It's still silly season and news is sparse but in many ways that makes it easier to spot trends. Even over recent days if the continuing Trump saga is ignored one issue stands out, and that is the obvious fact that the case for Brexit is collapsing.
Today's instalment is the collapse of claims on the abuse of student visas, which hardly exists at all as it turns out. This has just been bogus hype for no reason.
The collapse in net migration to the UK is more telling: this is a country facing a labour shortage as a result. Expect a skills crisis very soon.
No wonder GDP is moribund; there is nothing to drive it. Most worrying there is the continued absence of business investment: the decline in the value of the pound is not stimulating long term investment because business is very obviously not thinking that Brexit has created long term economic advantage. The building blocks for the post Brexit economy are failing to materialise in other words.
That is hardly surprising when the government almost daily makes clear that Brexit will be in name only.
We will beg for a transitional deal.
We will not control migration, if anyone still wants to come, for years to come.
We will leave the Customs Union but then seek to mirror it in a new deal.
Leaving the ECJ behind looks like conceding that the ECJ will continue to have significant influence over UK law.
If ever there was a vision for Brexit the reality is turning into a scramble to cling to any lifeboat the EU will launch for us as the UK economy shrinks.
That all of this was predictable makes no difference, of course. It is happening and the harm is very real, not least because the situation in Ireland remains unresolved and millions still have no idea about their right to reside. That makes this very personal for them.
I have said it before and I will say it again now. At some time it is going to be appreciated that Brexit is not just not technically possible, which is why so many of the proposals made look so cosmetic as cover for keeping the only viable option, which is the status quo; but it's not desirable either. There will be a long term prize for those admitting it. It bemuses me that Labour don't want to claim it.
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Yes 100% right. But what strikes me is the continuing ignorance about the function and nature of things like the customs union, the ECJ, the rules around migration, the contributions to the EU and the savings for business being part of a single market. Individuals can inform themselves from the web and one sees this in comments made on online newspapers, though we also see people repeating the old slogans “never signed off the accounts, Brussels makes all our laws, we’ll be forced to contribute to a European Army,’ no matter how many times we see these arguments refuted.
The media and politicians rarely explain. It has been a failure of leadership in many ways. As you say, we need someone who can give us a clear path out of this folly.
Just where does one start with the lunacy of British politics these days, of which the Brexit debacle is the clearest example? You are almost 100% correct about this Richard, in my opinion. To any halfway reasonable person it becomes clearer by the day that leaving the EU by March 2019 is administratively and logistically impossible, given the total lack of preparation, policy chaos and short timescale.
To unwind over 40 years of EU membership in less than 2 years and replace hundreds of trade treaties with an understaffed civil service from which, in my own experience, loads of experienced people are leaving is impossible, as Jeremy Heywood, former head of the civil service, has already pointed out.
To put it bluntly, ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. The trouble is, none of this matters to the ‘true believers’ behind Brexit, or to a lot of the ignorant fools who voted for this. Hating the EU has all the characteristics of a cult. It’s become an article of faith to the right wing ideologues behind it, driven by a blind faith in, on the one hand, unfettered free markets (which in reality gave us the banking crash), and on the other, right wing nationalist belief in some mythical British greatness which, despite all the manifest weaknesses in our economy, means we can go it alone in the world.
These people will try and ensure we ‘crash out’ of the EU with no kind of trade arrangements at all, regardless of the damage to the economy this could cause. Facts, reason, and giving a damn about the consequences are alien to them. I hope to God you’re correct Richard, and Brexit does prove to be physically 100% impossible to implement, no matter how much screaming, ranting and bullshit the Brexit fanatics do.
Be not bemused Richard,
I know that you call for a ‘courageous state’ and I support that unreservedly but such a state can only exist when Labour/Progressives has power in Parliament (a majority).
Labour are not in power. They exist in a world that has been created by the sort of Libertarianism that Nancy MacLean has exposed. A world of unfounded statements and theories – a world of privately funded manufactured facts and where it easy for Libertarians to denigrate and besmirch sensible ideas and even well researched alternatives.
My view is that Labour are aware of this and their silence is defensive.
They know that the backlash (from a largely pro-Tory media) would damage their prospects badly. Labour are in a difficult position and I think we need to understand their caution in the context of this libertarian construct we live in.
You have recommended MacLean’s book (and as a result I am reading it). You cannot ignore the realities of what she has revealed nor their corrosive impact on public debate and I ask you to consider with the utmost open hearted respect that not taking that into account when looking at how Labour are dealing with BREXIT seems a bit harsh to me.
To summarise, the libertarian methodology that MacLean has revealed in her book (Democracy in Chains) is aimed at deliberately making government and its functions look stupid and ineffective in order to break the voting majority’s faith in state democracy. The BREXIT mess has all the hallmarks of such a campaign of credibility damage with its claims and counter claims – many of which have just been lies.
How do rational progressives or even conservative politicians deal with this? It must be very hard and hope that they are coming to terms with it but it is taking time to adjust. But I have faith that Labour and other progressives will get there – the last election proved that they have some tricks up their sleeve too. I think that it will be all about timing.
Thanks.
I hope you’re right
I really do
Pilgrim Slight Return:
I’m a Labour party member and still out there most Saturday afternoons at our street stall campaigning for the next election just so we’re ready. Like Richard I want to see Labour come out for cancelling Brexit sooner rather than later. Like you I think the Labour Leadership are playing for time.
I’ve had similar discussions on the subject of Modern Monetary Theory: I’m for Labour just saying how it actually is right now but some within the party who think MMT provides an accurate model of our monetary and financial system nevertheless fear the media backlash of going public with it and the likely lack of public comprehension.
I have my doubts whether the Labour leadership really get MMT, the tax reform stuff Richard talks about or whether they’ll ever come out against Brexit but I live in hope.
We all have to live in hope
I have to disagree Richard – your argument seems a little neoTINAist to me.
The case for Brexit has not collapsed. The ‘Minfordian version’ (the ‘land of milk and honey’ case’) definitely has, but the case that it is a hugely unaccountable and almost certainly irreformable, network of self-sustaining national elites who hold their people in varying degrees of contempt has not.
That we are suddenly facing skills shortages when our exchange rate drops shows just how little resilience there is in our economy. That major steps are necessary is beyond doubt, that these will take place inside the EU is fanciful – there simply will be no impetus under the status quo, quite the opposite in fact.
Inside we will have to hope that the EU can be reformed – a hope that is held by many who are against Brexit because it will, they say, be handing the UK over to right-wing nutjobs. Bizarrely this argument holds that a pan-European progressive reform movement is possible, but sorting ourselves out on the national level is not.
In any case, as I’ve commented here before, the proof of the pudding will only come after the next crash.
We have a skills shirtage in no small measure because of the systematic underfunding and underprovision of training in many occupations over a long period of time. This happened under the status quo before brexit.
The status quo had to change. Would it have changed if we had voted to remain?
It isn’t changing yet
Are you encouraged by Labour’s switch to backing remaining in the single market?
My sense is that they largely agree with your analysis, but for political reasons don’t think it’s a good idea to say so yet. It’s not leadership, but it might be smart politics.
Please see my blog on this yesterdat