Brexit: Brinksmanship gone awry

Imagine you are by the cliff-side. Playing a game. In your game you rush at the cliff. At the very last minute you dig in your heels. Bringing yourself to a halt just in before you tumble over.

Then this one time pebbles called Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson get themselves under your heels. Before you know it, you are over the edge. That is what we call brinksmanship gone awry, or Brexit for short. That was the game david Cameron played.

And when he clutched at straws he grabbed Jeremy Corbyn's lapel! It remains to be seen whether the cloth will tear and leave Corbyn standing or if he is toppling over with Cameron.

Surely if Edward Heath is hearing what the Brits are going to get by getting out the EU he is spinning like a top in his grave. He worked so hard to get them in.

The question to be asked is exactly what is Britain going to get by leaving? The main pillars of Leave campaign were 1) stop contributing to EU budget 2) stop immigration especially from Eastern Europe 3) tell the EU to continue giving Britain access to the free market or simply trade under WTO rules.

As long as Britain wants to stay in the single market the Guardian quoted a European diplomat as stressing that "participating in the single market meant accepting EU rules, including the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, monitoring by the European commission and accepting the primacy of EU law over national law". That conditions include free movement of people so migration won't stop. It also means contributng to the EU budget.

To me that doesn't sound like leaving the EU. It sounds a lot like staying with less rights. If the British do drigger article 50, ultimately it would mean staying without the rights of a full member. If they don't, they have significantly weakened their negotiating power. They may even loose some of the concessions they had previously negotiated.

If you ask me Brexit is brinksmanship gone awry. The fact that nobody including the Leave campaigners had a plan on how to leave the EU suggests that even they didn't really want it. The first sign that Boris didn't want to handle the hot potato he personally cooked was when he wrote to David Cameron in the dead of night asking him not to leave.

In my view, British politicians, including Boris Johnson, are going to try and wriggle their way out of triggering article 50. So people, relax. Take your seats. Bring your pillows and take a nap. There is going to be no Brexit

The Government and Politicians Need to Spend Money Locally

Desperate for revenue, and desperate to revive the local economy, the Zimbabwe government has taken the ridiculous step of banning importation of basic items by travellers. They hope this will stimulate local buying.

It is not going to work. The simple reason being that the foreign buying that takes huge sums of money out of the economy, is not done by travellers on buses and cars.

Rather it is very high worth individuals and politicians who make the purchases and spending decisions that take huge sums of money out the country. The bottom line is these high worth individuals, including all levels of political leadership, are not economically patriotic. I would go as far as calling them economic traitors (vatengesi).

They are the ones who take their considerable spending power out of the country, starving the local economy of cash.

For example, recently five ZIMRA managers are said to have imported luxury cars worth US$120'000 each. On top of taking spending power out of the country they also smuggled the cars into the country denying government sorely needed revenue.

This week ZIMRA tried to 'stimulate' the local economy by banning wheel barrows. A wheelbarrow costs R350, or about $20 dollars. Even if ZIMRA were to stop the importation of six thousand wheelbarrows, that is about ten magonyet of wheelbarrows, the value will not match one of the single luxury cars imported by the managers.

Mind you we are talking about just five junior ZIMRA managers. What about senior management. What about other parastatals, government departments and the management of those.

Recently the ZBC was reported to have flouted tender regulations to buy imported cars worth 1.7million dollars. What difference does importing a wheelbarrow costing 20 dollars make when such a large amount has already been taken out of the country?

Even those high worth individuals who regularly globe-trot are doing considerable damage to the Zimbabweans economy. If you sleep in a hotel, it means that hotel can employ people like cleaners. If it were a Zimbabwean hotel, that would mean jobs for Zimbabweans. If it's a hotel in Singapore, it means jobs for Singaporeans.

I hope, therefore, people will understand my logic when I say banning individual travellers from importing items for personal use is meaningless. It is a useless measure in terms of reviving the local economy. As long as politicians and rich individuals who control large sums of money are not patriotic. As long as they continue to spend millions on luxury vehicles, other junkets and foreign holidays, they will continue to draw huge sums out of the economy.

Banning small traveller imports is like trying to get a fallen man to get up by taking a small stone out of their hand while leaving a huge boulder resting on their back.

Economy yeZimbabwe yakagarwa matunduru ne mashefu. Haisimuki.