Boris Johnson is fighting for a harder Brexit. And he wants to use the UK foreign aid budget to save the elephants…
Daniel Hannan says the EU is trying to call our bluff, but we’re not bluffing. We’re “bloody minded”.
Hotel California and Dunkirk references are popping up too.
A hard Brexit is emerging as the antidote to EU belligerence, and Labour’s new policies. It might even unite the Tory party, if its leader would only adopt the policy.
Whipping up nationalist sentiment seems to be an election-winning strategy everywhere these days. Which makes Tory minister warnings about the Conservative party becoming “nostalgic nationalists” look totally bizarre. Read the news…
British innocents are dying on the streets from Russian poisoning. Argentina is practicing invasions. Spain is threatening Gibraltar. The EU wants to hold on to Northern Ireland. And they put the Irish border agreement into question. It seems like a rather good opportunity to be a nostalgic nationalist politician. It certainly worked in the 80s…
But, being about as nationalist as a cryptocurrency, I have a different suggestion. First of all, I think we should keep our borders open to anyone trying to escape the EU… for the right reasons.
Tech entrepreneurs who are about to be crushed by the EU’s link tax. Exporters who want to sell to the world instead of one continent. Irish business owners who know what “EU tax harmonisation” really means.
Assuming we put the right sort of welfare restrictions in place – the same which should apply to all immigrants anyway – we’d rob the EU of its most productive and taxpaying citizens.
In return, we’d send them our least productive bankers. The ones that have to finance EU deficits and will soon go broke. Enjoy the bailouts, Europe…
My second policy suggestion is one of kindness. Boris is wrong about saving the elephants. Their memory is shorter than continental Europeans’. It’s time we sent our foreign aid to the EU instead. And lowered our tariffs on their exports. Just think of the pressure they’re under. The whole project seems to be failing.
The EU needs our help
Eurosceptics are in government, toppling governments, or proving effective opposition in much of the continent. Even Angela Merkel is wobbling! At the next European elections, even without British MEPs, the EU Parliament faces a eurosceptic wave.
The EU itself is facing a huge budget gap. Former net beneficiary countries are about to become net contributors. They won’t like that.
Eastern Europe and Austria are downright revolting on core EU policies such as the border and refugee policy.
Italy is outright revolting on EU deficit rules, triggering a 5% collapse in its stockmarket over the last two trading days alone. The EU’s man in the Italian cabinet, Finance Minister Giovanni Tria, was ignored on the budget. Imagine Theresa May announcing the UK budget because Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond didn’t like it…
The EU’s enforcer in Italy, President Sergio Mattarella, has already threatened to veto the budget. When he vetoed the initial pick for finance minister back in May, it kicked off the Italian debt crisis.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is causing trouble to the south-east and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is causing it in the north-east. While Putin poisons Britons, the EU does gas deals with his buddies. While the EU criticises Erdogan, he goes on the campaign trail in Cologne with a hero’s welcome. Half of Germany’s World Cup-playing midfield backed the guy…
On defence, the EU is flouting its guarantor and losing one of its major powers by defying the US on Iran and playing hardball with Britain over Brexit.
A geopolitical crisis is up for grabs on fishing rights, with violence already breaking out in the British Channel.
The global superpower just happens to have the one in a million-leader who’d back Brexit, and who’s getting some experience rejigging trade deals. Mexico, South Korea and Japan have already crumbled to his foreign policy. Canada did last night. And after North Korea, the EU can’t fathom the embarrassment of the same threatening foreign policy working on Iran. So it’d rather cooperate with Iran than the US!
On that note, it’s funny to hear the hypocrisy of every objection to Trump’s trade policy. “But we have to protect car and rice farmers” say the Japanese. “But we have to protect our dairy farmers” say the Canadians. “But we have to protect our cheese IP” say the French. “Yes,” I respond, “but don’t you see that’s exactly what Trump is saying for the US… and you call him stupid…”
Back to rescuing the EU. I suggest we use the UK foreign aid budget to set up a fund to promote democracy in Europe. We can call it the Soros Fund, which is George Soros’ surname spelled backwards.
The Soros Fund would promote educational courses that teach people about why national leaders should respect democratic will instead of supranational bodies like the EU and International Monetary Fund. Otherwise they could end up like Greece!
Speaking of which…
The Troika is coming for Italy
Italy faces the same choice as Britain. But with different stakes.
For us, Brexit is about escaping what holds Britain back on regulation, tax, trade and immigration. Britain wants to make different policies to the EU.
Italy has been crushed by the euro. It never even had the boom that Ireland and Spain got in the early 2000s. Italy’s experience is much more like Britain’s in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, known as the “Eternal Recession Machine” before we escaped.
But, after two decades of EU rule having trashed the country, the Italians have had enough. They want to escape the misery.
For now, they’re fighting with the EU. But that’s a misdiagnosis. It’s the euro that’s causing the damage. Until they figure it out, their slow-motion crisis will continue.
Except it wasn’t so slow motion on Friday…
My Italian friend Luca works at a European Commission think tank, which promotes consumer choice over political directives. He woke up on Friday and posted on Facebook a chart of Italy’s bond yields going through the roof. “I love the smell of Troika in the morning”.
The Italians must be looking at Greece and quivering. The Greeks must be looking at Italy and hoping for a budget battle their own government could only threaten.
What if Italy and Greece tell the EU to get stuffed?
Is that the real reason why the EU is playing hardball with us over Brexit? The prospect of other countries leaving the EU if Brexit is a success may not be a theoretical consideration. It may be a very immediate problem. One that could blow up all of Europe’s financial markets.
Until next time,
Nick Hubble
Capital & Conflict
Category: The End of Europe