Teeny tiny issues
It is interesting to speculate on how the no deal Brexiteers may have fantasised about the UK coping smoothly with a no deal Brexit as they sat waiting for the New Year bells.
Apparently, our industry will quickly prepare to penetrate lucrative markets such as the Pacific Rim (after all we only have 2 per cent of our trade with them at the moment so there are bound to be huge margins for improvement). Even if investment for the time being continues to decline sharply or the pound falls further, all that will quickly be reversed.
Yes, we may lose unskilled (or even skilled) labour and have big tax losses due to some banks, (and a few car industries) locating abroad, and other industries losing Eu-related markets or supply chains, and haemorrhaging
profits due to transport snarlups. But the Army will soon sort many things out. Massive lorry parks and a few new customs officers will sort out “‘our just in time” supply problems.
The important point is that our voters (the gallant 51 per cent) know that the EU was a flagrant constrictor of our democratic rights (although
on the whole, academics paid to judge that were too biased to agree with that verdict).
For this reason voters will channel anger towards the EU – if a few hardships get thrown up. So we should keep our voters in aggressive mood. If EU obduracy over hard borders mean they want a hard landing, let them have their trade
war! There will be a few losers – one or two farmers will go bankrupt, a few fishermen will lose their EU markets. But the real suffering will be in the EU. The nation (all 51 per cent of them) know this. Bottoms up! Here’s to the ides of March!
ANDREW VASS Corbiehill Place, Edinburgh
Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, is searching for a new role for the UK post Brexit. He has pulled out a role he terms “an invisible chain between democratic nations”.
One wonders seriously how anyone could concoct a concept termed “invisible chain”!
What is it meant to do? Pull or restrain? And if invisible, what is the point? Is Westminster in fact a good role model of democracy with an archaic franchise, an overly bloated, unelected House of Lords and a brutal imperial past?
He sounds like a wet behind the ears university fresher proposing a nebulous solution to the world’s problems.
He is fantasising like the Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson, who has also proposed that the UK as Global Britain could open more bases east of Suez to create a deterrent and take a British presence. Obviously, that would not be invisible!
What motivates members of the Cabinet to fantasise in this way? At present, the world is perplexed that the UK Cabinet cannot even determine what it envisages for Brexit and these two “jokers” are putting the the world to rights!
JOHN EDGAR Langmuir Quadrant, Kilmaurs