Interesting read - I read it in the latest Whetherspoon magazine.
Don’t believe the hype — more democracy, lower food prices and savings of £200 million per week just need MPs’ assent
Click here to download this article as a PDF.
Abraham Lincoln said that you cannot fool all the people all the time, but some cynics are determined to prove him wrong, at least where post-Brexit food prices are concerned.
The EU is mistakenly regarded as a free trade organisation, but most imports from the 93 per cent of the world which is not in the EU are heavily taxed – by imposing so-called ‘tariffs’.
The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019.
Then, in the absence of a ‘deal’ with the EU, the government has the power to take the ‘free trade’ approach and abolish tariffs from non-EU countries.
The UK would not be the first to do so: the Aussies, Kiwis and Singaporeans, for example, have followed the low or no-tariff approach for years, and their economies have thrived.
According to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, which apply in the absence of a deal, abolishing tariffs for non-EU countries means that food imports from the EU, as now, must also be tariff-free, since the rules do not allow discrimination.
Transitional
Some diehard Remainers are trying to delay our departure from the EU for as long as possible and advocate a ‘transitional deal’, which means, in effect, that we would stay subject to EU laws for at least a further two years, until 2021 – about five years after the referendum.
The fact which frightens the daylights out of the diehards is that food prices in shops and pubs will actually be lower on leaving the EU WITHOUT a deal in March 2019, if we adopt free trade, since there will no longer be tariffs on food imports from non-EU countries – nor will there be tariffs from EU countries, in that case.
Wetherspoon has calculated that leaving without a deal would result in food prices in our pubs falling by an average of about 3.5 pence per meal and bar prices falling by about 0.5 pence per drink. Similar reductions are likely for supermarket purchases too. For example, the current EU tariffs on popular Aussie wines would come to an end.
As a result, in spite of what the cynics say, no deal, combined with free trade, would result in lower food prices, and we also save the £200 million a week in EU contributions, which government lawyers have repeatedly told us there is no obligation to pay.
Everyone knows that the realisation that food prices could be lower without a deal is the death knell for the image of the EU as an organisation which promotes itself as favouring free trade and prioritising the welfare of its citizens.
Dishonest
So, a breathtakingly dishonest campaign has been waged by an elite, mostly graduates of Oxford or Cambridge University – each of which receives over £60 million in annual EU funding.
An example (see below) is the Sunday Times headline:
‘Sainsbury’s boss David Tyler warns a ‘no deal’ Brexit would raise the cost of shopping’.
According to Tyler, the UK could face an average tariff of 22% on foodstuffs we import from the EU.
I’m afraid, Mr Tyler, that that is an outright fib. Even if the government were to decide not to opt for free trade and to impose retaliatory tariffs on the EU, the average tariff would be far lower than you say.
Perhaps Tyler (Cambridge University) and the journalist (Oxford University) didn’t understand WTO rules and forgot to mention that ‘no deal’ and the free trade option would result in lower food prices than we have today? You can decide, dear reader.
A Guardian editorial (Editor, Katharine Viner, Oxford University) of 7 July made the same misrepresentation: “… no deal would mean a reversion to WTO rules…
It would mean, as Monsieur Barnier points out … customs duties of 29% on drinks, and an average of 12% on meat and fish.” Wrong, Ms Viner.
The Guardian must surely favour the lowest-possible food prices, and those are obtainable by a combo of no deal and the free trade option. Contrary to what you say, food prices would actually fall.
Mislead
The same misinformation was peddled in a Financial Times interview in October 2016, in which Henry Mance (Oxford University) interviewed Nick Clegg (Cambridge University). The headline, ‘Clegg warns ‘hard Brexit’ will lead to 22% EU food tariffs’, says it all. How could you mislead the public so, gentlemen?
Another scare story in the Evening Standard quoted the British Retail Consortium and its chairman, Richard Baker
(Cambridge University): “… failure to reach a trade deal … would see tariffs of 12% slapped on clothes … and up to 27% on meat … Chilean wine would be hit by a 14% levy … meaning higher prices for consumers.”
Do you believe in free trade, Richard, or are you really a closet protectionist?
A final example involves a spate of articles in various newspapers, quoting an organisation called the Resolution Foundation.
Its appallingly biased ‘Key Findings’, widely reported, are that “in a no-deal scenario … tariffs on footwear, beverages and tobacco will rise by 10 per cent … tariffs on dairy products by 45 per cent and by 37 per cent for meat products.”
The director of Resolution Foundation is Torsten Bell (Oxford University), formerly an adviser to arch Remainer Ed Miliband (Oxford University).
Project Fear failed in the referendum, and Project Food Price Spiral is also destined to fail.
The associated attempt to persuade the public to stay in the undemocratic EU and accept a transitional deal is a scam – around 90 per cent of companies in the UK do no trade with the EU anyway.
Even those, like Wetherspoon, which do so, don’t need two extra years.
We’re ready to leave tomorrow, in reality, and little or no preparation is needed.
The groupthink and bias of the elite minority are stunning.
More democracy, lower food prices and savings of £200 million per week are the attainable realities.
