Saturday 8 October 2022

Brexit's ship of fools is sinking

It’s hard to say if the government’s ineptitude is taking Brexit down or if Brexit is taking the government down. Either way, if recent polling is anything to go by, it looks like the public has finally cottoned on to them both. Labour are enjoying a boost with polls giving them anything between a 20 and 33 per cent lead. This is pretty consistent and it’s even higher in red wall seats and London. The Conservatives, I’m glad to say are well into wipe-out territory.  The ship of fools is sinking, it's just a matter of time now.

Credit to Kier Starmer but I think it is the Tories who have handed him the keys to Downing Street.

Electoral Calculus has run the numbers and their prediction is absolutely dire for Truss:

The central forecast is for the Tories to be left with just 85 seats and it could be as low as 28 seats. They will stick together until the end but after that, there will be terrible cataclysmic recriminations and a split between pro and anti-EU factions. Look out for a rump UKIP-style party re-emerging.

In London and the red wall seats, the Tories are doing even worse. They may be left with no seats in the capital at all.

Any hopes of turning this round in time for 2024 can be discounted. Even Tony Blair at the height of his powers couldn’t do it with an economy showing signs of recovery. Truss is not so much facing a headwind as watching a tornado about to sweep her away.

At the same time, professor Sir John Curtice has a piece in the Independent about how "The problem Liz Truss faces over Brexit is that it isn’t ageing very well."

This shows how support for Brexit is also falling. However, Curtice says there isn’t “widespread regret about the Brexit decision among Leave voters.” He claims recent polls suggest that 75 per cent of those who voted Remain would now vote to rejoin the EU, while at 78 per cent, the proportion of 2016 Leave voters who would vote to stay out is slightly higher. 

I’m not sure where he gets these figures from since polling consistently shows twice as many leave voters (15%) think Brexit has been a mistake than remain voters who think it wasn’t (7%). The most recent poll shows 89% of remain voters think Brexit was wrong while only 74% of leave voters think it was right.

What he does say is that being in the EU is the more popular option now because those who didn’t (or couldn’t) vote in 2016 but express a view now support rejoining by more than three to one. This has been an obvious trend since 2017.

A poll by Omnisis shows that support for rejoining the EU is now at 59% to 41%, figures which are consistent with other polls as shown in the updated poll of polls. This latest survey brings the average to 55-45 in favour of rejoining, the highest it has ever been,

The Bruges Group, a hard-right think tank, named after the Belgian City of Bruges where Margaret Thatcher made her speech about EU integration in 1988, is clearly starting to worry. They tweeted:

Personally, joining the euro wouldn’t bother me and it would make intra-EU trade even easier. Whether or not Britain accepts the euro when we rejoin will no doubt be negotiated, but it will depend on how deep the s**t is that we’re in at the time and how badly we need to rejoin.

What I would say is the Brexiteers have only themselves to blame for all of this. They never thought it through enough to develop a clear plan before the referendum and were never able to agree even amongst themselves what Brexit meant.  And they never once tried to reach out to remain voters or try to pursue a much softer Brexit.

At no point did they display the slightest realism and their hubris never allowed them to recognise the sheer asymmetry in U.K.-EU relations. Brussels always held all the cards.

The cost of Brexit and the damage done to Britain’s reputation will, if it’s ever calculated, be colossal, certainly in the £trillions and we have held public enquiries in the past over far smaller mistakes. So, I think there should eventually be an official enquiry into the referendum, Vote Leave and Leave.EU, the funding and the role of the press and politicians in persuading a majority to vote for something so clearly not in their own best interests.

I don't think there will be but we can hope.

On a slightly different note, the news that Prince Harry, Elton John and some other high-profile celebrities are to sue The Daily Mail, is potentially an existential threat to the Associated Newspapers Group.

In a statement released by their lawyers, they allege Associated Newspapers commissioned individuals to listen to private telephone calls, paid police officials “with corrupt links to private investigators” for inside information and impersonated individuals to obtain medical records. It alleges bank accounts were accessed “through illicit means and manipulation.”

“The alleged crimes represent the tip of the iceberg,” added the press release. “[The six] have banded together to uncover the truth and hold the journalists responsible fully accountable, many of whom still hold senior positions of authority and power today.”

The legal action claims to have "compelling evidence of gross breaches of privacy". Remember, Murdoch closed the News of the World over 'phone hacking. Even better, Paul Dacre is on record at the Leverson enquiry denying anything like that took place He could wind up in jail.

What a great morning!

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