Imagine June 23 2016 had come and gone with a Remain vote. What could the government have done with all the energy that has been utterly wasted on shredding the economic hopes of this country since then?
Might we have worked out how to get the structure and organisation of the NHS right once and for all, because we clearly have not?
What would have happened if more attention had been given to the economy?
Or making sure banking was finally put on a sound footing that did not put the country at peril?
Would it have been possible to make the Green Investment Bank work rather than sell it off?
Might housing have had the attention it deserved?
Could we have worked out how to use migration powers we have to best effect?
And come to that, might we have also used our existing rights to intervene in failed rail franchises as we are clearly entitled to do?
What if the government had decided to embrace accounting for a whole range of social goals? We have already seen what reporting gender pay gaps can do. What else might have been possible?
Come to that, could auditing have been split for accounting, by law?
And maybe company law might have been reformed so that shareholders do not think they can always come first.
What if the environment had been taken seriously?
Might devolved tax powers have been done properly?
Plus could we have created regional development banking to build on the power of QE to raise money for social purposes other than bailing out banks themselves?
Add your own passions, of course, to taste, as desired. These are just my random thoughts. But my point is, what is the opportunity cost of Brexit to this country? It strikes me that it is enormous.
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I think Brexit has provided them with a cover story for their ongoing incompetence.
Btw, enjoying your book, the Joy of Tax.
Thanks
I think that may well be true
Amanda Adlem says:
“I think Brexit has provided them with a cover story for their ongoing incompetence.”
Much of it is not down to ‘incompetence’. It is deliberate policy choices which produce antisocial outcomes to the advantage of the ‘winners’.
There is a powerful dollop of stupidity involved in not being able to see that if the ‘game’ is structured differently there can be a lot more winners and their success is not predicated on somebody else having to lose.
Given your views about the policies of this government in the 5 or 6 years before the referendum, I’m surprised you don’t regard the post-referendum inactivity as a lucky escape..
I live in perpetual hope of the repentance of past mistakes
“I live in perpetual hope of the repentance of past mistakes”
I refer the honourable gentleman to my earlier comments on the allure of gambling 🙂
So much could have been done and I agree with a lot of your list but I do not believe this or any recent Tory government would have done anything other than preside over a continuation of austerity policies that continued to enrich the already super wealthy. To believe otherwise entitles you to your very own unicorn.
I have to agree with Tony and Rod above – any talk of ‘opportunity cost’ is very much wide of the mark. This is especially true if you consider that we’d almost certainly now be talking about Prime Minister Osbourne, enthroned after a smooth hand-over from Cameron with the boil of EU membership lanced and able to carry on his project of shrinking the state unhindered.
Almost certainly Theresa May would still be considered a ‘safe pair of hands’ doing what she does best (covering up abuse in detention centres, failing to get hate-preachers deported, losing at the high court etc etc.)
I think that would have been rather awful.
It would have been better than Brexit
“It would have been better than Brexit”
Less bad perhaps. ‘Better’? No.
I agree with Tony Holmes (above) if Brexit has diverted this government, or Cameron and Osborne’s govt. as it would have been, from their agenda then that is one of the few silver linings in Brexit.
Marco Fante says:
“….. few silver linings in Brexit.”
A baser metal than silver I think,….. but as I’ve said before, the voters who tactically voted ‘leave’ in order to ‘piss off’ Cameron and Osborne are the only part of the electorate who have gained anything satisfaction so far in this ghastly debacle.
I hope they still think it was worth it.
Richard’s headline question strikes at the core of what’s really going on both in the macro and micro economies. Whichever way you shuffle the Tory cards (Cameron, Osborne, May et al.) the Neo-liberals are running the show. And while it is the responsibility of democratic progressives to incessantly raise concern about the direction of travel – locally, nationally & internationally – it’s necessary to join up all the dots to see the big picture (apologies for the clichés).
We now know the Brexit result was engineered by a power bloc whose hidden objective was social destabilisation and nothing to do with regaining mythical control over our own affairs. The consent of those who voted for it was manufactured via a sophisticated psy-ops campaign. Whichever way the result had been, the Neo-liberals had a plan to retain control. It was a win-win situation for them. Austerity economics was never off the agenda. Anyone who thinks May is Tory-lite is delusional. She’s probably more hard-core than Cameron & Osborne combined.
The noisy diversion created by ‘Brexit’ is exactly what these Con-artists wanted. Anything to protect the power of the puppet-masters (viz. the City & Wall St) and to detract from delivering a fairer, more equal, more democratic society. There was – and is – nothing to stop any government from implementing a programme of domestic reform other than the will to do so. Referring back to the Palma ratio, Neo-libs know all they have to do is to ‘manufacture the consent’ of the middle-class – which is what they have been so distressingly successful at doing since the 1970s. Walter Lippmann will be turning in his grave.
In the meantime, progressives continue to fight one battle after another in the hope that we can ultimately effect régime change in parallel with the self-destruct mechanism inherent in extractive global capitalism. It’s a relentless struggle which can be won providing the human race can survive long enough – https://www.globalresearch.ca/mass-deception-and-the-prelude-to-world-war/5634378.
Coffee time!
John D says:
Cheery little piece, John.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/mass-deception-and-the-prelude-to-world-war/5634378.
“Coffee time!”
Better make it instant 🙂
Haha. Must be my age. To quote the late BBC personality Mona Lott, (aka. Joan Harben): “It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going”.
Following Judge Elihu Berle’s ruling in California, a bigger worry is what to do about one’s coffee intake. Seems like if the Neo-libs won’t get you the acrylamide will. But at least with coffee there’s an immediate feel-good factor 🙂
There is no chance I will be cutting my coffee intake
Which is way more than 3 a day….
“…coffee intake
Which is way more than 3 a day…. ”
It’s a vegetable… even the health fascists allow you five. 🙂
And I believe ‘five-a-day’ is recommended as a minimum not a ceiling.
The ceiling being (allegedly) where you end up when you have too many.