We are being governed by insane idealogical zealots who are going to knowingly and willingly usher in, through a deliberate choice, a ‘systemic economic crisis’.Utter and complete madness
Is it? What better way to shape the future of a country, that future being totally libertarian, than to destroy it first? Most of the cabinet and its advisers don't have the talent for reconstruction, classic Dom being the example of being a destroyer only, its whoever will step into the breach in the near future that will be the even greater danger.
This great experiment on being totally free market in a World that is now closing ranks in terms of 'regulated' trade deals means we will fail and pay a high price for it.
The last major attempt at free markets in the uk ended with a couple of million dead through starvation and disease.
Well here we nearly are people.
After 4 years and 19,000 pages of debate and negotiation, we're but a few days (hours even) away from knowing if we have a deal or no deal.
I'd like to still understand if any leavers are standing positive about what's happened and about to happen. This place can be an echo chamber on a regular basis.
No matter how shitty things work out economically in the short term, I remain optimistic that the UK can gather it's entrepreneurs together and have a seismic shift in where and how we do trade.
My pain remains the loss of the working collaboration that was us in the EU.
I also think the whole brexit issue has been used to hide our own politicians and societies failings. I'm concerned that once this delusion has been exposed to more people, we will see a doubling down of lies and the division of Nations. See Trump.
So, short term predictions until June 2021 below...
And long term predictions even further below..
The leavers in my family who were crowing about it have now shut up completely and haven't mentioned it for months so I think for them its now been realised how stupid it all is
So, short term predictions until June 2021 below…
Shortages of medicines and fresh food will be obvious. Ever increasing flight of financial services and associated jobs into the EU. Huge delays at the border. Trouble in NI
And long term predictions even further below..
London financial services market collapses completely. Inflation goes up massivly. Food shirtage is NI, Turbocharged austerity from the tories, massive cuts to employment and environmental protections. No trade deals sign. Huge disputes under WTO. Massive privitisation of the NHS in England
Johnson and most of his cabal swan off to spend more time with their money
ireland is united, Scotland is independent
UK can gather it’s entrepreneurs together and have a seismic shift in where and how we do trade.
Not going to happen in any way at all. Massive recession coming. Nothing can replace the trade we have with the EU and no trade deals will be signed tghat are at all significant
Reading TJ's post brings to mind the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Famine, Death, War and Conquest.
Schadenfreude ahoy! 🙂
First signal of the white flag being dusted off or more rattling of the empty cage? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55217535
This whole sorry mess is because of the ongoing civil war in the Tory party. The rest of us are just collateral damage
Let’s not forget the Labour Party’s part in facilitating all this. As the real shitsorm approaches, Lexiteer Owen Jones, who campaigned for leave, is today busy trying to re-write history to absolve him, Magic Grandad, and his Lexiteer mates of their part in this car crash
https://twitter.com/guardianopinion/status/1335950448449089536?s=21
He’s also now blaming remainers. So he can **** right off too!
Just a reminder of what he was saying shortly before the referendum
https://twitter.com/femi_sorry/status/1335983531181432837?s=21
Seems pretty much everybody who supported this impending catastrophe is now denying it and blaming everyone else instead
Binners - owen jones should have ****ed right off long before now.
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-12-06/the-12-reasonable-worst-case-outcomes-if-brexit-talks-collapse
I asked the government for a comment. This is what a spokesperson said:...
..."It’s vital that businesses and citizens prepare now for the opportunities and changes at the end of the transition period, and intensive planning is underway to support them to get ready.
"This includes launching a comprehensive communications campaign to make sure everyone knows what they need to do to prepare".
Three weeks to go and you're going to launch that info campaign? FFS...
