Empire 2.0

The Brextremists want the UK to operate under WTO rules - they want us to run at the cliff edge and jump, usher in a new golden age of free trade, a British Empire 2.0. This is why they have been pushing so hard, trying to make us act without careful thought.

Their argument is that once free of the restrictions of a regional trade association (i.e. the EU) we will be able to make any deals we want to and so we can make sure the deals are Good for Britain. They hold up the British Empire as their model, a golden age when Britannia ruled the waves and had a healthy trade surplus rather than a deficit.

As a contemporary model they point to Singapore, another densely populated island, highly developed, with a skilled and educated workforce.

The Singapore option is feasible to attempt, though geography will be against us - trade volumes fall off fast with distance and our closest trading partners (the EU and US) will put up high barriers (tariff and non-tariff) if we use that model. The social consequences will also be very unwelcome.

So what about Empire 2.0? Britain traded with the whole world, and that was before air-freight and containerisation.

Sadly things have changed. We are no longer top dog. At that time Russia was a serfdom, the USA was an agricultural economy, China a backwards-looking stratified society. Britain was the technological and industrial leader of the world. This allowed us to take what we wanted.

Our colonies' existence depended upon our superior weaponry and our willingness to use it on the native people with no quarter given. We went to war with China to force them to accept our opium - a War for Drugs, maybe?

We are subject to international law. Our cotton mills were fed with slave-picked cotton. There were a number of rebellions in India - the jewel in the Empire's crown - which is hardly surprising given that we squeezed everything we could from there, irrespective of the harm, suffering and deaths caused. Our own colonists revolted due to the taxes their Mother Country imposed.

I may have planted an idea in those Brextremist bonces - forget trade deals, let's just invade our prospective trade partners and make them buy our stuff. However this is no longer feasible: We no longer have a global technological advantage, and world opinion has turned against genocide. I for one am glad - I sincerely hope we cannot turn back time.

The British Empire encompassed both good and evil, you may judge it for yourself, however that is not the issue. The issue is Britain's future - our future - and the Empire is certainly not a guide to that future.

British in Europe

The intemperate threats made by Brextremists that the UK could follow the Singapore model has made the rest of the EU nervous. Keeping an open border between Eire and Ulster would be economically impossible in that case, yet making it a 'hard' border would be politically dangerous, likely to destabilise the current peace process in Northern Ireland.

So the EU are asking for safeguards while Mrs May is promising not to use the Singapore model - though she still won't say what model she favours. How much simpler if she could show that she is looking to find the best deal for everyone.

Her treatment of EU citizens resident here could demonstrate this. What does it actually demonstrate?

British in Europe is a coalition of 10 groups of British citizens living in the EU. They have recently sent a letter to Mrs May reminding her of her promises about EU citizens living in the UK (‘The same rules and laws will apply on the day after Brexit as they did before.’) and how important it is that she honours this promise. It also points out that government statements and actions so far do not honour it.

Clearly if Mrs May's own government will not fulfil her pledges on something where we actually benefit (tax income, nurses, fruit pickers...) then what chance is there on more controversial items?

The Florence speech

Mrs May's Florence speech was full of promises but held little on what she is aiming for. As an attempt to break the deadlock in negotiations it may succeed, accepting publicly that the UK will pay into the EU budget until 2020, offering free movement during a two-year transition period and to abide by ECJ decisions.

What she didn't explain was what will happen after the two years. She said what she doesn't want as the UK's future, but not what she does want.

One commentator suggests that Mrs May could simply be using the speech to set up a walk out, however it is more likely an attempt to give herself time. If the EU do agree to a transition period then her trade negotiators have the next 18 months to train up and made contacts, then two years to negotiate trade deals, potentially reducing the economic dislocation caused by dumping our main trading partner (44% of our exports go to the EU).

Meanwhile by keeping secret the details of the preferred final deal she keeps her own party in the dark, so each faction can still hope that their chosen destination is the real one. With a paid-for bare majority the real problem she has is with her own MPs. Never mind Brussels.

So we still don't know what to expect.

A glorious Brexit

Mr Johnson's bombast (originally a name for cotton wool - commonly used to pad codpieces) is becoming less amusing. His recent serving of blancmange in The Daily Telegraph was heavy on slogans and light on analysis, it contained tired old chestnuts (£350m, NHS, etc) and empty optimism. Worse, he says all those who warn of bumps in the road to Brexit "lack confidence in Britain" - in "great, global, trading Britain".

It seems odd that people who want to ensure we get the best deal, who are spotting the pitfalls before we fall into them, who understand that negotiations have to be two-sided, that these are the ones who lack confidence.

It is the blowhards who lack confidence. The salesmen who talk up their product without giving us specifics, trying to sell us something they don't believe in. Mr Johnson wants us to run helter-skelter towards Brexit while keeping our eyes on the sunny uplands wavering in the haze ahead. For him it is unpatriotic to keep an eye on our feet as we negotiate the winding, potholed route.

If we never look down we won't even see the cliff edge until we are already over it. This may be what he now wants, aiming to undermine Mrs May by publishing just before she announces her own approach to Brexit. Or he may simply be trying to escape the consequences of his own actions.

Mrs May's Foreign Secretary is trumpeting a charge that she will have to lead, while he shelters behind the lines. She is to gallop forth with her lieutenants David "[the cards are] incredibly stacked our way" Davis and Liam "one of the easiest [trade deals] in human history" Fox riding beside her, blind to the cannon to the left, the right and ahead.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die.

Poor relation

One in three Britons have spent time below the poverty line. With inflation increasing and with wages and benefits falling this can only get worse.

Food prices are going up (eating now costs £2 a week more than last year) as the pound falls. Petrol is up by 17%. Car insurance is rocketing upwards - up 8% in just three months, with young drivers being charged an average of £1650. Rent has been increasing at three times the rate of wage increases (eight times in London), and unaffordability is now the main reason for homelessness (33%). Understandably, families are becoming pessimistic about their finances and are starting to rein in their spending.

Increasing productivity would help to boost wages - and we have a lot of space there, being 18% less productive than the G7 average (and 35% behind Germany). Sadly recent figures show our productivity is actually going down. Alternatively we could work longer hours, if our employers can afford to pay overtime. 73% of employees expect to delay their retirement - one in ten fear that they will have to keep working until they are 85.

Meanwhile saving is down, going negative in the first quarter of this year as people dig into their nest egg. The last five years has seen strong growth in credit card debt, personal loans and overdrafts. This spending is what has driven the recent GDP growth. Clearly that can only continue while there are pennies left in people's piggy banks. After that economy will slow, jobs will be lost - and people will have no safety net left. They will have to take what they can.

Meanwhile, when Mrs May discovered that she didn't have a majority she gave her magic money tree a shake and £1 billion showered down on the DUP - not to mention the £20,000 ticket to fly the DUP leader back to Ulster.

Mrs May needs to realise that she is meant to be looking after the people in this country, not feeding her political ambitions. She needs to lay out her plans and make promises that she means to keep. That way we will at least know what to prepare for, and may even inject some much needed confidence into businesses and investors.

