Mrs May and Mr Hammond - her Finance Minister - are represented by various sections of the media as being in a serious conflict about making provision for a 'no deal' outcome from the current negotiation between the UK and the EU. The Chancellor [who is wedded, as tightly as if he were welded] to the concept of 'austerity' has told a Commons committee that he has contingency plans, but does not want to release any funds until the very last moment. He could not make that statement if staff time and some expenses [notably consultancy] had not been applied to the planning: so what he obviously means is that he is reluctant to release funds on implementing such a plan until that should appear to be the [utterly disastrous] inevitability.
Mrs May seems to be saying the same things, when she indicates that £250 million has been set aside for implementing a 'hard Brexit'. Yet the press, notably the Daily Mail, has become hysterical about the 'dispute' and the 'disloyalty' - even 'sabotage' - attributed to the Chancellor.
This stupid scenario shows that the minority of extreme Brexiteers are dragging the Tory party to its destruction; which would be no bad thing [in view of the appalling inadequacy that is apparent right across the government] if there was an opposition that combined honesty and competence over the board. But that is not the case. Labour is led by an unreconstructed Marxist who is as good as the late Comrade Suslov [the chief exponent of Leninist-Stalinist orthodoxy as the USSR was heading for destruction] at avoiding direct or evidence-based questions. The Momentum group show a dangerous revival of the 'entryism' that undermined the Labour government in the nineteen seventies, and thus opened up the way for Thatcherism and the dissipation of all that remained of the legacy of the first industrial revolution.
If May or Hammond was serious about managing a really 'hard' Brexit their first decision - however covertly it was taken - would be the abandonment of 'austerity'. Government spending far in excess of £250 billion would be needed to install a full customs border with the EU. The recruitment and training of hundreds of thousands of officials would need to begin now: somehow, the IT systems would have to be provided - almost instantly - despite the fact that even modest government schemes for computerisation are always over-cost and excessively delayed in implementation [to the extent that they often have to be abandoned].
British firms that still make things - there are many, often high-tech companies developed or reconstructed since 2008 - are almost all integrated into just-in-time Europe-wide supply chains [both in getting their necessary inputs and in selling components to EU companies]. Such businesses are making contingency plans that would require them at least to double the manpower and computer availability just to manage the 'paperwork' that would be involved in trying to maintain the flow of business after a default Brexit. Many such firms are already finding that their European customers are looking elsewhere for contingent supplies. Furthermore, insuring trade and the goods traded in a crash-Brexit situation will become massively more complex and thus expensive.
The clowns on the Tory right, with their airy assertions that all will be well 'under WTO Rules' [which they certainly do not understand:cf my many references to point protectionism], are driving an amazingly weak Cabinet towards the destruction of the national economy.
There must a popular movement, of Leavers and Remainers united, to avoid national economic destruction.
Showing posts with label 'hard Brexit'. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 'hard Brexit'. Show all posts
Friday, 13 October 2017
Monday, 7 August 2017
Vince to Rescue the Mail?
Yesterday's Mail on Sunday had a feature that I so little expected to appear that I went out to acquire a copy to verify with my own eyes the account that I had heard on the radio. Sure enough, the LibDem leader, Vince Cable had produced an article which they published. Sadly, the headline [doubtless chosen by some minion of the Mail] was misleading. It suggested that the MPs who are pressing for a 'hard Brexit' are "masochists": when the reality is that they are aiming to torment the British nation with lower living standards. These individuals might - just - share to some degree in the pain if there is a 'hard Brexit', but they will remain relatively privileged compared to the mass of the population.
It is understood that 'the Brexiteers' are pushing their influence to the limit, as it becomes obvious that more and more of the Leave voters are recognising the idiocy of the extreme Brexiteers' position. It is taken for granted that the referendum result will be respected, and Britain will cease to use the EU flag, will cease to provide members of the Commission and the Parliament and the Court, and will open a new era of sovereign diplomatic policy. But to leave the European Economic Area would be madness. To quit Euratom would be seriously dangerous. Even to think that the UK could have most-favoured-nation status with the USA - to the exclusion of the EU and Mexico - would be a demonstration of insanity. Yet these issues are now becoming apparent: and it is reported that some members of the Cabinet, perhaps including the Brexit ministers, are on the side of the tormentors.
