AIWA! NO!: NEWS on people, events and life; giving 'voice to the voiceless'.
Foreign minister Jeremy Hunt took aim at rival Boris Johnson’s “do or die” pledge to take Britain out of the European Union on Oct. 31 no matter what, saying the frontrunner to become prime minister could destroy Brexit and the government.
The Bank of England governor has rubbished a key Boris Johnson claim for avoiding economic damage after a no-deal Brexit, in a severe blow to the Tory leadership favourite.
Mr Johnson dismissed fears about crashing out of the EU by arguing the UK could still enjoy tariff-free trade under what is known as “Gatt 24”, until a permanent agreement was struck. But Mark Carney pointed out the trade law could only be invoked if there was an agreement in place – and the central point of a no-deal Brexit was the absence of a deal.
“The Gatt rules are clear. Gatt 24 applies if you have a [withdrawal] agreement, not if you’ve decided not to have an agreement, or you have been unable to come to an agreement,” he told the BBC.
Chancellor Philip Hammond will this week rule on the future of 1p and 2p coins, a year after he called them “obsolete”.
In his Spring Statement in 2018, a Treasury consultation about the mix of coins in circulation appeared to pave the way for the end of both of them.
A swift reverse by the Prime Minister’s official spokesman declared there were no plans to scrap the copper coins.
How will a no-deal Brexit hit travel in and out of the UK and Europe? CRIMSON TAZVINZWA, AIWA! NO!|With just … More
When you die, you end up in hell, heaven or purgatory. So it is with Brexit. Hell is crashing out of the EU with no deal at all. That’s what Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary, wants. Heaven would involve Britons changing their minds and staying in the EU, the outcome favoured by pro-Europeans fighting for a new referendum. Purgatory is the half-in half-out option that the prime minister Theresa May has negotiated.
Even pro-Europeans don’t, of course, believe that the EU is literally heavenly. As with any human invention, the EU is imperfect and needs reform. However, it is vastly superior as a mechanism for advancing peace, power and prosperity to the versions of Brexit that Johnson and May are pushing.
To get to “heaven”, MPs first need to reject both “purgatory” and “hell”. They will then conclude that the only sensible option is to ask the people whether they wish to stick to the decision to leave the EU that they took in the 2016 referendum.
We crossed an important milestone on Tuesday when MPs massively rejected the prime minister’s deal. Neither pro-Europeans nor hardline Brexiters like it because it is bad for both our prosperity and our power. We won’t get full access to the EU’s market but we’ll still end up following many rules without a say on them.
