Ignore the enemy within and ‘flash crash’ warnings from Mark Carney, Theresa May… Brexit WILL work
Forecasts from the Remoan campaign have been proved wrong
BANK of England boss Mark Carney has ordered an official probe into last week’s “flash crash” which saw the Pound slump on world currency markets.
He could make a start by knocking on the door of 11 Downing Street and demanding an explanation from “Remoaner” Chancellor Philip Hammond.
Mr Hammond, along with Mark Carney himself, are the voices raising global alarm about Britain’s chances outside the European Union.
Their bleak forecasts have so far proved wrong, along with those of other so-called authorities, including the utterly discredited International Monetary Fund, led by France’s Christine Lagarde.
With one exception — the plunge in the value of Sterling after Mr Hammond’s scary warnings about “turbulence”, “volatility” and “rollercoaster rides”.
He is absolutely right, as Chancellor, to make us aware of the difficulties we face as we unpick our ties with Brussels.
It will not be plain sailing.
But there is a big difference between cooling expectations and setting the markets ablaze.
Did he really need to poke the fire? Nobody wants a Sterling crisis but we are a long way from that. And there are two sides to every economic statistic.
A lower exchange rate is a huge shot in the arm for British exporters — the very firms we need to flourish outside the EU.
Far from smoothing troubled waters, Mr Hammond is now at war with his own party.
Theresa May has declared beyond doubt that Britain will retake control over immigration, repeal all EU laws and scrap European Court of Justice powers over our courts and our elected Parliament.
Without huge and unlikely concessions from other EU leaders, this means an end to the free movement of people to these shores — and our access to the EU single market.
The PM’s iron rule is: “I mean what I say and I say what I mean.”
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Yet Mr Hammond is already chipping away at her negotiating hand by backing the single market — and a surrender over immigration.
Our so-called European allies rushed to put the boot in.
Useless French President Francois Hollande called for UK voters to be punished. “There must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price,” he chirped.
Britain must be whacked to discourage others from following us out.
That’s democracy, EU-style.
M. Hollande is not long for this political world. He will almost certainly be toppled next year by French voters who are even more angry about immigration than we are.
Ex-Cameron henchman Steve Hilton rants about a plan to keep count of EU workers, comparing it to tattooing numbers on the wrists of concentration camp prisoners.
Yet we have long kept tabs on non-EU migrants without being ludicrously labelled Nazis.
Britain is not a racist country.
By comparison with an increasingly hostile public in Sweden, France, Poland, Hungary and Germany, we are extremely hospitable.
It is why so many want to come here.
We have absorbed four million extra citizens in ten years.
Our population, unlike the rest of the EU, is growing fast.
How many more do we need?
Yes, we want the “brightest and the best”.
But not 330,000 a year.
So we need to control numbers, just as Mrs May says . . . and presumably means.
That rules out free movement of people.
Unless Brussels gives ground, that means leaving the single market.
Chancellor Hammond needs to get used to that.
Brexit backlash
KEIR STARMER, Labour’s new Brexit spokesman, wants a Commons veto on EU negotiations in the interests of “democracy”.
The ambitious ex-grammar schoolboy was not always so supportive of democratic principles – especially a free press, without which it cannot function.
As Director of Public Prosecutions, along with ham-fisted Met chief Bernard Hogan-Howe, he triggered a four-year vendetta against journalists on trumped-up charges of conspiracy.
The infamous Operation Elveden cost tens of millions of pounds and tied up hundreds of police. This was nothing to do with News Of The World phone hacking. Nobody at The Sun has ever been charged with hacking.
It was a political sting using 13th Century laws that was eventually kicked out by judges and juries in every case bar one, now under appeal.
Lord Chief Justice Thomas ruled no law had been broken and said: “We must ensure the press is protected. We can’t use criminal sanctions to undermine their position.”
He was right. Starmer, who was rewarded by a grateful Labour Party with a safe seat and a knighthood, was wrong.
As for democracy, he wouldn’t know it if it slapped him in the face.