Theresa Made me do it!

Brexit becoming the only game in Town

I thought longish and hardish about using Brexit as my main topic today but felt that “massaged” employment data, FOMC minutes and Trump’s continuing woes were unlikely to provide me with any inspiration.

I’d like to say this is the third in a series of blogs that look at Brexit from different angles, but it isn’t. I react to what presented to me and this is Brexit week. I have asked if Brussels could do more if, as it says, it would like the U.K. to stay in the EU. I have derided the “wish lists” masquerading as policy statement from the Government, now it's time to get serious about the implications.

There is nothing that can be said to paint even a pinkish hue let alone a rosy picture of the U.K. economy going forward. Would you invest in a business in the U.K. without knowing if you will have a market for your goods in eighteen months’ time? Of course not, now it is time to “batten down the hatches” and tell your workers not to expect above inflation pay rises and remind them they are lucky to have jobs despite the Government’s assertion that 57k more people found work last month!

There is a need for EU workers.

I have a daughter who works in the hospitality industry and she is adamant that this whole area of the economy is under severe threat from Brexit. She has interviewed Poles, Hungarians, Italians, the list goes on and on and in just about every case they acquit themselves far better than a British candidate for the same position. Why? Because they have made a conscious decision to come to the U.K. and WORK. They are not fulfilling some Job Centre requirement to go for an interview in order to receive benefits.

Of course, there are criminals and troublemakers coming here looking to milk the system. In response to that I say read Rod Liddle’s column in last week’s Sunday Times about British holiday makers behaviour in the summer and stag weekenders in the winter to understand that “unsavouriness” is a two way street!

The EU has been allowed to morph from its various guises as a loose trading bloc that the U.K. joined in 1973 into a potential Superstate almost unchecked. The man in the street be he British, Italian, French Greek or Spanish has sleepwalked into allowing this to happen. Did he care that Champagne only comes from a certain region of France, or that Cornish Pasties only come from Cornwall? No, he (or she) went about his (or her) daily life pretty much as he (or she) always had. No one noticed that all the cucumbers and bananas were suddenly straight. In the U.K. alone, there are sixty items that are given “protected geographical status” what nonsense and a testament to bureaucracy gone mad.

It's the little things

Hands up if when you heard the result of the Brexit referendum the first thing that came to mind was the border between the Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. There are very few sovereign states in the world whose economies are so closely tied as Ireland’s is to the U.K.

Free movement of people has existed since 1923 and goods since 1933. Now following Brexit there is the threat of a “hard border”. This typifies the whole intransigent demeanour of Brussels and draws a little sympathy for the U.K.

In the context of the four freedoms, this is a relatively minor issue since nothing was supposedly going to change. Now since it has been brought to prominence as one of the three significant issues to be dealt with before trade agreements can even start to be discussed, it has been latched upon by the U.K. and Irish Governments and could even seriously threaten the peace accord in the North.  

Message to Westminster and Brussels: Just get on with it and let normal people return to living normal lives!