Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I do have some fondness for the idea, but it's hard to get around the issue of race.  Why is it this proposed alliance is those 4 specific countries and not, I dunno India or Nigeria?

Yeah - I mean I expect we will agree to far looser immigration rules with India as part of any trade deal there (we've already agreed to far looser immigration rules with Turkey, for example) though probably not full free movement.

And you're right - but the flipside is those 4 countries face similar issues and agree on a lot of them so they should work together on issues, such as Hong Kong, Belarus, China, Russia etc. And if the way it's done around trade is actually through the TPP then that doesn't just include white countries (though the UK's a bit weird ) and the CANZUK stuff is just the extra foreign policy issues where they agree.

When talking about joining the Trans Pacific Partnership, how is the position of the Brexiteers and Cummings regarding sovereignty?

After all, the TPP establishes an arbitration mechanism for investor state disputes that follows international law and establishes level playing field rules for state aid... 

You know, the things modern deep trade agreements do...

None of those things are issues for them - they're already agreed with Japan. I think the issue on state aid is the EU wants dynamic alignment (so the level playing field moves as EU rules change) not just a baseline level playing field (such as on environment, labour rights, consumer rights etc which the UK and EU have agreed).

Similarly on arbitration, the UK has agreed that with Japan and the negotiation mandate authorises a dispute resolution system through arbitration. The issue is how much of the agreement includes EU law which is always subject to the interpretation of the CJEU. But I think the EU and the UK have both said that a mechanism like in CETA would work, so I don't think this is an issue.

[Barrister]

Also TPP has been ratified by two of the eleven signatories so far.

Wiki says 7 of 11.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_and_Progressive_Agreement_for_Trans-Pacific_Partnership

[Sheilbh]

Australia have said no to free movement. And you can understand why.

Yeah - for all the Spanish have to deal with Brits, I feel the Aussies have it worse

As to joining TPP... It's not just silly optically but in terms of numbers too, the TPP countries account for a tiny fraction of our trade. And getting more involved in trading with them sort of flies against the push to do more locally.

Yeah it's a tiny fraction of our trade, but I don't think that really matters. Everything is about marginal benefits now. So Japan is a tiny part of our trade but it's a developed economy, trade deals are difficult and it's good and better that we have one than we don't.

None of this is going to replace leaving the EU - an EU trade deal isn't going to replace the shock of leaving the single market. But we are where we are and we've had the referendum, plus two election so I don't think we can carry on basically saying "well I wouldn't start from here"

[Zanza]

Also TPP has been ratified by two of the eleven signatories so far.

Wiki says 7 of 11.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_and_Progressive_Agreement_for_Trans-Pacific_Partnership

My mistake, looked at Wiki article on TPP, not CPTPP.

[Sheilbh]

Another interesting sign on UK foreign policy post-Brexit. Joint statement with Canada on Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as joint statement and sanctions on Lukashenko and other figures linked to the regime

I know we are just repeating old conversations, but was the EU really standing in the way of joint actions with Canada?

Just to come back to this because I carried on thinking I think the real point for me is whether they actually have different approaches/instincts. So I think the UK in the EU would try to align its approach with the EU, which makes sense and is the best way of getting leverage. But the thing that strikes me from Hong Kong, to confronting China over their use of economic leverage, to Belarus and Armenia is that I'm not sure the approach the UK is taking with Canada (and in Hong Kong and China, with Australia too) is the approach the EU would take. So I'm not sure that the UK and the EU (or the US) are on the same page when it comes to confronting China or Russia at the moment, while we are on the same page as Canada.

Practically I think in the EU, the UK would be the most "hawkish" (for want of a better word - I don't mean going full on "let's bomb Russia") in EU deliberations, along with probably the Nordics and the Baltic states, but would then sign up to a more moderated position. I think it's unlikely that it would go it alone with or without Canada if it was part of the EU, because that wouldn't be a sensible use of its leverage.

I spoke with Zanza about German attitudes to Russia and China, where there is a fairly strong commercial driver too. And similarly I think Macron's vision of an E3 makes a lot of sense in the context of Europe but does rely on bringing Russia in to an extent. Italy is very pro-China in general and reasonably pro-Russia too. Basically I think in the EU, the UK focuses its attention on trying to get a more hardline approach from those countries than working with none European countries.

