Yesterday, I put out the following tweet:
Brexit was based on four assumptions: 1. It would cause the EU to collapse. 2. We’d get all the benefits of the SM without having to follow the rules. 3. We’d get a great trade deal with the US. 4. There would be a painless solution to the NI problem. None of these happened.
A reaction from a lot of Brexiteers to this tweet has been: that’s not why I voted for Brexit. Another reaction which goes further than that is: no one thought Brexit would bring those four things to fruition, what are you talking about? To be clear, I never meant to infer that your average Leave voter in Boston or Clacton or anywhere in Britain really thought of those four things when they went to the ballot box in June 2016. What I meant was, those four assumptions underpinned the intellectual project that was leaving the European Union, back when no really cared much about such thing happening or not pre-2015 apart from a committed band of Brexiteers.
For I can recall a time when talking about the UK’s relationship with the European Union was a minority interest, something only for super nerds to get involved with. I organised panel events at Labour and Tory conferences on the subject, inviting both hardcore Leavers and Remainers, and was almost always underwhelmed by the level of interest. For Remainers, ie most people at the time, you either didn’t really care whether we were in or out – you might have preferred to stay in as it was the status quo, but you didn’t actually spend any time thinking about it – or even if you thought being a member of the EU was really important, you didn’t take seriously the idea that we would ever actually leave.
If you were a Leaver, you either sort of wanted to leave but didn’t care that much about it, or you really did want to leave the European Union but figured it would never actually happen. That is, unless you were part of the hardcore Leave set, ie Nigel Farage and his UKIP followers or part of the Eurosceptic cult within the Conservative party. These people had a plan and were sure that we would leave the EU – and sooner than everyone thought. Back then, these people talked in practical, scientific terms about leaving the EU – all the slogans came later, in the run in to the referendum itself. They didn’t even talk about immigration much at the time.
What they did talk about, a lot, was the EU’s imminent collapse in the face of Brexit. This was perhaps the most vital assumption made by the band of Brexiteers who fought to make Brexit a reality. The bloc wasn’t destined to last and just needed a catalyst to break it apart. Brexit would be perfect. Once the UK voted to leave the EU, the tensions between France and Germany, east and west Europe, north and south Europe, would become unbearable. In negotiating a post-Brexit relationship with the UK, the EU would never hold together. Brexit would start an exodus of nations fleeing the EU, with the UK at the centre of new trading vanguard.
In addition to the EU stuff I hosted between 2010 and 2016, I attended a lot of Eurosceptic events as well. The notion that Brexit would kill the EU off was perhaps the biggest idea that was tossed about. And I can understand why – it remains crucial to Brexit’s ultimate success or failure as a project. For the UK to be outside of a trading bloc it is 22 miles away from and for that trading bloc to continue to function and indeed, grow more commercially powerful, would be deeply silly. They all knew this and that’s why “Brexit will kill the EU” remains to this day so central to the whole thing, at least in spirit. It’s important enough for the Daily Express to run several articles a week on the subject to this day.
Again, I am not saying that people in Burnley voted for Brexit in 2016 because they were convinced it would destroy the EU. They almost certainly had all sorts of reasons for voting Leave. What I’m saying is, those who directly fought to make the referendum happen – and by extension, for Brexit to happen – were powered greatly by this idea.
Back to the original Brexiteer concept of Brexit: once the EU started to fracture, the UK would pick off trade deals with former member states themselves. This would add to the pressure on the crumbling EU, causing it to fracture further. The single market would have to change to adjust to this new post-Brexit reality. As a result, the UK would get all of the benefits of being in the single market without any of the perceived downsides, such as freedom of movement.
Once outside the grip of the EU, the UK could then fulfil its manifest destiny: to get a trade deal with the US like no other ever in the history of America as a trading nation. Its benefits would blow being part of the single market out of the water. It would also lead to other trade deals in the UK’s interests, as the UK-US nexus became to new centre of the western world.
Finally, in the face of all of this, the EU would be in no position to make any demands in terms of how Northern Ireland was dealt with. The UK would hold all the cards here.
None of these things happened in the wake of Brexit. The EU stayed united throughout the negotiating period, forcing Boris Johnson in the end to settle on a very poor set of terms. Northern Ireland is separated from Great Britain via a customs border. There is a great deal of trade friction between the UK and the EU. There is no US trade deal anywhere in sight. And because of all that, those who were at the centre of pushing to get Britain to leave the EU from 2005-2015 will run a mile from my assertion that these assumptions were the heart of their project all that time. Why wouldn’t they? They are under no pressure to admit that this is what they were so sure would happen once we voted to leave the EU and since none of it came true, they are at liberty to change the story. But I was there and heard it all. These assumptions don’t have anything to do with the Brexit project any longer because they didn’t ultimately take place as they predicted. But they were the core of the idea behind leaving in the first place to those who cared about it when no one else did – and without which, Brexit would never have happened.
While I’m here, I’ve got a new book coming out in the autumn entitled The Patient. It’s about a woman who goes into the hospital to give birth to her child, being two weeks overdue….and ends up staying in the hospital for a year, still pregnant the whole time. If you want to find out more, here’s where you can have a better look.
