danieldwilliam | Entries tagged with brexit

I'm attempting to summarise what I think happens next with Brexit and the Tory Party. Showing my workings. I'm not strongly wedded to this, happy to engage in reasoned conversation.

In summary,

1) On balance, I think Brexit will not happen. Sort of 55% change of it not happening.

2) I think the next Tory PM and the one after that will both be minced by the process, regardless of the outcome.

The only thing there is a majority for in the House of Commons is no Hard Brexit. The House has taken control of its business in order to prevent that. Attempts by the Government to do an end run around the constitutional priviliges of the House of Commons are likely to a) spark extra-ordinary constitutional measures like a Vote of No Confidence b) make Remainers and Constitutionalists dig in and decide to go for hard remain.

So I think no No Deal Brexit. This implies one of a) a further extension in October b) revoking Article 50 in October, c) some sort of deal in October.

I don't think the EU will change any aspect of the current deal unless the UK changes its redlines. Those redlines include the Free Movement of People. I can't see the Tory Party moving on that. The House of Commons might accept the current deal but I don't think it will. The Lib Dems and the SNP will have concluded from the Euro elections that they will do better in their target seats the more Remainerer they are. The Labour Party is probably about to shift towards a more People's Vote / Remainery position.

So I think it is unlikely that there will be a deal without an attached confirmatory referendum. I think Remain will win a confirmatory referendum. (Unless the deal is so altered as to be membership of the Single Market without the political membership of the EU institutions. That might just be enough of a compromise to win.)

A confirmatory referendum will probably require an extension from October of about 7 months. Which takes us to May 2020.

It's possible that Parliament might be pushed in to a position where it has a last minute choice between Hard Brexit and Revoke. I don't think it will come to that. If it does I think Parliament will vote to Revoke and if necessary VONC the PM. The PM would probably have to go anyway under those circumstances.

I don't think the next Tory Prime Minister will like this.

The next Tory PM (probably not Boris Johnson, probably Raab) will probably win the position by talking up their Brexitiness. Whilst there looks to be a small but significant move from Leave to Remain and that move seems to be continuing and it showed up in the Euro election results a) the focus of the Brexit Party vote translates in to headline grabbing seat wins and b) most of the Tory Party think they are fishing in the same waters as the Brexit Party. (I think they are missing a generational opportunity to connect with younger middle-class voters who are economically centre-right. If they are lucky they will have many opportunities to rue this in the middle of the 21st Century.)

I *think* that at some point the next Tory PM is going to try and a) renegotiate the Deal - and fail, b) try to ram the deal through the House - and fail, c) try to leave without a deal - and fail and end up looking like May but with less time to play with. I don't think they can risk going to the country at the current moment and also the Fixed Term Parliament Act VONC proceedure means that in between the VONC and dissolution AN Other probably gets a chance to form a government. This is more likely if they can assure the Queen that they can command a majority in the House.

Having failed to renegotiate, ram through or leave without the deal the next Tory PM will probably have to go back to the EU and ask for an extension (or be forced to by the House of Commons). My guess is that the EU will insist on second referendum.

So the Tories will probably dump their next PM sometime after that individual is blamed for the extension / People's Vote.

Their next PM will either try the May / Raab route for a third time and be minced or they will "surrender" to the EU and be minced.

At this point we are about due a General Election.

Alternatively, either the next Tory PM or the one after will succed in leaving without a deal and the several tens of thousands of deaths, the food riots and economic shock leading to Daily Mail readers suffering lower house prices and also cancer will mince that PM.

Or the next PM will have to fess up about how difficult Brexit is and then be minced by the Brexity wing of their own party.

It's mince all the way down.

And probably further delays to Brexit, probably a second referendum and probably no actual Brexit.

Meanwhile, the SNP will effectively launch the second Scottish Indepedence referendum campaign the week after next with the introduction of enabling legislation for that referendum. Which should land on the UK PM's desk for the veto just about the time the next Tory PM arrives so that half of Scotland starts by hating them as an enemy of the (Scottish) People.

Other side predictions

Change UK to merge with the Lib Dems by Christmas.

Corbyn to become the most unpopular and most poorly rated leader of the Opposition ever (again / still) by Christmas.

Westminister voting intentions for Labour / Tories combined to fall below 50% by Christmas.

