Brexit Shambles

In my view, Brexit so far is a mess. The reason I think it is a mess is because we didn't have a clear direction. It took 3 and a half years just to decide what type of exit from the EU we will have. Parliament couldn't decide if we were going to make a clean break or a partial separation. They were treating it like a plunger on a detonator. They were worried pushing the plunger all the way down would blow up Britain. I guess this was never done before. It didn't help that people were taking the government to court when they first tried to make a clean break in the beginning. Being indecisive can be harmful I guess. 

Now we are left with a very basic trade deal. If a business wants to sell goods to the EU, they have to prove that all the parts of their product were made in the UK, otherwise they have to pay an import tariff. Sending goods in and out of the EU is quite slow.  The EU member states don't want us to bring products into the EU market that are from low inflation, low tax countries without paying an import tax. It would make their own products less competitive. 

Divided Britain and Kingdom

The year 2018 is coming to an end and my island of Great Britain is very divided with odd pairings. From the summer of 2016 the British people divided themselves into three groups. Brexiteers, Remainers and Abstainers. Brexiteers wanted the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Remainers wanted to stay in the European Union and Abstainers weren't sure or refused to vote.

The divide spanned across the British Island and spilled out to the edge of the Kingdom in northern Ireland and Gibraltar.

There was odd pairings and aliances  throughout the UK. London and Scotland wanted to remain. The rest of England and Wales wanted to leave. Northern Ireland wanted to remain and so did Gibraltar. Ultimately, leaving EU was the final verdict.

I have seen business leaders and politicians that were far from friends working together to achieve their goals. Rival politicians came together and was working as a team. Tony Blair and John Major were working together for the Remain Campaign, they were political rivals in the previous decades. It is a bit like Superman, Batman and Skeletor forming a group. I saw Tim Martin and Robert Dyson on the leave group. A pub chain owner and a vacuum cleaner manufacturer. People I would never see working together were drawn together by this strange situation.

Now the divide is about how we leave and the whether the Kingdom will be intact or if Great Britain will remain Great or be split in half across Hadrian's wall. My Island is filled with uncertainty. I can only hope that we work together and make the final decision work for us. Even a paralyzed man needs both his arms to push the wheels in the same direction, otherwise his wheelchair would just spin around and he would have no hope of getting anywhere.

When the Queen did her speech on Christmas, it made a lot of sense to me. We need to be united in the United Kingdom and the sons of Britain need to respect their brothers and sisters.

I can only hope for the best outcome.

Irish back stock

The UK prime minister, Theresa May has made a British exit (Brexit) deal with the EU but the house of commons don't like the deal. The main reason they don't like the deal is because Northern island would be treated like a separate country from the UK. They would have checks made on their products before they enter the British Island.

Let me explain the problem the EU faces. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are two separate countries. When the UK splits away from the EU, the Republic of Ireland will remain in the EU and Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK. If goods are free to move from UK to the republic of Ireland without paying a tariff then the UK could do a trade deal with a country outside the EU and send goods that are not taxed into the rest of the EU through the republic of Ireland. For example, we could remove the tariff on Oranges from Dominica and then send them to the republic of Ireland and then the Republic of Ireland could send the oranges to Germany. This would mean that Oranges are entering the EU without being taxed.

The Irish in the North and South wanted to keep a soft border because people own assets and trade on both sides of the border. I think the best way out of this is to leave without a deal and pay the tariffs, I recall that the deal involved a £39 billion exit fee. Use the exit fee to reimburse businesses that are taxed for their exports. Isn't that a more straight forward way to solve the problem.

My son is due to be born and like his father is spending his time as a fetus in a country that is consumed by chaos and uncertainty. For me it was the Falklands war, for him it is Brexit.