Category: Brexit

Posted on by Tim Worstall

The EU’s Herr Oettinger Doesn’t Understand How Credit Ratings Work

The aim of the European Union project is that all those know nothing politicians get brushed aside and replaced with the sort of technocrats who really know how to do things. This would be a rather more effective plan if we had any evidence that the technocrats had a clue. Something which Herr Oettinger is failing to provide here:

EU Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger fired the warning after Prime Minister Boris Johnson repeated his threat to withhold the huge sum in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

Brexit Will Immediately Benefit 65 Million Consumers – From Day 1

As we well know there are people out there who manage to grasp entirely the wrong end of the stick – there is no excuse for Jezza other than that. But even among those who grasp the ordure stained knob there’s no excuse for this:

British farmers and manufacturers are at risk of being left defenceless against a flood of cheap imports in the event of a no-deal Brexit, The Daily Telegraph can reveal, amid growing concerns that the Government may struggle to pass legislation to cushion a hard exit from the EU.

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

Barnier’s Wrong – Of Course The Withdrawal Agreement Is Going To Be Changed

Michel Barnier insists, stoutly, that the Withrawal Agreement isn’t going to be changed in the slightest. Michel Bariner is of course wrong here. As the agreement hasn’t been agreed as yet and there is no agreement in the UK – more importantly perhaps in the Commons – that it should be agreed as it is. Therefore it will be changed.

Michel Barnier warns Boris that Withdrawal Agreement will not be changed as he receives cautious welcome

There are various options of course.…

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

Gordon Brown Still Doesn’t Understand Markets, Does He?

Brexit is going to be very terrible, so the One Eyed Viking tells us:

Yet if no deal goes ahead on Thursday 31 October, it will be nothing like Norway or Switzerland. By the following day – what Brexiteers will call “Freedom Friday”- there will be long queues at Dover and by Saturday 2 November many of our motorways will be at a standstill. By that Sunday, food prices will be going up – a 10% rise is the latest estimate – and by Monday the pound will be sharply down on its pre-Brexit value.

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Posted on by Lincoln Swann

HMRC Blamed For EU Vat Hike On Solar Panels

According to the Grauniad those rotters at HMRC have done something totally ungreen:

HMRC pushes steep VAT increase for new solar-battery systems

Treasury proposes rise from 5% to 20%, while the tax on coal will stay at lower rate

Don’t they know there is a climate emergency on? The ‘Independent’ does:

Climate crisis: Huge VAT rise on solar panels makes installation ‘entirely uneconomic’, say experts

‘We could not have a clearer sign the government has failed to even begin to grasp the urgency’, says Green Party co-leader

Sian Berry, co-leader of the Green Party told The Independent: “A climate emergency has been officially declared, yet we could not have had a clearer sign that the government has failed to even begin to grasp the urgency.…

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

Online Shopping Chaos – But Aren’t We Leaving The EU Anyway?

Lordy Be and aren’t we lucky to be leaving?

Online shoppers face chaos and confusion with the introduction of anti-fraud measures which may lead to one in three purchases failing, City watchdogs have been warned. The measures, due to be brought in by the EU from September, will require shoppers to relay passwords sent to their mobile phone or other devices for orders over a certain limit. It means those without a mobile phone or whose signal is poor may have to use card readers or have a message sent to a landline telephone to complete a transaction.

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

BoJo V Der Layen – Brexit Depends Upon Two Cheats

Aren’t we all so glad that the future of the country has come to this:

Ursula von der Leyen, who was confirmed as the first woman president of the European Commission in Strasbourg on Tuesday, has said she would support a Brexit extension but warned the Withdrawal Agreement would not be renegotiated. The election of Mrs von der Leyen by the European Parliament came as Boris Johnson sent tremors through Westminster by significantly hardening his Brexit demands by rejecting either a time-limit or a unilateral exit mechanism to the Irish backstop as insufficient to satisfy MPs.

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

Bank Of England – Brexit Financial Risks Are To European Firms

Think on matters just for a moment. Who is at risk from a no deal Brexit cutting The City off from the European markets? The firms in The City of the customers in the markets?

Say that all food shops closed for 90 days starting tomorrow. Who has the problem? Sure the food suppliers are more than a bit pissed about it but who has the actual problem? The people who can’t eat for 90 days, obviously enough.…

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

We’ve Got Chakrabortty’s Cure For Recession Right Here – Brexit Now And No Deal Brexit

As I’ve noted rather a lot over the years there is a point to using someone who knows their economics to write the economics pages of newspapers. The knowledge necessary being to note that all those bits and bobs do actually join up. We do actually have a whole economy. That thigh bone is connected to the hip bone. Therefore, if something happens over there then something else happens over there. That electrical signal running down the spine does make the toe curl.…

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Posted on by Tim Worstall

But We Want To Screw The British Farmers With Brexit

The Guardian treats us to a complaint about Brexit. That if we go to free trade then that will mean screwing the British farmer. Good, that’s what we want to do, screw the British farmer. That’s one of the points of having Brexit:

All this plays to my very real fear that we will be sold out as the British government desperately seeks trade deals with anyone who will have us. I believe they would happily open up our highly regulated food sector to all-comers if they’ll buy our financial services.

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