UK alone... with not one single new job
LIZ Truss, the International Trade Secretary, assured us that the postBrexit “in-tray” was overflowing, when The S*n rhapsodised recently about an “Enhanced Trade Partnership” with Delhi, which has already “created “1,540 jobs courtesy of the Indian tech firm, Tata Consultancy Services.
When Ms Truss’s department was quizzed about the “Enhanced Trade Partnership”, the silence was deafening. Truss’s much-trumpeted “deal” was nothing more substantive than a “commitment” to a “long term India-UK patrnership” and the “hope” of drawing up a “road map”.
The UK and India have signed no agreement and the department confirmed that any new jobs are not linked to the alleged “partnership”. In other words, it is about as real as the free trade deal with India that Liam Fox promised in 2017 but which never materialised, because it would be contingent on greater freedom of movement for its people into Britain.
Brexit has left us ripe for exploitation. One trade deal that will be consummated is with the US, when the Conservatives break their promises about never allowing US chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef into the UK. A trade bill already “in utero” will allow the US to do that, since the Government refused to sign those pledges into law.
Hong Kong and the new “cold war” makes any UK/China deal doomed. That’s another promise broken, while Britain’s import and export businesses, attempting to navigate the choppy waters of a post-Brexit Europe, drown in paperwork.
As Lord Heseltine pointed out: “We are on our own, sovereign, in charge, control regained. None of that creates a single job, one pound’s worth of investment, or any rise in living standards. We will have risked our trading relationship with the world’s largest market, which accounts for nearly half our imports and exports.
“Sovereignty? Jobs, living standards, power and influence have been sacrificed on the altar of this elusive god.”
While Truss, aided by the right wing press, can spin yarns without fear of sanction, and while the Labour Party remains silent on the consequences of Brexit, the fantasies of a “global “
Britain are perpetuated.
As Jonathan Swift put it; “a lie travels halfway round the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on”.
Frank Rice, via email
other stores, along with bar and restaurant staff, are now unemployed, and young people are struggling to find any job at all. One million people are predicted to become long-term unemployed (out of work for a year) in 2021/2022.
The Government needs to get a grip on this, rather than focussing on giving jobs and contracts to their cronies and party donors, they should look at Labour’s proposal to give young people who have been out of work for six months guaranteed access to training, education or work placements linked to the demands of the economy in the 2020s.
President Biden’s new American administration is already taking action along these lines in the US. We have to hope the chancellor gets the message.
Harry Dobson via email
the autumn, then doing it in time to ‘save Christmas’ – each of which failed.
Meanwhile we spent £22million on a track and trace system which did not work, run by a Conservative peer, and suffered the highest death toll from Covid in Europe.
After the first lockdown, the Prime Minister said that a second lockdown would be a disaster – but we are now coming out of the third lockdown.
We must all hope that the vaccines work and we can see an end to the virus – which is why it’s important that everyone who is offered vaccination takes up the offer and protects themselves and others.
Ian Gibson via email