Poor management and under-investment - what's wrong with UK businesses

Foreign-owned businesses in the UK are at least 50% more productive than British owned ones. The issues home-grown businesses struggle with are low productivity, poor management and under-investment.

If we leave the EU then our own businesses are going to have to up their game, both to fill the gaps left as the foreign-owned businesses shut up shop here, and in order to compete on the world market.

What do they need to do?

Skills

Two-thirds of employers say they are suffering a skills shortage, but even so only 40% intend to recruit more skilled staff - the lowest since the first survey in 2013. 43% of young workers (18 to 34-year olds) believe that career opportunities in high-skill areas will be better overseas post-Brexit. - almost half of those are considering moving abroad to chase such jobs.

Productivity and investment

The UK's low productivity means it takes us a week to produce what our neighbours make in four days. Automation and training are the solution to the productivity gap, but investment would be needed - and isn't happening. The imminent prospect of Brexit under a weak leader, undermined by a split party, is discouraging companies from making any firm plans. It is far safer to simply employ more unskilled staff who can be shed when Brexit happens and times become harder.

The lack of investment is most obvious in manufacturing where total capital assets have fallen by £30 billion since 2012 - a 10% reduction. When compared with staffing levels this is a fall of 4% per employee. Other sectors have increased their total assets, but as they have also increased staffing they too show a reduction in investment per employee. This is not due to reduced profitability, which has remained at around 12% since 2010 and increased to 15.3% this year, instead the firms are sitting on cash piles waiting to see what happens in a few months' time.

Businesses aren't even investing their cash in other assets or stocks. Asset and share prices are so high now that they don't offer good returns, and there is also the concern that there will be a serious slump after Brexit, with asset values tumbling.

Keeping cash instead of putting it into productive investments means that the firms are not making money from it, in fact with interest rates so low the cash is losing value every year.

Overseas investors

So why are asset prices so high? Simply because interest rates all around the world are low, so overseas investors are looking for places to put their money. The large drop in sterling's value since the referendum has made UK investments look very cheap when bought in dollars or yen. This has also allowed foreign buyers to snap up assets such as property - almost all (94%) of London property sold in the last quarter was bought by overseas investors.

However, business investment in the UK by overseas companies has dropped by 9% - and far more in some industries. For example, the car industry is very exposed to Brexit risks (mainly tariffs). Investment there has dropped from £2.5 billion to around £0.7 million.

This is the wrong way round - we shouldn't be selling up our assets in some sort of national fire sale. Instead, we should be pulling in overseas investment, increasing the value of UK businesses and their profits, which will in turn increase the value of our own shares in them, the tax paid by them, the wages paid to their employees and the knock-on economic boost to their local area.

How do we convince investors that they should invest?

We need to have a coordinated business policy. This requires us to sort out Brexit right now. It would be best to stay in the single market (as Leave promised) but even a clear decision to jump off the cliff edge together with intelligent policies to deal with the fallout would be better than the current fog.

We cannot afford to lose the confidence of investors just when we are putting barriers up between ourselves and the largest market in the world.

Soft power, hard power and Brexit

Britain is home to four of the world's largest law firms. Our legal industry earns £25 billion a year - £5 billion from overseas. A lot of the business is done with Europe - British lawyers can represent clients in EU courts and interpret EU laws. However after Brexit they may lose this privilege. Clients may also disappear - a lot of the work (44%) is related to financial services. If we lose 'passporting rights' then a proportion of this will disappear.

With the drop in business and restrictions on overseas students meaning fewer studying English law, our 'soft power' will be reduced.

Furthermore, as one of the largest economies in the EU we had a lot of influence over policy, and the EU is the largest economy in the world. That has let us leverage our influence very effectively, granting us much greater hard (military and economic) and soft power than we will have once we are out.

Already our growth is falling behind that of the world's leading economies. We are now in the 'second tier', ranked with Japan and Italy, and by next year the IMF predict we will be the bottom of the league with growth of 1.5% against the US/Eurozone's 2.5%. As a consequence, this year we have already fallen from being ranked as the fifth largest world economy to the seventh.

Economists blame high inflation, weak investment and poor productivity. All caused or aggravated by the uncertainty around Brexit.

Worse, we are squabbling amongst ourselves. In England the two leading parties are both deeply divided. Mrs May is briefed against by her own cabinet ministers and appears unable to hold any 'red line' at all. Her government is hostage to a small NI party with very different interests from hers. In Scotland there is still a prospect of another independence referendum: The Scottish parliament has overwhelmingly voted against the EU Withdrawal Bill due to concerns about a Westminster power grab - the bill grants complete control of certain areas to Westminster, not even granting a veto to Holyrood. Even sentiment in Northern Ireland is swaying towards a union with the south as the border issue remains unresolved - crashing out of the EU will be hardest by far on Northern Ireland.

We are still a nuclear power (though Mr Corbyn will change that if he ever can), we still attract overseas investment (though it has already fallen 9% since the Brexit referendum), we have some of the best fintech in the world (though those firms are being tempted to relocate to the Continent as Brexit nears).

What we lack is a decisive leader, backed by her party, with clear objectives aimed at improving UK productivity, attracting more foreign investment, and encouraging innovation and investment in our own companies. Someone who will at the same time ensure that the wealth generated is shared around rather than captured by the richest 1%.

Once Brexit is settled, however it is, our political parties need to put the current divisions behind them and find that leader.

