Vince Cable has boldly challenged the received Westminster wisdom that the referendum vote is irreversible. Here are three good reasons why he is right.
Leavers did not vote for Brexit to make us poorer..
A very thorough YouGov inquiry carried out on the eve of the referendum into what motivated Leavers found that very few “expect, or would tolerate, a hit to their living standards …. They were almost unanimous in believing Brexit was a cost-free option.” There was no evidence of any willingness to make economic sacrifices to achieve such aims as reducing immigration or regaining sovereignty.
Brexit is making us poorer.
The evidence for this is growing stronger every day. Living standards are declining because of rising inflation while wages stagnate. More and more companies plan to emigrate, with thousands of probable job losses. Our economic growth is now the slowest in the G7 – and depends on unsustainable levels of household debt. There is a growing shortage of key EU workers in vital public industries and services, such as the building trade, the tourist industry and fruit farming; and most ominous of all, thdere is a decline of over 90 per cent in EU nurses and carers applying to work in Britain.
And worse is still to come. A recent report commissioned by Mayor Sadiq Khan predicts Brexit could cost 70.000 jobs in the City of London alone, which would have a devastating effect on our national economy. Indeed the overwhelming majority of economists predict a bleak future after Brexit.
YouGov concluded that a major shift in opinion cannot be ruled out.
That should come as no surprise. In June last year no one knew what Brexit meant. Now Leavers will begin to realise it is not what they voted for.
Of course that is not end of story. Mrs May and her media friends will blame it all on Brussels. But the ever-louder chorus of opposition to a hard Brexit and the collapse of trust in May’s government should make it increasingly difficult to persuade people it is all the fault of Brussels. In fact the government seems to regard their killer punch the endlessly reiterated mantra that anyone who dares to challenge “the people’s will” is not a democrat.
On the contrary, it is the essence of democracy that people are allowed to change their minds. Dictatorships forbid them to do so. Furthermore, why should a referendum vote be more sacrosanct than the result of a general election, which allows voters to judge policies set out in detailed manifestos? In the referendum campaign no-one had to spell out what Brexit meant. Boris Johnson, Brexit’s most prominent advocate, assured us we would stay in the single market, an option now categorically ruled out by Mrs May. He claimed that leaving would enable us to spend £350 millionsextra a week on the NHS. In fact just leaving may cost us over 50 billion euros. We were told Turkey was about to join the EU and millions of Turks would flood into Britain. The Brexit vote was largely built on lies.
People’s views will change, and no one can be sure when and how. But if the YouGov poll is right (and they were one of the few to forecast a hung Parliament) it seems likely that pressures will grow to allow a change of mind as the fog round Brexit clears. Yesterday’s “strong leader” supposedly guiding us confidently towards a smooth Brexit is today the weakest of Prime Ministers. Those who shout loudest for Brexit today may find that tomorrow’s majority call even more loudly for avoiding its dire consequences. Meanwhile Liberal Democrats and other pro-Europeans must ensure that as the evidence of a coming crash builds up, Brexit is clearly identified as the cause.
Merkel and Macron have invited us to change our minds and withdraw the Article 50 notice of intention to leave the EU. Think of the trouble it would save. This is a battle we can win.
* Lord Taverne - Dick Taverne QC - was a founding member of the SDP and then the Liberal Democrats and has been a life peer since 1996.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Debt-ridden graduates claim they are seen as cash cows
Why non-fiction books need their indexes
Changes in status: Local Elections wrap up
Mary Reid
Meg Thomas
Institute of Urban T
Tristan Ward
Mick Taylor
29 Comments
Very important that every shred of evidence about the likely car crash ahead is relentlessly publicised along with the piling up of evidence that the “outlets” had no plan during the referendum campaign and have no plan now.
