Lord Wolfson, the CEO of the fashion retailer Next, made a bit of a fool of himself yesterday in a BBC interview with Simon Jacks. The keen Brexiteer complained he couldn’t recruit enough workers, something he said was stifling economic growth in this country. He actually said, "I think in respect of immigration, it's definitely not the Brexit that I wanted, or indeed, many of the people who voted Brexit wanted." He called for a 'different approach' to immigration.
It’s becoming maddeningly obvious that nobody got the Brexit they voted for because they all voted for something different! Yet, they don’t seem to feel stupid admitting to being duped, as most people would.
In a 2019 article about him in the FT, Simon Wolfson, the son of the former chairman of Next, was described as:
“He is this slightly Victorian liberal philanthropist figure, who sees the power of improving things through the application of reason, logic and market forces,” according to Julian Glover, who worked with him on the [Wolfson economic prize] while at think-tank Policy Exchange. “He is ever the rationalist.”
God help us. In fact, he sounds like an idiot. Brexit is slowly being revealed as a terrible mistake. His intervention is tantamount to an admission that it is. The idea that he was an advocate because of 'reason and logic' is really an insult to the 16 million genuine rationalists who could see it was anything but.
This morning Nick Robinson interviewed David Goodhart from the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange about Wolfson's comments. He is on record as suggesting that unrestricted immigration might not be an unmitigated blessing so not quite impartial.
Robinson by the way thinks we only need low-skill workers, another misunderstanding about the British economy. Goodhart is proposing to extend a youth mobility scheme - unilaterally if necessary - to EU nationals allowing them to come here and work for short periods, but with no access to welfare and unable to bring relatives with them. It's still sub-contracting HR to some civil servants somewhere and the worst of all worlds. EU nationals can come here but we can't go there.
We are also this morning officially entering recession with an economy 0.4% smaller than it was at the end of 2019, driven largely by a reduction in manufacturing activity, the worst fall in 40 years.
We are starting to learn what Brexit really means
Jacob Rees Mogg
I’ve never thought Jacob Rees Mogg was capable of doing anything complicated. He’s a bit like Bill Cash, driven by a hatred of anything European and living in the past. It was a masterstroke of Johnson to put him in charge of Brexit opportunities, something to occupy his limited number of brain cells without actually giving him a job that risked any great damage. That was until he came up with the EU Retained Law bill and its insane sunset clause. It would see every one of 3,800 EU-related laws being ditched automatically overnight on 31 December 2023.
That would happen unless ministers decided either to extend the date until 2026 or decide to retain, reform, or repeal each law. It’s a massive task and an impossible timescale, as I outlined on Tuesday after experts presented evidence to a parliamentary committee.
Rees Mogg has now published an article in The Telegraph: A bonfire of EU laws is easily achieved. He sets out his views that it's all a doddle and protests about the timescale are by "workshy" civil servants.
George Peretz KC, a lawyer active on Twitter has responded to JRM's article:
I will be selective about the inaccuracies (and won’t refight Brexit arguments) but start with the ludicrous claim at the bottom of column 1. The effect of the sunset clause in the Bill is that Parliament will *lose* the ability to give “conscious assent” to a change in the law
— George Peretz KC 🇺🇦 (@GeorgePeretzKC) November 10, 2022
The Twitter thread is a total dismantling of everything in the article. Peretz says it's a "slash-and-burn, rushed approach, woefully deficient in Parliamentary scrutiny, creating deep regulatory uncertainty for the next 2 years at least, and forcing scarce government resources to be devoted to analysing and rewriting law even if it is working OK."
I think when Sunak thinks about it, the whole bill, sunset clause and all, will be dropped, bringing to an end a colossal waste of effort over twelve years and umpteen Whitehall ‘drives’ and ‘challenges’ to uncover needless EU red tape.
JRM seems to believe decisions about what’s best can be left to consumers and suppliers without any tedious regulations. But surely, regulations are designed (by experts) to relieve the customer of having to ensure food or products are safe. They mean you can pick something off a shelf and know that it's safe, wholesome, and has been produced in line with the best practice, as far as we know with current knowledge.
"In part, how regulation develops will be about the type of economy we choose. Should it be one where consumers and producers make decisions and are free from detailed regulations, or should it follow the EU pattern of prescriptive rules on every producer?"
Regulations take care of consumer safety precisely so consumers don’t have to. He is barmy.
It’s not as if British industry is crying out en masse for regulations to be dumped. I don’t even see calls for regulations to be tweaked, and certainly not in a mad twelve-month rush. It all comes in the week that the Grenfell inquiry finished taking evidence where it's more than obvious that MORE regulation and BETTER inspection and enforcement are needed, not less.
Another critic of the bill, and one who gave evidence to the parliamentary committee on Tuesday, Jonathan Jones, also tweeted:
One of the many reasons why the Retained EU Law Bill is so misguided is the idea that there is some *urgency* to get rid of or change REUL. Why? Good law-making takes time - for civil service, Ministers, parliament, proper analysis & consultation.
— Jonathan Jones (@SirJJKC) November 10, 2022
Nichols Soames is alleged to have once described Rees Mogg thus:
“He’s an absolute fraud, a living example of what a moderately cut double-breasted suit and a decent tie can do with an ultra-posh accent and a bit of ginger stuck up his arse.”
You can't say more than that can you? He and Wolfson are out of the same mould.
