In 2016, those who voted to remain in the EU were opting for the status quo with some minor concessions negotiated by David Cameron. Everyone who ticked the remain box knew precisely - precisely - what they were voting for. They were aware of the contributions to EU funds, the trading arrangements, and the regulations and laws governing everything. If they were unsure about the details of anything, they could look it up or check the acquis communautaire on the EU website. It was all known or easily knowable. On the other hand, those who opted to leave knew nothing about what the future relationship would look like. Nothing. The future was a blank page. Yet they are now the ones complaining the loudest about what we’ve ended up with.
Oh, there were plenty of promises made in 2016. But leavers listened only to what they wanted to hear. Moderates heard the Norway option while at the other end of the spectrum, the hard-liners wanted to see the UK quit with no deal at all. There were so many options and variables that there was bound to be disappointment for most leave voters, whatever happened afterward. The chances of anyone on the Vote Leave bus getting what they wanted - even if they knew, which is not a given - was extremely slim.
Dominic Cummings himself wrote about the ‘insuperable’ problem of getting a consensus among Brexiteers on what the UK government should be aiming for after a NO vote. Well, ten years on, that is still the problem.
Which brings me to Daniel Hannan. Once a leading light in the anti-EU movement, indeed he was given a peerage for his efforts, he now lines up alongside many other Brexit advocates - often in the pages of The Daily Telegraph - to complain that his particular ‘future’ hasn’t come to pass. Really?
What did he want?
The answer to that question is that we know the 'what' because he set this out in his 2016 Newsnight video, with Britain suddenly and almost overnight becoming "the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy" and "leading the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software." We were to have new industries, from 3D printing to driverless cars, springing up everywhere and older industries like steel, cement, paper, plastics, and ceramics returned to global competitiveness, something we haven't had since Lloyd George was PM.
What Hannan didn't tell us was the 'how' - beyond leaving the EU. That was it. Just get out from under the over-regulated EU, and all would be well. As a plan, the details were non-existent. We would simply muddle through. Nevertheless, 17 million voters fell for it.
Lord Hannan's latest tirade, and there have been a lot over the years, appeared a couple of days ago, where he rails against Starmer's 'reset' and claims, not for the first time, that Brussels is “still trying to punish Britain for Brexit.”
The Telegraph, he says, has seen the texts on agriculture and energy policy that Starmer agreed to in May, where "Britain has accepted permanent and unilateral EU control of its food and energy regulations. Worse, it is agreeing to pay for the privilege of being slapped about."
But this was in the 2024 Labour manifesto. If elected, they pledged to "work to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with the EU, by tearing down unnecessary barriers to trade. We will seek to negotiate a veterinary agreement to prevent unnecessary border checks and help tackle the cost of food; help our touring artists; and secure a mutual recognition agreement for professional qualifications to help open up markets for UK service exporters."
It is the exercise of sovereignty that Brexiteers were so keen on. Being sovereign, if it means anything at all, means that we will occasionally get pro-EU governments. It also means that if the people want a closer relationship with our European neighbours, they should be able to have it.
What Hannan is upset about most is this bit in the new UK-EU agreement:
“The United Kingdom should contribute financially to supporting the relevant costs associated with the Union’s work in these policy areas. This includes financial contribution to inter alia the functioning of the relevant Union agencies, systems and databases.”
He thinks this is absolutely outrageous and asks us to imagine it the other way round: "Imagine a British Government insisting that trade with the EU is contingent on Brussels making financial transfers to the Treasury; that disputes will be arbitrated by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom; that Brussels must label its goods to avoid leakage into Northern Ireland; that British fishermen should have access to EU waters; that the EU might be allowed to defend British interests militarily, but only if it pays for the privilege; that any change in future British regulations will automatically be shadowed on the Continent."
Nothing is preventing Britain from doing just that, except perhaps embarrassment. The British government can ask, even demand, anything it likes, but let's get real. Twenty-seven nations bound together legally in a political and economic framework will never agree to that, unless their very survival was utterly dependent on exports to the UK, which it certainly is not.
Remainers warned that Britain would inevitably become a rule-taker simply because of the sheer amount of trade we do with the EU single market. The British government has had plenty of opportunity to ditch EU regulations but has not been able to do it beyond a few trivial and irrelevant laws. In the article, even Hannan admits our food standards are still "identical" to the EU's. They are so, because no UK government is prepared to force lower standards on voters, and raising food standards is self-defeating since we import so much of it.
So, we're stuck with rules that we can't really change and can't influence, while trading as if our standards are totally different. That's what Brexit has delivered.
As for paying for the privilege, note that Hannan once favoured the Swiss option and argued strongly for it, but that also involves money changing hands. Switzerland has paid into the EU since 2007. Although the original contributions were said to be 'voluntary' they are now set to both increase and become more formal under the latest deal, amounting to over half a billion euros every year until 2036.
Hannan seems to constantly misunderstand the EU. One of the primary purposes of clubbing together and negotiating as a bloc is to gather significant bargaining power. The phrase "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" is a famous quote attributed to Thucydides, used in his History of the Peloponnesian War, that took place nearly two and a half thousand years ago.
The larger EU member states like Germany, France, Spain, and Italy have come to terms with the world as it is. They recognise that they are medium-sized powers unable to influence global affairs themselves, but together they can accomplish things to help their own citizens to prosper in peace and security.
In Brexit, Britain shifted itself from the strong to the weak, under Hannan's urgings, and now he complains that we are to pay for the privilege of becoming a rule-taker. If you vote for the unknown, advocated by people who didn't know what they were talking about, you can hardly be upset when you don't get what you expected.
