We are on the verge of triggering Article 50 when the two year negotiation will begin. There is however a slightly odd atmosphere developing. Remainers seem far more unified and more energised while the brexiteers are becoming ever more fractious. There was talk the other week, in The Telegraph of all places, of a plot to get rid of Philip Hammond because of concerns he will try to frustrate Brexit (HERE).
Apparently he doesn't have the purity of thought that true Brexiteers believe he should have. In good old communist fashion perhaps he will soon be denounced by the extreme right as a socialist running dog and committed to a public show trial, found guilty and sentenced to a long spell at a re-education facility near Cape Wrath, followed by managing a stationery cupboard in Accrington. This should certainly help with any future Chinese trade deal. They like that kind of stuff in Beijing.
Seriously, many of those in the press who called loudest for Brexit are now among the most animated. Charles Moore, a dedicated if slightly delusional brexiteer if ever there was one, says in The Telegraph (11th March) that the PM and Chancellor have yet to work out their approach to Brexit and if we don't have a sense of how to be "Somewhere" we will get "Nowhere". And Alastair Heath, again writing in The Telegraph and another Brexit cheerleader, says on the NIC issue we are all overtaxed and after we exit the EU "we need to be a low tax, small state economy if we're to prosper as an independent nation in the 21st century". This when we are still borrowing £50 billion or so every year. I wonder how many leavers voted for that?
This is a serious problem for the government. They are hemmed in by election promises not to raise tax but face a slowdown and potentially the loss of a lot of revenue.
It all looks as if Brexiteers are starting to get their excuses in already. They seem to think it is all going to go wrong because there are so many versions of Brexit, none of which is going to be quite right. And some of them will indeed be terrible. For Brexiteers that is.
Update: Hammond apparently faces a mutiny this week (HERE). Back benchers are said to want him gone by May and ministers in Brexit departments are demanding more money because "The stuff we are doing is incredibly technical". They seem surprised.
Update: Hammond apparently faces a mutiny this week (HERE). Back benchers are said to want him gone by May and ministers in Brexit departments are demanding more money because "The stuff we are doing is incredibly technical". They seem surprised.
