Daniel (now Lord) Hannan wrote an article for Iain Martin’s Reaction.lite website on 21 June 2016. It was a piece written as if it was nine years in the future on 24 June 2025. Britain has left the EU and is celebrating its annual independence day. He assumed, rightly as it turned out, that little more than 48 hours later voters were to deliver an earthquake to the British establishment. Unfortunately, that’s where his accurate predictions ended. I doubt if there will ever be any 'celebration' of Brexit, annual or otherwise.
Reading it now, five years later, unless there is a dramatic change in the next three years of which there is little sign, it looks like he was on seriously mind altering drugs at the time.
I read the article some time ago and probably posted something about it on this blog, but someone recently put a short video of him on Twitter delivering the same message, albeit slightly shortened. You can see it at the bottom of this post. I went back and read the article again and I think I’m right in saying every single forecast he made has so far turned out 100 per cent wrong. And there was a lot of predictions.
I assume the video was made for social media and Lord knows how many leave voters saw it and were influenced by it. It looked like a desperate attempt to swing the last few waverers and could well have made a difference.
Here are a few quotes, some are laugh out loud wrong:
The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
No comment. You only have to read the newspapers about shortages and the row with France to see how wrong he is.
The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy
I am not even sure what this even means and I suspect he didn't either but is sounds good doesn't it?
Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again
Energy prices have certainly reached world levels, the problem is they aren't in this world. Every energy intensive industry in this country is struggling to survive.
We have the most comprehensive workers’ rights in the world”, complains Jean-Claude Juncker, who has recently begun in his second term as President of the European Federation, “but we have fewer and fewer workers”.
This is as we are suffering a chronic labour shortage since hundreds of thousands returned to the EU, where they have the most comprehensive workers' rights. And as our rights are eroded in the future I suspect more will join them.
Financial services are booming – not only in London, but in Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh too. Eurocrats had never much liked the City, which they regarded as parasitical.
London has lost its shine as £trillions left The City for Europe. New York has overtaken it and the ECB are continuing to force banks to relocated into the bloc.
Regulations became even more heavy-handed, driving more exiles from Paris, Frankfurt and Milan. No other European city could hope to compete: their high rates of personal and corporate taxation, restrictive employment practices and lack of support services left London unchallenged
European cities, especially Dublin and Amsterdam as well as the ones he mentions, have received a massive boost. Estonia has become home to 4,000 British Fintech companies and the tax revenues of the tiny Baltic state have been boosted by 60 per cent.
the UK has again become a centre for world shipping.
What?
Shale oil and gas came on tap, almost providentially, just as the North Sea reserves were depleting, with most of the infrastructure already in place. Outside the EU, we have been able to augment this bonanza by buying cheap Chinese solar panels. In consequence, our fuel bills have tumbled, boosting productivity, increasing household incomes and stimulating the entire economy.
Our fuel bills are going through the roof. Where shale oil is going to come from I don't know, It's as if he doubles as a climate change denier at the weekends.
Our universities are flourishing, taking the world’s brightest students and, where appropriate, charging accordingly. Their revenues, in consequence, are rising, while they continue to collaborate with research centres in Europe and around the world.
Universities are struggling, They are having to pay £1 billion out of existing funding to join the EU Horizon project, but due to ongoing disputes about fishing and the NI protocol the EU have not even ratified our membership of Europe's premier science programme.
A points-based immigration system invites the world’s top talent; and the consequent sense of having had to win a place competitively means that new settlers arrive with commensurate pride and patriotism.
The immigration system is a shambles as we all know. A process to encourage Nobel prize and other international award winners to move to the UK has failed to attract a single bid.
Some followed us out of the EU (Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands).
The EU is now stronger, more unified and more popular than at any time in the last three decades probably. In Ireland over 90 per cent support EU membership. The idea of the Irish leaving the EU is one of his more far-fetched fantasies.
The United Kingdom now leads a 22-state bloc that forms a free trade area with the EU, but remains outside its political structures
Nobody, but nobody would dream of joining a trade bloc led by Britain and that's a fact. Scotland wants to leave the United Kingdom.
Britain, like the EFTA countries, now combines global free trade with full participation in EU markets.
This is at the heart of the problem. Hannan and others thought we could force the EU27 to break themselves apart in order to accommodate us inside the SM and the CU while we also struck trade deals on our own account. It was among the more stupid notions but it persisted in men like Davis and Digby Jones for years - and probably still does.
The Vote Leave campaign employed a lot of highly persuasive people, Johnson and Gove were prime examples. I don’t think Hannan was part of Vote Leave but he is also very persuasive. The problem is none of them had a clue what they were talking about. Because of that and because of the positions they now occupy, they were and still are very dangerous men.
Hannan ‘sold’ Brexit as David Davis did, that there would be no downsides and everything would be rosy, an endless stream of upsides. God only knows what they thought membership of the EU was doing to us.
It’s instructive to note the tone of Hannan’s piece. He literally is describing the sunlit uplands, while now the talk is of 'surviving' Brexit.
Here is the video, which was apparently made for Newsnight on BBC:
Remember Hannan now sits in the unelected House of Lords.
