee said yesterday: 'Awarding an apparently insolvent company two contracts totalling £252,000 is unusual.'

Baroness Scotland declined to comment. Her lawyers said the decision to award the contract was fully justified and complied with procurement procedures at the time.

The secretariat is the central administrative hub for the Commonwealth, made up of 53 countries. It declined to comment last night.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman said it had stopped giving cash to the Commonwealth Secretariat because the auditors report had found 'significant weaknesses in the Commonwealth Secretariat's approach to managing procurement.'

It added: 'New Zealand has put on hold its voluntary financial contribution to the Secretariat until we receive independent confirmation the recommendations from the audit report have been addressed by the Secretariat.'

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A kitchen knife to the throat, punched in the teeth... it’s the domestic violence scandal rarely talked about. But as numbers rocket, these startling testimonies reveal the Hidden shame of the men abused by the women they love

Rushing to get ready for work in the mornings, it’s not unusual for a husband or wife to have to wait their turn for the bathroom.

But when Tracy Hannington saw husband Tony was about to go in before her, she punched him so hard he was left with a bleeding lip and a loose tooth.

Then without a word, the 57-year-old, a carer in an old people’s home, walked in and slammed the door behind her.

Horrifyingly, this was normal for much of their five-year marriage. Tony, 56, the director of a transport business, was subjected to weekly violence at their Kent home that included being doused with hot tea and having a kitchen knife held to his throat. He suffered in silence, believing domestic violence was only taken seriously if the perpetrator was a man.

There is no question that violence against women is a big problem. About 8 per cent experience domestic abuse every year, according to official figures — or about 1.6 million women.

But while domestic abuse charities, such as Women’s Aid, treat this as a gendered crime — because females are far more likely to be sexually assaulted, abused over longer periods and murdered by partners or former partners — that isn’t the whole story.

Last week, data obtained under the Freedom of Information act revealed that the number of domestic attacks carried out by women more than tripled in a decade.

Between 2009 and 2018, the number of cases reported to police grew from 27,762 to 92,408, according to The Sunday Telegraph.

Police data also showed women were the aggressors in 28 per cent of all reported cases in 2018, up from 19 per cent in 2009. However, experts fear most cases of domestic abuse are never reported.

In the year ending March 2019, an estimated 786,000 men suffered domestic abuse, Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show. Growing research suggests males may be abused in the same numbers as females — but are three times less likely to tell anyone.

The reasons are bound up in society’s views of men’s and women’s roles.

Fear of not being believed, of being accused of being the perpetrator and of being seen as ‘less of a man’ were key reasons why men did not seek help, Bristol University researchers found last year.

A glance at social media comments made about Love Island presenter Caroline Flack, who has pleaded not guilty to hitting boyfriend Lewis Burton, highlights age-old prejudices.

They include: ‘How much damage can a woman really inflict on a larger, stronger man?’ and ‘Surely if a woman strikes her partner, it must be in self-defence?’

Mr Burton is standing by his famous girlfriend and does not support her prosecution.

Tony Hannington says he might have agreed with some of these preconceptions before he found himself in a physically abusive marriage.

He recalls: ‘I’d been single for a couple of years and met Tracy on a dating site. She was a real livewire, attractive, with a wicked sense of humour. We hit it off and three weeks later she moved into my flat.’

After six months they married at Canterbury Register Office. But within months, things began to change.

Tony says: ‘Tracy would have huge mood swings. She’d ring me up at work, wanting to know where I was, why I was seeing my friends and calling me names.

‘She was extremely house-proud. At home, whenever I sat down, she’d shout at me for not helping with the housework. If I did so much as put a spoon in the sink, instead of straight into the dishwasher, she’d have a go at me.

‘At first, it was every weekend. Then her tempers became virtually every night, so I dreaded going home.

‘She was a Jekyll and Hyde. She’d hit me, then act like nothing had happened, or say I’d made her do it.’

