The fork in the road ahead is within sight. And now is when the Brexit saboteurs go into overdrive, and we get distractions such as that 'leaked' Treasury report. It appears that Treasury civil servants, without ministerial approval, authored an economic forecast document of unremitting gloom which was then somehow leaked. There is speculation in the press that a fifth column of Brexit saboteurs deep within government is throwing everything into the battle to secure membership of the Customs Union and possibly Single Market. Only this is simply not possible without abandoning Brexit.
So, adopting the responsible position of government, we deny absolutely any wrong doing on the part of the civil service, which maintains a strict political impartiality that had earned it the finest reputation in the world. Then we'll find the bastards in the Treasury responsible and post them to our mission in Chechnia.
This is just a distraction from the decision that the cabinet - including Hammond - must now agree. Which fork to take. AEP in the Telegraph is clear. Germany is refusing the UK even the pretence of a reasonable deal; they're taking the piss. The long term interests of the UK will not be served by accepting a humiliating deal that destroys our remaining economic advantages. We need to take the path of a clean Brexit, and WTO rules.
Sure, it will cause pain, confusion and chaos in the short term, but we will emerge strong and the EU will lose. And if Mrs May is not woman enough to take the plunge, then the parliamentary party will defenestrate both her and Hammond within a few weeks.
Now it's getting interesting.
21 comments:
Germany wants our cash only, simply to reduce the larger EU bill coming their way after we leave. However this will not change the final outcome; after we're gone the political imbalance in the EU will mean the rest of Europe will be under the control of a German funded EU = Germany rules EU, Germany wins!
It's not the fork in the road, it's the knife in the back.
If May is not woman enough to take the plunge, we hope the Conservative Parliamentary Party will depose May and Hammond (as well as Lidington) but I'm not confident they will.
The Parliamentary Party - and certainly the Grandees in the Lords - is largely pro-EU and they don't quite believe that enough of the British people are determined enough to leave the EU to sit on their hands at the next General Election and allow Corbyn and his bunch of Marxists to walk into No.10.
If there is one thing the most Remainiacal and the frothiest lipped, jackbooted, Horst Wessel whistling BrexSShiteurs agree on is that , however BrexSShite goes down, it will hurt the UK economy for a period. The only disagreement is how long that period will be and how bad the pain. So the report tells us nothing new.
What the report does tell us or perhaps, better, reminds us is just in how much contempt this current government holds parliamentary democracy in this cuntry...and just how fucking useless Corbyn is.
We need to take the path of a clean Brexit, and WTO rules.
Yes. As Mr Myagi says "You cross the street maybe..."
Not about money Ketch --never was.
If we have to suffer a while to win--well we've done that before.
We also used to hang traitors. So lets hope we can get back to that as well.
You might find yourself on the scaffold next to May. You could have time for a chat before the drop.
Hope you get a nice day for it--and BrexSShite that mate.
"It appears that Treasury civil servants, without ministerial approval, "
The UK chapter of the New World government.
Fire them, and strip them of their government pensions.
There was an assumption before "independence day" that everything would crash and we would all be queuing for bread within days.
The reality was that there was a readjustment in the value of sterling on the currency markets, which led to a massive increase in exports and small degree of inflation at home.
The exports keep flowing and the pound is moving back to its former level against the other currencies.
We have some of the highest levels of employment.
And all of this with a dysfunctional government...
We need more of this, and less Yerp, or Whitehall, if we are to prosper.
rw - "Yerp" yes like it. You may recall a 'Comic Strip' episode from the early 80s in which a septic general referred throughout to "Yoop"
We spent years demanding a cost-benefit analysis of EU membership from .gov but to no avail (I wonder why...) yet the moment we voted leave there seemed to be no end of such 'cost-benefit' analyses that, naturally, work to the extent that 'we'll be worse off by leaving'..... suspicious, much?
But isn't the bigger picture about the overall effect on the EU and global economies if the UK withdraws leaving the EU 'penniless' at such a critical time in its history? (not that I really care either way).
Much as we might like to see the EU suffer for its abuse of our country and economy has anyone projected the European/Global financial circumstances of the UK leaving 'with its ball' and allowing the EU to go f-itself? I personally suspect the issue of loss of UK funding to EU coffers is far, far greater than anyone cares to admit - simply as doing so puts the boot FIRMLY on our foot thus making our negotiating position one of near-dictatorship.
It’s be interesting to know just who are those fated to suffer.
The committees that were set up to distribute EU rules and regulations to allow the EU to goose step over our sovereign rights?
The MEP’s who couldn’t be employed anywhere else?
The usual suspects normally in receipt of EU largesse?
Should a committee be set up to study this?
Dave_G and Doug Shoulders, well said. The idea that the UK will suffer financially - after actually leaving the EU, as against BINO - is peddled by the same forecasters who predicted doom after the vote. There is no evidence to show that their current forecasts are any better.
In any case as commenters here have frequently said - we voted for independence, not for financial gain. That's one of the reasons Osborne's Treasury propaganda had so little traction.
