Britain Becomes The First Country To Sanction Itself
Couldn’t happen to a worse empire
Britain has become the first country to sanction… itself. Shops that say ‘we cannot deliver to Iran because America hates them’ are now saying ‘we cannot deliver to the UK because they hate themselves’.
The effects of Brexit — missing goods, fleeing companies, inability to travel — are indistinguishable from sanctions. It’s actually hilarious. The country which imposed capital colonization and sanctions on the world for centuries is now sanctioning and colonizing itself.
Bike Bits
Take bike parts, as one random example. Brits can no longer order from the shop Dutch Bike Bits, but they can get an earful:
From mid December 2020 onward we ship to every country in the world… except the UK. We are forced by British policy to stop dealing with British customers.This random company and many like it are effectively enforcing sanctions. They deliver everywhere, except this one pariah state. Unlike most sanctions, however, in classic British style, they have strangled themselves with bureaucracy. Rather than saying you can’t do something, they just make you get another form or another stamp until you die.
Quite apart from uncertainty due to Brexit surrounding the shipping cost, taxation etc. after that time, there is also a problem caused by the British government deciding to impose a unique taxation regime which will require every company... which exports to the UK to apply and collect British taxes on behalf of the British government. For providing this service they intend to charge a fee.Clearly this is ludicrous for one country, but imagine if every country in the world had the same idea. If every country decided to behave in the same way then we would have to pay 195 fees every year, keep up with the changes in taxation law for 195 different countries, keep accounts on behalf of 195 different countries and submit payments to 195 tax offices in 195 different countries, and jump through whatever hoops were required to prove that we were doing all of this honestly and without any error.That is, the problem is not just Brexit, a drunken pub argument come to life. The Tory rush to ‘Get Brexit Done’ has made a bad idea worse by shoddy implementation. By taking a half-baked idea and half-assing it, they have ended up with a plate full of half-baked ass.
Basically everything that could go wrong has gone worse.
Consumer Bads
The fear of Brexit was that it would lead to higher prices, but the reality is that many goods have completely disappeared. Many companies have stopped sending goods to Britain at all. The effect is the same as targeted sanctions. Let us weaken their resolve by removing the wine and cheese!
Producer Pain
The other fear was that British firms would become less competitive. The reality is that there’s no competition. European customers are simply going elsewhere to get their eels and British companies are being told — by their own government — to just go to Europe.
Here’s Andrew Moss, talking to someone from the Department for International Trade:
“This guy talked complete sense,” said Moss. “What I said to him was, have I got another choice [other than to set up a company abroad]? He confirmed that he couldn’t see another way. He told me that what I was thinking of doing was the right thing, that he could see no other option. He did not see this as a teething problem. He said he had to be careful what he said, but he was very clear.”Reducing items on shelves, reducing freedom of movement, getting international companies to leave, you couldn’t design better sanctions if you tried. It’s as if Europe decided to isolate the nuclear-armed, tribal island kingdom to their north, but they really didn’t. The idiots did it to themselves.
Britain has proudly fucked off into the sunset of their own empire. After invading 178 countries, the UK finds itself self-sanctioned by all of Europe. Not for the invasions, Europeans love invasions. Just for being daft.
The Carcass Of Empire
Now the British know what it’s like to be colonized by Britain. All across the world, we were held down by Britain and looted by private companies. Now Britain is being deregulated so predatory capitalists can do the same to them.
Rich people that don’t even reside there — Rupert Murdoch, Robert Mercer, and Christopher Harborne — have shorn the country of regulations so they can open up the ribs and feast on the remains. Nobody gives a fuck about the small businesses selling actual things, or the suckers with their money in Britain instead of the British Virgin Islands. The UK is now just a carcass for capital to devour.
It’s the same thing they did to us. The British let private companies like the East India Company loot places like Sri Lanka and India, reducing life expectancy and living standards for generations. During the famines where 12–30 million Indians died, mortality was highest where Britain had rail lines. It was profit over people, as a rule. That was Rule Britannia. Now vultures have come home to roost.
Well Sanctioned
Personally I think the United Kingdom deserves to be sanctioned and am quite amused that they’ve done it to themselves. If we can’t get reparations at least we get entertainment. Of course I feel bad for the poor people of Britain and the many I am in solidarity with, but they have literally sanctioned themselves. They approved this with referendums and elections. And frankly, no nation deserves it more. The colonization they visited upon the world, the many sanctions they’ve imposed on poor countries, now it’s all come home. People have been telling Britain to go fuck themselves for years. Now they have.
Tip of the whole head to umair haque. Read his piece where I first heard it framed this way:
