Brexit: The Convenient Truth!

Quit griping and start preparing

“I’m sorry Johnny can’t come to school today. I think it’s due to Brexit”

Is there any issue, problem or dilemma currently facing the U.K. that can’t be put down to Brexit? It has become very convenient to blame the U.K.’s imminent departure from the EU for “all that ails us”.

The EU is not perfect. Not by a long way. Yes of course it is an experiment so should be given time but in twenty years it will still be expecting the same preferential treatment in the eyes of its leaders.

Personally, I have softened my view on the Brexit referendum realising that the public were done a serious disservice by the “remain” campaign. They singularly failed to drive home the cost and upheaval and the leave rhetoric proved, unfortunately, impossible to counter.

Now remainers talk of the public being hoodwinked. That is nonsense and a poor excuse for a campaign only rivalled by the Tories a year later.

The pound fell, in round numbers, from 1.5000 to 1.2000 in the period following the referendum result but the bulk (75%) of that fall was in the immediate aftermath. Therefore, some fourteen months later, year on year data has that move almost totally priced in. Yet, the pound’s fall, which in market terms is “ancient history” is still attributed to that single event.

Economy slowing? Must be Brexit!

The U.K. economy is slowing and that is a major contrast to a couple of years ago when it was the fastest growing in the G7. That was just as much of an anomaly as the current situation. No one bothered to analyse the reasons why the economy was doing so well.

The Chancellor at the time, George Osborne, couldn't get enough of the back slapping although, if asked, he couldn't give a salient reason why the U.K was doing so well other than to point to himself.

Now as a hack editor of a free newspaper he goes to great lengths to attempt revenge upon Theresa May who sacked him in the aftermath of the referendum meltdown.

The major issue facing the U.K. is business confidence and that can be placed not at the “narrow” door of Brexit but upon the broader shoulders of the Government (don’t you just love a mixed metaphor?).

Stop hand wringing almost embarrassed to be the party who must act upon the will of the people and not some manifesto forged in the fires of self-interest. Business confidence breeds consumer confidence. The economy cannot grow by the man in the street simply buying more imported goods.

Expand and be damned

The world changes on an almost daily basis nowadays. No one really knows the effect of the steps that were taken (and are still in place) to counter economic calamity following 2008. 

Does the voter really care if the country has a balanced budget by 2021 or 2022 or 2030 for that matter. He probably believes that it will never be balanced anyway and is simply a false promise the fill the pages of manifesto!

Invest damn you. Public services demand it. It was your idea all those years ago to sell of council houses. Now the country is crying out for more social housing and there is none to offer.

Could it be that it was all so simple then?

Politics is ripe for change. Right, left, right, left doesn’t work in this society. Maybe Thatcher was right, in her own time, but now? Stop trying to make May into Thatcher Lite. Corbyn meanwhile clings to an outdated and outmoded left-wing manifesto calling for re-nationalization and the restoration of unions and workers’ rights.

It shouldn’t have a label but the privatization of utilities and transport has not been a success. Train fares are ludicrous, gas and electricity prices are buried under mountains of small print and water has become a luxury!

It is not a matter of political dogma to label a specific issue as right or wrong.