This morning I watched the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and it was mostly about Boris Johnson and Brexit. Whilst it had the usual shapely observed whit about Boris I felt the overall damning assessment of a No Deal Brexit was that of someone who is viewing the whole situation from New York. To him No deal will be a disaster whereas I suspect it will have a much more multifaceted effect on both Britain and European Union: Some people and organisation will hardly notice things; Whilst others will find their lifestyle changed in ways they hadn’t expected and finally others will be directly affected in very negative ways. Where any one person or organisation sits on that continuum will be very subjective. What is clear everyone will have some form of adverse effect.
Will it be a disaster? I really do doubt it because there is too many vested interested on both sides of the argument and English Channel to allow that to take place. However, I do expect each side of the argument to exaggerate some aspect of the whole sorry mess for their own benefit a la £350 million a week for the NHS on the side of a bus.
The one question I have not heard explained in any great detail is why we will all have to suffer whatever level of discomfort we do? What is clear is that this will not enhance our trading relationships with our nearest and largest trading bloc in the short term – so why do it? My view has always been that the losses far outweigh the gains however, clearly that is not the majority view in Britain even now.