A wasted Brexit

By Pete North - September 12, 2021

Writing in The Telegraph, Jeremy Warner asks, what is the point of Brexit if its freedoms are squandered?

Five hour, Covid-spreading queues at passport control, empty supermarket shelves, mountainous red tape when trading with Europe, big increases in business and personal taxes, including – unforgivably – 50 per cent marginal rates of taxation among some of the relatively young when taking account of student loan repayments, another sticking plaster solution to rising health and social care costs, more highly paid bureaucrats to “manage” the extra spending, apparent impotence in the face of a renewed onslaught of illegal migration  – welcome to “Global Britain”. 

This always was something of a wooly concept, but the last 18 months of chaotic policy on the hoof is very much not what was expected of Brexit, with its “take back control” messaging. Freedom from the dead hand of Brussels was the promise; instead we seem to have left the EU not for the purpose of materially diverging, but only to become steadily more like them. Other than its distaste for the EU, Boris Johnson’s Government appears virtually indistinguishable from the social democratic mindset that dominates much of the Continent. Even its response to Covid almost exactly mirrors that of the EU as a whole.

The success or otherwise of Brexit always depended vitally on what was done with its freedoms. Lower taxes and nimbler regulation were part of that calculation, at least when it came to the economic opportunities of Brexit. But other than a little tokenism on data and financial regulation, we have so far had the opposite – a rising tax burden and a deluge of red tape.

As is now abundantly clear, the trade and future relationship agreement struck with the EU was a terrible deal for Britain that imposes multiple different obstructions on trade and has seriously damaged the integrity of the union with Northern Ireland.

Only now does it dawn on the Telegraph’s brightest and best that some sort of Brexit plan might have been a good idea after all. Having performed the administrative chore of leaving the EU, the Tories have calculated that with Labour in the shape it’s in, and Ukippery dead and buried, they don’t need Brexit voters and can return to the rudderless centrism they evidently prefer. Thus, Brexit is dead and buried too. This is very much what I suspected would happen in the absence of a plan.

Ultimately, the fault lies with the Vote Leave organisation which decided that no plan was the plan, and that the best man to lead this enterprise was a vacuous unprincipled oaf. If he could support Brexit on the flip of a coin, then he was just as likely to drop it like a stone when the going got tough. With Cummings gone, seemingly replaced by Carrie Johnson, the agenda has moved away from Brexit entirely. But then, you cannot expect people who never really desired Brexit to do anything creative or useful with it. Nor can you expect a man to “take back control” for the nation, when he’s not even in control of his own personal affairs.

Brexit should have meant a departure from the ruinous green agenda and wind turbine/EV insanity, and from the social democratic consensus that has driven EU policy for the last two decades. Instead we’re getting both barrels under the guise of Net Zero. All signs would suggest the Tories have no intention of controlling our borders. If you’re wondering if Johnson isn’t some kind of Corbyn sleeper agent, you’re not alone. At the very least, you might start to wonder if the Tories are actually trying to lose the next election. A few gimmicks chucked at the anti-woke brigade are not going to secure a win for the Tories.

Instead of a strategic departure from the EU, it would seem the plan, insofar as there was one, was to get out and tidy up the problems later as though it were an event rather than a process with purpose. Having set out with no objectives or underlying principles, Brexit can be easily cleaned away, hiding as much as possible under the Covid umbrella.

The great pity is that most of our Brexit problems could have been avoided by retaining our membership of the EEA – and if the government didn’t have any great ambitions for Brexit divergence it would have made even more sense to do so. Back when The Leave Alliance argued for a long term departure via the EEA, with a view to renegotiating the agreement, we were told this was fanciful, but the EEA is not without its critics in Norway, and there’s a chance that sooner or later, such EEA critical views would find their way into government. It would have been possible to keep the core trade freedoms while dialling back much of the rest. The mobility package on haulage suggests the fundamentals of the single market are giving way to pragmatism, and a joint EEA Efta conference on EEA reform would have greater weight with the UK behind it.

Instead we are lumbered with a broken trade deal, soured relations and a government unwilling and unable to do anything useful with Brexit, thereby eroding the standing of Brexit with the wider public. Should Labour take power in the near future (stranger things have happened), there’s little to stop them signing up to a raft of EU regulations verbatim since we haven’t and won’t do anything with the hard won right to diverge.

Thanks to the arrogance of Vote Leave Ltd, Brexit is, by their definition of success, an abject failure. Trade is no free-er, immigration is most certainly not under control, we have not deregulated in any meaningful sense, and though we are fire-hosing the NHS with more cash, it is not from any Brexit dividend. There are certainly things that can be done with Brexit, not least on food production, farming, waste policy and energy, but ideas from the outside will never penetrate the Westminster bubble, especially when most cannot envisage doing anything differently to the way we did it in the EU. There needs to be a fundamental change of mindset which, sadly, is not going to happen. Brexit wasn’t enough to shake them out of their stupor. I don’t know what it will take.

Much of the problem is a population with a high tolerance for incompetence. As long as the basics keep functioning within tolerance, we have a tendency to keep buggering on. But that’s the problem, without pushback now, the basics will eventually stop working. We’re now sliding into a long predicted energy crunch where the cupboard is bare when the wind doesn’t blow. We can keep the lights on, but it’ll cost three times as much and heavy industry will be asked to power down at peak demand times. The very worst timing imaginable for this to be happening. The worse it gets, the more threadbare Johnson’s “green revolution” looks. The very thing he substituted Brexit for will be an even bigger failure.

The one thing that could save Johnson’s bacon is any sign at all that his government is getting a grip on immigration. A conservative government might be too much to ask for, but unless the party has a deathwish it needs to show it can stop the dinghies and send back illegal immigrants. If it can’t, then as far as many leavers are concerned, there is no functional difference between Labour or Tories. With an endless wave of illegal immigration, a broken economy, sky-high energy bills and record taxes, it no longer matters who wins the next election. If there is to be change, it won’t be done with votes.