Free trade and the USA

Where are those trade deals we were promised? According to the Brexit cheerleaders we would have a queue forming at our national door, hoping to strike an agreement with us. The EU would be first - Mr Davis said it would be the easiest deal ever done. Then the USA, followed by everyone else. The gold at the end of the Brexit rainbow was increased trade and reduced immigration.

So they were wrong - but worse, the reality for trade post-Brexit is the opposite of what they promised us (and we still don't know what is going to happen about immigration).

The president of the European Council, Mr Tusk, has said "Ireland first" - before talks can progress the Irish border arrangements must be sorted out. The EU won't accept a hard border between North and South as part of the deal. It isn't even a ploy - clearly we can't make any real progress in trade arrangements when we don't even know how the land border between the UK and EU will operate.

OK, so maybe while we scratch our heads about Ireland we can at least suck up to the US. We have already invited the President over, and gave him the royal treatment. Maybe we should appoint Mr Farage as our US ambassador.

If only Mr "America First" Trump could be so easily won over. Mr Trump is not a big fan of free trade. We have already had to fight protectionist tariffs of 292% (yes, two hundred and ninety-two percent - turning a £10 component into a £40 one) that he wanted to put on aircraft imports, threatening the future of at least one large factory in Northern Ireland. Mrs May repeatedly pleaded with him to reconsider but he ignored her. Fortunately for us his own US International Trade Commission ruled the tariffs to be illegal.

Now he has imposed punitive duties on imported steel. We export around 15% of our steel to the US, exports worth £360 million. Mrs May has again appealed to him to reconsider but he has simply responded that if we retaliate then he will put tariffs on cars too.

Government analysis shows that around half of the trade benefits of leaving the EU would have come from a US-UK deal. A deal that is looking more and more remote by the day.

Fortunately, the Brextremists are nothing but adaptable. As they haven't put any real thought into how to turn any of their promises about 'sunlit uplands' into actual deals it is simple enough for them to change the words while singing the same tune. A leading Brexiteer minister, Mr Raab, is now saying, "The real opportunities for the future will be those emerging markets", though he is careful to avoid stating exactly which countries we should target.

Let's hope those opportunities really exist, as all the Brexiteer economic hype and promises depend upon them. Let us hope, as the US and China gear up for a trade war, that those countries don't say "Me First" too.

Would Mr Davis make a good PM?

When he first took on the role of Brexit secretary David Davis promised a great EU deal by March last year followed by the signing of equally advantageous trade deals with countries around the world.

Maybe he believed his promises. He has difficulty in telling his wishes from reality, which makes him a poor boss and a poor negotiator, as the following observations about him show:

• "hates to listen to advice"
• "delusions of grandeur"
• "vain and quixotic"
• "all noise and bluster"
• "He has no practical sense of the realities [of Brexit]."
• "He is not interested in evidence when it doesn't suit him."
• "All the evidence of economic benefits that he uses to justify new trade deals is the same evidence that he dismisses when it comes to the effects of leaving the EU."
• "He doesn't know the dossiers well. His style is arrogant. He is full of bluster."

These are comments from people who worked with him, but he himself said (about being the Brexit secretary): "What's the requirement of my job? I don't have to be very clever. I don't have to know that much."

We can also see his incompetence writ large in his actions.

This was the chief negotiator who arrived at the negotiations without briefing papers, who would only turn up to the start and end of the talks until his counterpart opposite (Mr Barnier) complained that the UK were not taking negotiations seriously.

He is the leader of the negotiating team that achieved nothing in initial talks until Mrs May flew in and introduced some realism to British demands.

He is also the government minister who claimed that we had detailed analyses of the effect of Brexit on 58 economic sectors, and when he was forced to release them denied that they had any economic analysis. Not all that surprising given that he said, "I don't actually believe economic forecasts."

When Mrs May managed to concoct an Irish border fudge that satisfied the interests of all opposed parties, Mr Davis announced the next day that it was only a "statement of intent" and not legally enforceable. Unsurprisingly, his statement torpedoed that trust-based arrangement and meant that the EU negotiators now require legally enforceable commitments.

He has recently stated that a face-off with Brussels and a no-deal Brexit is better than Mrs May's deal, and a further 10% drop in the value of the pound would be a good thing, even though it will mean higher living costs for us.

Now this clown wants to be prime minister.

Why we need a transitional deal

The leaked government analysis of Brexit is sobering. In particular it challenges the buccaneering claims of the Brexiteer lobby, showing that free trade deals will only add around 1% to UK economic growth. This is in the long-term, and using the most positive assumptions.

Overall, growth will be 5% less than what was projected pre-Brexit, with the north hit particularly badly, slowing by up to 11%. Government borrowing will increase by up to £120bn, and large industrial sectors such as cars and chemicals will slow down by up to 12% ,while costs will go up by  up to 20%.

The Leavers' will be happy at least to hear that EU immigration may fall by up to 90,000. The report doesn't say anything about Brits fleeing abroad.

All the analysis above depends upon applying a rosy tint to our glasses - it assumes the US will not become more protectionist; that we will make advantageous trade deals with the biggest global players; and that we will continue to benefit from the trade deals we currently have via the EU and any it strikes in the near future.

High-profile Brexiteers such as Mr Rees-Mogg say the conclusions are wrong as the report does not consider the extreme Brexit they favour: dropping as many tariffs and safety regulations as necessary to encourage imports. What they omit to mention is that - according to the originator of the strategy - this would mean entire industries collapsing with massive social disruption. Not that Mr Rees-Mogg would actually notice, of course.

