Some of you are sticking your heads in the sand regarding Brexit. Day by day, jobs are leaving the UK. Although some announcements are being drowned out of the news by political events, people are also sticking their fingers in their ears.
People are not spending. I know a business owner with no orders of note so far this year. In central London where I’m based it’s very visibly quieter than previous January’s. Flybe is suddenly on its knees. M&S is cutting harder and faster than planned. Debenhams is looking very shaky. It’s all well and good citing examples of expansion, but these TUI cuts are around the country.
Why are people not spending?
Consider this:
(1) wages are too low and income tax at the lower end is too high (it's even payable on the minimum wage for pete's sake!);
(2) bearing in mind (1) above, VAT is too high for non-luxuries;
(3) the government has to subsidise pay (Gordon Brown's "tax credits" and/or IDS's "universal credit") in order to "make work pay";
(4) the country hasn't had a pay rise for 10 years because of austerity, not brexit, despite runaway inflation (real inflation that people experience rather than government fantasy statistics, RPI/CPI, etc.);
(5) the minimum wage has become the universal wage;
(6) housing insecurity, unaffordable rents and /or high mortgage payments leave insufficient funds for discretionary spending;
(7) job insecurity, zero hour contracts and the gig economy discourages spending and it's adversely affecting the economy.
More to do with crash 10 years ago rather than Brexit. Although job insecurity, zero hour contracts and the gig economycould be laid at the door of the EU as these conditions are rampant throughout Europe as well.
In addition the retail industry has to put up with the government's unaffordable business rates, eye-wateringly high rents levied by greedy landlords/property companies, and ludicrous parking restrictions (ever see a high street without double yellow lines?) and ridiculous parking charges.
To add insult to injury, the retail industry is up against the internet retailers who pay starvation wages and don't pay UK taxes because corporation tax is much lower in Ireland (EU single market rules allow payment of corporation tax in any of the 28 member countries whether trading there or not). Consequently they can undercut the traditional retail industry.
In reality, the present situation has nothing to do with brexit, which has not yet happened and, judging by the way things are going, won't (you read it here first).
Before anyone screams “thread drift”, please be aware that airlines and the aviation industry are not immune from all this.