Getting "clean" away with it

Over the years, new words or terms have been thought up for horrible actions or events. Bombing civilian areas is called collateral damage. Torture is now called extraordinary renditions. Lying is called being economical with the truth. And now Hard Brext, also called economic suicide is called Clean Brexit.

On the 26th, a pro-Brexit group, Change Britain, published a press release which seemed to suggest the amount that Britain could save were it to leave the EU in an uncontrolled way could save Britain £24 billion a year. Only, it turned out that the press release was the report too. And the maths and ideas just don't add up. You can read a take down of that report here: "http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/hard-brexit-benefits-change-britains-24.html So I don't need to go over the points. That neither the print media, nor the beloved BBC did any basic research themselves into this, and just repeated its "conclusions" verbatim.

Yesterday, muppet in chief, Michael Gove tried to accuse others of not producing facts when challenging the idea of Brexit. Something of the pot calling the kettle black there. And anyway, Gove doesn't trust experts, which is why there really is no arguments in the Brexiteers words, just pure blind faith, and they hope they don't get found out. Gove used to be a journalist, and so could get away without actually telling the truth some of the time, most of the time, whatever. But a journalist that calls for something to be scrapped because in his view it doesn't work is one thing, but a politician doing the same thing is negligent bordering on the reckless. Imagine being so dumb to call for Britain leaving the EU and not having a plan for making it work? But that was what Gove, Johnson and Davis did. They won, and then handed over the job of making the impossible work to the experts they had spent months rubishing.

Of course, when the experts fail, the Brexiteers will not take the blame for not having a plan, they will blame the experts for failing to deliver the impossible.

There is a case going through the Irish courts in the new year that asks if the Article 50 notification is reversible. This is being done because during the case which concluded at the Appeal Court this month, both sides for different reasons said it was not. The reason this is important, is that if the Irish Case goes to the European Court of Justice, as it is bound to, and they say that in certain circumstances, maybe if by the country wanting to leave can change its mind, then this means the vote that the PM has promised Parliament at the end of the negotiations, rather than be a rubber stamp, or a Hobson's Choice with the only alternative would be crashing out of the EU without any deal, but what if in the vote Parliament could say to the Government, no, this is not good enough, stop the process until you have a better deal? This, stopping Brexit in its tracks.

You can see why the Brexiteers are horrified, their only real argument would be that we are so far down the path, best make the most of it now and get on with it. However, it is likely that the Government would have to go back to the drawing board. Probably forever.

And next year, by the end of February, the Appeal Court will publish its judgement. If the Brexit agenda is to be kept to, and the Government lose the case, they will have maybe 4 or 5 weeks to get a bill through Parliament that satisfies British Constitutional law.

As the New Year goes on, more companies will threaten to leave the UK of Brexit and its implications are not made clearer. It seems the only real option for the Government is to make Britain a tax haven, cutting tax rates for corporations and the super rich, making Britain attractive. This is OK< but of course means less tax collected, less public services for the rest of us, or us paying more taxes to make up the shortfall.

It is a mess. And will get worse. But then we can always rely on reality and facts to put a few sticks in the wheels of the Brexiteers tricycles.