BoJo has repeated his ridiculous claim that the UK would "do very well" under WTO rules (HERE). This is like being shackled to an unstable psychopath on a cliff edge. The tousle haired imbecile has told you he is not going to jump off but then says, "but anyway, it wouldn't hurt us if we did". This is not reassuring to business who do not believe for a millisecond that we will "do very well" on WTO trade rules. One wonders what Phillip Hammond and Greg Clark the Business secretary think when they read the utterances of the fool Johnson.
I alternate between hope and despair on Brexit. Sometimes I think people will begin to see the folly of what is happening and at other times I am not sure they ever will and that we are on a slippery slope to poverty, ignorance and obscurity. Our politicians are quite useless and half the voting population actually think that separating yourself from your friends and allies as well as the largest trading partner for your exporters is actually a good thing. We are surely now paying the price for our under performing education system.
The prime minister in her recent Mansion House speech said:
“I am in no doubt that whatever agreement we reach with the EU, our future is bright.” This was perhaps intended to reassure people but to me it was another irrational statement from Mrs May. What I take it to mean is that our place in the EU has been so unremittingly bad that anything, anything at all, whatever we finally agree will be better than what we had. This is simply bizarre.
The nerve agent poisoning of the former Russian spy in Salisbury this week and president Trump's unilateral imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminium imports have an important lesson for post Brexit, global trader Great Britain. We are far too small and weak to have any threat that carries real weight. How are we to respond? After the Litvinenko case we found it hard to get other EU countries to impose sanctions but we achieved something. After we leave we will have zero influence. Putin's strategy of weakening the west will be made easier. Brexit was a triumph for him.
And imagine how a trade negotiation would go with a Trump administration. We would get absolutely hammered. America has relatively few FTAs because they are such a difficult partner. With huge grain food surpluses and an extremely powerful lobby anyone not willing to destroy their own agri-food sector will never be able to sign an equitable deal.
