Kate and the Brexit Lemons
There seems to be a convergence of post-factual truthers, Brexiteers, climate science deniers, people who hit quite a few of the branches when they fell out of the Stupid Tree and, er, Kate Hoey. Let’s see if we can separate the wheat from the chaff?
First, those lemons. Poor Daniel Kawczynski, the Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury, seems to fit at least four of those categories. Tweeting from the sunny uplands of the Tesco vegetable aisle, the poor chap was bombarded with unwaxed ridicule after suggesting that post-Brexit we’d be making Lemonade once we’d shrugged off the menace of the “EU protectionist racket”:
Now at Tescos in Shrewsbury. Please remember EU protectionist racket means inefficient EU growers preferred to other non EU Mediterranean growers,due to massive tariffs imposed by EU. This leads to you paying more for your products! No more after March 2019! #Brexit pic.twitter.com/XHBePeDJNy
— Daniel Kawczynski (@DKShrewsbury) September 22, 2018
Sadly for Daniel and his Liberated Lemons, it’s just not true, as lots and lots of people explained to him.
And here’s some lemons and limes from Sainsbury’s. Again the lemons are coming in on a 0% tariff because we have an FTA with South Africa. The limes are from Mexico. They also come in on a 0% tariff, because we have an FTA with Mexico. pic.twitter.com/kQ8iEIdEc2
— Jim Cornelius🇪🇺🇬🇧 #WATON (@Jim_Cornelius) September 24, 2018
It went on and on: blueberries, pineapplea, kiwi fruit, all mercilessly winging their way to us under 0% tariffs, the same was true at Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi and on …
“These blueberries here. They’re from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is part of the ESA group of African countries. So under the ESA FTA they enter the UK on a 0% tariff too”.
These Sainsbury oranges, also from South Africa, also on a 0% tariff because of the FTA with South Africa and the other SADC countries (o Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and Swaziland[Eswatini]). pic.twitter.com/waf2DfRs0n
— Jim Cornelius🇪🇺🇬🇧 #WATON (@Jim_Cornelius) September 24, 2018
As @girlcalledlina put it: “When life gives you lemons, and then you get ripped to shreds for being a moron.”
But if Brexiteers have gone from Straight Bananas to Lemon Protection Rackets, and we’re used to aggrieved fantasies from middle-aged men from Shrewsbury in Burberry jackets telling it like it is, where does Kate Hoey come into all this fruitiness?
At the Labour Leave fringe, Kate Hoey and Co were replaying some of the favourite tunes from the indyref about young people being too stupid to take part in democracy, arguing that : “The reason so many young people support staying in the EU is because they have been indoctrinated by Remain-supporting university lecturers.”
She went on …
Kate Hoey says “anti democrats” have gathered money “mostly from abroad” in order to campaign for a second Brexit referendum #lab2018 pic.twitter.com/1kNflfGian
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) September 24, 2018
Kate Hoey: “No deal is not a problem. No deal: no problem.” #Lab2018 pic.twitter.com/rMyT5mscC0
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) September 24, 2018
Kate was followed by the veteran Austin Mitchell:
Austin Mitchell says there’s nothing to fear from a no-deal Brexit because “They’re not going to let the asteroids hit us and drive us into the abolition of civilisation” #Lab2018 pic.twitter.com/UZoVYRilEx
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) September 24, 2018
Of course such Titans would have to be led by David Davis and his crew, who popped up at the Liberal Club with Shanker Singham, the author of the IEA’s “Plan A+”, who Davis introduced as the “country’s leading trade lawyer.”
John Crace picks up the story: “The problem with the Brexit negotiations so far, he (Singham) declared confidently, was that we had been treating them as a problem singular to the UK and the EU. Silly, silly us. His reasoning was all to be found in footnote 28 on page 37 of his report. Which didn’t appear to exist.
What we should have been doing is signing loads of other trade deals with the US and the rest of the world behind the EU’s back – the US was apparently just gagging to do deals before it knew what final trade arrangement we had agreed with the EU – because the EU would definitely never have found out was going on and pointed out its illegality, said the country’s leading trade lawyer, failing to grasp the basics of international trade.
As if to prove he really was as stupid as he sounded, Singham went on to suggest that post-Brexit, the UK might do some individual trade deals with separate EU countries. He concluded by saying that deregulation was the way forward – British workers deserved the same rights to be crushed to death by collapsing buildings as their counterparts in Bangladesh – and that Brexit could make the whole world about 10% richer. After several decades in which everyone was at least 10% poorer.”
Brilliant Mike.
Keep it coming. You have to laugh, or it would be unbearable.
Can that be Austin Mitchell? dearie me, time he chucked it!
Time to buy shares in Fray Bent*s and a bog roll company.