Our chancellor, Mr Hammond, is putting aside £3 billion over the next two years to pay for Brexit preparations. This is despite the poor state of the economy and the falling tax yield. So where has he found the money?
Cleverly he has taken it out of budgets devoted to... preparing for Brexit!
The Department of International Trade is giving up £0.2 billion - just when they need to be negotiating all those trade deals. Still - being positive - the chief Brexiteers say that these will be easy to sort out.
The Foreign Office is giving up £1.6 billion - just when we will need to put embassies in all EU countries. Of course, the majority of that could well be saved by keeping our foreign secretary, Mr Johnson, safely at home and well away from anything sensitive.
HM Revenue and Customs is donating £0.6 billion - just when we are going to have to beef up our borders.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs loses £0.2 billion - just when farmers are demanding that the EU subsidies they will lose are replaced by UK subsidies.
Mr Hammond is still half a billion short, but no doubt the Russians would be happy to make up the rest. After all, they have already put a lot of money into supporting Leave, so it would make sense to help us get on with it.
Sunday, 11 February 2018
Saturday, 10 February 2018
Slide to the bottom
The Brexit cheerleaders promised us we would keep the EU as a trading partner and gain a global marketplace. They are now loudly shouting for no-deal - "Who needs stuffy old Europe when we can trade with the world?!"
So we won't keep our lucrative tariff-free trade with the EU, trade that makes up 52% of our (non-gold) exports.
We were told that it would be simple to roll-over trade deals done under the EU umbrella. Now we are told it won't necessarily be simple, but it is possible. Probably.
At least we will be freed of those pesky EU rules that prevented us striking our own deals - sovereignty over trade deals is definitely a Brexit win.
So it is. We can offer deals to anyone we want. Of course, we must offer something worth having. Currently we are offering a deal to the Saudis - if they float Saudi Aramco (the world's largest company offering the world's largest float) in London then we will change the rules so it is classified as 'premium' not 'standard'.
Simple indeed - relax the rules to win big. New York is the world's biggest securities centre but it won't get the Saudi's business as New York is too fond of its reputation for high standards. Of course the reason that it is the world's biggest securities centre is its reputation for high standards.
A trade deal with America? No problem, as long as we relax food safety standards.
A trade deal with Japan? No problem, as long as we ...
The Brexiteers' aim of a low regulation, low (corporate) tax Britain spooks the EU. They don't want Singapore-Upon-Thames as their nearest neighbour, a European sweatshop with a relatively educated workforce and comparatively low corruption index. If we head that way then they will put up hefty trade barriers to keep us from out-competing them.
What no-one has acknowledged is that if the EU can't keep us tied into the single market then we will deregulate. We will have to light that red-tape bonfire so beloved of Brexiteers or become a closed, low-export economy. Though it won't be a bonfire, it will be a slow smoulder: a rule here, a regulation there. Standards relaxed, health risks downplayed.
Not a race so much as a slide to the bottom.
So we won't keep our lucrative tariff-free trade with the EU, trade that makes up 52% of our (non-gold) exports.
We were told that it would be simple to roll-over trade deals done under the EU umbrella. Now we are told it won't necessarily be simple, but it is possible. Probably.
At least we will be freed of those pesky EU rules that prevented us striking our own deals - sovereignty over trade deals is definitely a Brexit win.
So it is. We can offer deals to anyone we want. Of course, we must offer something worth having. Currently we are offering a deal to the Saudis - if they float Saudi Aramco (the world's largest company offering the world's largest float) in London then we will change the rules so it is classified as 'premium' not 'standard'.
Simple indeed - relax the rules to win big. New York is the world's biggest securities centre but it won't get the Saudi's business as New York is too fond of its reputation for high standards. Of course the reason that it is the world's biggest securities centre is its reputation for high standards.
A trade deal with America? No problem, as long as we relax food safety standards.
A trade deal with Japan? No problem, as long as we ...
The Brexiteers' aim of a low regulation, low (corporate) tax Britain spooks the EU. They don't want Singapore-Upon-Thames as their nearest neighbour, a European sweatshop with a relatively educated workforce and comparatively low corruption index. If we head that way then they will put up hefty trade barriers to keep us from out-competing them.
What no-one has acknowledged is that if the EU can't keep us tied into the single market then we will deregulate. We will have to light that red-tape bonfire so beloved of Brexiteers or become a closed, low-export economy. Though it won't be a bonfire, it will be a slow smoulder: a rule here, a regulation there. Standards relaxed, health risks downplayed.
Not a race so much as a slide to the bottom.
