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George Clerk

Losing faith

by
17th Jan 2017
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If we don’t manage an arrangement with the EU that lets us do whatever we like, Philip Hammond sees a future for post-Brexit Britain as a tax haven, shrugging off outmoded European social practices (like looking after the poor, sick and elderly).

There is something bleak, soul destroying here. A yearning for the simple certainties, like Trump’s La La Land, but even Trump claims to want to make America great again, while Hammond just wants to make Britain small, with a landscape for the future where the entire country is set up for the benefit of the bankers and the uber rich. Perhaps we could imitate the Gulf states and bring back indentured labour for immigrants (or in effect legalising the gangmaster system and the way it has worked in the agricultural industry).

Whatever the Brexit vision may have, it lacks warmth and imagination, just looking for inspiration to other European countries which are not in the EU. First it was Norway or Switzerland, now it looks more like Luxembourg.

When the EU started, it most definitely had a vision, a vision that would take war-ravaged Western Europe to peace and prosperity and in which all its people could share. It is perfectly possible to argue that the increasingly corporate and bureaucratic nature of the European Union is a betrayal of that vision. What is not possible is to argue that Brexiteers have any kind of vision to replace it: The 1950s with added television doesn’t really do it.

Nor does making the world safe for transnational corporations: Of course big corporations do not usually actually base their factories or other productive plant in tax havens, they just do enough there to make some kind of show of channelling their profits there while keeping the plants in larger countries, preferably with a compliant and ill-paid workforce. But perhaps (as it seems we will be supplying these things too) we could be different.

The problem about where we are at is illustrated by a recent Edelman survey. When asked which party would they trust to “do what is right”, voters put the Conservatives top on 28% – a drop from 38% in 2016. Labour came second with 25% (down 6%) followed by the Liberal Democrats with 20% (down 3%), UKIP on 19% (no change), the Green party on 27% (down 2%), SNP on 22% (down 3%) and Plaid Cymru unchanged on 16%. While “doing what is right” is more than a little vague (right for whom? Right for what objectives?), this hardly exhibits a level of trust in democracy.

And when lose faith in democracy you can fall for the “strong man” who offers the answer, as Mussolini and Hitler claimed to do in the 1930s.

Replies (8)

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Out of my mind
By runningmate
17th Jan 2017 19:54

My own view is that, sadly, the EU is in the process of falling apart & that it would fall apart whether the UK were inside or outside the EU.
If I were a passenger on the London Eye & spotted the rivets falling out of the hub I would want to get off. In the same way I voted for Brexit.
If I am right then there are very serious problems ahead for Europe (and Brexit will be a minor irritation for them in comparison).
RM

Thanks (6)
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By Pryce-Accountant
18th Jan 2017 10:01

27 countries have to agree to the terms of any deal - that will never happen. So, whatever happens in the next two years, the simple fact is that an acceptable deal will never be approved by the EU, and in two years Britain will walk away. A so called hard Brexit.
During the next two years trade deals with the USA and the rest of the world will be drafted ready for implementation the instant we walk away from the EU, and, of course, we will be better off by no longer having to pay the EU

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Replying to Pryce-Accountant:
By coops456
18th Jan 2017 13:13

Pryce-Accountant wrote:
During the next two years trade deals with the USA and the rest of the world will be drafted ready for implementation the instant we walk away from the EU

hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yep, those little old trade deals are such a doddle to negotiate and implement.

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By Graham Rimmer
18th Jan 2017 11:17

So provision for the sick and elderly isn't already being massively harmed by the 333 thousand plus people arriving in the UK every year, many of them unskilled and lacking fluency in English? So we might become a tax haven like Luxembourg or the Bahamas? Sounds OK to me. Quitting the EU socialist wet dream is what the UK voted for. If it doesn't happen then all faith in democracy will die and the consequences of that are incalulable.

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By raybackler
18th Jan 2017 12:25

What a dismal article. I'm with runningmate and Graham Rimmer.

I have great faith in UK business to adapt whatever the outcome.

I don't know where abandoning hope for the poor, sick and elderly came from. It wasn't part of the Prime Minister's speech. Sounds more like project doom.

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By vstrad
18th Jan 2017 12:35

Sorry, Simon, only the Remainers were interested in the Norway option, etc. Leavers have more confidence in our country's ability both to prosper economically and look after our own people than you clearly do. There's plenty of the vision thing around for post-Brexit Britain but you are obviously too depressed to notice.

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By North East Accountant
19th Jan 2017 08:55

What is shocking is that we are going to have 2 more years of this and even then we don't know what we'll get, but I do not blame May for this.

The former leaders, Cameron and Osborne etc, should be locked up for negligence of the highest order after undertaking Zero contingency planning in the event of a leave vote. It's a disgrace.

Let get out now before the whole thing collapses and we have to pay to sort it out.

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By Knight Rider
25th Jan 2017 17:49

We were promised fundamental reform and treaty change before the vote by a man who promised to trigger Article 50 if we voted to leave. Sadly he didn't deliver but happily we got the vote.
I don't see anything bleak in becoming a self governing democracy free of EU tyranny once again. This was a vote for democracy not for tyrants or opinion pollsters.

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