When talks first began about forming the EEC (European Economic Community), the forerunner of the EU, in the early 1950s, the perceived wisdom in Britain was that the talks would breakdown. An agreement, it was thought, could never be reached and even if it was, the whole thing would fail after a few years. We created EFTA as a rival. That was sixty years ago, now the EU is 28 members strong, albeit shortly to become 27, while EFTA is just 4 countries including Iceland and Liechtenstein.
When the Euro was introduced we didn't join because we said it could never succeed. It has had a shaky start but no one thinks it is going to fail now.
During the referendum campaign, leavers said the EU was finished. It was too corrupt with low, sclerotic growth. It could never succeed they said and was on the verge of failure. We must leave to avoid being taken down with it. Unfortunately, they have had to watch as the Eurozone shook off the effects of the financial crisis and began to grow briskly. European order books are said to be at a 17 year high. Meanwhile the UK is slowing down even as world growth picks up. The roles are more or less the reverse of what they were before June 2016. This was not in the script. How is the fanatical Brexiteer to respond?
Enter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (HERE) with a piece entitled "Eurozone’s fleeting boom is an illusion - Britain won't remain the sick man of Europe for long". There is at least the grudging admission that we are once again the sick man of Europe but don't worry, that growth you see over The Channel is just an illusion.
There is a pattern here. First, predict the impossibility of creating the thing you do not like. Second, once it's successfully up and running, predict failure. When it exceeds your own performance claim that it's illusory. Next, join it. Then from the inside, carp about everything. This is the British way.
Evans-Pritchards last paragraph says, "So if you think Britain looks like the crisis child of Europe right now, just wait a few months. Rivals abound". Another hostage to fortune? We shall see if he is right. I expect him to be spectacularly wrong.
Evans-Pritchards last paragraph says, "So if you think Britain looks like the crisis child of Europe right now, just wait a few months. Rivals abound". Another hostage to fortune? We shall see if he is right. I expect him to be spectacularly wrong.
