Anand Menon is a director of The UK in a Changing Europe and is dealing with Brexit, Brexiteers and the impact of it on the UK all the time, so his opinion is worth listening to. This article in The Guardian (HERE) is, I think, right about leavers regret and the economy. Essentially, if there's a long slow decline it will be very hard to notice the effects. As Menon points out, we will be poorer only relative to where we should have been. In absolute terms we will be better off, just not by as much as we thought.
However, he talks about building a more equal society and looking at the areas which voted to leave but where Brexit is expected to have the greatest impact.
"And finally, of course, on top of perception and causality, there is blame. Theresa May has spent the better part of 18 months asking the EU to be pragmatic and creative when it comes to a trade deal. The EU has spent that time essentially refusing.
Who would bet against a nationalist rather than a pro-European backlash? “They’ve done this to us” might not sound incredible to a Leaver whose standard of living has taken a hit. And it looks likely to be the leavers who will suffer disproportionately: research highlights the fact that Leave-voting regions are between 10% and 50% more dependent on EU markets than is London. Moreover, because these areas display much lower levels of diversity, skills and connectivity than more prosperous regions, their ability to respond to this kind of shock will be correspondingly lower.
I think it will be up to us to point out that Brexit is to blame and make sure as many leave voters as possible make the connection between their loss and the vote.
Incidentally in the comments section below Menon's article, someone has posted a reply about our WTO membership and they say:
On leaving the EU at midnight 29th March 2019 the UK takes its seat at the WTO and becomes subject to:
The WTO GPA, Government Procurement Agreement, worse than the EU version as the EU as a WTO RTA has exemptions, bye bye NHS it all becomes open to private compulsory tender, including salary contracts
The WTO STE, State Trading Enterprises, if it wasn't in public ownership in 1994 it cannot be nationalise or renationalised, thats Rail and Utilities
The WTO SCM, Surveillance and Countermeasures, that's state investment in industry gone so no People Bank
I have no idea if this is true or not but I'll have a look in the next few weeks. It may be that the government has been so busy trying to organise leaving one organisation that they haven't bothered to look at the one we will have to join. Well, that wouldn't be a surprise, would it?
