More Brexit shit

I saw a comment from an acquaintance on FB saying how as productivity in the UK has gone up, that basically, Brexit ain’t so bad, so bring it one.

The obvious point here is that why if feels it isn’t so bad is that it hasn’t really happened yet. Compare that to the chaos that followed the referendum result, and everything seems stable. I mean food it’s a little more expensive, or packs have got smaller, but there has been no mass redundancies or anything, so why worry?

Businesses are trying to plan for the future, but are hamstrung in that the UK Government really still doesn’t know what it wants from leaving the EU, last week the cabinet tried to talk about it for the first time, but nothing really happened.

But planning is going on, and some companies are going to leave; with less than 16 months to go until we actually leave, every day is precious, and with May and her Brexiteers sending out mixed signals, they might just leave, especially if there is to be a no deal Brexit, with tariffs and tariff barriers and red tape to slow business down.

As they leave, tax revenues will shrink, meaning UK will have to spend less or tax those who stay more. Make no doubt, being a “3rd country” has very severe repercussions to international trade, and unless there is clear agreement and following of mutual standards, the EU will have to, by WTO rules, have to impose non tariff barriers. This is not punishment. This is reality.

And the Chancellor yesterday pressed the EU to decide what relationship it wants from the UK, clearly missing the point that it was UK doing the leaving, so having to decide what IT wants, not the other way round. If the UK makes no decision, then the A50 clock will tick down and we will crash out with no deal; by simple operation of EU law that UK decided to trigger. That put ever more pressure on the UK as the days and weeks passed, as the EU knew it would, so all they had to do was wait until Britain agreed to whatever to move on to the next step.

Meaning, as was pointed out, that once Britain triggered the start of the A50 process, it was out of Britain’s hands. Not taking back control, but even giving away Brexit itself, to a party the other side of the negotiating table that is stronger, better prepared for the talks, better prepared for any outcome and not having DD doing the negotiation.

May has all but ruled out a no deal Breixt, indeed the agreement reached with the EU before Christmas will lock the UK into following all SU and CU rules until something else is agreed, being a rule taker rather than a rule maker. Even less taking back control, and although this makes sense to ensure imports and exports keep flowing, this does make a mockery of the leaving the EU thing, but then the Brexiteers who said we could have impossible things, should have seen this coming and anticipated it, and found solutions. But they just had the idea, and it is up to others; the Civil Service and other Government departments to make it work, and yet yelling whenever there is a solution found that somehow ruins their perfect Brexit. So try again.

Some honesty from the Government on how something that was made to sound so simple was in fact, and still is, very difficult, and impossible if you want cake and eat it.

And then there is Nigel Farrage’s comments yesterday that he is warming to the idea of a second referendum: bear in mind he was talking about one right up to the point it turned out Leave just one. A second referendum sounds great, but having the first one is what got us where we wre now.

A referendum is OK when there is a clear yes/no answer, but with Brexit there wasn’t, then as we have seen Brexiteers have taken the result to mean what they say it meant, and denying it is defying the “will of the people”. We live in a representative democracy, and as the referendum was only advisory, Parliament should have looked at the facts and said “hell no”. Look at Switzerland that has had several referendums, in fact it is the referendum king, and at times has had to ignore results as they went against what was good for the country, the last one being on immigration.

Democracy means being able to change your mind. You vote once every 5 years, or less, and if the government did not live up to expectations, then you vote them out. Saying a referendum result is it as you happen to like the result and denying the electorate the chance to change its mind as more “facts” come to light is undemographic as it gets. But then most referendums are anyway.

If there is to be a second referendum, then time is short, as legislation will have to be drafted and get through both houses of Parliament, if started now, it would only just have a chance of becoming law in time for the 29th March 2019. And as May says there is no plans for one, there won’t be, because even if she changed her mind in two months’ time, it would be too late.

Brexit is coming, it will be bad or worse, but it is coming. The EU knows it and secretly, the Government knows it too, and is panicking. But the headbangers complain and demand exit now, walking away if needed. And so the madness continues.