The Electoral Commission to have investigated the Brexit Party's Euro election conduct by Christmas.

I'm not sure where we go from here on Brexit. In either the short-term or the long-term.

May has so boxed herself in over the last few years that the final failure of her policy must be explosive. Therefore, somewhat random.

A 52:48 vote indicates the softest of soft Brexits. We could have withdrawn from the political institutions and stayed in the economic ones. For a decade or so, a sort of an international sulk, before re-joining the political insitutions.

May could have started the process (1) by engaging anyone and everyone, doing her best to fashion a national, multi-party consensus ahead of pushing on with the political process of withdrawal. She chose a cowardly path forward, putting Tory Party unity ahead of national unity and demanding obedience rather than seeking compromise. That might of worked had her proposal been workable (i.e. acceptable to her own side - the Tories - and the other side - the EU) but they aren't. There is no majority for anything but that did not need to be the case. Even from the flawed starting position of the EU referendum a consensus could have been built.

Her deal starts from the premise that we must restrict the free movement of people. From that flows leaving the single market, from that flows the difficult decision about where the border between the EU and England should be; the Irish Sea or the Irish Border. From flows questions about the existance of the United Kingdom.

Starting down that road and doing so in the way she did means that we have ended up where we are. The Tory Party rupture is barely contained. Five and half million people have signed a petition that Article 50 be revoked. Her deal looks impossible to pass but we still have the very messy business of deciding what to do instead. And instead of doing that in conversation and dialogue and conference over a period of a year before we start talking to the EU we're going to try and do it with a series of single binary votes. In a single day. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Starting after the EU have told us to finally sort it out.

She may yet get her deal through. I think not. However, we are at the point where there must now be a move by Parliament away from saying "No to the Deal" to saying "Yes" to something, even if that something is a no deal exit. That requires breaking something. There is not time to renegotiate from scratch a different deal before we must take part in the European Parliament elections. Nor is there time for a referendum. So any attempt to think again, to start again, requires us to participate in the European elections. Both of those processes are year long, perhaps multi-year long processes. We remain in the EU for one to two years whilst this happens. That probably means the end of May as Prime Minister and an open, formal split of the Tory Party. (The Tory Party's MP's are mostly soft-Remainers, Tory Members are mostly Leavers, mostly hard-Leavers, Tory voters trend Leave.)

However, because the ERG bungled their coup last year (2) May can't easily be removed as Tory Leader. There isn't time to No Confidence their own Prime Minister as Prime Minister if she digs in and that requires Tory MP's to vote against their own government. There is time to straight out Revoke Article 50, but that requires Tory MP's to vote down their own government. Nobody seems to want to be interim Prime Minister as the condition appears to be that they won't stand for the actual leadership. There's no time for a General Election because we would need to extend Article 50, take part in the European Elections, and May won't do, so until you can get rid of May, you can't get rid of May.

At some point that has to break. Either the Tory Party splits, or May resigns, or we leave with no deal as an act of Government policy, or May breaks her solomn word again. Or the Queen intervenes and we start a third constitutional crisis inside the two we already have.

Things are perhaps a little less fraught on the Labour benches. Perhaps.

And then there is the exciting question of what happens to Britain after we leave the EU, or decide that we're not leaving the EU.

Firstly, we have perhaps five years of negotiating an actual trade deal with the EU. This issue isn't going away.

Then there is Rejoin.

The demographics and the economics are against a permanent Leave win. I understand that the Rejoin campaign is already well-funded and waiting in the wings. Five and half million people think we should just straight out Revoke Article 50 and more than a million people marched in London for a second referendum. Those people aren't going away. One of the feature of a binary, blunt referendum is that it makes people chose sides and lots and lots of people have chosen the side of Remain in (or Rejoining) the EU. There is a political party with an explicit committment to the EU with seats in Parliament (3). There is also the Liberal Democrats.

The Labour Party risk being squeezed between their Remain supporting voters and their Leave supporting constituents. They seem pathologically unprepared for leading a multi-party government.

