I wrote this in June 2016, the week before the referendum. It was my forecast of what would happen if Leave won. Not much has changed since, and it was uncannily accurate, so I offer it again now:
I have already explained that I will be voting Remain next week.
I have discussed why I think people might vote Brexit.
And I have discussed what I think will happen to UK politics if Remain win by a small margin, which may be their best hope.
Now I address what might happen to UK politics if Brexit wins, as now seems possible.
First of all, let's start by stating the obvious. I have already said that Cameron and Osborne will have to go if Remain win. That will, of course, be even more the case if there is a vote for Brexit. I cannot see them making the weekend if that were to happen. We already know 65 Conservative MPs are willing to challenge George Osborne on the issue of the post Brexit budget that he proposes: as I have suggested, he will never get the chance to do so in that case.
Who though will be the next leader? I have suggested it will be Theresa May in the event of a small Remain vote. Does Brexit change that? In my opinion it does not. There are good reasons for saying so. As I have argued, the Conservative Party's goal is always power. It is deeply divided. The fighting machine that it is will seek to heal wounds. That is not Gove's instinct and Johnson has no part of him that readily embraces compromise. Neither could deliver what the Conservatives need and it's my belief that they will compromise on May, even after a Brexit campaign in which she has played almost no part (almost certainly deliberately).
Assume I am right. Will she win the support she needs to create government and will she survive any attempts by the combined opposition forces in the Commons to bring her government down? It's my belief that she would get enough support to keep a lame duck Tory administration in power. What is more, I cannot see anyone willing to put her or her government out of their misery.
There are good reasons for thinking this. First, as I have explained, Labour does not seem to have a coherent plan available for an alternative post-Brexit vote negotiation and the SNP will want a weak Tory administration in office if they are to consider another referendum. The Conservatives might just see an advantage to conceding this but Labour never will.
Second, life for a post-Brexit government is likely to be torrid. I am aware that there are many who are considering voting leave who suggest that all the suggestions of economic problems arising as a result are just scare-mongering. I am quite well placed to discuss this with some pretty serious economists and none of us think that is the case. I am shocked that so much of the debate on Brexit is taking place based on what an economist might suggest is the assumption that ceteris paribus holds true - that all other things will be equal.
All other things will not be equal if we vote Brexit. First, the EU will be utterly unreasonable with the UK. Second, whether that is reasonable or not is irrelevant; that will be because of the impact Brexit will have on eurosceptic movements across Europe, whose cause will have been promoted to the chagrin of most EU ruling parties and that of Brussels itself. The risk of a domino effect is very real indeed, and that will motivate very harsh negotiations to make clear just how unattractive this option really is. Third, the risk to hegemony is so high that I do think market reaction will be very adverse.
Now none of these things have to trigger a UK recession or a worlwide financial crisis, but the first is, in my opinion, very likely and the second is at least plausible.
In fact I would argue recession is unavoidable. Investment in the UK will go on hold during renegotiation. No big business is going to sink millions or even billions into our economy without knowing what the future terms of UK trade might be. In itself this will be enough to trigger recession. Couple that with a planned withdrawal of certain parts of banking (those that need an EU regulatory base) from London and a downturn has to happen. Try as I might I cannot see where the stimulus happens. A sterling fall of 30% in recent years has not boosted UK growth so no one should respond by saying a fall in sterling us the counter-balance to all this. That will only create import induced cost push inflation, which is just about the last sort we want as it serves no domestic purpose at all.
Then, leaving aside the real risk of EU instability as a result of our vote, there is the risk of worldwide recession as global markets suffer the knock-on effects of a fall in confidence in a global trading hub. This could be bad enough to make 2008 look like a picnic: that was about finance and this time the threat is to the real terms of trade, and that is much more serious.
I am not doing project fear here: I am simply offering my best assessment of risk.
What this means for any prime minister over the next three years is that they face renegotiation of EU membership in the most torrid of environments, like it or not. I suspect all in the Remain camp (and that is the large majority of serious politicians) will have a view broadly similar to this. What is on offer to whoever takes the premiership after Brexit is a chalice much more poisoned than that Mervyn King thought was on offer to anyone in the UK in 2010.