I don’t think we should lead with the “We did not vote to be poorer” mantra. The “In” campaign focused very strongly on the potential negative economic consequences of leaving the EU, and many of those who voted “Out” were clearly willing to accept this risk as a sacrifice for the false premise of “taking control” especially of immigration. The big thing missing from the referendum was an understanding of the immensity of the change involved, its complexity, and the consequent years of disruption and internal UK conflict that would follow. I hope when some leavers see this disruption alongside the UK’s loss of political and economic strength in the world, they will start to wonder whether leaving the EU is going to give them much at all, and on balance, worth it?
Of course economic decline will make them think, but that is for them to see for themselves, rather than us push down their throats. In my mind, we should focus on the things that Brexit will fail to deliver that Leave voters believed in, and in doing so, bring them round to seeing that they were misled on their own aspirations.
With regards to the “People’s will” mantra, it is intrinsic to democracy that the “People’s will” is regularly subject to review. Additionally, it is spurious to characterise a small majority as if it was an overwhelming will. As part of the debate for continued democracy on this matter, we also need eloquently reject any interpretation of David Cameron and co.s “Once in a generation decision”and “No turning back” as forbidding any future debate. It was, of course, an expression of the huge difficulty they thought we would have in winding everything back having unwound it, and to emphasise that this was not a time to make a generic protest against the government in a context where most people thought an “in” win was likely, so they could protest without consequence. Clearly forbidding any further debate for a generation is way beyond the authority of any government and totally anti-democratic. A referendum on the deal is democratic, morally justified, logical, and wise.
If leaving the EU is turning out to be so difficult, this only underlines how much of an offence to sovereignty and democracy it really is.
We might not have voted to be poorer but neither did we ever vote to become members of a group of 28 from which there was no escape.
Regarding our message that it would make us all poorer, my view is that the leavers just believed the Vote Out message, which was to the contrary. They believed what they wanted to believe.
However, when reality begins to sink in and that they can see that they will be poorer, I am hoping that those leavers, who are not ideologically against the EU, will change their mind and agree it’s best to remain in the EU and stop brexit.
No matter how bad it gets, I think that the hard Brexit zealots will still find spurious reasons for the British people to act like “Bremmings” and will still be saying “so far so good” when we have fallen off the cliff and the jagged rocks below are looming. In the 18 months before the end of the Article 50 negotiation period (wasn’t she stupid to waste valuable negotiation time by having an election, by the way) we must continue to inform the British public of all the cons, as well as the few pros about the eventual potential exit deal. Let the evidence speak! By the way, is anyone building a list of all the companies who are setting up offices elsewhere in Europe as a reaction to Brexit (it seems like one a day at the moment). And yes, let’s talk about the positives on being in the EU, in which we are free to live, love and trade across 28 countries, with whom we share very common values. There is a lot to fight for and every day we are winning the argument!
@Peter Martin. When you have formed and strengthened an economic union, with which much of our trade is bound up and started to tackle cross border issues like crime and climate change together, it was inevitably going to be difficult to remove ourselves from 40 plus years of working and cooperating together. Of course it will be possible to leave, but not at no cost and not without far reaching consequences. The prosperity on which we depend and the peace we enjoy are a direct result of our membership of the EU. So leaving will make us poorer, cost jobs, cause many companies and financial services to leave the U.K., risk losing Hard won rights and make it much more difficult to trade with our neighbours. Now if that’s really what you want, you don’t speak for me nor most people I know. We can make the UK a far worse place to live or we can stay on the EU and fight to make it better. #NoBrexit
@Peter Martin. We are a parliamentary democracy in which all decisions are made by Parliament, elected by us. Every EU treaty was agreed by up to 28 nations agreeing them unanimously and in each and every case supported by a vote in our Parliament. Both EU referendums were advisory and it is parluament that made and will make the ultimate decisions about our EU membership
@ Mick Taylor,
My view is that the EU would be fine if it were a single country, a single currency and with a common taxation system. But there’s nowhere near enough popular support for that in the UK even from the Lib Dems. Neither is there enough support in the rest of the EU. Or, alaternatively, it would be fine as a collection of independent states who have a free trade agreement but keep their separate currencies which could freely float.Greece needs a weaker currency. Germany should have a stronger currency. But the PTB in the EU would never allow the return of the EC or EEC which were quite successful organisations and should have been left as they were.