I'm less worried about disappointed Leavers. I note that Farage (Nigel Farage) can only get about 300 (4) people to join him in Sunderland for his march, but there will be many. Many disappointed Leavers if Britain doesn't leave the EU. Many disappointed Leavers when they discover that restrictions on freedom of movement mean restrictions on them. Many disappointed Leavers when they discover that the bits of Britain they live in are still ignored by the rich cities, but now treated with hostility as well as disdain. Many disappointed Leavers when they discover that, if you want to trade with the EU, you trade on their terms, not yours.

So the next ten years look interesting. Perhaps the next 20. What started out as a internal Tory feud as been allowed to infect the entire nation.

What happens over the next few months will just be the explosive end to Act 2 of a national crisis in five Acts.

(1) and I am the Co-Chair of an organisation that literally told her this

(2) and let's take a moment to applaud the chutzpah of a bunch of spunk-rags so fucking inept that they didn't realise ahead of time that then couldn't get rid of Teressa May as leader of their own party trying to lead our country out of the EU. If ther were Moses, they'd have tripped over there own beard on the way down Mount Sinai, dropped their staff on their foot, been knocked face first in to the dust by Aaron whilst trying to pick up the staff, dropped one of the Tablets with the Ten Commandments on it, dropped the other one whilst picking up the first one, been knocked over again by Aaron after Aaron stood on the end of Moses' staff and hit himself, rake-like, straight in the willie-nuts, got up, got into a fist fight wtih Aaron, dropped the Tablets down a rabbit hole and arrived, hobbling, at the bottom of mountain with no Commandments, no staff, two black-eyes, Aaron limping and swearing to himself and then confidently led the Jews to Somalia via Bognor Bloody Regis.

(3) The SNP

(4) The geography of Sunderland doesn't act as a force multiplier, the Stadium of Light is harder to fill than the Gates of Fire.

I don't know either.

Today I am going shopping for emergency supplies.

The last time I did this I was 14, living in Townsville and we were expecting a Category 5 (out of 5) cyclone to go right over the top of us.

I'm a middle-aged, middle-class man, married to a middle-aged, middle-class woman, living in one of the most cultured cities in the world, both with good jobs and our country and our government have so fucked up our foreign policy that I am genuinely concerned that there might be an interuption in our food supplies resulting in social disorder.

I didn't vote for the cyclone and I didn't vote for this shower of shambolic ineptitudes and their policy but I refuse to give them the same moral credence. A cyclone is an act of nature, Brexit is an act of the Tory Party.

Prompted by some wild speculation I have had a quick go at gathering my thoughts and some data on how energy and water supplies might be affected by a hostile No Deal Brexit.

Don't Panic!

By a hostile No Deal Brexit I mean the worst case scenario where we leave the EU in a sulk, with No Deal, refusing to pay any money, and the EU essentially shuts the border in retaliation. This is far and away worse than the base case for a No Deal, which is that we fail to agree withdrawal terms and the we lack a whole bunch of legal compliances and the volume of paperwork jumps ten-fold and all the lorries are stuck in Kent or, more likely, somewhere else in the EU. I'm talking the EU being so cross with us that they are actually trying to be difficult.

Still Don't Panic.

Water

Britain has lots of water. Almost all of our water comes to us via a gravity fed series of reservoirs and pipes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

https://www.wte-ltd.co.uk/sewage_treatment_explained.html

About 4% of California's energy goes on water processing and pumping. California is rubbish at dealing with water. I'd guess we spend about 2% of our energy on dealing with water.

We have cholrine plants in the UK for disinfecting drinking water.

See this one. If you look in the upper right hand side of the photograph you can see my old powerstation.

https://www.vynova-group.com/sites/runcorn

If things get very bad - remember that most of the water that is delivered to your taps as drinkable isn't used for drinking.

You need to drink about 1.5 - 2.0 litres of clean water a day.

https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/six-to-eight-glasses-of-water-still-best/

Worst case that clean water can come in a bowser under armed guard. In the unlikely event that the army has either mutineed en masse (unlikely see the 1914-1918 war and also the Glorious Revolution in 1688) and joined the Brexiteers but decided not to help them with water supplies or the army has lost control of the mainland UK. The later is a thing that has not happened since 1745, arguably not since 1066. Remember, if the situation gets that bad that hordes of Brexiters are rioting for water you only need about 5 days supplies and a safe place in order to survive them. We're talking the first 20 minutes of 28 Days here. By Day 4 of the Great Water Riots anyone without water will be dehydrated to the point of death.