FUD

Mrs May has found a new way to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt. A strategy used to discourage people from switching supplier. However Mrs May has turned it on its head. Instead of spreading disinformation she allows no information out, and this strategy is causing FUD for our own investors. Instead of sticking with us they are starting to leave.

Vauxhall is considering closing their Luton and Ellesmere Port factories (3000 jobs). The makers of the new electric car 'Thunder Power' investigated siting their new factory in the UK, but decided it was too risky, deciding on Spain instead. Nissan, who make up a third of the car manufacturing in the UK, have agreed to continue to invest in their Sunderland plant (7000 jobs) having been given unspecified guarantees by Mrs May - though with 'Dead Duck' May stumbling her way to the chopping block, they may decide to reconsider. How many promises has she kept so far?

The Federation of German Industries -representing 100,000 businesses - are basing their planning on an uncontrolled Brexit, saying, "there is no co-ordinated [UK] government approach". Half of EU businesses with UK suppliers are looking for alternatives.

We are losing direct investment too. Where we used to be the number one destination we are now number five, with current investors looking at cutting back. Ireland is a favoured new destination, English speaking and solidly in the EU, allowing access to the largest single market in the world.

Toshiba has had to buy out the last investor in the Moorside nuclear plant when Engie decided to pull out. As Toshiba's power plant business has collapsed they are desperately looking for alternate investors. Their prospects have not been enhanced by Mrs May wishing to leave Euratom.

Foreign investors are indeed taking advantage of the weak pound to buy up businesses, but clearly this does not create jobs, instead it is draining profits from the UK businesses into the pockets of overseas owners.

The clock is ticking. Businesses need to make investment decisions well ahead. Mrs May needs to tell us and them exactly what is going on.

Nosedive

Many Leave voters were motivated by the idea that immigrants were taking their jobs, filling school places, lengthening NHS queues, that they were forcing down wages and taking up accommodation.

We know that wages and jobs are not affected by immigration. In fact UK businesses need overseas workers to fill jobs. However wages are falling even as prices are rising. The problem is the weak pound is making imports ever more expensive, businesses have to meet the costs somehow - prices go up and wages go down.

What about homes, hospitals and schools?

With the uncertainty of Brexit there is little going on in the housing market. We aren't being told anything, so people are sitting tight. This means that house prices are falling - if no-one's buying and you need to sell, what can you do? At least overseas buyers are celebrating - with the crash in the value of sterling and the desperation of sellers they are cashing in. In one new development only 17 of 282 flats were bought by British residents (15 of those by buy-to-let landlords). The rest are now standing empty or being rented out. 10% of our total UK housing stock is already owned by overseas investors. With wages continuing to fall it is going to become ever harder to buy a house.

Worryingly there has also been a sudden rise in first-time buyers, tempted by the low mortgage rates on offer. As inflation takes off, pushing up mortgage rates, and wages continue to fall they are going to be in a very difficult position. Many have been given their deposit by their parents who have dug into their retirement fund - another ticking time-bomb.

The NHS is suffering the worst backlog of patient treatments for a decade and there are 2.3 million beds blocked by elderly patients who have nowhere to go. Care homes are losing 2000 beds a year and people are living longer, so bed blocking is set to keep increasing. The number of nurses is falling - while the number of applicants for nursing positions has dropped by 95%. Current staff are leaving to stack supermarket shelves. Post-Brexit Mrs May plans to deport EU residents - that's a lot of nurses.

Schools are looking at running a four-day week, increasing class sizes, cutting salaries (UK teachers are already among the lowest paid in Europe), cutting support for vulnerable students, and asking parents for money. Two thirds of schools are cutting staff. In response Mrs May planned to ditch the school lunch and replace it with a cut-price bowl of cereal. Typically she has made a U-turn on that idea. She still want schools to produce savings of £3 billion in the next two years - that is 7% of their budgets.

All of these problems are going to get worse as the economy slows. The pound, wages and confidence will keep falling, prices will keep rising. Mrs May could do something to reduce the damage if she would at least reassure businesses and investors that she has a plan, that she knows what she is doing, that she understands how to pull us out of our economic nosedive.

Well, Mrs May?

Multinational tax

In Ireland Facebook paid €14m tax on a turnover of €8b (around 0.2%). The UK did even worse - Facebook only paid £4000 in tax in 2015. We did do a bit better with Google, finally getting them to agree to pay 3% tax on its profits, after tax officials realised that they were only paying 0.5%.

This is all legal - the companies use their multinational presence to move money around internally and then declare it for tax purposes in places that won't tax them heavily. This is one reason why some Brextremists suggest a low tax, low regulation regime will attract businesses - though it is actually more complicated in real life.

Allowing these companies to pay so little tax means that local businesses cannot compete. It isn't really a surprise that Amazon is stealing trade from your local retailers by undercutting them, not when you realise that Amazon only pays 0.1% tax in the UK on UK sales - they declare their income in Luxembourg.

Of course Luxembourg gets a whole lot more tax - tax on sales by UK businesses to UK customers. So the argument runs why don't we lower our taxes below Luxembourg's and then these multinationals will pay tax here in the UK on all their European sales. I hope you see where this is heading, because clearly the fans of this approach don't.

Luxembourg is hardly going to let us steal their golden goose. They will lower their rate below our new rate. And so it will go on. To 'win' we will have to lower our tax rate to such a point that no other country feels it is worth competing for the tax it brings in.

Possibly a sensible strategy for a small country with nothing much else to offer economically.

The other problem with the idea is that it depends upon the rest of Europe sitting back and letting us siphon off what should be their tax income. Sadly for its proponents this is not likely to happen. In fact the EU is now drawing up plans to impose an EU-wide tax rate, with the tax collected going to the country where sales are made, so that companies can't just choose to nominate a HQ for tax purposes.

This doesn't stop us reducing our own tax rates, but it makes the strategy worse than useless, as our tax take would decrease rather than increase.

Of equal concern is the fact that overseas sellers on these sites often fail to pay VAT. Again the only real way to enforce this is with the cooperation of Amazon, eBay and the rest.

Of course keeping taxes at a fair level might be pointless too. Once we have left the EU we won't have the leverage we have now, so even though the EU will be able to enforce a fair rate of tax, imposing fines for non-compliance, we may just have to settle for what we can get.

Employment up, pay down

The mystery of why Brexit hasn't affected the economy is no mystery. Brexit hasn't happened yet, and Mrs May still hasn't told us anything except that it will happen. Quite what that means no-one seems to know, not even our own chief negotiator, Mr Davis.

Of course the referendum result has affected the economy - the pound has crashed to levels unseen since we were the sick man of Europe. Oddly it has also created a real mystery, while the rate of pay is going down employment is going up.

This is very hard to explain while ignoring the context. We have almost full employment in the UK. As the pool of the unemployed shrinks it becomes harder to find someone to take the job you are offering, so wages are expected to rise.

