Rest In Pieces, United Kingdom
Let us tell some home truths about Brexit, so scary that they could come out of an economic horror movie. Boris Johnson is leading the UK off a cliff.
Let us begin with a home truth that practically nobody in the United Kingdom seems to be aware of: Brexit is not about taking back control, it is not about immigration, these are nice juicy soundbites which gather public support. What Brexit is about, is a financial exercise which feathers the nests of the super-rich. These are the people who control the media so the real truth does not get out.
It's an investment exercise for the rich
Who would have voted for Brexit if someone had told them that it was really about toffs getting rich, selling the future of the UK down the drain, by people who basically could not care less because they will make hundreds of millions or billions out of the exercise? For them, Brexit is a jolly jape, eh what?
The way it works is like this. Brexit, as it is obvious, will cause a catastrophic shockwave in the economy, which will necessarily affect the value of the pound and which will necessarily affect the Stock Exchange. Uncertainly causes nervousness, nervousness gives people the jitters and people start selling falling stocks before the jitters become the squitters.
When the fall hits, say, 20 per cent, it is called a crash. The greater the losses, the better the climate for the investor. For most people, what I am about to explain is beyond their financial capacity so they have never considered it. Now, when you have two hundred pounds left over at the end of the month, in a good month, it makes sense to save it or else take the family out for a nice meal. When you have something in the region of five hundred million lying around in cash, you can afford to invest it in stocks and shares and in currency trading. So you buy when the price is low and sit back and wait, because you know that eventually the price will come up again, then you sell. If you make a profit of one pound on each stock, if you have bought five hundred million of them, you make five hundred million pounds. All you have to do is create a scenario for this to happen. And voilà, Brexit ladies and gentlemen.
A jolly jaunt, what?
This is not a pipe dream, it is a fact. Ask those who have already made a mint out of the jolly jaunt. But there is more, something far more sinister. The super-rich to date have managed to store their assets away in offshore facilities which until 2019 were out of the reach of the European Union taxman. After 2019 the offshore assets will start to be taxed, so the toffs in the United Kingdom will, inside the EU, have to pay their taxes like everybody else for the first time in their putrid lives. If Britain leaves the EU in 2019 the law will not apply, to them.
And voilà, Brexit, ladies and gentlemen.
Worse still, Boris Johnson, who somehow finds himself in Number Ten Downing Street (it could only happen in the UK or USA, in any country with a real democratic platform this would be quite impossible). He is sufficiently intelligent to be able to manipulate the population into believing in him, and in his usual on-the-knee, last-minute, Pavlovian way of doing things (so I spilt claret on a cushion, Sod it, buy another effing sofa for Christ's sake!) he now threatens to take the UK on a catastrohpic Bullingdon-type caper.
Does he care? Of course not, because Boris Johnson is not in fact BoJo the Dude, he is a puppet controlled by those who pull his strings and these are the upper-class toffs he has associated with since his school days. He, and they, will not lose out. As for the rest of the UK, RIP. Rest In Pieces.
So what is going to happen? For a start, Scotland will take the high road to independence, whether or not Westminster allows it to hold a referendum before or after a massive public disobedience campaign starts to cost countless billions. If the Scots want Independence, they will eventually get it. Northern Ireland may follow, another can of worms waiting to flare up again. Inside the EU it didn't make a lot of difference whether those in Ulster felt Irish or British, after Brexit it will. More billions of English and Welsh taxpayers' money spent on security, less money for schools and hospitals.
As for the UK economy, on the macro-economic scale (external business) obviously when you are part of a large trading block you surf the wave of the clout that a block of 28 nations has when it does its deals, but you can also do your own, which people in the UK do not understand apparently, because all the "benefits" the Brexiteers crow about, the UK already has, only the people are too stupid or misinformed to know it. On the macro-economic scale with micro-economic effects (internal business) if you are part of a large trading block with which you do half your trade for free (paying the administrative costs as in any business) when you leave the block, lose the benefit of collectiveness (called synergy) and start paying to do trade, then you pay more for what you import (meaning higher prices, meaning inflation); your exports, being more expensive, are therefore less attractive so you sell fewer goods, which means you make less money. It means less revenue in taxation for the kitty, which means fewer resources available for the delivery of public services. Less money for schools and hospitals.
On a purely micro-economic scale, this is all translated into already tight margins squeezed to the point of no return, which means factories closing, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises failing, which means massive unemployment, which means within a few years technologies will have moved on making the unemployed chronically unemployable, which means higher costs in social benefits payments, which means fewer resources for public services. Less money for schools and hospitals.
If the UK economy is booming it is because the UK economy is part of the European Union. Brexit is not about taking back control, that is a meaningless slogan aimed to garner support for the cause to make the rich richer and the working woman and man? Devil take the hindmost, eh whatty what what?
Finally, my message to any British citizens reading this: I wish someone, somewhere in the UK would do something to make a difference. I have invested three years of my time writing to MPs, writing to Prime Ministers, writing to opinion makers, sending messages explaining what is going to happen to the United Kingdom, where I have a son and a grand-daughter so I feel my part, I have done. Just don't tell me afterwards when the country nosedives that you were not warned. Or else don't care, sit back and allow BJ to BJ the country big time and take the United Kingdom on some drunken Bullingdon raid and stand back guffawing as Cameron "botties" a pig. THAT is where your country has sunken to and you just shrugged and did nothing. I think the British should be ashamed of themselves. RIP, UK.
Main photo: By Jan Matejko - http://cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/dmuseion/docmetadata?id=4795, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43350542
Photo 2: By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38068711
Photo 3: The author in 2018
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey
timothy.hinchey@gmail.com
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey works in the area of teaching, consultancy, coaching, translation, revision of texts, copy-writing and journalism. Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru since 2002, and now Co-Editor of the English version, he contributes regularly to several other publications in Portuguese and English. He has worked in the printed and online media, in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly magazines and newspapers. A firm believer in multilateralism as a political approach and multiculturalism as a means to bring people and peoples together, he is Official Media Partner of UN Women, fighting for gender equality and Media Partner with Humane Society International, promoting animal rights. His hobbies include sports, in which he takes a keen interest, traveling, networking to protect the rights of LGBTQI communities and victims of gender violence, and cataloging disappearing languages, cultures and traditions around the world. A keen cook, he enjoys trying out different cuisines and regards cooking and sharing as a means to understand cultures and bring people together.
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