Aside from the obvious crisis the Government is in, the past few weeks have demonstrated once and for all why Brexit was doomed to failure as a means to transform the nation for the better.
There were always three key arguments in favour of Brexit – sovereignty, immigration and deregulation. During the campaign, the fact that they were inevitably contradictory didn’t matter, for all that was needed was to harvest the votes sufficient to win. And whilst those of us on the losing side assumed that, having won, there was a strategy for handling the transition. As it turned out, what strategies existed were contradictory too.
But now, each of the arguments has been eviscerated, one by one.
The notion of sovereignty was always probably the most illusionary one in an increasingly interdependent, interrelated world but if the response to the mini-Budget demonstrated anything, it was that bond and currency traders across the globe had rather more power than the Truss administration. Perhaps “unelected bureaucrats” in Brussels weren’t so bad, after all? And, as for the UK/India trade deal, was any sensible person surprised that the Indian Government had as one of its main asks, greater visa access for its citizens? Trade deals require compromises that you may not like in order to get what you need, and the weaker your position, the more such deals impinge on your sovereignty. Which brings us to…
Control over immigration is something that you could argue was something that could be obtained, but when Therese Coffey is seriously arguing that we should import nurses from across the globe rather than increase the pay of those already working in the NHS, you wonder if the racists who voted to “stop black people coming here” had that in mind as their desired outcome. And whilst Suella Braverman seems happy to fight the corner of the mythical “Anti-Growth Coalition” and limit our ability to make those trade deals that the country needs to make up for the loss of a chunk of our former trade with the European Union, the free trade buccaneers find themselves abandoned.
And as for deregulation, how does this work if you’re trying to trade into the European Union or other large markets? You’re bound by the rules and regulations of those markets anyway, and running separate production lines for different markets is wasteful and expensive. But, taking the bigger picture, most regulation protects us, our families, our freedoms and our environment. It has generally been imposed because society concludes that something needs to be done.
It’s all fallen apart thanks to a group of people who appear not to understand the contradictions of what they claim to want, rather than their predecessors, who basically dissembled, and covered that up by claiming to throw vast amounts of money around for public services.
The past few weeks have been a salutary lesson for all politicians, and the real question for the Government is, have you learned anything and if so, what? I have a nasty feeling that their answer may determine the future of this country for years to come.
But enough gloom. As some readers may know, I come from an Indian Catholic background, and the Economist has published a piece this week about one of the churches near to our family home in Mumbai which readers might find interesting.
And, on this day in 1725, John Wilkes was born in Clerkenwell, London. A powerful proponent of radical causes, he repeatedly fell foul of the establishment of the day, calling for, amongst other things, religious tolerance and press freedom. Perhaps, you might say, he was a radical with a clue…
And finally, for fans of non-League football out there, it’s the draw for the first round proper of the FA Cup this evening, with a debut for my local team, Needham Market FC. A dream draw at home to Ipswich Town, maybe?
Ah well, I’d better get on with the rest of my day, so thank you for reading this far and my best wishes for a great day.
* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.
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21 Comments
Really hoping ‘all this’ finally hammers the lid down on the libertarian, ultra-free-market, Brexiteer gang who held the Conservative Party hostage for so long. (And with it, the rest of the country). It does seem like it had to go through and fail for them to ever shut up.
Sadly, the damage done by it all…
@Cassie “Really hoping ‘all this’ finally hammers the lid down on the libertarian, ultra-free-market, Brexiteer gang who held the Conservative Party hostage for so long.”
If it does – and I also hope that it does! – where does that leave the Lib Dems?
Where does it leave us? Well, now the realities of Brexit are becoming clearer to a lot more of the electorate, we could be braver about wanting to rejoin the EU.
@Cassie “we could be braver about wanting to rejoin the EU”
I was certainly surprised when Ed Davey announced “we’re not a rejoin party”. It seemed to undermine criticism of the impact of Brexit and make the party’s position look vague and confusing on the single issue that had defined it clearly (rightly or wrongly!) for several years.
Cassie is correct ……. And you don’t oppose reactionary Toryism with a vacuum.
Cassie….
Rejoin is a long term aim – but the British public would never accept the Euro as it’s currency …
The best we could hope for would be a Norway / Swiss style deal , but that’s if they’d have us !
Either way it’s years away …
We must concentrate on here & now ..
NHS , cost of living crisis, insecure work , crime , poverty pay , housing …etc..
The economy is just weak and getting weaker by the day. The problem isn’t tax cuts or the level of Government spending. It’s a bloody great Balance of Payments deficit due to Brexit that increases the Government borrowing requirement exponentially.