Tony tried not to respond, but this seemed to enrage his wife even more, especially when he moved into the spare room to avoid her.

‘She’d kick me or square up to me when she was having one of her meltdowns. Once, as we were unloading the shopping, she hit me on the head with a can of baked beans. On another occasion, she hit me in the face with the head of the vacuum cleaner.

‘If I didn’t get up when she wanted, she’d punch me or pour a jug of water over the bed.’ She also dug her nails into his windpipe, he says.

Tony insists he never defended himself — except when Tracy put a knife to his throat for not doing enough to help around the house.

Believing she was prepared to kill him, he tried to move the knife away and was left with a badly gashed hand.

Tony says: ‘People may find it hard to believe a man of 6ft 1in didn’t defend himself against a 5ft 5in woman. But I was always taught that you never hit a woman.

‘Tracy made it plain she could do what she liked and get away with it. If I said I’d go to the police, she said she’d just tell them I started it.

‘So I felt I had no option but to protect my face or get away from her.’

There was another reason Tony didn’t fight back — Tracy’s controlling psychological abuse, typical of women who attack male partners.

Research has found attacks on a man’s self-worth may be especially debilitating as they view being a victim as ‘weak’.

Tony said: ‘If I told Tracy she’d hurt me, she’d say: “What kind of man are you?” She’d spit in my face, and say repeatedly that I was a spineless, pathetic excuse for a man.’

One reason domestic abuse of women is seen as more serious is that more females are murdered by their partners — 73 per cent of domestic killings are of women.

Yet abused men’s lives are lost in another way.

The ONS Crime Survey found that 11 per cent of men abused by female partners try to kill themselves, compared with 7.2 per cent of women who are abused by male partners.

Tony says that suicide often crossed his mind: ‘Tracy isolated me from my family and friends, questioning my need to see them and telling me who to be friends with on Facebook.

‘She told me no one would miss me if I killed myself and suggested I “find myself a quiet corner and hang myself”.

‘As she wouldn’t leave the flat, I had nowhere to go and couldn’t see a way out. I started to think seriously about suicide.’

However, just as Tony reached his lowest point, his niece asked for his help moving house. It prompted him to get back in touch with her mother (Tony’s sister) and tell her of the abuse.

She suggested he visit a centre for domestic violence victims, and they suggested he record the abuse on his phone and take it to the police.

Over three weeks, Tony captured three of Tracy’s harrowing tirades in which she talked of hitting him for ‘months’, complained he would never hit her back and told him she wanted to put him in ‘a six-sided box’ — or coffin.

Last October Tracy admitted a charge of actual bodily harm and controlling and coercive behaviour, and was jailed for two years. Tony found the courage to speak out, but many male victims stay silent for the simple reason that they are desperate not to be separated from their children.

Mark Brooks, chairman of Mankind Initiative, which runs a helpline for male victims of domestic violence, says stigma means men find it hard to admit the truth. Instead it’s often concerned sisters, mothers, friends and colleagues who make contact on their behalf.

Every year Mankind deals with more than 2,000 calls.

Mark says: ‘The average age is 42, and the men who need our help cut across every profession, from bankers to GPs and policemen. They ring us because they want to talk to someone who will listen without judgment.’

As a result, Mark believes there needs to be a shift in how we view domestic abuse.

‘We need to look for the same potential signs of domestic abuse as we do in women: physical injuries and changes in behaviour such as becoming introverted.

‘As well as more services for men, we also need more awareness campaigns aimed at male victims to encourage them to get help, as well as better training for police, council workers and NHS staff.

‘Above all, we need to challenge this traditional idea that women can’t be violent — and men can’t be victims.’

Yet while domestic abuse against men is being talked about more now, it’s also important that the issue is kept in perspective, says law lecturer Adrienne Barnett of Brunel University.

She says: ‘Both women and men can perpetrate domestic abuse, and both can be victims.

