After I demonstrated why @ChrisGiles_ of the @FT was wrong when he tweeted a misleading chart with the tag line I hear #Brexit is going swimmingly” he doubled down with another tweet tagged “#I still hear Brexit is going swimmingly”....
....& directed people to a recent FT article for a serious piece of analysis on the failings of Brexit. on.ft.com/3OvEXSD
Below is my rebuttal to this article. Taking each @FT claim and explaining where & why it is either wrong, taken out of context or deliberately misleading.
Where the @FT failed to put the fall in the pound into context (kudos @adrianmschmidt for the chart)
Where the @FT was wrong to say the fall in the pound post the 2016 referendum didn’t boost UK exports.
Where the @FT, whilst correct to say that UK inflation had been higher than the EU, failed to explain that this had been the case since the Great Financial Crash in 2008 and NOT a result of Brexit.
Where the @FT failed to put higher UK inflation into context – both that it had been running at the same rate as the G7 AND that it was still below the Central Bank target at a time when their aim was to create higher inflation.
Where the @FT was wrong to say Brexit has led to higher food inflation in UK (EU food inflation has been more than 5x higher & G7 4x higher) and failed to put UK food inflation into context (UK food prices are already amongst the lowest in Europe as are the current price rises).
Where the @FT selectively presented UK business investment data to imply a Brexit effect on the long term trend rate AND failed to put the figures into context versus EU peers.
Where the @FT was wrong to say UK exports to the EU have not grown since the end of the Brexit transition period.
And although right to say UK export & import growth since end of transition period has been lower than EU peers are wrong to say this has negatively impacted GDP & long term GDP forecasts (e.g. IMF predicts UK to be fastest growing G7 economy in period 2021-2023 AND 2024-2027).
The FT describes themselves as unbiased purveyors of the truth in a fake news world.
Please read the article and then answer the question I asked in my previous one.
Does that sound like the FT to you?
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For those who still think the Starmer Government will take stock of very clear & real public concerns about rapid mass immigration & change course this should be a wake up moment. 1)
It's a lie that Britain has always been a country of mass immigration. What we have witnessed in recent decades is entirely unprecedented. 20% of total UK population only arrived in past 10 yrs. 40% of all foreign born here only arrived in past 10 yrs. briefingsforbritain.co.uk/immigration-an…
Over 2.3m people arrived in the UK in the past two years alone. That is the equivalent of 10 Milton Keynes. 8 Belfast's. 6 Manchester's. In just two years. thecritic.co.uk/immigration-is…
Immigration is still the elephant in the room.
Violence is appalling, yet we have to understand the conditions from which it emerged thecritic.co.uk/immigration-is…
As political protests against mass immigration turned to violence all over the UK, Prime Minister Starmer was quick to label them as nothing more than “far-right thuggery” organised and populated by a small number of organised and possibly foreign funded far right racists.
Gvnt announced more prisoners would be released early from prison (including killers) to free up space for immediate incarceration of - not just those who had taken part in violent protests - but those who were deemed to have encouraged, supported or even simply shared videos
Just two weeks after the 8th anniversary of the vote to leave the EU (yet barely four years since we left) polling suggests that the self-confessed europhile Keir Starmer - who tried everything to force a second referendum and prevent Brexit happening – news.sky.com/story/labours-…
- will enter Downing Street as Prime Minister with the largest Labour majority in history. Whilst Starmer currently claims that he no longer wants to re-join the EU or even the SM or CU wishing instead to only secure a “closer relationship” with Europe... news.sky.com/story/keir-sta…
..many (of all political persuasions) believe the direction of travel is clear and that Labour (despite the current protestations) will move to bring the UK back into the EU fold one way or another.
There is a lot of this about today. The success of @Nigel_Farage & @reformparty_uk in the polls has the metropolitan "progressive" elite seriously frit. But it is complete and unadulterated spherical objects. As @iainmartin1 really should know.
A quick thread on why
@iainmartin1 states that @Nigel_Farage argument that the West has pushed Russia into a corner giving Putin the excuse for action (action @Nigel_Farage is clear is wrong) is both a niche view and incorrect. But it isn't a niche view at all. And it has been long argued
In June 1997, 50 prominent foreign policy experts signed an open letter to Clinton, saying, “We believe that the current U.S. led effort to expand NATO … is a policy error of historic proportions” that would “unsettle European stability.” armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/ar…
On Wednesday @KemiBadenoch made a speech to Parliament on the UK’s trade performance in which she stated the data:
“Definitively disprove the claims of those who prophesied a catastrophic economic collapse when we left the EU to become a sovereign nation.” hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-0…
@KemiBadenoch went on to say that the data confirms that:
“The strategy the public voted for on 23 June 2016 is delivering. Leaving the European Union was a vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom, and we are seeing results.
As you can imagine, the response form the anti-brexit brigade which has spent the last 8 years trying hard to present Brexit as an economic disaster and an entirely irredeemable event was angry and vitriolic.
For example this thread by @EdConwaySky
Through 1980s & 1990s Britain generally had the third most competitive industrial electricity costs of G7. But since then we have performed far worse. In the 5 yrs before Tony Blair became PM, our industrial electricity costs were around 9 % higher than avg of advanced economies
By 2010, they were nearly 23 per cent higher, and for the past 5 years have risen to 52% higher.
Our industrial electricity prices are three times higher than in America and Canada.
They are more than twice as high as in Korea and New Zealand.