I TOLD YOU SO.

Domestic problems in the shape of brexit

It is, of course, much too late to start saying I told you so when the subject of Brexit crops up even though I did tell you so. Even back at the time of the referendum it was obvious that the threads flitting through social media were often speaking with forked tongues, even when they were backed up by politicians who should really know a thing or two. And billionaires like the owners of the nastier tabloid newspapers revelled in telling us lie after lie disguised as truth after truth.

I wonder how many wondered where some of the anti-EU memes originated when they nodded their heads and muttered about agreeing with the messages in them?

But the Referendum happened and that’s just got to be that. Whether the Russians really influenced the vote is something I’m not qualified to know, but what I do know is that it helped the Putin course when the UK left the EU because it weakened the entire structure of any future opposition they might want to point their mighty weaponry at. And it does seem pretty clear that very rich troglodytes with too much Russian cash were courted by selfish, greedy, unthinking politicians in our own country. Did I say troglodytes? Sorry: I meant oligarchs.

And this was doubtless an influence. I mean, you don’t pay a fat wobbly politician thousands of pounds to play tennis with the wife of one of your society of friends if you’re not going to get something in return, do you? Unless, of course, you’ve got a fetish for fat that wobbles, but Russians aren’t famous for that. My mental image of Russians is based on a recollection of beautiful women who play tennis or dance on Strictly and who you can tell at a glance are unlikely to ever be fat and wobbly. There are men too, but they don’t draw too much attention to their fleshy parts, but I bet they’re not excessively plumptious in the tummy region.

I should imagine that the reward for the tennis game was influence. And, to give him some credit, our prime Minister does seem to have enjoyed the company of affluent latter day romanovs on holiday in lovely places. And they wouldn’t, surely, allow his tummy muscles to spoil the fine Italian views he was being treated to unless they had something to gain. I mean, doesn’t he ever look in a mirror and wonder why they find him so beautiful? And he left his security bods behind, probably just in case they felt like interfering. Well, I suppose even they had seen enough of him in the office back home.

But all of this is one way of looking at why we were encouraged to vote to leave the EU. I remember semi-discussing the issue to locals where I lived at the time (we’ve relocated ourselves since then) and those locals, one arrogant individual in particular, parroted Farageisms as if he was quoting the Bible, and I recall that Farage was only too happy to lie through his teeth in exactly the same way as Adolf Hitler did when he was confusing his own people with racist lies. So the vote went all wrong, and our happy little nation left the EU.

Promises had been made, of course, that we would benefit from cheaper everything. Food would be abundant and almost free, energy would revert to costing Victorian pennies for a supergigawatt and a bloom of green beauty would wipe the smudges from the environment as nasty European winds blew elsewhere. Well, maybe I made that last one up, but it did seem at the time that politicians on the right or blue side of politics were trying to sell their souls and their country for a bite of independence.

And now we can see it was to their financial advantage. When prices go up the share of those prices that is paid to investors goes up proportionally (15% of £10 is less attractive than 15% of £100, always was and always will be). And, of course, prices went up. A lot of prices. Even taxes, and government ministers had the beautiful laxative of coronavirus to blame when the going got tough. It sent them skedaddling to parliamentary toilets making noises like Macbeth’s witches as they pulled their intellectual pants down. Did I say intellectual? I meant selfish, thick-arsed-mentality pants down.

The solution, of course, was to increase taxation to pay for all the excess that had been creamed off the public purse. And the joy of it is if you charge an OAP like me a tenner extra it hurts because it represents the nutrient part of my diet and I might die all the sooner for lack of that nutrient, but the multi-billionaire doesn’t actually notice that tenner being snatched from his greasy fingers. And he can eat his caviare until the cows come home, washing it down with something vile at a £100 a bottle and risk dying of alcoholic poisoning.

And that last bit makes me remember a point I wasn’t going to include here, but will because it tells a truth bigger than itself. Mr Greasy rich man will delight in the beauty of his expensive wine, slurping it down glass after glass at £100 a glass until his nose glows, and its very high cost will make it taste better to him whereas humble little me finds greater excellence in cheap plonk because of its very cheapness. To me a bargain is a bargain and always tastes better!

Right, back to my main point then.

Brexit? I told you so.

© Peter Rogerson