My headline is, I think appropriate.
Trade outside the EU is going to be nightmarishly difficult.
For the UK the cost is currently incalculable. I suspect it will be much higher than many have forecast because they simply have not assumed the government could be as stupid as this one looks like it might be.
But facts help. Ian Dunt is a very good political writer whose reputation has been considerably enhanced by the work he has done on Brexit. He has reviewed all the difficulties that have to be addressed in the next eleven months and then managed thereafter, from an internal trade border with Northern Ireland onwards in a post that I thoroughly recommend, here.
I am not going to try to summarise what he says. That would be hard in any case, so much ground does he cover. I just recommend reading it.
And then ask a simple question, which is 'Why are we doing this?'
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Brilliant,…and alarming. I read it this morning. The SNP European group referenced it in their weekly newsletter. Soon to be no more.
‘Why are we doing this?’
I’ve taken to asking the enthusiasts for the ‘bong’ what they think we are doing this for and what do they think might be in it for them, or anybody else.
I’m not getting replies. That won’t surprise you because you asked the same question a while back and to my recollection got nothing back at all.
The only one I ever did get, quite a while ago, said we were taking back sovereignty and control….. I wonder where he got that idea from. There was no further explanation of what that might mean.
@ Andrew (Andy) Crow
“The only one I ever did get, quite a while ago, said we were taking back sovereignty and control ….”
Andy, that’s all it’s ever been about — but behind those 2 words lies a very complex story and a motley international alliance of right-wing populists that has more or less coalesced under the Steve Bannon ‘schtick’ of ‘the Westphalian State’ & ‘economic nationalism’. It’s something of a perfect storm.
I believe that ‘deconstructing’ Bannon helps to understand the political impetus that made Farage’s long-term dream a reality, bringing us to the dystopia where we find ourselves today. The ERG Tories — and now Johnson’s administration – have simply jumped on the band-wagon to exploit these ‘morbid symptoms’. One can only pray it will all end ‘not with a bang but a whimper’.
Steve Bannon is a highly skilled propagandist, political strategist & disruptor (a word he uses for Trump) whose influence cannot be underestimated. Since the Mercers withdrew their support, his principal funder seems to be the billionaire Chinese émigré entrepreneur Guo Wengui (aka Miles Kwok) who has pledged millions for his cause, so he’s not going away any time soon. “It’s a global revolution. And I’m very lucky to be at the vanguard. It’s something worth dedicating your life to.”
While there’s no shortage of on-line Bannon content, for political history junkies I’d recommend the 2019 PBS Frontline 2-part documentary ‘America’s Great Divide’ and its 2-part follow up interview with Bannon – all available on YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/user/PBSfrontline/videos).
Also, well worth watching is Magnolia Pictures’ 2019 fly-on-the-wall documentary ‘The Brink’. Here’s a brief clip of Bannon meeting with Farage – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lzJ_8hC-yE.
The big implication of the article is that democracy in the UK is now pretty much self-harming because there are too many shallow-thinking fools who won’t take the trouble to make themselves economically and monetarily literate.
Well if you have a moral compass you have a duty to help fools don’t you, most parents teach and help their children to negotiate the world.
I read about the pitches being made for the Labour Party leadership and I see little reference to the need for the Party to engage in this massive task of educating these economically and monetarily illiterate voters! Certainly Corbyn failed because he wasn’t that literate in these matters himself I think and this pattern looks set to continue in the party.
“Could do better” as some of my subject teachers used to write on my school reports!
Hi Richard,
I think, in fairness to Ian Dunt, you should put the headline in quotation marks, because it’s his headline, not yours.
I think he’ll forgive me
Sorry, partly his headline.
Excellent point Helen. And a good place to start on this momentous task of “educating these economically and monetarily illiterate voters” might be to start with the problem of ‘what is money anyway’? I have just finished reading Richard’s excellent book which touches on this issue and points to other interesting references on the subject but its a difficult area with many smokescreens and logic which to many will appear counterintuitive. However, until the public has a better understanding of how the big con works, Johnson and his motley crew will be in a strong position to exploit that ignorance to their own advantage and economic programmes such as the ones that Labour placed in its ambitious but admittedly overloaded manifesto will continue to remain unbelievable.
” ‘Why are we doing this?'”
For most of those concerned it was just a massive misdirected whinge about Immigration and EU freedom of movement. Farage, as a petty fascist exploited, that. The Tory ERG mob are a different matter. They seem to be truly delusional Empire nostalgists, and quite disturbingly potty in the way that only people of that class can ever truly be.
This incident gives a bit of an indication of what I mean:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/30/boris-johnson-caught-on-camera-reciting-kipling-in-myanmar-temple
Indeed
We or people in general not in favour of leaving the EU. The referendum was won on series of fallacious “promises” and downright mendacity. No one has any idea of how many of the much vaunted 17.471 million leave voters were swayed by these undeliverable promises or the lies on which they were founded. Had the referendum not been “advisory” the result would have been nullified by the courts. Yet we had a shower of spineless cowering MP’s vowing to uphold the non existent or at least unproven the “will of the people” in the full knowledge of the circumstances surrounding that outcome. Now we have had a general election supposedly on the Brexit vote which shows a party split of those parties associated with remain and leave with the electorate voting 53% to remain 47% to leave yet because of our “democratic” FPTP system we are yet again to be ruled by a minority.
The promises made were based on based on “getting a deal which would leave us no worse off” which is never going to happen outside the EU unless we remain tied to it in some way. It certainly will not on WTO terms which will involve tri-party negotiations between the EU,UK and WTO on tariffs and quota’s etc. which will take years. There are 168 member countries of the WTO which could veto these talks and considering some are already suing us for damage done through Brexit it does not bode well.