Can You Run the Country on a Weight Watchers Diet?

by Shapol Mohamed

Interesting . . . but wrong
Brexit has got everyone distressed. There is not a single person in the world who knows what will happen with Brexit and that could be due to a lack of stable leadership.

We have a Prime Minister who doesn’t have a clue about what to do. Recently, I heard that she had been spotted in Ikea because she wants to get a new cabinet.

We also have Boris Johnson who is trying to tiptoe his way to 10 Downing Street. Then we have Sir Vince Cable who doesn’t understand what democracy is. There also is Jeremy Corbyn who has a six-point plan for Brexit that is shorter than a shopping list. 

However, I think the most interesting of all these politicians is Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is offering us a deal that is like a Weight Watchers version of a McDonalds Big Mac. He is telling us that we can have everything without any negatives. Jacob Rees-Mogg is supposedly an intelligent man who went to Eton College and the University of Oxford. However, I am really sorry but I cannot see how someone intelligent thinks that running into a brick wall at full speed is a great idea. He is arguing that on the 23rd March 2019 we can walk away with no deal at all and thrive. He doesn’t understand that it is essential to make a deal with our biggest trading partner.

One thing that I want to make clear is that I don’t think that this is the biggest flaw in his plan. The biggest flaw is that he wants to transform Britain into a tax haven. It is incredibly sad to see a man who is supposedly smart think that by reducing taxes to incredibly low rates it will make all the super-rich individuals in the world to rush over to the UK. Rees-Mogg is pointing his finger at tax havens and is shouting “Look at Singapore! Look how wealthy they are! Lowering taxes does work!”

He couldn't be more wrong.


I can give plenty of counter-examples to his diabolic diatribe. I can point my finger at other tax havens and shout “Look at Congo, Libya, Honduras! Look how poor they are! Lowering taxes does not work!” 

When a wealthy individual looks to deposit his/her money in a country they look for stability in the country as opposed to the tax rate. Right now, the UK is nowhere near stable - but let's assume that a miracle will take place and the UK becomes stable under Prime Minister Rees-Mogg. He lowers income and corporate taxes to 10%. He expects that all the big companies will establish their headquarters in London and all the billionaires in the world will settle there. 

His hypothesis is shambolic because his plan won't attract the ultra-wealthy; essentially, countries like Bermuda are more attractive as they have no taxes at all. Some might therefore argue that we should completely abolish taxes like Bermuda so we can attract the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-big corporations.

Okay, in that case, we will attract the richest people on the planet. However, that will come at a great cost. The national budget will shrink to a microscopic scale. Currently, the national budget is $984.3 billion and, if you look at the national budget of tax havens like Bermuda their national budget is $0.9 billion; that is a thousand times smaller than our current national budget. Just to put that into context: the UK puts more money toward the National Lottery than that. Not a single tax haven has a national budget larger than the UK’s. The largest national budget of a tax haven is Singapore’s and their national budget is $53 billion. That is still 20 times smaller than our current national budget. Even Iraq, Venezuela and Poland have a larger national budget than that.

The UK is an island of sixty million instead of sixty thousand. It seems that Rees-Mogg is treating the UK as an island of sixty thousand. He truly thinks he can run the country on a Weight Watchers diet. I would have imagined that a man of great intellect would know better.

So, by reducing taxes we will suffer. We will have to abolish the NHS, our military, our state schools, our social welfare system, and everything we are proud of.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is like a child in a toy store who wants absolutely everything and has no concept of the fact that there is a cost to what he is demanding. The sad truth is that he can’t have everything.
Rees-Mogg’s idea is chaotic, clumsy and crazy.


We need a half-decent Prime Minister who understands that the population of the UK is sixty million and wants to leave the EU swiftly. I personally think the Prime Minister should be Roy Hodgson. He has a fantastic record of leaving Europe swiftly.


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