Is Boris playing 4D chess?

I was directed to the article linked above by Tcheuchter, a welcome regular visitor here at The Last Ditch, in a comment on my previous post. It’s an interesting read from a source I don’t follow. It certainly made me think but – as it requires me to trust the Conservative Party (or at least its current leader) – I am not really sure it helps me decide how (or indeed if) to vote on December 12th.

 

I reminded myself, in my excitement at reading it, of a young Paul Simon’s wise words in the lyrics to The Boxer – “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” I have often remembered them ruefully after haring foolishly down a path based on what I wanted to believe.

 

I would love to believe that Boris Johnson is cunning enough to plot the course outlined by the article’s author. I actually DO believe that Dominic Cummings is. What I don’t believe is that any such plan could be kept quiet in Westminster. Someone would have revealed what they are up to because everyone around them is of the narcissistic variety of human attracted to politics. One, more or all of them, in hot pursuit of the fame their imagined “specialness” deserves would have been on the phone to their favoured MSM’ers to crow about it, claim credit for it or denounce it.

 

The cleverest thing the Remain Ultra anti-democrats have done is convince a decisive minority of the electorate that a “No Deal Brexit” would inevitably be “disorderly”, a “crash out” – a Thelma & Louise suicidal drive off the edge. The people advancing this view did so dishonestly. Their intent was clearly to sabotage negotiations so as to create confusion and delay in the hope that public opinion would change and the UK remain a member of the EU.

 

How can I be sure that they lied? No-one, and certainly not the likes of Hammond, May or even Soubry, is stupid enough to believe you can productively go into a negotiation of any kind having announced “No Deal” is off the table. You would be asking to be screwed.

 

The pessimists who have been fooled by these cynical, manipulative liars into believing that the impact of a “disorderly Brexit” would be catastrophic are looking at economic life from the wrong end of the telescope. Their mental image of the market is a parade ground of people, goods and services marching back and forth to orders barked by politicians.

 

In truth, there would not be “no deal” but “many deals” because everyone engaged in the markets (i.e. everyone, whether they know or like it or not) would make millions of adjustments in instant (and often imperfect, but then they’d learn from that and adjust further) reactions to the issues thrown up. Most of the businesses involved have already plotted those reactions on a “what if” basis. Only people in government, whom no-one in the real world would miss if they didn’t show up at work for a month, can possibly not think about the future. People with businesses to run think about it constantly or die.

 

For example, I have a friend in France who makes his living supplied processed potato snacks to corner shops in England. If you’ve bought a no brand/obscure brand bag of crisps from a Pakistani shopowner in Bradford, you’ve probably eaten his stuff. His most interesting business stories used to be about such problems as illegal immigrants invading the trucks carrying his goods from Calais to Dover but of late they have been about Brexit.

Before you ask, I don’t actually know his view about the politics of Brexit because we are practical men of the world, not politicians. We have spent our time discussing his preparations for the various possible outcomes.

Is he planning to shut up shop? No. He’s had discussions with his haulage contractors who have sought (of course) to use Brexit to justify an increase in their rates. He’s negotiating with them, while calculating if his business will still work, given his profit margins. Is he considering other markets? Yes, but mainly to assist him in negotiating with his trucking companies. They are exaggerating the possible impact in order to justify the highest rates. He’s pointing out that if they over-charge, it’s their business they’ll harm not his. Whatever happens, and whenever it happens, they now both already know what the rates will be. My friend’s customers in England also know what effect the various outcomes might have on the prices they will pay. Of course they’ve also evaluated alternative suppliers and pushed back against him. It’s all precisely priced and everyone is going to carry on doing business under every possible scenario.

That’s just a story from one little business, but such interactions are happening by the million every day while politicians make their endless, pointless noise. Goods and services find their way to market through the actions and choices of millions of strangers guided only by the magic of the price mechanism and driven only by their own need to live or make a living. They are not directed by those fools who go into politics because they have nothing valuable to offer the market.

So I hope the author of the post Tcheuchter has drawn our attention to is right. I suspect he isn’t. Brexit, as a political matter, will drag on for a depressingly long time because it’s existentially important to all the parasites living on the EU institutions or in receipt of its CAP largesse. My best hope is that, once we are perceived to have left, the healthy functioning of markets will reassure voters that there is nothing to fear from pressing on from Boris’s BRINO to actual independence.