Just watched Farage’s extraordinary speech to the EU in Brussels. Speaking as if he were representing the UK, when only 36% voted for Brexit and 35% of us voted against. He described MEP’s as ‘People who have never had a proper job.’ The speech is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7le5GPJpbE
Why is this man insulting our neighbours when we are just about to enter tricky negotiations with them upon which our futures depend?
Meanwhile the £ has lost more than 10% of its value against other major currencies. That means all our food – of which we import 46% – will become more expensive. It won’t happen immediately, but later in the year. You will, however, notice it if you’re in Europe on holiday this summer – your £ will buy less.
Let’s say many are struggling too much at present to go traipsing about Europe. The first thing they’ll notice is a rise in petrol prices (a $ market). Next food prices will begin to creep up.
Don’t take my word for it, here are the official figures for food imports. Even if they are 10% skewed by the dreaded ‘expert lies’, we still import a lot.
In addition, the Bank of England may step in to stabliise the £. It has two ways of doing this – devaluation or raising interest rates. Devaluation is known euphemistically as QE or printing money, while interest rate rises make Sterling more attractive as a buy for currency traders and savers alike but distress anyone with bills or debt. I can’t see that rate rises will be politically acceptable to people who have been promised they can have their cake and eat it, which will mean QE, making all of our £’s worth less. So these people are already costing me; we’ve just downgraded eating out to eating in on the first evening of our holiday…