It’s not true to say “the prosperity on which we depend” derives from the EU. If it did there wouldn’t have been a Leave vote. The imbalance in trade is about £100 bn pa. EU countries have to be highly mercantalistic like Germany and Holland or be in severe recession like Italy, France and Spain. So the EU is just not a good market for UK exports. That £100 bn puts the country into debt. Someone , either you or I or the Govt, has to borrow to cover that bill. It causes the Govt to have to run a budget deficit.
Finally all those who argue “the peace we enjoy” depends on the EU conveniently forget that the last time Europe was at war, the highest death toll was due to the fighting between Germany and the USSR. But no-one wants to see Russia in the EU. If no EU means another war, why not?
Peter
I struggle to understand your arguement, especially as no country in the EU is currently in recession, not even Greece. As you can’t get that right I’m afraid it rather kills the rest of your arguements. Check your facts first before pontificating.
Ps the country currently at the bottom of the growth league is the UK could that be due to a certain cause you champion, I think it might be.
we had a democratic vote and remain lost, we have a chance now to allow to destroy the conservatives by letting themselves from the highest brexit branch available.
I voted to remain but despise the EU but love Europe, a feeling I am sure many share. I don’t think the Brexit vote will help the EU as further integration is now unavoidable, however it will be done over the heads of the population and my fear this will lock in nationalism for generations to come. Nationalism isn’t on the wane…its there waiting in Holland, France and Germany. In Poland, Hungry and the eastern bloc, the next battle for Europe is already forming between more Europe and less Europe…Brexit is just the beginning….
@ Frankie,
You’re wearing your EU issue rose coloured spectacles, right?
“Greece remains the major exception to the eurozone’s wider recovery in growth and unemployment, suffering a slight rise in its double-digit jobless rate at the end of 2016.”
https://www.ft.com/content/63aacbfc-b2f1-3887-b487-1dc3438a6a39?mhq5j=e2
Do you need me to explain the term “mercantilism” ?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/10/uk-trade-deficit-hits-new-record-of-24bn-pounds-eu-referendum-brexit
I don;t our prosperity depends on the EU. In fact on joining in the common market in the 70s productivity went down and has been going down ever since. Inflation went through the roof. The same happened in the early 90s when it became the EU. There have been how many recession? Ok, not all the EUs fault, but not still not exactly a good record.
None of the dire prediction have really materialised either. Unemployment hasn’t skyrocketed, Boris Johnson didn’t march in 10 Downing Street arm in arm with Nigel Farage and Scottish Independence actually looks less rather than more likely. Inflation is only has high as it was for most of coalition years and certainly nowhere near has high as it was after the 70s referendum or in 1992 when the EU was formed. And rather akin to some sort of iffy over hyped expensive anti-virus the EU is demanding ever increasing sums of money and sending out ever more warnings for the dubious protection it advertises.
frankie. Greece is not in recession? On which German website did you read that?
@ Martin,
I think Frankie is relying on the technical definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. So, in the case of Greece, we can plot a graph showing a steadily decreasing GDP since the 2008 GFC. But then in one quarter we might see just a tiny improvement so apologists for austerity can say the recession has ended and the imposed economic remedy is working.
But has it? Climate change sceptics use the same tactic when it comes to Global Warming. We have a graph showing continuous warming but then we add a point which shows a slight cooling for one particular year. “Oh look” they say. “The atmosphere isn’t warming any more!”
Ah Peter so you made a comment and then checked it and rapidly tried to justify your mistake. I’d check first in future prevents you looking a little foolish. Greece is far from being out of the woods but like it or not in the last quarter their economy expanded at a quicker rate than the UK’s, that’s a fact whether you like it or not. I’d like to point out that when you have to quibble about if we are out performing Greece it rather shows how fast and hard the economy of the UK has fallen.
