Letter to Private Eye on Rees-Mogg 17/6/18

Sir,

In connection with Slicker’s article in issue 1472 Jacob Rees-Mogg has insisted that the reason for the recent opening of a Dublin office of his Somerset Global Emerging Markets Investment Management Company is that current and prospective clients requested ‘domiciled access’ to Somerset’s products and that the warnings about Brexit turbulence in their prospectus are simply judicious legalese insisted on by Somerset’s lawyers. He also insists that it would be improper for Somerset to be run according to his politics. This is why he has sensibly ‘recused’ himself from that company’s day to day management and decisions while he is an MP.

In spite of this Slicker exhibits an urgent compulsion to discredit Rees-Mogg on a charge of rank hypocrisy. One feels Slicker is on a mission to discredit him at all costs even though we all, of course agree, don't we, that he is a derisory twerp stuck in the 18^th century with little influence on political matters who can safely be ignored.

Let’s assume that Slicker’s implication that Somerset have, in fact, sneakily set up in Dublin to circumvent possible ‘passporting’ difficulties that may obtain in the new EU dispensation after we leave. That being the case, what Slicker requires of Rees-Mogg, if he is to escape condemnation on the charge of hypocrisy, is the following it seems. He (or anyone or any British business presumably) who wishes to leave the EU may not seek to trade with the EU (who may put obstacles in the way of that trade) on terms which give his business the best advantage in the new world post-Brexit. He may not judiciously plan ahead for the new dispensation as many UK businesses are saying they wish to. His global business may not take advantage of opportunities in the global range of jurisdictions that will be available. He may not diverge from the caricature of a dense and unimaginative Brexiteer Little Englander that Slicker subscribes to by showing flexibility and ingenuity. In fact he will only avoid the charge if he behaves in ways that will guarantee that Brexit is unsuccessful and thus prove Slicker’s, presumably Remainer, instincts right. Perhaps that’s what this is all about. Brexiteers have to be strapped inside a moral straitjacket by the pious Slicker in case they inadvertently commit the sin of proving their cause to be right.

Guy Walker