David Willetts is a member of the House of Lords.
George Osborne has reopened the debate on the terms of Brexit with the following assessment of where we are:
“Britain has basically gone off a cliff. It has had a huge impact on the British economy. It is clearly poorer than it would otherwise be…I would rejoin the customs union. It’s a quite simple thing to do. That was never part of the Brexit debate. No one knew we were leaving it and it has had a devastating impact on trade…The reason we weren’t supposed to be in the customs union – according to the Brexiteers – was these great trade deals we were going to strike with America. That all looks pretty fanciful now.”
I can imagine the reaction of most Brexiteers – “Why can’t the Remainers just move on….such bad losers…there is no going back’
I do recognise there is no going back into the EU for a very long time if ever. Indeed George Osborne probably underestimates the difficulties of even getting us back into the Customs Union even though the economic gains could be considerable.
Brexit has been such a painful issue for so long that it is understandable why everyone wants to avoid the subject now. And there is little reason for the Conservative leadership to get into the debate. Nevertheless there are strong reasons why Brexit, how we adapt to it, and what form of Brexit won’t go away entirely.
A Swiss Minister very shrewdly observed during our Brexit process that Swiss experience showed that there would never be an end to negotiation with the EU. Being outside Europe’s main economic and political entity involves an endless process of negotiation and assessment of when to collaborate with the EU and when not. Every time the EU decides on a new policy, regulation or law we have to decide if we should align with it or not. It is very hard just to ignore as so much of our activities, in commerce and defence are affected by what they do.
There is the challenge of regulation. The EU over-regulates and one of the few advantages of Brexit is that we can have a regulatory regime that promotes innovation. But on the other hand Brexit itself has created more red tape dealing with our closest trading partners – 16 thousand-20 thousand British companies are estimated to have stopped trading with the EU because of Brexit red tape. And sometimes there is little point our trying to create some distinctive British regime for a good or service if we are such a small part of the global market that it is not economical to design something specifically for our market. So there is an endless consideration of whether to align with the EU or strike out on our own. Such decisions are endless mini-replays of the Brexit debate.
The issues are not just economic. There are deep constitutional issues too. The Ulster Unionists backed Brexit and so destabilised the Good Friday agreement and managed to rush Irish unification up the agenda. Would Trump have said it looked as if Irish Union was inevitable were it not for Brexit? There are three nationalist parties now in Government in the UK with a shared belief in the advantages of membership of the EU. Tory Unionists may understandably fear that Brexit is likely to come at a very high cost over the years to come.
Demographics keeps the issue going too. It was older voters what won it. There were clear majorities of younger voters for remain. The balance shifted to Brexit amongst people then aged in their mid-forties. But even among older people of working age the Brexit majority was not enough to offset the large younger vote in favour. Indeed one assessment was that there was actually a majority for Remain among the under-75s: it was the over 75s that won it. This is why it is proving hard for Brexit to be fully embraced by today’s demographic.
Meanwhile political developments in the EU also change the narrative. There was an idea somehow the EU was a socialist project. It was not – it was a free market with an underpinning of cultural conservatism – protecting Western Europe’s great culture. The forces of cultural Conservatism are getting stronger across Europe. And the weakening of links to the US makes European identity even more important. Marie Le Pen advocated a French Brexit, Frexit, until she saw Brexit and shifted her position. So when Nigel Farage met Jordan Bardella he was with a French Conservative who believed he could deliver a Faragist agenda within the EU. Indeed at this rate Brexit Britain could end up to the Left of dominant conservative political parties in Europe.
So be it economics or politics or deep issues of political identity there are reasons why the Brexit debate carries on. Even though we aren’t rejoining!