So it's not necessarily that the EU stopped the UK doing this. But the EU offered an alternative forum, which could have greater leverage and the UK would focus on that. It's not a formal restriction but where the UK (or any member state) will spend time.

[Sheilbh]

So I know there's been similar stuff in other countries (Germany and Australia are mentioned) but this is fucking bizarre. On QAnon, a conspiracy theory focused on the American President, gaining popularity in the UK

'Quite frankly terrifying': How the QAnon conspiracy theory is taking root in the UK
It began in the US with lurid claims and a hatred of the 'deep state'. Now it's growing in the UK, spilling over into anti-vaccine and 5G protests, fuelled by online misinformation. Jamie Doward examines the rise of a rightwing cult movement
by Jamie Doward
Sun 20 Sep 2020 07.30 BST
Last modified on Tue 22 Sep 2020 14.20 BST

He was desperate and scared and pleading for advice. "It's integrating itself into soft rightwing timelines and I believe it's starting to radicalise many. Seeing my mum and nan fall for it unaware is so troubling. I've seen it all over Facebook and these people genuinely believe they're revealing the truth."

It is QAnon, the unfounded conspiracy theory that has gone through countless, bewildering versions since it emerged in the US in 2017 and is now spreading like California's wildfires across the internet.

At its core are lurid claims that an elite cabal of child-trafficking paedophiles, comprising, among others, Hollywood A-listers, leading philanthropists, Jewish financiers and Democrat politicians, covertly rule the world. Only President Trump can bring them to justice with his secret plan that will deliver what QAnon's disciples refer to as "The Storm" or "The Great Awakening".

Heavy on millennialism and the idea that a reckoning awaits the world, the theory has found fertile ground in the American "alt-right".

But, unlike many contributors to the QAnoncasualties forum on Reddit, the man concerned about his mother and grandmother was from Britain and he was in despair at how the movement's ideas were taking hold here. "My mum and grandma have shown me some, quite frankly, terrifying hard-right Facebook posts, calling Black Lives Matter Marxist paedophiles, typical QAnon stuff, however not even advertised as Q," he explained.

What was once dismissed as an underground US conspiracy theory is becoming something more disturbing, more mainstream, more international, more mystical. And the effects of this are now being felt in Britain.

This weekend rallies were held in several cities around the country attended by disparate, discrete groups protesting against lockdowns, vaccinations, 5G mobile phone technology and child abuse.

Few of those who turned up at these events would describe themselves as QAnon supporters. Indeed, many have legitimate concerns about the government's response to the pandemic. But where they overlap with QAnon is in a shared deep distrust of government, an enmity that encourages the cross-pollination of anti-authoritarian ideas in a Britain becoming more fragmented, more angry.

"Belief in one conspiracy theory can open the door to many more, and the line between anti-lockdown, anti-5G narratives and QAnon is, to some extent, blurring, for example with some alleging that an evil, child-trafficking cabal is behind the current crisis," said David Lawrence, a researcher with the antifascist organisation Hope not Hate, which has been monitoring the rise of QAnon in the UK.

In London on Saturday, Resist and Act for Freedom, which described itself as "a medic-focused" anti-vaccination rally, was addressed by Kate Shemirani, a nurse suspended from practising by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for being accused of promoting baseless theories about Covid-19, vaccines and 5G.

Shemirani has espoused some of the QAnon theories and has described the Covid-19 crisis as a "plandemic scamdemic". She has described the NHS as "the new Auschwitz" and her online media postings make references to Hitler and the Nazis, an investigation by the Jewish Chronicle has found.

A handful of QAnon-inspired banners, such as "We Are Q", were being held aloft. Others held flags bearing slogans – for example, "Save Our Children" and "Where We Go One We Go All" – that are affiliated to QAnon.

Shemirani told the crowd: "Our government has declared war on the people of the UK."

The police, including some on horseback, made several unsuccessful attempts to break up the rally, pushed back by scores of protesters. As they did, the crowd chanted to them: "Choose your side."