Yes Alex….Debt to GDP we join an exclusive club with the likes of Greece , Italy, Spain , Portugal….!
Except that Greece, once the basket case of the EU, has pretty much recovered AND under a conservative Prime Minister. There was a cost to pay in diminished public services, some privatisation and higher taxes, but if you visit Athens and places like Stoupa where I live you can see the increased prosperity over even a few years ago.
The problem for the UK is that we have a government with a complete lack of understanding of basic economics that is relying of the discredited theories of Friedman (disregarded data that didn’t agree with his theories) and Hayek. The sooner they are got rid of the better, but since they are almost certainly going to lose the next election, they will hang on till 2024 and will ruthlessly ditch any PM they think will not save them. I suspect that Ms Truss will be one of the shortest serving Prime Ministers in my lifetime.
@Martin Gray. If the pound is a basket case – and it is thanks to this government – who knows what the UK public will accept? A stable Euro might seem like a godsend in the not too distant future.
The party needs to stop pussyfooting around and go all out to rejoin the EU, albeit via intermediate stages, otherwise what distinguishes us from Labour and its better Brexit?. We should actually be arguing the case, not ignoring it because we might upset rabid brexiteers. Our leader never even mentions it, even though we do have a policy about it. O
@Martin Gray ‘Debt to GDP we join an exclusive club with the likes of Greece , Italy, Spain , Portugal’
We were much in that position in the crisis of 2008, BUT unlike Greece, the markets trusted us to sort things out ourselves. But now we have had the Truss – Kwarteng mini-budget…..
Mick …Despite its current weakness & this governments failed economic strategy …..I’ve knocked on enough doors to realise that the British public would never accept the Euro under any circumstances …
Basically, we are in our present mess bccause of THREE hammer blows: Brexit, Covid pandemic and Truss–Kwarteng mini-budget. Although the government made mistakes in handling Covid, the first and the third were directly down to choices made by our Tory government. They deserve to be continually held responsible for this unholy trinity.
I make it four. Putin can take a quarter of the blame.
Martin, The debt of the countries you mentioned is Euro based with a much lower risk of a fall in currency value compared to sterling. In the case of Greece the ECB meaning Germany stood behind default.
The last month has shown that the UK cannot take on the markets with a falling currency and a lower default cover. Which unfortunately means that economic policy will be governed by what the BofE needs to get its debt away. So Brexit means a tight control on Government spending. Austerity Mark2 with all that entails.
Martin Gray:
You talk about the Euro on doorsteps? Really?
Should I believe you or not believe you? Either way reflects quite badly.
Martin ….
Outside of metropolitan areas the British public are socially conservative – it was difficult – almost impossible to try and persuade so many them of voting to stay in the EU..I cannot envisage a situation whereby the British voting public would accept the Euro as it’s currency.
If you believe otherwise so be it ….
Alex …
We all know about austerity mk1..
The govt didn’t take the markets on – the market responded to a mini budget of borrowing money to fund lower taxes & an unending energy support scheme that lacked credible figures …It lost confidence in the governments fiscal responsibility & reacted likewise..
Yes you’re right about the ECB – it ended up with unelected financiers directing Austerity on some of the poorest in Greece…
Thanks for the post. It’s refreshing to discuss Brexit. It’s the root cause of most of this fiasco. True it was not obvious during the referendum what global chaos was coming. It is up to politicians to factor in these uncertainties however and in this they failed. In a turbulent world you don’t remove your anchor from your closest neighbours especially when it is the largest trading bloc the world has seen. The Conservatives deserve to descend in to oblivion and the sooner the better.
I do think it’s a mistake for the Lib Dem Party to be so cautious about promoting the idea of rejoining the single market and customs union. As has been mentioned above, it is the one policy where the Lib Dems could distinguish themselves from Labour (at present, they risk their vote share being swallowed up by the gravitational pull of this larger body). It would be foolish, though, if they overplayed their hand and adopted a gung-ho ‘rejoin the EU now, let’s adopt the Euro’ approach, replicating the error of the 2019 GE, when a strong case was abandoned in favour of the extreme Revoke position.
@ Mick Taylor,
“Except that Greece, once the basket case of the EU, has pretty much recovered ” ???
Greek GDP is still falling as it has been since 2008. You might like to Google {Greece GDP } to see a graph.
Greek Unemployment has fallen to be “only” about 13% which is still more than it was in the UK at the height of our unemployment problem under Mrs Thatcher in the early 80s. Some 500,000 Greek workers have emigrated to more prosperous parts of the EU in recent years!
So, yes, freedom of movement can have some downwards effects on unemployment rates but probably not in a way any of us would approve of.