What does the Budget mean for Brexit?

In a surprising turn of events, the Chancellor's Autumn Budget 2018 was fairly light in terms of mentioning Brexit. When the Chancellor mentioned Brexit, it was either to refer to a Brexit dividend, a sum of £4.4bn or an increase in spending on Brexit preparations.

I think it's fair to say there was a lack of long term funding commitments to the public services, bar the increase in NHS spending, however, that was indeed due to Brexit. With a certain lack of awareness regarding the future relationship between the EU and UK and the effect that that would have on trade and economy, it is typical of Spreadsheet Phil to be pragmatic about saving up money in the event of a no deal.

There were lots of small contributions to each public sector, a strong commitment to fixing potholes and privind money for the little extras for school was an attempt to sway funding concerns whilst also not committing to long term funding in the event that a no deal Brexit means that funding needs to redistributed in a way that isn't hypocritical of the spending commitments made in the Autumn.

No doubt, in the event of a no deal, a new Brexit budget will be required due to the necessity to reconfigure the economy for a no deal Brexit scenario. The economy will be unbalanced due to the reintroduction of tariffs into the EU - unashamedly affecting businesses across the UK - but it remains vital to see solutions to such issues. Furthermore, more funding will need to go into HMRC to provide extra border checks, check import and export forms and deal with all the tariffs that ordinarily dealt by the European Commission.

But to refocus on the question in hand, what does the Budget mean for Brexit, well, for starters, there is still a healthy Brexit fund mentioned in one of my earlier posts; this means that if the UK leaves the EU with a deal, this fund can be accessed and spent on public services. Furthermore, the Chancellor has stopped piling more cash into government departments for no deal Brexit preparations - a thank god I hear many a cry. That means that despite the chancellor committing £1.5bn of taxpayers money into no deal Brexit preparations, that money has either been used or lost due to the apparent removal of the possibility of a no deal Brexit scenario. Well hey ho then I guess.

The Chancellor, regardless, has increased spending by £500m in Brexit preparations and I guess the value of that cash may not be seen till 30th March 2019.

I understand that this blog post has not been like most others, not particularly insightful or analytical, however, there hasn't been all that much for myself to comment on - something quite disappointing. I think the key point to take from all of this is that the Chancellor has been quite cautious regarding this budget with concerns that Brexit could go south yet the lack of investment in a no deal Brexit scenario suggests the Chancellor isn't quite convinced that that scenario is off the table. What does that mean for the future? Well that's up for your imaginations to decide because this whole charade has been farcical.

And that's a wrap for this blog post, I will endeavour to post more however, it's been a slow week past week for Brexit news! If you are a regular reader of this blog, I'd really appreciate it if you let me know - I like to know people are reading my content :)