Sunday, 4 February 2018
Brexiteers' funding
The Electoral Commission says it has "reasonable grounds to suspect an offence may have been committed" by the Vote Leave campaign. The offence relates to over-spending - there is a £7 million spending limit per organisation. When Vote Leave came near to their limit they 'donated' money to two other groups. This is allowed as long as it really is a donation with no strings attached. In this case it seems that the two groups spent the money as they were directed to by Vote Leave.
One of the beneficiaries was a fashion student who ran the BeLeave campaign. He personally (not his campaign) was 'given' £625,000 in cash (he was eligible to spend a maximum of £700,000) according to Vote Leave, but he says he never received it - the money went straight from Vote Leave to AggregateIQ (which Vote Leave used to place online ads). Vote Leave also 'donated' £100,000 to Veterans for Britain - again the money went to AggregateIQ.
So Vote Leave, having spent £6.8 million, paid AggregateIQ a further £725,000 using the thinnest of cover stories, taking them well over their spending limit.
Meanwhile, the other big anti-EU campaign, Leave.EU, is under investigation to see whether the donations it received were from overseas - another breach of electoral law. An American billionaire, Mr Mercer, told his data analytics company to provide services to Leave.EU for free. By law any donation of services worth more than £7,500 must be reported, but Leave.EU ignored this.
The technology itself is disturbing - the company harvested people's data from social media, using it to spread through their social networks in order to build a profile and then serve targeted adverts designed specifically for them.
Gibraltar is separately investigating the tax affairs of STM Group, which owns Leave.EU as a subsidiary. Leave.EU's founder, Arron Banks, had a major shareholding in STM Group. The investigation follows on from regulatory enforcement action taken by Gibraltar's financial regulator against the company Southern Rock Insurance. A company that has Mr Banks for its chief executive.
Mr Banks has in fact set up a number of different companies, registered at Companies House under different variations of his name. He has refused to explain his reasons for doing this.
Would it have made any difference if Vote Leave and Leave.EU had been honest in their campaign finances? Who can say. More importantly, why are their directors so desperate to break with the EU that they will break the law? What makes it worth many millions of pounds to them (Mr Banks donated at least £5 million to the campaigns)? Why do they and their political mouthpieces want Britain to leap off the cliff edge?
Escaping EU regulations would suit Mr Banks and his financier friends very nicely. The irony may be that the economic crunch will push Labour into power, with their policies of high corporate taxes and public ownership. Though given that one of Mr Banks's UK businesses only paid £12,000 tax on turnover of £19.7 million (due to "administrative expenses") he may not worry overmuch about taxes going up.
One of the beneficiaries was a fashion student who ran the BeLeave campaign. He personally (not his campaign) was 'given' £625,000 in cash (he was eligible to spend a maximum of £700,000) according to Vote Leave, but he says he never received it - the money went straight from Vote Leave to AggregateIQ (which Vote Leave used to place online ads). Vote Leave also 'donated' £100,000 to Veterans for Britain - again the money went to AggregateIQ.
So Vote Leave, having spent £6.8 million, paid AggregateIQ a further £725,000 using the thinnest of cover stories, taking them well over their spending limit.
Meanwhile, the other big anti-EU campaign, Leave.EU, is under investigation to see whether the donations it received were from overseas - another breach of electoral law. An American billionaire, Mr Mercer, told his data analytics company to provide services to Leave.EU for free. By law any donation of services worth more than £7,500 must be reported, but Leave.EU ignored this.
The technology itself is disturbing - the company harvested people's data from social media, using it to spread through their social networks in order to build a profile and then serve targeted adverts designed specifically for them.
Gibraltar is separately investigating the tax affairs of STM Group, which owns Leave.EU as a subsidiary. Leave.EU's founder, Arron Banks, had a major shareholding in STM Group. The investigation follows on from regulatory enforcement action taken by Gibraltar's financial regulator against the company Southern Rock Insurance. A company that has Mr Banks for its chief executive.
Mr Banks has in fact set up a number of different companies, registered at Companies House under different variations of his name. He has refused to explain his reasons for doing this.
Would it have made any difference if Vote Leave and Leave.EU had been honest in their campaign finances? Who can say. More importantly, why are their directors so desperate to break with the EU that they will break the law? What makes it worth many millions of pounds to them (Mr Banks donated at least £5 million to the campaigns)? Why do they and their political mouthpieces want Britain to leap off the cliff edge?
Escaping EU regulations would suit Mr Banks and his financier friends very nicely. The irony may be that the economic crunch will push Labour into power, with their policies of high corporate taxes and public ownership. Though given that one of Mr Banks's UK businesses only paid £12,000 tax on turnover of £19.7 million (due to "administrative expenses") he may not worry overmuch about taxes going up.
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