By Ben Kerrigan
British Chancellor, Phillip Hammond has presented two contradictory positions.
In January, the chancellor said despite his optimism about Britain getting a good EU deal.
He said: ”you can be sure that we would do whatever we have to do” in reference to a scenario in which a good EU deal was not achieved..and he told French newspaper Le Monde that tax raised as a percentage of the British economy “puts us right in the middle” of European countries.
He added : “We don’t want that to change, even after we’ve left the EU,” he added. The chancellor appeared to completely overlook the fact that all signs point to a bad deal at the moment, making his latest comments totally blind and ignorant of his earlier comments in the year. He told Le Monde:
“I often hear it said that the UK is considering participating in unfair competition in regulation and tax.
“That is neither our plan nor our vision for the future.
“I would expect us to remain a country with a social, economic and cultural model that is recognizably European.” His statement, which widely contrasts his previous standpoint on how Britain would react to a gloomy Brexit will make people wonder whether Hammond is more a man of words than deeds.
Politicians have a bad reputation for lying to the public and reneging on their promises- this is a classic example. In January, he is also quoted saying:
“If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term,” he said at the time.
“In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness.”