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Opinion

Theresa May’s ‘no deal’ Brexit plan shows why we need Welsh independence

10 Oct 2017 4 minute read
Picture: Teacher Dude. (Public Domain Mark 1.0)

Ifan Morgan Jones

Wales has found itself shackled to a Tory government that’s about to jump off a financial cliff.

Theresa May has told the UK to prepare for a ‘no deal’ Brexit. This is like an airplane pilot telling you: ‘I’m just going to crash into that mountainside over there, I advise you to brace for impact.’

A ‘no deal’ Brexit would be ruinous for the UK economy, but for Wales even more so. It would wipe out the aviation sector – that’s Airbus gone from the north-east.

The steel industry – already hanging by a thread – would face crippling tariffs.

These are just prominent examples. No single community would be spared. Almost 70% of Welsh exports go to the EU.

Even the Tory Chancellor, Philip Hammond, who is in charge of the facts and figures, not the wishful thinking, has said that it would be a “very, very bad outcome”.

That’s a crippling depression to you and me. Our jobs, our families, our communities being stripped of wealth, for no good reason.

This is all on top of the crunch that the economy would suffer anyway, even if we came to a deal with the EU.

Parts of Wales are already the poorest in western Europe. If the UK Government gets its way, perhaps we could add eastern Europe too.

Some will claim that Theresa May’s bluffing – that it’s all a ruse to get her way with the EU. But it’s not the EU that has a lot to lose here.

May keeps insisting that the EU accept a deal that it’s simply not in their interest to accept, and she will then blame the UK’s own pig-headedness on the EU.

The UK has already done itself an awful lot of harm over Brexit, and for no good reason. Are we confident that it won’t take that final step off the cliff, just to satisfy a few rebellious backbenchers?

A number of prominent Tory Eurosceptics are already arguing for a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Not as a last resort but as a preferred solution.

Lemmings

It would be reassuring to think that this is simply idiocy. That it’s British nationalism that has got out of hand, whipped up by the Mail and Express.

But there may well be more sinister forces at work here. Why is British nationalism being whipped up to lead the public along this destructive path?

The answer that it’s just a tool by the elite to manipulate the public to get what they want.

Just like they used the financial crash as an excuse to ram through crippling austerity, Britain’s ruling class want a cataclysmic economic shock that will justify extreme measures to ‘save the country’.

The idea isn’t, in fact, to ‘take back control’ for the people of the UK but to give it all away – we will all be rudderless ships bobbing on a neo-liberal sea.

Rules are regulations will be scaled back to ‘save the economy’, but with the aim of serving the business interests of a self-serving elite.

We’re used to the UK government not caring about Wales. But they no longer seem to care about anyone.

I’m sure a lot of people reading this – if they bothered reading past the headline – will already be scribbling away in the comments: ‘Wales voted for Brexit!’

Well, we didn’t vote for this Brexit. And if you have an ounce of patriotism and love for your fellow man in your body you won’t want to follow England, lemming-like, off this cliff.

Let’s swallow our pride and admit that the Farages and Johnsons of this world duped and misled our nation.

To think that these people wanted what was best for Wales, after centuries of neglect, was at best naive.

There’s only one answer now. You can vote for a different party, but the same destructive British elite will always get in. You can’t vote away the tabloids and the billionaires that own them.

Welsh Independence is the airlock through which we can flush them out once and for all.


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8 Comments
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Red Dragon Jim
Red Dragon Jim
6 years ago

Fantastic, a bit of fire in the belly. There’s no paradise looming “outside the EU state aid rules”, where we can fiddle around with “procurement” and other magic bullets. More like fantasy island.

glasiad
6 years ago

You are correct Ifan in calling out the shambolic Brexit being delivered by the Tory party. Prior to the vote David Cameron promised he would trigger Article 50 within 24 hours of the election if Leave prevailed. What did he do? Resign. The current PM and her colleagues are all Remainers at heart and will do everything in their power to drag it out and make leaving the EU as awkward as possible. The UK Elite have huge vested interests in remaining in the EU. I don’t think we will ever get free of the EU, perhaps in name, but… Read more »

glasiad
6 years ago
Reply to  NationCymru

You state “Brexit is itself a project of the elites”. All the evidence is to the contrary. The Financial Sector, all the Central and International Banks, all Big Business, all political parties (with the exception of that ragtag bunch of Tory rebels , UKIP), even the then President of the USA, BACKED REMAIN. They didn’t simply back Remain, they spent months leading up to the vote repeating ad nausium threats of calamity if Leave was to prevail. As if that wasn’t enough, Chancellor Osborne threatened punishing extra taxes if the people dared to revolt. To suggest that leaving the EU… Read more »

Eos Pengwern
Eos Pengwern
6 years ago

Glasiad is spot on, as is so often the case. As I’ve written elsewhere, a ‘no deal’ Brexit is almost certainly the best outcome, as well as being the most likely one, and it holds no fears that I can see – except perhaps this one… …The Conservatives are a complete shambles and have done a terrible job of this whole thing so far. I do worry that they’ll implode during or after Brexit and the result will be a Corbyn administration. An inevitable economic catastrophe will ensue, on a par with the last time his policies were tried out… Read more »

ERNEST
ERNEST
6 years ago
Reply to  Eos Pengwern

The reason why we had from the 1970: high inflation, growing de-industrialisation and growing unemployment was because the pound (£) left the gold standard in 1971. This was the fault of the then Tory chancellor Tony Barber being led by the USA’s R Nixon. It was the beginning of fiat currencies with reducing value and the destruction of economic capitalism (without capital how can you have capitalism). The Soviet Union was forced onto the gold standard as it was outside the western monetary system – result low inflation, low unemployment (pre-1970s UK/Europe). Venezuela, I understand is not on pegged to… Read more »

Trailorboy
Trailorboy
6 years ago

“carry on Brexit” is really starting to make my brain ache. It seems like we’re living in a lovely Belle Epoque with no sense of whats coming up over the horizon. I buy the argument that Brexit makes welsh independence more plausible, but much in the same way that a good dose of bubonic plague or a return to the middle ages would do much the same. Leaving the EU was idiotic in the extreme and now I’m hoping against all reasonable hope that every cloud really does have a silver lining – it has to or else this is… Read more »

sianiflewog
sianiflewog
6 years ago

Diolch: i too realize that leaving the eu is a huge pot of gold for the ultra rich. Look at nigel firrage: a millionaire who seeks what’s in his best interests – he’ll make another fortune out of the idiots who believe his self-serving claptrap. Just how is Britain (=England) going to do well in a world of self interest? Look at britain vs US of death in the Bombardier debacle. That is what is meant by ‘free markets’. The bigger the opponent the more you lose – don’t people get it? Just how is britain going to get a… Read more »

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