You can't vote to repeal gravity.
You can't vote to win the lottery.
You can't vote to make Brexit a success.
The first two examples are so obvious as to appear absurd. But there's no causal link between the referendum result & the probability of making Brexit a success either.
You can't vote to win the lottery.
You can't vote to make Brexit a success.
The first two examples are so obvious as to appear absurd. But there's no causal link between the referendum result & the probability of making Brexit a success either.
So, Leavers should stop blaming the negotiators, the EU, remainers, non-believers, anyone and everyone they can find to point a finger at for the perceived "failure" of Brexit, and put the blame where it actually belongs: on Brexit itself.
Brexit is guaranteed to fail because
Brexit is guaranteed to fail because
the particular combination of circumstances we benefit from as EU members is too advantageous vs any possible near or medium-term post-Brexit outcome. Put plainly, there is no flavour of Brexit under which the UK ends up better off in a meaningful timeframe.
Even Jacob Rees-Mogg, ERG chief rabble rouser and Brexiteer darling, acknowledges that it could well take half a century - linger on that for a moment - for the UK to see positive economic benefits from Brexit. And before you get all economy shmecononomy on me, it is ultimately
all about the money. Our public services are already at breaking point (some have arguably already broken). We're a rich country, but we live on the very very edge of our means. Even a small economic shock will be enough to push us over the edge, and herald renewed and lasting
austerity.
But Brexit isn't a small shock. In its hard or no-deal form, it's a wrecking ball to the heart of our economy. Even the Government's rose-tinted figures expect an 8% hit to GDP from a WTO terms hard Brexit. That's nearly *twice* the damage of the 2008 financial crash.
But Brexit isn't a small shock. In its hard or no-deal form, it's a wrecking ball to the heart of our economy. Even the Government's rose-tinted figures expect an 8% hit to GDP from a WTO terms hard Brexit. That's nearly *twice* the damage of the 2008 financial crash.
Ten years on, we're only just beginning to see the first chinks of light post-austerity (and the patient's only stabilising, not getting better). So imagine Brexit hitting us with twice the force of the 2008 crisis. It's almost impossible to wrap your mind around how bad that is.
A lot of words up to this point, so let's have some facts. Jobs are already leaving, investment drying up, companies relocating assets to the EU27 or redomiciling. All already happened or happening right now - this is NOT Project Fear pie in the sky stuff.
WTO terms Brexit won't work the way Brexiteers paint it. For one thing, almost nobody in the world trades *exclusively* on WTO terms. For another thing, WTO imposes tariffs and quotas which will be very harmful to our industries.
Brexiteers also talk glibly about replacing EU trade with trade with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, there's this pesky thing called geography that gets in the way (plus we don't even have 1% of the necessary number of planes)
And finally, here's a catch-all thread that shreds another couple of dozen Brexit myths. Happy reading!