One possibility is that with welfare cuts people can't afford not to work. Another is that the internet allows employers to advertise more widely and prospective employees to find suitable jobs more quickly.

Neither of those possible explanations seem to cover the actual situation though, as much of the growth has been in skilled occupations.

One obvious solution that has not been suggested is that - as shown by comparing Germany with the UK - immigration creates jobs, skilled jobs. With more people we need more professionals and tradesmen - doctors, plumbers, teachers...

The irony is that that was what a number of Leavers complained about - there not being enough professionals to go around (doctors, plumbers, teachers...). If only they had had a bit of patience then demand would have brought them what they wanted, and it could have been their own children who were given the chance of making good, of stepping onto the ladder of a professional career.

I can safely risk a prediction here - if we do restrict immigration then unemployment will rise. Why is that safe? Because Mrs May says immigration levels might well remain the same post-Brexit, so we will never know.

Preventative medicine

Our National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) suggests that the UK should spend billions of pounds on sending people on healthy eating courses (at £435 a pop). The idea is that by spending the money now we will save far more in the future through the reduced health care costs, as the punters will see the error of their ways, change their lifestyle choices and so avoid long-term ill-health.

A very sensible idea. Hmm, maybe we should do the same for international trading and finance. If we sent everyone who voted Leave on a course explaining what happens when a country leaves a free trade area and tries to make it on its own maybe they would change their behaviour and we could avoid long-term economic ill-health.

Come on Nice, this is very Nanny May. You can try telling people what is 'best' for them, but if you are expecting them to immediately nod their heads, saying, "Oh, I didn't realise! I will rewrite my shopping list right now and join a gym", you will soon be sadly disillusioned.

People aren't stupid, they aren't poorly informed.They have their reasons for what appears to be self-destructive behaviour.

Just as people voted for Leave despite knowing the consequences, people will keep buying cream cakes and driving to work despite knowing the consequences.

Shared values

Mr Rees-Mogg is apparently still a favoured contender to replace Mrs May.

Casting an eye over his CV we see that he is a supporter of zero-hour contracts, and wants to reduce benefits and to remove environmental legislation. He has twice voted to repeal the Human Rights Act and he has questioned whether the poor in Victorian times really were hard done by (I recommend he reads some Dickens, a man who was appalled at the condition of the poor at that time and made a significant difference with his novels).

He is an admirer of Mr Trump, another very rich businessman' (“good for the US [because] he is looking to cut taxes and deregulate”), commenting, "We have so many shared values." As the ex-Labour leader Mr Miliband noted, "The idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief.”

Mr Rees-Mogg also wants immigration to be restricted, was against efforts to make the Conservative party more ethnically diverse, and is a long-time proponent of leaving the EU. Unsurprisingly he pushed for the Conservative party to form an alliance with UKIP.

He advocates reducing our spending on overseas aid (not so Christian after all) and believes that we shouldn't worry about global warming as the UK can't make much difference, we should "put people before polar bears."

No doubt his preferred model for the UK post-Brexit is Singapore-on-Thames: Low business taxes, minimal environmental and employee protection.

Like Mrs May (and Mr Farron, the leader of the Lib Dems until this year) Mr Rees-Mogg is a committed Christian. Unlike them he has consistently voted against same-sex marriage, saying, "I take my whip from the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church rather than the Whip’s Office."

Not only is he strongly against same-sex marriage, he is also absolutely against abortion (including the morning-after pill) in any circumstances, even if the pregnancy is due to rape or incest.

It should come as no surprise then that he strongly supported the Tories getting into bed with the DUP. What's not to like - climate change deniers who are against gay marriage and abortion. If Mr Rees-Mogg really does manage to get his hands on the reins of power it will be interesting to see what the next Tory manifesto contains.

DUPed

The recent general election was one where Labour surged and Tory support slumped, where Conservative ministers lost their safe seats, where Mrs May bought votes in order to retain the slimmest of majorities. Yet Mrs May announced:

“What the country needs now more than ever is certainty.
“Having secured the largest number of votes and greatest number of seats in the general election, it is clear the Conservatives and Unionist party has the legitimacy to provide that.”

Legitimacy? Certainty? It isn't even clear what she meant by legitimacy. Presumably she meant that the combined Tory-DUP vote was 50.3% of the total, and that with 327 of 650 seats (two more than half) their alliance has the balance of control in the Lower House.

On that basis, an alliance of all the non-Tory parties (ignoring Sinn Féin who don't take their seats) would be just as legitimate (326 seats). From her bluster you would hardly imagine that the election demonstrated an increasing distrust of her goals, and a growing rejection of how she is failing to manage Brexit.

This isn't a coalition, this is a marriage of convenience - and a shotgun one at that. The DUP formed as the political representatives of the UDA paramilitary group, and are endorsed by Red Hand Commando, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association. Their Educational Committee is chaired by a creationist, they appointed a climate change denier as Northern Ireland environment minister, and they are anti-abortion and against gay marriage.

The real kicker is that Mrs May's new bed-partners are also the only major NI party which opposed the Good Friday Agreement. This fragile agreement is already threatened by Brexit. The bung of cash is rocking the boat even more. What will she have to promise them when their votes start to really matter?

Mrs May should have a care, trying to cling to power with the help of such friends. Mr Corbyn has suffered for far less. Mrs May is not simply talking to the DUP, she is collaborating with them.

Taking back control

If we leave the EU then from the very moment we secede EU laws cease to apply to us. So far so TBC (Taking Back Control). That is what the Leave campaign promised us, and OK they have reneged on all their other promises, but not TBC - we really are going to regain our sovereignty. Admittedly, to get there we have already had to give up democratic control, but that has been clearly been necessary to stop the wreckers from derailing our two-year plan - well, I say 'plan', we know where we are headed (the sunny uplands) and no doubt we will muddle through somehow.

So will we will be warming our hands at the red tape bonfire in a few months time?

Err, no.

The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which is currently being debated in Parliament, is designed to recycle Brussels red tape directly into UK red tape. Forget bonfire, you won't even be able to light a roll-up of red tape. That's why they changed the name from 'The Great Repeal Bill'.

Why can't we just dump the red tape as Leave promised (so many promises)? Why do we have to stamp it all 'Made in Britain' and force it into our already over-stuffed statute books? Because these laws cover vital areas such as customer protection and safety. We had a strong voice in making them. If we dump them then those protections are lost.

So do we gain more sovereignty? Sort of. The laws are European-wide to help support the four freedoms - free movement of goods, services, capital and people. If we cut all ties with the EU then we could ignore ones we don't like - a win for TBC. However if we wish to keep trading with the EU then our exporters will need to obey the EU rules and won't have any voice in making them - TBC down the tubes. We could of course not bother exporting to the EU. That's 44% of our exports, worth £229 billion.

Surely we don't need all of those laws? No we don't, and some refer to European bodies, so we will need to tweak them. This is the second purpose of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, because there are just too many for Parliament to go through and vote on each change. We need ministers' minions to do the tweaking. So the bill allows minions to amend the laws once they are on our books. This is absolutely necessary and was recommended by the House of Lords constitution committee.

