So the Business Secretary now says that the point of Brexit was to force up wages in the UK, improve productivity and stop industry’s reliance on a large reservoir of low paid workers. Queues at petrol stations, food rotting in the fields, empty shelves, silent building sites, and endless industries crying out for help are, it seems, a deliberate act of Government policy and a mere transition to a high wage economy.
Besides saying that creating a high skilled, high paid economy was perfectly possible to do without Brexit or queues, the obvious comment is that this is pretty rich coming from the Tory party.
I am pretty sure that the destruction of Trade Union power, collective bargaining, employment rights and cuts to benefits, lead to the creation of a gig economy and were all the result of 40 years of deliberate Thatcherite policies. But it seems that it was all the work of the EU, the cunning devils, how did we not notice?
Although higher wages will be very popular in some places the end result of massive shortages in numerous sectors is that wages will spiral and inflation will rise with it, then those scarce workers will demand higher wages to make up for higher prices, caused ironically by their own shortage, and so it continues. Which means the Bank of England will slam the brakes on, with higher interest rates.
Sound familiar?
This so called economic policy would be more believable if the Government had stated 5 years ago this was the aim, increased apprenticeships and other training, improved education and helped industry invest.
They didn’t so we can take the idea that this mess is part of a cunning plan with a pinch of salt.
This is just what happens when you get elected with the populist vote, you can’t get off the tiger.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
It's probably safe to assume that, with regard to Brexit, what ever the Government says the opposite will be true. That's how Brexit was sold in the first place - everything claimed by the chief Brexit architects was 180° wrong. In other words a tissue of lies. Plus ça change...