Without faith, Brexit is nothing

More reality hit project Brexit this week, as the Chancellor read out his autumn statement on Tuesday, having to base what he said and his plans for the future on facts rather than in something with little more substance than the tooth fairy.

Before that, on Monday, we had the ridiculous situation of the Prime Minister making a statement to the CBI about needing to avoid a "cliff edge Brexit" only for her spokesperson to correct her later in the evening. And to quote the PM, you really could not make this up.

Also on Monday, Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, David Davis, requested a meeting with his counterpart from the EU. The meeting did not go well, in a single Tweet afterwards, Michael Barnier managed to trash the Rt Hon Sec in four ways: "This morning courtesy visit from @daviddavismp at his request. No negotiation without notification. My work is now focused on EU27. #Brexit." What is clear is that most Brexiteers are as fundamental about Brexit as s religious fundamentalist is. Anything that an expert says or does to support their belief is trumpeted from the highest battlements. And yet, anything, or anyone that brings facts to disprove what a good idea Brexit is, then they must be ridiculed, until it is facts themselves that are in contempt from the believers. Why can't Brexit fail? We said it would and we would make a success of it, even though this is an aim rather than a plan. They don't let facts get in their way of the divine truth.

But it was the Autumn Statement that really took the biscuit, these are screengrabs from various papers of record, The Times, The FT and so on, and some tweets that explain what they mean. One of the most interesting is that the Treasury might have broken the law in not providing the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) with the facts about how much the deal with Nissan might have cost And as an aside, Jaguar have said that unless there was Government subsidy, they may not buld future electric cars in Britain. This will be the first of many such threats by business, but then this is taking back control to give it to international busnessmen.

I will leave it there, as facts and figures from experts and from the Government's own departments say more than I ever could. Except to say that idiot of the week goes to Tory MP and uber-Brexiteer, Jacob Rees Mogg in comparing experts to soothsayers and astrologers. We'll remind him of that next time he gets on a plane to be flown by an expert pilot or get his teeth done by an expert dentist.