To be honest drinking untreated water is unlikely to kill you. (See human evolution passim). Certainly not before the government collapses and the EU "invades" - again see Glorious Revolution of 1688 for details.

Sewage - similar story. Most of the sewage treatment is passive, using gravity tanks and naturally occuring bacteria. A complete system failure might mean inadequately treated sewage (not raw sewage, just not tertiary treated sewage) is released in to environmentally sensitive areas. Don't go swimming in Cornwall.

So, the water supply is probably okay so long at the electricty supply is adequate.

Electricity.

I've done this pretty quickly but given the margin for error we have I'm pretty sanguine -but do chip in if you think I've missed something and have workings to show it, or you have some sort of qualification in energy and have advised at least one government on energy policy.

Roughly, 70% of the UK's electricy comes from sources that are domestically produced or immune to an huffy EU.

19% of our electricity comes from nukes. Those nukes will have an average of 12 months of fuel already inside them. The UK has about a thousand years worth of nuclear fuel available to it in spent fuel. Reprocessing this will cost twice as much just buying it from Australia or Canada. NB fuel costs make up about 5% of the levalised of nuclear electricty. So doubling the fuel cost will add about 5% to the over all cost of electricty from nuclear plants.

We are probably dependent on EU regimes for legally running our nukes but in the event of a hostile No Deal Brexit I expect EU nuclear safety inspectors will be shot on sight (or on site). Certainly the plant manager will be taking his orders from the SAS security team and not the EU inspectors.

So that's about 1 electron in 5 squared away.

Coal accounts for about 15% of our electricty needs.

Most of that is imported - about two thirds. Not all from the EU. In fact we import most of our coal for electricty from Russia, Columbia and the USA. Would Russia stop selling us coal because the EU said so? Would the USA (current President Trump - friend to coal miners everywhere) stop selling us coal because the EU said so? I don't think so.

We also do have indigenous supplies of coal which could increase production to cover some of that shortfall. It's a good thing the Conservative Party has got excellent relationships with the coal mining community.

Gas.

Gas is problematic.

We import about 15% of our gas. Depending on pricing a lot of this comes from Norway or from the European gas grid via Belgian and the Netherlands. We use gas for electricty and the way we use it is problematic. We also use it for heating. UK controlled gas storage has decreaesd in recent year.

The problem with our gas-generated electricity is tha we use it for load following. Currently in the UK if you want electricty when you actually want it then that is being supplied by gas plants.

The better news is that one of the recent years we imported about 40% of our total gas needs from Qatar via Liquified Natural Gas terminals at the Isle of Grain, Dragon and a few others.

I think Qatar would continue to sell us gas, perhaps in exchange for diplomatic efforts on their behalf, or some bombs.

Hydro provides about 20% of our electricity and is entirely indiginous.

Wind provides about 15%

So roughly I think about 70% of our overall electricity demand is secure. A shortage of gas and the interconnectors being switched off might mean we have intra-day shortages of electricy. That means rationing, demand managment (perhaps at gun point) rolling black-outs or brown outs. It could impact grid stability leading to a shut down of the UK grid for a period of up to three days.

Other energy needs

We use gas for heating and petrol for transport. Expect petrol prices to rise. A lot. Petrol is traded in US dollars. GBP:USD currently $1.30. If the pound hit dollar parity - all other things being equal, petrol goes from £1.20 a litre to £1.50. Add shortages to that. Get ready to walk or bicycle. Worst case petrol is rationed at gun point and used to drive food about the place.

Gas for heating is problematic. Expect price rises and rationing. Buy jumpers and thermal vests and hope for a mild spring, summer and autumn whilst the EU decides how (and if) to invade to protect us from ourselves.

All of this applies to the UK as a whole. England, if, for some crazy reason Scotland makes a universal declaration of independence and shuts off our interconnectors with you in order to gain a financial advantage in the Sexit withdrawal agreement then it will be more problematic. For you. Good thing for you that your Conservative government has maintained excellent relations with Scotland and the Scottish government.

But basically my conclusion is that a disordely Brexit is unlikely to lead to a failure of the water supply or a complete failure of the electricity and heating supply. For sure, poor people will die, but that is largely Conservative Party policy on most matters.

