KYQ4: Brexit Buccaneers

"Keep your distance Boris, and then put your mask back on"

When the Prime Minister flew out to Brussels to try and break the deadlock in the trade negotiations, he was probably too late, just like he had been with his two attempts at lockdown. The elegant President of the EU, Ursula Von der Leyen, who speaks impeccable English, had to remind the PM to keep his distance. It is 2 metres until 31 December, after which Boris will probably switch to an imperial measure of 2 feet in the UK. She then instructed him to put his mask back on. The dishevelled PM bumbled a condescending reply "You run a tight ship, Ursula" in hesitant English before shuffling into the dining room behind the President. He was only there for a free meal. It was a suitable metaphor for the last four years.

Europe has been well-organised and consistent in the negotiations over the past four years. Michel Barnier has been clear about the commitment of the EU to protecting the single market and conciliatory towards achieving a trade agreement but not by failing to observe the quality standards adopted by the 27 EU countries. The UK government has been lackadaisical about what it was looking for, its negotiators cancelled meetings or if they did attend were relatively unprepared. The PM has always assumed that the EU would change its position at the midnight hour and gambled the UK's future prosperity on this happening.

Both Brexit and the response to Covid 19 have been a learning experience for Boris Johnson and his flim-flam cabinet. Douglas Adams cautioned us about this forty years ago. “A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

Douglas Adams also anticipated the absurd notion of Boris becoming PM on another three counts at least.

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President (PM) should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”

The PM and his cabinet have insulted their EU partners at every turn and encouraged Murdoch and the right-wing press to connive in demonising the EU as a bloated bureaucracy obsessed with over-regulation. This has played well with little Englanders and staunch Brexiteers who like to see their government throwing brickbats at the EU. The PM, who lacks any moral compass, is a prisoner of the Brexit Buccaneers, formerly known as the European Research Group (ERG). They are still fantasizing about achieving a no-deal Brexit whilst claiming that they want a deal but only on their terms.

Meanwhile, the totally deranged Trade Minister, Liz Truss, is claiming another glorious success as she signs a trade deal with Singapore. It is no surprise that the only deals that she has managed so far are with countries like Japan and Singapore that import far less from the UK than they export. The deals are basically reheated EU trade deals that the UK will have lost by leaving the EU. It almost makes you wish Liam Fox was around to knock off a few easy deals! Liz Truss has also announced that she will be scrapping tariffs on some American goods that were subjected to tariffs from the EU after authorisation from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). These were in retaliation for the USA's illegal subsidies to the Boeing Company. The USA wasted no time in pointing out that she couldn't impose tariffs because the UK government had not notified the WTO of their intention to impose them. The mirage of the USA riding in with great trade deals that will compensate for the loss of the EU trade agreement by being part of the single market is more wishful thinking, thunder only happens when its raining.

These are just the early examples of the many hyperbolic claims that will escalate as we leave the EU. So far the media have focused their reporting on images of Kent becoming a massive lorry park or Suffolk sinking into the North Sea with the weight of shipping containers. This does not concern the damaged communities of the North and Midlands who regard this as merely the schadenfreude of Brexit.

We are now beginning to hear of the other implications of Brexit as European workers begin to depart their jobs in the NHS, banks and universities. Coupled with the restrictions on work permits for agriculture, construction and other lower-paid industries this will slow any recovery from Covid and Brexit. Only now are the tariffs that may be imposed on meat, fish and food exports from the UK or the tariffs on imports of foodstuffs and manufactured items from the EU beginning to worry the wider public. These will inevitably lead to far higher levels of inflation than we have been subjected to over the past twenty years. And who will be blamed? Why Brussels of course, the EU is the institution that never stops giving when our torrid government wants to pass on the blame.

There is no doubt that the UK is on the cusp of an economic and social catastrophe, and all in the name of fake sovereignty. This will not end well.