Thursday, 3 August 2023

Brexit lists

Matt Goodwin is an academic, albeit not a normal one. He is a Professor of Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. Academics are usually well to the left politically and those that are on the right tend towards the more liberal end. Goodwin is on the extreme right, he studies radical-right politics and Euroscepticism and has in the past been accused of being captured by those he was studying. He has his own substack blog which goes out to 17,500 subscribers in 133 countries apparently which I suppose indicates just how tiny his audience is globally.

Anyway, his latest effort is a list of ten reasons why Britain won't rejoin the EU.

He begins with the latest polling by YouGov showing 51% would rejoin today while just 32% would stay out - with don't knows removed this is 61% to 39% but says he's "not convinced" by the evidence. Some academic, eh?

Goodwin goes on to list ten reasons why - reasons he says "all of which would be deployed, successfully in my view, on the average voter in a future referendum campaign."

It's the usual stuff about the euro, Schengen, immigration, membership fees, and joining a bloc that is divided economically and culturally. I think any reasonable remainer could counter his ten and produce equally convincing arguments the other way.

However, he overlooks one crucial fact. The people who have changed their minds have done so either because they've been personally impacted (fishermen for example) or because they haven't experienced any of the 'benefits' of leaving that were promised in 2016 by Johnson, Hannan, and the Vote Leave campaign.

It's not unlike betting that having been conned by a jerry builder, people are quite prepared to believe assurances and claims by the very same jerry builder, that victims of a scam have the same probability of being scammed for a second time by the same scammer.

I acknowledge there are such people, but I am pretty sure they wouldn't form a majority or indeed anything approaching a majority. This is the Brexiteer's problem, a problem which can only be resolved by Brexit becoming - beyond any possible argument - a great success and I can pretty well guarantee that isn't going to happen - ever.

I was a salesman and quite familiar with being able to dream up a list of 'benefits' of some machine or other but you know the reasons with traction and the ones without and I have to say most of his are clutching at straws. If Goodwin thinks the United Kingdom isn't divided economically and culturally, for example, one can only despair for his students.

As Chris Grey, the emeritus professor who blogs and writes extensively on Brexit points out:

Another man fascinated with lists is David Maddox, political editor at The Daily Express (who knew it was edited?) who provides us with 10 ways the Remainer establishment took Brexit revenge - from Nigel Farage's bank to Boris.

Among them is the sacking of John Longworth by the British Chambers of Commerce in March 2016 for urging voters to choose Brexit, against the BCC's neutral stance, blacklisting of Brexiteers like Laurence Fox, the Whitehall 'Blob' and the BBC's lack of impartiality. This latter point is one of the more bizarre given Nigel Farage's many appearances on Question Time.

One can't help but be surprised at how Brexiteers rail against everything when the government of the country for the last three years has been made up almost exclusively of lifelong, hard-core supporters of the project or enthusiastic converts like Truss.

All of this comes as the FT reveals yet another delay (the fifth) in the 1 October date for implementing border checks just days after the business department's Kevin Hollinrake (MP for Thirsk and Malton) announces the abandoning (indefinitely, too) of the December 2024 deadline for UK companies to adopt the UKCA mark.

Brexit is crumbling before our eyes, not because remainers are somehow blocking it, but because it was, is, and always will be a fantasy.

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