Brexit Ten Months on. A look at how the Brexit campaigns lies have panned out

One of the better Conservative Councillors in the London Borough of Barnet is Gabriel Rozenberg. Gabriel is always polite and tends to try and make intelligent comments in Council and on Twitter. Unlike some of his (former) colleagues, he tends to think before shooting from the mouth.

So I was intrigued to see a tweet from him on the subject of Brexit

Re Brexit. Still think it looks like an utter disaster. Hope I’m wrong!

— Gabriel Rozenberg (@rozgab) March 28, 2017

His tweet pretty much sums up my own views. The pound has consisitently been between 16-20% lower since the vote. This means that all of us are 16-20% worse off than our neighbours in the EU, USA etc. Perhaps the most surprising, for me, aspect of what has happened is that no one has a clue, nearly a year after the event, what it really means and what the settlement will be.

Last June I pulished a list of the Top Ten porkies told by the Brexit Campaign. Lets see how that has panned out?

Top Ten #Brexit Porkies

1. 70 Million Turks will come to Uk if we remain. The concept that the entire population of Turkey will relocate to Uk is clearly dishonest.

Rog Comment. This is what it always was. A load of B___cks. A year down the line, Turkey joining the EU is further, not closer. 

2. We will regain control of our borders. We already have control of borders. Everyone entering UK has to show a passport.

 

Rog Comment. We hear very little about controls on free movement of people. Immigration from EU countries does appear to have slowed as people get nervous about their future status. That is a totally different thing to "regaining control of borders". Interestingly it seems that the price of a trade deal with India is likely to be more immigration. 

3. If we quit EU Leave will spend an extra £360 mill a week on NHS. It will be up to govt of day to set budget and £360 mill figure excludes rebate we already receive.

 

Rog Comment. This was the big porkie. Few believed it then and even Nigel Farage admitted it was a porkie once the referendum was out of the way. Sadly the  NHS looks more at risk than ever.

4. If we leave EU #leave will scrap VAT on household energy. If this is done it will further reduce money available to put into NHS as described in point 3 and would be a matter for govt of day.

 

Rog Comment. I've not heard mention of this since the referendum finished. 

5. If we leave EU, the EU will automatically give us a preferential trade deal. This is pure speculation as know one knows what the final deal will be.

 

Rog Comment. A year on and none of us has a clue what the deal will be. Clearly if we don't know now, we certainly didn't know then.

6. If we leave EU, migration from EU will decrease. If we achieve a deal on same terms as Norway, this is not true. No one knows what deal we will get so cannot say.

 

Rog Comment. Well it seems that in the short term there has been a reduction, as people are nervous about commiting to a move in a time of uncertainty. Longer term? Who can really tell.

7. If we leave EU we could deport foreign criminals. This would be subject to a new treaty and may breach Europen Human rights laws. These are not written by EU.

 

Rog Comment. As I understand it, the first act of Parliament will be one to write all EU laws into British laws. They will be changed/amended later. Will this happen? Who knows, but I wouldn't put my money on it. 

8. A lower pound would be good for the economy. This is only true for net exporters with a strong manufacturing base. Sadly we do not have that.

Rog Comment. As I mentioned, there are some sectors of the economy which will prosper. Sadly we are also seeing a flight of jobs in the finance sector. The latest being Lloyds Bank, who are setting up a subsidiary in Berlin. Inflation is rising. Given that nothing has materially changed yet, apart from the exchange rate, it is really very hard to know how this will pan out.

9. The EU makes all our laws at present. It doesnt.

 

Rog Comment. This was nonsense then and it still is

 

10. The rest of the world will be keen to sign trade agreements with UK. No country has said this is true, whereas most say they want us to stay.

 

 Rog Comment. Well we've had a year. How many countries have said "we are queueing up to sign a trade deal with the UK". I'm not aware of a stream of trade delegations rushing to head the queue.

 

 It seems to me that the whole campaign was built on porkies. If you point these out #Leavers call you a remoaner, ignoring the factthey moaned for 42 years about the first referendum result. I suppose its only fair to also mention the ineptitude and porkies of the Cameron / Osborne lead remain campaign. They foolishly let the Leave campaign set the agenda. They never sold the benefits of EU membership and simply traded made up stats with Leavers. No one trusted Cameron or Osborne, who were seen as slippery. I for one shed no tears for their journey to the political wilderness.