WHY CETA IS NOT THE ANSWER

A few days ago, Nick Boles MP, a former minister was saying Chequers was dead and that we should park ourselves temporarily in the EEA - getting there via EFTA first - before spending a few years negotiating a CETA style free trade deal (HERE).  Now John Longworth, writing on Brexit Central, is calling for us to grab with both hands the EU's offer of a Canada style free trade deal (HERE). The difference is that Longworth wants to do it immediately and wouldn't countenance a temporary spell in the EEA.

JOHN MOULTON PRIZE PILLOCK

I'm not sure if many people remember John Moulton, he used to appear on TV regularly as the voice of business. He was involved in various takeovers, some hostile as I recall but he was generally regarded as the archetypal, aggressive multi-millionaire entrepreneur with his finger on the pulse. Moulton backed Brexit which doesn't say a lot for his judgement in my opinion. He is in the news again (HERE) saying that Brexit is "far more complicated than I imagined". It's in a Guernsey newspaper so I assume he's a tax exile.

JOHN LONGWORTH AND CHLORINATED CHICKEN

John Longworth and IDS are at it again. They wrote an article in The Telegraph yesterday (HERE behind a paywall) that The Express have now picked up on (HERE). The terrible two pushed back against an earlier article by Peter Foster, the Telegraph's perfectly reasonable Europe editor, that set out ten serious questions on Brexit to which we had no answers. To ward off the risk of anybody having second thoughts, Longworth and IDS poo-pooed the very idea that there were any problems or difficulties at all.

LONGWORTH'S RAGE

There is an absolute howl of impotent rage at Brexit Central (HERE) from that embittered anti EU campaigner John Longworth, the former head of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), calling for the Chequers proposal to be dumped and for the UK to trade with the EU on WTO terms. He writes  as if WTO terms are an earthly paradise rather than an economic wasteland. He acknowledges that this would lead to "a bumpy ride but after this initial period of adjustment sees a Global Britain taking its place on the world stage". 

THE JOHNSON-LONGWORTH ANTI BUSINESS AXIS

Boris Johnson is a fool who has accidentally found himself at the centre of government. He is like a slightly more animated and colourful version of Chauncey Gardner in the Peter Sellers film Being There. A man of seriously limited intellectual ability, except with words, he went into politics after a bit of journalism showed he could write amusing but entirely fictional Euro sceptic articles. People took him seriously because of HOW he wrote and not for WHAT he wrote. And he appeared to be witty and interesting on TV shows like Have I Got News For You. But now in a position of power his shortcomings are painfully clear and the harmless fool has become a dangerous one. 

HOW REALITY IS FORCING ITS WAY IN

In total contrast to what Sir Ivan Rogers said yesterday, the dangerous simpleton John Longworth on Sunday told Brexit Central readers (HERE) that it was his organisation, Leave means Leave, who coined the "no deal is better than a bad deal" slogan and he seemed quite proud of it. But whereas Sir Ivan explained this was not credible and "both sides" know it (HERE), Longworth says it's our "best and last hope".

THE CUSTOMS PARTNERSHIP IS SLIPPING AWAY

In a final twist to the customs union saga, HMRC are now saying (HERE) the customs partnership is unworkable and unviable. So, the scheme that started out last August being dismissed as magical thinking by the EU was kept alive all winter and revived as the PM's favoured solution but then described as "cretinous" by Jacob Rees-Mogg and "crazy" by BoJo (this is surely the kettle calling the pot black). Rejected by the cabinet sub committee by a 6-5 majority, it received CPR from Gregg Clark, the Business Secretary, who then paraded it on national TV last weekend like a guilty looking hostage of the North Koreans.

THE BREXIT MADHOUSE

The other day, I watched a Daily Mail Columnist, (I didn't catch her name) talking with Polly Toynbee on The Daily Politics. She dismissed the idea that voters didn't know what they were voting for in the referendum on Brexit. Yet in the same week we had an example of prominent leavers disagreeing with each other on what Brexit should be. This is nearly two years after we actually voted.

LONGWORTH & MINFORD v CARNEY

Our old imbecile mate John Longworth has been writing again on Brexit Central (HERE) and quoting figures from that other idiot from Economists with Learning Difficulties, Patrick Minford, that claim by leaving the EU and adopting "global trade" the EU (yes, the EU!) will lose £507 billion and the UK will gain £650 billion over 10 years. This is obviously why the EU is making all the demands in the negotiations while we are making all the concessions.