How does your bus driver get to work if the permits officer at the petrol refinery is on strike because the coffee machine has run out of limescale remover and won't boot up?

I have been thinking a little bit about supply chains and how they might be affected by a botched Brexit. And I don't know what will happen with them but I thought it might be useful to lay out why I don't know and what this implies for the ability of the government to know. Or to plan or to act.

Some of the important principles that I think apply to supply chains are below.

Supply chains are expensive. Firstly they require an investment in fixed assets. Warehouses, lorries, IT systems. This requires an investment of capital. Secondly, things that are in a supply chain are working capital. Capital costs money. If you have a Weighted Average Cost of Capital of 15% then each additional £1million is costing you £150,000. A year. Each warehouse or each additional day of stock you need costs you money.

So much money do supply chains cost that one could plausibly describe the post-war economic history of the West as the organised attempt to optimise supply chains for the lowest cost.

Supply chains are also dependent on external socially provided capital. Public roads, the electricty grids that carry the power to the cranes, railways. This is also expensive and big and slow to provide and subject to political processes, like planning permission.

Supply chains are the result of an evolutionary process. A process of exploration. Three things follow from this.

Firstly, there is a constant search for better supply chains. Better in the Darwinian sense of being best fitted for surviving in to the next time period. Supply chains are optimised over short periods. They have been developed incrementally. Their current position is dependent on the path they have taken to get there. The resiliance of your supply chain to a once in a 50 year event is not going to keep you in business if you can not pay this quarter's dividend or settle your rent bill. They are constantly being optimised in real time.

Secondly, they are being optimised by individual economic actors mostly against a background of the current state of optimisation by everyone else. This is being done in conditions of limited knowledge and bounded rationality. Those economic actors are acting in their own perceived best interests. They are acting in a state of a mix of co-operation and competition with other economic actors. The "Supply Chain" is not being optimised. Each individual's position is being optimised, within the supply chain.

Thirdly, a large part of the background against which supply chains have evolved is the stability of other market and political structures. People will supply goods on credit because courts exist. People will not insist on being paid in cash on delivery because internet banking exists. People will not come in person to your factory to buy goods because ordering by post or email exists. People will invest in capital goods because they have a reasonable expectation that things tomorrow will be similar to things today and that they can trust other economic actors to continue to behave like they did yesterday.

As a consequence of the above supply chains have become very, very lean with as little spare capacity as possible in them, by design. As a consequence of the above supply are vulnerable to the positions taken by every individual in them. As a consequence of the above there is no holistic system with a writen down plan of "The Supply Chain". The Supply Chain is lean to the point of brittle, dependent on many of the organisations in it and unknown.

Supply chains for many organisations are also dependent on the transport system. The transport system is a chaotic system. Chaotic in the sense that it is subject to sensitive dependence on initial conditions and its behaviour is non-linear. How the transport systems will respond to an external shock or to signficant increases in volume is anyone's guess and perhaps unmodellable.

Supply chains and transport networks are often run, or managed, by large, complex organisations. I do not subscribe to the Heroic models of Leadership or Entrepreneurship. A key challenge in large organisations is managing the flow of information. The people leading large organisations don't fully understand how their organisation operates or what it is currently doing. Large organisations are also political organisations and subject to the goals of any individual or group in the organisation who has power or influence. Parts of an organisation may well be optimised for the benefit of the people in that part of the organisation and not for the organisation as a whole, let alone optimised for the benefit of the supply chain - and optimised in the context of a steady environment.

The Supply Chain is being managed by organisations which are uncertain of their own position and velocity.

Supply chains are also mostly still managed by people. There are people at both ends. People are subject to all sorts of planning defects up to and including blind panic.

On the other hand, supply chains have a degree of automation in them, either formal automation or the automation of habit and custom and practice. That automation is designed to optimise parts of the supply chain for low cost against a stable background.

Supply chains are also resting on a legal, regulatory and financial framework. Do you have cash? Do you have credit? Is your cash the right currency? Will your insurance cover this action? Is this action legal? Do you have the legal authority to take this action? How do I know that this is what it says it is? How does this framework operate in a situation of chaotic stress and frantic action?

