Already depressed from having to swap the samba warmth of Brazil for the leaden footed two step of Northern Hemisphere winter, the last thing I needed was to re-encounter the maniacal frenzy of the Brexit debate. But I honestly think that in spite of all that’s gone before, yesterday was a historic moment for all the wrong reasons.
I can’t remember a situation in my lifetime where a Prime Minister has committed to a policy they acknowledge will harm the economy, challenge our relationships with neighbouring countries and jeopardise the prosperity of millions of ordinary people. I thought the whole point of Brexit was to take back control? How are we doing this if our best case negotiating strategy depends on other countries doing something that seems illogical and where the consequences of them not doing so reduce us to becoming a tax haven, almost it seems to me, out of spite.
Just this morning, we had the Foreign Secretary in India (a country that may view its association with the glorious days of Empire rather differently to the way we do), likening the French President to a WW2 Nazi commandant issuing punishment beatings. This is because M. Hollande dared to suggest that the EU-27 may put their interests first in the forthcoming negotiations with the UK. Let’s set aside the offensive vulgarity of the remark. It is not so much the arrogance as the waffling stupidity of first of all choosing to leave the club, and then, being amazed that the remaining members might not wish to offer such generous terms and conditions to non-members. If you somehow think they should, then like the Foreign Secretary, you’re living in a ‘Carry On’ film. Brexit is not just about what we in the UK want. It has implications, disruptions and upheavals for all the other member states. If anyone is handing out unnecessary beatings, it’s the British. We’re the ones who have chosen to do this.
I’ve gone past the point of bewilderment and surprise. Now, I’m just angry with the stupidity of the government and all those people who voted leave without really having any clear insight as to what they were letting themselves in for. Now we know: economic self harm on a colossal scale.
I can accept that on the basic question of ‘Should the UK leave the EU?’, a slender majority of those who voted (but still a significant minority of the electorate overall), answered in the affirmative. I disagree passionately, of course, but those were the rules that the feeble Cameron bequeathed and I accept them. What I can’t accept is the wholly undemocratic, muddled and damaging way in which the government is going about implementing that decision, which culminated in yesterday’s landmark “head in the sand” pronouncement that no deal is better than a bad deal. What utter, utter garbage.
If the Prime Minister defines Brexit as being outside of the single market and customs union, she should be willing to put that in a manifesto and be opposed by other parties who feel that Brexit can be achieved without slamming the British economy into a wall.
Undemocratic
Firstly, it’s undemocratic because – no matter how loudly the Leavers splutter – the current Government doesn’t have an electoral mandate for the Prime Minister’s plan. The Referendum wasn’t a general election. No one voted for Theresa May and her cabinet of Little Englander opportunists, the most notable of whom were languishing on the backbenches prior to June 23. How in the space of six months did David Davis and Liam Fox become two of the most important people in the country? No wonder people describe the Referendum as being a Eurosceptic coup. All the talk about “hard Brexit” and “soft Brexit” misses the point that it should be up to the people, through Parliament, to decide what Brexit means. If the Prime Minister defines Brexit as being outside of the single market and customs union, she should be willing to put that in a manifesto and be opposed by other parties who feel that Brexit can be achieved without slamming the British economy into a wall.
Wanting to “get on with it” as the Prime Minister says, isn’t the same as running downhill blindfold; it’s a choice that the electorate should be allowed to make with open eyes. The Conservatives, with their pathological antipathy towards Europe, patently can’t be trusted to do the right thing for the entire country. Sixteen million people opposed leaving the EU and at a stroke, their views have been cast aside. Today, Theresa May effectively endorsed Nigel Farage’s ugly gloating that Brexit was a victory for “ordinary, decent people”, as if the near identical number of citizens who voted to Remain were somehow not ordinary or decent. Conflating a very narrow referendum result into a mandate for dramatically recasting the nation’s future is politically and intellectually dishonest. When Brexit zealots like Liam Fox claim that it’s the will of the people to make a sharp, immediate secession, they’re lying. Dr. Fox is a free trade, low tax, anti-government ideologue. That’s his vision of Brexit. It doesn’t have to be the only one. The terms of our departure from the EU were never on the table during the Referendum campaign.
So when the Daily Mail talks of a free Britain in its headlines this morning, it’s nothing more than an intellectual conceit. A fantasy borne out of a jingoistic delusion. The low paid, low skilled workers in the gig economy won’t be free. They’ll still be working without any job security, without holiday, pensions or sick pay entitlement, desperately trying to make ends meet by driving unsafe hours, working longer shifts, trying to hold down two or three or four different jobs, whilst being patronised by Tory Cabinet ministers who regard this anomic labour market as “exciting”.
Muddled and confused
Secondly, it’s muddled and confused because it’s obvious that within Government, there are huge disagreements on how the Referendum result should be interpreted. Different forces are competing with each other to fill the vacuum whilst grappling with the enormity of the task. It’s been clear for months that there was never a plan for what would happen if Leave prevailed. Now that Theresa May has laid out her vision, it’s clearer still that the empty slogans and false promises of the Brexit campaign are going to be brutally exposed when negotiations with the EU-27 begin.
