Why Brexit won’t happen
The hopes and reasoning of a passionate Remain voter and proud European
So, through May’s speech in Florence this week the UK government have finally admitted that achieving a reasonable outcome for Brexit within the 2 years provided by Article 50 is an unachievable objective. It seems the bickering and squabbling cabinet have, as many observers have commented, “kicked the can down the road” giving themselves more time to work out what in fact their negotiating strategy might actually be.
As a passionate Remain voter, I have held the view since the 24th June 2016, that despite the outcome of the vote, Brexit is extremely unlikely to happen. Recent movements suggest that this view, perhaps until now espoused only by ardent Remainers like Lord Heseltine, is gaining significant momentum. Indeed polls published this week show that public opinion has shifted significantly in favour of abandoning Brexit altogether. There are numerous factors that support this view, a view that many fierce opponents would consider as being against the “will of the people”. What are the arguments?
Let’s warm up with perhaps a moot point, that the poll itself on that fateful day in June 2016 was constitutionally improper. Unlike most votes with such far reaching constitutional impact, no supra-majority was required, undoubtedly a reflection of the hurried, self-serving conditions under which the Tory party under Cameron’s leadership thrust this wholly ambiguous question under the public noses. The future of the UK in a binary, ambiguously worded referendum was therefore determined by less than 36% of the electorate. The vote was necessarily an advisory one (more on that below), enabled in parliament by a government exercising the whip for a policy that was never part of their election manifesto, in fact in breach of the 2015 Tory election manifesto whose mandate was to fight to keep Britain within the EU. Finally, 16 and 17 year old voters were excluded from expressing a view on something that would proportionally have a much greater impact on them than anybody else. This is all of course “water under the bridge”, but it sets the context for much of what has happened since.
Secondly, the wide ranging precedent set by Gina Miller’s legal case against the government last year which ruled that the government could not rule by “decree” in exercising prerogative powers over statute, indicates that the debate over whether Brexit should happen, let alone how Brexit might happen, is far from over. The independent judiciary confirmed that under our sovereign parliament the only binding “will of the people” is by parliamentary vote, by house members who are elected to serve the national sovereign interest. The advisory vote of June 23rd 2016 may well have expressed a thin majority view for an exit based on the “evidence” available at that time. It said nothing of the means of how this exit might be achieved, nor did it state that such exit was irrevocable. Much as any house buyer knows, the offer to buy a house is Subject To Contract, and such intention is often reversed if adverse conditions are exposed in any subsequent survey. It is therefore the democratic obligation of our elected representatives to ensure that this metaphorical survey is taken into account when a vote on any final resolution comes to parliament. As we all know, parliament is divided, volatile and without strong majority government support, who themselves appear increasingly divided over the issue.
Against this backdrop the economic case against Brexit is increasingly obvious and unfailingly overwhelming. Currency markets were first to indicate their view on the matter, depressing the value of sterling by 20–30% against all major currencies — a sustained move which has added significantly to the UK’s short term inflationary pressures. Swathes of businesses, including much of London’s financial services sector have made plans, and in some cases started to remove at least part of their operations from the UK. Leaked Tory plans for immigration controls have sent major public services into turmoil as skilled workers, doctors and other professionals have increasingly flocked from our shores. Moody’s just last week moved to deflate the UK plc’s credit rating a further notch to Aa2, having been the first to degrade from AAA in 2016, adding significant additional interest burden to future government borrowing. As a result the Eurozone economies are now growing on average twice as fast as the UK, placing our economy at the back of the growth pile in Europe as the implications of the self harm that we are inflicting become ever more evident. As Nick Clegg said after the 2017 snap election, “It is impossible to exaggerate… how self-absorbed and adrift the UK looks to the rest of Europe… I can’t think of any example of a modern mature democracy putting itself in such a vulnerable position.”
Fourthly, the logistics and consequences of exit were never factored into the discourse of the facile public debate in the early summer of 2016. Putting aside the soundbites and lies of the “£350m a week’ (by the way, why is no-one being held accountable for that?), we now see the reality which is actually a continued significant ongoing obligation to the EU budget. May’s opening gambit this week of €20bn effectively for two year’s further membership is just the beginning. Let’s add to that the huge cost in both opportunity and cash terms of this whole exercise — what might parliament and the civil service be more constructively doing right now? Instead we have a full time public debate on the issue, a task force of negotiators spending every waking moment thinking about the complexities of an impossible task, a government calling unnecessary elections and then fracturing itself again, lawyers poring over more than 20,000 laws/rules and requirements to be converted into UK law (and amended potentially without parliamentary scrutiny), public sector employees negotiating the minutiae of implications for each and every EU organisation that the UK is currently part of and benefits from. Perhaps most troubling of all, the implications of a hard border between the North and South of Ireland, an outcome that appears to be unavoidable if the UK is to exit the customs union, do not bear thinking about.