However the government felt that the committee was a bit stingy with the powers they recommended, essentially only allowing necessary changes to the laws. Instead the government's bill would allow any change at all - with no parliamentary oversight (sound familiar?). It would even allow the Withdrawal Act itself to be changed without Parliamentary approval.

Most disturbingly the bill has no 'sunset' clause. Allowing undemocratic control of our laws and freedoms is the constitutional equivalent of martial law. Something done as a last resort, in an emergency situation. To allow such control indefinitely is deeply dangerous.

The present government is asking for these sweeping powers, is trying to extend them as far as possible, and is not willing to limit the time it will have these powers. This is a minority government desperately hanging on, in hock to the fundamentalist DUP, and with Mr Corbyn waiting in the wings. Is this a government we should trust with such power? Why pay so much to Take Back Control if all it means is handing control over to policy wonks in the bowels of Whitehall?

Our real fight right now is the fight against our own government, a fight to retain our democratic control of our own country.

Models

What model should we be planning to use post-Brexit?

Should the UK be working towards the Norwegian model - join the EEA, stay inside the single market, but leave the customs union? Our own Mr Davis refuses to rule it out.

It would be complicated - we would have to have left the EU before joining the EEA. Our proposed membership would have to be agreed by 30 countries, and we would have to allow free movement of goods, services, capital and people. We would have to apply EU rules. We would have to pay the EU for membership. Essentially we would leave the EU, only to rejoin under less favourable terms for fewer benefits. It would be better for business and the UK than falling off the cliff edge, but Brextremists will hear the phrase 'free movement' and go all Bruce Banner on us. Better not.

What about Singapore - with low taxes and few regulations. Given the popularity of the NHS with the Brexit Brigade (whatever did happen to the promised £350m?) their private health system and private pensions, among many other touchy issues, would not play well. Better not.

Go it alone? The WTO model. Jump off the cliff edge into the open arms of...? Sadly initial comments from Mr Trump on sorting a trade deal pronto have proved as reliable as his comments on the direction his navy was headed. The most recent promise is that we will go to the back of the queue. Other important EU trading partners are equally discouraging. Our priority therefore will be to renegotiate a free trade deal with the EU. We already have one and the new one won't be as good, so this seems bizarre. Better not.

Switzerland? No EU, no EEA, with specific sector agreements. The EU isn't keen on this one any more, as they hate cherry-picking, but anyway the Swiss had to agree to free movement - Bruce Banner again. Ironically they also had a referendum which narrowly (50.3%) mandated the government to restrict free movement, but when the EU said that would nullify the agreements the Swiss government decided the economic damage would be too great. Good to see some politicians have their heads screwed on. Anyway, this model looks unattainable. Better not.

A custom union, like Turkey? No customs, no costly documentation. No customs solves the issue of the Irish border. We could negotiate our own free trade deals with countries the EU already has deals with - but only with those, and even then we wouldn't be guaranteed an equal deal, or even a deal at all. Oh dear, Bannered again. Better not.

Canada's CETA? Simply a trade deal, but good model for a trade deal - albeit still unratified. However it doesn't really deal with services which are our main export to the EU. Better not.

An Association Agreement? This looks pretty good - free movement of goods, services and capital, but not people. This is the model Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova all use. Imagine - with Mr Corbyn as PM we could form a new Soviet Union.

Unfortunately to achieve free movement we would need to keep all our current EU trade laws and enact any new ones they add. The EU will also require us to abide by decisions of the ECJ. 'Sovereignty', the Brextremists scream. Better not.

So none of the models will satisfy Brextremists. Anything we do will either ruin us or send them into a rage.

So what about saving a lot of time, a lot of hassle and a lot of money. Simply retain the UK model and ask voters what bits really need to be tweaked.

Odd how no-one has thought of that.

Services down, manufacturing up

Services down, manufacturing up. The fall in the pound is good for exports of manufactured goods (which is why devaluation is a powerful tool - a good reason to stay out of the Euro). However services make up 80% of the UK economy, so we really need to protect the services sector as a priority. Activity in that sector has fallen to an 11-month low - let's not allow it to fall further.

Services include hotels, restaurants, cinemas and so on. A falling pound will be helping them in some ways - we may attract more tourists, more Brits may take their holidays at home. However even those services make most of their income from UK customers, so with prices rising and income falling they are feeling the squeeze. Even if we take Graham's advice there is only so much we can reasonably do ourselves to funnel our own cash into them. Buy British, yes, but wash by hand?

Other services, such as banking, earn significant amounts overseas. The banking sector in particular is a big contributor to the UK's finances.

Cancel Brexit and we don't need to worry about such things, but if we go ahead then it is the duty of our government to make the best deal they can for us. That means minimising the economic damage. That is why the government is talking about transitional arrangements, why the banking sector talks about 'passporting' and why remaining in the the free trade area is vital.

If Brexit goes ahead then we will have to accept that the economy is going to take a hit, so that is why it is vital that we keep as much of our international trade going as possible.

Fact or feeling

We already know that immigrants contribute much more financially to the UK than they take out. We know that we have nearly full employment, so immigrants aren't taking jobs from UK citizens. We know that our birth rate is falling and our retirement is lasting longer, that care homes are becoming crowded with demented senior citizens which we can barely afford to look after - and immigrants are young, they are tax-payers and they will work for long hours and low pay in care homes and the NHS.

So if the referendum was all about immigration surely it would have been a landslide for Remain, to keep our borders open, to encourage people to come and work and pay tax while looking after our elderly and our sick.

Well, we are told it was about immigration - that it was one of the big reasons a third of the electorate chose Leave, to close our borders, to throw out the people who are working, paying tax, caring for our elderly and our sick.

Me? I support immigration, so it is reassuring to know that the Brextremists in charge are now saying that we will have more immigration after Brexit. So my mum will still have care, my dad won't have to wait months for NHS treatment, and the government might still be able to pay my pension in twenty years' time. The Leave campaign lied? No surprise there.

However, if our current coalition of chaos, propped up by fundamentalists supported by terrorists who were bought for £1bn, want a chance in the next election, maybe they should find out what is it about immigration that makes Leavers ready to pay the cost of cutting it?

Previous governments could have cut immigration if they chose years ago, but chose not to because they assumed people wouldn't want to pay. The present government clearly still doesn't want to cut it, but even now they have no idea why so many people do want to and feel so strongly about it.

It seems that finally the government might try and find out some specific facts. Amber Rudd has commissioned a report into the costs and benefits of free movement to the British economy. Admittedly it won't be finished for another year, maybe it will be suppressed, and anyway the government has already outlined its plans, but it may help if it asks difficult questions.

I hope that it won't simply confirm what we already know - how much we benefit from immigration. I hope that it will also tell us why so many people want an end to immigration, and so help us create a compromise that addresses their real concerns without destroying our economy.