BREXIT DELEGATION TO VISIT BARNIER THIS WEEK

One never stops being amazed at the stupidity of Brexiteers. A small gang of them are planning to meet Michel Barnier to "warn" him that the UK has a Churchill like "iron will" to walk away from a bad deal according to The Telegraph HERE, which reports it gleefully. There is obviously a range of possible economic relationships with the EU and I don't believe I am saying anything contentious if I suggest membership is the best and WTO terms the worst, with various options in between. 

JOHN LONGWORTH IN A MINORITY OF ONE

Our old friend John "idiot" Longworth has an article in The Guardian (HERE) claiming that Brexit will be a success but at the moment, he says, our leaders have "lost the plot". Nobody in the whole country is more qualified to speak about losing plots than John himself. He is co-chairman of Leave Means Leave and wants to leave the EU, among other reasons, to escape the never implemented ergonomics directive and curved cucumbers (HERE). 

LONGWORTH - AGAIN!

In this country we have never been short of stupid people but now we seem to have a massive surplus. Right at the top is John Longworth. Last week (HERE) he was blaming the civil service for thwarting our exit from the EU but now his ire is aimed at the chancellor Phillip Hammond who he blames for trying to save the nation from catastrophic damage, or as he puts it, holding Brexit back. One might think he was in the pay of a foreign government.

BREXITEERS BEGIN THE BLAME GAME

What an amazing day it was yesterday. Brexiteers seem to be falling over each other to lay the blame for what one can only surmise is the growing realisation on their part that Brexit is an absolute disaster and they are powerless to stop it. Having set in train a huge national humiliation they are now looking desperately for scapegoats.

RED TAPE

From 2011 to 2014 the government ran the red tape challenge (HERE) to try to find and mitigate the worst of the petty red tape regulations that were supposed to be "strangling" business and which had "spiralled out of control" according to the government website. However if you click on the Red Tape Challenge link on the government website you learn the whole thing was archived on 22nd May 2015 (HERE).

UK WARNS THE EU TO BE MORE FLEXIBLE!

Negotiations begin again in Brussels today with both sides emphasising that no great breakthrough is expected. Many newspaper carried reports yesterday like this one in The Express (HERE) with David Davis saying the EU should quit stalling and show more flexibility. The Sun has Davis "demanding" flexibility (HERE). I don't think this will carry much weight in the EU.

NOT LONGWORTH AGAIN!

This is about our friend John Longworth, former Director of the British Chambers of Commerce and now part of Leave means Leave, a pro Brexit lobby group. Leave means Leave wrote to all 27 EU members Chambers of Commerce asking them to put pressure on their governments to allow free trade to continue. This was last November (see HERE).

LONGWORTH AND THE BANK

The BoE downgraded it's growth forecast for the economy (HERE) on Thursday and Mark Carney, the governor attributed much of it to Brexit uncertainty. The forecast came down to 1.7% for this year and 1.6% next (from 1.9% and 1.7% respectively).  Most normal people would have expected this - but enter our friend John Longworth, former head of the British Chambers of Commerce until he was forced to resign for giving his own totally biased and misguided views instead of the BCC's.

LONGWORTH'S AT IT AGAIN

John Longworth has greeted the Repeal Bill with an article in The Telegraph (HERE) telling us the ten areas he would like to see changed once we leave the EU. As usual it is full of complete and laughable nonsense. He also, rightly in my opinion, thinks we might negotiate away our ability to deregulate. I am convinced this will happen. The EU is not going to allow us access to their market selling cheap goods or raw materials we have imported from non EU states or even ones we've made ourselves using inferior regulations. This will never happen.

REGULATIONS, REGULATIONS, REGULATIONS

There has been a lot of talk in the last few days about regulations following the dreadful Grenfell tower block fire in Kensington. Everyone is now rushing to go through the Building Regulations to see how and why such a catastrophe was allowed to happen. Many are drawing comparison between the regulations that the Brexiteers want to get rid of and those that keep us safe. Brexiteers often seem to want to get rid of all sorts of regulations regardless of their public good.

LONGWORTH AGAIN

John Longworth was on The Today programme yesterday morning suggesting a free trade agreement with the EU was simply the "icing on the cake", with a hard Brexit (leaving both the single market and the customs union that is) being the cake itself. He said the icing was nice but not really necessary. This is lunacy but unfortunately not unexpected from him.