BY ALEXIA JAMES
We knew before the “Liberal Democrat” conference started that a vote for the Lib Dems was a vote that allowed Corbyn to sneak into power and wreck Britain. Today, after they have voted as a party to Revoke Article 50, we now know that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote to throw away our nation state – a vote for globalism and what their madcap guest of honour, Monsieur Guy Verhofstadt, calls a future of “Empire”:
Should the Liberal Democrats’ weirdness surprise us?
Not really.
The Lib Dems have always been a sorry bunch – the sort who frequent nudist caravan parks and stock spandex in the back of their wardrobes. Every political party has its sex scandals, but the Liberal Democrats seem to have more than their fair share. If you want a political sex scandal, there’s no party in the world apart from the Lib Dems who can plumb the sorry depths of an Oaten or Thorpe; a Smith or Hancock. Rennard is their key strategist? They’re the peculiar party – Pantsdown gave them some vigour but they’ve always been the sandal-wearing, peculiar crew. The likes of Gyimah heading there is no surprise at all. Google “Layla Moran” and “slapping”.
The real political oomph at the moment is with Boris and the Brexit party – Labour are at each other’s throats and their Brexit stance is wishy-washy. If Boris engineers our departure from the EU on the 31st October with No Deal then the Liberal Democrat Revoke position goes up in smoke, just as the Brexit Party’s raison d’etre vanishes overnight.
And why should we be as downbeat and cowardly-yellow as the Liberal Democrats? Why shouldn’t we believe in our country as a nation state? Their Project Fear is nonsense:
(a) wage growth hit 4% in the 3 months to July;
(b) while UK inflation is running at only 2.1%; and
(c) UK unemployment is only 1.29 million (3.8%). Despite all the uncertainties, the UK is thriving – house prices and mortgage approvals are rising.
These figures give the lie to Treasury forecasts, endlessly repeated by Philip Hammond then parroted by Lib Dems, that Britain would suffer a £90 billion (4% of GDP) hit from a so-called Hard Brexit. Germany is tipping into recession; there is a danger that the Euro Zone will suffer a Japanese-style deflationary slump (the ECB cut interest rates to minus 0.5% last week); and EU unemployment averages over 6%. Is this a trading bloc to which the UK should be shackled? No it is decidedly not – and we aren’t.
Trade with the EU as a whole now accounts for barely a tenth of the UK economy and only 8% of our firms do business with the 27-member bloc. UK trade with the rest of the world is booming and the City remains the world’s leading financial hub – lurid forecasts of 75,000 job losses have proved to be false, in the face of Mark Carney’s gloom.
UK tech companies secured more investment per capita than the US and vastly more than the Eurozone. This is not a picture of a UK dependent on the EU for anything, other than Italian tinned tomatoes and claret. By the by, Dover (which is the UK’s ninth busiest port, accounting for only 5% of our overall tonnage) and Calais are pretty well ready for any sort of Brexit, hard or squidgy.
The UK enjoyed inward investment in 2018 more than that of Germany and France together; and UK GDP grew by 0.3% in July. The UK overseas trade balance was -£4.3 billion over the last 3 months, down from -£12.6 billion in the previous quarter; and the UK budget deficit was plus £1.3 billion in July, against -£6.3 billion in June. These figures were compiled by the Sunday Times, but never get a mention on the BBC. Wonder why?
“Detailed analysis by economists at Cambridge and Ulster Universities have found huge flaws in the Treasury’s forecasts that over-estimated the negative impact of a no-deal Brexit by 400%”. ‘Project Fear’ was always a bigger lie than any ‘£350 million a week’ displayed on Boris’s bus.
It is time that Boris got tough on this rabble. Boris must launch a strong counter-narrative, to reassure the British public that leaving the EU without a deal would be no disaster. The most so-called “uninformed” people in Britain already intuit this (retail sales were +3.3% in July, up from +0.2% in June), ready to face the future calmly and with unshakeable confidence. With the £ at $1.25 and €1.13 and the Footsie at 7,367 foreign exchange and stock markets sense it too. On a six month view the UK is hugely oversold.
Why are these short-sighted surrender-monkeys causing us so much grief? When will they see the light? The Lib Dems are only a small, peculiar part of the problem but they are no doubt part of the problem – the cowardly, yellow problem.
Time the naysayers got the hell out of the way and let confident Britannia sweep on by. In Boris we trust.