Did Frost not thriow another handgrenade in yesterday? I can't find the news story now
its still no deal. JOhnson and Frost have thrown hand grenades everytime a deal looks close. NO intention of getting a deal
TJ lighten up. That level of doom is damaging to your wellbeing 😉
I actually think there will be a deal, I always have done. There is simply too much at stake for there not to be. Even the nutters in the tory party know that, and as long as they get to say 'we left' and more importantly be seen by the voters to have delivered on their promise then they'll accept whatever compromises need to be delivered to get a deal, especially if those compromises can be hidden from the people.
So I suspect something (maybe not a deal, but some sort of 'agreement') will be cobbled together at the last minute which saves everyone's faces. January will come and there will be some/a lot of disruption, but the vast majority of people in the country, especially those at the bottom, will see very little difference in their everyday lives, and it'll be like the millenium bug all over again.
TJ does have a point long term however. This won't be the end of brexit, it'll move to a new phase where the nutters want to destroy whatever is agreed and move to a US style economy with all the things we supposedly don't want yet keep voting for. Democracy is a bitch isn't it!
Channel 4 news reporting on what a total and utter shambles this is
The IT systems haven’t even been tested yet, and hauliers still have no idea what paperwork will be needed to get a truck through customs.
There’s going to be very little to laugh at on January 1st, but watching the Brexit-voting gammons of Kent go postal about now living in an enormous lorry park with hairy-arsed truckers having a dump in their gardens is going to be amusing
TJ lighten up. That level of doom is damaging to your wellbeing 😉
Not at all - its just being realistic and understanding what is happening and why
I am not worrying or fretting - I can just see the game being played. there has never been any intention of getting a deal by Johnson - that why he appointed Frost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina
Always worth remembering that Argentina was the worlds richest country at the turn of the 20th century and is now... Yes it can happen to the UK, there is nothing special about this country that means it won't be turned into a basket case by populist politicians.
There’s going to be very little to laugh at on January 1st, but watching the Brexit-voting gammons of Kent go postal about now living in an enormous lorry park with hairy-arsed truckers having a dump in their gardens is going to be amusing
Plenty of job opportunities to provide services to Lorry drivers parked up for a couple of days.
I suppose there is a faint chance of a deal of some sort but it will be such a thin and flimsy thing that it will do nothing to alleviate the issues.
Progress on the issues of EU fleets’ access to British fishing waters, as reported by the Guardian, was upended late on Sunday night when Frost tabled new demands about the ownership of vessels in British seas. Under the proposals, any majority-owned vessels would not be allowed to sail under the UK flag, sources in Brussels said.
From the grauniad
Blimey have they only just raised that? This was an issue way back in the Thatcher era, you'd have thunk they would have flagged the issue of equitable ownership of vessels by now if they were concerned about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Factortame_Ltd)_v_Secretary_of_State_for_Transport
Its a deliberate hand granade to stop any chance of a deal. Every time a deal looks close either Frost of Johnson chucks a hand grenade in. Its not accidental. See finance bill etc etc
that it will do nothing to alleviate the issues.
In my view the issues brexit causes is the icing on the cake that we've created over a long time. Again, maybe I'm too optimistic, but we could start to sort some of these issues out with good politicians. Sadly, I don't we have good politicians and a good proportion of the UK voters can't see it. I think those of us in NI, Wales and Scotland can see an alternative...
dazh
Full Memberand it’ll be like the millenium bug all over again.
😂
That'll be the millennium bug where huge amounts of time and money were expended to make sure there weren't issues, compared to Brexit where no one quite knows just what is happening in a couple of weeks.
compared to Brexit where no one quite knows just what is happening in a couple of weeks.
And for a long time everyone thought the same about the millenium bug. I'm not saying they've put loads of work in like they did pre-2000, quite the opposite in fact, but I'm pretty confident that most people come January will look around, shrug their shoulders, and wonder what all the fuss was about.
The trouble with brexit, if you take away the fluffy cultural stuff about free movement, no borders etc is that it's a dispute about trade policy and standardisation. I don't know about you, but even after 4 years of wall to wall coverage, I know very few people who are interested in or bothered about tariffs, EU safety standards, working time directives or any of the other stuff that the EU excels at. The problem is not that it's not important, but that people don't give a shit.
