THE GUARDIAN:
From plummeting trade to drastic shortages of workers, needlessly leaving the single market has been disastrous
‘The sensible path now would be for Boris Johnson to eat humble pie.’ Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
It was the big Brexit lie. No, not the
£350m a week to spend on the NHS or the “bonfire” of red tape. The lie was that the shambles now enveloping British trade with Europe was an unavoidable price worth paying to leave the EU. That was rubbish.
In order to further his chances of becoming Tory leader
Boris Johnson made two commitments. One was to resign from the EU, the other was to depart Europe’s customs union and single market, aspects of which embrace other non-EU states such as Norway. The second decision was an almost casual gesture to make him look macho to the party’s hardline Brexiters. It was not put to referendum and was beyond stupid.
No news item today is free of the consequences. Earlier this year, the effects of leaving the single market could be seen in
plummeting trade with the continent, even accounting for the pandemic. Additional red tape is awesome. HMRC estimates traders will be
handling 215m more import/export documents a year, at an estimated bureaucratic cost of £7.5bn a year. Tariffs may not apply but rules of origin and health standards do. Every truck, every cargo
requires inspection.
As for migration, the overall shortage of seasonal farm labour, according to BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today, is 20% and often more. Fruit
will rot in fields, pigs cannot get to abattoirs and Christmas turkeys will be a “nightmare”. Meanwhile, care homes in England are
short of 170,000 staff, and delivery firms short of 100,000 drivers. Hotels have abandoned rooms and restaurant tables. Creative industries – worth £110bn to the UK economy – were forgotten by the Brexit negotiators and are now virtually isolated from Europe.
» | Simon Jenkins | Monday, September 6, 2021
Our decision to leave the European Union was as stupid as it is showing to be economically disastrous. The once great and respectable Conservative Party has been hijacked by fools – self-serving fools!
I was raised in a Conservative-voting household; indeed, the very word ‘socialism’ in my family was a dirty word! In fact, I myself have been a Conservative voter. I voted Conservative all my adult life – until Cameron came along! I took one look at him and smelled trouble (my instincts proved to be dead right!); so, I voted for Nick Clegg (LibDem) instead. But that was the very first time in my life that I deviated from the Conservative cause.
After the fiasco of Brexit, however, I shall never vote for the Conservatives again. The 1 percenters in the Conservative Party have manipulated the masses in order to fill their own pockets, fill their own banks accounts. But in so doing, they have taken people’s rights as European citizens away; and many of us resent that. I know I certainly do.
Much of it started with Trump. It was he who stoked the fires of anti-EU politics in this country. The man who neither knew nor understood anything about geopolitics. What Trump knew about geopolitics, or economics, you could write on the back of a cigarette packet!
Boris Johnson is a Trump clone. He is also a Trump-like clown. The only difference between Trump and BoJo is that Johnson has a posh accent and a better education, much of which, incidentally and ironically, was paid for by the EU! (His father worked for the EU for years.) Such hypocrisy!
Margaret Thatcher must be turning in her grave! Although she was against a federal Europe, which I most certainly am not, she was very pro-EU trade and bringing down all barriers to trade. Indeed, ‘Maggie’ was one of the Single Market’s principal architects: she worked tirelessly to bring it about. Now BoJo and his band of über-rich nation-destroyers have undone all her hard work. These people can indeed be thought of as nation-destroyers, because in all my adult life, I have never seen this country so divided. Even friendships and family ties have been destroyed by Brexit. And this is true right across the country. The cracks and fault-lines in British society have been laid bare. One now has cause to doubt whether they will ever heal. This Brexit nonsense could quite possibly lead to the break-up of the once so united, United Kingdom.
Boris Johnson’s posh accent doesn’t make him any less of a clown. The man is not fit to lead this nation and his administration is not fit for purpose. – © Mark
