A perfect storm

The UK is heading into a perfect storm where the joint realities of a second wave of COVID-19 combine with the realities of the end of the transition period and economic Brexit, both underpinned by gross incompetence and mismanagement.

Add to that a soupçon of political dogma, and the UK isn’t going to know what hit it come January 1st, and with each passing week between now and then, each 7 day period will be worse.

Much worse.

First of all, the dogma: On Sunday, the Chancellor’s furlough scheme comes to an end, being replaced by something a little cheaper, but only supports “viable” jobs, and you have to work at least 20% of your contracted hours, or something, rules changed a couple of weeks back so not quite certain.

But for many, November will bring redundancy and financial uncertainty. Jobs especially in the services, food and drink and entertainment industries hit the very hardest. Recover for those areas will be long and slow, would have been easier with a furlough scheme, but such support is alien to Conservative thinking, so the country must be weaned off it.

And some kind of national lockdown is inevitable, with just essential shopping and travel with local exercise permitted. The Government will resist, but each day passes without one, ensure the infections rise and in due course, so will deaths. The Government seems to be focussing on “saving Christmas”, like the country will be in any state to celebrate, operating on a rule of six with just two households able to mix.

Christmas comes a week before no deal or minimal deal Brexit. There might be little to panic buy by then, but with a hard lockdown in place, at least, unemployment rampant and many going onto Universal Credit, having to wait up to six weeks for their £140 a week, times will be tougher than tough.

And then come Brexit, full undiluted Brexit, on January 1st. Though that is a bank holiday, so the next working day, the 2nd, we will see what happens.

A shortage of fresh fruit and vegetables seems inevitable, even if you have the money to buy time, as something like 75% comes from the EU. Yes we grow some, but not enough and there won’t be enough people to pick what we have.

It is estimated that there will be queues of trucks, days long, for up to three months, probably longer on route to the ports, meaning the food and supplies, like medicine, we import will not come into the country, as hauliers know trucks will take days to leave the UK.

I read a blog post by Chris Grey, one of the best Brexit commentators there is, about his recent trip from Dover to Belgium by ferry. Facilities still being constructed in England, but completed in Europe. We, the country that wanted Brexit, is least prepared. It really makes you want to weep.

And the worst of it can me stopped, delayed at least, by the UK requesting that the extension period be extended. The EU would have to grant it, but probably would allowing them to concentrate too on COVID, but the UK Government presses on, like the captain of an apparently unsinkable liner heading for the mother of all icebergs, not caring about the country, the economy or the people it represents, only the purity of the Brexit dream and a trade deal with the US that will improve the UK GDP by, at most, 1.6% over 15 years, but Brexit costing 7.6% over the same time period.

And even then, there might not be a trade deal, as with Trump as President, the House of Representatives would block a deal with the UK if Brexit has damaged or threatened the GFA, or with Biden who will be concentrating on rebuilding bridges with the EU, NATO and all other former strategic partners.

0And as I have said recently, no Brexiteer’s beliefs can change the basic reality that Europe and the EU is just 23 miles away, and as a trading country, we will need to trade with them. And I believe common sense will win out, in the end, and at some point we will either rejoin or become so close to the EU you won’t see the join. But before then, there will be rough waters, troubling times, maybe food, energy, medicine and fuel shortages. Some of the damage will be repaired, but much cannot.

And running through these two storms is the rank incompetence of the Brexiteers and this Vote Leave Government, who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Throughout Brexit, it has for much of the time impossible to tell if May and Johnson really want Brexit to succeed or are trying to sabotage it, due to the sheer number of unforced errors both made. And yet, through it all, here we are, having left the EU, politically, and about to exit the transition, with little or no plan on what to do, what needs to be done, who should do it, other than to blame everyone, anyone else, other than themselves. And that has gone through onto COVID, with talk of grand plans and world-beating this and that, but have failed, totally to protect the country and its people. Comparing UK with Sweden, who literally did nothing during the first wave, the UK did worse. And the same people who did that are still in charge, and instead of used the pandemic to line their own pockets and the pockets of their friends and backers, news came yesterday of leaked documents in which favoured companies were to be offered contracts with profit margins of 35 to 45% in supplying PPE during a pandemic, and did so, thus turning a profit out of death and in the process much of what was supplied was no good, not to specification to be used in the NHS, or in the case of coveralls, a 36 years supply was bought for an item with a three year shelf life.

Hundreds of millions of pounds syphoned to these friends and backers, whilst we are told there is no money to feed hungry schoolchildren.

And we will see much, much more of this in our post-Brexit Lalaland, and thanks to the limitations on JR and other measures, unable to find out that it is happening.