Meanwhile the drop in the pound - now only worth $1.27 - hasn't given us the export boost we were promised. Our current account deficit is up another £7 billion to £27 billion (Germany has a surplus of £250 billion). A large part of this is due to more expensive imports and a failure to export more. The trade deficit is now at £8.8 billion - up by nearly £2 billion.

Right now we are a full member of the EU, the largest market in the world, with no trade barriers slowing trade, no tariffs to put up prices, and yet we still have not managed to cash in. In three months we will be leaving. Let us hope that Mrs May manages to get that transitional deal, and that we use the extra time more effectively than we used the last couple of years.

Tariffs and trade deals

How will Trump's steel tariffs affect us?

The Bank of England is worried. It isn't the tariffs themselves, it is their effect on the trade policies of other nations. They point out: "A major increase in protectionism worldwide could [increase] global inflation."

This is exactly what we don't need with Brexit uncertainty already hitting UK growth.

Meanwhile we still don't have those 'roll-over' trade deals that Mr Davis promised. Currently, as part of the EU, we have free-trade deals with 70 countries outside the EU. Not one of them has yet agreed to continue trading with us on the same terms as at present. Mr Davis's letter explaining why we are leaving the customs union didn't even mention free trade, instead talking about  a wish to "build deeper links" and "tap into fast-growing markets".

In fact, in March next year those 70 countries can terminate our current agreements despite the transitional deal. The EU has suggested that they wait until the transitional period finishes in 2020, but it isn't up to the EU. Clearly we might need to make some concessions to help persuade them to agree to 'roll-over' the agreements.

Given that we will be desperate, expect some hard-nosed negotiations, especially around immigration. For example, India wants 12,000 UK visas a year - something we denied them in 2010 and refused again this year. The EU itself is already angling for a special deal for EU businesses. Do we sacrifice control of immigration to economic necessity?

This is happening just as our merry band of trade negotiators are meant to be scouring the rest of world for deals (so far with a complete lack of success - so admittedly things can't actually get worse). We are leaving the sheltered waters of a frictionless customs union to battle our way through the stormy seas of cut-throat international trade, being forced into unpalatable concessions to ensure our economic survival.

Make no mistake, no-deal will be brutal for many employees, and the Devil take the hindmost. We could end up returning to Victorian values with Mr Rees-Mogg at the helm, tearing up rules and regulations, with industrial barons exploiting the workers, industrial safety a fading memory, and widespread poverty.

No doubt we will weather this, as we have far more serious crises. I just would prefer not to have to live through it myself. This has been inflicted on us by the self-interest of a small band of politicians and business people exploiting the serious discontent of a minority - a numerous minority, but still a minority. 17 million voted Leave, out of an electorate of 47 million, and a UK population of 67 million. Yet this is called "the will of the people"? No wonder the Brexit club don't want another referendum.

No-deal contingency plans

The EU makes up 15% of the world's total imports/exports. It is the top exporter of commercial services and the second biggest for merchandise. Only China beats the EU in merchandise, no one else even comes close.

Britain has the seventh largest economy in the world (we were fifth before the Brexit-effect started kicking in). This is reliant on being a big exporter. We sit right next to the rest of the EU, the largest market on the planet, so it is hardly surprising that half our exports go to the EU27.

This make a no-deal Brexit a bit of a concern. The EU27 have published their plans - and they don't seem to have based them on Brexiteer promises ("easiest trade deal ever", "they need us more than we need them", "we can do sector deals with each country separately", etc, etc), unsurprisingly the plans are designed to protect the EU27's vital interests.

Under the EU27 plans we would not be allowed to make 'mini-deals' with individual countries; British airlines could only over-fly EU27 countries - no landing, thank you - and airlines majority owned in Britain will count for this, so Iberia and Aer Lingus will be under the hammer; full border checks will be required - so ports will be overwhelmed (expect the motorway lorry parks to be operating); firms providing financial services in the EU27 will need to set up a branch in one of the EU27 member countries; other financial services (e.g. Euro-clearing) will have to move completely to the EU27; road haulage firms will be under threat of having to apply for new licences for their trucks under the international quota system - it is estimated that firms could lose up to 95% of their current licences.

The government is making emergency plans - drug stockpiles and rationing, the army on standby, motorways ready to be turned into lorry-parks.

Some UK firms are also making plans. FreestyleXtreme is an online business which makes 60% of its sales in the EU27. It has a turnover of £17 million and is featured as a case study on the Department of International Trade's website. So how will Brexit affect them?

Actually, the company is firing most of its staff and relocating to Germany, having already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds preparing for Brexit.

The Federation of Small Businesses says only one in six of our small businesses have even started planning for Brexit. Given that our own government has no idea what is going to happen in a few weeks' time, can you blame them?

If you want to make deals you have to accept rules

Manufacturing output in the UK is dropping while our trade deficit is growing (£1.9 billion and counting). For example, Jaguar Land Rover has started moving more production to Slovakia. Manufacturing only makes up a fifth of the UK economy, but where is the promised export-led recovery? Right now we are at the bottom of the international growth league, with the Eurozone comfortably ahead of us. Worse - we are only ranked 60th out of 136 countries for openness to trade.

UK construction activity also fell by 2% in the same period. Overall UK growth is at its weakest for 70 years and is expected to remain in the doldrums for some years.