My conclusion is that no one knows, no one can know, with much certainty, how "The Supply Chain" is currently set up and what are the vital parts of it. There is no model that will allow you to work out what the end result of something changing will be. There can be no comprehensive plan for mitigating the impact of Brexit on "The Supply Chain" because there is not such a thing as "The Supply Chain." No one fully understands it and no one fully controls it.

This is a two part question. Do we understand our own supply chains and what is about to happen to them? What is the impact on supply chains of a botched Brexit?

We don't know what chain of events a botched Brexit will trigger. We don't know what secondary events will flow from the initial disturbance.

It is straight-foward enough to think about what happens if there are delays moving lorries through ports. Traffic jams, delays, perished food, lorries not where they ought to be the next day. Drivers not where they ought to be the day after.

What happens if Gresham's Law applies to lorries and anyone with a lorry wants it to be inside the EU and not stuck in a traffic jam in Kent and so refuses to send their lorry to the UK after the 20th of March?

What happens if the impact of Brexit is more left-field? A currency crisis caused by a bot trader responding automatically to a panicked sell off of the pound. The currency crisis causes a margin call for currency traders and a liquidity crisis and suddenly no one in the UK can buy dollars any more. Which is a problem if you need dollars to pay for oil to turn in to petrol. Or if the impact of a petrol shortage is that teachers can't get to work and lots of primary schools are shut and parents also can't go to work. And some of those parents work in the National Grid control centre. Or during the black out caused by a grid failure someone steals the lorry which has the shipment of consumables for the tachographs that go in to every lorry in the UK and now no one is sure if they can legally drive their lorry any more.

Or a group of the kids whose school is shut and are left unsupervised decide to play chicken with a passenger express train on the East Coast Mainline and lose and the railway is closed for a day.

Or anyone of a dozen plausible complications which might be easily dealt with if everything else were working well.

So, I think it's very difficult to see how our supply chains will work in the event of a disorderly Brexit.

I've just spent a fun lunch break doing a first draft of my Brexit No Deal Disaster Shopping List.

The scenario I am preparing against is a mild Brexipocolpse. That there is a short term but significant disruption to UK supply chains and / or an outbreak of panic buying which empties the supermarkets of food and that it takes some time for supply chains to re-open. I'm also taking account of the possibility of disruptions to electricity supplies. So basically no food in the shops for a few weeks, a 3-Day Week level of electricity supply and a Winter of Discontent level of public services.

I want to be able to comfortably survive 4 weeks where the army is on the streets and Waitrose is shut. Ideally, I'd like to be able to stay indoors.

Any worse than that I am expecting the government to collapse or to be lynched (which is really only a special form of No Confidence vote) and the new government to reverse British Brexit policy. Any worse than *that* I expect the EU to invade for our own protection. In that scenario I'll be okay. I'll be married to an EU citizen and father to an EU citizen and I shall surrender to the first good looking female Irish Guarda or French gendarme that I see.

(Supply lines are an emergant and evolved process which are deeply optimised for the status quo. Who knows how they will break? Not me and I doubt very much if a civil servant, with 72 hours notice, will know any better than me. Any amount of central planning could still end up with something not working and that something could turn out to be very, very important.)

I'm not expecting a six month crisis. So I'm aiming to have cupboards full of things that will keep for a while but which I won't mind eating once the panic has died down. I'm not going to making my own pemmican but I will have a few tins of corned beef in the cupboard.

The list so far includes

Rice - a good source of calories and vehicle for flavour - a billion Chinese peasants can't be wrong. Stores okay when dry. Problems cooking it perhaps but it will add water to the diet when cooked.

Pasta - as above.

Flour - doesn't store particularly well, but does store better than actual bread.

Ingredients for bread making (yeast, baking powered, baking soda etc). Worst case I can make flat breads or damper on the bbq.

Packet soup - a source of vitamins and flavour

Tinned Chickpeas - a source of non-meat protein and for making hummus

Lentils (dear God, has it come to lentils) -a source of protien.

Jam - flavour, calories (all that sugar) and stores well if not opened.

Chocolate - powdered chocolate -never underestimate the morale boosting power of chocolate

Tahini - for hummus.

Powdered milk - in case of a desire for milk.

UHT milk - ditto

Popcorn (unpopped) - can be cooked on the bbq, a source of starch

Oatmeal -for porridge.