The Mail group of papers was among the advocates of 'Leave', for very good reasons. Now it is allowing alternative opinions to be aired on where Brexit should aim to end up, as shown by yesterday's LibDem article. But much more significant is the opinion piece that is set alongside Cable's, which recognises the finding of serious researchers, that some Conservative 'Leavers' failed to vote Conservative in the recent general election - and some voted LibDem or Labour - in despair at the crazy determination of some Conservative to press for a 'hard Brexit'. Provided some compromise can be achieved on the migration of people within the area, the Mail wants to UK to be within the European Economic Area. The dawn of sense, in a very significant influencer of Middle Britain!
It is highly improbable that a person with such a bad dress-sense as Mrs May has very much commonsense. It is questionable what contact she has ever had with 'ordinary people' except as her father's parishioners, and subsequently as shop assistants, college and parliamentary servants, the layers of Bank of England minions who have recently been on strike; and others whose role is to serve. She may, however, continue to be presented with a digest of the media every day, as her predecessors have been: in which case whoever edits it should have marked this twist of the Mail's tale with a big, black exclamation mark. It means that hundreds of thousands of Mail readers are already forming the sort of opinion that the paper presented yesterday. It explains why Mrs May 'lost' the election, and why the Conservative Party will plummet lower and lower in the polls unless the 'hard Brexiteers' are pushed aside now.
As Cable says - and it might even be in his own words - "The cliff edge draws closer. For the Brexit martyrs, paradise beckons. No longer Project Fear but Project Near. After that it will be Project Here."
Cable has helped the Mail to signal a major shift in the opinion of middle Britain: let us hope that it is in time!
It is understood that 'the Brexiteers' are pushing their influence to the limit, as it becomes obvious that more and more of the Leave voters are recognising the idiocy of the extreme Brexiteers' position. It is taken for granted that the referendum result will be respected, and Britain will cease to use the EU flag, will cease to provide members of the Commission and the Parliament and the Court, and will open a new era of sovereign diplomatic policy. But to leave the European Economic Area would be madness. To quit Euratom would be seriously dangerous. Even to think that the UK could have most-favoured-nation status with the USA - to the exclusion of the EU and Mexico - would be a demonstration of insanity. Yet these issues are now becoming apparent: and it is reported that some members of the Cabinet, perhaps including the Brexit ministers, are on the side of the tormentors.
The Mail group of papers was among the advocates of 'Leave', for very good reasons. Now it is allowing alternative opinions to be aired on where Brexit should aim to end up, as shown by yesterday's LibDem article. But much more significant is the opinion piece that is set alongside Cable's, which recognises the finding of serious researchers, that some Conservative 'Leavers' failed to vote Conservative in the recent general election - and some voted LibDem or Labour - in despair at the crazy determination of some Conservative to press for a 'hard Brexit'. Provided some compromise can be achieved on the migration of people within the area, the Mail wants to UK to be within the European Economic Area. The dawn of sense, in a very significant influencer of Middle Britain!
It is highly improbable that a person with such a bad dress-sense as Mrs May has very much commonsense. It is questionable what contact she has ever had with 'ordinary people' except as her father's parishioners, and subsequently as shop assistants, college and parliamentary servants, the layers of Bank of England minions who have recently been on strike; and others whose role is to serve. She may, however, continue to be presented with a digest of the media every day, as her predecessors have been: in which case whoever edits it should have marked this twist of the Mail's tale with a big, black exclamation mark. It means that hundreds of thousands of Mail readers are already forming the sort of opinion that the paper presented yesterday. It explains why Mrs May 'lost' the election, and why the Conservative Party will plummet lower and lower in the polls unless the 'hard Brexiteers' are pushed aside now.
As Cable says - and it might even be in his own words - "The cliff edge draws closer. For the Brexit martyrs, paradise beckons. No longer Project Fear but Project Near. After that it will be Project Here."
Cable has helped the Mail to signal a major shift in the opinion of middle Britain: let us hope that it is in time!
Friday, 4 August 2017
Lambing Time in Cloud Cuckoo Land
All the major organisations that represent farmers in the United Kingdom have come together to express their acute concern that the government has not given any of them a hint as to what sort of economic structure there will be surrounding the farmers after Brexit. There is a broad and vague promise that the existing level of EU payments to farmers will be paid from 1 April 2019 until the end of the present EU budgeting period in 2022: and, after that, nothing
This is almost certainly because nobody in government has the faintest idea what sort of regime they can fund, or organise, or administer. Mrs May is just obsessed with the idea that we MUST be in full control of immigration to the UK from the date of Brexit, and [as far as she seems to be concerned] all else is swept aside from serious thought or planning. Self-styled 'Brexiteers' in her government are running around, with one breath promising us free-trade agreements with the half of the world economy that has any serious economic clout; and with the next breath saying that it is too early to say if we will be expected to watch British farms go bust as consumers [with ever-more-quickly declining incomes] are steered towards buying hormone-fattened beef and chlorinated chicken from the USA.
