It is often said that Brexit is a leap into the unknown, a flagship policy launched with scant regard to the evidence. In fact where there was evidence, the policy is usually flatly contradicted by it. This is going to be the central ongoing problem for Johnson. It's the old adage about fooling some of the people some of the time. His difficulty will be in fooling as many people as he can for as long as possible and in this task he will have a lot of help from his supporters in the pro-Brexit press.
As far as I can recall, during the referendum campaign, Brexit was going to be a runaway success from day one. Even in August 2016 after Sterling had dropped like a stone, Matthew Lynn in The Spectator was telling us Mark Carney was wrong to loosen monetary policy: "The Bank has just taken a huge risk – of over-stimulating the economy, and creating a Brexit boom." David Davis had told us in July 2016, "This means that some of the economic benefits of Brexit will materialise even before the probable formal departure from the EU around December 2018."
Since when of course the economy has all but ground to a halt - although unemployment has continued to fall, thus sending productivity into another downward spiral.
So, this article from yesterday's Daily Mail Money section was the latest dash of cold water. It says not to expect a miracle year next year. Economists are warning that growth will remain low throughout 2020 and unemployment is likely to rise - among other things.
"The sobering outlook, from a major MoS survey of economic forecasts, will come as a setback for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s hopes of an instant era of post-Brexit prosperity.
"Economists said that while Britain may well be free to make its own trade deals after January 31, there is no cutting loose from a world economy facing multiple sources of instability."
If this really comes as a setback we are in much deeper trouble than I thought. Truthfully, this is precisely what The Treasury predicted before the referendum. A slowing of growth until by 2030 our economy will be 6.7% smaller than it otherwise would have been. We are probably ahead of the prediction and minus 6.7% may look far too optimistic shortly.
To make matters worse the Eurozone is not forecast to totally collapse which will come as great disappointment to men like Owen Paterson:
"Peter Dixon, global financial economist with Commerzbank in London, stressed that Britain’s prospects cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the world. ‘Europe is not likely to go into recession, but it will feel pretty miserable,’ he said."
To make matters worse the Eurozone is not forecast to totally collapse which will come as great disappointment to men like Owen Paterson:
"Peter Dixon, global financial economist with Commerzbank in London, stressed that Britain’s prospects cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the world. ‘Europe is not likely to go into recession, but it will feel pretty miserable,’ he said."
Even Patrick Minford, the Brexiteer's favourite economist, and his Liverpool research Group are only forecasting a weak 2% growth in the UK next year. They were spectacularly wrong in December 2018 and I expect them to be spectacularly wrong again this year. The Financial forecasters IHS Markitt say growth in 2020 will be as low as 0.5%. This is teetering on the edge of a recession.
Someone on Twitter linked to what we might expect to see in future from the Brexiteer press in an article from The Sun in 2017 where scrapping the Working Time Directive was claimed as an unalloyed benefit with British workers said to be "set for a post-Brexit overtime boom". Sending small children up chimneys will soon be presented as legitimate and highly desirable work experience.
Elsewhere, Lewis Goodall at Sky News tweeted about how some Tory MPs are pointing to what looks increasingly like a circular tour where we spend the next decade slowly and expensively working our way back to a position that will look remarkably similar to where we are now. Following EU rules and complaining about it - albeit as a third country:
This tweet hints at a theme of the coming decade. We will likely (quietly) spend a lot of time trying to recreate elements of the institutions/programmes we are about to leave and to (very quietly) try and secure various opt ins to many of the things we have spent years decrying. https://t.co/aV41oiwvFU— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) December 27, 2019
Everything depends on money. This is the hard reality. You might be worried about all sorts of things from social care to the poor reliability of the rail network, from jobs for your children to the NHS but at the end of the day, if the money isn't there the problems will never be resolved.
This is the harsh truth of post Brexit Britain. And the message from The Daily Mail, contrary to what they were saying in 2016 is: Don't expect any miracles.
But this is precisely what the 52% voted for isn't it?
