Brexit Is Bollocks

Just a few months into so called Brexit, does anyone need any more proof that it is bollocks? First of all, Boris Johnson told us, last year, that he would “Get Brexit Done”, but its clear that, in no real sense, has that happened. Secondly, even without the crash-out Brexit he threatened to implement, we see the effects on the economy being disastrous, with sharply rising costs and prices, shortages everywhere you look, and a breakdown of supply chains. Thirdly, the effect on Northern Ireland has created political instability. In short, Brexit is bollocks. You would think that with all of this chaos and calamity Labour would be miles ahead in the polls, but such is Starmer's incompetence, that Labour is still trailing way behind the Tories.

Johnson's claim to have “Got Brexit Done”, is clearly bollocks, because, here we are, 10 months after he put forward his “oven ready deal”, which he and David Frost claimed was a marvellous deal, and they are still trying to negotiate it! The deal they put forward to deal with the obvious problems that Brexit causes, in relation to Ireland, and which they pronounced was so marvellous, they now claim is terrible. In fact, as I predicted from the beginning, the truth is that Britain can't be trusted, and any deal they came up with, they would have no intention of implementing. That has also been confirmed by Dominic Cummings, who tweeted that they never had any intention of abiding by the deals they signed, and that the game for Britain is always to “cheat the foreigners”!

The fact that Britain never intended to abide by the deals was shown by the fact that it never even bothered to make even the slightest showing of establishing the border posts in Northern Ireland required for undertaking the checks on goods being imported from the mainland, or being sent from N.I. to the mainland. Its notable that, in the new proposals put forward by the EU, they have linked the reduction in such border checks to Britain committing to undertaking the remaining checks scrupulously, which presumably means that the EU will first want to see Britain establish all of those border posts, and infrastructure, to undertaken the checks, before it reduces the rest of the checks. If they have any sense, at least, that is what they would do. Britain and the DUP have, of course, claimed that the checks have provoked hostility in Northern Ireland. In fact, there is no evidence of that, other than amongst the DUP, who have been trying to inflame the population, but without great success.

And, that's not surprising, because a clear majority in Northern Ireland voted to Remain in the EU. In everything that has happened since that was clearly the right choice, because, Brexit has been a disaster for the people of Northern Ireland, despite the fact that the EU has tried to protect them by retaining the province within the EU Single Market, and Customs Union. At every step, the EU has tried to protect the people of the province, even by modifying its rules in relation to the Single Market, whilst it has been the British government and the DUP that has tried to use Northern Ireland as a trojan horse to undermine the Single Market, using the province as nothing more than a political tool at the expense of its people. Of course, the EU has not done this entirely on the basis of generosity. It knows that a majority in the province oppose Brexit, and seeks to keep them on side. It has an eye on a potential border poll in the next few years, and the likelihood that, by being seen to be supporting the people of the province, whilst the UK and DUP use them as pawns, it will secure a majority for a United Ireland. It will also have its eyes on a future Scottish independence referendum, and so the break-up of Britain resulting from the disaster of Brexit, leaving just an English rump, isolated and alone, and sinking rapidly into insignificance.

The EU can afford to play the long game. A look at what has happened in Northern Ireland over the last year is instructive. As a result of the shortages created by Brexit and Johnson and Frost's marvellous “oven ready deal”, businesses in Northern Ireland did the obvious thing. They switched their supply chains to the Republic. Some businesses in the North would not do that, because, on the one hand, hard-line loyalist businesses might not want to be seen to be aligning themselves with the Republic rather than Britain, and the big businesses, like TESCO, as well as having supply chains heavily tied into their mainland operations, would not want to be seen by the government to be acting in a way that might be seen as political. But, its clear that many business did just do the obvious thing, and get their supplies from the Republic which can send its output to the North unrestricted, because both remain within the EU Single Market and Customs Union. Exports from the Republic to the North have increased by 77% in the last 10 months, whilst exports from Britain to Ireland have cratered.

Britain is being cut out of the loop. New large port facilities, now enable Ireland to import and export goods directly to the EU, rather than passing through Britain. So, even with the reduction in checks on goods from Britain to Northern Ireland, its now unlikely that Northern Ireland businesses are going to ditch their new found suppliers in the Republic, to return to higher cost, greater aggravation suppliers in Britain. In fact, that same problem has been found with trade between Britain and the EU itself, as the costs and bureaucracy now caused by Brexit makes it uneconomic for business to engage in such trade, other than for the biggest businesses. Its again an instance of how those small business people who were the driving force for Brexit are the ones who are being destroyed by it.

