A Horseradish
Wednesday 29th June 2016 10:22pm [Edited]
8,475 posts
SADLY......BRITAIN IS ALREADY AT WAR
We are already in a war with Europe (trading, politics) and in a civil war (Britain divided on new, additional, lines).
Fortunately no one has taken up arms yet.
A FRAGILE UNITY
The EU is disappointed. Remain supporters are disappointed. Brexit supporters are both highly delighted and somewhat doubtful. There is plenty to come to ensure that many of them - including those who find it difficult just to find their way around a supermarket - will soon be even more disgruntled with politicians than they ever were before. The Government - and the same will be true of any future ones - has got its work cut out. It is small wonder that Boris and the City are asking for Remainers and Brexiters to unite. The most likely major fall out in this country will not be between the two but rather in the two sides united against an even more disgraced political establishment. If and whenever that happens, Nicola Sturgeon will look like Mother Theresa on speed.
TRADE....WHAT TRADE?
It will take very many years to build trade internationally outside Europe. That is, if it can be done at all in a way that makes Europe comparatively irrelevant. Nothing of note has been done since the referendum result to facilitate trade deals with the the old Commonwealth and elsewhere. That is because there is total vagueness on what can be traded with (French) Niger etc and how it can be done. Under WTO rules, trade with Europe itself would for some considerable time be difficult and it would not be cheap. If that happens, it is likely to take place in circumstances that will be frosty to the point of mutual loathing. But we could, of course, have immigration levels down with it. Or else they could be double what we have had if elected British Governments chose it.
BANKS COSY UP TO PARIS
Here's just a taster of what happens next. France in the EU has decided that Britain if it wants can have full access to the single market (Norway) and immigration levels of its own choosing (Not Norway). Well, doesn't that sound all fine and dandy. Except it has come up with a price and that price is for Britain not to be permitted something called "passporting". What is that? I can absolutely guarantee that fewer than 1 in 10,000 people who voted in the referendum could begin to explain it. Farage and Cameron know what it is of course. It is the right for our banking sector to trade easily with the rest of Europe. What the French hope is the banks will all relocate to France. Many will certainly be relocating in that situation to Germany or Ireland and Trump's US will rake it in. Senior financial experts in the United States have described it all as the most amazing self-inflicted wound.
GOODBYE ATTLEE?
In the absence of unlimited access to the single market with its immigration commitments (Norway), our economy will lose the banks, we will be years away from decent international trade and the state health and pension systems which were already under pressure will just disintegrate. Symbolically, it is no coincidence that while the Conservative Party is presently jittery like the financial sector, Labour's looking like it has been hit by an avalanche. While we will survive as a country, just, welfare won't do unless we accept the Norwegian model. That's like being in the EU with no power in decision making and none of the advantages of Cameron's deal.
LIMITS ON ANY INFLUX OF PEACE
A Britain with virtually no welfare state is a Britain of 1929. The year of Black Thursday when the financial sector crashed in America and in the absence of a welfare state what followed here was hunger and civil unrest. Dealing with civil unrest is very costly for a country both financially and in its insecure authoritarian need to virtually remove any liberal freedom of movement. That in turn leads to the kinds of instability that facilitates war on continents. And it is especially the case where what happens in one country leads to similar impacts on others. What is important to remember is whatever else he was, Hitler was a product of prior economic mismanagement.
A BONFIRE OF DIRECTIVES
Ordinary people who voted for Brexit - those who still think it is a good thing and those who do not now - are not a huge problem. Their political leaders have not been the only problem in political leadership. Where we are now is largely a consequence of EU territorial expansion pushed by Blair/Bush and an American led financial crash of 2007/8. But just as we had managed to crawl our way out of umpteen recessions, Farage, his right wing Conservative cronies and the most privileged generations of all time have lit a fire that will burn across decades. The latter group will not see a lot of it, comfortably oblivious to it all. So too anyone on a four/five figure salary.