One woman in her 20s, who was wearing a hoodie with a QAnon logo, told the Observer that she had come to the rally because she had read about the child abuse taking place across the US and the UK, a chief QAnon trope.

Another protester, Emma, 25, said she had a young daughter. She was holding a placard suggesting hundreds of thousands of children had been abducted around the world. "I've done years of research," she said. "QAnon are right. There's a global elite out there going for our children. Trump is taking down the elite and draining the swamp."

She was dismissive of the government's response to Covid. "The government is trying to take away our constitutional rights. You don't need vaccination, you need to live well, eat well."

She also believed that Black Lives Matter was funded by George Soros, the Jewish financier who funds a number of major civil society initiatives. "He's a Zionist," she said without further explanation.

Gregory Stanton, founding president of Genocide Watch, said: "QAnon's conspiracy theory is copied from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the conspiracy theory promoted by Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany.

"Its potential for the promotion of genocidal hatred is a deadly historical fact. The Protocols' theory that Jews plan to take over the world, and are well on their way to doing so, has been an ideology and motivator for pogroms since the middle ages, and under the Nazis for the Holocaust. It is a conspiracy theory that has literally cost millions of lives. QAnon has revived the Protocols, complete with the Blood Libel, that the secret cabal kidnaps children, drains their blood and cannibalises them to gain mystical power."

There is evidence that far-right groups in Europe are turning their attention to the QAnon movement. A "freedom rally", held last month in Trafalgar Square and where QAnon supporters were clearly present, was also attended by a group flying a flag of the now defunct British Union of Fascists.

In Germany, a major QAnon rally was attended by followers of the Reichsbürger far-right movement, which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state. Similar flirtations have been reported among groups in Finland and Scandinavia.

But QAnon is also creeping into UK street protest movements that have no affiliation with the far right.

Earlier this year a "justice for all" rally in Nottingham attracted hundreds who came out in support of military veterans and tougher action on child-grooming gangs.

QAnon iconography was visible at the event, while one of the rally's organisers claimed to have had contact with " a general from Q" and a "group from Q".

Another group, Freedom for the Children UK, which aims to raise awareness about child exploitation and human trafficking, holds marches in cities around the UK.

Many involved are well-intentioned but Hope not Hate has found that inside the private group's online forums, members frequently post QAnon misinformation and references to "Pizzagate", an unsubstantiated QAnon precursor that claimed several high-ranking Democrat officials, including Hillary Clinton, were involved in a child sex abuse ring based at a Washington pizza restaurant.

"QAnon has gathered pockets of support in the UK, and is likely to continue to build momentum as the US election approaches," Lawrence explained. "But, while the spread of a dangerous conspiracy theory is always concerning, especially when it is animating people on to the street in protest, it is important to underline that the QAnon scene as a whole is still dominated by the US."

Indeed, over in the US QAnon is now marching on Washington. Several Republican congressional candidates, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, who looks likely to win her seat in Georgia, have openly expressed support for the movement.

Last week, Lauren Witzke, who has posed in a QAnon-branded T-shirt and tweeted the QAnon motto, WWG1WGA – where we go one we go all – won the Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Delaware. Witzke has since distanced herself from QAnon.

By contrast, QAnon has been confined to the fringes of the UK political scene. But this is not to say it will remain there. "Support for conspiracy theories and the far right tends to rise in volatile, uncertain times," Lawrence explained. "Public trust in UK institutions has been increasingly challenged in recent years, and exacerbated by the pandemic and the government's inconsistent responses."

That QAnon is gaining traction in the UK now, three years after it first emerged in the US, is no surprise to those who have encountered it.

An analyst who monitors online extremism in Britain, and spoke to the Observer on condition of anonymity, said it had the ability to appeal to anyone. It hardly mattered that the movement was US-focused.

"It offers wish fulfilment – the idea that at some moment Donald Trump is going to liberate people from debt and slavery. Someone might hate banks, well Donald Trump is going to liberate them from banks. Someone might despise immigrants, well Donald Trump is fighting a conspiracy against him inspired by George Soros. The content is not as important as the communities in which it embeds itself."