We can create a policy based on facts, but if we ignore feelings - well, we end up where we are now.

The People’s March for Europe

“17 million out of 65 million is not an ‘overwhelming majority’”

Tens of thousands of people joined the People’s March for Europe on Saturday, many wearing "Remoaner Till I Die" t-shirts. This march followed last week's Action Day.

There were many speakers, including Conservatives and even ex-staff from the Brexit department.

Conservative peer Baroness Wheatcroft told demonstrators : "We have to stop Brexit. Since we joined the EU we've had an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. It must be right to try and maintain that.

"It's not undemocratic to try to persuade the electorate to think again about Brexit. That's democracy at work."

Mr Chapman, until very recently chief of staff to Mr Davis’s Brexit department, said his ex-boss was a man “without a plan A, let alone a plan B”.

Mr Chapman has also called Mr Davis a lazy three-day-week man. Banners were waved saying of Mr Davis: “Thick as mince, lazy as a toad.” - quoting the ex-head of the Vote Leave campaign, Mr Cummings.

Mr Chapman said, “We are heading to disaster,” he added. “We are heading to a cliff.

“Disgracefully, they [the Government] have refused to publish their own assessment of the impact of Brexit on over 50 sectors. They say it is because it would undermine negotiations.

An ‘autumn of discontent’ is planned, including a demonstration in Manchester on 1 October.

Does this make any difference? It certainly does to me and to others who voted to Remain. One comment from a demonstrator particularly resonated: “I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and tell them, ‘I fought for your future’.”

What about national sentiment? Sunderland voted strongly to Leave in the referendum. A local paper recently published a poll which showed Sunderland would vote Remain now.

We the people may be disenfranchised, with the Brexiteer headbangers' dismissive cry of 'Remoaners', their refusal to allow democratic oversight of negotiations, their refusal to reveal anything about the real consequences, their refusal to allow a democratic vote on the final deal - but they too will pass. Europe will weather this and the British nation will too, and we will once more take up our place in our local Community.

A decision made from the heart

"I voted Leave. Do you think I am stupid? Do you think I was brainwashed? Do you think I did not understand the question asked? All three?"
(Anonymous)

It is sad to see that a Leaver choosing to engage with Remainers decides to call themselves 'anonymous', and it would be interesting to know why.

However to address the points:-

Many Leavers really were taken in by campaign lies (£350m for the NHS, etc), but that doesn't make them stupid or brainwashed. Overly trusting, possibly, not critical enough, maybe. Anyway many weren't taken in, or the promises didn't concern them. The Leavers I know well are all highly educated graduates with professional positions. From talking to them they seem to have voted with their hearts not their heads. One wanted to keep out Syrian Muslims, one wanted to show solidarity with the working class, one isn't very clear on why he did and would now vote the other way - he does work for the NHS so maybe is too embarrassed to admit he fell for the £350m lie. The first, by the way, had a long term relationship with a Latvian and is now marrying a girl from Mumbai, the second's son has married a Cameroonian, the last's daughter has four children with her German partner. Not one of those Leavers are Little Englanders, they travel widely in Europe and at least attempt to speak other languages.

I believe that 'Anonymous' is intelligent, understood the question asked, made their own decision. I also suspect that the decision was from the heart which is often where the best decisions come from, the ones we stick to.

My concern is that the question was so simplistic that it gives no guidance as to what Brexit should look like. Given that only a third of the electorate voted to Leave and a third voted to Remain, the pursuit of a Hard Brexit is quite clearly undemocratic. Giving carte blanche to the hardliners isn't a response to the wishes of the electorate, it is a hijacking. A Hard Brexit will be certainly economically damaging and destabilising for Europe and Ireland even as the world is becoming more dangerous. That is why I voted Remain.

A decision made from the heart doesn't weigh things up dispassionately, so changing facts won't change the decision. This is a serious concern here, as it means that many (most?) Leavers will stick to their decision no matter what. Even if it means hardship for themselves or their family - inflation, jobs lost, falling living standards. It doesn't matter if £350m vanishes in a puff of electioneering, if immigration actually goes up, if the Good Friday agreement fails, if the pound goes into freefall and the promised trade deals never get made.

Leave voters voted to leave the EU, but how many actually wanted what they are now being told they will get? We don't know because they were never asked.

I respect the result of the referendum, but not what is now being done in our names. A slim majority voted Leave in an advisory referendum. Almost as many voted Remain. Yet what is happening now has little to do with the many varied views of the people. Democracy is about compromise. What is the best term for a system controlled by a small group who choose to do things their way without consultation, without informing their citizens of their plans, who ban and demonise opposition?

Say no to human rights

First off, the European Convention on Human Rights and the associated court, the European Court of Human Rights, are nothing to do with the EU.

Confusingly for Brexit headbangers they all have the word 'European' in them, which makes every one of them instantly the worst thing since the invention of straight bananas.

At least, that is the generous interpretation - that ECHR haters hate the fact that the convention is another tangle of foreign red tape that has tied up our national freedom. Of course, for some it may be the 'HR' bit they object to.

The Daily Mail for example. When a couple of Romanians appealed to the court to prevent their deportation from the UK it ran a piece on its front page saying how we should bin the convention.

That is the same Daily Mail that loudly supported the Hillsborough prosecutions. The prosecutions which could not have been started without the ECHR.

So how to sort out this puzzling contradiction? Oh yes - the Romanians were foreign and they were growing cannabis. No doubt that explains it, the only problem the Daily Mail has with the ECHR is that is for everyone, not just the favoured few. Crooks, druggies and foreigners are human too - who knew?

Clearly the Daily Mail's preference would be to replace the ECHR with the FUBCRA - the Fine Upstanding British Citizens' Rights Act.

Fantasy frontier

The border in Ireland is a real poser. No one wants to go back to a 'hard border' but what realistic alternatives are there? The UK government wants it to be some sort of non-border, with no checks, no customs - well, nothing at all, in fact. Clearly that would be a lot cheaper than trying to police 300 crossing points, as well as avoiding annoying the locals - the locals who voted to Remain, and who are still balancing on the precarious Good Friday agreement which aims to keep the peace.

One government suggestion is to 'align' the customs rules of the UK with those of the EU (i.e. any rules they pass we pass). Sounds vaguely sensible, though the red-tape-deniers will be up in arms. Unfortunately simply 'aligning' customs rules doesn't deal with the fact that the EU imposes tariffs on any import from a non-EU country.

Much of the cross-border trade is local, so tariffs would kill that very quickly, both with the increased cost and with the delays imposed. Also it isn't entirely clear how tariff payments will be policed if there are no border checks.

So another idea is that the EU will agree not to charge tariffs on goods from smaller traders and there will be some sort of 'trusted trader' arrangement for larger companies exporting to Eire.

Sounds reasonable, as long as you forget that this is actually a trade deal and so will need to go through the whole process of negotiation - just for starters, what is a 'smaller' trader? If this is agreed then what about the other land borders of the EU? Will the same rules have to apply, or can this be done as a one-off deal? Remember that all the EU states need to agree on this.