Some interesting arguments here. Personally, I am more cynical of the hardcore, original Brexiteers.
I don’t think many really cared about the consequences. As one Tory MP said, “I would be happy to eat grass after Brexit”.
I think they were driven by xenophobia, fear, anger and other irrational forces. They just tried to justify these motives with fantasy arguments they probably never believed in themselves.
Whereas I for one was driven purely by democracy. No voter in the UK ever specifically voted for the UK to join the EU as a political entity. That to me was unforgivable. The Referendum of 2016 therefore gave me the chance to right a most grevious situation. And we voted to Leave. Democracy in action.
Pyrrhic victory at its finest!
I’d be more sympathetic to Brexiteers if they could be more honest.
I don’t for one second believe that is why you voted brexit. I do believe it’s the reason you keep telling yourself because you’re slightly ashamed of the real reason.
But they did ask you – they gave you a referendum on membership. If you believed that being in was better than being out, but you objected based purely on democratic reasons, as stipulated, you could have then said ‘ok, my objection has been addressed and the people have been asked.’ You didn’t, so there has to be some other motivation.
‘no one asked me my opinion. My only objection is no one asked.’
‘ok, so we’re asking now.’
‘no I want to leave.’
‘why, we asked you?’
‘no one asked me before.’
Seems a rather petty way to look at it?
You live in a representative “democracy” so after electing your MP you have NO control over what they or the ruling party do least of all who is elected to govern. Personally I wouldn’t employ any of the current UK government to clean the local toilets and that I find totally unacceptable.
There was a referendum on the then current EU project in 1975 two years after our ratification which affirmed staying as a member by 62% to 38%. That was democracy in action without the misrepresentation, fraud and mendacity of the leave campaign in 2016
> What I meant was, those four assumptions underpinned the intellectual project that was leaving the European Union, back when no really cared much about such thing happening or not pre-2015 apart from a committed band of Brexiteers.
Do you have any evidence for that assertion?
> What I’m saying is, those who directly fought to make the referendum happen – and by extension, for Brexit to happen – were powered greatly by this idea.
An extraordinary assertion, which should be accompanied by equally extraordinary evidence. You have provided none whatsoever.
> While I’m here, I’ve got a new book coming out in the autumn entitled The Patient.
You can’t even write a decently argued short essay, a book is likely to be even worse.
I’m going to assume you’ve never read a news paper, watched the news or listen to it
If you had, you’d have heard all those 4 points raised.
Try Google Daniel Hannan (or any the main Brexiteers tbh) and you’ll see all four points repeated again and again.
No, the onus is on you to present your evidence. You simply state these things as if they are facts and when challenged you tell me to find the evidence for myself. Journalism has really reached a poor standard.
But I was there and heard it all.
Did they never put any of this in writing? There are no books, no articles, no papers you could point to where these ideas are set out? And set out in a, ‘this will definitely happen and that’s why we should do it’ kind of a way, not in a ‘here’s one possible result, wouldn’t it be nice if this happened?’ kind of a way.
Me, I don’t know whether the EU will fall apart: there are certainly signs of strain in the relationship between the Western EU states and Poland and Hungary, that may grow with time. And of course the fallout from coronabonds has yet to be seen.
But I am sure of one thing: either the EU will fall apart, or it will progress further along the path to being a fully-fledged federal union, rather than just a treaty organisation of states. And I stand by that: we’ve already seen the crossing of the Rubicon of the EU taking on fully mutual debt. Direct EU taxation of business, say, cannot be far behind, can it?
The EU, as it was in 2016, was not stable. It was going to change, one way or the other. Indeed it has changed and is continuing to change. Either it will fall apart, or it will grow closer together. If it falls apart, we’re better off outside looking in, because it will be messy. On the other hand if it grows together that by definition means members ceding more sovereignty to the EU. Which was obviously totally unacceptable for the UK. Wed already ceded too much sovereignty, we needed to get some back, not transfer even more.
Hence it was imperative to vote to leave: not because the EU was destined to fall apart, nor because leaving would make it fall apart, but because the alternative to the EU falling apart was the EU getting closer together, and the UK being drawn even further into such a federal union could not be allowed.
The EU stayed united throughout the negotiating period, forcing Boris Johnson in the end to settle on a very poor set of terms
I think you’ll find that what forced Boris Johnson in the end to settle on a very poor set of terms was the rebellion in Parliament that made it next-to-impossible to leave without a deal.
Oh, so instead of a shit deal he could have left with a more shit deal if only Parliament let him?
This doesn’t sound like a great argument.
No, he could have credibly threatened to leave without a deal at all if he didn’t get a better deal. That would have either led to a better deal, or leaving would a deal at all (which would not in fact have been the end of the world, given that the deal we did end up with is paper-thin anyway, so no deal at all wouldn’t have been massively different — except for in Northern Ireland, where having no deal would be much better as there would be no Protocol and hence no Irish Sea customs border).
