It is a year since the Referendum and the economic events etc. around Brexit are clearer. What Remain voters say:
“Peace in Europe is due to the EU”
Whether or not Peace in Europe was due to the EU we can now see it had nothing to do with whether the UK should Remain in or Leave the EU. The EU has not broken up after the British decision to leave and the remaining 27 countries are still keeping the peace in Europe. We now know Brexit has almost nothing to do with keeping the peace in Europe (see note 1).
“Only racists support Brexit and I am Anti-Racist”
Few if any of the issues around Brexit, even the issue of migration, were racist (migration is about fellow Europeans occupying UK jobs, population density, housing etc. etc.). The UK did not suddenly elect a UKIP or BNP government after the referendum and indeed, support for what is called the “right” in UK politics collapsed. Although there was a spike in racist reports after the referendum these returned to pre-referendum levels within 2 months.
Many Remain voters are still inflated with the idea that they are holy because they support Peace and Anti-Racism and they have not spotted that the EU and UK are still at peace and still have the same laws and attitudes about race after the referendum. This is because being holy had nothing to do with the referendum.
(The Racist and Peace in Europe arguments were spread during the referendum by PR companies in an attempt to divide the campaign into “holy” Remain versus “evil” Leave. The arguments are now known to be irrelevant to Brexit).
“The pound has fallen because of Brexit!”
The pound has indeed fallen, but not because of Brexit. The UK has an ongoing Balance of Payments Crisis (see Single Market: good or bad for UK? ). No-one in the broadcast media was moaning about the larger fall in the pound that happened in the 18 months before the referendum as a result of the Balance of Payments Crisis. Don’t believe this? See Raw data here
The pound fell more in 2014-15 than it did in 2016-17 but the media said nothing. The continuing fall in the pound since 2014 is due to the persistent Current Account Deficit of the Balance of Payments:
“A persistent current account deficit could lead to a sudden adjustment in capital flows or depreciation of the exchange rate, with adverse consequences for UK financial stability.” Bank of England
“Inflation is terrible because of Brexit”
Inflation rates in the UK are not far from the target value of 2% per annum. Prior to the referendum economics journalists were bemoaning the low inflation rates and spreading fears of deflation. The recent rise in inflation is a global phenomenon. Don’t believe this? See raw data here
Countries are printing money to increase government ‘funding’ of the economy and to stop a dangerous deflation that happened in 2015-16.
“Economists say Brexit will wreck the economy”
They don’t say this any more! Remoaners are out of date. Don’t believe this? See raw data here
(See Review of Remain Predictions)
If you were a Remain voter you should be getting worried that so many of the “truths” you are being sold by the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Guardian and other Remain supporters are lies. Especially when they all run “fact-check” and other propaganda services. Don’t believe this article? Check the links to the original data for yourself.
“No-one voted to leave the Single Market”
The Single Market was called the Common Market until 1993, when the EU renamed it. Don’t believe this? See data source. Most Leavers were voting to leave the Common Market. What you should ask is why are the broadcast media failing to tell you that the “Single Market” is the “Common Market”?
“Without the Single Market (Common Market) trade will collapse”
The UK is undergoing a severe balance of trade crisis with the EU but trade with the rest of the world is buoyant:
Don’t believe this? See Balance of Trade in Goods and Services EU 28, Balance of Trade in Goods and Services NON-EU 28 and Single Market: good or bad for UK?
This trade deficit with the EU is partly causing a balance of payments crisis which is affecting the pound and damaging the whole economy:
“… a reduction in the current account deficit from its current record [peacetime] levels will be important for any government wishing to claim that the UK is making a balanced and sustainable economic recovery.” See Parliamentary Report to confirm this.
“Nationalists are all racists”
This is just a slogan. Those who lead the Internationalists have promulgated a belief amongst their followers that Nation States are nothing more than reservoirs of racism that elevate their own ethnicity above all others. The truth is very different, Nations are organised groups of people who operate an economy and social system based on a particular area of land. They have cultures and economies that are usually dynamically adapting to local conditions and to the relationship between the locality and the world at large. Nations are the diverse socio-economic organisations that are essential for the flowering of humanity. Without Nations most differences will disappear. Independent Nations are a “good thing”: they saved the world from the ideology of fascism in the 20th century. Few people seem to realise that WWII was a battle between the Allies and the Axis, the Axis being much of Europe, including Vichy France, which supported National Socialism. (See Axis Powers). WWII was just not a battle against Germany but a fight against a whole political system.