In that case do not expect Labour to want to take office, I believe they will be happy for blue-on-blue action to continue and for the mess to arises on someone else's watch. The chance to say after 2020 that what they will have to do is clear up the mess they inherited, with a real justification for attributing blame in this case, will be much too big to resist, in my opinion.
I stress that in that case it falls to all opposition parties to deliver an agenda for reform of the type I outlined in my blog on a narrow Remain win. I think the agenda is broadly similar, but with a twist. That twist has three elements. First, they have to agree that we face an economic crisis caused by the rejection of neoliberalism, which is what a Leave vote would represent.
Second, they would have to agree a national infrastructure plan to tackle this. Because investment, money creation and tax are so intimately related (see The Joy of Tax) this is vital, in my opinion. Without an agreement to co-ordinate macro policy whilst devolving desired planning locally there will be no coherent economy alternative.
And third, the narrative of failure of neoliberalism has to be broadly agreed to challenge the backlash based in ingrained thinking that is still possible.
So what of the Conservatives who will have been left with the supposed task of governing in this thankless position of their own creation?
First, a new Chancellor will have to rip up the balanced budget hymn sheet. Unless she or he does then any recession will be much worse. But with that will go the whole Tory identity. So the option is bigger recession or in-fighting. They may go for the former, but in that case the need for an alternative plan from opposition parties is even more compelling.
Second, they will have to deal with belligerent parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These each reflect different political traditions at present. If they combine their voices they will have real power.
Third, without opposition consent the government will be able to do very little. The 2015 manifesto will be history meaning the Lords will be free to challenge a great deal of legislation, and I think they will. In the Commons the government may well only be able to survive with opposition support on key economic issues because of fractures within its own ranks. To describe the likely outcome as lame duck is to be kind to it.
Despite that I expect such an administration, whose sole focus will be EU renegotiation as there will be little or no time for anything else, to survive a full term. That is because I suspect the Article 50 exit negotiations will be incomplete in 2020. The EU will wish for that. Being able to demonstrate the crippling impact of attempting to leave on the UK will be vital to other member states wishing to crush their own exit movements.
So what of 2020 in this case? I would love to think that a coalition dedicated to these things might be elected:
- Electoral reform
- House of Lords reform
- EU readmission on revised terms
- A national economic plan.
This government should, I suggest, seek a mandate for no more than two years. Then there would be new elections and a referndum on the terms for re-admission to the EU.
It is my hope that by then the EU may also have realised reform is essential and that changes in the free movement of people and capital and the use of People!s QE to fund infrastructure would have all been possible. I have to live in hope, but the circumstances for change could have been created by Brexit.
And only after that election would three things happen.
First, the return of more normal politics.
Second, economic recovery.
And third the resolution of issues like Scotland's membership of the U.K., or not.
Of course none of this may happen. Most particularly the opposition parties may not cooperate with each other. But shame on them if they don't. We face a crisis that need not have happened now but which has been waiting in the wings for the opportunity to arise for some time. Unless opportunity is taken from that crisis our prospects are very grim indeed. As I say, I live in hope.
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Not a bad prediction, so far.
Nevertheless I have absolutely no hope whatsoever of the EU reforming itself. The EU will force us to stay or brexit without a deal. In my opinion, because I believe the EU utterly incapable of reform, it is better we leave with no deal, turn on the fiscal taps and make a good go of it alone.
Only then will other EU nations see it is possible to leave and survive and then the whole EU system will collapse. Only then can a new and fairer, more sustainable system be put in its place.
I appreciate your position Richard and very much respect you but we’ll have to agree to differ on this topic even though our ultimate hopes for the future are pretty much aligned.
I agree; we may dream of progressive EU reform, but it’s likely to stay just a dream. It’s hard to see any significant EU reform taking place, or if it does, that any changes will be pleasing to progressively-minded people. For a start, will the EU ever come clean and admit that the euro currency is a failure? More likely they will keep on brazening it out, following well-worn neoliberal grooves. In the process they will cause ever-greater social harm, thereby driving ever greater numbers of the European populace into the welcoming arms of the far-right and dodgy demagogues. Because the Euro Left/’progressive’ bunch currently has nothing to offer except more of the same neoliberal nonsense. Things may have to get a lot worse before Euro progressives – including the British Labour Party – wake up to the opportunities provided by the MMT/MMS perspective and go beyond well-meaning anti-austerity rhetoric and de-link themselves from neoliberal economics in practice.