Is all this not just Boris being able to make himself the one that saved the brexit deal.
Off he goes, our shining knight going to confront the foreign hordes on enemy territory. He'll come back claiming victory and everyone will either breathe a sigh of relief or will be celebrating once again getting one over the krauts and frogs. The more I see of this the more I think it's stage managed to benefit one person: Boris Johnson.
Bill Clinton said '...it's the economy, stupid'.
A lot of people who, so far, have expressed either disinterest in or support for brexit will
be forced to live with the truth in those few words.
Price increases resulting from tariffs and a weakening £ will affect everyone; when those increases start to hit there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth - we didn't expect this, why has this happened and so on.
daz, people can ignore many things but faced with unavoidable price rises which have a direct and personal impact cannot be ignored or wished away.
The job market is another area where direct and personal impacts will force a realisation of the utter madness of brexit.
If/when the holiday and travel market recovers how many people understand how their european hols will be affected?
I agree with Frank.
Very sadly I have had to take the view that I can watch from the sides to a point as my job won't be affected by this stuff, and financially we can ride it out.
i got incredibly angry about all of this and the effect on the poor buggers who are going to get screwed, but then realised it wasn't good for me so while I have sympathy for what will happen ultimately people will reap what they sow.
Frank the pound has already weakened massively since 2016 and prices have risen considerably. Do you see anyone protesting?
Dazh - I think the adverse and unexpected effects are going to be so noticeable that people will see it. Stuff like having to queue more to get thru airports as we can no longer use the electronic scanners for passports and have to go thru the non eu channels. Already we have heard screams from the ex pats about how they cannot afford health insurance. Food price increases and shortages, job losses and inability to get mail order so easily from the EU countries will all have an effect.
dazh, agree that £ has weakened against EUR since the referendum but in the food sector manufacturers/processors have been able to hide most of the effects by using the
long-established tactic of maintaining prices or minimising increases by reducing pack sizes.
Heinz were into that game a long time when they introduced their 'euro can' sizing - translation is it's smaller - and kept price unchanged.
There's a limit to how far you can stretch that tactic.
Food companies will probably use the end of trade negotiations - with or without a deal - to
increase prices; brexit mate, innit.
Most 'sensible' leave voters won't be happy (and I'm sure the majority are sensible). with the negative consequences: price rises, queues at ports, holiday hassles & extra expense, factory closures, The Brexiteers will spin this as the EUs fault but most will know its a direct consequence of their vote.
Whether they will admit that is something else
I still think that Johnson will concede at the last minute
I don't see how the ERG headbangers will ever agree to any LPF agreements.
Daniel “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market” Hannan is on Newsnight saying that the EU… “can’t let go”… not sure how you get a cooperative arrangement in place with that kind of attitude.
Thing is if Johnson had any plums he could get a decent soft brexit deal thru 'cos labour would vote for it even if some of the tories didn't. Shame he has no cojones
He has made it clear tho that he is too scared of the ERG to make a deal because they will not accept the EUs red lines
He’d lose his job though TJ… and he likes playing at king of the world.
it’ll be like the millenium bug all over again.
You're either trolling or ignorant.
I am not sure he does Kelvin. He likes the idea of it but not the reality
dazh
Full Memberit’ll be like the millenium bug all over again.
Marvellous. You know why it's completely not like the millenium bug all over again? Because people spotted the disaster it could be well in advance and invested huge amounts of time and money and brainpower on fixing it, succesfully. There was a british standard in place to prevent worsening the y2k problem, in 1997. And it's estimated that over $300 billion was spent to fix it.
