Brexit: stupidity squared

There is now a wealth of material on the WTO option, or as we now call it "no deal Brexit". Most of it is crap because it understates the risks or uses non-committal language about the consequences. You won't find any of that here.

As you can see from the number of retweets on John Redwood's latest verbal incontinence, the view that we can waltz out of the EU without a deal is quite a popular one. We have gone to some considerable lengths to spell out in detail why this is a non-viable approach but recent comments on my Facebook (from those I considered to be switched on close friends) demonstrate that I have been wasting my breath.

It is commonly said that the UK can trade with the EU without a trade deal because the USA and China trade without having a deal, and even though you can take a screenshot from the EU treaties database which clearly demonstrates this not to be the case, it doesn't make a dent, as so ably demonstrated by our esteemed friend Oliver Norgrove.

There is just no way to drill it into people that without a deal from the EU we are so very totally, unequivocally fucked. Moreover the position is utterly absurd. Professor Steve Peers this evening notes that Brexiteers boast that leaving the EU means we are free to negotiate free trade deals - but if we don't need a trade deal with our nearest and largest partner then, by their logic, we do not need any at all.

Meanwhile we could spell out in detail the wider consequences (to the letter of the law) and a Brexit-o-mong will simply grunt "project fear". Stupidity of this magnitude cannot be corrected so I won't even try. I'm now at the point where I see a no deal Brexit as all but inevitable so all that's left to do is take names so we can hunt them down and cut their balls off when it actually happens. Particularly the oxygen thief editors who give this nonsense houseroom. Going to work on Fraser Nelson with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch is now on my bucket list.

But then it is a little unfair to focus entirely on Brexiteers since the retardation of the Brexit debate has been helped along by just about every self-proclaimed expert who has bleated the words "but Norway has to pay and still adopts all the rules". That's the remainer variant of "The USA trades without a deal". Each side has their own tiresome canards and neither side is interested in the actual truth.

Since both sides have gone out of their way the berate the Norway option, belching out falsehood after falsehood, both sides have made their own bed and deserve the consequences entirely. In this Brexiteer stupidity is matched by remainer mendacity. Again I could, and did, write any number of articles carving out the important distinctions but remainers tend to be equally incurious.

The only time the media can be bothered to check in on this blog is when it suits their agenda to paint me as some sort of vindictive psychopath. This is not a charge I actually deny. At this point, having seen this carnival of incompetence developing well in advance of the referendum, I'm really starting to think that if the good Lord will not spare us by way of a giant meteorite then the WTO option is next best thing.

Certainly Redwoodists and Moggites have it coming, then on the left, anyone who had a hand in putting Corbyn where he is, passively or actively, deserves a miserable life - and there is a special place in hell reserved for the cowardly and stupid Tory "moderates" who have sat on their hands all this time. And then we have this epic bellendery...

Just look at the state of it. And look at the number of retweets. Meanwhile, I took a lot of media shit last week for this post which basically suggests that Brits have become overindulged, spoiled, whiny, ignorant twats entirely deserving of their fate, but when you have the likes of Brian Cox, Owen Jones and Abi Wilkinson elevated to sainthood, and the above is what passes for patriotism these days, you are going to have to work hard to convince me I'm wrong.

In this I might paraphrase philosopher and comedian, George Carlin. "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from British parents and British families, British homes, British schools, British churches, British businesses and British universities, and they are elected by British citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders".

At any point could the aforementioned dickheads have retweeted one of my more technical pieces explaining the WTO option or the advantages of the Norway option, but the truth of the matter is that these people could not be less interested in detail and not in the remotest bit interested in expanding the debate.

Ultimately Brexit is an indictment on our politics, our media, our culture and those who enable them. I know it is unrealistic to expect competence and I am self-aware enough to know that there is nothing more stupid than people in groups, but by any measure, British political culture has atrophied beyond repair. If Brexit of any kind serves as a Ctrl+Alt+Del on Britain as we know it then I'm fine with it.

I do not argue that a no deal Brexit is especially desirable as some have suggested, only that it is high time the public faced the consequences of their personal negligence in what they choose to read and those they elect. Every effort was made on my part to avoid this dismal fate, but only now I am a choice target have I become a "top Brexit campaigner". That says more about them than it does me.