by John Ward
…..but everyone who wants something is a dangerous extremist
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The attempt by people ranging from Nick Boles and Olly Letwin to “take a No Deal Brexit off the table” has now been adopted formally by the Labour leadership as the “reason” why Jeremy Corbyn will not join Cross-Party talks about a Plan B for UK withdrawal from the EU.
The situation in our legislature is now profoundly bizarre. Taking No Deal off the table is the one thing that the vast majority of MPs agree they want. Indeed, the Daily Telegraph has been given a leaked phone conversation in which Philip Hammond specifically promises business leaders that the Government will ensure cross-Party talks remove said No Deal from said Table. But Corbyn says until he’s heard that from Theresa May’s lips, he won’t be joining in the bunfight.
So the leader of the Opposition won’t agree to take part without a precondition that the Prime Minister and her Chancellor can’t agree upon – relating to a policy that is an abstract, negative concept in the first place….yet one that most MPs greatly desire already, although at the same time, one that has become a Red Line based on completely ill-informed opinions by people with little or no idea whatTF they’re talking about.
Over the last 72 hours, I have watched as the international media, EU and British politicians have described a No Deal Brexit as something “that will do serious damage to the UK and world economy” (MSNBC), “will lead to gdp falls that will take years to claw back” (FT) “will do untold damage to already hard-up families across Britain” (Mirror) and involves “crashing out into the darkness” (Daily Mail).
There are three problems with all of it. First, none of this doomsaying is supported by a single fact anywhere, a reasoned-through argument of consequences, or an extrapolation based on previous events. Second, it requires the fearful to believe in the insane proposition that every trading nation in the world without EU protection lives from hand to mouth, hour by hour, in the hope that one day, the beneficent burghers of Brussels might just let them in to share in the spoils. Third, it completely ignores the woeful gdp falls of the main EU creditor nations, the crises in Italy and Hungary, the loss of UK fees to the EC, the appalling lack of liquidity in the eurozone, and the problems being faced by the ECB – that the eurozone’s central bank lacks the gold standard to retain confidence once the vulture funds finally get a grip of ClubMed sovereign debt yields and NordEuropa sales falls.
IABATO – It’s All Bollocks And That’s Official.
I mean, I’m sorry to go on about this, but for heaven’s sake wake up. No Deal Brexit will immediately save Britain from having to pay a 39bn€ blackmail divorce fee plucked out of the air at random by Johnny Juncker & his Pals. It will produce nothing in the way of EU retaliation, because the last thing German car manufacturers and French viniculteurs want is to see an overnight slump in their lifeblood. It will mean nothing more or less than Britain joining every trading nation in the world under WTO rules….rules which are hardly what one could call exacting.
Last night, I suggested here that we should look at a free vote in the Commons on two simple choices: the Canada + Brexit versus going back to pre-referendum Remain status with no loss of rights. I don’t really want to risk Brexit, which is why I also said that, having seen the results of that vote, a second referendum could be held with the strict proviso that that would be it – no whingeing, just get on with it – a fully informed electorate to take cognisance of what Parliament thinks, and vote accordingly for very specifically defined options.
You see, I’m confident that – with those very clear options – Leave would win by a margin of at least 60-40.
My sole motive was to get a clear decision and then move on. But looking at today’s increasingly surreal antics, rationales, cheating, backstairs deals and cynical tactics, I am concerned that this saga will have no end, and my homeland will destroy itself without regaining either its trading or sovereign independence.
Forty-two months having been pissed away, the one certainty is that we cannot rely on our various élites to bring this process to a peaceful solution. They will woffle, kerfuffle, shuffle and then shaft us.
We cannot allow this to happen.