Wednesday 5 January 2022

Alarms go off at The Telegraph

Almost every day now we see articles in the pro-Brexit press critical of what we have actually achieved by leaving the EU. It's almost as if everything that the Remain side warned of is coming true and the Leave side is increasingly worried that they are going to either be proved wrong or extremely gullible. At The Telegraph we had Jeremy Warner, assistant editor suggesting: Risk-averse Tories are squandering Great Britain’s Brexit opportunities, and lamenting the lack of any progress. He ended with, "No longer can we blame the 'dead hand of Europe' for our failings. Tough though it seemed, delivering Brexit may have been the easy part; the challenge now is to make something of it."

There is no clear idea in Warner's piece of what these 'opportunities' actually are beyond a "more Thatcherite, lower tax, smaller state,"  The fact that we are already one of the most lightly regulated and taxed nation in Europe doesn't seem to figure in his thinking.

Brexit was supposed to be our salvation now the talk is of 'making something of it' which is being described as a 'challenge.'  

Yesterday Warner was joined by Ben Marlow, chief city commentator with a similar piece: Time is running out to prove Brexit is not a historic failure.

Marlow says, "It’s been five long years since the shock referendum result and 12 full months since Britain burst free from the shackles of Brussels. Yet even some of the most ardent Brexiteers are beginning to reluctantly concede that life outside the EU has yet to live up to its billing. Lord Frost’s resignation from the Cabinet last month partly expressed that disappointment."

Well knock me down with a feather.

He calls the return of the crown stamp on the side of pint glasses and removing the ban on selling in pounds and ounces, "pretty weak stuff" and it is compared to the colossal damage being done to Britain's trade.

Membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, whose members include major economies such as Canada, Japan and Mexico he says, "remains aspirational for now and there are serious questions about the overall benefits to exporters given the physical distance between the UK and the Pacific region."

Marlow notes that "the benefits of Brexit have so far proved elusive" but says "It’s worse than that. The initial impact, from chaos with customs checks and a heavy blow to business investment has been almost overwhelmingly negative – and things could get a lot worse."

He ends his piece, again without proposing any concrete ideas, with this:

"Voters aren’t mugs. Ministers can’t keep dismissing the downsides as teething problems. Nor will the public continue to accept the jam tomorrow version of events. When Boris says the Government will go 'further and faster' in 2022 to maximise the opportunities of Brexit, he should be held to it.

"This is the year when reality should finally match all the hype, otherwise even the most staunch Brexiteers may be forced to question whether they will ever get what they wanted."

I picked out The Telegraph but The Spectator and The Daily Express and The Mail have all carried similar articles in the last few weeks. One can almost imagine they were as carried away with the idea of Brexit liberating Britain as Johnson and Gove were in 2016 and that they all supported each other in an echo chamber but in reality none of them knew what they were talking about.

This notion is reinforced by the news of a celebratory dinner at Brown's hotel in London on 31 January 2020 when we technically left the EU and the transition period began as we started to negotiate the trade deal:

Looking at the guest list (second tweet in the thread) you can see people from the Telegraph, The Mail, The Spectator, The IEA and so on. It is the Brexit glitterati, all coming together to celebrate they 'victory.'

Now as the cold light of reality dawns we begin to hear voices questioning if the whole idea of Brexit was right or not.

If any of these people truly expect 2022 to show any benefits from Brexit they are likely to be sadly disappointed. And the same for 2023 and onwards.  Johnson is in the impossible position of having to demonstrate some improvements in British living standards and quality of life. That we really can have a cake and eat it too.

Impatience is growing. It is not too difficult to see that the tone of articles from Brexiteers can only get worse for the Tory party as the year progresses, although I expect Johnson to be long gone by the summer.

Marlow is right. Voters aren't mugs. Next Christmas things will be decidedly worse with Brexit and not the EU being blamed for all our ills. What a turnaround that would be, eh?

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