Brexit is failing. Not only that, people are beginning to see that it's failing. If it was such a good idea the benefits would be pretty obvious by now - Daniel Hannan's 2016 video and Reaction Life article portrayed an almost immediate post-Brexit Utopia - but we don't see it. You can tell how badly it's going when the Minister for Brexit opportunities describes the delaying of border checks on imports, an essential part of the hard Brexit pursued by Johnson, as avoiding "self harm." We are also beginning to see the appearance of articles trying to persuade an increasingly sceptical electorate that Brexit is in fact going well.
Fraser Nelson at The Spectator is the latest. At least I assume it's him. the piece is listed as a 'leading article' without specific authorship but since he's the editor and a prominent Brexiteer he must have been deeply involved in it.
The article is titled: Brexit’s potential is beginning to be realised
It reads like the effort of a jerry-builder to persuade his victim - and himself - that the disaster arising from the shaky, inadequate foundations will some how turn out alright in the end. It's a desperate effort to keep the scam going a bit longer, to deflect from the poor quality materials and workmanship and avoid the obvious conclusion.
Really the only 'benefit' that one can seriously take from the piece is about immigration which it admits is now "above pre-2016 levels" although it is apparently, "no longer a major issue of public concern" and the increased numbers have kept "Britain open."
Having stood on street stalls I know immigration was a big factor in the 2016 referendum because UKIP and Leave.EU made it so, with posters warning of Turkish immigrants 'flooding' here with scary messages about Britain being at 'Breaking point'.
Nelson now seems to suggest what leave voters really yearned for was fewer Europeans and more Asian and Africans so the fact that the "number of incomers from elsewhere in the world has swelled by 50 per cent, taking the total of new arrivals last year to 843,000" is seen as nothing to worry about. We shall see.
"....the plan for Brexit was to swap low-skilled EU migrants for more highly-skilled ones from further afield, in this respect it has succeeded. The number of work-related visas issued to non-EU citizens is up 20 percent on 2016 levels. The number of graduate visas – which allow students to work in Britain for up to two years after graduation – is up 41 per cent. This increase doesn’t trouble anxious voters because it is controlled via a points system. A sense of fairness and order has been restored."
I am not convinced voters over the next few years will thank Brexit or believe a sense of fairness has been restored. I might be wrong but racist abuse of Asian doctors in the NHS doesn't sit comfortably with the assertion that there's nothing to worry about..
We are told that the "endless supply of cheap labour has slowed, which means employers must pay a higher wage – or offer training – if they want more skilled workers" but this is the old productivity question which isn't going to be solved by turning off the cheap labour tap but by raising output. Paying higher wages without increasing productivity simply makes you uncompetitive and risks inflation. In any case, one might ask the former P&O workers about employers being 'forced' to pay higher wages.
And this is really the total extent of how the potential of Brexit is being realised- at least in any tangible way. Migrants crossing the Channel in boats "remains a very visible problem" and "the [trade] figures have been disappointing" with "much work to do in exploiting the free-trade opportunity."
And in a clear sign of introspection being totally absent at The Spectator, the piece says "those who saw Brexit as a project of political reform – this reuniting of mainstream parties with voters in a way that would leave no room for populism – can claim success."
Really? The Tory party's connection with the voters is more distant than I have ever known it.
And in a rhetorical question, Nelson asks: Has Brexit succeeded in making voters feel more empowered? He says, "Today Britain is pretty much the only European country with no populist parties in parliament or with any serious support. There’s no British version of Marine Le Pen attracting 42 per cent of the vote."
Yes, the article really does say that. Johnson is seen in the EU as the most populist leader in Western Europe and certainly the most populist UK prime minister in my lifetime. His aim of weakening and destroying the EU is exactly the same as Le Pen's. Johnson IS Britain's version of Le Pen.
The whole article is an exercise in barrel bottom-scraping.
Perhaps I'm wrong about Mr Nelson and he isn't the person behind the article, after all last November he was questioning the very basis of Brexit in an article for The Telegraph, asking: Was I right to support Brexit? If this is ‘Global Britain’, I’m starting to wonder.
In it he says:
"My main quarrel was with Hannan. Where are these sunlit uplands? What happened to us staying close to Europe? The latest figures show our service exports to the EU falling twice as fast as those to the rest of the world, although the pandemic skews everything. But the idea of Britain becoming the EU’s single best ally has taken a bit of a knock after the vaccine wars and Northern Ireland rows.
"And those new alliances? We can all cheer Liz Truss as she Instagrams her way around the world working on dozens of trade deals. If you’re a Brexiteer you can even suspend disbelief by not looking too closely at the nature of those deals. But if you do, you see the flaw: most of them are rolled-over EU agreements. Where new ground is broken, Brexit Britain seems to be treading with terrified caution.
"Take the Australian deal – which has yet to be signed. It ought to be huge: Australia is the perfect partner with whom we share a language, a sovereign and much more. But our new trade deal with them is being phased in over 15 years, as if free trade is a huge threat from which Britain needs to be protected. We needed a far-shorter timetable offering immediate visa-free access for Aussies: we need skilled workers to fill our vacancies. This is what global Britain is supposed to be about."
Is it more whistling in the dark to keep spirits up? I think it probably is.