"QAnon even briefly stole the Twitter hashtag for Save the Children, the genuine charity that protects children," Stanton said. "QAnon attracts some women who think it is about saving kidnapped children. By relaying 'secret messages' from inside the 'Deep State' QAnon lurks in the shadows, where its leaders cannot be exposed for promoting racist, anti-Jewish Nazi terrorism. Extremist ideologies are often dismissed until they take power, as the Nazis did, as communism did, as Isis did. We ignore them at our peril."

Many of those drawn to QAnon from within the UK are followers of the new religious movements that emerged out of the 60s and 70s, or the new-age traveller communities of the 90s. Others have a fascination with UFOs.

But to believe that their views have no relevance to the UK's political ecosystem would be dangerous, experts claim. "QAnon feeds on widespread conspiracy theories, new age, and occult belief systems,"said Chamila Liyanage of the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right. "QAnon will not be able to influence UK politics right away, but it will first gain a foothold among the enthusiasts of fringe belief systems and conspiracy theories. This is metapolitics, changing minds, then cultures can be changed in the long run. If more and more people distrust liberal democracies and believe that liberals are satanists planning to implement the New World Order, it's not possible to uphold democratic accountability. Such a situation will surely bring political consequences in the long run."

Earlier this year, the Observer reported that John Mappin, a Scientologist and supporter of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, was flying the QAnon flag over his castle in Cornwall. Mappin is a central figure behind Turning Point UK, the British arm of the pro-Trump American student organisation Turning Point USA, whose founder, Charlie Kirk, has been accused of pushing pro-QAnon narratives based on debunked statistics produced by the movement's supporters.

Turning Point UK has been endorsed by several leading Conservatives, including the home secretary, Priti Patel, and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Mappin, who has declared that "Q is 100% valid", has used YouTube to promote QAnon.

One person in the US who has seen friends and family turn to QAnon told the Observer: "People who fall into QAnon or adjacent modern conspiracy thinking, including my family member and friends, are people who have unresolved trauma, such as from childhood, that has left them with deep insecurities about their place in the world and the state of society."

He said that these people often had "a lack of understanding for sciences, math, history and politics, a lack of critical thinking, a vulnerability to magical thinking – Evangelical Christian or deep new-age spirituality" – and were dealing with the "trauma of Covid, the loss of physical connections, the loss of work" while confronted by "unfettered internet access and dangerous social media algorithms".

Robert Johnson, who helps moderate the Qanoncasualties site after watching a relative fall victim to the movement, warned anyone can fall down the QAnon rabbit hole.

"How fast someone can be sucked in? If they are susceptible, I'd say five days to start believing. If they have an underlying condition, they can reach mania in a week."

One contributer to the QAnoncasualties forum said that his father had become "so invested in QAnon that it feels like someone just hypnotised him".

Stanton has argued powerfully that QAnon is simply the Nazi cult rebranded. "Two definitions of a cult are: a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister; and a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing: a cult of personality surrounding the leaders. QAnon's strange and sinister beliefs qualify it as a cult, as does QAnon's misplaced admiration for Donald Trump."

As with any cults, financial gain is not far away. QAnon merchandise has mushroomed. Websites hosting the theory are making money out of traffic. Covid quackery is doing brisk business on QAnon sites.

The world today is ripe for the cult's promotion, Stanton argues, as it shares many similarities with the world in which Hitler emerged.

"I think it comes at a similar time to the 1920s and 1930s. We have mass unemployment. We face a plague that is like the Spanish Flu that killed millions. Nazis and QAnon both seek a 'saviour' leader who will deliver society from disorder and the cabal of conspirators that is secretly taking over their nations."

The difference now, though, is that technology has unified the world. A movement emanating from the US can quickly spread beyond its borders.

One contributor to the Qanoncasualties forum told the Observer that QAnon appears to mimic the spread of the pandemic.

"It struck me that the way QAnon has taken off in a really big way this year, despite being three years old, is like the spread of the virus, in terms of the exponential growth curve. The more people that are connected to QAnon, the steeper the curve will be in terms of them spreading the BS on social media and in real-life interactions."