Fifthly, so what of trade, the government’s populist calling card and one of the claimed raison d’etre for this whole shambles in the first place? Apparently our exit from the EU customs area will enable us to miraculously enact dozens of free trade agreements with growing and emerging economies around the world. Let’s think about this for a moment. David Osler perhaps picked the perfect metaphor in his widely shared tweet when he declared that he was “going to cancel Netflix and negotiate with each film producer separately” in order to get the best deal for himself and his family. Firstly, the belief that the appeals of an isolated island of 62m people have greater attraction and priority for the world’s leading economies than a trading bloc of 500m, is quite frankly absurd. Secondly, 45% of our current exports are to within the EU. The EU comprises a free market of 500m people right on our own doorstep. Even were it possible to negotiate trade agreements in any kind of sensible time frame (with civil servants that we don’t have), the thought that we might suddenly and economically redirect nearly half of our exports from a convenient doorstep market to distant (logistically challenging) markets half-way around the world is a fools fallacy. The markets have already discredited May’s famous “no deal is better than a bad deal” — exiting on WTO terms will have disastrous implications for the future of our country, a fact implicit in the government’s softening stance on agreeing an interim transition arrangement.
So if it’s not trade, then surely it’s “taking back control” of UK borders, putting our own limitations on pesky immigrants from continental Europe? Before we even look at the unit economic argument that immigration is economically beneficial and somewhat needed to sustain UK growth, the fact remains that significantly more than half of all immigration to the UK since the turn of the century has been from outside the EU. Quite why exiting the EU is a priority in controlling immigration (quite apart from whether we want to control it) is therefore puzzling. Furthermore, supposed free movement of people within the EU isn’t actually all that free — the means to limit immigration already exists within the framework of EU membership, a fact that Tony Blair also highlighted recently. As a basis for justification from anything but a nationalist perspective, this argument is actually completely dead.
So if it’s not trade, it’s not immigration, then surely it must be breaking free from the shackles of the European Court — free from the sovereignty-limiting implications of having a European court telling British courts what to do (although many suspect that Brexit will not free the UK from its jurisdiction anyway)? But this simplistic view misses the point. The ECJ interprets the meaning of EU law; the UK courts apply that interpretation to the facts — a simple division of responsibilities. Many of the EU’s so-called “sovereignty limiting” rulings have after all been in favour of the UK’s position — such as the ruling that the European Central Bank was wrong to insist that euro clearing houses should be based in the eurozone. It is also the ECJ that not only upholds the rules of the game by ensuring that all other European nations respect EU rules, but it also strikes down over-reaching decisions of the EU legislature. Much of the framework of social provision that provide the foundation for our principled society, including the working time directive and greater protections of workers rights are a consequence of this relationship. In reality there are few winners from “taking back control” — generally those that are generating the slogans, and that should sound the alarm bells for the majority.
So where does all this leave us. British Business is wholeheartedly pushing to remain a member of the single market until any Brexit deal is sealed. This is recognising that the likelihood of negotiating any trade agreements within the two years of the Article 50 provisions is nil, and an acceptance that “no deal” is never an acceptable outcome. So called “Soft Brexit” has often been taken to mean the UKs exit from the EU, but a maintenance of of the UKs position within both the customs union and the single market. This would necessitate the maintenance of the jurisdiction of the ECJ, the inability to freely execute UK trade deals, and the requirement to maintain the principles of “free movement”. At the same time it would necessitate a continuing obligation to fund the EU budget, and if Norway’s example is anything to go by, with relatively little discount to our current contributions. Furthermore, it would see the UK without a seat at the table, without any influence in the policy and law setting in which we have played a leading part since we joined in 1973 — a maintenance of all the current perceived “ills” without any say in the workings. If the provisions of a “Soft Brexit” are therefore increasingly seen as a necessary outcome, then surely the debate then must move to why we are exiting in the first place.
This is not to deny that the European project has any shortcomings. The European Commission inhabits an uncomfortable mandate, it’s unelected leadership an unhealthy influence over the democratic process. European bureaucracy at times creates unnecessary overheads for the maintenance of frictionless commerce. Extreme unionist calls for ever greater harmonisation of sovereign affairs require caution, and the Euro currency project has potentially fatal flaws. Some claim that the EU will distort following the UK’s departure, that the loss of our economic strength will be damaging to the bloc, and the loss of the our contrarian positioning in policy setting will lead others to take up the yoke and cause fractures in the membership. But this is all to miss the point. The EU was created out of the ashes of the greatest conflict and the greatest tragedy in human history, with a long term aim to restore peace, harmony and prosperity to a historically volatile region. This project has been wholeheartedly successful, aligning myriad ideologies and democratic practices for the common good, driving growth across the continent and placing Europe at the forefront of global affairs and influence.
As a member state of the European continent, we are very much part of this common good. Despite a narrow strip of sea we are very much European, and very much have a vested obligation in the maintenance of our shared future. Within the European argument it is perhaps this last point, a perceived lack of shared identity, one that became a rally cry for the 2014 Scottish Independence vote, which I find hardest to understand. We stand together as Europeans, we will succeed together as Europeans. Long live Bremain.
A google search on the title of this story…
@holmanma
