Brexit - Reasons to be Cheerful Part One

Introduction

Many intelligent people have pooh-poohed Brexit, and I am ashamed to say I am one of them. While some of us ‘remoaners’ hold onto the fading hope that this has all been a bad dream and the UK population will wake up and come to what passes for their senses, I fear the land of smug liberal consensus and assumed wealth is lost to us forever...

 ... So, I for one am not going quietly. I shall rouse myself like that old desk jockey John Milton during the 16th Century Rexit and write down my defence of those principles in which I do not believe - but that need defending!

Let us not look backwards at the last 40 years of oppression under the European yoke. Let us look forward, as did our commonwealth ancestors after the Civil War (or 'Tooled up Brexit' as it may henceforth be called), to a United Kingdom made great again in a World of global mistrust and powerful trading blocks with absolutely no idea of who we are or our sense of history.

Or as Milton himself put it:

'Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governours: a Nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, suttle and sinewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to'.

This is the land of Shakespeare and Elgar, Camberwick Green, Blue Peter and Britain's Got Talent... A Nation divided but not defeated...

 I have therefore compiled a list of what 'methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks' can look forward to in a post Brexit UK (which is sure to last longer than the 16th Century parliamentary commonwealth ever did):

 1. Improved Travel Infrastructure

Once we cut the EU strings we can expect a lot less traffic on British Roads. This will predominately come about because most lorries over 2 axles will be stuck in traffic queues in Kent & the Pas de Calais awaiting customs clearance.   This will also be good news for air pollution with a lot less Diesel particulates in the atmosphere - except in Kent & the Pas de Calais where they may want to start stocking up on pine air fresheners...

2. Myxomatosis

Not a lot of people know that as part of our entry into the EEC (as it then was) in the 1970's a condition of membership was that we stopped using Myxomatosis as a form of birth control in Rabbits. The French (who else) took exception to our exploding rabbit policy as it was highly contagious and rendered their national dish inedible. Personally, I yearn for my childhood scenes of small mammals’ heads going off like so many party poppers all over the Kentish Downs on long hot summer evenings... Maybe freed from European interference our scientists could develop a strain that sees off grey squirrels and that will be another immigrant problem solved!

The point here is that if we want to poison our own wildlife, destroy long term Land Management Plans, build loads of houses on fertile soil and rip up set aside, we bloody well will from now on and we'll pay for our own hedgerows!! The British government will be able to do what it likes with the Countryside and no one will be able to stop them, because the electorate will all be too worried about house prices to notice.

3. Gun Boat Diplomacy

The 1970's didn't go the UK's way at all. The decade started with the Germans robbing us of being humiliated by Brazil in the 1970 World Cup final and went downhill from there... National Bankruptcy, the death of British Manufacturing, the rise of Union Militancy, Myxomatosis, 'Carry on Up the Jungle', were all national disasters and humiliations.

But one thing rises above all these - losing to Iceland in the Cod War. How can a country that prides itself on once being the 'ruler of the waves' wind up losing a naval dispute to a country of semi-fish people named after a supermarket chain?

Anyway, that was then, and this is post Brexit. Now all bets on fishing quotas are off and (it's no coincidence) we have built an aircraft carrier larger than most Icelandic towns, we can - I trust - now look forward to shoving their 200-mile exclusion zone up their 'Asni' (Icelandic for arse). And, while we are at it, see off anyone else who wants to try and catch OUR FISH. 'Gun Boat diplomacy' will be entering a new and golden era for the UK as soon as the Americans sell us some guns...

4. Deregulation

Tired of filling in countless forms for all those unwanted EU subsidies? Bored with Health & Safety rules designed to keep you... er... Healthy and Safe? Fed up with quotas that seek to protect delicious lower life forms from extinction and spread wealth to a larger number of people on the planet (most of whom won't be British!?).

