BREXIT

Will you give it a rest. You're doing my head in. I can't even be arsed to argue with you and your Project Fear shite.

Ha! I was bored at work and spotted this reference to me, so how could I resist?!

The word you rarely find in the Brexit debate is pragmatism, and for good reason.

We have two sides talking across each other, both making solid arguments for their own agenda.

We have the economic argument of the Remain camp that it is extremely difficult to refute, particularly where the, or a, Customs union with the EU27 is concerned. To leave with no customs agreement would leave the UK with a WTO la la land catastrophe. The very idea that economic and political giants like the USA or China will do anything other than offer the UK a take it or leave it bad deal is delusional. The problem of the Irish border will not be resolved without a customs agreement, and Gibraltar could well be impoverished. However, little of this matters to the other camp, those that argue for Leave based on identity politics.

The Leave argument based on Identity politics is far wider than the media fuelled xenophobic moral panic, ironically promoted by the same people that supported the causes of the refugee crisis that has engulfed southern Europe, regarding the destruction of both Iraq and Libya.

The nationalist case has many very cogent points, Maastricht was a game changer. Despite the existence of a European Parliament there nowhere exists a European demos. The European project decimated national sovereignty when it created the Euro, a misconceived idea that put the cart before the horse, economic union prior to political union, and has decimated democracy in the Euro area countries, the disrespect of the Greek people being the prime example. Pooled sovereignty in supranational institutions and arrangements was always controversial, but with Maastricht and later treaties, the European Union project went further than most Europeans are willing to go, as can be seen in the stalling of, and push-back against, ever closer union that Brexit is only the most high profile example. The political project, as distinct from the economic trading block, the common market, is living on borrowed time. The Euro zone will break up before any political union can emerge.

A country cannot be truly sovereign if it does not issue the currency that is legal tender within it boundaries. Fiscal policy is controlled by unelected bankers at the ECB. Bankers impose an ideologically motivated rule based deflationary fiscal policy across the Euro zone. We saw the consequences of this in 2008, Greece and Ireland were technically bankrupted bailing out their banks, and the UK was not, why? Because the UK has a central bank issuing its own currency, it can never run out of pounds, it can always pay money it owes that is denominated in pounds. Greece and Ireland get their Euros from the ECB, and the ECB will not guarantee the 'debt' resulting from deficit spending in the individual countries within the EZ area.

Personally I hope for a pragmatic soft Brexit economically, at least a customs union, and for as full a one as possible in terms of EU political institutions.

For anybody interested, the above argument on currency issuing states is central to a real world grounded macroeconomic theory called Modern Money Theory, with its roots in the work of late great Hyman Minsky, and sectoral balances analysis of Wynne Godley; that money flows in and out the economy in the three sectors, government, rest of the world, and private business and household sectors and that these must by identity sum to zero. Basically government deficit is private sector surplus and vice versa. It shows why austerity in a sovereign currency issuing state like Britain is based on either an economic fallacy or an ideologically motivated lie. Mainstream neoclassical macroeconomics is incoherent. Read here: modernmoneybasics.com/

Read my post. There's no reasoned response because I can't be bothered to argue with him. He just drips on and on. If he posts and no one responds, he posts something else. the tenor of his posts indicates that he's enjoying the bad news (fake or not). He makes George Osborn look positively cheerful.  Only time will tell who's right. We'll either reach some compromise and have a future or we'll revert to the Dark Ages and MG will be able to say (incessantly) "I told you so". BTW, I'm surprised he hasn't found a way to blame the team's inability to win on Brexit - I'm sure there's something he could come up with. After all, the snow was our fault.

I think you’ll find we’re the people living in the grown up world, with grown up concerns: such as the economy, jobs, a decent future for our children and simply putting food on the table. Meanwhile the Brexshitters appear to have joined some kind of religious cult, believing crooks, liars and disaster capitalists like Liam Fox, Boris Johnson, Farage, Reed-Mogg and that pisshead who runs Wetherspoons are going to lead us into some imaginary golden age. It would be hysterically funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

My you've got a very biased view of Conservative voters. It defies belief that they all would think "working class people" don't "work hard enough". That's as bad as us saying all Labour supporters are as thick as Diane Abbott. Parties in Britain contain a fairly wide spectrum of ideas within the overall philosophy. You seem to reduce everything to epithets. Not everyone who is worried about immigrations talks about "Johnny Foreigner". Not every Brexiteers thinks those opposed to their view is a "Remainiac"

That's the first time I've read one of your 'essays' from start to finish and I must admit I didn't understand most of it. I must also admit that the only economics I understand are my personal economics. I voted remain and am fairly well off but I intuitively feel we're in for hard times. I suppose the best thing this country ever did was not join the Euro. Someone else has said that they cannot see any advantages of Brexit and that would appear to be my position. 

Keep burying that head in the sand, be a different story once your job is under threat