The Leave movement focused on the fake, simplistic guarantees of being able to implement trade deals with minimal difficulty and on “taking back control” of our borders. As far as trade deals are concerned, that is clearly not what those with experience of international negotiations think feasible. And on immigration, there is a reality distortion field that’s almost impossible to penetrate. Firstly, in obsessing about ending free movement for Polish plumbers, Leave campaigners forget that there are actually more non-EU migrants coming to Britain from other parts of the world. Under Theresa May’s six year watch as Home Secretary, very little was done to reduce these numbers even though the power to do so lay entirely with the UK government. Indeed, figures released at the end of 2016 showed that in Mrs May’s final year as Home Secretary, non-EU migration flows 100% under the control of the British government were at their highest ever level. And the reason, perhaps, is simple. We needed those workers.
According to Simon Walker, the Director General of the Institute of Directors, British firms overwhelmingly employ migrants because they need their skill, not because they are cheaper. Only four per cent of IoD members say cost had anything to do with their recruitment strategy.
And it’s the non-EU, wholly UK owned, migration policy that we should look closely at. One major difference between EU and non-EU migrants is their pressure on the welfare system. In 2014, no fewer than 264,000 non-EU migrants were paid benefits (mostly out-of work benefits) by the Department of Work & Pensions, as against only 131,000 EU nationals. Leaving the EU is not going to fix this imbalance when research suggests that migrants from the EU are younger, fitter, healthier and therefore make a net contribution to public services as opposed to being a drain on the resources.
On immigration, there is a reality distortion field that’s almost impossible to penetrate. Firstly, in obsessing about ending free movement for Polish plumbers, Leave campaigners forget that there are actually more non-EU migrants coming to Britain from other parts of the world. Under Theresa May’s six year watch as Home Secretary, very little was done to reduce these numbers even though the power to do so lay entirely with the UK government.
Damaging
Finally, it’s damaging because the Prime Minister has now made it clear that she is quite prepared to leave the single market and customs union, two features of EU membership that are hugely important to British prosperity. Let’s be clear that it is not necessary to forsake either of these things if our goal is simply to control immigration; there are smarter ways of tackling the Gordian knot of EU migration and unrestrained access to the UK labour market. Worse, we have begun to make veiled threats that jeopardise the stability of the other EU countries by suggesting Britain could become a tax haven. This is likely to unite the EU-27 and bring them closer together in defending their collective interests against the UK’s – especially not if the Foreign Secretary is going to wheel out ‘Dad’s Army’ tropes every time he opens his mouth.
Theresa May speaks blithely about “doing deals” as if they were simple handshakes. The truth is that trade agreements are complex and torturous to ratify and Britain is going to need a lot of them. It will take time and until the process is concluded, the standard World Trade Organisation tariff rates that will apply to goods and services will be less beneficial to UK trade. Business leaders know this, which is why they have been keen for the UK to remain a member of the EU single market and customs union. Meanwhile, experts in the civil service and other European leaders, like the Norwegian Prime Minister, are warning of a very difficult road ahead if we assume that other EU countries will roll over and make concessions that might damage the integrity of EU and its interests. They may well feel that no deal is better than a bad deal too. And they have a lot more experience in bilateral negotiations than we do.
And becoming a tax haven, whilst financially lucrative for certain sectors and individuals, would do very little to improve the job and educational opportunities of those millions who voted to take back control. Cutting corporate taxes is not the way to increase funding for the NHS, at any level let alone by the fabled £350 million per week. You don’t address the issue of being a low skilled, low productivity economy by becoming a refuge for elite and corporate wealth. The European Union negotiators know this, as does the Chancellor of the Exchequer. For all the tough talking, would the UK really be prepared to walk away with no deal or is it likely that we would give ground under pressure to avoid a hard Brexit with all the damage it would do? That would almost certainly leave us in a horrible half way house of still being bound by many EU regulations but with no ability to influence or shape their development. At the very least, failure to reach agreement with the EU will probably force the UK to cut complex, unilateral deals with other countries and blocs where we will hold the weakest hand, exposing British companies and consumers to lower standards of regulation, health and safety and environmental laws. How could anyone think this means ‘taking back control’?
And it’s also damaging because of the poison that Brexit has released into society. Hate crime is rising. Prejudice towards foreigners and minorities has become acceptable in public life. The referendum result has not just polarised the country across political lines, but across class and generational boundaries also. To its shame, the government has done nothing to reduce inflamed emotions raised on both sides. The independent judiciary has become a target. The Prime Minister talks with a straight face about people voting with their “eyes open, accepting the road ahead would be uncertain at times” when the most striking feature of the Leave campaign was its lack of transparency and honesty in appraising the challenges ahead. And it’s laughable that she should claim voters were choosing a “better future for their children and grandchildren” when 75% of those aged between 18-25 voted for a future inside the EU. Even if one were to extend that spread from 18-50 years old, there is still a clear majority for Remain. So whose future is really on the line here? The direction has been set by those who won’t have to witness how the journey ends, whilst those who do will have to accept a less prosperous and stable society than their forbears enjoyed as citizens of the European Union. This selling out of the hopefulness of youth remains the greatest catastrophe of them all.
Feature image cartoon © Steve Bell/The Guardian