Sold down t' river..? 19 2 6 (11) 25 2 2
Or should I keep the title of this blog "The
Death Throes of that once great empire The British Empire" 19 2 2
That, since 1912, when I read in one of Jane's
histories of shipping that Britain had twice as many ships on the high seas of
any other country, or that when the USA and Germany navies combined it wasn't as
much as the British Empire had, probably in terms of Battleships, leaving
aside commercial vessels, as they used to like to refer to the UK then, when I
guess it might have been said it was in its heyday?
Alas, this last week one has read that with the P
and O Shipping Company discontinuing to fly the Red Ensign and instead
re-register all their ships with the Cypriot Flag, British shipping was said to
represent less than 1% of world shipping, hence my prophetic alternative title
to this particular blog.
But the average Brit is being sold down the river
in my humble view for another reason, which has much to do with the powerful
people who control the media, control the Conservative Party in large measure,
and who told so many lies to get the population to vote "Leave" in
the Referendum about membership of the EU, and since when the incumbent PM has
droned on about the "Will of the People voted to Leave" after giving
the Brexiters the fairly narrow margin of majority votes, was it 52 to 48%, certainly not greater..
On the other hand the Aaron Banks, one of the
backers of the “Vote Leave” brigade, will go one making their millions, his out of Insurance, and the like, whatever the outcome of Brexit, which will have the effect of the
same band of deregulators really having it all their own way, whether
businesses go to the wall post-Brexit, or as 1/3rd of companies
whose plans to leave the UK for safer territories to continue their business
interests within the EU, in countries like the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus,
Malta, etc., are either well advanced already, or are currently being
implemented. Like for example the Billionaire Brexiter who has “future-proofed”
his business interests by moving to Indonesia, the arch Brexiter Conservative
MP Reese-Mogg moving a part of his £100 million pound empire to the Republic
of Ireland.
Meanwhile the average Brit will be left worse off:
the people of the North East of England who arguably benefited most in terms
of receiving development grants by remaining a member of the EU, plus having Nissan* pour a lot of investment into car production, but who succumbed
to the negative propaganda on the evils of remaining, and 60 % of them voted "Leave"? Regions that made Japanese
cars for sale largely in Europe, the market soon to be lost to them? Sony and
Panasonic have already moved their European headquarters out of Britain to, was
it Amsterdam?
And then the Japanese have just signed a bilateral
trade agreement with the EU if I understood the matter correctly in this last
week, when the good doctor Liam Fox, the Minister for International Trade, made the comment that post Brexit the UK
will be signing its own trade deal with the the Japanese..!?
No, I am afraid to say that the Economists of the
UK have been short-changing the average man and woman of the UK for years
already. You only need to look at the statistics for the top people in UK salary-wise getting richer whilst the poorer people have got poorer during the time
since the banking crises of 2008 and before…
Not my most inspired blog I have to say in defence
of what I am now going to say when it has been my intention to publish this
same blog with the two different titles I introduced at its beginning, simply as
an experiment to see whether I attract any UK readers? I cannot remember when I
took my last blog hit by someone living in UK. Perhaps Sodaigomedy as a handle
is just too esoteric for your average Brit to conjure with, but there you go I
have not given up all hope for my former home country on the one hand and on
the other wanted to say how bad I believe Brexit will be for the country as a
whole, and say it now at the 11th hour of the last day for them to
do something positive to avoid it? Have a good day everyone and let’s try to
get on better together in a unified Europe rather than by fragmenting it?
* Since I wrote this blog Nissan has now withdrawn their plans to build the new SUV X-Trail in their Newcastle plant which apparently had earlier been projected to take on another 780 people: unbelievable folley for the people up there voting 60% leave...UNBELIEVABLE!
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