It'll be worth it

I think we can safely say, that any blog without a date in the title with probably be about Brexit.

So is the case today.

A report from YouGov yesterday revealed that 38% of people thought Brexit would be worth if if they or a close family member lost their job. That those voting for Brexit could be so carefree with other people's livelihood is frankly, astounding. Something that occurred to me yesterday was that something like 0ver 50% of people who had accessed their pension pots thanks to the deregulation last year had emptied their pots. So, we can see many boomers demanding even more in state pension in a few years to cover up their greed and stupidity.

One of the other things that has been raised these past few days is the "mandate" that the EU referendum gave May and her Government to act. In a democracy, through elections, the electorate can get to change their mind. In fact, despite promising all manner of things in their manifesto, the elected party does not have to enact the policies they said they would, any of them. So does the referendum mean that the British electorate only get one chance to vote to leave or not the EU, and that one time vote cannot ever be changed?

Tony Benn wrote five questions to be applied to a leader (or policy) to see if it is democratic:

1. What power have to got
2. Where did you get it from
3. In whose interest do you use it
4. To whom are you accountable
5. How do we get rid of you

THe idea of a mandate is especially pertinent if you look at the poll tax of the 1980s: a well publicised and trumpeted policy, a cornerstone of the Tories 1987 manifesto, enacted in Scotland and was a disaster, but was then rolled out across the UK and riots ensued and was quietly abandoned as the cost of the policy became clear to the electorate. That something similar happening to Brexit as the economy slides further, inflation rises, unemployment rises as jobs are exported to the EU. As jobs and EU citizens leave the UK, their taxes, NI contributions, property rentals all go with them, the shortfall in taxes to the exchequer will have to be found from somewhere, probably by further increasing the retirement age past 67 or 68 as currently planned.

One last word on transitional arrangements; int hat they have to transition to something, and until May, her Cabinet and Government decide on what they want on a huge number of policy areas, the chances of getting such an arrangement are close to zero, in that the objective would be additional time to give Britain to make up it's mind. And a reminder that as everything else, such arrangements, their length, scope and so on, are all at the discretion of the EU27, be unanimous and with the legal framework of the EU as judged by the UCJ. None of this is easy or a given.