Brexit. Roll on December 31st!

After four and a half tedious years Brexit is finally just days away. With or without a deal it finally seems we are leaving.

Before the referendum there was a lot of talking about the damage a vote for Brexit would cause. We were told we would be plunged into a recession and become the runt of the European litter, it’s important to remember the predictions of doom were not just for when we actually left. I clearly remember George Osborne, Ed Balls and Vince Cable standing in front of an aeroplane and telling us that the day after a vote to leave the economic crash would begin. Of course it didn’t and by more or less every measure the economy and this country’s prosperity kept growing. The fear of Brexit didn’t send investors and industries fleeing as we were told it would.

During the last week or so Brexit has been back in the news with the end of the transition period approaching fast. For the last year we have been subject to European rules without any say (nothing new) and now finally we are going to be free to make our own laws, regulate (or deregulate) our own industries and choose who catches our fish. Every time I open the BBC news app I see a new prediction of doom, so far these have included us no longer being able to holiday in Europe, no longer being able to eat soft cheeses and of course causing unspeakable damage to the economy.

There is little doubt in anyone’s mind that Brexit will impact the economy, change always does and there will be a period of adapting to the new arrangements. Hopefully there is a deal but if there is not, export tariffs will be offset by imports and business will adapt as it has always done. However what bewilders me is that the slew of people we now see kicking off about how Brexit is going to ruin the economy and our lives have been silent for the last nine months. For the last nine months the government has been printing money en-mass and shutting down entire industries, storing up all sorts of future problems. Now either they have been sleeping for nine months, they don’t understand basic economics or they don’t really care about the economy at all and just want a smoking gun to aim at Brexit. I suspect for most people it’s the third option but for some it might be all three!  I am not saying that all Brexit critics should have been lockdown skeptics but to not even question the money tree economics of 2020 is telling.

I hope I’m wrong but let me make my prediction for the next few months. Brexit will happen deal or no deal, this may or may not affect the economy. Any impact will be short term, minor and hard to measure in the midst of a much larger recession. In March furlough will wind up, millions of people will find no job to return to as their employers have at best made cuts or at worst gone under due to the absence of revenue for months. Unemployment will shoot up. By spring enough people will have been vaccinated for a bit of normality and people will fill the shops, restaurants and cafes and all the printed money currently piled in peoples bank accounts will begin to flow around the economy and inflation will take hold. Peoples savings will be diminished as your money becomes less valuable, poverty will increase. Once this has all happened I can almost guarantee that some people and probably many will turn around and say- look at the damage Brexit has caused! We can’t let this happen; we can’t let a true economic crisis be mixed up with a people’s will for sovereignty and freedom.

What frustrates me the most is when self righteous politicians appear, as Alistair Campbell did on Politics Live and declare ‘THIS IS NOT WHAT THE PEOPLE VOTED FOR.’ – Yes it is. Those who struck for freedom on the 23rd June 2016 were well aware of the risk; they were berated for months with predictions of ruin, that Brexit meant wallowing in poverty for the rest of time without the nurturing love of the ever benevolent European Union.  They choose not to listen to those mongerers of doom, they decided the risk was worth it, they saw what was possible looking beyond the shores of Europe to the world as they knew being shackled to an economic block in decline did not make economic sense. I believe them to be right, they may not be but to suggest they didn’t understand or know what Brexit meant and the potential consequences is deeply offensive.

We should be confident about the future of the UK as an independent nation. It is time for people to stop grovelling for reasons to roll over to the EU and for the greatest democratic exercise of our lifetime to be honored. Roll on December 31st!

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