He once thought we could exit the EU without a trade deal. Goodness knows how much worse things would be now if we had.
Brexit gets a mention twice in his piece, but only to lament that somehow Tory politicians have failed to take 'advantage' of crippling British exporters. It's like discussing the benefits of breaking your own leg.
“We should be doing so much better, especially after Brexit.” And he says later:
“Brexit was an attempt at forcing the establishment to tackle our decline, but so far political parties and the Blob have acted as a cartel to maintain the status quo.”
Our malaise is not connected to Brexit according to Heath, except that we should be doing better if only this ‘blob’ wasn’t getting in the way. I always think when people start talking about conspiratorial, amorphous, deep-state enemies that they can’t really describe, they have lost the plot. Although in Heath’s case, I’m not sure he ever had the plot.
I suspect we need to get used to this narrative on the part of men like Heath. Britain has failed Brexit, not the other way around. We haven’t lived up to the great task. There was nothing wrong with smashing supply chains and erecting barriers to our largest external market, we just couldn’t hack it in the way they thought we could.
You can see him getting his excuses ready. Things are bad he admits, but other European countries are also in trouble, so Brexit can’t be blamed. Listen to this:
“On current trends, we will be overtaken in terms of GDP per capita by Poland in a dozen years. It is no excuse to point out that France, Italy and many others will suffer the same fate in roughly the same timeframe (which is why the EU Rejoiners are missing the point), or that most other European countries are facing their very own health crises, or that Germany’s energy conundrum is even greater than ours.”
Next year we are forecast to see no growth at all (only Russia is set to perform worse and their sanctions have at least been imposed by others, we’ve sanctioned ourselves) so it’s not surprising that Poland will soon be richer per capita than we are. Ireland overtook us years ago.
Heath thinks (or hopes) France and Italy will sink along with the UK. I suspect this will prove to be the litmus test of Brexit. If they and the rest of the eurozone grow quicker than we do, and all the indications are that they will, Britain will be in the same position as it was in the 1960s. Watching from across the Channel as EU countries grow richer while we languish in the economic slow lane.
He claims: "..most other European countries are facing their very own health crises, or that Germany’s energy conundrum is even greater than ours."
I don't see other EU countries facing health crises in the same way as we are at the moment. Germany has about 3x as many hospital beds per head as we do! His comments about the German energy sector, which he implies is struggling, are not quite backed up by this report that I saw on Reuters the same day:
"Germany exported more electricity to its neighbours than it imported in 2022, even with an energy crisis at home, thanks to more weather-driven renewable power and greater demand from France.
"While Switzerland and Austria were the main export destinations, in a notable shift Germany exported more to France than it imported as the nuclear-reliant country grappled with technical problems at its reactors that curtailed production."
Yes, that’s right German power companies are struggling so badly they are exporting energy to their neighbours, including France. Meanwhile, we have to rely on imports from France to keep the lights on. I assume Germany is in a way helping the UK indirectly.
This is his conclusion:
“The Prime Minister is taking the proverbial pea shooter to a nuclear battlefield. He risks failing to rise to the scale of the challenge: Britain requires shock therapy, not gentle reforms.”
I’m not sure that would look quite so attractive on the side of a bus as £350 million a week for the NHS.
Polling
I don't believe it's controversial now to say Brexit has been a disaster and that its popularity even among those who voted for it is falling. Sir John Curtice the respected pollster has a blog post where he openly says:
“….. support for Brexit had reached an all-time low. With polling on the subject now much more regular than it had been for much of the last two years, just 43% were now saying they would vote to stay out of the EU while 57% would back (re-)joining."
“That is still the position now. Rather than looking like an unchallenged ‘fait accompli’, Brexit now appears to be a subject on which a significant body of voters has had second thoughts.”
“The decline in support for Brexit among those who originally voted for it that primarily explains why there has been a swing against the idea during the last twelve months.”
It is these polls that are driving Allister Heath et al to write in defence of the indefensible. And in case anyone thinks the YouGov polls have somehow distorted just how badly Brexit is playing among the voters, Omnisis have now started adding polls asking the same: was it a mistake question and the results are just the same. About 60% now believe it was a mistake while support for it struggles to keep above 40%.
There have been two polls in January, one by YouGov and one by Omnisis and they are within a percentage point of each other.
I noticed Chris Grey suggested that although Brexit has been a disaster, it will be 25 years before we rejoin. If the polls continue to slump as they are, I wonder if he is not being pessimistic?
Let's see how things are next January.
