Monday Brexit

From various leaks on the Government's fall back position on a no deal exit from the EU, it seems that the plan is to not change anything from the UK and hope the EU will do the same. Meaning that there will be no real checks on what comes into the UK, and presumably, there will be free movement for EU citizens too. And this status quo will not have a time limit, as it becomes clear that the 21 month proposed tranisition period by the EU is not long enough, not that anyone who knows anything about setting in the UK what would be needed to enable even the most basic of functions with the rest of the world.

This is all well and good, but without a framework trade agreement, from the 30th Mach 2019, the EU will have to treat the UK as any other 3rd country that does not have a trade deal, and will have to enforce rules of origins, especially on agrifoods to ensure that all that enters the EU supply chain is compliant with EU laws, rules and regulations. THis it would have to do to be in compliance with the WTO rules, the self same rules that Brexiteers claim we can fall back onto to allow trading.

Only the WTO schedules we currently trade under as part of the EU will not be rolled over automatically by many countries as both the UK and EU hope for, as splitting the current schedules between UK and the EU27 is hugely complex, and in fact this has not been done for over a decade as since then it was deemed to have been too complicated, and some countries have already said they would want to revist UK only schedules in order to get a better deal, as they see leverage.

And as previously stated, no other member trades on basic WTO schedules, even the smallest nation has negotiated deals with their biggest trading partners for their largest industries. And trade disputes can take years to conclude, and even if a case is won, there is little that can be done to ensure the losing country abides by the ruling. Individual trade deals can take the best part of a decade to negotiate, meaning that UK exporters will be at a huge disadvantage into the 2030s before they could trade on anything like favourable terms, but by then they would have gone to the wall.

An article in the New York Times showed how the transfer of services from central to local government in the UK has caused a huge funding crisis, where cash-strapped authorities have to choose what to fund, that for the sick of the elderly, and as services are cut, opportunists are able to blame EU citizens and unchecked migration as the cause, when it is plain and simple Government policy. As is the cutting of funding and staffing for the NHS, Government policy, blamed on the very people who help to make it work by being doctors and nurses, would be funny if it wasn't so sick. Applications from EU nurses has dropped over 90% since the referendum, with the effect of stretching the NHS even tighter and closer to breaking point.

And with the UK leaving the EU next March, and taxation from global businesses and income tax from EU citizens who have or will relocate, will drop, meaning there will be less and less funds for social care and all the other things our tax pounds are used for. Apparently we would pay a tax on plastic to stop pollution, but would be pay an NHS tax, an elderly care tax and so on, especially as Brexit would removed things like the minimum wage, for those that keep their jobs, and the hundreds of thousand that will lose employment as who sectors are consigned to the trash can.

And what was written on the side of that bus? £350 million a week extra? Hardly. Just another lie that that no one takes responsibility, and yet many Brexiteers were only to happy to have their photograph taken with the bus as a backdrop.

Interesting to see the idea of a new centralist party forming, but as was correctly stated, all this would do at the moment is to split opposition to Brexit, or the harder forms. In the end I can't see how either of the two main parties can survive Brexit in the long term, but as things stand, both May and Corbyn are happy to follow policies that satisfy internal party politics, or just fudge things so to keep the parties together for as long as possible. Once Brexit wreaks havoc on the left and right, then will be time for sensible heads to come together and fight for rights and truth.

But not before Brexit happens, the country becomes poorer, more divided, and a return to the EU would not happen for a generation.