If you were mugged for £350, then given half of it back on the condition you could only spend it on what your assailant wanted, would you go back to them the next day for a repeat performance? Probably not. Why then, are the Remainiac contingent doing all they can to hamper a clean break from the EU? Remainers are not only talking down our freedom, but they’d have us believe that everything that is wrong with the country is due to Brexit from environmental catastrophes to airport waiting times and even to the price of organic flaxseed.
Brexit myth
The first myth propounded by the ‘Brenda’s from reception’ and all those naysayers in 2016, was that Brexit will bring economic apocalypse and mass unemployment. More fool them. Now, almost all analysts and forecasters agree that Brexit will be beneficial in longer term.
It is the southern Mediterranean economies that are depressingly moribund, with 40% persistent youth unemployment, whilst the rich northern European nations are immeasurably better off. Clearly one size doesn’t fit all, and this is the point, everyone in the EU needs to march in step with Germany, and if you get trodden on during the process, so be it.
Where are the dividends?
The Europhile sceptics constantly bleat ‘where are the dividends? If Brexit were properly implemented in the UK, then we would certainly fulfil IMF predictions that our economy would outstrip that of the Eurozone and even Germany.
Besides, we have friends in exotic places. The UK is about to complete a vital trade deal with India, which itself is on its way to becoming the world’s third-largest economy. By contrast, the EU previously accounted for 34% of world GDP. Despite gobbling up other countries and quadrupling in size it has lost more than half of its market share, which has shrunk to about 10%, now that we’re out.
Big is not necessarily beautiful though and this is perfectly illustrated by the fact that the Soviet Union in the Cold War era was the second largest market in the world and how did it benefit the impoverished command economy nations at the time?
It is not in our interest to re-join an economic zone where the average national debt to GDP ratio stands at 93%. At an individual member level, it gets worse. Italy is at a truly scandoloso 161.8% while Greece is over 200% and is in no shape to Grexiteriki, even though their populace would like to. By contrast, the UK’s national debt is at approximately 100%, which is perfectly acceptable by comparison. If anyone cares, you should know that the bastion of capitalism, the USA, and the largest economy in the world, has an eyewatering national debt of 135%. This would be even higher if President ‘crinkly’ Biden had his way.
Quiz question
Meanwhile, here’s a quiz question. The WTO manages trade relations for 189 countries. It has 640 employees and an annual budget of $195 million.
The EU manages trade relations for 28 countries. It has 48,000 employees and an annual budget of $180 billion.
Is the adage ‘wanton waste’ springing to mind?
This should be an easy answer, yet despite Freedom Day being reached over three years ago, Johnson and Sunak have not let us reap what should be rich rewards. At a time when the world teeters on the precipice of fiscal implosion, why did Chancellor Sunak increase Corporation Tax to 25%? He should have followed the Irish example and set a level of circa 15% which would have catalysed a profusion of inward investment to the UK. What’s wrong with being the ‘Singapore on Thames’?
We are a grown-up country that’s seen quite a bit of action throughout our 2000-year-plus history. No other nation can surpass our linguistic, imperial, and cultural influence on the world. So now that we’re out of the euro-prison it’s time to take a sledgehammer to the pettifogging EU legacy regulations that so impedes our progress.
Immigration, an intractable problem
One thing we do receive in abundance is the ‘I’ word, which is more taboo than the ‘B’ word at trendy, liberal, dinner parties. Immigration has always been an intractable problem and although the overall numbers are too large, we now have the capability to decide who joins Team GB, which is our sovereign right. Across the continent however, immigration is the proverbial hot ‘pomme de terre’ thanks to the unwieldy and inefficient Schengen Agreement (a precursor to a federal Europe). When it works properly, immigration brings the skilled and hardworking but without the ability to control one’s borders, some EU countries are suffering major societal turbulence. As a result, poorer nations have disgorged their deplorables who have gravitated towards the richer northern European havens that offer, indiscriminately, generous welfare and social benefits. One does not have to be a professor of sociology to predict the consequences of these actions.
Sharing a dark past
We share a dark past with our European brethren. Consider this – in 1939 Winston Churchill faced the agonising choice of war or appeasement with Hitler. Even with hindsight the latter must have been a tempting option, considering that there were three million Nazi Troops rampaging through Europe whilst the British, by contrast, had 300,000 dispirited British soldiers holed up in Dunkirk. Although England had a creditable navy (since Churchill was the first Sea Lord in WW1) it did not have a meaningful air force at the time.
Churchill opted to preserve national sovereignty and never wavered, despite the Blitzkrieg inflicted by the greatest number of aeroplanes ever assembled by the Luftwaffe. We were on our own, since at this point the US was reluctant to join a ‘foreign war’. Churchill witnessed the loss of 40,000 lives in one bombing raid alone and surely the easy option of appeasement must have beckoned. This is perhaps why I get so cross when I hear the Remainers clamour for greater dividends of Brexit after only three years, two of which was Covid ridden, and this is despite the partial implementation process that has taken place.
Brexit, a generational decision
Brexit is a generational decision and it’s only the long-term welfare of the UK that matters. When Germany reunified, the rich west German nation had to suffer eight times the relative cost of the process, which crippled its economy for twenty years. Never-the-less, not a squeak was heard from the German people throughout, since they have always thought less of the short-term pain and more of the long-term gain.
So, any of you lingering Remainers out there, try to make friends with your courageous Churchill soul, rather than the short-term Chamberlain solution, the former of which will deliver a bright future with less bureaucracy, more discerning national borders, and cheaper mangoes!
Otherwise, what has been built by endeavour will be decimated by romantic notions of closer ties with a failing European Union.
Having said all of this, if the EU would morph back into the EEC and lose its federal Europe aspirations, I for one, would be a vociferous subscriber.