It’s very easy to paint a positive outcome that ends in Nirvana but there are an awful lot of IF statements in there and history always seems to favour the worst outcomes. As they say, you can’t make an omelette without cracking eggs but you do need a decent recipe and at the moment no one agrees on a decent recipe. Corbyn comes in for a lot of criticism on this blog but in his favour he has changed the terms of the debate. Whether you like him or not, he is our only hope because a majority of MPs are of the opinion that neoliberalism is fine and just needs a bit of tweaking. No coalition of them is going to achieve much.
I am not yet persuaded Corbyn has changed the debate
He believes in balanced budgets….
1. The best way to reform anything is to be a part of it. Yes – I have advocated completing BREXIT just so we can realise that we have made a huge error and apply to go back in again as soon as we can. But the problem with Europe is the domination of neo-liberal thinking that dominates all the member states who make it up. Only if member states turn away from neo-liberalism can this problem be dealt with. The problems of the EU actually exist in the badly informed neo-liberalism of its members.
You want to reform the EU? Then install better Left leaning, socialist or courageous governments in the member states and see what happens. And they would not need to be hard Left either.
2. Enabling the EU to crumble is a far too risky strategy if you know the history of the region. The EU cannot be allowed to fail and descend into conflict – which it will if the EU collapses.
3. There is only one EU institution that I would get rid of and that is the European Central Bank. And I think that the Euro might have to go too.
Agreed
And re 3, the euro would have to go
It will take time
Well Richard, you were certainly very prescient as to how the Brexit debacle is turning out. I’d only take issue with one part of it, which is your assertion that the EU woudl be utterly unreasonable with the UK.
It is the hopelessly divided UK government that’s been totally unreasonable these last 2 years, with their ludicrous proposals to the EU that the UK leave all the EU’s structures, pay nothing into it’s budget and not abide by ECJ rulings, yet continue to enjoy all the benefits of EU membership!
To demand all the benefits of membership of a club, whilst refusing to pay membership fees or obey the rules, and, to top it all, subject that club’s president/chairman, and committee members, to an endless torrent of abuse…..that is unreasonable, in spades.
Still, I see from today’s news this hopeless government is finally disintegrating. So Richard, can we have a further set of predictions from you now as to the next 2 years?
I’ll muse on that
We need very radical reforms. My fear before the referendum were fixated in the dire public presentations we got. The likely disasters of leaving were obvious to some of us, even if we didn’t like the EU. I don’t find anyone who knows much about staying or leaving, even at the level of this paper sketching problems in financial services.
https://swiftinstitute.org/news/guest-article-the-impact-of-brexit-on-the-financial-services-industry/
Deep questions for me concern why Richard’s views (as many shared) and factual analysis were so irrelevant. I’m inclined to think we are witnessing our country being set up for asset stripping by people who can leave with the metaphoric gold. Whatever was debated and voted on still seems unclear and has been kept vague since. I think the situation is rather like the Rover mess with an original plan just made up to get in on the looting (Bill Black’s ‘The best way to rob a bank is to own it’.) Watching PMQs I see no sign of any real argument. I am not sure argument matters at all, other than as a blandishment over cabal scheming.
Adam Sawyer says: “I believe the EU utterly incapable of reform” … and the UK? When did it last reform and put in place a “fairer, more sustainable system” and a more democratic one too? The list of entrenched unfairnesses in the UK is a lengthy one and the result of this shambles could easily be even worse than we have at present, given the ineptitude of available opposition at UK level.
Do you also do Tarot card readings? 😉
🙂
The central issue is global capitalism placing far too much emphasis on competition and measuring success through money counting at the expense of maintaining and creating widespread well-being in developed and developing countries let alone damage to the environment.
Even Germany which dominates the EU because of its success in manufactured exports is seeing the rise of nationalist or populist political parties protesting large scale economic migration into Germany from both outside and inside the EU. The protests are driven by three factors; fears over job availability, decline or stagnation in wage levels, and fear of undermining community cohesion.
Ordinary British people like the Americans and the Germans are responding to these three fears in the same way. EU politicians need to wake up to the adverse effects of the current form of global capitalism (which is driven by Neoliberal ideology) and start fighting to modify it. Failure to do so will see further disintegration of the “United States of Europe” grand vision.