Nothing is mentioned about immigrants in the government paper. With Eire in the EU and sharing an unpoliced border with the UK, clearly there are some concerns if you want to keep people out.

A living wage

Polly Toynbee correctly points out that the type of immigration that Brexiteers focus their hate on is poor Europeans willing to leave their home and families to work for wages and in conditions that no born-Briton, capable of "sucking on the tit of the British Welfare State" as one Leave diatribe had it*, would even consider. The best way to reduce that kind of immigration is to raise wages or cut benefits.

After all, in the Good Old Days - before the Evil Empire took over Europe and we were engulfed by red tape wrapped around wonky bananas and foreign-looking people speaking in a funny language - in those days it was honest, hard-working British families that would drown on tidal flats while working for a gang boss.

However, instead of doing it the easy way - say, raise the minimum wage - we have to do it the difficult and incredibly expensive way. Abandon all our free trade deals, force highly-trained NHS staff to leave, lose lucrative financial business (such as Euro clearing), pay bungs to foreign (!) firms so that they don't do a runner...

So, immigration. The current thinking of the government has been leaked (I half expect some Brexiteer to demand the newspaper responsible to be closed down - and string up any judges that disagree) and it is written in very reasonable language.

There will be identity cards, limited job-related work visas, minimum income requirements and heavy restrictions on family members. All for very sensible reasons, clearly explained: Fairness, Britons should come first, no dodgy benefit-tourists to apply. Unfortunately - as free movement will be restricted right after exit - we will have to leave the single market immediately, with no transitional period.

Crowd-pleasing, and who could object to such reasonable ideas, even if it does require us to step off the cliff-edge (oddly, that is never explicitly stated in the document). But does it address the issues that Leavers voted about?

Will it help our NHS? What highly-skilled specialist would want to come under such rules? What trained nurse will apply? So wards will close and waiting lists will get longer. The Vote Leave promise of £350 million a week for the NHS was dumped as soon as they won.

Will it create jobs? We already have full employment. Even the Leave campaign admitted that we are in for some economic problems as we exit the EU, so jobs will be destroyed rather than created.

Will it increase wages? The plan is to allow low-skilled immigrants in for short periods. These are the people who do those necessary but nasty jobs - low-paid and often temporary. These are the only jobs where immigrant workers do seem to affect wages. So no wage increases then.

It should please Farage though - he won't have to share his train carriage with foreigners as they won't be able to afford the ticket, not on their wages.


*Actually I think they were trying to demonise immigrants, but the number of British citizens on benefits is far far greater, and figures show that immigrants pay more into the system then they take out.

Dead duck walking

No wonder Mr Corbyn is talking so confidently about leading the next government. In the last election he was predicted to sink without trace, and instead he led the Labour Party to a quite respectable second place, taking enough seats from Mrs May that she was forced into a marriage of convenience with the DUP - paying a very stiff dowry.

Despite the disaster of the tactical snap election, which converted a wafer-thin majority into a coalition of chaos, Mrs May intends to lead the Conservatives into the next election. She has fired her advisors, she has played Shuffle-My-Cabinet, she hasn't made any recent U-turns. Is that enough to turn the tide?

Who knows. The pundits failed to predict either the referendum result or the snap election result. Were the swing voters voting for Mr Corbyn or against Mrs May? Labour Party membership is on the slide. We may have reached peak-Corbyn. Against that, it still isn't clear what Mrs May intends, not even on Brexit. Our poor negotiators have no idea. Even Mrs May seems to have no idea.

So why aren't the ambitious party hacks sharpening their knives? There was an embarrassment of choice when Mr Cameron left the leadership up for grabs. This time round, when strong and stable leadership is needed, they shuffle and look at their feet.

Still, you can hardly blame them. Who wants to be remembered as the Prime Minister who oversaw a disaster? As we stumble blindly towards the cliff edge, the time available to take back control is becoming too short. Far better to take the helm once the worst is (we hope) over, and be credited as the leader who guided us out of the maelstrom, rather than the one who led us into it.

Austerity is so last year

Why does Mrs May say that austerity is over? Clearly it isn't because our national overdraft has doubled since austerity began. It isn't because things are going to get worse economically (as all parties agree) - normally if your income goes down you tighten your belt, you don't go on a spending spree.

Clearly there must be strong reasons to spend rather than to save. To splash out on HS2 (£40 billion - costing ten times what it would in France), pour another billion into benefits, and another billion into roads while freezing fuel duty.

After five years the electorate has become sick of austerity. So it could simply be a way to keep us happy. With a wafer-thin majority, shored up by the DUP (bought at the cost of a further £1 billion), why not offer bread and circuses to keep the masses quiet.

It could be an attempt to jump-start the economy, to try to lift our abysmal national productivity, though with near full employment and the prospect of exports crashing as we painstakingly renegotiate all our trade deals, this seems unlikely.

Maybe it is a punt on the likely future of inflation. It has been very low for a long time, but it is already creeping up - price inflation is now above wage inflation, which is why that pound in your pocket seems to buy you less every month. If the government borrows now and repays the debt some years in the future then they will be paying back less than they borrowed. The worse inflation is the more they save. Right now is a good time to borrow - once inflation really ramps up then lenders will want more interest to keep up with it.

Of course, that strategy only makes sense if the government spends the money sensibly. Spend it on glitz and baubles and they still have to pay it off, with nothing to show for it.

Sovereigns

OK, it isn't much, but it is heartening that at least one Leave supporter has woken up from the dream that was spun during the referendum campaign. As she says,  “We moan about the EU and the people in charge over there - but look what we’ve got here."

The problem is that she no longer has a vote. She used the only one that she was allowed, she let the siren song of our cuddly Boris seduce her, and she voted to steer HMS Britannia into the shoals of Brexit.

Ironically there will be no second referendum, and her MP - her democratic representative in Parliament - will not have a vote on the final deal. Her regret is pointless. We are not allowed to change our minds. Ironic because the cry of the Brexiteers as they waved their flag of free trade was "DEMOCRACY!". And what does democracy mean for them? They told us: “If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.”

So what are we heading for? What do these part-time self-styled democrats intend? Why is a core aim to throw aside the European Court of Justice? A court that an EU citizen can appeal to if they fear their national government is being unjust. Why did the Brexiteers call for judges to be dismissed when a ruling displeased them? Why do they support a Repeal Bill giving the government unparalleled power to change the law at will without oversight by our elected representatives?

Their other rallying cry was 'sovereignty' - and of course the powers the Repeal Bill would grant are ones another sovereign, King Henry VIII, granted himself. He also broke with the Continent, he also put himself above the law, his supporters murdered in his name. I had thought that we had dispensed with sovereigns, but is their time here again?

Reasons to be cheerful

Brexit won't be all bad.

It may well lead to increases in Britain's woeful productivity (only Italy is as unproductive as us). If David Davis can be stopped from keeping the borders open then firms will need to train UK citizens.