So why was manufacturing expected to expand with Brexit? Ironically it was based on our weak economy. The crash in the value of the pound (and its expected continued fall) makes our exported goods much cheaper than they were, while the growth in the Eurozone means people in our biggest export markets have more money to spend (last year 49% of our exports went to the EU).

However, to increase exports we need to go out and sell to new markets. This isn't happening. Instead the fall in manufacturing output is matched by falling investment. Both are due to the uncertainty about what deal we will strike with the EU. Manufacturers and exporters are holding back until they know what is going to happen. Why chase new customers when no-one knows what rules will apply next year?

We still don't know what trade deal we will have, with departure only weeks away. Will we still have access to our largest and closest market? If we tumble out of the single market and end up trading under WTO rules then our exports will suffer under large tariffs. Worse, if we refuse to keep regulatory alignment with the EU, our biggest trading partner, then we won't even be able to sell into the market at all.

The irony is that Brexit hard-liners talk up trade, but don't seem to understand it. They want the bare minimum of WTO rules and a regulatory bonfire. They have yet to understand (as Mrs May has already admitted) to trade with other nations it is not enough to strike down our own rules to allow imports, we also need to accept their rules so we can export to them. Remove regulations and we can import more cheaply, but it would actually reduce our exports.

For example, some of our most successful - and lucrative - exports are services not manufactured goods, in particular we are internationally famous for financial services. Shoddy financial services can have a serious impact on people's lives, so they are heavily regulated. If we are to sell overseas we need to ensure that our companies adhere to overseas rules.

Exiting the EU, we need to choose whether to become rule-takers or not. We can be deal-makers either way.. However, rule-takers can make bigger deals.

Why is Russia destabilising Europe?

The Russian military exercises earlier this year were notable for a number of reasons. First, the Russian invasions of Georgia and the Ukraine were both preceded by military exercises in the nearby area. This time Russia ran the exercises near the Baltic states. A heavy hint to them not to get in trouble with Russia.

Second, under international agreements any exercise involving more than 13,000 personnel must have international observers. Each exercise did stay under this figure but neighbouring exercises were run in parallel, adhering to the letter but not the spirit of the agreement. This allowed Russia to practise large-scale war-making without giving away their tactics.

Third, the Russians demonstrated that their forces are more effective than analysts expected, having modernised thoroughly both in equipment and command capability. This indicates that stopping them would require more force than previously assumed or planned for. The head of German foreign intelligence advised that western governments need to increase their military spending to keep up. The former UK head of Joint Forces Command says the British Army is 20 years behind Russia and would not survive a Russian assault.

Fourth, the Russians have helped install a pro-Russia US president and they have supported European breakaway movements such as the Brexit referendum and Catalonia's referendum, helping them financially and by providing propaganda on social media and conventional media.

Mr Putin's intent is clear - destabilise Russia's neighbours, sow discord, break up alliances, encourage factionalism and extremism, so that they pose no threat to Russia, and if Russia did decide to grab a bit more lebensraum then there would be no coordinated response.

That said, even with nuclear weapons backing up their troops, it is unlikely that Russia wants to invade Europe. Afghanistan was an object lesson and Iraq another. It is one thing to invade, it is quite a different thing to hold the ground. The Crimea has a Russian speaking majority so there is a lot of popular support there for the annexation. Poland would be a different story.

Why does Putin want to destabilise his neighbours? Essentially it is fear of change.

The Ukraine was about to sign an economic agreement with the EU. Its president, under pressure from Russia, rejected the agreement and signed one with Russia instead - which led him to be thrown out by the electorate. After this setback, Putin decided that if bribes didn't work then force would - Putin's money, propaganda and undercover troops between them fomented a civil war in the Crimea (which sits on the Russian border and has many ethnic Russians) giving him an excuse to annex the area - saying that he was protecting the Russians living there.

Russia once wielded immense power over most of eastern Europe. After the break up of the USSR Putin watched former satellite states won over to Western economic and political models. Russia itself was experimenting with a version of democracy and capitalism (though the oligarchs managed to commandeer and corrupt it). Putin was working for the KGB in East Germany when its government collapsed and reunification started - he saw how quickly the Communist system could be destroyed. In 2005 he said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the Twentieth Century... Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself."

Once Putin was in power he made it his mission to ensure that the Russian state would not suffer the same fate. His first task was to deal with Chechnya, a strategically important satellite state which had fought for and achieved independence from Russia in 1997. In 1999 Putin started a new war which ended with Chechnya capitulating and once more giving up their independence.

Then he moved on to the oligarchs, first making a 'grand bargain' with them, allowing them to maintain their power-bases as long as they supported him. Once he had them under his thumb he started to pick them off one by one. He started with the richest, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, president of the Yukos oil and gas company. Putin arrested Khodorkovsky and nationalised Yukos. He then moved on to  Boris Berezovsky (owner of the TV network Channel One - seized and nationalised - who fled to Britain and was later found hanged in an apparent suicide) and Vladimir Gusinsky (imprisoned until he agreed to sell his media empire to the state). The remaining oligarchs decided it was best to support Putin unquestioningly.

Having secured Russia internally, Putin is now trying to maintain a buffer between itself and the West. Russia is still very weak economically, so his destabilisation strategy makes a lot of sense. It is relatively cheap, and eminently deniable.

Does this mean we shouldn't worry about Putin? Is he just an annoyance rather than a threat? The problem is that he sees us as a threat, and may not understand where to stop, even ignoring the fact that true Communists see the simple existence of democracy as an existential threat.

