Personally I think Liam Fox would join the Rebel Alliance as long as they don’t speak French!

Charlie Mullins OBE, owner of Pimlico Plumbers, speaks out

If we were under any illusions about what exactly is behind the seemingly irrational demands that the UK leaves the EU, come hell or high water, yesterday those murky waters cleared, when trade minister Greg Hands suggested we might join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Pacific’s version of the European Union.

We are told that Brexit is about the UK standing on its own two feet internationally, to cut big trade deals with major world powers, such as the United States and China, in our own right.  But the sad truth is that before we are even divorced from our current relationship with the EU, rather than being free and empowered, we’re already reduced to pimping ourselves around like a heroin addicted hooker.

Quite clearly, standing strong and proudly British on the international stage is not the motivation here, otherwise we would not be propositioning a trade block on the other side of the planet for membership.  It’s not even a good one, having been recently dumped by President Trump, who said getting out was a ‘great thing for the American worker’.

Personally I think that Mr Hand’s boss, International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, would join the Rebel Alliance  as long as its leaders gave assurances against the use of French or German in any official business. 

This latest farce only reinforces for me that the reasons behind Brexit have more in common with people’s historical unease with having common cause with Europe, rather than any sound economic or political reasons. The obvious truth, so clearly highlighted by this latest example of Brexit madness, is that we are already weaker and poorer for our efforts to exit Europe, and the main event ain’t even come yet!