Well if we had left without a deal there would have had to have been a border on the island of Ireland to protect the integrity of the single market. Think the EU were very clear on this point all through the process. That would almost certainly have led to a flare up of the troubles and put the final kybosh on any deal with the USA given that the incoming administration is firmly pro Ireland and the Good Friday agreement.
So think we would have been even worse off than we are now.
Well if we had left without a deal there would have had to have been a border on the island of Ireland to protect the integrity of the single market. Think the EU were very clear on this point all through the process.
Well, that would have been entirely up to them and any consequences flowing from that decision of theirs would therefore be wholly their responsibility.
Nobody in the EU ever believed in the UK having a viable no deal card. Why? Haulage rights and the 2.100-3.500 ECMT permits. Greetings from the EU27.
Thank you, this is the first time I red a coherent plan about Brexit. I never saw or red any coherent plan how to do Brexit before. I red only about goals of Brexit: leaving the EU, become Global Britain, taking back control, etc. But this is the first time somebody wrote a coherent plan from the point of view of Brexit supporters how to achieve those goals. Following the Brexit news, I also think that this was the plan.
That they believed that the EU would collapse is reflected in the Express and Daily Mail.
https://www.reddit.com/r/brexit/comments/p4snae/eu_on_the_brink_any_day_now/
Thank you, this is the first time I red a coherent plan about Brexit. I never saw or red any coherent plan how to do Brexit before
Surely the coherent plan was what (eventually) happened: Have a referendum, win it, invoke Article 50 (I don’t know what the plan was before the Lisbon Treaty; but then I guess at that point the focus was more on getting a referendum on ratification of that treaty, like the French had, rather than the in/out referendum, which only became the favoured option when Gordon Brown reneged on the promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty), and then, after two years, successfully have left the EU.
In the event it took more than two years (no plan ever survived contact with the enemy, etc), but eventually, that is basically what happened, and leaving the EU was successfully achieved.
Where’s the evidence or reasoned argument that no deal would have furnished a better negotiating situation in terms of the current growing shortages? We’d have had these with a no deal just as we have now. I agree we wouldn’t have the current set of problems with NI, but I’m not convinced that an alternative set of problems wouldn’t appear.
The one big Brexit argument that mimics Nicks point about Brexiteers thinking Brexit would hasten the demise of the EU, was “They need us, more than we need them.” That is evidence. That apparently was our leverage, echoed time and time again by leavers large and small. An badly misplaced assumption that we can leave the EU on principled matters of sovereignty and self-determination. But Johnny Foreigner is all about the money. Turns out Mr and Mrs Foreigner were willing to accept the cost of sticking to their plan just as much as ourselves. if you can call ‘What do we do now we’ve left’ a plan.
Finally there is an alternative scenario that many leavers didn’t consider about the ‘ever closer union’ of the EU. That particular EU vision is subject to the agreement of 500 million people and their nation states, who will apply the brakes any time they like. The EU may not fall apart or come together. It may stay much as it is. Because their people and governments are happier with the current arrangements.
Where’s the evidence or reasoned argument that no deal would have furnished a better negotiating situation in terms of the current growing shortages?
What ‘shortages’? There are some supply chain issues as a result of the current kerfuffle that you might have noticed, that disappear as things get back to normal.
Any further issues caused by the new border arrangements will sort themselves out as the market adjusts, because that’s what markets do.
. Turns out Mr and Mrs Foreigner were willing to accept the cost of sticking to their plan just as much as ourselves.
Indeed some people do seem to have been surprised by the extent to which the EU is prepared to hurt its own people in order to punish Britain for leaving. Not me; I always knew they were that petty and vindictive, and that being fundamentally undemocratic the EU apparatus doesn’t have to worry about inflicting damage on those it governs because they can’t vote it out. But apparently some people didn’t realise this.
Finally there is an alternative scenario that many leavers didn’t consider about the ‘ever closer union’ of the EU. That particular EU vision is subject to the agreement of 500 million people and their nation states, who will apply the brakes any time they like. The EU may not fall apart or come together. It may stay much as it is. Because their people and governments are happier with the current arrangements.
Not possible; the financial strains of a monetary union without a fiscal union are simply not sustainable. As indeed has been shown because since we’ve left the EU has already taken a massive step towards fiscal union by issuing fully mutualised debt, something that if we had been still members we would have ended up on the hook for.
People talk about the vaccine rollout as being a concrete benefit of leaving, and it was, but not being dragged into coronabonds (and the other rounds of eurobonds that will inevitably follow now the taboo has been broken) is a far bigger concrete benefit that nobody seems to have noticed. They will though once they start falling due and countries like Italy default on their shares, leaving Germany et al to pick up the tab.
Perhaps the Brixiters never noticed the powerful forces of the Irish in the US. Everyone in the US thinks they are part Irish. Joe Biden certainly is. The huge influx from Ireland after the potatoe famine certainly changed things. While Irish starved British aristocrats pulled crops out of Ireland leaving them to starve. They made a huge impact here. Animosity continues today. When I attended parties in my brother in laws parents house, they would offer a toast several times. To the Queen, F@@@ the Queen. Yeah, the Irish Republic will want to merge with the UK. Baloney.