Brexit may also help to even out the national spread of wealth. Britain has nine of the ten poorest regions in Northern Europe and one of the richest ten, in fact the very richest - Inner London. We are the most unequal country in Northern Europe. Currently, of course, the EU supports our poor regions with grants and subsidies. Those will clearly disappear.

So how might Brexit ease inequality? Remember that 40% of our exports are financial services, and these all come from London. Post-Brexit, with passporting rights lost, with the Euro clearing business gone and so on, London will no longer be as rich, reducing inequality.

It will stop those dole bludgers from leeching off the rest of us. You know the ones - born-and-bred UK citizens who think the country owes them a living. With the economic problems mounting they will soon have to take a job or starve. Fruit picking is hard (I managed just a day of it - fortunately I have marketable skills so I had a choice) but it is an honest job.

Foreign holidays will once again become a perk of the rich,, what with sterling tanking and airlines relocating to Europe, funnelling business back to all those Great British resorts - Blackpool, Margate, Clackton, and so on. If you can't hack fruit picking you could always get a job as a waitress or chambermaid in a resurgent seaside resort. Jobs that are currently dismissed as "for foreigners" but will soon be just for us. I've done both those jobs and they're not too bad. No real prospects, but at least you are inside.

If you aren't on the dole then you should be making plans to keep ahead of these changes, and even cash in. If you are currently working in finance in London then sell your house right now and snap up some properties to run as bed-and-breakfasts - look through magazines from the 40's and 50's to pick a likely holiday spot. No point in waiting till your company relocates - you'll be out of a job and property prices will be spiralling down by then.

Alternatively you could always emigrate.

Dunkirk

So we need the Dunkirk spirit now to see us through Brexit, according to the Brexit cheerleaders.

It is hardly worth deriding this, nor is it worth pointing out that this is a different song to the one that the Leave campaign was singing prior to the referendum. However it is worth challenging the intended message - that we have to suffer now but we will then reach those sunny uplands of victory.

The best analysis is by Jenni Russell. She points out that our status as the world's fifth biggest economy rests on our membership of the EU. In the same way that an assembly line worker can produce far more than a piece worker due to the efficiencies specialisation allows, the members of the EU work together as a group to enrich every member. For a start half of our import/export trade is with the EU. Many of the items we add value to are created from items imported from the EU and the finished product exported back there. With tariffs and custom delays the economics will work against us. Our current partners will become our competitors, and their products will be cheaper.

Ms Russell also highlights our economic weaknesses and dearth of skills. Currently businesses are employing overseas workers as these workers have necessary skills which UK citizens do not have or they are willing to do menial work and accept low wages. My favourite sidelight on this is the comment from two unemployed UK women living on benefits - benefits they regard as too low right now. Both are Leavers who want reduced immigration - but who won't waitress or serve in a shop: "They're immigrant jobs."

On the bright side, if Brexit really does lead to reduced immigration (something looking less and less likely) then this will at least force industry and business to train UK citizens to do the jobs currently beyond our collective skills, and it will force companies to pay better wages to the unskilled. Though businesses may choose instead to relocate overseas or just close. Clearly either response will lead to further economic disruption, job losses, higher prices and lower living standards, but many Leave supporters are willing to take the pain (and for their family to suffer too).

Of course, this training will only happen if immigration is reduced dramatically and employing foreigners with needed skills is strongly discouraged (forget points-based systems). Even if such measures are put in place our home-grown skilled workers may well then emigrate in search of higher wages and better living standards. Sadly, 'controlling our borders' allows us to keep people out, but it is much harder in a democracy to keep people in.

This is not another Dunkirk. We are not at war with Europe. Our retreat is self-imposed, not a desperate response to an impossible situation. It is a misguided attempt to deal with real concerns, an attempt that can only make things worse. Sadly, in this case we do not have a rich and powerful ally who can help us regroup and 'win'.

Is Mr Johnson "a nasty piece of work"?

Is Mr Johnson "a nasty piece of work"? Eddie Mair's comment surprises us because Mr Johnson presents a 'hail fellow well met' persona, but is Mr Mair correct?

Mr Johnson, like Mr Farage, had a privileged upbringing, studying at Eton then Oxford. He was president of the Oxford Union and a member of the Bullingdon Club. He is lazy, trying to do as little as he can get away with: "When I was about 16 I worked ferociously hard for two terms and laid the foundations for all future activity - I thereafter never really did any academic work." (His university tutor believes he could have achieved a First if he had worked.)

He is a philanderer, just as his father was. One of Boris Johnson's mistresses describes him as "a loner... who wants to be loved by the whole world", and believes that explains his ambition to be PM. She also says he lies to avoid trouble. Hardly something we want in a leader. And not only does he betray his wife but he betrays his friends.

Certainly Mr Johnson has proved himself a liar. He was fired from The Times for inventing a quote. He was dismissed from the Front Bench for lying to his party leader. He promised as part of his Mayoral manifesto not to close a single Underground ticket office then closed them all. He promised not to cut the London Fire Service while knowing he was going to fire 600 firefighters, close 10 stations and remove 27 fire engines (of even greater concern post-Grenfell). He promised the 'Boris bikes' (actually conceived of by his predecessor) would not need public funds then subsidised them to the tune of £11 million a year (the Paris scheme earns £13 million a year). He approved the Greenwich cable car (rejected by his predecessor on economic grounds) again promising no public funding would be needed - the cost to tax payers so far is £16 million. His 'New Bus for London' was to be paid for by industry but TfL ended up having to pay for development (£11 million) and the resulting buses are mobile saunas costing double what a regular bus costs - no one is buying any more of them, not even London. Not to mention his Orbit tower - £3 million to build and currently costing us half a million a year to maintain.

Fortunately the new Mayor, Sadiq Khan, managed to halt Mr Johnson's most expensive vanity project, the 'Garden Bridge', but only after £38 million of public funds had been spent on it (without a single stone laid). A project reeking of cronyism and lies, with costs undisclosed or worse: “The maintenance cost will not be borne by the public sector, I’ve made that clear,” was his public claim, “The mayor has agreed in principle to provide such a guarantee [for maintenance costs]" was what the sponsors were told. The project is now the subject of four official enquiries, looking at the suspect procurement process and where the money has gone and how it was spent so quickly. Given that the pair who selected the bid then took up senior positions at the firm that won, these are serious questions.

Mr Johnson is popularly associated with the London Olympic Games, though the successful bid was headed by his predecessor. Its legacy however was under Mr Johnson's control - whereupon promised affordable housing vanished and the athlete's village was sold off at a knock-down price. His claim that he built more affordable housing than his predecessor is entirely undermined by the fact that he redefined 'affordable' to mean up to 80% of the market rate, breaking the link with local incomes. So an 'affordable' house in Westminster would require an annual income of £109,000. He intervened in disputed housing schemes, allowing as few as 12% of the planned houses to be 'affordable' ones, even at the Boris rate, far far short of the 50% target, and accepting densities above his own guidelines. He even removed social rented housing from the London Plan.