The true racism is the desire to destroy the diversity of nation states because of fear.
Are Remain Voters Stupid?
Given that Remain voters will still be able to get work permits or temporary work permits to work in the EU, the economy will not collapse after Brexit, supporting your own fellow citizens is not racist etc. why do people support Remain?
Those who still support Remain are certainly more gullible than Leave voters. Most are younger voters who have been indoctrinated and believe the lies told by the broadcast media and teachers operating within what were pro-EU guidelines. They bask in the idea sold to them by Remain Journalists that they are clever and Leave voters are stupid when all the Remain arguments are demonstrably false.
Did you know that the Remain campaign was orchestrated by a group of foreign banks? See Funding of the StrongerIn Campaign
Note 1: Peace in Europe
As late as 1993 there were over 50,000 British troops in Germany (See British Army of the Rhine) at which time the USA had over 100,000 troops in Germany. Prior to the 1990s the numbers were considerably higher. There is no chance that war could have broken out within Europe between 1945 and 1993.
This post was originally published by the author on his personal blog: http://pol-check.blogspot.com/2017/06/remain-voters-are-not-stupid.html
For comparison, here’s a list of things the leave campaign actually did say, which really have been proved untrue http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/broken-brexit-promises-pledges-eu-13613132
But these are very small compared with the £2000 BILLION a week loss promised by Remain Economists over the past year. A loss that has not happened (see full reply below).
How strange. My original comment has disappeared. I do hope it wasn’t moderated merely for disagreeing with you. Here it is again, in case it was simply mislaid.
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You make economic claims that brexit hasn’t wrecked the economy, ignoring the fact that it hasn’t happened yet. Ditto that it has no impact on peace in Europe – which can hardly be determined within 18months of the vote.
You claim “remain arguments” that weren’t. No-one said “only racists” support brexit. Just that all the racists do. Not the same. You are putting words in every remainer’s mouth
And you deny the impact of brexit on the exchange rate and inflation, in total contradiction of the facts.
Is that the best you’ve got? The foolishness of brexit gets clearer by the day. To convince yourself otherwise requires pretty determined self deception by now.
You say Brexit “hasnt happened yet” but fail to have read the original predictions – they did not depend on Brexit but on a Leave vote in the Referendum. the predictions by Remain economists were about the uncertainty due to the referendum NOT Article 50. George Osborne was very clear about this in his foreword to “HM Treasury analysis: the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU” (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524967/hm_treasury_analysis_the_immediate_economic_impact_of_leaving_the_eu_web.pdf):
“This paper focuses on the immediate economic impact of a vote to leave and the two years that follow. Such a vote would change fundamentally not just the UK’s relationship with the EU, our largest trading partner, but also our relationship with the rest of the world. The instability and uncertainty that would trigger is assessed.”
The IMF and Bank of England were also referring to post referendum uncertainty as the cause of their apocalyptic predictions. They did not happen.
On the subject of inflation, most people would look at the International data and wonder why other countries have the same pattern of inflation. Surely they are not ALL leaving the EU? No, they are all worried about deflation which is worse than inflation for the longer term health of an economy. The current inflation has little to do with Brexit.
You suggest that the fall in the exchange rate is entirely due to Brexit. Please refer to any currency exchange site on the internet to see the real figures or the graph above. The effect of the drop in the pound does not depend on its speed- in this case a rapid fall as currency speculators sold out because they got their fingers burnt – it depends on the scale of the drop. The fall in the £ after the Referendum was no more than many falls over the past 20 years and much smaller than several. The media doesn’t even notice most small drops in the £ such as that after the Referendum.
When confronted with the paltry scale of the fall in the pound most remain voters desperately scrabble about to assign the whole fall from 2014 onwards to the Referendum in June 2016. Apart from giving currency speculators supernatural powers this also ignores two important factors. Firstly, the effect of speculation on any currency is measured in weeks, or at most a few months because it costs billions to go against the real value of a currency as set by trade and investment. Secondly, the real value of a currency is set by trade and investment and to blame these on the referendum when there is a full blown balance of payments crisis between the EU and UK is absurd.
On Racism I am sure we can all remember the Brexit debates and how Remain speakers frequently made the blanket charge of Racism. It was a plan to lmake Remain feel holy and smear Leave. Look at Bell Pottinger’s advice in South Africa, its standard postmodern PR Company nastiness to use Racism to divide.
