A good recap Kristian. To make the Brexit decision based purely on the economic argument divorced from tribalism on either side was never properly debated. Mainly because brexiteers were weaponising economic factors to prove their view was best and those against Brexit were devoid of the post Brexit knowledge of state of play as no deals on trade were allowed to be discussed by the rules laid down by EU. We were not allowed to negotiate deals in advance of leaving. That’s how the leavers won! Not on just weaponised economics arguments but within the tribalism top tier argument where economic based views were secondary and then unbalanced as no post Brexit trade deals can be given either so the weight seemed to be in favour of Brexit because they can show the cost saving as a reason and the absence of deals didn’t matter as a balance as there were none! As for remainers, their economic reliance was on the status quo of free trade and movement with the background of austerity and a feeling of ‘it’s not working’ economically that argument inevitably failed to outweigh the wish for change! So the economic argument failed to show the picture we had to suffer since our Brexit vote. Economically there was no clarity! So it was left to tribal stances. However, Brexit was a beauty example of democracy in action. The pure vote of the 51% outweighed the minority of the 49% and guess what, no civil war, just the acceptance of the 49% to adhere to the democratic vote and accept the will of the majority despite its tribal stances that in most countries would have lead to a civil disobedience. No, we British once again showed a democracy at work that the USA now can only wish for! We lead the world once again in its acceptance to stand by a simple vote! However! Was it democratic? We left the EU by the vote of a minority, if you accept the fact that not everyone voted! We left on a minority of votes against the total possible voters. In my view we must have reached a threshold of over 50% of all voters to leave! And we didn’t. Do in my view it was a sham. We should have thought about that in advance and have insisted upon a vote that would indeed be over half of all voters and not just those who voted. But, we are where we are. Paying the price of that vote. We had no deals but we have 3 now! Hardly a convincing situation had we known when we voted. Also ideally we wouldn’t have taken the vote had we known a war in Ukraine and a Covid were around the corner with the Trump dictator to face also! Maybe we would have left it for a while getting deals done in advance of the vote! But we didn’t! There was NO proper economic argument as we didn’t know what the real snd true benefits and picture would be! So it’s flawed in both thought and vote. Going forward I am convinced we need not to worry about deals. Just get our own economic model right. Globalism is failing. Trust is eroding with Trump's stance and the new group of Russia, China, North Korea as well as Iran in the background is a threat to tackle as an independent nation. Thatcher took away change controls in 1979 to open the floodgates. Now we see money escaping do we must ‘bung that hole’. Stop money coming in or going out! Make our currency stay in house. As that stage is the natural progression back to the bugging started by the Brexit vote! We must return to pre 79 principles of national control. Then and only then can we put our own economy back on track. If we are in our own in the world by choice and effect then stop the escape of money abroad for a start! We need the weight and flow of money rotating in our own economy to create the tax take required to make ends meet. Money not in the economy sidelined and unused and unspent only makes our daily economy devoid of its use! The stagnant and useless economy we have is because must money is sidelined! It’s that simple. There must be enough in it to get the tax revenue needed. Having less than required and too little is not where we want to be. Snd we’ve been there for too long! No good not putting all money to use all of the time is why we are not making ends meet. Brexit is now in action but, we are not back to full independence either.
A masterful and beautifully clear exposition of the Brexit trade-offs.
As a Brexit purist I was never much interested in the economic debate about whether it would make us richer or poorer, seeing that as likely to be marginal either way and mostly dependent on the post Brexit policy choices made. Brexit would enable us to adopt at the extremes full on Corbynism, making us very much poorer, or “Singapore-on-Thames”, making us richer. While I deplore Corbynism, as a full on sovereignty junky I respect the right of the British people to vote for it if they want, just as Corbyistas should (but probably wouldn’t) respect a choice to adopt the Singapore route.
Of course there were baked in economic losses from the frictions created by Brexit and if these were of such an enormous scale as to reduce us to guaranteed penury then the trade-off between sovereignty and economics wouldn’t be worth it. The Remain side tried to paint it in those terms but it was always patently absurd and seen as such by the sovereignty crowd, probably because Remainers went so over the top in their preposterous claims.
The guaranteed negatives were never likely to be more than marginal in the long term and therefore, in the majority view, worth paying. What is deeply frustrating is that there has been little or no appetite from our governments since Brexit Day to take much advantage of the upside opportunities. But that’s not something to blame on Brexit per se but on the apathy, indolence or intention to maintain the status quo with a view to eventual rejoining, of our politicians.
