Where are we?

The first question to ask, and then answer is, will Brexit happen?

And in answering that, what I can say is that Britain's relationship with the EU will have changed forever, and whatever we had before, and the terms we had before, will be gone forever. Now, there seems to be a train of thought which says that Brexit is so bad for the country and economy, that it will be stopped. Indeed, the EU President himself said this in April when he stated that Britain had two Brexit choices; hard or none. Meaning, we leave on dreadful terms or stay.

Over the last two weeks the EU has said on a number of occasions, that Britain can stop Brexit if it wants. So the question is what would have to happen for that to happen?

Well, the economy would have to really start tanking. Signs are it is performing badly compared to the Eurozone, and trends are that it will get worse. Wages, in real terms have been going down since the recession in 2008, and have not recovered, and pay rises are lagging behind inflation, meaning that as each month goes by, our wages can buy less and less. All of this will continue, and would be OK, I guess, if all jobs were to remain in the even of Brexit. But many will be lost. Without knowing what our future relationship with the EU will be, then that leaves uncertainty, and businesses hate that. So, the choice is whether to play it safe and relocate, or stay and face the consequences.

That would also be OK, if businesses did not export to the EU, but 84% of Britain's exports are either to the EU or to countries that have a trade agreement with the EU. Leaving the EU means crashing out of all those agreements and having to set up our own, as the potential trading partners that count, the US, Australia, etc, don't want Britain to "roll over" on its current schedules through the EU, and those take time, lots of time to agree and approve. And that process cannot start until Britain has actually left the EU in March 2019, and that's by WTO rules.

And then there are the WTO rules and schedules: not one country trades purely on them, every one of the 161 or members has at least one deal, sometimes just the one in their main export or import commodity, but they still do deal. And doing deals, tariffs and non-tariffs, all take time, and until Britain negotiated them, nearly 800 of them if it wants to duplicate everything the EU has, then it will take a huge amount of time. Until then, every other member of the WTO has to treat us the same way, not punish us, but has to ensure we trade on basic WTO schedules, because they are the WTO rules. And if we try to "punish" one country by imposing non-tariff barriers, we have to do that to all other countries.

In the above situation, going into trade deals where all potential partners know you are desperate for a trade deal, will not just cough up a deal that is good for Britain, they will go for the best deal for their country, and that goes for every single country in the WTO. In negotiating a trade deal, it takes time and expertise, something Britain is lacking in bot, time obviously, by trade negotiators because for the last 45 years, the EU has done that for us. I could get us a hundred trade deals before lunch, just sign any paper put in front of me, means they won't be good trade deals, but they will be trade deals.

The one thing the that concerns the EU about Brexit is divergence in standards. This comes with trade deals Britain makes with other countries, which Britain will have to allow into Britain as part of a trade deal. Think of something like chlorinated chicken, which is banned in the EU, but not in the US. If it is allowed into Britain, then any chicken exported to the EU will have to pve it is not American and what processes it followed and if it meets EU regulations. This takes time. And paperwork. And both will add costs. On top of which could be tariffs of up to 50%. Farming in the UK will become, largely, unsustainable without Government support. Which is, of course, outlawed to the levels needed to keep it going. In fact there is a downward trend as to what Government support is allowed under WTO rules.

And then there is what happens at home. Should there be a second referendum? Well, there shouldn't have been a first. We live in a Parliamentary Democracy, and it is through that mechanism that any policy changes like Brexit should have been carried on. However, if we compare Brexit to the Community Charge, this was a policy of the Thatcher Government, was elected on a ticket of promising it. Was delivered in Scotland first, was a disaster, but rolled out across the country, and riots ensued. The policy was quietly abandoned. In a Parliamentary Democracy, the electorate is given the opportunity every 5 years, or less, the decide if it wants to change its mind, on the basis on how well, or badly, the Government performed on enacting the previous manifesto promises. Its what should have happened with Brexit, and party did on May's snap election this year; asked for a increased majority to harden her "bargaining" hand, instead had her majority wiped out, which is where we are now.

A referendum is a blunt instrument; it delivers a yes/no answer on what is a complicated question, as in Brexit. And the losing side will push for more and more reruns until it gets the result it wants.Which is what Leave.uk said it would do if it lost by a narrow margin. The referendum should have had a quorum of 60% or over 50% of the total electorate for there to be a change. And anyway, it was an advisory referendum. Parliament could have looked at the result, looked at the evidence, and said, no this is a bad idea. But, legally it wasn't binding, it was politically.

Tat there was no serious study as to what the effects of the different Brexit scenarios had been done, it was left to blatant lies to be told and these were believed over complicated truths, and any serious study was rubbished by people like Gove who stated "people have had enough of experts". And now that the assessments have been done, they are not being released, or even read, lest some horrible truth be let out to spoil the perfect Brexit.

Because Brexit is a religion. A belief. Nothing must be allowed to taint it, especially the truth and facts. They would have gotten away with it it it wasn't for reality.

Media sources that publish stories and data that rubbish Brexit are just being unpatriotic, and should only publish patriotic stories. Like tractor production, I suppose. Uncle Joe Stalin would so much approve.

In order for Brexit to be stopped, the public will have to see how bad it really can be. And we are nowhere near that point yet. We need to be right on the cliff edge looking down, and then we will all see how mad it all is. Because it it is stopped now, then in a few years, few months, it will all start again, like in The Italian Job, someone will have an idea, and the doors might not get blown off. Even if it is stopped, the damage will have been done; businesses will have moved, jobs will have been lost, and will not come back. Britain has been exposed as being slightly xenophobic, very in some places, and people will not want to return unless we can prove we have learned.

And finally, the EU would have to approve, through the EU27, the EU Parliament and UCJ to allow us to stop Brexit, and with our record, why would they want us really to stay?