Our friend John Longworth, of Leave means Leave, a pro Brexit campaign group, wrote an article for The Guardian in January (HERE) which I must have missed. It is classic Longworth. Full of contradictions and nonsense. This is the same man who only a few weeks ago could barely name a single current EU regulation that is worth repealing (HERE).
His January article talks about the "manifest economic benefits" that will flow from Brexit - "if the government does the right thing". Note the caveat. This is to absolve him of blame when things go wrong - as they will. One could look back through history and see plenty of examples of where we could all be much wealthier today if only governments of the past had "done the right thing". Usually they don't. But let's put that aside.
He wants to cut import tariffs to boost the UK economy and help the just about managing by making food, footwear and clothing cheaper. The government should "compensate" exporters for any tariffs imposed on them by the EU. This is illegal under WTO rules in any case. He says this would cost just half of our EU payments, and at £5.2 billion this is true, if it were possible. But I assume exporters to none EU countries would anyway demand equal treatment and this would eat up the rest of our EU payment. So much for the £350 million a week to the NHS.
And while he is happy to subsidise our exports (illegally as I said) he is adamant that no subsidies are paid for energy and we should use the lowest cost source, which I assume is coal shipped from overseas. Look out for smog and bronchial problems in the next fifty years. One of the aims of the EU is a connected energy grid to provide security of supply. If we want to be part of it I don't believe they will allow us to use whatever fuel we want.
Then we get to the nub of the issue. We should "rebalance" the economy, support our small and medium exporters, invest in university research and spend big on lots of new infrastructure. Apart from supporting exports (against both EU and WTO rules) all of this could be done inside the EU. And where the money is to come from, he does not say. I assume it means more borrowing and all the work being done while the majority of government is bogged down with Brexit negotiations. The implication from John Longworth is that Brexit is a way of forcing the government to do what it should have done years ago.
He mentions the customs union just once and only to say the benefits of Brexit are entirely independent of it. So it was a bit of a surprise to see a few days ago that he has written a paper (HERE) on how we can manage the new customs arrangements after Brexit as if he has just noticed that Dover, to give one example, will need to cope with 390 million items each year compared to 17 million now. This has nothing to do with tariffs and Longworth even admits British exporters are not that worried about tariffs, contrary to what he was arguing in January. It is all about paperwork and delays and he has belatedly realised it. The paper is a desperate and transparent attempt to play down the huge problem that he had not even considered a few weeks ago.
Boris Johnson, writing before the referendum (HERE) makes more or less the same point, "We can no longer blame Brussels. This is perhaps the most important point of all [..] most of our problems are not caused by “Bwussels”, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and under-investment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure". Like Longworth, he identifies the problem but offers a solution that has nothing to do with it. It is like being diagnosed with chronic obesity but the doctor then proposing you cut yourself off from friends and neighbours as a treatment.
