Thread by @lasancmt

One of the bizarre notions of #Brexit voters is that paying x billion into EU to run the common market gives EU consumers a duty to buy British products rather than an opportunity to market UK exports.

This British delusion about how trade works is illustrated by Brexit voting idiots saying stuff like “we pay 40m for a trade deficit of 150m”. They confuse foreign trade with buying things abroad. Producing and marketing stuff that foreign consumers actually want is beyond them.

The same delusion is at work when British politicians mention “the ability to strike our own trade deals”. Leavers think that somehow all that is required is a Doctor’s note from a disgraced Defense Secretary and instantly trade starts flowing to those foreign far flung countries

You don’t even have the produce things in this new Trade nirvana of the Brexiteers. They imagine they can bring container loads of cheap shite in from the Far East, just unpack it and drive it in white vans to Calais destined for European Sunday Markets. Return with cheap wine.

British delusion about the City of London is of a similar scale. They seem to think that only Brits can run a bank. The irony of a Canadian running the Bank of England escapes them completely.

It does not occur to a Leave voter that it is a darned sight easier to move a City Trading floor to the Continent than the assembly line of a car factory.

A trading platform can move overnight by changing some internet router settings.

A car plant move waits for the next model

And while fruit pickees and farm workers could be recruited from further afield, it seems logical that while seasonal EU workers move back home after the harvest, those from poor countries on the other side of the world probably take root and bring their family.

And let’s not even think of the impact on the NHS, of hundreds of thousands of U.K. pensioners returning home from the costas, the Limousin and the Dordogne, when a devalued Pound and rising health costs force them to relinquish their retirement place in the sun.

But hey, let’s just get on with it.
Because we voted for this massive social experiment, because we once had an Empire and we survived a few world wars, let’s take our lead from Singapore rather from Rotterdam. With some goodwill, we will surely turn a 222b. trade deficit around?

Because note that fifth global economy UK may be, but when it comes to world trade leagues UK not even in top 10!

UK and USA occupy the bottom two ranks, languishing in position 193 while notionally EU is in top three position with China and Germany.

Who’s currency stronger?

@BBCkatyaadler and @bbclaurak must have heard you parrot the phrase “ability to strike our own trade deals”
As a #Brexit benefit a hundred times now on @BBCNews.

Would it be too much to ask a Leave voter politician what such a trade deal would look like and how better than EUs?

@BBCkatyaadler and @bbclaurak another thing you could ask politicians blabbering on about ‘our own global trade deals’ is :

“How can Italy in EU manage to trade positively with the rest of the world while we have a trade deficit of £220 billion?