If the millenium bug had been like brexit, it'd be an argument between one mob of idiots saying it'll be absolutely fine and not to bother about anything because We Voted For It and Leave Means Leave and all we needed was Stiff Upper Lip... and another saying that actually resetting all the clocks to the 1900s would project Britain instantly back to being the most powerful country in the world and everyone else would look at our superior British clocks, and give us back all the colonies.
Boris has a problem with any kind of a deal that's been hanging over Brexit since the start of negotiations - the dumping issue. We were talking about it on STW as one of the objectives of Brexit not long after I worked out what this new word "Brexit" meant. Social, fiscal and environmental dumping is one of the main but little talked about objectives of Brexit. And the Europeans aren't too stupid to see it.
Fishing, paperwork, rsidents rights... they're all negotiable. The level playing field isn't. Barnier won't budge and even if he does half a dozen countries will veto.
The most important issues are the last to be talked about by the UK media but they've been the stumbling block all along. Brexit was about dumping and the ability to do that depends on a no deal. So Boris has a choice, a deal without dumping or no deal.
Taking back control depends on no deal, without that the only tangible gain is the end of freedom of movement, which is great if you're a couch-living suburban pensioner who hates his foreign EU neighbours because they speak funny, work hard and commute by car which is more traffic and clogs up the roads. This last paragraph paraphrases a particularly depressing conversation I had with someone with grandchildren using EU freedom of movement to work in Greece and France.
No matter how shitty things work out economically in the short term, I remain optimistic that the UK can gather it’s entrepreneurs together and have a seismic shift in where and how we do trade.
This is the kind of comment made by folk with no involvement whatsoever in the creation & running of commercial enterprises. The kind we've heard from for the last 4.5 years spouting bo**ox, usually retired gammon.
TJ does have a point long term however. This won’t be the end of brexit, it’ll move to a new phase where the nutters want to destroy whatever is agreed and move to a US style economy with all the things we supposedly don’t want yet keep voting for. Democracy is a bitch isn’t it!
I'll repeat my comment from a while back - "Brexit isn't the destination, it's the vehicle". And a more relevant one for the US "America, a rich country full of poor people".
Always worth remembering that Argentina was the worlds richest country at the turn of the 20th century and is now… Yes it can happen to the UK, there is nothing special about this country that means it won’t be turned into a basket case by populist politicians.
I used this example a few weeks ago in a FB discussion, boy did they laugh. But for me its downfall is a fact. And if you don't know history, you're bound to repeat it.
That’ll be the millennium bug where huge amounts of time and money were expended to make sure there weren’t issues, compared to Brexit where no one quite knows just what is happening in a couple of weeks.
Yep, about 18 months of my life and near as dammit 100 return flights as I PM'd a global business' Y2K programme. Once we'd managed to persuade the Exec that we had an 'issue'.
Whether they will admit that is something else
Nope. In fact they'll deny even voting for it - or say they didn't or can't remember.
While the Argentina comparison is doing the rounds (and if remember correctly, Thatcher and Argentina were big fans of swapping notes on economic policy)
Brexit was about dumping and the ability to do that depends on a no deal
Absolutely. They want to tear everything up and instigate a race to the bottom from which their rich friends will benefit enormously at everyone else’s expense. The opposite of a ‘level playing field’
This has always been the intention. The EU always knew this and we’re never going to allow it, so no deal was the only way it would ever be achieved.
They also wanted to stress test the EU model to see if they could tempt other countries to get involved in their jettisoning of central regulation and control in favour of selfish US style model
They wanted to undermine the very fundamentals of the EU
Well, that went well.
It failed so catastrophically on that score that for the next few decades we will stand as the benchmark for self-defeating economic stupidity and dangerous nationalism while simultaneously elevating the EU to the poster boy for economic cooperation.
There’s only one party that will ‘prosper mightily’ here and it’s certainly not going to be us
This country is now an international pariah
And for what...?
Pretty much nails it. So many mistakes on both sides, and all largely due to people who are unable to look around and think about how things look from the other side.
https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1336106593759465472?s=21