Russia under Putin is similar to the Branch Davidsons compound that was at Waco, arming themselves up for fear of what is around them, with a belief system seeing themselves as persecuted, at risk, with unbelievers all around them, their own members escaping, and a leader who is using these beliefs to make himself unassailable. Waco was a disaster - but at least they didn't have nuclear weapons.

Rust belt

The American mid-west is known as the 'rust belt'. Free trade meant that Chinese imports (in particular) undercut the products of industries in the mid-west, causing them to fail. Chinese imports explain 40% of the decline in American manufacturing. US manufacturers reduced wages to compete - every $1 million worth of imports in their sector leading to them imposing a wage bill reduction of $500,000. A third of all manufacturing jobs were lost.

Death rates went up sharply - mainly due to increases in suicide and drug/alcohol poisoning - social problems increased, living standards plummeted.

On the other hand, consumers all through the USA benefited from lower prices, allowing them to have a higher standard of living without any increase in their wages.

So free trade is good for many people, but there will always be some losers. Allowing free trade means allowing other countries to undercut your own industries. This is where the benefits - and the costs - actually come from. The benefits are from cheaper goods, meaning higher living standards for the general population, the costs are to the people who worked in the local industries that are now uncompetitive.

North Americans on average have one of the highest standards of living in the world. The US also has one of the highest levels of inequality in the developed world.

Cutting our regulatory ties with the EU would give us the chance to emulate the US. The Brextremists say they want to leave so they can cut tariffs and promote free trade. The don't mention that this will mean redundancies and poverty for workers in the exposed sectors. The irony is that Leave supporters will be hit harder on average than the Remain voters when jobs disappear.

Furthermore, this is the best-case scenario, and how free trade is intended to work (trading countries specialise in what they are best at and trade for the rest). Whether we can achieve that is another question.

We are dumping a free-trade agreement with one of the biggest economies in the world, one that is right on our doorstep, and aim to replace it with piecemeal agreements with smaller and more distant countries.

Our most lucrative exports are of financial services, and the process of the UK drawing more and more such business from the EU followed the free trade formula perfectly. Without Brexit we would have continued using our leverage to crack open the services market further.

Maybe we can somehow continue to capitalise on our expertise if we lose single market access, however many sectors are going to suffer, many people are going to suffer. Mr Hammond and Mrs May are right to try to keep our access for as long as is possible.

Brexit and farm subsidies

As Brexit comes closer a lot of people who voted Leave are starting to consider the consequences. For example pro-Brexit Cornwall wants to keep its EU subsidies and Grimsby wants to be forgiven  import duties.

However, with UK growth being downgraded once more, and our Chancellor being forced to borrow even more money just to pay current bills, it seems unlikely that there will be any money available for feather-bedding.

One group that are likely to suffer across the country are farmers. Currently the EU pays landowners according to how much land they own. Clearly this is great for the richest landowners. For example, the billionaire Brexiteer Sir James Dyson received £1.6 million last year. In total, UK farmers receive subsidies of £3.1 billion a year.

Mr Gove, the environment secretary, says that he won't be continuing the current policy, but it isn't clear what he can change. The problem with cutting subsidies is that, although subsidies to small farms are much smaller than to big farms, such farms depend upon them far more heavily. One possibility is means-testing, a sort of social security for farms.

Mr Gove anyway is not too fussed about farming, he is into 'soil health' rather than producing food. That may be why he isn't concerned about the crops that had to be left rotting in fields due to the lack of seasonal workers. Given that the UK is already a big food importer and that prices are going up due to the weak pound, giving up on growing food ourselves seems an odd policy.

The Scottish are far more canny, with targeted support and special grants. This is why they (and the Welsh) want control over their own farming policies - something they should have anyway under the devolution settlement - rather than having Mr Gove telling them what to do.

.Mr Gove is a conviction politician, and - as his stint as education secretary showed - this means that he believes his way is the only right way. He implements policies without consent, without even consultation or discussion (he is the source of the quote about Britain having had enough of experts). UK farming is facing a serious challenge in Brexit, and once we leave Mr Gove will be in sole charge.

Farming is in for an interesting time.

Who is going to do the heavy work post-Brexit?

In the past five years only one Briton applied for work as a fruit picker at Tuesley Farm. The pickers start at 7am and work 8 or 9 hours, for £8.50 - £9.50 per hour. They have one day off a week. The Brit lasted a day before deciding the work was too hard and that the other pickers worked too fast.

The number of seasonal agricultural workers coming over to British farms each year has dropped by 17%, and we haven't even left the EU. If the threatened immigration controls come in then a crisis will become a disaster. 70% of Tuesley Farm workers come from Romania, Poland and Bulgaria.

Farmers could manage if that was the only issue. Pay more, expect less: It would mean prices would go up, but if it means keeping out foreigners then surely Brexit supporters would willingly pay.

If only it were that simple. We already have full employment, so any workers attracted to picking will be leaving other jobs unfilled. Meanwhile the Brexiteers justify leaving the EU by talking up free trade. However free trade will mean British farmers being priced out of the market by cheap imports - they won't be able to afford to pay pickers more. Boris Johnson may want to have his cake and eat it, but its ingredients won't be grown in Britain.

