The IEA paper (HERE) about a post Brexit trade policy for the UK is a buccaneering call for "free trade" of the kind we used to enjoy under empire. It is unashamedly for abandoning any kind of restraint including "tariffs (or taxes on imports), import quotas and discriminatory product standards, government procurement policies or intellectual property (IP) rules".
Coincidentally, within a few days of the IEA's report coming out I read a review of a book called The Hungry Empire (Bodley Head) by Lizzie Collingham about British food and our desire for exotic foods from across the world. The book says that over four centuries we exported most of our agricultural sector, eradicating our own peasantry by enclosure and later by industrialisation to repace it with cheaper products from across the world. Between 1530 and 1630 about half of England's peasantry was pushed off the land by enclosure and many were recruited for transportation to the West Indies where they were sold to planters for a fixed period, usually four or five years, for £12. Among them were 12,000 royalists and Irish rebels sent to Barbados by Cromwell. African slaves were apparently more expensive but showed a better return on the investment.
This is what happens under a buccaneering free trade policy where there are "no tariffs, discriminatory product standards, government procurement policies" or any other kind of restraint apparently. This is where international corporations and rich men do whatever they like to cut the price to the consumer - which is mainly other rich men and international corporations.
What the IEA are proposing is a return to the free market, free trading principles where you abandon your own countrymen and women to buy cheaper goods from poorly paid people overseas. Once you adopt this as a principle, the wholesale dropping of rules and regulations, you are setting off back down the path to employing slaves aren't you?
In the same week the wealth of one of the arch Brexieers Jacob Rees Mogg was revealed. He is a founder and part owner of Somerset Capital Management with some £7 billion under management and has one of the highest incomes of any MP. He has also voted for virtually every measure to cut welfare spending. The Rees Moggs of this world will continue to thrive after Brexit, which is the will not of the people but of the wealthy, the fourth estate and the aristocracy none of whom will suffer.
They persuaded 52% of the population to vote against their own best interests. One day the truth will out.