A good recap Kristian. To make the Brexit decision based purely on the economic argument divorced from tribalism on either side was never properly debated. Mainly because brexiteers were weaponising economic factors to prove their view was best and those against Brexit were devoid of the post Brexit knowledge of state of play as no deals on trade were allowed to be discussed by the rules laid down by EU. We were not allowed to negotiate deals in advance of leaving. That’s how the leavers won! Not on just weaponised economics arguments but within the tribalism top tier argument where economic based views were secondary and then unbalanced as no post Brexit trade deals can be given either so the weight seemed to be in favour of Brexit because they can show the cost saving as a reason and the absence of deals didn’t matter as a balance as there were none! As for remainers, their economic reliance was on the status quo of free trade and movement with the background of austerity and a feeling of ‘it’s not working’ economically that argument inevitably failed to outweigh the wish for change! So the economic argument failed to show the picture we had to suffer since our Brexit vote. Economically there was no clarity! So it was left to tribal stances. However, Brexit was a beauty example of democracy in action. The pure vote of the 51% outweighed the minority of the 49% and guess what, no civil war, just the acceptance of the 49% to adhere to the democratic vote and accept the will of the majority despite its tribal stances that in most countries would have lead to a civil disobedience. No, we British once again showed a democracy at work that the USA now can only wish for! We lead the world once again in its acceptance to stand by a simple vote! However! Was it democratic? We left the EU by the vote of a minority, if you accept the fact that not everyone voted! We left on a minority of votes against the total possible voters. In my view we must have reached a threshold of over 50% of all voters to leave! And we didn’t. Do in my view it was a sham. We should have thought about that in advance and have insisted upon a vote that would indeed be over half of all voters and not just those who voted. But, we are where we are. Paying the price of that vote. We had no deals but we have 3 now! Hardly a convincing situation had we known when we voted. Also ideally we wouldn’t have taken the vote had we known a war in Ukraine and a Covid were around the corner with the Trump dictator to face also! Maybe we would have left it for a while getting deals done in advance of the vote! But we didn’t! There was NO proper economic argument as we didn’t know what the real snd true benefits and picture would be! So it’s flawed in both thought and vote. Going forward I am convinced we need not to worry about deals. Just get our own economic model right. Globalism is failing. Trust is eroding with Trump's stance and the new group of Russia, China, North Korea as well as Iran in the background is a threat to tackle as an independent nation. Thatcher took away change controls in 1979 to open the floodgates. Now we see money escaping do we must ‘bung that hole’. Stop money coming in or going out! Make our currency stay in house. As that stage is the natural progression back to the bugging started by the Brexit vote! We must return to pre 79 principles of national control. Then and only then can we put our own economy back on track. If we are in our own in the world by choice and effect then stop the escape of money abroad for a start! We need the weight and flow of money rotating in our own economy to create the tax take required to make ends meet. Money not in the economy sidelined and unused and unspent only makes our daily economy devoid of its use! The stagnant and useless economy we have is because must money is sidelined! It’s that simple. There must be enough in it to get the tax revenue needed. Having less than required and too little is not where we want to be. Snd we’ve been there for too long! No good not putting all money to use all of the time is why we are not making ends meet. Brexit is now in action but, we are not back to full independence either.
A masterful and beautifully clear exposition of the Brexit trade-offs.
As a Brexit purist I was never much interested in the economic debate about whether it would make us richer or poorer, seeing that as likely to be marginal either way and mostly dependent on the post Brexit policy choices made. Brexit would enable us to adopt at the extremes full on Corbynism, making us very much poorer, or “Singapore-on-Thames”, making us richer. While I deplore Corbynism, as a full on sovereignty junky I respect the right of the British people to vote for it if they want, just as Corbyistas should (but probably wouldn’t) respect a choice to adopt the Singapore route.
Of course there were baked in economic losses from the frictions created by Brexit and if these were of such an enormous scale as to reduce us to guaranteed penury then the trade-off between sovereignty and economics wouldn’t be worth it. The Remain side tried to paint it in those terms but it was always patently absurd and seen as such by the sovereignty crowd, probably because Remainers went so over the top in their preposterous claims.
The guaranteed negatives were never likely to be more than marginal in the long term and therefore, in the majority view, worth paying. What is deeply frustrating is that there has been little or no appetite from our governments since Brexit Day to take much advantage of the upside opportunities. But that’s not something to blame on Brexit per se but on the apathy, indolence or intention to maintain the status quo with a view to eventual rejoining, of our politicians.