Mr Gauke, the justice secretary, has suggested one possible solution - letting criminals out of prison to do work in construction, catering and agriculture. Quite how they would be managed is hard to imagine - in the USA 'chain-gang' prisoners are literally chained together and their guards carry heavy rifles. We barely have enough prison officers as it is, and they don't carry weapons. Maybe Mr Gauke is thinking of asking convicted gang bosses to keep an eye on things? Interestingly, Mr Gauke says that it is inevitable that the prisoners will commit more crimes while on release - it is not clear that their prospective employers would be similarly relaxed about this.

This brilliant idea is possibly even worse than the clever wheeze Ms Leadsom borrowed from revolutionary China.

No wonder the owner of Tuesley Farm now regrets voting for Brexit.

Deregulation

To maintain the trade that we currently have we need to re-establish 750 agreements, ones which can't just be rolled over. Non-tariff barriers will also increase post-Brexit (unless we stay under the ECJ umbrella and become an EU rule-taker).

Our chief trade negotiator, Mr Falconer, is very keen to scrap current regulations in order to improve our chances of making deals post-Brexit. Mr Falconer is Special Trade Commissioner for the Brextremist Legatum Institute and wants a hard Brexit.

A no deal with the EU means he can put current UK regulations 'on the table' in any trade negotiations. An example would be to allow the import of chlorinated chicken, hormone-treated beef and GM (genetically modified) foods from the USA. EU regulations do not allow these to be sold in the EU. However, if we wish to trade with the US they will want to sell us these products.

Leaving the EU completely would allow us to alter food regulations. It looks like an easy win. We get a trade deal and we get cheaper food.

Of course, if our own farming industry wished to compete then farmers will need to use the same methods to reduce costs. If they do so, however, then they will no longer be able to export their products to the EU. So UK producers will have to make a choice - sell to the EU or sell to the UK.

It would be possible for some farmers focus on one market and others to concentrate on different markets. Australia already facilitates both - they track beef to ensure that hormone-treated meat isn't exported to countries where it is banned.

If we do that then we will need all the compliance machinery in place - inspectors, product tracking and dispute resolution, and we need it as soon as possible.

Clearly it is vital therefore that the government is talking to businesses, finding out what would suit them best and what problems they predict. The US, for example, produces an annual 500-page document on barriers US businesses face when exporting.

We don't. In fact UK businesses complain that the government isn't communicating at all. Information on government plans for Brexit can only be accessed by senior officials using highly secure 'Rosa terminals'. Their juniors ask business representatives questions. They even seem to listen, but nothing come back. Of course, the evidence is that there are no plans to communicate.

Even worse, the government hasn't yet talked to all those small businesses which export only to the EU. Businesses that have never yet had to fill in a customs declaration. Nor have officials explained to larger firms how they are going to be supported. One freight firm will have to fill in half a million extra declarations each year, requiring them to find an extra 100 staff, just when everyone else also wants more staff to fill in custom forms.

Mr Barnier wants to know what model we favour. If only we knew, Mr Barnier.

The problem with freedom

The siren song of the Brexiteer lobby is freedom - freedom to make trading agreements, freedom to control immigration, freedom to decide imports tariffs.

The problem with giving people freedom is that most normal people don't want too much of it. Anarchy is the epitome of freedom, but when politicians want to boost their ratings they don't say they will disband the police and close the prisons, they do the opposite - they promise more law and order - less freedom.

That is why the term 'red tape' is so useful when someone wants to deregulate a market. Red tape just means 'laws and regulations', and 'reducing red tape' means getting rid of laws and regulations. Of course, when someone uses the term 'red tape' what they are talking about are "laws and regulations that hinder me or my business and I want rid of". They call them 'red tape' to imply is that they are unnecessary bureaucracy.

They hope that by saying 'red tape' people won't even think to ask why the laws were made in the first place, and will instead assume the laws really are unnecessary.

So what laws do the Brexiteers want to be shot of? And what are the likely effects?

Tariffs
While we are in the EU we have to charge non-EU importers a fixed tariff on their imports. Outside the EU we can choose what to charge, if anything.

Reducing tariffs on imported goods that we also produce ourselves would lower prices in the shops by at most 1%. It would also mean our industries would have to reduce their own trade prices to compete, so people would have to work harder, work longer or work for less money. Any government that caused that would be out on their ear.

Of course, ewe could just drop tariffs on goods we don't produce - netting less than half a percent drop in overall prices. However once we have done that then we don't have anything to offer when we want other countries to reduce tariffs on goods we are exporting to them.

Keeping tariffs, on the other hand, means we will need to police all imports to ensure importers pay the correct duty. Currently EU goods just sail through customs, as there are no tariffs on them. Once we leave the EU we will have to check them, including those crossing the Irish border. That means more customs infrastructure and staff - the financial and political costs of all that has yet to be worked out (we still don't know how the Irish border will work, even now, with 14 weeks to go). Our exports to the EU will also need to be checked at the EU border - the total cost to our exporters will be £29 billion a year.

The only real power of tariffs is in keeping out imports, as President Trump is attempting. The 'free trade' Tory Brexit-brains don't want to do that, the irony is that their socialist nightmare, Mr Corbyn, would love to be able to do that - and the Brexit-inspired chaos in the Tories may give him the chance to have a go.

So, rather hard to see the benefit of controlling tariffs (unless you want a re-run of the protectionist stagflation of the 1970s).

Trade deals
In the EU we have only the trade deals that the EU has negotiated. Outside the EU we can make any deal we want.

