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POLICIES

ARTICLE 50

• BrexitKent’s first policy on Article 50 adopted in September 2016 was that it should be triggered no later than January 2017. It was triggered in March 2017. Brexit is not yet however assured. Our policy since the triggering of Article 50 has been to update supporters on the political events and news that have especial relevance to the goal of Brexit. This includes information with a special focus on the intentions and purposes of Prime Minister May since as a former ‘remainer’ Brexiteers are entitled to be sceptical of her ultimate commitment to Brexit. Her past record of failing to uphold her declared policies on immigration is of particular concern. Our updates have links to news articles which have especial relevance to this assessment. News that Tory ‘top brass’ has sought to exclude veteran leading eurosceptic Tory MEPs from standing as candidates in Conservative safe seats is at the centre of this assessment.

• Brexit is still a long way from completion. Trial by jury will not be restored to its full role in protecting the people against government misconduct without a sustained, long term campaign. BrexitKent has produced a leaflet in support of the merits and importance of Trial by Jury along with a petition requesting that the traditional method of selecting jurors by random selection in open court be reinstated. The chief merit of trial by randomly selected jurors is that it is more reliably independent of the state than the judiciary or the police. This merit is of decisive importance in regard to resistance to unjust law, since in legal systems incorporating the right to trial by jury final authority on whether a law is just in application rests with juries, not the government and its employees, be they police or judiciary. Trial by jury consequently comprises the last legal defence against the development of tyranny by stealth.
• Brexit must therefore mean full restoration of the right to trial by jury and the repeal or nullification of all primary and secondary legislation that has been introduced over the last forty years that in some way subverts this Right. Some such legislation has been openly aimed at ensuring British law conforms to EU law but there may also be some legal reforms that have been aimed covertly at undermining the Right to Trial by Jury given that this right is not incorporated in EU law. The UK, Ireland and Malta are the only EU countries that uphold the Right to Trial by Jury. None of the other 30 or so states that are in or intend to join the EU uphold this Right. BrexitKent accordingly opposes abolition of the right to trial by jury in libel cases under the 2013 Defamation Act and similarly opposes retention of the European Arrest Warrant. These laws comprise steps towards totalitarianism and effectively subvert the right to free speech of British citizens, including journalists and eurosceptics.
• The case for restoration should include full consideration of the grand jury, undermined by the Fabian leaders Ramsay MacDonald and Clement Attlee and abolished in 1969 - eight years after Macmillan declared his intent to join the EEC. The grand jury was known as both the shield and the sword of the people and could serve as a reliably impartial means to investigate matters of government corruption, whether at local planning or EU accounting levels. Reinstatement of the grand jury is already under consideration by the child abuse inquiry. The first reference to a jury with investigative powers in legal records dates back over a thousand years. The oath used to swear in both the ‘accusatory’ jury of the ninth century and the grand jury - certainly to the 19th century - was derived from the laws of Ethelred, King of Wessex and Kent.

• BrexitKent agreed postal ballots should be counted separately, as in Australia, since this may help detect and deter fraud. Separate counting may reveal disproportionate advantages to certain candidates attained through postal ballots which may be a cause for concern and so merit further investigation regarding possible electoral fraud. In turn the possibility of such public attention and further investigation may itself act as a deterrent to fraud. Procedures in place for postal ballot counting during the referendum were incompatible with Europhile government claims that postal ballots have to be mixed in with other ballots before counting in order to preserve the secrecy of the ballot. This is because postal ballots are comprised of two parts: part A includes voter identification details; Part B comprises the ballot itself with no visible means for a person counting such ballots to identify the voter. These parts are separated when received by the electoral authority. Part B is then sent to a different location to be counted. Therefore no persons counting the ballots can determine the identify of the person whose ballot they count. There is support for our viewpoint in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and we are in ongoing correspondence with Prime Minister May and the Cabinet Office concerning this.

• BrexitKent agreed that foreign aid be subject to a public audit and should no longer be distributed by multinational institutions unless strictly necessary for practical reasons. According to International Development Secretary Priti Patel 40% of UK foreign aid is distributed by multinational organisations such as the World Bank, the UN, the IMF and the EU. Indeed, the figure of 40% seems to be something of an underestimate given that the World Bank alone accounts for 25% of foreign aid and there are also many multinational ‘charities’ which get taxpayer funding for such purposes. BrexitKent agreed foreign aid should not be given to states which possess or are seeking to possess nuclear weapons and should be restricted to countries which uphold or are attempting to develop British standards of human rights protection, including the Right to Trial by Jury. BrexitKent also agreed that the present government view that security is a Human Right and that therefore military costs can to some extent be included in foreign aid is correct. Against this background it was agreed that foreign aid should be increased from 0.7% of GDP to 0.8% on the understanding that provided the above policy guidelines are upheld this should result in both an increase of direct aid to the poor and also an increase in military spending. In this way the real minimum spent on defence can be increased from 2% of GDP to 2.1% of GDP.