The reality is that Brexit is not done in any real sense, and nor could it be, because to do so would mean an economic catastrophe for Britain, as the trade deal it has struck with the EU would be ripped up. That trade deal required that Britain effectively agree to maintain the same standards and regulation as the Single Market. The most obvious instance of it is the Northern Ireland Protocol itself. The UK, of course, does not want to have to abide by those conditions, and as Cummings has testified, has never had any intention of doing so. In other words, perfidious Albion once again lied through its teeth, meaning that its global standing has again been undermined, and no one anywhere can enter into an agreement with it believing a word it ever says. It has become a kind of rogue state. But, every time it tries to row back on its commitments, it necessarily finds that the reality of its subordinate role in the world comes back and bites it.

Britain clearly never had any intention of abiding by its commitments on fishing that it signed up to as part of the trade deal with the EU, and has repeatedly refused to grant licences to French fishing fleets as required. Of course, given that the British fishing industry has been all but destroyed by Brexit, because the bureaucracy involved in exporting to the EU, has destroyed the business, its no wonder that Britain wants to be seen to be protecting what is left of it. But, the consequence is now going to be that France will take the retaliatory measures against Britain that it is fully entitled to do under the terms of the trade deal that Britain signed. That will have far greater economic impact on Britain, than the failure to provide fishing licences to France will cause.

That will come on top of all of the other chaos and disaster that Brexit is creating in Britain. Across the UK economy there are labour shortages. Its true that there are labour shortages for truck drivers across the globe. That is a consequence of a sharp rise in economic activity, as lock outs and lock downs are removed, whilst those same restrictions led to frictions in the free movement of labour, required to deal with it. But, as those restrictions are lifted, that free movement, in the EU, in North America, and elsewhere will be restored, so that those frictions quickly disappear. In Britain, that is not the case, because of Brexit. Britain has imposed that self-inflicted wound on itself by ending free movement as a central part of Brexit. The idea that offering visas, lasting just a few weeks, to a few thousand lorry drivers is going to resolve anything is ridiculous. Why would anyone want to come to Britain, and its hostile environment, to help out a country that has shown its clear disdain and antagonism towards them? Why would they do that, just for a few weeks, before that country then unceremoniously kicked them out of the country again? No wonder only around 27 people applied for any of these 5,000 visas.

In Britain, the consequence is going to manifest itself in a number of ways. First of all, the shortage of HGV drivers has already impacted on fuel deliveries, as well as deliveries of goods to manufacturers and retailers. But, as haulage firms are desperate for labour they have also started poaching drivers from other jobs. For example, entire workforces of council bin lorry drivers, and so on are being poached. With councils short of cash, they are not going to be able to compete for that labour. In coming weeks, expect to see that rubbish does not get collected, as councils have no one to drive the bin lorries. Similarly, as Winter approaches, they are going to have no one to drive the gritting lorries to keep the roads free of ice and snow, which means that a whole series of other frictions, delays, backlogs and calamities are in store, as a consequence of Brexit, over the next few months. At the same time, although Britain has imposed the penalty of removing free movement on itself, France is offering 5 year visas to lorry drivers, in addition to the EU being able to move labour around within its borders to where there is demand for it.

Then there are the effects such as at Felixstowe, which has become clogged because a shortage of drivers means that containers are not being moved fast enough, and ships cannot unload. Already, British ports are losing business as shippers reroute consignments to EU ports instead. All of that means delays, frictions, shortages and increased costs at the very time when prices are rising globally at a rapid pace, as the relaxation of lock downs sees spending expand, fuelled by large amounts of liquidity thrown into circulation by central banks. Whilst the global economy is suffering from sharply rising inflation, due to all that liquidity from central banks now flowing into it, Britain is being hit even worse, because of the increased shortages, frictions and costs imposed by Brexit. In response, the Bank of England looks set to raise its policy rates as early as next month, which is likely to start the process of a crash in UK asset prices. As UK asset prices begin to crash, that will prompt a rush of funds out of them and into foreign assets, which will cause the Pound to fall, imported inflation to rise, and UK rates to rise further.

Then there is the rising energy prices that Britain faces. As Britain antagonises its EU neighbour, that puts Britain in a very weak position, as it relies on the EU, and EU companies for a large part of that energy supply. One measure the EU can take in imposing sanctions on Britain, in retaliation for its failure to abide by its commitments under the Brexit deal, is to restrict those energy supplies, which would be a powerful weapon as Britain goes into the Winter. In the Winter, in particular, Britain is dependent, also, on EU food exports. That is particularly the case as Brexit means that labour has not been available to collect in the UK harvest. Those food shortages come on top of the other problems in agriculture, as a shortage of butchers means that pigs and other animals could not be processed, leading to those animals being culled. Other countries have suffered shortages due to the frictions caused by lock downs, but it is only Britain where those labour shortages are resulting in these kinds of problems, and that is due entirely to Brexit.