Sounds great! However, another way of putting it is:

In the EU we have every trade deal that the EU has negotiated using all the leverage of being one of the biggest economies on the planet, without us having to do a thing. We also have free and frictionless trade with the whole of the EU - one of the biggest economies on the planet (as just noted) - customs-free and tariff-free. Outside the EU we will have to negotiate every single deal separately ourselves, starting from scratch (and with a protectionist in the White House, and having mightily annoyed one of the biggest economies on the planet - see above).

Oh, dear.

Immigrants
In the EU we have to allow free movement of EU citizens. Outside the EU we can choose exactly who can come in.

Now this is a clear win... Well, you would think so. Isn't it?

The Leave campaign credit their anti-immigration campaign with tipping the balance of votes their way. Leave-voting friends and relatives of mine say controlling immigration is a key benefit, and not for racist reasons either (they quickly added). One said it will prevent Syrian terrorists from coming here (honestly, he did), another said it will reduce the demands on social services in some areas.

On the other hand, a lot of our economy depends upon immigrants. The NHS is an obvious example, as is farming. A lot of other sectors are also now asking to be given special treatment - from fish canneries to advertising firms. Not to mention education - overseas students are a big earner for the UK, but Mrs May insists on counting them as immigrants that need to have numbers cut..

The government's record is not reassuring either. Even ignoring the civil service's incompetence - exposed by Windrush and evident in many smaller but equally nasty incidents before that - immigration won't be managed any better than before. With the economic hit of Brexit we won't be able to afford to step up enforcement.

Mrs May never managed to reduce immigration in her time at the Home Office despite creating the 'hostile environment' policy. She counted students into her totals, despite being advised not to, and still couldn't bring down the numbers. Ms Rudd couldn't even manage to stay in post, let alone reduce immigration.

Blue passports

Actually, we could have had EU passports in blue (or any other colour) if we chose

Sovereignty

Yes - we will have lots of that. Sorry, I'm just not very excited about it. Albania had total sovereignty. The USSR had total sovereignty. We can isolate ourselves or we can follow international rules.

With the Brextremists wanting shot of the Court of Human Rights, I am not convinced that giving all the power to our rulers and removing any oversight is really such a wise idea.

As Mr Lee said when he resigned his ministerial post, "I could not look my children in the face in 20 years' time and try to explain why I did nothing when I knew that this government was taking the wrong course and sacrificing important principles of parliamentary sovereignty and human rights in the process."

That - and for the sake of Great Britain and her people - is why I am still fighting against Brexit.

Do we want a socialist society?

When will the hard-line Brextremists in the Tory party start to wake up to reality? Their incompetent plotting to  replace Mrs May with their self-interested selves has achieved nothing except to further weaken her and the Conservatives, just at the moment we need strong leadership.

We desperately need a trade deal with the EU. The Brexiteer windbags have demonstrated how difficult it is to make trade deals. Their entire platform was based on trade and immigration, yet since the referendum they haven't even managed to make deals with countries we already trade with. If they can't get current partners to agree to 'roll over' existing deals, how are they going to manage to make new deals? Send Boris "Gaffmeister" Johnson in?

It isn't only the Brexit negotiations that should worry them. Their constant undermining of their party leader, Mrs May, is a gift to the opposition. If they stampede her into an unplanned Brexit with no trade deals and the sudden imposition of tariffs on trade then the electorate will punish them, and we could end up with Mr Corbyn as PM.

I have voted  Labour in the past, and hope to do so in the future, but right now the Labour party is in the hands of extremists and disconnected with reality as the Brexiteer chorus line. The shadow chancellor, Mr McDonnell, has stated,"I want a socialist society", and says that to do that he must overthrow capitalism. I have seen the effects of too many revolutions to vote for his. In particular, his support for the socialism experiment in Venezuela is deeply worrying.

More worrying still is that his views are echoed by the Labour shadow home secretary, Mrs Abbot, their strategist, Mr Milne, who said Venezuela held “lessons to anyone interested in social justice and new forms of socialist politics”, and of course Mr Corbyn himself.

What lessons are to be drawn from Venezuela? There are many: fixing the price of basic goods (such as bread) leads to shortages; printing money leads to inflation (expected to hit 13,000% this year);

However the most important lesson is Mr McDonnell's reaction to the disaster that is Venezuela. He now says, "I think in Venezuela they took a wrong turn, a not particularly effective path, not a socialist path."

In other words, Venezuela was a socialist state when socialist policies were being implemented, but once things went off the rails it was no longer socialist - even though the same policies were still in place.

Of course, if only they had taken the right path all would have been fine. So what was the right path? Mr McDonnell again: "All the objectives of Chavez […] would have been successful if they had mobilised the oil resources to actually invest in the long term".

In other words, keep throwing money at it. Maybe that really would have made it all work. In the UK we have a minimum wage and social security, and some (democratic capitalist) countries are experimenting with a universal basic income. Money can certainly make or break policies.

Which is why I don't want Labour to take control after a disastrous Brexit. Our economy will be damaged - possibly badly damaged - and the one thing we won't have is any spare money.

I am a socialist who is aware of history. Together with Venezuela, other socialist states have been the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Tanzania and Nicaragua. Not one of them is a place I would rush to live in or wish to copy.

The art of the deal - trade and Brexit

The promise of Brexit was that when we left the EU we could make trade deals with other countries. Currently have a free trade deal with one of the largest markets in the world and trade deals with 60 or so other countries - all of which we will lose when we leave the EU. So how we are likely to fare if we do cut ourselves loose, can we do better?

