Nigel Farage was on GB News before Christmas and was asked about the British Chambers of Commerce survey suggesting that three-quarters of the businesses who responded found Brexit hadn’t boosted their companies at all. The BCC also urged the government to retain the EU CE mark and find a solution to the problems created by the NI protocol. Farage began the interview by launching a thinly veiled attack on the BCC who he said were remainers because they forced out their CEO John Longworth, an arch-Brexiteer.
As far as I recall they got rid of Longworth - an idiot by profession - because he expressed a view not because the organisation was stuffed with remainers. The BCC was studiously neutral as were most trade bodies like the CBI. Farage then went on to admit the BCC now have a point!
The video clip is in this tweet:
'There's a growing sense of disenchantment with Brexit, not because of Brexit itself but because of the absolute failure of this Tory Government to deliver.'@Nigel_Farage discusses the failures of the Tory Party when it comes to Brexit: 'They never really believed in it'. pic.twitter.com/GP3eLap0pd
— GB News (@GBNEWS) December 22, 2022
Professor Chris Grey in his usual incredibly logical fashion demolishes Farage’s arguments completely.
First, Grey notes that the former UKIP leader conflates the 2019 ‘oven-ready’ withdrawal agreement deal with the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) which wasn’t signed until December 2020. Farage talked of the “oven-ready deal, it’s all going to be marvellous, I’ve signed the best free trade deal you’ve ever seen” mocking Boris Johnson. They are completely separate agreements.
But he also neglects to mention that his Brexit Party didn’t field any candidates against the Tories in the 317 seats they won at the 2017 general election, after Boris Johnson “committed to leaving the EU by 2020 and pursuing a Canada-style trade deal.” And a Canada style trade deal is exactly what he got.
He helped Johnson achieve the 80-seat majority but now complains about it.
Farage shows he doesn’t understand international trade by telling GB News viewers (who are almost certainly equally ignorant) that “there may be no quotas, there may be no tariffs but there are all sorts of extra customs checks.”
Well, who’d have thought it! Leaving the customs union for a Canada-style FTA means "all sorts of extra customs checks." You need to be an imbecile not to have known that after all we’d been through by that time.
He admits that “some companies” have experienced some downsides but he claims that could have been compensated by deregulation. Farage says the Tories could have spent the last “few years making legislation simpler, streamlining it, removing the unnecessary stuff.”
Well, they couldn’t do anything until the transition period ended in January 2021 because of the deal he helped Johnson get through parliament. And the TCA, which he also wanted, contains various non-regression and level playing field clauses which somewhat prevent us from ditching a lot of EU rules anyway. I note along with all the other Brexiteers like Longworth, Rees-Mogg, et al, he isn’t specific about which EU rules he thinks are “unnecessary.” I’d love to know.
He also admits that UK business “isn’t feeling the benefit it could” and quickly follows that with a comment about “some companies finding global trade easier than before.” I wonder who they are? Perhaps he might tell us?
Then we get this:
“There is a growing sense of disenchantment with Brexit, not because of Brexit itself but because of the absolute failure of this government to deliver it.”
“What it tells me is they never really believed in it.”
Farage seems to think Brexit is something apart from real life, an optical illusion, something abstract, a belief, a shining city on a hill, and that no matter how many botched attempts are made to create it here on earth it can never actually be declared impossible.
So, that’s it then. We haven’t got Brexit because the Tory party keeps putting leaders in place who don’t deliver it because they don’t really believe in it. Most remainers, after six years, would be happy to know just what Brexit is and what unnecessary EU laws need to be scrapped.
Farage worries we are starting to move back towards the single market and that we won’t become more competitive. I could have told him our productivity problem has nothing to do with Brussels. Finally, he openly admits he doesn't know where we go from here. We are in such a mess - largely down to him personally - that he has now run out of ideas.
After leading the nation into the wilderness, he has given up.
Well, well, well.
Michael Portillo
In the Daily Express, former cabinet minister Michael Portillo (who holds a Spanish passport and presumably enjoys the freedom of movement) says he voted for Brexit “with enthusiasm.” Imagine admitting that when the obvious signs of disaster are all around us. It sounds like a confession.
Portillo says: “It struck me that the countries of Europe are so different - they have such different political cultures. The meaning of citizen, the meaning of state, are different in each of these places. I couldn’t at all understand the aspiration to want to govern Europeans in general.
“I couldn’t at all see how you could achieve a government of Europeans, in general, that would be accountable and democratic.”
Well, thank God that the rest of Europe, and now over half the population of this country, don’t agree.
Ian Botham
Ian Botham the cricketer and Brexit enthusiast was a guest editor on the Today programme yesterday and was asked about Brexit. Sir Ian is a member of the House of Lords and is at the moment UK Trade Envoy to Australia. What Botham knows about the realities of trade could fit on a postage stamp.
He told Amal Rajan that he was “surprised” by former DEFRA secretary George Eustice’s comments criticising the Australia trade deal as “not very good.” Botham claims it has been a “success" and on Brexit, that there’s “no point in harping on about it” because it’s there and "it'll get stronger."
I think we remainers will keep harping on about it in exactly the same way that Nigel Farage 'stopped' harping on about the EU over the last thirty years. The difference now is that the real evidence is stacking up and cutting through to the public. They know they were duped.
These three, Farage, Portillo and Botham, sum up Britain's problem nicely. They don't read or bother to understand the details yet are perfectly happy to spout nonsense in the media even when it is all at odds with the clear facts or with expert opinion.
What is encouraging however, is that they are having to defend Brexit in the media and over the coming years will have to get used to it. The polls are showing a big majority now in favour of rejoining. The last four polls by YouGov, Omnisis and Kantar all show the same - 58% want to rejoin and 42% to stay out (after don't knows are removed).
Note the question: Should the United Kingdom join the European Union or stay out of the European Union? This is not about having a closer relationship or joining the single market or the customs union, it's to become a full EU member again.
