Thread by @fascinatorfun

What Exactly Is Boris Johnson Doing?

If Johnson’s tactics feel like a war on his country’s own citizens it is because that is what he is pushing forward.
Without logic.
Without care.
Without compassion

Unless he wants to crash the £ of course

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

2/. No Deal would “be a calamity. It would lead to severe trade disruption, transport bottlenecks, rising prices, consumer shortages, failing businesses and in all likelihood a recession within months.

3/. ”Public finances would be ravaged and unemployment would surge. By the government’s own reckoning, the long-term costs could be immense.

Nor would such an exit achieve its stated goals.

4/ “If the objective is a newly competitive “global Britain,” severing all ties with the country’s biggest trading partners overnight amid a simmering trade war and a looming recession probably isn’t ideal.

5/ “Of the 36 trade deals that the U.K. is subject to within the EU, it has managed to roll over just 13, and many of them only partially — a picture that is unlikely to improve after a crash-out.

6/. “Far from offering a “clean break” from the EU, moreover, a no-deal exit would ensure years of hideous negotiations with no leverage and little hope of clawing back the benefits of membership.

7/ “Any new agreement would likely need to be ratified by all of the EU’s 27 national parliaments, which may not be in a sympathetic mood after the U.K. has imposed so much needless mayhem.

What about “taking back control”?

8/ “Among the only certainties of this process are that Britain’s influence will be diminished and its union weakened. Any eventual deal it reaches with the EU will leave it adhering to rules it has little power to shape.

9/. “Scotland may demand independence and a referendum on a united Ireland may follow.

Even Wales is asking impertinent questions. This isn’t control; it’s a leap into the unknown.

10/. Partly because this strategy is so obviously illogical, the government has had a hard time getting people to believe its warnings. One survey found that only 14% of small businesses have made plans for no deal.

11/ “Of the 245,000 British companies that trade exclusively with the EU, just 66,000 have so far completed the customs paperwork they’d need after a crash-out.

12/. ”They seem to be taking Johnson at his word that the chances of no deal are “a million to one” — and thereby increasing the cost and risk of the whole misadventure.”

The gross irresponsibility of giving such mixed messages is about par for the course for Johnson.

13/. But the whole of the Conservative Party have to take responsibility for this, the costs and the risks.

They had other options but MPs voted him into the two selections by a big margin.

Then the members didnthe same.

They won’t be forgiven for it.