‘But substantial research and statistical evidence shows the violence is more common, persistent and severe when it’s inflicted by men against female partners.’

Six months on from Tracy’s jailing, Tony is still attempting to rebuild his life.

He has set up his own company (which Tracy told him he would never be capable of) and redecorated his home to try to erase the bad memories.

When he was stripping wallpaper recently, he found the words ‘I love you’ scribbled underneath.

He had written them for Tracy soon after she moved in.

Tony says: ‘I started weeping. It was a mix of: why did the woman I loved do this to me?; guilt that my marriage hadn’t worked out; and the relief of finally being able to feel safe in my own home.

‘It was as if I had been in a dark room and I didn’t realise how bad it had been until I stepped outside and into the light.

‘Nowadays, we rightly want equality, and that should apply to domestic violence, too. I’d like my story to illustrate that what happened to me shouldn’t happen to anyone — woman or man.’

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Australian MP Amanda Stoker taking fight to transgender activists

A free speech champion and rising star of conservative politics, Amanda Stoker, has launched a petition to build support for a stand against the “dangerous and radical ideas” and “completely unreasonable” demands of the transgender activist agenda.

The Queensland Liberal senator has quietly joined this toxic identity politics debate with a preamble on her personal webpage saying most Australians recognise the freedom of others “to live their life the way they want.”

“But that doesn’t mean we abandon truth. It doesn’t mean we abandon common sense or our understanding of basic biology,” she writes.

“You do have a right to teach your children they are born as either a boy or a girl and that gender isn’t something we can choose.

“You do have a right to keep women’s sport for women.

“You do have a right to know what your child is being taught about gender and sexuality in school.

“You do have a right to protect children from hormone treatment and surgical procedures.

“I will continue to stand up for common sense and objective truth — but I need to know I have your support.”

Senator Stoker, 37, a former barrister and prosecutor, and outspoken Christian, took the Senate spot of former attorney-general George Brandis in 2018. In her maiden speech, she defended liberty of conscience, thought and speech.

Critics of trans activism — and of “gender affirming” hormone treatment and surgery for under-18s who feel “born in the wrong body” — face denunciation as “hateful transphobes”, vexatious complaints and online harassment, as well as real-world intimidation.

The latest target is Oxford University professor of history, Selina Todd, who has been given security guards to take her to lectures after students alerted her to trans activist threats. She defends the sex-based rights and protections of women from biologically intact men who declare a female “gender identity”.

Trans activists argue trans people are vulnerable and victimised, and that opposition to their rights is driven by rightwing religious bigotry.

Critics of medicalised gender transition of children include Christians and conservatives but also atheist psychiatrists, young adults who regret hormonal treatment and surgery, former gender clinic staff, parents with progressive politics, anti-queer theory lesbians and gay men, radical feminists, and mothers who were tom boys.

Not all activists for trans rights are trans themselves, and there are trans adults who deplore the aggressive tactics and oppose medical interventions with “gender non-conforming” children.

Senator Stoker told The Australian everyone was entitled to support and respect, but inclusion of trans-identifying adults could not “mean we neglect our duties to children.

“Providing chemical, hormonal or surgical treatments to children without the capacity to truly understand their implications and provide their consent, is wrong,” she said.

“There is a lack of research showing these treatments are the best way to deal with gender issues, and a growing body of evidence that they are harmful.

“The trend of treating any speech which questions the wisdom of gender-transitioning treatments for children as ‘discrimination’, has the perverse effect of denying people with gender issues the best treatment that research, medicine and psychology could deliver.

“The scientific method should prevail here, not hard gender ideology.”

Teenage trans

Practitioners disagree how to respond to a surge in teenagers, mostly girls, who turn up at gender clinics claiming to be boys, often with a host of problems including mental illness, autism, awkward same-sex attraction and family trauma.

