The Conservative party and the right wing press have been gaslighting the nation on the subject of Brexit for some time but as reality has systematically busted each ‘rationale’ for leaving the EU, Brexiters are constantly having to come up with new ones. So, the gaslighting is increasing. However, just as in the real world, when demand exceeds supply the price goes up, the price in this case is in political credibility and national image.
Brexit we were told was about releasing money for the NHS, now National Insurance is being hiked up by 10 per cent instead. It was also to control immigration, but this is higher now than when we were an EU member state and the number of migrants crossing the Channel is rising almost exponentially.
It was to restore national sovereignty, to take back control, but the nation is now divided by an internal trade border and the United Kingdom may, in the next few years, cease to exist.
Unforeseen consequences have to be explained away, so labour shortages are now the price we have to pay to transition from a low wage, low skill economy to a high wage, high skill one and we must ‘tough it out.’
One Tory MP is now suggesting the destruction of supply chains is a good thing. Chris Loder, MP for West Dorset, speaking to a fringe meeting at the annual conference in Manchester thinks dismantling supply chains will reinvigorate the economy in some strange way:
Tory MP Chris Loder says he hopes the HGV driver shortage will lead to the dismantlement of supermarket supply chains. "the farmer down the street will be able to sell their milk in the village shop like they did decades ago."
— Elinor Elliot (@ElliotElinor) October 3, 2021
The problem for ‘global Britain’ in this campaign is that the international community always believed, and are now seeing confirmation of it in Britain’s chaotic government handling of the process, that Brexit is nothing more than a monumental act of national self-harm.
What does it say about a population that believed all the hype and a governing party that sold Brexit as something desirable and so essential that we have to endure every kind of privation to achieve it?
Would you invest in a nation which seems to have a majority of half-wits governed by cretins?
The empty shelves and shortages, the queues and rising prices and the ‘increase’ in wages is now described as 'growing pains' and a cause for celebration and a justification for Brexit. However, the ONS say wages in real terms are actually going down when inflation is taken into account. It has all the feel of the beginning of another Barber boom as in the 1970s.
On Marr yesterday, Johnson was asked about the crisis in the pig industry and the exchange was simply stunning. If you can bear to listen to it, click on the link below. At the end, in answer to the problem that 150,000 pigs may need to be slaughtered on farms and burned, he simply says "We will see what happens."
He did not seem to understand, to 'get' the problem at all. The reaction to it was incredible as you can see by this article in Pig World by Alistair Driver. The fury leaps off the page at you:
"In an astonishingly arrogant and ignorant interview, Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed the crisis-torn pig sector’s plight, telling Andrew Marr the pigs are going to die anyway.
"Mr Johnson made it clear he has no intention of offering any support to the pig sector, as it faces up to the reality of tens of thousands of pigs potentially having to be slaughtered on farm and incinerated due to staff shortages in processing plants.
"The interview, which has already prompted a furious backlash from the farming community on social media, will pour further oil onto the fire as the pig sector grows increasingly exasperated with the Government’s lack of interest in what is happening."
Johnson might need to worry about the response, Mr Driver finishes with this ominous warning:
"The Government is going to learn more about how the pig industry feels over the next few days. 'Let’s see what happens.' Indeed. "
We will all 'see what happens' with Brexit over the next few years and the longer it goes before we come to our senses the higher the price will be in international faith in Britain as a reliable and trustworthy partner.