Sugar - keeps well and calorific. Also, MLW won't drink coffee without sugar and stops being human without coffee. I'm not surviving the Brexpocalyse only to be stabbed to death by my grumpy wife.

Honey - keeps well and calorific.

Jars / tubes of garlic / tomato paste - for favouring food.

All the spices and herbs - for flavouring food.

Pickles of all sorts - for flavour, obviously keeps well, vitamins.

Jars Pesto and other spaghetti sauces - use as a base for sauces.

Dried bullion - to make soups.

Hard cheese - a source of protein, fat and calories that should keep well even if the fridge is not working.

Tinned fish (tuna, anchovies) - protien, flavour, keeps well.

Tinned beans

Tins of baked beans

Tins of chilli

Peanut butter

Tinned tomatoes

Sun dried tomatoes and sundried other things in jars - keeps okay, adds flavour.

Tinned pineapple - a dense source of calories and flavour.

Dried eggs - I like eggs.

Olives in a jar

Whey powder

Ghee - keeps better than butter

Tobasco sauce - flavour

Maple syrup - keeps well, flavour and calories

Worcestershire sauce - flavour

Soy sauce - flavour. A bowl of boiled rice, a dash of soy sauce, a cup of water and vitamin pill will keep you alive. At least long enough to be stabbed by MLW.

Bovril - flavour, vitamins etc.

Ovaltine - an alternative to drinking water.

Jerky (for flavouring soups)

Olive Oil - for making hummus and cooking breads and so on.

Museli - keeps for a while.

Corned Beef - meat in a tin.

Charcoal for the bbq - in case I want a hot dinner.

Vitamin pills - to avoid scurvy and beri beri.

Anti-depressents - to avoid depression.

Jerry cans of petrol - enough to get to Newcastle and back. I'm not expecting to do lots of driving during Brexpocalypse but I would like to be able to rescue BB from Newcastle if Jacob Rees-Mogg is correct and it does all go a bit Mad Max

Coffee - have you met my wife? Have you met my wife before she's had coffee?

Dried fruit - keeps okay, source of calories and nutrients.

Nuts - keeps okay, source of calories and nutrients

Camping gas hob and cannisters. In case I want to cook inside

Rum, vodka and whisky. A good source of calories. And if I'm going to watch my country destroy itself in an orgy of hubris, ignorance, jingoism and the enrichment of Jacob Rees-Mogg I'm going to do with a damn good cocktail in my hand.

Vanilla extract - it's a nice flavour.

Dry salami etc. keeps for a while even without a fridge.

Beer (or perhaps a home brewing kit). Beer is a good source of sterile water. Also, I like beer.

Several cases of wine.

Boiled sweets - basically flavoured sugar in solid form.

Water purification tables - why add dysentry to an already crowded Brexpocalypse diary.

Unscented liquid chlorine bleach - to disinfect things.

Bottled Water (sparkling) - keeps well in the bottle, I like sparkling water. 4 litres of water per person, per day. Me, MLW, the Captain, Dad, BB and one waif and stray is 24 litres of water a day.

Biscuits (digestives, whole wheat crackers,)

Things that can easily be cooked in the microwave (electricity supplies may be patchy, the microwave is quick and efficient).

Batteries

Candles.

Matches.

Wind-up torch / radio.

I might see if I can purchase some dry ice to keep the freezer cold.

I'd expect to go in to Brexit Day with a fridge and freezer stuffed full of normal food but it's possible that the electricty will be cut off (lots of our electricity comes from France, lots of our gas comes from outside the UK, all of our coal comes from outside the UK, gas is paid for in US Dollars - currently trading at $1.3100 to the pound. During Brexipocalypse - the price of the pound is anyone's guess, but it won't be as good as $1.31.

I think the Brexit process is continuing much as I expected it to.

The Prime Minister is trying to thread a line between the various factions of her party. It's difficult to tell if she is most concerned about the unity and sanctity of the Tory Party or about achieving some specific Brexit outcome. I sometimes think she might be deliberately edging towards a situation where not leaving the EU is the only alternative to crashing out and will therefore present us staying in as the only option. But then, trying to fudge the internal negotiations to keep the Tory Party together would look identical to that from the outside and perhaps also from the inside of May's head.