The influential pro-trans “affirmative” approach regards children as “experts” in their gender identity, encourages gender change and sometimes medical intervention to mimic the opposite-sex body. Sceptics of the affirmative model say the trans declarations of troubled under-18s may mask the real issues.

Next week, a parliamentary committee in Queensland will hold a public hearing into a draft law that would criminalise “conversion therapy”.

The term conjures up images of coercive, hurtful attempts to change the fixed sexual orientation of an adult.

Queensland’s bill extends this to any perceived attempt to change a child’s feelings of gender, which may be at odds with biological sex. Psychology sees youth identity as a work in progress marked by experimentation and influence, especially around puberty.

Worried health practitioners, Christians and women opposed to “gender ideology” accuse Queensland’s Palaszczuk government of using the spectre of past conversion therapy as cover to mandate the affirmative model with its risky medical interventions.

The ban on conversion therapy would not apply to hormonal interventions and surgery that “affirm” a child’s transgender shift.

Advocates for the affirmative model, which has been endorsed by medical bodies, say its treatments are “life-saving” for suicidal trans youth, whose high rates of mental illness reflect their stigma in a transphobic world.

State Health Minister Steven Miles said there was “overwhelming evidence that conversion therapy is harmful and that it correlates with high rates of suicide”, and the government rejected the view that “being LGBTIQ is a disorder that requires correction”.

But Senator Stoker said the bill was an attempt to “silence dissent” and “entrench hard-left gender ideology”.

“No reasonable person supports what comes to mind when the words ‘conversion therapy’ are used — but this law goes much further,” she told The Australian.

She cited “credible minds in medicine, psychology and law” who complain the bill is a threat to ethical and necessary exploration of personal problems and social pressures that may help explain the recent teen epidemic of gender dysphoria (the distress of feeling “born in the wrong body”).

A submission to the committee from a GP with many years’ experience in adolescent mental health and gender issues says: “I can scarcely believe that the state government would threaten me — in the area that I specialise (in) — that good quality medicine could be punished with 18 months of prison.”

The GP, whose name was withheld, says a majority of young patients recover from gender dysphoria with professional care, supportive counselling and treatment of co-existing mental illness or help with autism.

“If you were to pass this law, I would feel compelled by force of law to discharge all of (these) patients from my care, and would not be able to take on new patients,” the GP says.

“Non-harmful, sensitive, respectful, patient-centred counselling should never be made illegal; to criminalise this would be an abuse of government authority and massive overreach.”

Before the post-2000 spike in teen dysphoria, the condition was typically diagnosed in a small number of pre-school boys and the vast majority grew out of it, following cautious psychotherapy or “watchful waiting”, and many emerged as young gay or bisexual adults comfortable in their bodies.

“The drastic medical interventions that accompany a gender affirmative approach and which are being applied to ‘transition’ many young people who would otherwise go on to identify as gay or lesbian would be more rightly be regarded as the ultimate ‘conversion therapy’,” the Sydney-based Feminist Legal Clinic says in its submission on the Queensland bill.

After mainstream medical bodies were blindsided by consultation on the bill being staged during the Christmas-New Year break, there has been confusion about whether or not late submissions will be allowed, or who will be asked to testify at a state parliamentary committee hearing pushed back from February 3 to February 7. The Australian sought clarification from the committee.

Meanwhile, after years of scant media reporting, the intensifying global debate over the affirmative model is getting more mainstream attention.

Last Wednesday, The Washington Post carried a front-page report on South Dakota in the US leading a “wave” of Republican-led state bills that could make medical transition of minors illegal.

In the UK last week, 23-year-old Keira Bell, who regrets taking hormone suppression drugs that interfere with puberty, joined a High Court case arguing under-18 patients at the NHS Tavistock gender clinic cannot give informed consent to this “experimental” treatment.

“I believe that the current affirmative system put in place by the Tavistock is inadequate as it does not allow for exploration of these gender dysphoric feelings, nor does it seek to find the underlying causes of this condition,” she said.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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