The appeal seems almost physical. As one German contributor to Qanoncasualties, who was not a QAnon follower but had been a believer in Pizzagate, explained: "It all started on Reddit. It began with stumbling on a few 'alternative' subreddits, those with prefixes 'real', 'anarchy', 'true', etc. To this day, I'm still not sure what triggered the hate spiral in me.

"I think one of the possibilities is that any unresolved conflicts are channelled in anger and negative energy. A lot of people describe their relatives watching QAnon videos all day – they know that they're essentially on an IV drip of some stuff they crave. I have no idea how it works inside the body, but I'm willing to bet there's a physical response to this behaviour."

Research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has found that QAnon and the online world have enjoyed a powerful symbiosis after lockdown started in many countries, including the UK.

A report the ISD published in June showed that membership of QAnon groups on Facebook increased by 120% in March, while engagement rates increased by 91%. From 27 October 2017 to 17 June 2020, the ISD recorded 69,475,451 million tweets, 487,310 Facebook posts and 281,554 Instagram posts mentioning QAnon-related hashtags and phrases.

The ISD said that "across all three platforms, a clear trend exists showing a notable increase in conversation volumes coinciding with periods when lockdowns were issued".

It found that the top four countries driving discussion of QAnon on Twitter were the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. Much of the online discussion is driven by the actions of Trump, who has retweeted QAnon-promoting accounts.

One Reddit contributor said that QAnon was spreading for "one reason only". "The failure of the government, in the US at least, to deny and denounce it. These conspiracies and cult-like behaviours have arrived thousands of times over the years and usually die out.

"However, when you have a president who says he didn't know much about QAnon, except 'they like me very much' and 'I heard... that these are people who love our country', then immediately this is essentially permission and acknowledgement of their movement."

Facebook and Twitter have recently taken steps to restrict QAnon. The movement now largely operates on the 8kun message board site, whose earlier incarnation, 8chan, has been criticised for hosting images of child abuse and promoting white supremacy groups.

"QAnon hardcore followers are still gaining but there is more awareness and active scepticism recently," Johnson said. "They had a recent setback with the shutdown of qmap.pub (a website endorsed by Q). But they are a great hype machine and Covid has been a godsend. Globally it is gaining ground and numbers. I think it surpassed 72 countries this week. We recently had a user report dealing with a family member in Switzerland."

But can a cult survive the demise of its leader?

Few believe that if Trump loses in November, QAnon will disappear.

"When Obama won that's what kickstarted half of the angry movements that fed into this," the online extremism analyst explained. "It didn't calm the Republican right, it made them much more aggravated."

Nor would Trump's defeat sound the death knell for an incipient QAnon movement in the UK.

"There is a high possibility that the spirited belief system which surrounds QAnon can slowly become a political movement in the UK," Liyanage said. "It will be successful because no one can fight it through reason. It's not a rational belief system but mostly a supernatural belief system."

The mysterious rise of QAnon

• QAnon publicly emerged on 28 October 2017 when a user calling themselves Q, who claimed to have high-level security clearance, posted a series of cryptic messages on the website 4chan (which later became 8chan and then 8kun).

• Q claimed that they would work to covertly inform the public about President Trump's ongoing battle against the "deep state", a blanket term used to describe those in power working against the president. Since then, users claiming to be Q have made over 4,000 posts, known in the community as "Qdrops", fuelling the growth of a lurid meta-conspiracy connecting a range of harmful narratives.

• The QAnon theory now connects antivaccine, anti-5G conspiracies, antisemitic and antimigrant tropes, and several bizarre theories that the world is in the thrall of a group of paedophile elites set on global domination in part aided by ritualistic child sacrifice. It morphed out of an earlier conspiracy, "Pizzagate", which suggested that a paedophile ring involving senior officials in the Democratic Party was being run out of a pizza restaurant in Washington.

• In 2019, the FBI labelled QAnon a domestic terror threat, observing that conspiracy theories have the potential to encourage "both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts".

• In the 2020 US elections there are 14 congressional candidates on the ballot for November who express support for the theory.

