Brexit is ideological pure and simple. There are no practical, economic, social or constitutional reasons that make it necessary or desirable. In my opinion that is. The reasons given for leaving the EU are based on misunderstanding, misinformation, half truths or lies. The benefits of being outside are illusory and there will in truth be only downsides.
Leavers voted to escape a caricature of the EU as hated oppressor and opted for a fanciful chimera in the future where Britain is once again master of the world. Brexiteers persuaded voters things would change and they believed all the propaganda.
But I don't remember any Brexiteers spelling out in detail what changes they want to make after they take back control. What differences can we expect between UK and EU law. Brexiteers are either remarkably coy about it or they genuinely don't know while leavers seem oddly incurious. The future is just as much a mystery for leavers as the past is a false memory.
If Brexit does eventually go ahead I will be interested in what changes will flow. What do leavers expect and what are they likely to get.
The objectives, insofar as they have been defined at all, are largely amorphous and consist of vague ambitions like global Britain or getting our country back. Thus, to measure the success or otherwise of Brexit is always going to be difficult.
As far as I remember, there never was a list of the desperately urgent changes the government would rush through after Brexit. This fact alone should tell us quite a lot about how necessary Brexit is. Brexiteers can't actually define what it is they want to do with their new found control.
If things were to remain the same or so similar that it makes no difference, there might be questions about why we did it at all. Was the enormous cost and ten years or more of division, argument and rancour worth it? The effect of leaving is likely to be a permanent slowing of growth and in the short term a mild recession, although it could be worse.
If we choose to raise standards and increase the amount of regulation, this is something we could have done as a member of the EU anyway and one might ask what the point of Brexit was. Is it just a yearning national desire to be different? Just for the sake of it?
Cutting regulations might have a financial dividend and it's the only option that could have some economic rationale. However, will voters accept it and will the EU agree a trade deal if we are a low tax, low regulation competitor? I don't think so and the impact would be felt in reduced trade.
No, most things will almost certainly remain exactly as they are now. Any trade deal with the EU will require convergence or at the very least no divergence and of course many of the regulations emanating from Brussels are from the United Nations or other international bodies. The potential for big changes is limited. We will copy EU law through the common rule book and make common cause in every other area like agriculture and fishing. The decisions will simply be made through different mechanisms. We will appear to have taken back control when we haven't, in the same way that we appeared to lose sovereignty when we didn't.
The government White Paper on Brexit of February 2017 said (paragraph 2.1) - "Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that".
So someone may well be writing in the future - Whilst Parliament appeared to take back control after our exit from the EU, it has not always felt like that.
It is the difference between perception and reality.
The government White Paper on Brexit of February 2017 said (paragraph 2.1) - "Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that".
So someone may well be writing in the future - Whilst Parliament appeared to take back control after our exit from the EU, it has not always felt like that.
It is the difference between perception and reality.
So, in the short and medium term I don't see any prospects of accelerated growth or big changes in a five to ten year horizon and I just wonder how the average leave voter will think about Brexit in 2030? Will they think it was a masterstroke or that it marked the beginning of a permanent downward spiral in our island's history?