Well post Brexit we won't have to bother with all that. Instead of professional bureaucrats who only have the good of a EUROPEAN project at heart, we can rely on our trusted old British politicians to make laws. Following in the great traditions of luminaries like: Jonathan Aitken, John Stonehouse, Neil Hamilton, Cyril Smith, John Profumo, Jeremy Thorpe and of course Jeffrey Archer, in future only self-serving amateurs will be at the helm, so we'll be able to do what we like, when we like and stay up as late as we like and no one can tell us off!

And if they cock it all up we can - unlike Eurocrats - vote them out of office - although they won't care because they will have collected enough Non-Exec positions while in power to fill an offshore tax fund with millions of untraceable blunt. That's democracy baby!

5. New Wealth

If the 1970's were shite, the 1980's cured all that. This decade of new wealth and new romantics came just too late to save us from being sucked into the EEC. If we'd waited until the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, the North Sea Oil boom and Synth-Pop all of our late '70's economic problems would have been solved without the need to prostitute ourselves on the altar of European integration...

The UK economy is a different animal now. It is strong - like bull - the 5th or 9th largest (depending on who's got the measuring stick) in the World and no mistake. European's are trying to tell us it's all down to them. But don't be fooled...    

Look at our top 10 exports:

1.         Machinery including computers: US$68 billion (15.3% of total exports)

2.         Vehicles: $53.7 billion (12.1%)

3.         Mineral fuels including oil: $35.6 billion (8%)

4.         Gems, precious metals: $32.8 billion (7.4%)

5.         Pharmaceuticals: $32.8 billion (7.4%)

6.         Electrical machinery, equipment: $28.6 billion (6.4%)

7.         Aircraft, spacecraft: $21.1 billion (4.7%)

8.         Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $18.1 billion (4.1%)

9.         Plastics, plastic articles: $12 billion (2.7%)

10.     Organic chemicals: $10.3 billion (2.3%)

You see we do make stuff and sell it abroad. The fact that a lot of these goods are made by global companies and go to Europe and their manufacture could be relocated abroad to avoid WTO tariffs shouldn't worry us. If foreign businesses do that they would lose the 'Made in Britain' trademark that has such an important cachet in World markets. Plus, they would never get the business expertise we have in this country as firms like Carillion, HBOS, BHS, Toys R Us and Maplin free up their workforces to help with the great Brexit project.

And there is all our financial expertise to attract World buyers. No international business is complete without tax advice or auditing services from one of our 'Big Four' accountancy firms. Regulatory bodies all over the World are calling these firms into special meetings, because they want to know how these firms do their work so badly…

But at the heart of UK plc's export business is balance. We don't just make things, we also dig things up and sell them. Oil, precious metals, plastics, nuclear waste and organic chemicals... There are markets in the Far East, the Middle East, Russia, the US and even Norway queuing up for what we can get out of the ground, give a quick rinse to and flog over the counter. If global businesses do move their manufacturing operations away - out of spite no doubt - we can just open more gold mines, crack out a few extra rough diamonds or sell more oil to the BRIC countries. Yes, they have their own petrochemicals, but it’s not BRITISH OIL is it?

6. The Cancellation of All Personal Debt in the UK

A bit of a punt this one but it seems logical. At the moment our GDP is around 2,500 billion dollars per annum or 13,500 USD per household, but our Personal debt is 2,100 TRILLION dollars or 77,000 USD per household of which 21,000 USD is unsecured.

If you have a fag packet and do the Maths, and if all debt is frozen, it will take each household around 6 years to pay off their debt assuming all GDP goes into debt recovery and nothing is spent on luxuries like staying alive and healthy.

Some people (like my bank manager) would say this situation is

    a) unsustainable and

    b) nothing to do with Brexit.

(I'm not sure where my Bank Manager is on Brexit, but her job is going to Frankfurt anyway!).

To which I would say:

    a) It is unsustainable as the fact that I cannot retire until I am 237 years old can testify and

    b) I think Brexit is giving us a great opportunity here...