Nevertheless I know of no independent country in the world which wants to give up its independence for merely a theoretical financial gain. Indeed history suggests that independent countries are more wealthy than they would have been as part of an empire. That's certainly what our ex-colonies believe. I think they're right too.
I can't see a way through to an orderly withdrawal now, so I'll go with Raedwald's conclusion:
'We need to take the path of a clean Brexit, and WTO rules.'
So what are we leaving? In no particular order:
European Council
Council of the European Union
European Parliament
European Commission
Court of Justice of the European Union
European Central Bank
European Court of Auditors
Quite a collection - Tom Reid of the Washington Post said of the institutions that "nobody would have deliberately designed a government as complex and as redundant as the EU" - and it doesn't take a genius to work out how after 45 years our government contains so many rank amateurs as they've all but given up doing anything serious for a living. And they're scared, bloody scared and with their backs to the wall they've decided to lash out:
"I hate them, I hate referendums", screamed Baron Patten of Barnes (born the month before D-Day) in the House of Lords on Wednesday.
Toys out the pram and he's by no means the only ermine clad trougher closely guarding his fat EU pension. And If you want to see oozing insincerity listen to Lord Mandelson recounting to his fellow peers about his change of heart on a second referendum. Makes you want to throw up.
I hate politicians.
Steve
You might find yourself on the scaffold next to May.
If you could arrange for T.Blair to be hanged on my other side then I would be conceited enough to enjoy the symbolism of hanging between two thieves.
I think the fork in the road started to form the day when Cameron bailed out of his responsibilities to the nation and resigned.
On 17 August 2013 at 19:26 I made a comment on Raedwald's blog that included the following:
"Moreover attempting to leave the EU via the EU's own Article 50, puts the UK in the position of being a supplicant. There is sufficient leeway, and the EU has previous form, for the EU to make it extremely difficult, both politically and financially, for the UK to withdraw this way. Article 50 is a trap for the unwary."
I have consistently said we should leave after a year's diplomatic notice. We should continue to trade with the EU under WTO rules only (instead of the EU/WTO rules we do now), just as we trade under WTO rules only with the rest of the world for c61% of our exports. We have all the systems already in place or easily copied from the rest of the world.
All we need is a government that will implement Leave, not BINO (Brexit In Name Only). I now believe that the 9 months to trigger Art50 and the subsequent 10 months "negotiation" were deliberate tactics to delay Leave in order to give legs to the "transition" hoax. Mrs May is delivering BINO, and the Tory party is conniving in it.
I'm with Mr Ecks. Short term pain for long term gain.
De Gaulle once described the original common market as "a German horse with a French rider". Well its pretty clear the the German horse has long since thrown the French rider and is galloping off to wherever. The French rider is being dragged along, foot caught in the stirrup head banging off every rock on the way. Franco-German axis my arse!
And so is pretty well everybody else. We have cut our stirrups and while we will ache for a bit we will get up and dust ourselves off.
Germany is in charge. If there is going to be a "united states of Europe" it will be government of the Germans by the Germans for the Germans. And if you're not German well you can't blame the Germans for that. This isn't going to end well.
While I have a principled objection to being part of the EU, rather more pressing is the need to be as far from this motherfucker of a train wreck as possible. Germany didn't have the military strength to hold Europe down, what makes anybody think it has the economic strength.
What actually happens when the Euro falls apart? It has done hideous damage to countries like Italy and Spain, and not just economic damage either. Economic damage can be repaired but the divisions sown?
There will be the mother of all blame games which I have to confess I'm rather looking forward to.
"What actually happens when the Euro falls apart?" as it surely will.........That is the real question, and I think key to the EU panic about London remaining as the banking hub of Europe. The EU have enacted law to require banks to seize all deposits if they find they are insolvent (remember Cyprus?), if British banks were exempt of that requirement after Brexit guess where most EU residents would bank?
Remember PIIGS the countries where most banks were insolvent a couple of years back, Greece has fallen and the ECB had to panic buy all of its shitty debt, what then happens when Portugal Italy, Ireland, or Spain topples? Disaster awaits.
The puzzling issue is why the "best and brightest" (used in the most sarcastic tone possible) in treasury wish to be tied to this disaster, and why the appeaser supports them, is she that clueless?.
@ Cascadian 21:12
The puzzling issue is why the "best and brightest" (used in the most sarcastic tone possible) in treasury wish to be tied to this disaster, and why the appeaser supports them, is she that clueless?
Sadly, I fear you have identified some "common purpose" or other. They do seem to have trained quite a lot of the permanent government/civil service. Can't think why.
@Steve:
Alistair McAlpine, gawd bless him, had a very low opinion of Patten.
He had the misfortune to work closely with him when he was the chairman of the CONservative party led by M Thatcher.
His view was based on the manner in which he ate oysters...
Quote from McAlpine’s 1997 memoirs Once A Jolly Bagman, he recalls asking Patten to lunch at The Dorchester hotel shortly after becoming treasurer.
‘I can remember him tucking into a plate of oysters,’ he wrote, ‘his blond forelock falling forward, hiding both his face and the oyster that he was eating.
You can always tell the character of a man when he eats oysters, and I marked Patten down as greedy.’
regards
right-writes
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