Swivel eyed loons

Today, the Brexit Minister, Raab, stated that in the event of a no deal than the UK would not pay the financial settlement. He really said that. Out loud. In public. On TV.

This is very dangerous, as I have said previously, that backing out of such agreements on what the UK already owes as its ongoing financial commitments to the EU. If the UK follows through on this, it will be much harder to do any kind of deals in a quick manner, as the other country will insist on watertight clauses as the UK's word would longer be our bond.

Even if this is a bluff, at this stage in the discussions, it is very, very foolish indeed.

The UK has a simple choice as to whether a WA happens or not, in that it has to decide where it wants the border between the UK and EU to be, and in the fallback agreement reached to ensure sufficient progress had been made, this means that if NI stays in the CU and the UK does not want a customs border in the Irish Sea, then the whole of the UK will have to be in the same deal as NI. Especially as the PM says she cannot countenance the effective splitting up of the Union (UK).

This comes as a direct effect of agreeing to something either she, DD and the rest of the Ministers who clapped and cheered last December, they did not understand Nor did they attempt to write up formally what they thought had been agreed. The EU did, so they put what suited them and Ireland in particular. And NI if truth be told.

As David Allen Green put it yesterday: "If the UK were serious about entering into post-Brexit international trade deals then it would be using the exit negotiations as a showcase for how seriously it took international agreements." Not ripping them up.

Over two years ago, I wrote that solving how the Irish Border was going to work was the hardest part; the GFA requires no hard border. Just about all parties, UK Government, the DUp, Sinn Fein, Ireland, the EU, all agree there should be no hard broder. It is possible that going against the GFA agreement might even be against UK Constitutional law, so this is a right mess the Brexiteers have brought the country into, and with no plan to get us out, other than drones and flying squads of tax inspectors.

And the solution has to be agreeable to all sides.

But the clock is ticking, just over six months to go, and unless something extraordinary happens, the UK will leave the EU on 29th March 2019, and unless there is a WA and a TA, there will be a hard border on the island of Ireland, and between all ports and airports between the UK and EU. There can be no real extension to the A50 process, maybe a week or two, but that's it, and anyway, the UK Government would have to ask for it, and May says she won't ask, nor will the UK have a 2nd referendum, there isn't time for one now anyway.

In the event of a no deal, all meat exports will have to be inspected at both Dover and Calais, neither has such facilities, and with the current trade levels, there isn't enough food standard vets in all Europe to operate these even if they were. Madness.

John Lewis announced a 99% drop in profits, which it said Brexit was partly to blame for. Raab rejected this, as apparently he knows about how a high street chain of shops operated better than its board of directors.

Words cannot describe how horrified I am regarding the "leadership" of this, my country. This is where we are, about to literally bankrupt ourselves, then doubling down on it, and being cheered on by the press demanding a "proper" Brexit. The lunatics really have taken over the alsylum.