In other bad news for you
After 8 years, Greece gets EU budget approval
After eight years of toil by the Greek people, the European Union says Greece is no longer breaking budget rules.
Wednesday’s recommendation from the EU Commission to end the so-called “excessive deficit procedure” on Greece comes after a sharp improvement in the country’s finances following years of spending cuts and tax increases and a recession that wiped out a quarter of the economy and caused unemployment and poverty to swell.
“This is a very symbolic moment for Greece,” said Pierre Moscovici, the EU’s top economy official. “It’s the end of austerity, and the end of austerity means we need to move to a strategy that’s based on growth, job creation and social fairness.”
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/end-of-austerity/article19273924.ece
Sorry I couldn’t find that news on a German website for you, hopefully an Indian one will do.
Want to save the EU and prevent Brexit? Simple.
Just persuade Angela Merkel of the virtues of Keynesian Economics.
Particularly on the need for Germany to recycle its surplus of euros by spending them back into the depressed economies of the peripheral regions. That spending will create jobs. Those better functioning economies will be able to afford more German imports. So the Germans get their euros back in any case.
If Germany wants to run a surplus it needs to encourage others to run deficits.
Then of course the migration pattern to the UK will be less of a one way street. The EU will be a better market for UK exports. Our levels of debt will decrease.
So what’s the problem?
I think Keynes is a good idea, but even if they don’t implement that how is cutting links with the EU a good idea. You don’t like their trade policies, lets run away, and what does that achieve? We won’t buy German goods and our trade balance will improve, well yes if we replace the goods with ones manufactured in the UK otherwise your just displacing German goods with other foreign goods or doing without. The problem you have is rather than facing the fact we need to rebalance our economy you just want to run away.
Well I suppose in one way that will rebalance the economy in fact it may very well rebalance it in a very Greek way with years of grinding cuts a bit like now but on steroids. Still you can justify it as all the fault of the Germans, hope that keeps you warm and fed. Plus side however is your right no one migrates to poverty, well only brave Brexiteers.
Frankie.
So your argument appears to be if you don’t think something is good that you should stick with it because? This service is terrible, but I’ll keep up the contract and agree to pay ever inflating bills. That’ll learn em. Coz. like ending it would be cowardly(?) or something ?
It is possible that a repeat of the referendum would produce a different result. It is possible to argue that the vote cannot affect a subsequent parliament. But the referendum is not the point at issue; the submission of Artlcle 50 is, and that is, I suspect, irreversible.
Frankie,
We’ll always be geographically just as close to Germany as ever we were. I’m sure we’ll always be prepared to trade too. But it has to be a more balanced trade. We can’t continue with their selling us more than twice the amount they buy. I’d favour their selling us just the same as they do now but they need to buy more to balance things up. Otherwise we’ll end up in so much debt that it will be a problem. Both to us and Germany.
While we’re in the EU we can’t do much about it. Tariffs are banned. We can’t legally favour UK companies when it comes to Govt tenders even. Although many say that’s not an issue for other EU members. If there were a mechanism for fixing these kinds of problems within the EU, I’d be in favour of staying in. But I can’t see one. Can you?
Cherry picking data points on a graph is about as bad as it gets scientifically. The Economics profession, which owns neither the Greek nor English language BTW, isn’t doing itself any favours by trying to pretend that one quarter of very tiny growth can undo many previous quarters of substantial contraction. Everyone who is underemployed on a ZHC , unemployed, or employed on very low wages knows what a recession is. There’s no mistake. Greek workers, many of whom have had to take big pay cuts, know their economy is in recession or even depression. Period. (As the Americans like to say)
They won’t be holding any street parties to celebrate the EU giving their “budget approval”.