Before you make a deal you have to ensure your own side is in agreement on what is wanted and what is on offer.

Yet Mrs May failed to do that. She fronted up to the Irish border negotiations promising the DUP was happy with the talks so far. Which they promptly denied, and she had to halt talks to go back and negotiate with them before she could return to the EU negotiators.

When you make a deal you need to know that what you are getting is worth having.

The fabled 'sector analyses' turned out to be no such thing - and we only know that because the government were forced to publish the documents. We still has no idea what the real consequences of Brexit are going to be - with it only a few weeks away.

A deal is a promise and relies on trust and honesty. You are expected to do what was agreed - to keep your word. What you don't do, especially if you are actually in charge of the negotiations, is make a public repudiation of the agreement your side has just signed.

Mr Davis (the Brexit secretary - referring to the Irish border agreement): "This was a statement of intent more than anything else. It was much more a statement of intent than it was a legally enforceable thing.”

Mr Gove (environment secretary): “If the British people dislike the arrangement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.”

The message is clear: if we decide we don't like some agreement we will simply change it - and you just try to sue us, Sunny Jim. Hardly a surprise if the EU aren't interested in giving us wriggle room on the backstop.

Ineptitude and farce. We need competent negotiators, but who do we have?

We have Mr Davis, who was in charge of our side in the negotiations and who over six months only spent four hours talking to his opposite number. This is the negotiator who turned up without his homework on the first day. Mr Davis doesn't even understand what EU members can offer. He said we would be able to strike a unilateral deal on cars with Germany - apparently not realising that we are leaving so we can make such deals, but Germany will still be in the EU...

He said we would start trade negotiations around the world on September 9th 2016 and two years later we still haven't started. He even said we would have a 'Canada-type' deal ready to sign as soon as we have officially left the EU. That option isn't even mentioned now.

We haven't negotiated our own trade deals for 44 years and even so Mrs May has felt constrained to use Brextremists to head up negotiations - politicians full of empty promises and no ideas. Vote Leave ran on a platform of reducing immigration and sovereignty. The campaign's cake-ian economics promised EU+, keeping our free trade with Europe and adding more deals for ourselves. Reality didn't come into it.

Why should they care? Crashing out of the EU and defaulting to WTO rules is a preferred option for many of them.

They should care because this unprofessional and insincere approach to the negotiations will make post-Brexit trade deals far harder to secure. Those fabled global trade deals they promised us would await us in the sunny uplands of Brexit can only happen if we can negotiate effectively.

The jokers we have clearly can't.

Farage should donate his pension to the Treasury

People are taking fewer sickies, dragging themselves in to work fearing that otherwise they will lose their jobs.

Inflation is at 3% but pay remains flat. Food costs have gone up 4%, forcing people's spending on non-essentials to drop by 3.8%.

Rough sleeper numbers increased by 15% last year - despite the government talking about halving it by 2022 (only three years away). Britain has around 18,000 homeless, with half of those sleeping in some sort of shelter (such as a car) and the rest sleeping rough.

Millions of people are not able to save enough for a comfortable retirement, while the official pension keeps being pushed up and up, meaning many will have to keep working into their 70s or retire in poverty.

At least Mr Farage is alright, Jack. He is all set to take his EU pension of £73,000.

His pension is part of our financial agreement with the EU - a large chunk of our Leave payment will be to cover pensions such as his. Given that Mr Farage says the settlement is too big (what we will pay to the EU - not what they are paying him), it would be a nice gesture if he donated his EU pension to the Treasury in order to bring down the cost slightly.

Daily Mail warns of the financial cost of Brexit

The owner of the Daily Mail has warned that profits will be down by almost ten percent this year due to falling circulation and Brexit. The company explained that economic risks had been increased due to Brexit, so companies are not buying adverts.

The Daily Mail saying that Brexit is bad for the economy?! Wonders will never cease.

This may explain why the previous editor, Paul Dacre - a virulently doctrinaire Brexiteer - has been replaced by Geordie Greig, who seems more aware of the damage Brexit has already caused and what a disaster 'no deal' would be.

An example of the economic risks is seen in the UK car industry, which employs over 850,000 people and relies on free movement of goods between the UK and the rest of the EU. Industry investment has already fallen from £2.5 billion to £1.1 billion, and production is also falling, in contrast to previous industry predictions of continued growth. Car-makers explain that they are holding back investment until the uncertainty around Brexit is sorted out.

Jaguar Land Rover - our biggest carmaker - is reassessing its manufacturing plans. It has recently bought a new car factory in Slovakia while its electric vehicles will now be produced in Austria. Most of its British-made vehicles have diesel engines - diesel sales have dropped 30% since the recent attacks on diesel's environmental safety record. Jaguar is also holding off on deciding whether to build electric cars here - the chief executive says the decision awaits clarity on the Brexit deal. He added, "You hardly see inward investment anymore."

His comment was echoed by the chief executive of PSA (owners of Vauxhall and Citroen) who said, the company "cannot invest in a world of uncertainty", while Ford (12,000 UK employees) is considering stock-piling vehicles before next year in anticipation of customs delays and large import duties.

Nissan, Toyota and Honda are all big employers in our car industry, with a total of 142,000 UK employees. The Japanese ambassador recently warned Mrs May that they would require tariff-free access to European markets post-Brexit, otherwise the companies would have to relocate: "If there is no profitability ... no private company can continue operations."

When such a large industry has such concerns about Brexit, even the Daily Mail has to take notice.