So, here's the plan:

That 2.1 trillion dollars would buy an awful lot of British goods and services (even when converted into GBP) and create a buoyant internal market, which would take the pressure off our exporters to keep UK plc's bank account ticking over.

What we do after Brexit is tell every foreign lender we owe money to, to shove their debt where the sun don't shine and CANCEL THE REPAYMENTS! What are they going to do? Sue? Once we leave the European justice system how are they going to get their money back? If a foreign business tries debt recovery in a British Court, we just find all true born Brits NOT GUILTY and award costs to Johnny Foreigner - we might even make some spare cash!

It worked for Iceland after the Credit Crunch and they don't even have a big Aircraft Carrier like us (see Gun Boat Diplomacy above).

Now I appreciate there are still some details to work out and a lot of the debt is held by British Companies. In order for this to work our brave financial chaps in the City will have to off-load British debt abroad before March next year, but ducking responsibility is our bankers stock in trade - it's time they put this skill to the national good...

7. Not having to Learn French at School

 Surely one of the key benefits of Brexit must be dropping French, German and Spainish (if you go to a posh school) from the national curriculum.

For too long French irregular verbs and German phonemic diphthongs have plagued the life out of school kids and in today’s modern World - where everyone speaks an abbreviated form of English anyway - what is the point of distracting tiny, tiny minds from more important studies like technology (texting & Instagram) and Media Studies (reading the Beano and Look-in).

Some would say an outward looking, global, trading power should be educating its workforce in Chinese, Russian, Thai and other languages of our future trading partners, but have you seen how complicated they are? If you think the verb 'etre' is tough, try asking the way to the station in Mandarin!

We can and should focus our teaching efforts on more technically relevant subjects like Virtual Reality base coding and fixed odds betting combinations...

8. Not being able to blame things on European Interference

We all know that since joining the EEC the other members - mostly out of jealousy and spite - have been making up rules and laws just to annoy us or further their own interests ahead of our proper values. The fact that around 90% of all European legislation is supported by Britain in European forums just goes to show how perfidious and insidious the whole process is and this is of course the main reason many people voted out...

Once we leave Europe and it's cloying regulation behind we will of course live near perfect, pastoral lives, or at least better ones than we live now under European oppression. But if things aren't perfect for any reason we will have to find something else to blame other than European infamy.

Quite rightly nearly everything wrong with our society from immigration through to fine chocolate originated in Brussels but tragically almost 10 minutes of research on the web has shown me that not every ill we suffer comes from the East...

I have an extensive list of things that do not come from Brussels:

1. The straight Banana (Wilful press misinterpretation of EU legislation)
2. The Sausage being renamed the Emulsified Fat Tube (BBC Comedy)
3. MOT's for petrol lawn mowers (Radio show April Fool)
4. EU Inspector forcing Brighton Pier Angler to throw back 'over quota' fish (Brighton press April Fool)
5. Bombay Mix being renamed Mumbai mix (The Sun claimed it came from 'a source' at the Home Office)
6. The banning of Prawn Cocktail crisps (Boris Johnson misunderstanding harmful additives legislation)
7. 26,911 words on cabbage legislation (Counterfactual from Boris Johnson's sister writing in the Mail)
8. The one size fits all Euro Condom (An industry standards forum)
9. The banning of Double Decker buses (EU suggested they weren't safe for passengers but did not enforce legislation)
10. Banning barmaids busts (Sun interpretation of EU Health & Safety directive)

And things that do come from Brussels:

1. Nigel Farage's pension
2. Jean Claude Van Damme
3. Mussels
4. A reduction of trans-fats in British biscuits
5. A Ban on eating Pet Horses
6. Turnips and Swedes having to be labelled differently
7. Washing up gloves that must be detergent resistant
8. Audrey Hepburn
9. Tin Tin
10. European peace for 73 years…

What's odd about us is that it is the big stuff: freedom of movement, European legal primacy, economic hegemony and political conformity that we fundamentally oppose in leaving the EU, but nothing 'gets our goat' quicker than Brussels making our biscuits healthier or trying to keep horse flesh out of our cottage pies.