• Who is behind QAnon remains opaque. But NBC has reported that it took off when two 4chan moderators, who went by the usernames Pamphlet Anon and BaruchtheScribe, reached out to Tracy Diaz, a small-time YouTube star who helped popularise the earlier 'Pizzagate' conspiracy who then helped bring QAnon to a wider online audience.

• This article was amended on 22 September 2020 to clarify details in the picture caption for the Q badges; these badges were on sale at a rally organised by Querdenken 711 in Berlin.

[Barrister]

There was a guy outside the Edmonton courthouse today with a sign, yelling something about pedophiles.

[The Brain]

some alleging that an evil, child-trafficking cabal is behind the current crisis

The idea that the Catholic Church controls world events seems quaintly old-fashioned.

[Josquius]

It's interesting how obsessed the far right tends to be with paedophilia.
So called "paedophile hunter" groups have long been a big thing in the UK, with heavy far right overlap.
More often than not they're not looking to protect kids or catch predators, rather to try to trick innocent people onto gotcha videos for the likes.

[Barrister]

It's interesting how obsessed the far right tends to be with paedophilia.
So called "paedophile hunter" groups have long been a big thing in the UK, with heavy far right overlap.
More often than not they're not looking to protect kids or catch predators, rather to try to trick innocent people onto gotcha videos for the likes.

Shoot - read an interesting article today (can't find it now) about how this kind of thinking goes right back to the ancient jewish blood libel and the middle ages - that there's a conspiracy regarding the children whose blood is being eaten.

[Sheilbh]

It's interesting how obsessed the far right tends to be with paedophilia.
So called "paedophile hunter" groups have long been a big thing in the UK, with heavy far right overlap.
More often than not they're not looking to protect kids or catch predators, rather to try to trick innocent people onto gotcha videos for the likes.

Shoot - read an interesting article today (can't find it now) about how this kind of thinking goes right back to the ancient jewish blood libel and the middle ages - that there's a conspiracy regarding the children whose blood is being eaten.

That is really interesting and I think there's something to it - the article quotes something about the links between the blood libel and Protocols and QAnon.

I always slightly worry about anti-semitism in England because I understand it's where the blood libel comes from - Little St Hugh and that.

[Tamas]

It might be something wired to our base instincts, I remember not too long ago in India some fake facebook posts/tweets caused the life of several innocent people after the public began hunting for child abductors, which meant some of them would lynch random travelling people they didn't know.

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/sep/30/uk-coronavirus-live-news-updates-boris-johnson-warned-rule-of-law-at-risk-if-mps-dont-get-more-of-a-say-over-covid-rules?page=with:block-5f74677c8f08865dbde10499#block-5f74677c8f08865dbde10499

Boris Johnson denies people are confused by local lockdown rules
Starmer says there is widespread confusion about the rules. He does not just mean the PM not knowing his own rules; having sat opposite him at PMQs, that was not a surprise. Starmer quotes the Conservative leader of Bolton saying people feel let down. How does the PM expect the people of the country to understand and follow the rules?

Johnson says the people of the country do understand the rules and follow them, despite Starmer continuing to snipe. He says he cleared up the situation yesterday. He says people want to see the government defeat the virus, and they want to see us doing it together. He asks Starmer to be a little bit consistent, and to instil confidence in the measures he supports.

[Tamas]

He asks Starmer to be a little bit consistent, and to instil confidence in the measures he supports.

It is incredible how consistently all populist assholes are applying the "blame the others what you are guilty of" mantra. Have been seeing it consistently with Orban's crew for decades and then Trump etc.

[Sheilbh]

Clear as mud

Also that line works when things are going well. Tony Blair used to be very good at it (e.g. "we've just invested x billion in the NHS, opened x number of new hospitals, refurbished x number of schools - why don't they back it?"), but it's just less effective when you're visibly flailing

I thought this thread from Ed Conway of Sky was really interesting. It isn't very newsy but just kind of fascinating. The story, I suppose, is because London's the global centre for gold trading it causes issues on key economic statistics such as exports and current account. Because of international accounting rules the ONS has to follow this creates distortions in our figures, as used by the OECD and IMF etc. But I just found it interesting:
https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1228279325344051200