So, as Britain sinks under the weight of all of these self-inflicted Brexit wounds, as it sees its exports get hammered, and businesses relocating to the EU, the EU itself can afford to be generous in its offering in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol, and to play the long game. What is more, as I wrote a while ago, the EU has provided Britain with all the rope required to hang itself; the DUP have tied the noose and slipped it around the UK's neck; now Lord Frost is set to pull the lever and give it the big drop, as he insists that the EU have capitulated, and he seeks to push for even further concessions, effectively scrapping the Protocol altogether. The EU are not stupid, they must also have known, all along, that Britain had no intention of abiding by its commitments, nor any of those it gives now. They could also be fairly confident that the DUP, who never fail to miss an opportunity to undermine themselves, would press for the Protocol to be scrapped, which would find its echo in the demand of the UK government for the removal of the role of the ECJ. But, the “wonderful, over ready deal” that Johnson and Frost proposed and signed up to included the continued role of the ECJ in relation to Northern Ireland, and has to do so, because Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, is formally and legally still within the Single Market. It is only the ECJ that can adjudicate on matters within the Single Market, as against the situation in relation to the trade deal between the UK and EU, which is outside it.

If the DUP and UK government insist on removing the role of the ECJ, then they will be seen to be acting even more unreasonably, and indeed to be seeming to deliberately undermine the existing deal, and, thereby, the Good Friday Agreement. That will, then, also put the UK at increasing odds with the US, as it attempts to repair relations with the EU, as the world's largest economy. Clever politics by the UK it certainly isn't, but that is the consequence of all of the contradictions that inevitably flow from Brexit itself.

Given all these crises, it might be expected that Labour would be making hay, and soaring away in the polls. Far from it. Starmer did not even get the normal post-party Conference bounce. The fact that he has been more concerned with attacking the party's own members than the Tories, and has been busy ditching all those policies that won millions of voters to Labour under Corbyn in 2017, it probably one good reason for that. As Starmer tries to appease the far right of the Labour Party by walking back from the policies of renationalisation, the Tories, themselves, as a result of the crises caused by the lockdowns and Brexit, are being forced into an eve greater state interventionist role. So, the Tories, superficially, appear to be to the Left of Starmer's Labour Party. That of course, requires a belief that nationalisation by the capitalist state is itself in any way related to socialist or “Left” politics, as against the actual control of those industries by their workers. Of, course, Starmer would run a mile from any suggestion of the latter too.

Recently, Starmer made an attempt at driving a small lorry. The news reporter said he seemed to have little trouble driving it forward, but when it came to reversing it, he crashed it into some barriers. That is odd, because everything we've seen from him suggests that he only has a reverse gear, and his problem in politics is moving forward.

Instead, of being an effective opposition, and criticising the Tories policies on lock downs and on Brexit, Starmer has attempted to present himself as merely a more effective administrator of them. Most notable has been the reversal of his anti-Brexit position under Corbyn. Now, he and other Labour spokespeople give out the nonsense that a Labour government would “make Brexit work”. How? That requires that it is possible to make Brexit work, when, we know that it can't work. The idea that a Labour government would come in, and simply remedy all of the problems of Brexit, without actually scrapping it, and re-joining the EU, is ridiculous. It is a return to the nonsense from before the 2019 election about a Labour Brexit, which amounted to nothing more than impossible fanciful suggestions that it is possible to have Brexit cake and eat it.

Voters, particularly all of those well-educated, younger, more critically minded, core working-class Labour voters know that is nonsense, which is why they have rejected it, and are not going to be attracted to Labour whilst it continues to purvey such nonsense. Brexit is bollocks, and more and more people can see that reality as each day passes. The Tories may yet provoke a trade war with the EU over the Irish Protocol, though they will probably fall into it accidentally as a result of their own idiocy and hubris. That will be even more disastrous for people in Britain, similar to their having been a crash out Brexit. More and more people are going to begin to get very fed up of Brexit, whether they voted for it or not. The job of Labour should have been to organise, and focus that opposition, and to have utilised it against the Tories, ready to sweep them from office. Starmer will not do it. The ordinary party members must begin to do so.