Well post Brexit, although the European interference card will be played by everyone in authority or with an axe to grind for some time, we will need something else to blame for all the pettiness and irrational life-saving stuff that gets forced upon us.

And I have just the thing...

 9. Being able to blame everything on Brexit

Brexit will be the new Brussels when it comes to blaming everything that may go wrong now or in the future on 'something' or 'them' as my mum says. We need scapegoats or the next thing you know people will be taking responsibility for their own actions and that is not what put the 'Great' in 'Britain', just ask our bankers.

From the fragile value of the pound to Theresa May, everything deemed wrong with the current economic, political and social climates are already being blamed in certain quarters (or 46.6% of it anyway) on Brexit.

Now in theory this puppy will run and run and the 'B word' will get just as much unfair abuse as the 'E word' has historically enjoyed...

I therefore propose a new rule to be adopted across the whole country to prevent unwarranted and unfair attacks on Brexit:

Only those who voted for Brexit in the referendum can blame it for subsequent ills. This rule should come into immediate effect.

If you are a remoaner who backed the wrong horse in a 2-horse race: SHUT IT! We know what you think.

Only those who were fore it in the beginning can now offer up any criticism of the decision or the subsequent process...

This way the whole UK Independence project will get the positivity it needs and peace and harmony will descend upon us as the Brexiteers all learn to think and act with one mind...

 10. A new Sense of Destiny

John Milton said all those years ago that he felt our noble and puissant nation had a manifest destiny. There was also something in there about mewing Eagles, but I don’t think that is important right now.

There is a groundswell of feeling in this country, at least among the more avid Brexiteers that we are not fulfilling our destiny as a true global force or taking our rightful place among the natural leaders of a brave New World.

For too long we have been held back by the pettifogging inconsequences of a European project we have always been larger than. Yes, the Europeans needed our help and support and guidance when they came to us - cap in hand - 50 years ago and begged us to join their meagre, unloved little club. And yes, we have done our best for them, to provide the benefit of our quintessential Britishness to make them not only better nations but also better people - economically, socially, politically and dare one say: emotionally. We leave them in a much better state than we found them.

But now it is time for a united Britain to look towards a wider World, to give the rest of the planet the chance to benefit from our professionalism, our cleverness, our culture and our long historical experience of helping mankind reach its true potential. We will share our gifts with anyone who wants or needs them, and all we ask in return is that people pay us the going rates for our goods and services and afford us the respect our contributions deserve.

Let March 29th, 2019 light a beacon that will illuminate every corner of the planet with our new global presence as we take our place at the forefront of World affairs.

I am sure people of the calibre of Theresa May, Phillip Hammond, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and especially Boris Johnson will unerringly put us exactly where we deserve to be in the new World Order and all the participants in a grateful global economy will join with us in offering up the ancient blessing: May God help us, may God help us all...

Binneyink

March 2018

If you have any questions or require any further information on any subjects raised in this paper these are the main sources of help and advice:

Foyles Book Shop – Children’s Reference Section

Russia Times Website – Honest Vlad’s Big Page of Brexit Facts

Donald Trump’s Tweets

Boris Johnson’s hair-piece blog

Jacob Rees-Moggs’s Scriptum Scriptorium

The Office of Budget Responsibility – This week’s facts

Elephants and Elephanting Monthly

Hansard – The Pictorial Edition

Mein Kampf – The musical

What’s left to cook? 101 Tasty Rabbit Recipes -  Hugh Fearnley-Whatsitaboutall

The Archers: The episode where Eddie Grundy explains Brexit’s effect on farming

The Hackenthorpe Book of Made Up Statistics (93% Accurate)

John Milton – I can see clearly now – the collected 70’s hits

Why are people ignoring the Church on Brexit? – His holiness Marcus Welby MD Archbishop of Canterbury