Theresa May has shed some light on our Brexit strategy by making clear that we will be leaving the Single Market and it is likely that we will leave the Customs Union as well. This provides some welcome clarity to this important subject.
If this is the case, this will allow the UK to have unfettered rights to do trade deals with the rest of the world such as India, China, USA, Canada and Australia, without being hindered by the suffocating tentacles of EU bureaucracy which has, hitherto been the case.
Australia’s ex-Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who is tipped for a return to the ‘top job’ said recently “Brexit means that Britain is back. The country that gave the world the English language, Common Law and ‘the mother of parliaments’ is once more to seize its destiny as a global leader no longer constrained by the bureaucracy of Brussels!” Praise indeed.
Meanwhile, the Eurocrats are still warning that they will try and ‘punish’ us for having the temerity to leave Europe. What planet are they on? There are three notable European Elections coming up in the next 18 months in The Netherlands, France, Germany and with a rise in Euro-sceptisism, let us see how many other countries want to remain as part of this ‘EU morass’ which is mired in the past and boasts a 9% unemployment rate as an acceptable price to be paid for membership. The governments of Europe are on tender hooks that their populace will vote against the EU, which is why they are so terrified to grant them a Referendum. This looks like a ‘top down’ revolution and not a ‘bottom up’ variant.
Threats of ‘punishment beatings’ is not the way to deal with the brexit of the second largest economy in europe. Let the European leaders not forget that if tarriff free trade deals, are not established with the UK in future their own economies will suffer. It is difficult to understand their rationale, at the best of times. As an example, germany, for their own selfish reasons, always resisted quantatitive easing to help reflate their economies after the credit crunch in 2008, for fear of inflation, and seemed quite prepared for southern europe to pay the price with 50% youth unemployment as a direct result.
If the childish way that the European leaders, at recent conferences, are behaving towards the very dignified Theresa May, by leaving her unescorted at conferences whilst they busily chat away together, is anything to go by, the P.M. has got her ‘work cut out’ to try to do an acceptable deal with these ’self righteous, narcisistic bureaucrats’.
Whatever you say about President Trump and his ‘bombastic’ political style, he is a friend of the UK and, perhaps, the special relationship with the US will have even greater meaning than before.
The UK Stock Market has never been higher, Britains’s growth is one of the highest in the G8 countries, we are very close to full employment, the lower Pound is bringing in foreign investment and although there is higher inflation, we seem to be doing rather well despite the apocalyptic prophecies of the former Prime Minister and Chancellor before the referendum.
The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, and the Head of the IMF Christine lagarde (amongst others) have all had to ‘eat their words’. They were ‘bullied’ into supporting the former government’s ‘Remain position’ and how foolish do they look now in the post Brexit era?
Britain has always been the ‘moral crusader’, resisting maurading invaders and breaking up fiefdoms. As an illustration, we refused to pay the bribes and ‘blew the whistle’ on FIFA which ensured, at the time, that we did not host the World Cup event in the UK. This is despite having some of the best facilities and the most prized Premier Division football league in the world.
Other less courageous nations such as France, Russia, South Africa and Qatar were obligingly compliant and by doing so perpetuated the former, corrupt, Blatter regime against reason.
Are the parallels here with Europe inescapable?