And it's, hey-ho and off to the election races!

Of course, my world-wide audience will be looking to me for a forecast of the outcome and, naturally, I have no hesitation in telling 'y'all' that, er, um, on the one hand but then again on the other, maybe or even possibly, perhaps with a following wind the result is a foregone toss-up!  You see, that's the sort of razor-sharp political analysis you can expect from this blog - and I heard that!

I think it is safe to say that the Conservatives will win the most votes but whether it will be sufficient to form a government is another question entirely.  I am fairly confident that the labour vote will be decimated but then the question becomes qui prodesse? - who benefits?  As usual when I am uncertain I like to introduce a bit of Latin to, er, 'add lustre to my cluster'!  Some of the fleeing Labour voters will be what I call 'softie Lefties' and may well go to the 'il-Lib-non-Dems', and the harder, pro-Brexit Lefties may well go to the Brexit party.  Happily, the Tories have one attraction for many of the, er, 'workers' in that Boris is an eccentric toff and many of them have a soft spot for that sort of character.

I have no idea what Boris's so-called deal with the EU is all about.  The fact that it is a deal at all fills me with dread because it means that we have given much away.  My preference was, is and remains - No Deal!  Just walk away and let those damned "events, dear boy, events!" take over.  Currently, my MP is the Tory,  David Warburton who strikes me as an eminently sensible man as well as an exceedingly interesting man.  He is a musician at heart but is also happy to start and to run businesses and make some 'moolah' which is always an indication that he is well and truly grounded.  Above all, he did not follow those "dirty rats" in the Tory party who bent every scruple in their miserable bodies to bring down Brexit.

Of course, it goes without saying that where I lead others will follow!

 

 

Comments

[Bob]

Yesterday the world's foremost self-described very stable genius exposed BoJo:

"Trump said that while the U.S. wants to negotiate a new trade deal with the U.K., Johnson’s Brexit deal would prevent such a deal from happening.

“To be honest, under certain aspects of the deal, you can’t do it, you can’t trade,” Trump told Farage. “We can’t make a trade deal with the U.K.”

This comes after Johnson has claimed his Brexit deal would allow the U.K. to trade freely with the rest of the world."

https://time.com/5716099/donald-trump-nigel-farage-call-in/

How about we send him over there until December to straighten things out?

[David Duff]

Heavens to Betsy, Bob actually accepts Donald's words at face value!

[Glesga]

David, we need to see the main text of the agreement rather than listen to the remain and leave media. It should be published online. However a hard brexit is preferable. We could import Irish potatoes if we are stuck on hard times.

[Loz]

Jimmy, when you say we should see the main text of the deal, what do you mean? The full text of the deal is here ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/10/17/uk/brexit-deal-full-text-gbr-intl/index.html

Fact Checker has a good analysis of the main points if you want avoid the Meeja (although "Who are Fact Checker?" is always worthy of consideration) ...

https://fullfact.org/europe/boris-johnsons-new-brexit-deal-four-key-questions-answered/

SoD

[Loz]

The main problem is the border down the Irish Sea.

Goods going from Blighty to NI, which represent 2/3's of NI imports, will be hit with rules of origin checks and EU tariffs which can be reclaimed only if it can be proved the goods will remain in NI.

The tariff bit of that is well known, the rules of origin conundrum less so but nicely explained here ...

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/boris-johnsons-brexit-deal-poses-a-rules-of-origin-conundrum/

However, the biggy that seems not to be discussed (or at least I can't find much on it) apart from me on D&N a while back, is the other direction: tariffs and rules of origin on goods going from NI to mainland Blighty.

If there are no checks then it's a back door for EU and third country goods getting into Blighty at the lowest tariff and standards regime of the EU and UK.

This has 2 massive implications: -

One, if, for example, Blighty wanted to protect an industry and set a tariff 10% higher than the EU. Then any third country would export to the EU and pay the 10% lower tariff, ship the goods to NI and thence to mainland Blighty. The tariff protection fails as goods stream in through the NI backdoor.

Two, Blighty loses all negotiating power at the coming FTA negotiations. If there is already a zero tariff and checkless route into NI and mainland Blighty for EU goods as described because there are no tariffs and checks from ROI to NI and NI to Blighty, then the EU has no incentive to lower their tariffs and checks in the negotiations.

Of course the solution is to make the tariffs and standards and rules of origin checks going NI to Blighty in the Irish Sea, thus making a full bothways border within the UK.

That's an interesting model. It's making the UK multi-market, which I favour, albeit I would rather the whole of the UK was one multi-market rather than partitioned into multi-single markets.

Also it paves the way for Freeports, something BoJo is allegedly in favour of and I am very much in favour of, because Freeports require tariffs and checks on exiting to the rest of Blighty.

However "Brexity Hezza", as he likes to call himself: a one nation Tory of the Michael Heseltine model with a bit of Brexit thrown in (i.e. pure driven bullshit) is clearly dodgier than a fairground attraction on this front.

And having a whopping great EU border down the middle of the UK is hardly what Dad's Army and the Country-Bumpkins meant by "Taking back control"!

Incredible this isn't already torpedoing BoJo's deal. But I guess it'll come out in the wash.

SoD