Veteran economist and former governor of the Bank of England Lord King launched a significant attack on British Prime Minister’s Brexit deal and economic forecasts surrounding it made by the Bank, but the present governor hit back, mocking his predecessor for being “less successful”.
Writing in Bloomberg that British politicians were letting down the country and that pursuing “the conventional wisdom of the day” is the wrong course, Lord King said nothing short of a “revolution” in the establishment to bring the country through the present political crisis by “the skin of its teeth”.
Referring to the early Second World War years and major economic troubles experienced by the UK in the 1970s — both occasions where a new Prime Minister heralded a radical change in leadership and direction — the former Bank of England governor said it “simply beggars belief” that the plan being offered by the Prime Minister was as simply as good as it could get.
The senior economist comparing May’s Brexit deal to the appeasement of Hitler’s Germany by Neville Chamberlain and calling it the product of “incompetence of a high order” both generated headlines Tuesday.
Lord King wrote:
Many MPs will argue that “we are where we are,” that it’s too late to change course, and that May’s deal is the only deal available. But remember, this is a political not an economic crisis. If Blair and Johnson, from opposing political viewpoints, can see the fatal weaknesses of this proposed deal, politicians of all hues should try to do the same.
This deal will not end the divisiveness of the debate about Britain’s relationship with the EU. The Remain camp will continue to argue, correctly, that to align the country indefinitely with laws over which it has no influence is madness, and a second referendum is vital to escape from this continuing nightmare. And the Leave camp will argue, also correctly, that it is intolerable for the fifth largest economy in the world to continue indefinitely as a fiefdom.
If this deal is not abandoned, I believe that the U.K. will end up abrogating it unilaterally — regardless of the grave damage that would do to Britain’s reputation and standing. Vassal states do not go gently into that good night. They rage. If this parliament bequeaths to its successors the choice between a humiliating submission and the abrogation of a binding international treaty, it will not be forgiven — and will not deserve to be.
Present Bank governor Mark Carney, the highly renumerated globalist appointed by anti-Brexit chancellor George Osborne, did not take kindly to his predecessor calling his Brexit predictions “not plausible.” Speaking to members of parliament on Tuesday morning during a committee meeting where he made a project fear claim that a no-deal Brexit could cause food prices in the UK to rise by ten per cent, the newly minted British citizen hit back at King, calling his tenure “a simpler time, but a less successful time.”