We’ll all drink to that, surely…
Tim Martin
Don’t believe the hype — more democracy, lower food prices and savings of £200 million per week just need MPs’ assent
Click here to download this article as a PDF.
Abraham Lincoln said that you cannot fool all the people all the time, but some cynics are determined to prove him wrong, at least where post-Brexit food prices are concerned.
The EU is mistakenly regarded as a free trade organisation, but most imports from the 93 per cent of the world which is not in the EU are heavily taxed – by imposing so-called ‘tariffs’.
The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019.
Then, in the absence of a ‘deal’ with the EU, the government has the power to take the ‘free trade’ approach and abolish tariffs from non-EU countries.
The UK would not be the first to do so: the Aussies, Kiwis and Singaporeans, for example, have followed the low or no-tariff approach for years, and their economies have thrived.
According to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, which apply in the absence of a deal, abolishing tariffs for non-EU countries means that food imports from the EU, as now, must also be tariff-free, since the rules do not allow discrimination.
Transitional
Some diehard Remainers are trying to delay our departure from the EU for as long as possible and advocate a ‘transitional deal’, which means, in effect, that we would stay subject to EU laws for at least a further two years, until 2021 – about five years after the referendum.
The fact which frightens the daylights out of the diehards is that food prices in shops and pubs will actually be lower on leaving the EU WITHOUT a deal in March 2019, if we adopt free trade, since there will no longer be tariffs on food imports from non-EU countries – nor will there be tariffs from EU countries, in that case.
Wetherspoon has calculated that leaving without a deal would result in food prices in our pubs falling by an average of about 3.5 pence per meal and bar prices falling by about 0.5 pence per drink. Similar reductions are likely for supermarket purchases too. For example, the current EU tariffs on popular Aussie wines would come to an end.
As a result, in spite of what the cynics say, no deal, combined with free trade, would result in lower food prices, and we also save the £200 million a week in EU contributions, which government lawyers have repeatedly told us there is no obligation to pay.
Everyone knows that the realisation that food prices could be lower without a deal is the death knell for the image of the EU as an organisation which promotes itself as favouring free trade and prioritising the welfare of its citizens.
Dishonest
So, a breathtakingly dishonest campaign has been waged by an elite, mostly graduates of Oxford or Cambridge University – each of which receives over £60 million in annual EU funding.
An example (see below) is the Sunday Times headline:
‘Sainsbury’s boss David Tyler warns a ‘no deal’ Brexit would raise the cost of shopping’.
According to Tyler, the UK could face an average tariff of 22% on foodstuffs we import from the EU.
I’m afraid, Mr Tyler, that that is an outright fib. Even if the government were to decide not to opt for free trade and to impose retaliatory tariffs on the EU, the average tariff would be far lower than you say.
Perhaps Tyler (Cambridge University) and the journalist (Oxford University) didn’t understand WTO rules and forgot to mention that ‘no deal’ and the free trade option would result in lower food prices than we have today? You can decide, dear reader.
A Guardian editorial (Editor, Katharine Viner, Oxford University) of 7 July made the same misrepresentation: “… no deal would mean a reversion to WTO rules…
It would mean, as Monsieur Barnier points out … customs duties of 29% on drinks, and an average of 12% on meat and fish.” Wrong, Ms Viner.
The Guardian must surely favour the lowest-possible food prices, and those are obtainable by a combo of no deal and the free trade option. Contrary to what you say, food prices would actually fall.
Mislead
The same misinformation was peddled in a Financial Times interview in October 2016, in which Henry Mance (Oxford University) interviewed Nick Clegg (Cambridge University). The headline, ‘Clegg warns ‘hard Brexit’ will lead to 22% EU food tariffs’, says it all. How could you mislead the public so, gentlemen?
Another scare story in the Evening Standard quoted the British Retail Consortium and its chairman, Richard Baker
(Cambridge University): “… failure to reach a trade deal … would see tariffs of 12% slapped on clothes … and up to 27% on meat … Chilean wine would be hit by a 14% levy … meaning higher prices for consumers.”
Do you believe in free trade, Richard, or are you really a closet protectionist?
A final example involves a spate of articles in various newspapers, quoting an organisation called the Resolution Foundation.
Its appallingly biased ‘Key Findings’, widely reported, are that “in a no-deal scenario … tariffs on footwear, beverages and tobacco will rise by 10 per cent … tariffs on dairy products by 45 per cent and by 37 per cent for meat products.”
The director of Resolution Foundation is Torsten Bell (Oxford University), formerly an adviser to arch Remainer Ed Miliband (Oxford University).
Project Fear failed in the referendum, and Project Food Price Spiral is also destined to fail.
The associated attempt to persuade the public to stay in the undemocratic EU and accept a transitional deal is a scam – around 90 per cent of companies in the UK do no trade with the EU anyway.
Even those, like Wetherspoon, which do so, don’t need two extra years.
We’re ready to leave tomorrow, in reality, and little or no preparation is needed.
The groupthink and bias of the elite minority are stunning.
More democracy, lower food prices and savings of £200 million per week are the attainable realities.
We’ll all drink to that, surely…
Tim Martin
Last edited:
