That the bar for allowing people to stand for Parliament is not very high is something that will be familiar to those who look in regularly on Zelo Street, and especially when it comes to the Tory Party: Dominic Raab, Priti Patel, James “not so” Cleverly, Nadine Dorries, Chris Grayling, Bernard Jenkin - the assembled idiocy is substantial. Added to this list now is Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who represents the unfortunate voters of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Ms Trevelyan has seen something that looks too good to be true, and which really is too good to be true for Brexiteers such as Herself. But such is her enthusiasm for the cause that she has believed it anyway, telling anyone who will listen “There's now a US-UK trade deal ready to be signed says @BrexitCentral”. There isn’t. There really isn’t.
So what is there? Ah well. The anti-EU right has been acting in concert, with lobby groups (let’s not favour these with titles like “think tanks”) and propagandists attempting to turn their spin into reality. Eleven like-minded lobby groups have put together what they would like to see in a trade agreement, and then declared that it really is a trade agreement.
However, and here we encounter a significantly-sized however, one look at the roll-call of those lobby groups tells you what to expect in the alleged agreement. From the UK, there are the ASI, CPS and IEA, and from the USA, the AEI and Cato Institute. The convocation of flat earthers could not be more complete. So what’s on offer?
According to the Guardian, the agreement “would see the NHS opened to foreign competition, a bonfire of consumer and environmental regulations and freedom of movement between the two countries for workers”. Freedom of movement between the UK, with a population of 66 million people, and the USA, with 326 million. As Private Eye magazine might have mused, I wonder who that might favour? I think we should be told.
One look at the kinds of details on offer tells you exactly who it might favour: it “would remove tariffs and throw out the precautionary principle that has guided much EU regulation on GM foods, chlorine-washed chicken, hormones in meat, pesticides and chemicals in cosmetics”. Removing EU regulations and imposing US ones instead.
That this would be a sell-out to US business, and especially Agri-Business, was only confirmed by the news that “Liam Fox is planning to use controversial ‘Henry VIII’ powers to scrap European food standards in order to pave the way for a trade deal with the US after Brexit … Fox believes the UK should diverge from EU rules after Brexit in order to sign wide-ranging free trade deals with countries with lower standards”. Oh goody.
What other delights would be on offer? “The IFT/Cato Institute free trade deal recognises that its proposals are likely to be unpopular. ‘Health services would benefit from foreign competition, although we recognise any change to existing regulations would be extremely controversial,’ it says … It recommends testing the waters with foreign competition in education and legal services first”. Screwing around with education, just for starters.
One commentator who has seen them coming has no doubt what the alleged “agreement” would mean. “Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: ‘The measures supported in this paper represent a free trade utopia, entirely divorced from economic reality. The authors view good government as “getting out of the way” of business, and letting profit drive every aspect of our society. If carried out, these policies would destroy huge swathes of our economy, including farming, and they would lay waste to public services.’” And we have Tory MPs willing to shill for it.
The idea that this “deal” is ready for signature is below the credibility threshold. It would sell out our farmers, sell off the NHS and most likely replace it with a cripplingly expensive US-style insurance-based health care system, and effectively convert the UK, at a stroke, into just another US state. And its proponents talk about freedom and independence.
The IEA, CPS and ASI are not credible trade negotiators. The ritual incantation of soundbites such as “free trade”, as on a tape loop, should convince no-one. And Liam Fox is still a disgraced ex-minister who cannot be trusted any further than he can be chucked.
A UK-US “trade deal” does not exist. Don’t fall for this attempt to sell out the UK.
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5 comments:
The ultimate irony in all those farmers who voted for brexit believing they could make more money, I wonder when they will realise they have been screwed over.
Drop the law to match the US and they cannot sell to the EU, and who in the US is going to then buy food from the UK when the quitters keep on telling us how much cheaper food from the world is compared to know.
I wonder if the penny has dropped yet?
We might not even be 'just another US state'. We could be another Puerto Rico.
So what's the problem?
This is exactly the programme the far right has followed for decades, usually under the bullshit names of "Thatcherism" and/or "Reaganomics". Which are euphemisms for "thieving capitalism". Thatcher and Reagan were simply the usual front bullshitters - neither of them had a clue or cared about economics or had an original constructive idea in their miserable lives. Their successors have been no different.
Any "UK-US deal" would be an agreement in the respective Anglo Saxon establishments to further loot their economies. 2008 showed where that will lead. Which means, of course, that matters will get steadily worse, poverty will increase, likely there will be further wars and eventually we will have British and US equivalents of Pinochet and Galtieri.
Meantime, neofascist "think tanks" and "institutions" will continue to vomit their modular propaganda. Unresisted, the conclusion is obvious.
The good news is that the disgraced former defence minister has denied it.
Oh. Er. Argh!
https://mobile.twitter.com/LiamFox/status/1042734650731454465
As Matt Johnson sang a long time ago... ‘This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.’, echoed by New Model Army singing ‘We’re the 51st State of America’.
At the time we believed it – we had portable American nukes roaming the countryside, our culture was being swamped from the other side of the Atlantic, we had U.S. presidents making threats and flexing their muscles to impress the Commies that they meant business.
Now our leaders see us as becoming the 51st state again, selling our souls so that we can have a trade deal that welcomes the poisoned meat and poultry, the ambulance chasers and medical insurance companies that are so important to the U.S. health market. And our assets are stripped by Trumps buddies, just as he assured them they could when he became president.
Is this what Brexit means – exiting Europe and becoming another American slum?
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