Ed Conway
@EdConwaySky
Feb 14
This is a story about a chart. A pretty astonishing chart. A chart that has all sorts of consequences, including misleading ministers, distorting our view on the nature of the UK economy and creating a genuine mystery about what's going on in the bowels of the UK economy
Here's the chart in question: exports of gold from the UK. For the vast majority of history they were near zero (average monthly level apt £126m). Then, suddenly, in the last two months of last year, gold exports were catapulted higher. It's a staggering chart:

Just to put that spike into context, £12bn (what those two months of gold exports add up to) is the total annual output of a country like Jamaica. It is more than we typically export, over a two month period, to ANY single country, inc US or Germany (our biggest trading partners)
It has serious consequences. Since comparable records began in 1998, there hasn't been a single month where the UK was a net goods exporter. We've always had a deficit. In December, thanks to the £12bn gold exports, Britain recorded its first monthly trade surplus on record

There's nothing new about gold distorting UK trade figs. You may recall a short @skynews film I made abt this some yrs ago. Since then @ONS has started trying to strip gold out of the figs. Indeed the gold chart above is a new series they've just published
However @ONS are bound by int regs to include gold in the headline numbers. That massively distorts them. After all UK = world hub for gold trading. Any movement/change of ownership of gold bars counts as imports/exports even tho it's hardly what anyone wld consider an "export"
You might've thought all of that wld mean our politicians wld think twice before boasting abt those dodgy headline trade figs. Not a bit of it. This wk @trussliz tweeted this about them:

Liz Truss
@trussliz
Feb 11
Record breaking year for UK exports.

New @ONS data out today shows that in 2019...

UK businesses exported £689.0 bn of goods and services
This is a 5.0% increase on 2018
Exports of goods to non-EU countries grew by 13.6%

https://gov.uk/government/news/2019-was-record-breaking-year-for-uk-exports

Every bullet point in her tweet is wrong if you strip out gold exports: We don't know how much exports to non-EU countries rose; @ONS hasn't worked them out ex-gold
It's not like exports are doing badly. They're at 30.4% of GDP once you strip out gold. That's one of the highest levels in decades, tho it is down on last yr. Perhaps that's why @trussliz used the dodgy headline numbers which look far better because of that £12bn of gold exports
But none of that solves the real mystery here. Why did gold exports spike so dramatically? One thesis doing the rounds is that it has something to do with this story: Poland repatriating some of the gold that's been in the @bankofengland's vaults since WW2
But it's not that, because central bank gold movements (monetary gold) aren't included in these gold stats. Anyway all that Polish gold still wouldn't account for all the gold that changed hands in Nov/Dec. It's equivalent to Barbados's GDP, not Jamaica's
As far as I can divine here's the answer. A US bank with London gold vaults shifted some of that gold from being "unallocated" to being "allocated". Effectively it moved it on its balance sheet. The gold stayed in the same vault but technically it shifted from UK ownership to US
In other words, a couple of clicks in a bank's spreadsheet caused the biggest fluctuation in Britain's trade figures in modern history. At least that's the most plausible explanation. Tho it raises further questions: why? Is the bank in trouble? And who owns the gold anyway?
Short answer: we may never know. No other sector is as cloak and dagger as gold. What we do know is that crazy stuff is happening beneath Britain's national statistics and it's time we started paying attention to it. More on this in my @thetimes col today:
A shout out too to @jathers_ONS and others at the @ONS who have been attempting to adjust for gold in the trade figs for years now. And they're pretty much there now. Hopefully govt ministers will soon start quoting the right figs! Good blog on this here:
https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2020/02/10/its-indestructible-but-can-we-always-believe-in-the-uk-trade-figures-with-the-disaggregated-effect-of-the-international-trade-in-non-monetary-gold/

Now there is the possibility that the US bank making that change could be in trouble which probably makes this a little more serious. And as I say there's no "news" there, but just a really interesting weirdness and also a useful reminder that generally the UK is a hub for lots of trading and in general this doesn't normally matter because sales and purchases probably balance out. But sometimes something happens like this which actually impacts UK statistics even though they're nothing to do with the UK economy. It reminds me of that David Edgerton that now London is the place where world capitalism does business - no longer where British capital does the world's business, or even Britain's business.