Conservative Party (UK) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is a good read from the Guardian. It reports that former chancellor uses Chicago speech to send message to Theresa May and signal his intent to remain in EU negotiations.
Source: George Osborne: ‘Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not’ | Politics | The Guardian
Osborne’s ‘Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not’ is a brilliant piece of rhetoric but then I supported Remain.
I never rated Osborne as Chancellor and disliked his style in government. But I think that I might grow to like the new humbler Osborne, especially if he champions the political central ground.
Personally, I agree with Osborne’s viewpoint on Brexit. So far, the right of the Conservative Party has been pressing the PM for Hard Brexit, if Osborne champions ‘Soft Brexit’, he will show that he’s still a formidable and dangerous politician with some very powerful friends.
Thoughts?
Dr Alf's Blog 
Dr Alf is right, except that George Osborne is not a “humbled politician”; he is still cunning, dangerous and ready to act the moment Mrs May or anyone associated with his removal makes the tiniest error that he can exploit.
People who voted for Brexit did so mostly because of excessive immigration and pressure on housing and infrastructure and because of their dislike of Muslims. For them, “Hard Brexit” and “Soft Brexit ” never came into the equation and were never mentioned during the referendum campaign either by the Guardian, the BBC or even the campaigners themselves until now.
I voted for Brexit because the original promises made for the EU have not been kept and the purported benefits gained by membership were being and are still being offset by loss of Corporation tax through the Dublin Financial District and other tax havens used by German companies plus the potential for further bailouts to Greece, Portugal and Italy plus the growing push towards the EU Army which was also not mentioned in the Referendum campaign.
Hard versus soft Brexit is a concept that has now been introduced as a fall back position by the Remain campaign to nullify the Referendum result by stealth but George Osborne is right to say that people didn’t vote for “Hard Brexit” because that was never the choice on offer. However, he and the Guardian are being cunning because “Soft Brexit” was never put on the Referendum ballot paper as a choice either and neither term came out of David Dimbleby’s lips or David Cameron’s whilst Theresa May was like a female version of the 3 Wise Monkeys in kitten heels, saying precisely nothing.
Dr Alf is right in that we cannot leave the EU without some cost but those costs can be mitigated by applying the” bunsen burner” treatment to British business -people who are far too risk averse, lazy, overpaid, greedy, complacent and who fail to export and get out of their boardrooms to sell things with anything like the vigor that our German, Japanese, South Korean, Chinese and American counterparts do. This is why our biggest export market is Eire and why we have an export trade deficit of £3 billion GBP a month which has continued since 1981.
With better websites and tax measures designed to shock these so called “captains of industry ” into some form of exporting activity and improve writing down allowances, the UK could dramatically improve its top line whilst similar shock treatment to jump start productivity needs to be effected on British workers starting with outlawing strikes in essential public services and the mass sackings of postmen, tube drivers, train drivers and junior doctors. All should be replaced by former Army personnel who would be “called up” and pressed into service until such time as the trains could be automated, tube trains automated and replacements for junior doctors found. These measures, delivered firmly by May, along with measures to stop boardroom pay from rising undeservedly with rewards for failure and rewards for doing nothing outlawed, need to be taken before the German and French elections to prepare the UK for negotiations with the EU from a position of greater strength and in the meantime a near-shoring ALMO solution needs to be found for the City of London, using one of the old sea defense forts, like Sealand which sits in international waters and has its own sovereignty.
We need to be firm on immigration and then using different ALMO solutions develop ways to keep whatever real advantages we get from the Single Market on a peacemeal basis through circumvention.