There is a fair comparison to be had with Brexit and the antics of the CEOs of big companies. I was reminded of this by an article on the LSE site (HERE) talking about the first two failed attempts at joining the EU in the 1960s. Harold Wilson was elected in 1964 on a policy of keeping us out of the EU, only to change his mind and apply for membership in 1967.
CEOs are usually in one of two totally opposite modes. Either they are embarking on a process of acquisition and diversification or they are divesting themselves of non core businesses. Look in the financial pages of any heavyweight broadsheet newspapers and this is what you see. Essentially, as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter in the slightest what mode you're in. The rule is that as soon as you take the helm, you note what it was your predecessor was doing and announce you will do the opposite. Why? Well, the whole thing takes years to come to fruition and the stock market will accept anything for the first few years as you explain a string of poor results.
You then have perhaps another couple of years if things don't improve dramatically while the investors grumble, followed by another year or so while they struggle to force you out. You take a very big salary plus a golden handshake and soon find another business to run (or ruin) just like a Premier League manager.
Meanwhile, your successor reverses your policy and he or she gets another five or six years. Note that nobody actually tackles the underlying problems of the business and the CEOs usually don't even last long enough to bother to find out what they are.
Brexit is a bit like this but with a whole country and much extended time scales of course.
You spend 44 years in a trading bloc and then blame your problems on the fact of membership and the rules of the bloc. You spend years trying to persuade people to vote to leave and finally they do. After ten or fifteen years the underlying problems of the economy are still there but you can dream up all sorts of excuses for quite a long time. Eventually, sooner or later, as we look wistfully across the Channel at an increasingly wealthy EU, there will be pressure to rejoin.
The lesson you can learn is that it's all just displacement activity isn't it? A way of avoiding addressing the real problems such as poor productivity, lack of investment, low educational attainment and so on. These are things you CAN address and fix - if you had the ability and determination. Unfortunately, our politicians are just as useless as our CEOs so we will probably continue like this for some considerable time.
