Monday 17 April 2023

Robert Tombs

The desperate effort to shore up plummeting support for Brexit goes on. The latest comes courtesy of Robert Tombs, a historian, and Brexiteer who has an article in The Spectator calling on Remainers (I.e. you and me) to “be honest about the costs of Brexit.” I nearly fell off my chair. He certainly has some chutzpah. Apparently, his specialist field is 19th-century French history. Giving him the space to write about economics is like getting an economist to put together 800 words on the second republic. Needless to say, it divided opinion.

His piece is not that different from one he provided for The Daily Mail in February with ‘ten questions’ he says leavers should ask rejoiners. It’s as if Tombs knows his side is losing the argument and needs a few more lies to keep the Brexit flame alive.

His intervention was welcomed by David Frost:

And John Longworth:

Jonathan Portes, an actual professor of economics was, shall we say, less kindly disposed to the piece. He tweeted:

I’m not an economist, but since Tombs isn’t either, I feel I’m entitled to comment on at least one eye-catching mistake.  To counter the cost of lost trade, he says that rejoining would wipe out any gain in the membership fee. This is it:

“Truly interesting would be an independent calculation of the cost of rejoining the EU. The most obvious would be our annual financial contribution. If Brexit has caused a fall of 3 percent to 5 percent in UK goods exports to the EU, that amounts to £5 billion to £8 billion (in 2019 prices); whereas membership dues (net) were £8 billion to £11 billion in 2018 and would be much higher now. In other words, any gain from rejoining the EU would be more than canceled out by the membership fee.”

Two things: firstly, the loss of trade is generally reckoned to be in the region of 15%, considerably more than his 3-5%. Secondly, UK goods exports to the EU are a bit more than £160 billion which is his implied total (5% of £160= £8 bn). In fact, it’s around £200 billion or more. The last quarter for example was £48.5 bn, down £2.5 bn on the quarter before that. 

So, the annual trade loss is around £30 billion, much more than the potential membership fee. But we are also losing imports, some of which will be intermediate parts we need for exports to the rest of the world.

And also, Tombs is highly critical of every reputable forecaster. Listen to this about 'distortions':

“…the distortions came only from business lobbies, EU-funded think tanks, the subsidised European media and the like. But some of the most damaging originate within the British state and its associated bodies. No one denies that the Civil Service has been and remains overwhelmingly opposed to Brexit.”

Some forecasts may well be wrong. But ALL of them? And ALL are wrong in that they ALL overestimate the negative impact of Brexit?  Come on. 

At one point he even praises Kemi Badenoch, the trade secretary for rejecting the impact assessments of her own department! How does that work?

The surprising thing (or not) is that Tombs’ wife is French, he has dual nationality and by that presumably retains freedom of movement throughout the EU, something he wants to deny everyone else. 

To try and get into the mindset of these people, that somehow Brexit is all going wrong not because of reality but a determined fifth column thwarting it at every turn, have a look at this from former UKIP MEP David Campbell Bannerman:

They genuinely seem to think they're battling an unseen enemy of the left. Delusional.

Finally, do look at this clip from Anne Widdecombe posted by Tice of The Reform:

I know she is seriously disturbed but she accuses May and Johnson of delivering bad deals over the NI protocol and Sunak of lying about the Stormont Brake.  At one point - presumably talking about Brexit as a whole - she actually says "You don't have to negotiate a departure, you just go."

The notion that it was all a problem of Brexit doesn't occur to her. But note the reaction to her comments from the crowd of Reform Party members, they all clap and cheer!

We are stuck with a political class of the right that veers between paranoia and insanity.

I fear they are fighting a losing battle to restore a Britain that doesn’t exist anymore and never will. Brexit is simply a stage, perhaps the final one, in the long process of recognising that the empire we ran was an aberration and that we are really only what we always were an average European nation.

It will be costly, but worth it in the end.

Posted by at