Ryanair Boss Blasts Brexit Bozos

Into each life a little rain must fall, and the steady trickle of water ingress into the world of the previously happy Brexiteers is steadily developing into a full-blown torrent, despite their best efforts at suggesting that the downpour “Look over there” at all the frightfully clever excuses they can marshall. Today, though, one Real Businessman (tm) has declared that he has seen enough. And his real world analysis makes sobering reading.

Michael O'Leary gives happy Brexiteers a traditional Ryanair greeting

Say what you like about Ryanair and avoid them like the plague - and I certainly do - but it cannot be denied that CEO Michael O’Leary has built up the carrier into a formidable low cost machine, teeing off some punters, but never enough to get in the way of all those years of growth that has seen his airline replace many national flag-carriers as the transport of choice for the masses - all across Europe.

And O’Leary is not backward in coming forward to remind anyone listening that he did not get where he has today without the EU’s “Open Skies” policy, which has allowed his firm, and rival EasyJet, to operate across the EU, using that as a base to access North Africa, the Middle East, and eastern Europe. His is not a talking shop for what Robin Day rightly and memorably called “here to day and gone tomorrow politicians”, but a real business.

While the happy Brexiteers like Dan, Dan The Oratory Man are chirping “Eurocrats won't engage in serious talks about a mutually advantageous Brexit as long as the Lib Dems and others are demanding a second vote” (wrong, nothing to do with opposition parties) and “Brian Cox tells #Newsnight that scientists back the EU because of free movement, citing CERN as an example. Where is CERN sited, Brian?” (actually on the Franco-Swiss border, Italy and Hungary), O’Leary is putting his new aircraft in service outside the UK.

As Hannan’s sidekick Douglas “Kamikaze” Carswell airily tells “I'm looking forward to all these Brexit books where journalists who told us it [would] not happen now share their unique insight into why it did” (we didn’t leave yet, Doug. Try paying attention), the Ryanair boss has a stark warning about what will happen when serious negotiations begin.

Describing the upbeat optimism of Hannan and Carswell as “arrogant nonsense”, he put very plainly what he expected to happen in upcoming Article 50 negotiations: “I have no faith in the politicians in London going on about how 'the world will want to trade with us'. The world will want to screw you - that's what happens in trade talks … They have no interest in giving the UK a deal on trade”. And there was more.

“The European Union is not going to make it easy for the UK. All this kind of arrogant nonsense in London - 'we're the fifth biggest economy in the world, they'll give a good deal … They won’t … The European countries are paranoid about being seen to be tough on the UK, because if they are not tough on the UK, the right-wing parties in most of those countries - in Germany, in France, in Holland - will be next”.

And all that the Hannans and Carswells of this world can muster in response is to put their fingers in their ears and reply “La la la, it’s not happening, we can’t hear you”.

That should tell you all you need to know about the Brexiteers and their delusion.