by John Ward
Eurozone economic forecasts are being slashed at the moment. William Devijlder at BNP Paribas has joined the Wall Street Journal, the IMF and now (finally) the European Commission in pointing out the wind direction: “GDP is now expected to grow 1.3% versus a previous forecast of 1.9%. The revision is significant and reflects, among other factors, trade tensions, slower foreign growth, in particular in China…..and Brexit uncertainty.”
Such predictions are, in truth, at least six months behind the action (I spent much of last year pointing out the dreadful state of most ezone economies) but what makes them particularly pertinent now is that more and more commentators are – at last – linking the inevitable eurozone recession to Brussels’ obvious inability to withstand a No Deal Brexit.
What began as an idiotic German-induced austerity in ClubMed has now, entirely predictably, led to an increasing inability in the Eastern and Southern ezone States to consume the goods of Germany, Holland and France.
But there are other complicating (and generally suicidal) factors in play. The European Central Bank’s dedication to monetarist QE and Zirp hokum disguised the degree to which real product and service sales increases were playing little or no role in declared corporate profits, while giving euro consumers cheap credit to disguise the real loss in PDI (personal disposable income).
Now that ECB boss Mario Draghi is following the Goldman Sachs/US Fed line of “normalising”, he too is coming up against a wall of reality: there has been no recovery, ergo sum – there can be no normalisation. Only two months ago, the US Fed was bullishly boasting of 3-4 rate rises in 2019; now the Fed has passed on a due rate rise, it’s clear that in the US too, financial imperialism is being tempered by econo-fiscal empiricism.
Then there is the disastrous eurozone migrant policy. Setting aside the increasingly apparent social consequences of imposing over three million aliens who do not share our cultural values onto an already unsettled EU, it is blindingly obvious that – for the time being at least – such migrants are going to be a drain on fiscal resources, rather than low-wage economic radiators.
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What we are witnessing on a bigger canvas is the steady unravelling of neoliberal globalist monetarism. But from a British perspective, the intrinsically weak hand of the Brussels negotiators on Brexit is now so obvious, we are left wondering why on Earth the UK side has wound up with a withdrawal deal that leaves us (by almost universal opinion) worse off than we would have been by simply remaining in the European Union.
Despite being a confirmed Leaver, if we were to move on to a Second Referendum in which the choices were May Deal vs Remain, I have to confess I would vote Remain –not with any sense of joy at all, but purely because (in the light of élite determination to render Britain a vassal) I would be prepared to lose the battle and then hope to win the war.
But the Second Referendum is now looking less and less likely (even the ghastly Blair now accepts it is a lost cause) and so the obvious strategy for UK negotiators would be to break off all contact with Barniers Barmy Army, and focus entirely on a No Deal Brexit.
However, Parliament (not the May Cabinet) has already made it crystal clear that any attempt to go for No Deal Brexit would be voted down….and they have the numbers to make that stick.
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We can now see with absolute clarity what’s been happening over the last two years:
- The People voted for Brexit, but were given no say in the sympathies of the legislature
- The legislature has since made it clear in myriad ways that it will only allow for even a heavily diluted of Brexit to come to pass under extreme duress
- No such duress has been placed upon the legislature
- The Cabinet and its Head were 7:1 against Brexit, and eventually drove from office the few Leavers allowed into the Brexit negotiations
- Olly Robbins, the man appointed to lead the Whitehall team, has been an avowed EU federalist since his University days
- He has been allowed consistently by the Prime Minister to meet with senior EU officials without any political chaperone
- The Prime Minister, with 80 days to go to March 29th, has already blown away 28 of those 80 days by delaying Parliamentary votes for purely political reasons
- The leader of the Opposition has hidden his own pro-Brexit views from the electorate for purely political reasons
- Some 35% of all Westminster MPs (Upper and Lower houses) have remunerative relationships of one form or another with the Brussels Commission
- Given the unwillingness of elected MPs to envisage No Deal, the most likely outcome remains a request by the UK Government to extend Article 50 beyond March 29th.
There is no other way to see this: we have been ignored, frustrated and then cheated by the people we pay (elected or not) to protect the Citizens of Great Britain.
I am continually told by threaders here and tweeters elsewhere that the result of this perfidy will be anger at general elections and violence in the streets.
I see no sign of this at all. Am I missing something?
