Dr North has been concentrating of late on the coronavirus epidemic and Brexit, of which he was such a leading advocate, seemed to have been forgotten. But yesterday he published some cabinet papers from 1975 where ministers discussed the first EU (ECC) referendum. Today he is looking at a report about monetary union - I think he is trying to convince himself that he was right about Brexit against the growing chaos as the government try to implement the fantasy into reality.
What the papers tell us is how differently they did things in those days. Experts drew up policy papers which went to cabinet where they were discussed and collective decisions made. Nowadays, of course cabinet ministers routinely reject the opinion of experts and use their own prejudice to manufacture policy on the hoof with little if any evidence.
Now we have to listen to men (it is mostly men) pontificate on all manner of things about which they have only the flimsiest of knowledge while the experts are poo-pooed into silence.
What Dr North seems to be saying is how similar the problems of withdrawal were in 1975 to those we see now but he appears to play down his own role in the disaster - in fact he is remarkably modest about it. This is his conclusion:
"Overall, this remarkably prescient document should have been aired earlier. It could at least formed the basis of discussion and introduced some reality into the current debate. But, as we are finding, if we ignore our history, we are doomed to relive it."
It is not really 'prescient' as he believes. If I forecast the sun will come up tomorrow morning am I being prescient? Not really I am simply stating facts. The cabinet papers include a lot of other unrelated things but if you turn to page 262 (of 363 pages) you will find something that touches on the reality of what is being negotiated at the moment. Listen to this and bear in mind it was written in March 1975 about our withdrawal and the consequences:
"Even if an acceptable free trade agreement could be negotiated, this would be accompanied by conditions which would be likely to limit the Government's freedom to give assistance to British industry"
Yet here we are 45 years on trying to argue with the EU that Britain should be allowed to subsidise industry in the UK (state aid) and still enjoy a free trade agreement with the EU - a much enlarged and more powerful EU than the one in 1975. It has no more chance of happening now as it did back in 1975. The difference was that the government recognised it in 1975 - now they don't.
North quotes extensively from the papers - and he assumes Foreign Minister Callahan personally wrote the parts he uses:
One must also recall that this was written before the "completion" of the Single Market, but Callaghan notes that, "The crucial subject for the withdrawal negotiations would be the future trading relationship with the Community".
"We would badly want a free trade area", he avers, "but the necessary unanimity for this in the Community may not be forthcoming; as an industrial competitor we are in a different class from such countries as Norway".
"If the Community were to contemplate a free trade arrangement", he says. "they would probably insist on major transitional exceptions and on rules enforceable by the Community to ensure proper competition". The prudent working assumption, he suggests, "should be that agreement will not be reached on a free trade arrangement. The pre-1973 tariffs on both sides would then be restored".
"The decision to withdraw and the uncertain prospects for the future", he warns, "would give a major shock to the system". He adds:
It is a matter of judgement as to how long these effects would continue, but there is little doubt that because the business community believes that membership is greatly to our economic advantage, and because of the poor prospects for a free trade arrangement, the referendum decision would itself lead to a sharp fall in business and financial confidence. This effect would continue during the period of confusion and uncertainty about our future relationships and policies.
The problem is that in 2016 the nation sub-contracted decision making to people singularly ill equipped to make such a momentous choice. That would have been bad enough. But, not only that, they were then subject to massive influence from men like Dr North, although he was not alone, who fanned the flames of nationalism and persuaded a narrow majority to reject what is plainly in their best interests.
Today's blog post at EU Referendum is about the "dark secret" (everything is conspiracy in the North household) of monetary union as if it was a dastardly plot to destroy the UK. He quotes from a Foreign Office document (I assume it is somewhere in the 363 pages linked to yesterday but I can't find it since the CTRL+F search function doesn't work on these near half century old documents) which he says:
"Nevertheless, the FCO argued, "we see no real reason why UK interests should signi?cantly suffer". Any problems, it added optimistically, "ought not to be incapable of agreed solutions within the community". But it had to be faced that EMU would lead to the UK and the other EEC countries becoming as interlocked as those of the states of the US. Indeed it could be argued that the independence of the members would be less than that of the (US) states, for the latter have more autonomy over their budgets. The degree of freedom which would then be vested in national governments might indeed be somewhat less than the autonomy enjoyed by the constituent states of the US."
Is that really a big issue? Being as interlocked as the US states? They don't seem to have done too badly. California has a GDP about the same as ours but don't appear to be suffering very much.
Personally, I was against joining the Euro in 1999 but in hindsight it might have been the best thing for us. The Brexiteers were against it probably because they could see how much more difficult it would be to extricate ourselves from political and economic union if we had monetary union as well. At the time Brexit wasn't even a word and the only people pushing for withdrawal were a few nutjobs on the far right.
Now they're the government.
