It's a wet Sunday morning and I will shortly be heading for Stansted to Bratislava to take part in an Interparliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance that is going to be held within the framework of the Slovak Presidency of the EU Council. My theme is tackling tax evasion within the EU. I suspect there may be more on that from me tomorrow.
This morning my concern is more general. It is that right now I am invited to such a conference when there is obvious doubt about whether such invitations will be offered in the future.
And there is my doubt as to whether the UK can really tackle these issues alone when the EU has, for all its faults, been an overall effective agent in the fight against tax abuse.
Most worrying is the fact that this invitation came to me through City, University of London, and UK universities are already realising that they are being dropped from all new EU based projects: those I am now starting are amongst the last we might enjoy and there is not a hint of alternative funding coming from the UK government right now.
I find it staggering that we will apparently throw away so much for the sake of supposedly controlling immigration, despite the fact that in those areas where we can already chose to do that we very often do not precisely because we want the skills of those who are keen to come to the UK.
Never has so much opportunity been wasted at cost to so many for the sake of the brazen dogma of a few.
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There’s an increasing, almost religious, fervour amongst the Brexit folk that books no argument or debate. The worry will come when all the economic chickens come home to roost and they are searching for an explanation — other than that they may have got it wrong.
Those chickens are coming home to roost very quickly
The chance for a May election (in both senses) are already gone
On my phone, I misread the beginning as “interplanetary conference . . . .”. Didn’t realise that was when the next invitation would arrive.
🙂
I honestly do wish those who are trying to turn this around well – I really do – but Cameron (for it was he) has dug a really big hole for the country that is going to be very difficult to get out of. It’s going to get very messy and the media coverage is going to be incendiary.
I’m dreading it.
For example I’m dreading sitting next to Daily Mail reading colleagues as they get wound up about those trying to stop it. I have never seen so much heated discussion between people at work. We’ve had to intervene in them from time to time as things get out of hand.
Which is why I also advocate (with a heavy heart) just getting it (BREXIT) over with as soon as possible.
Unfortunately too many people need to learn the hard way and if I were a Remain politician I would now be making preparations for taking us back in again at some time in the future (if the EU would have us).
On the flip side, May might be dragging this out so that the Tories get the electoral boost in 2020 as the party that took us out. Or maybe that plan is to draw the BREXIT process out so as the reveal the negative impacts and build up a case to revoke the referendum. It’s hard to tell.
Bon voyage!
“on my Bratislava” — I have an image of you buzzing down the M11 on an eastern European Vespa, Richard 😉 Have a good conference.
Oops! Corrected