Fraser Nelson @frasernelson
Britain, like Iceland, will thrive outside the EU says its former Prime Minister
www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/why-britain-like-iceland-will-thrive-outside-the-eu/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Why Britain, like Iceland, will thrive outside the EU
The UK should become a temporary member of the EEA
If Iceland, while outside the EU, can achieve the highest level of growth of any western nation so soon after the collapse of its banking system and public finances, then I’m sure that a post-Brexit Britain — the world’s fifth-largest economy — can prosper, too. Nevertheless, there will certainly be some negative short-term consequences from leaving the EU. What can you do to avoid them?
Hot take from The Speccy from a PM where the amount you owe on your mortgage can go up even if you keep up with your repayments fully and has utterly fucked most normal icelanders
icelandweatherreport.com/iceland-six-years-after-the-meltdown/
September 29, 2014
Iceland, Six Years After The Meltdown
Do read this article it's a shocker (blogger is a very respected freelance journalist who has written for lots of newspapers around the world)
Also this
icelandweatherreport.com/emergency-in-the-icelandic-medical-sector/
September 30, 2013
Emergency In The Icelandic Medical Sector
This is probably not far off what is planned for the UK Post Brexit.
Indeed Farage has referenced Iceland's success in the last couple of weeks.
It's remarkable how the British press have covered the Icelandic crisis as some sort of victory for little people and ignored how many people lost their homes because of it or faced real hardship and continue to do so.
Also this guy has cost British taxpayers a lot of money...
This guy is this guy:
Sigmundur Davíð first rose to prominence in Iceland as a spokesperson for the InDefence movement, which fought foreign creditors' attempts to make Iceland pay £2.3 billion in compensation to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands following the collapse and subsequent nationalisation of Iceland's three banks. As Eirikur Bergmann wrote in The Guardian, "This was the most serious diplomatic crisis the country had ever fought and Gunnlaugsson was at the forefront of it."[6] He and his wife Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir already owned the offshore company Wintris at the time, having bought it in 2007 from Mossack Fonseca through the Luxembourg branch of Landsbanki and registered it in the British Virgin Islands.
Landsbanki was the parent company of Icesave.
When Icesave went bust there was a big diplomatic row over who should foot the bill.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute
All those with assets in the bank in the Netherlands and UK were screwed. The Netherlands and UK tried to get Iceland to pay up the money, so he led the movement not to. (Can't think why myself as will become apparent). In the end UK and Dutch taxpayers ended up balling out British and Dutch investors who were screwed over in the collapse.
It later came out how he had a massive personal interest in this and how he was in part responsible for the collapse in the first place.
When the interviewer asked if he had any connections to a foreign company, he replied that his financial assets had always been reported transparently. When asked specifically about his connections to Wintris, a foreign company and a creditor of failed Icelandic banks, he said he had disclosed all requested information to the government and was unsure how the transactions actually worked.[21] Sigmundur Davíð then said the interviewer was making something suspicious out of nothing, and walked out of the interview.[22][24] He and his wife both made public statements about "journalist encroachment in their private lives" and insisted their disclosures were complete
News coverage of the release of the Panama Papers had revealed that he and his wife shared ownership of Wintris, bought to invest his wife's inheritance, and also that Sigmundur Davíð had failed to disclose his 50% share when he entered the parliament in 2009. Eight months later, he sold his share of the company to his wife for one US Dollar, the day before a new law took effect that would have required him to disclose his ownership as a conflict of interest.
When all this came to light he eventually resigned as prime minister.
Of course he and all the others responsible for the banks collapse in the first place were never prosecuted. No one ever has been.
In the Spectator article above he talks with pride about how he led Iceland to end its plan to join the EU once and for all.
Of course part of the problem was how badly the country was (and still is) from the Icelandic banking crisis (which you will remember how well he did out of).
And now the EU are introducing much stricter laws about off shoring and money laundering...
Since his resignation as Prime Minister and loss of his party chairmanship, Sigmundur Davíð has repeatedly asserted that he was the victim of a global conspiracy to bring him down.[37] He has implied that George Soros, "banking elites", the Swedish public broadcaster, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Icelandic public broadcaster conspired against him.
It's funny though, that Speccy article doesn't ever refer to him as 'the disgraced former Icelandic prime minister' nor does it reference how he cost UK tax payers money whilst he banked his profits from it safety offshore. Nor does it Talk about he is effectively one of those dodgy bankers everyone loves to hate.
This is what disaster capitalism looks like and this is how the Spectator is presenting this crook to an audience who thinks that the Icelandic banking crisis was a walk in the park and everyone in Iceland lived happily ever after their lives dramatically inhanced.
Once again we have the offshoring, money laundering, corrupt crooks telling us how wonderful everything will be.
Once they've got their cut of course.
No Deal is probably going to be a lot like this. Only worse.