If you can't remember it, see it HERE. It was also published as an article in Reaction Life where you can still see it. The written piece starts:
"It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
"The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy. We lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software. New industries, from 3D printing to driverless cars, have sprung up around the country. Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again."
We are about eighteen months from the date when we are all supposed to be bathing in the success he imagined, but Hannan isn't writing about success now. He seems to be forecasting disaster or at least making his excuses, with a piece in The Telegraph: Britain’s money is running out. Keir Starmer will have one year to fix it
The first thing to say is that the peer clearly doesn't think the Tories have a snowball in Hell's chance of winning an election next year. Presumably in 2016, Hannan must have thought the prospects he dangled before us would cement the Conservatives as the natural party of government for decades.
Now he tells us, "At some point in the next Parliament, Britain seems likely to face a budget crisis."
"Sooner rather than later, the money will run out, and Britain will find itself in a full-on sterling crisis," he claims
Brexit did not bring the promised riches nor could it ever have done so. Of course, we had Covid and the Ukraine war which no one could have foreseen and plenty of other nations have suffered but Brexit was always going to make things - whatever they were - worse. Raising trade barriers, reducing the value of sterling, and swamping ministers and civil servants with all the urgent tasks that Brexit inevitably brought, had a large negative effect. As did the elevation of men and women to positions of ministerial power for which they were uniquely unfit.
Hannan personally has always banged the drum for cuts to taxes and regulations. We aren't going to see any of either shortly and as far as taxes are concerned, probably for decades. As for the latter, I would say never in any significant way. In other words, Brexit has given us nothing at all, except a drag on the economy and on the ability to get things done.
This is Hannan:
"Most MPs, including many Labour MPs, vaguely acknowledge that what were supposed to be emergency spending levels cannot carry on. Yet propose any specific cut and they howl with rage. Even boosting growth without cutting spending – by, for example, removing regulations – is politically unacceptable. Ask Kwasi Kwarteng."
The latest signal of regulatory alignment is a government announcement yesterday (?) that they plan to stick with metric measurements after 98.7% of respondents to a consultation said they were happy with metrication. The only thing we might get is champagne in pint bottles although the BBC says, "it remains to be seen what the demand will be for pint-sized wine bottles among producers and bottlers."
Don't hold your breath for that.
The Daily Express, a newspaper you can always rely on for stupid headlines, is furious that the EU has left Britain out of a multi-billion euro pan-EU transport network: Scheming EU countries leave UK out of 'landmark' transport plans as map reveals betrayal.
The tabloid that led the charge for Britain to leave the EU now seems shocked that we've left the EU and are not included in the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) framework agreement between the European Parliament and the European Council that was approved earlier this week by the EU Commission.
Honestly, what did they expect?