Before we get too excited, we have to remember that the Greek Government’s deficit has, to the eurocent, to be equal the savings of the Greek people plus the net import bill from the trade deficit. And if the Greek people are too poor to save or buy imports……
“It’s the end of austerity” ?? This sort of comment from an EU official who ought to know better is, not to put too fine a point on it, just *expletive deleted*! It’s nothing new though, we’ve heard it all before. It just makes me despair for the future of the EU under its neoliberal/ordoliberal management.
Glenn,
You have two choices change the EU or run away from it. The problem with running away is it’s still there and you still have to deal with it but without the option to change it. Even the leaders of the brave Brexiteers no longer claim there will be a domino effect, just us leaving no one else.
Peter,
Poorer countries buy less so your hope for more equal trade may well come true, but at a price I doubt you will like.
Greece has had hard times, but then I’m afraid hard times face us too, no sunlit uplands for us no matter what the brave Brexiteers claim.
Frankie,
There you again arguing with something I never said. I don’t and never did believe the EU would crumble with the presence of the UK. I just don’t Britain should be a member of it. I also don’t see how ending an association or a contract is “running away”. I also think the idea the idea that Britain should be able to change the EU from within seem to be based on two odd ideas. Firstly that Britain is or should be more influential than it is. Secondly, that the principle of the EU is right and the problem is the application. I don’t believe either of these to be true. I voted out because I actually dislike the principle of the EU. I do not support pooled sovereignty, supra-nationalism, free-movement, EU law, the single currency or the EU parliament. I also do not believe that the Nation State is an innately bad idea or that internationalism is an innately good one and I believe tariffs can be useful for building local economies. Running away as nothing to do with it.
Sorry about the missing words. Poor eyesight and worse keyboard skills. Should read “crumble without the presence the UK” . “I just don’t think Britain should be a member” and so on.
Glenn,
You want to leave the EU and put up trade walls, a pretty good definition of run away. The problem is for that too work the EU needs to fail and that doesn’t look very likely. Ironic isn’t it our leaving seems to be making them stronger.
PS I had it in my head you only became a Brexiteer after the vote, Am I guilty of misrembering?
Frankie,
It’s not a definition of running away at all. It’s just leaving an organisation. I also don’t see changing utility suppliers as running away or ending a bad relationship as running away. To me running away is what you do if a bull or a gang is chasing you. Leaving something is just leaving something. To me using terms like “running away” is a bit newspapery and more of a jibe than an argument.
Sort of misremembering it. I mainly just found being pro-leave socially awkward in polite circles and thought it better to show some sort of contrition. I’ve never been entirely sold on the EU. I don’t think it’s the source of all ills, but I don’t actually like it as an idea.
Glenn,
it’s a statement of truth, I could use the phrase stop the world I want to get off, equally accurate when it comes to a lot of brave Brexiteers, problem is neither running away from problems or cry stop I want to get off the world work. Far better to face up to life and try to make it work.
I think the phrase “I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not” is something you should consider rather than trying to show some contrition, doesn’t make you look good just rather weak and unprincipled.
Frankie
It’s not a statement of truth. It’s just a jibe that has no wider meaning.
Frankie,
PS
It’s more nuanced than that. I’m also inclined not be rude and abrasive online because it’s a bit silly.
Perhaps, one day soon, those who lead our Party will stop continually bleating on about reversing Brexit.
We are now sitting at 6% in the latest opinion polls,nad have no hope of increasing our number of seats if there is another election soon.
We lost the referendum, and true democrats acccept the decision of the people! Move on and stop continueung to push away over 50% of the population!
We need to stop the next Prime Minister being called CORBYN, as he will do so much harm to the UK. the time is now, to kick this Brexit fight into the past and start moving forwards with policies the will attract 100% of the population, not just 46%!!
If not, the words of a famous charactor in Dad’s Army will be true, “We’re doomed Itel you, doomed!”
We musy change now before it is too late! We need to fight for what we can do, and stop going on about something we cannot!