It is very difficult for Remain to come to terms with the truth that Brexit will be fine but the surest guide is to spot when you find yourself leaning over backwards to reconstruct events, for instance by assigning the longer term value of a currency entirely to speculation, refusing to read the source documents for Remain predictions and reconstructing past debates as Remain embracing Leave voters with cries of “of course I dont believe you are racist”. If you are doing these things then surely you are clinging to a discredited belief simply because it IS your belief.
This is a more detailed response someone else has made to your arguments
https://mfinmoderation.wordpress.com/2017/09/14/have-remains-arguments-have-been-proven-false/
See reply above.
John
I have replied to your reply on my own blog. By and large you have simply not responded to what I wrote.
I would like to pick up two additional things here.
Referring to the leave lies you write: “But these are very small compared with the £2000 BILLION a week loss promised by Remain Economists over the past year”
* A prediction, however faulty, cannot be compared to a straightforward lie about current facts. Everyone knows that a prediction is not certain to come true and therefore it is not a statement of fact but an estimate of what will happen. The treasury prediction may well have been biased, and has proven to be wrong, but it did not as far as I can see contain any untruths about current or past facts. (Other “remainer” reports at the time such as the IMF were more circumspect – phrasing them as possibilities or scenarios.) In contrast the £350 million was a straightforward lie which was made the centre piece of the campaign. When challenged Johnson and Gove did not back down but reiterated the lie. It reflects on their integrity and erodes democracy when politicians have no concern for the truth (something which Trump has taken to new levels). In many ways truth was the biggest casualty of the referendum and the Leave campaign was the worse offender by some distance.
* You point out that recent balance of payments deficit has included an increase in the balance of trade deficit with the EU. I was not aware of this and thank you for pointing it out.
The most recent account I can find is here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/balanceofpayments/jantomar2017
The picture actually seems rather complicated. Although the deficit is large it is not that exceptional. The worst quarter both overall and with the EU seems to have been the third quarter of 2016. The deterioration was not limited to EU countries. The current account surplus with non-EU countries narrowed. What is most disappointing is that this should have happened at a time when a low pound should have increased our competitiveness.
In any case it seems a very controversial response to having a balance of payments deficit with the EU to limit trading with the EU. The EU exports more to us than we do to them because they make more stuff we want than we make of what they want i.e. they are providing stuff we want. If we have a problem paying for it we should either get more efficient in providing goods and services or devalue the pound (which we are doing) – not stop trading.
More importantly – like so many of these EU issues – it is not a static state of affairs. Our relationship with the EU is a long-term decision – we will be stuck with it for decades. We should not be swayed by figures that are in their nature changeable. E.g. as the Eurozone recovers we might well expect the EU to suck in more of our exports. A similar point applies to migration figures – a surge in migration in the last few years based on specific events (enlargement, eurozone crisis) should not have affected our decision – although it did.
Cheers
Although you say “predictions” are not lies, these predictions were based on the very shaky theory of “uncertainty” in economics yet were retailed by Cameron and the BBC etc. as facts about what would happen after the Referendum. Furthermore, the IMF Bank of England and other players entirely revised their estimates within a month or two of the Referendum, before they could really know whether the pre-referendum estimates were false. All anyone can conclude is that the IMF etc. knew they had lied.
On the subject of Balance of Payments, it is the Common Market (Single Market for Remain readers) that is doing the damage. Free movement of capital has led to massive investment by EU investors in UK property and EU Government owned industries like EDF have purchased large tranches of UK industry. These investments have resulted in a huge liability for the payment of rents, dividends and profits to the EU (The Primary Income Deficit) and the continual import of parts and stock by companies like Aldi and Renault (the Trade Deficit). The Balance of Payments can only be corrected by Brexit.
That you, an obviously erudite Remain supporter, was unaware of the Trade and Current Account Deficits with the EU demonstrates how the broadcast media has persistently avoided reporting the truth. We are in the middle of trade negotiations with the EU and they are still suppressing coverage!
On the subject of the “long term”, as you know, the EU is using Brexit as an opportunity to implement the Treaty requiremet for “ever closer union”. By 2025 the Eurozone will be a political union. Brexit will be irreversible by 2020 because the EU will not jeopardise its union by having the UK as a member. It is time for Remain to return to being UK citizens.