The Labour Party are still mostly ineffective caught as they are on a triple bind of Corbyn, Kate Hoey and the Will of the People.

The polls continue to drift very slowly in the direction of Remain. The Poles continue to drift in the direction of Poland.

The economy potters along, still under performing long-term trends let alone a post Depression recovery. Some indicators are up, some down, some behave strangely. Some are charmed.

It is unclear where we are going but it becomes clearer everyday that we are nearly there. At some point soon the EU is going tell us to stop messing about. I think that point is October.

And thoughts turn to panic buying and shortages in the supermarkets. Which probably won't happen *after* Brexit but before Brexit as people like me stockpile food and other necessaries. I recall David Cameron (Britain's, indeed England's, worst every Prime Minister) causing panic buying during a fuel shortage by suggesting that people should panic buy petrol. Twat! That might be the moment when public opinion shifts. I wonder if it will be in time. I am drawing up my list of storable food and necessary household supplies.

Things I'm watching to see if Brexit is as bad economically as I think it's going to be.

1) FX rates, particularly the GBP:USD rate and the difference in movement between GBP:EUR and GBP:USD. Brexit will be uncertain for the UK and probably very bad, pushing down on the GBP. If people start to think it will drag the rest of the EU down with it then the USD will strengthen and the Euro won't
2) Petrol prices - the first time voters will feel Brexit in the their pocket will be next week when petrol prices go up and the weak pound makes dollar denominated oil more expensive.
3) Inflation figures in the quarter July-Sept. Again, driven by the weak pound I'd expect inflation to start nosing up a little
4) Job creation figures for the same quarter - if they are flat we are probably heading for a recession.
5) Quantative easing of some sort by the Bank of England - I believe the stock phrase is "organised support". Volumes, timings, and take up
6) Balance of payments - we already have a balance of payments problem, weak exports compensated for by inward investment. Will the investment keep coming?
7) Our credit rating with the other ratings agency - have the priced in all the bad news already?

Politically I'm watching for some pressure to be put on us. Possibly by ourselves. Not words but actual events.
1) The Calais frontier being moved back to England (watch for footage of drowned toddlers washed up on the beaches below the White Cliffs)
2) The Spanish government blockading Gibrator. (On some pretext. Looking for drugs or petrol smugglers.)
3) A pretty clear offer that Scotland can remain in the EU and therefore that if the UK leaves it will cease to be the UK
4) The Loyalist marching season in Northern Ireland getting out of hand.

What else should I be keeping an eye on.

Current Mood: watchful
Current Location: Dover Beach
Current Music: They'll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover, by Vera Lynn

Where does Brexit leave voting reform?

Very difficult to tell. It will depend on the how the cascade of crises we're about to have tumble. That is probably true for many things.

My view is obviously coloured by the fact that I think our poor voting system is one of the contributory factors in the Brexit vote. If you think that I'm an out of touch Guardian reading, metropolitian liberal elite wanker who is part of the problem then my diagnosis is unlikely to be persuasive.

There are I think a number of binary positions to consider that build up to some scenarios.

Brexit either will or will not happen before 2020.

The government either will or will not collapse.

The Labour Party will recognise that it has lost the firm support of many traditional voters or it will not.

Scotland either will or won't become independent.

The Party system either will or won't break down.

As a reaction to the shock to the Party System can progressives or conservaties gather round a vote winning leader or a vote winning platform or not? Are social liberals and economic liberals allied or opposed? Do they converge or diverge?

Amongst that there are some scenarios that favour voting reform or constitutional reform more widely.

For example, the government collapses before Christmas, without Brexit, the Labour Party runs on a manifesto of putting power back in the hands of people with a constitutional convention, electoral reform and regional devolution.

Or the less favourably, the Tories don't implode and quietly don't invoke Article 50, we get to 2020 and the North of England votes for UKIP, Scotland votes for independence, and the Tories continue to run the country just has they have been for the decade before.

I think we need electoral reform but it is difficult to persuade people that it the solution to the problems that they have in their lives because they don't see the connection between voting mechanics and how power is operated and how power is used to apply resources to solve problems.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: The People's Democratic European Republic of South Scandinavia
Current Music: Land of My Fathers