He blusters and evades when interviewed, rarely giving a straight answer to any question. The most common description of him is 'a buffoon', and he even says of himself: "The inner buffoon has a way of emerging!". He regards his gaffes and inappropriate comments as humorous and forgivable, even joking he would have to add further nations to his "global itinerary of apology".

Nasty? Or pitiable? At any rate, not someone to be trusted with the UK's future.

Is Mr Farage a racist?

Is Mr Farage a racist? As an MEP he sits with Far Right parties. He refers to Enoch Powell as a 'great man'. He feels "uncomfortable" when on a train where he can hear no English being spoken, and has said he does not want to live “in a country where people speak different languages”. He believes there is a difference between living next to Romanians and living next to Germans, but is afraid to spell it out ("You know what the difference is," he tells the interviewer).

Mr Farage has the common touch, but has led a privileged life. The son of a stockbroker he was educated at Dulwich College. His house is worth £500K, he has said his EU salary and expenses were worth £250K a year given “all the games you could play”, not to mention his wife's £30K a year. Yet he claims to be poor.

He has refused to allow his expenses as an MEP to be audited, echoing Mr Trump's break with Presidential tradition. He set up an overseas trust fund to avoid tax despite declaring, "rich people, successful companies evading tax, which of course is a problem, avoiding tax". He pays fees for his public appearances into a company so that he need only pay 20% tax on them. As a businessman he was company secretary to a family business that was wound up owing £170,000 to creditors.

He has lied about the aim of the Leave campaign, and the cost of leaving. He's still at it - only a few weeks ago he claimed Article 50 said the UK didn't have to pay anything to leave the EU.

A racist? An elitist? Certainly he demonises foreignness, and believes some people are more foreign than others. Hardly what we want in a leader if we are trying to forge trade relationships with any country that will deal with us.

How to Leave the EU

Easy: Lie.

You should promise things you can't deliver - then deny you promised them.

For example £350 million a week for the NHS.

Or what about the single market. This is what they said in the campaign:

• ‘I’d vote to stay in the single market. I’m in favour of the single market.’ Boris Johnson
• ‘Only a madman would actually leave the [single] market.’ Owen Patterson
• ‘Increasingly, the Norway model looks best for the UK.’ Arron Banks, co chair and main funder of Leave.EU (Norway is in the single market)
• ‘Absolutely no-one is talking about threatening our place in the single market.’ Dan Hannan, the anti-EU Tory MEP who doesn't understand GCSE economics
• 'Wouldn’t it be terrible if we were really like Norway and Switzerland? Really? They’re rich. They’re happy. They’re self-governing.' Nigel Farage, Ukip leader (...and they are also members of the single market)

This is what they said after the campaign:

• 'When it comes to the single market, you don't have to be in it to win it.' Boris Johnson
• 'Leaving the single market and the customs union are prerequisites for expanding our trade around the world.’ Owen Patterson
• 'Leaving EU means leaving the single market and I will continue to campaign for it.' Arron Banks
• 'Britain, as a relatively large economy which exports more to non-EU than to EU markets, would be better off trading freely with the single market than belonging to it.' Dan Hannan, who doesn't understand the 'four freedoms' either
• 'I don't want to be part of the European single market', Nigel Farage

(You can watch a mashup of these too.)

These are the people who wanted Parliamentary sovereignty - but only when it suited them. Parliament apparently cannot have sovereignty over 'the will of the people'.

David Davis - who is in charge of negotiations - adds a whole list of unmet - even unachievable -  commitments to the above: planning our strategy before triggering Article 50; striking deals with separate EU countries; concluding all our trade deals by 2019; retaining our current trade deals; And so it continues. Now the double-talk is about the 'transition period' - or should it be an 'implementation period'?

The Right Dishonourable Boris Johnson

“EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU.

“British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down. As the German equivalent of the CBI – the BDI – has very sensibly reminded us, there will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market.

“Britain is and always will be a great European power, offering top-table opinions and giving leadership on everything from foreign policy to defence to counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing – all the things we need to do together to make our world safer.”

That was Mr 'Cake' Johnson in a newspaper article he wrote post-referendum. Despite these promises, he also believes "It would be perfectly OK if we weren't able to get an agreement", and he admits that leaving the EU means leaving the single market ,though of course, "I’d vote to stay in the single market. I’m in favour of the single market." So why did he lead the Leave campaign?

Mr Johnson is now Foreign Secretary. His appointment to such an important and delicate position, one that until now required some skill at being diplomatic, was a bit of a surprise to world leaders. Apparently he has ambitions on the top job.

Certainly Mrs 'U-turn' May has done an embarrassingly poor job so far. She won't tell anybody anything about her plans, and back-pedals on those policies that she does announce or lets them fade into the background.

But would the push-me-pull-you Mr Johnson be an improvement? His gaffes are embarrassing enough without having them come from our Prime Minister. He blusters to disguise his crowd-pleasing insincerity. He lacks any goal but power and popularity. He wants to be loved. We in the UK may already be figures of pity but there is no need to compete with the USA to become figures of scorn, with a comedy leadership, making statements to gain airtime rather than further the UK's best interests.

He shouldn't even be Foreign Secretary. His casual, self-serving attitude is not fitting for a post which affects our international standing - especially if we intend to set up individual free trade negotiations with every country in the world. If he thinks that our current negotiations don't matter, getting an agreement doesn't matter, that respect and politeness are unnecessary, then he should be kept well away from anything to do with our future trading partners, especially our biggest - the EU.

Surely he would be better suited to being the Arts and Leisure minister? Or maybe simply court jester?

What's it worth?

Two-thirds of the electorate voted in the referendum, and half of those chose Leave. The Leave campaign was clear that leaving the EU would be expensive - saying the price was worth paying in order to reduce immigration and regain sovereignty. The campaign was deliberately vague about the cost, instead making claims about savings on membership dues (which the leaders then denied making).

So how much would the British people be willing to pay?

One recent survey shows unsurprisingly that Remainers don't want to pay anything, preferring the economic boost of managed immigration. Interestingly though Leavers are evenly split between those who won't pay and those who will pay a sizeable chunk of their income to have closed borders. There are even a fair number who would accept family members losing their jobs.

So are the won't-pay Leavers pro-immigration and pro-free trade, wanting us to become a Singapore-on-Thames? Or are they anti-immigration but were bamboozled by the Leave rhetoric and didn't really understand that control of immigration is expensive, whether we are in or out of the EU. EU countries do have control of their borders, our previous governments simply didn't want to pay the cost.

It isn't simply that borders costs money to control, but the effect of reduced immigration on our wider economy will be worse. Who is going to pick our crops? Who is going to nurse our sick and elderly? If you voted Leave then I hope you are ready to help out - half the jobs created in the last ten years are currently filled by EU workers. We have near full employment. When they leave who is going to do those jobs?

29% of households still think Brexit will be good economically (down from 39% last year). Presumably those households voted Leave. When will all Leave voters face up to the real financial cost of getting what they asked for?