The government has become a conspiracy of silence against any valid information being presented to the nation: and behind that lies abysmal ignorance of the implications of any action upon which the cabinet decides.
So let us take an absolutely basic example. Most members of the government, and even a sizable proportion of the civil service [and, just possibly, some Econocrats] know that due to the ecology of the sheep-farming regions of the UK it is only feasible for our sheep to produce their offspring in the spring. Some parts of the country have earlier and milder spring weather than other parts, thus they can arrange for the lambs to arrive early in the calendar year; while the areas with a more robust climate arrange for the lambs to arrive at the end of the winter. Thus, later in the year, lambs are ready for slaughter over a period of several months. The amount of lamb that is produced in Britain in those months is more than British restaurants and households are able to use: so prime British lamb, in season, goes to Europe and other destinations. Over 40% of the annual production of lamb from the UK goes to the other EU countries, currently without tariffs or other hindrances.
In the parts of the year when there are few lambs ready for slaughter from UK farms, the New Zealand, Australian and other southern-hemisphere farms can supply the EU [including Britain] with lamb: so the UK exports 40%+ of the lamb that is raised here, and imports about the same proportion of the lamb that is consumed over the whole year. This is an entirely sustainable and sensible process; and common sense indicates that we should stick with it. This would work, if Britain has the basic good sense to think straight and act accordingly.
Sadly, it appears that Mrs May has placed fantasists in key positions: so as she dreams of making a niche in history by closing our borders to immigrants to rectify her 'failure' to reduce net immigration below 100,000 when she was Home Secretary; reckless of the long-term economic damage that a 'hard Brexit' would cause, other ministers have been freed to pursue their own fantasies.
I would like to think that this characterisation of the current situation is an alarmist fantasy of my own: but in the absence of any evidence of rational policy-making, one is licensed to expect the worst.
This is almost certainly because nobody in government has the faintest idea what sort of regime they can fund, or organise, or administer. Mrs May is just obsessed with the idea that we MUST be in full control of immigration to the UK from the date of Brexit, and [as far as she seems to be concerned] all else is swept aside from serious thought or planning. Self-styled 'Brexiteers' in her government are running around, with one breath promising us free-trade agreements with the half of the world economy that has any serious economic clout; and with the next breath saying that it is too early to say if we will be expected to watch British farms go bust as consumers [with ever-more-quickly declining incomes] are steered towards buying hormone-fattened beef and chlorinated chicken from the USA.
The government has become a conspiracy of silence against any valid information being presented to the nation: and behind that lies abysmal ignorance of the implications of any action upon which the cabinet decides.
So let us take an absolutely basic example. Most members of the government, and even a sizable proportion of the civil service [and, just possibly, some Econocrats] know that due to the ecology of the sheep-farming regions of the UK it is only feasible for our sheep to produce their offspring in the spring. Some parts of the country have earlier and milder spring weather than other parts, thus they can arrange for the lambs to arrive early in the calendar year; while the areas with a more robust climate arrange for the lambs to arrive at the end of the winter. Thus, later in the year, lambs are ready for slaughter over a period of several months. The amount of lamb that is produced in Britain in those months is more than British restaurants and households are able to use: so prime British lamb, in season, goes to Europe and other destinations. Over 40% of the annual production of lamb from the UK goes to the other EU countries, currently without tariffs or other hindrances.
In the parts of the year when there are few lambs ready for slaughter from UK farms, the New Zealand, Australian and other southern-hemisphere farms can supply the EU [including Britain] with lamb: so the UK exports 40%+ of the lamb that is raised here, and imports about the same proportion of the lamb that is consumed over the whole year. This is an entirely sustainable and sensible process; and common sense indicates that we should stick with it. This would work, if Britain has the basic good sense to think straight and act accordingly.
Sadly, it appears that Mrs May has placed fantasists in key positions: so as she dreams of making a niche in history by closing our borders to immigrants to rectify her 'failure' to reduce net immigration below 100,000 when she was Home Secretary; reckless of the long-term economic damage that a 'hard Brexit' would cause, other ministers have been freed to pursue their own fantasies.
I would like to think that this characterisation of the current situation is an alarmist fantasy of my own: but in the absence of any evidence of rational policy-making, one is licensed to expect the worst.
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