More than three months since the EU vote and we are still
waiting – either for the sky to fall in or for the new economic nirvana to
unfold before us. But a day of reckoning is a-coming as the noises out of
government suggest that a hard Brexit is the most favoured scenario for many in
Westminster. This is a dangerous possibility and increasingly my concern is
that those who lied their way to referendum victory will never fully be held to
account.
My anger was stirred (again) after reading this profile of Daniel Hannan MEP, who is portrayed as the mastermind behind the Leave campaign. I have made the point before that Hannan's vision of a post-EU Britain is not one which the majority of Leavers voted for. Those on the front line of the campaign consistently reported that immigration was the issue which aroused most fury, but the pro-free market Hannan was motivated by the desire for a more dynamic Britain unencumbered by the constraints of an EU superstate (this clip from the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, on the day after the vote highlighted the difference between what Hannan thinks the electorate voted for and what the rest of us think it voted for).
I cannot help thinking that his notion is (to be charitable) a romantic ideal of what Britain once was – a dynamic economic superpower. The prosaic economist in me thinks his ideas are ludicrously naive and I would barely trust him to run a bath, let alone any form of national policy. Let us also not forget that he has worked for the European Parliament since 1999. The hyperbolic chutzpah of someone who can accept EU taxpayers money to cover his salary whilst failing to act in the interests of the institution which he represents beggars belief (the same applies to Nigel Farage). It would be no less than justice were he to be sued by EU taxpayers for a return of his salary over the past 17 years (and will he forgo his pension?) Moreover, it is claimed in the article that he plans to leave politics in 2019 when his term in Brussels ends. That being the case, he will be another of the Brexiteers who cut and run just as the battle to determine Britain's political and economic future begins.
Hannan has been likened to the militants who infiltrated the Labour Party in the 1970s and condemned it to the political wilderness. One minister described him and his ilk as not "builders. They are destroyers." Another MP called them "grammar school imperialists", who "a hundred years ago ... would have been able to vent their rather bizarre beliefs bullying people in a nether-province of India." The respected Conservative commentator Matthew Parris noted "I don’t think he sees himself in politics to give effect to what the public thinks, but to what the public ought to think, which is quite different.”
Parris went on to argue that Hannan exploited for his own ends the xenophobic tendencies in large swathes of the electorate. Indeed, I have made this point myself (here) arguing that Hannan was careful to distance himself from any charge of xenophobia or racism. Ironically, Hannan and Farage fell out over different aspects of the Brexit debate, with Farage (a man for whose views I have no time) suggesting that Hannan's vision of a free market Britain is not one that he heard on the doorsteps during the campaign.
The extreme free market policies espoused by Hannan (who like another right wing Brexit supporter, Allister Heath, did not spend his early years in the country they want to make great again) are misguided. The logical conclusion of the policies being espoused imply a UK which will have to scrap many of the laws and social protections which have made life relatively tolerable for most. If you think George Osborne's fiscal policy was regressive, wait until you see what Hannan-style economic liberalism requires.
Politicians will be forced to adopt a position between the Scylla of minimising economic pain by allowing some form of immigration (which is Hannan's preferred position), and the Charybdis of putting up the barriers and taking the risk of a big hit as economic relationships with the EU change irrevocably. As a very interesting blog post in The Spectator pointed out, Brexit could well result in the rise of the politics of resentment. If we are no longer able to blame the EU for our ills, "there is no other ‘other’ for the populist right to turn on except immigrants. They will be blamed if Brexit brings job losses and falls in living standards."
This may be alarmist but it's plausible. And it reminds me of the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller who could have been describing the position of many Brexit voters:
“First they came for the EU supporters, and I did not speak out -
Because I was not an EU supporter.
Then they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out -
Because I was not an immigrant.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”
My anger was stirred (again) after reading this profile of Daniel Hannan MEP, who is portrayed as the mastermind behind the Leave campaign. I have made the point before that Hannan's vision of a post-EU Britain is not one which the majority of Leavers voted for. Those on the front line of the campaign consistently reported that immigration was the issue which aroused most fury, but the pro-free market Hannan was motivated by the desire for a more dynamic Britain unencumbered by the constraints of an EU superstate (this clip from the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, on the day after the vote highlighted the difference between what Hannan thinks the electorate voted for and what the rest of us think it voted for).
I cannot help thinking that his notion is (to be charitable) a romantic ideal of what Britain once was – a dynamic economic superpower. The prosaic economist in me thinks his ideas are ludicrously naive and I would barely trust him to run a bath, let alone any form of national policy. Let us also not forget that he has worked for the European Parliament since 1999. The hyperbolic chutzpah of someone who can accept EU taxpayers money to cover his salary whilst failing to act in the interests of the institution which he represents beggars belief (the same applies to Nigel Farage). It would be no less than justice were he to be sued by EU taxpayers for a return of his salary over the past 17 years (and will he forgo his pension?) Moreover, it is claimed in the article that he plans to leave politics in 2019 when his term in Brussels ends. That being the case, he will be another of the Brexiteers who cut and run just as the battle to determine Britain's political and economic future begins.
Hannan has been likened to the militants who infiltrated the Labour Party in the 1970s and condemned it to the political wilderness. One minister described him and his ilk as not "builders. They are destroyers." Another MP called them "grammar school imperialists", who "a hundred years ago ... would have been able to vent their rather bizarre beliefs bullying people in a nether-province of India." The respected Conservative commentator Matthew Parris noted "I don’t think he sees himself in politics to give effect to what the public thinks, but to what the public ought to think, which is quite different.”
Parris went on to argue that Hannan exploited for his own ends the xenophobic tendencies in large swathes of the electorate. Indeed, I have made this point myself (here) arguing that Hannan was careful to distance himself from any charge of xenophobia or racism. Ironically, Hannan and Farage fell out over different aspects of the Brexit debate, with Farage (a man for whose views I have no time) suggesting that Hannan's vision of a free market Britain is not one that he heard on the doorsteps during the campaign.
The extreme free market policies espoused by Hannan (who like another right wing Brexit supporter, Allister Heath, did not spend his early years in the country they want to make great again) are misguided. The logical conclusion of the policies being espoused imply a UK which will have to scrap many of the laws and social protections which have made life relatively tolerable for most. If you think George Osborne's fiscal policy was regressive, wait until you see what Hannan-style economic liberalism requires.
Politicians will be forced to adopt a position between the Scylla of minimising economic pain by allowing some form of immigration (which is Hannan's preferred position), and the Charybdis of putting up the barriers and taking the risk of a big hit as economic relationships with the EU change irrevocably. As a very interesting blog post in The Spectator pointed out, Brexit could well result in the rise of the politics of resentment. If we are no longer able to blame the EU for our ills, "there is no other ‘other’ for the populist right to turn on except immigrants. They will be blamed if Brexit brings job losses and falls in living standards."
This may be alarmist but it's plausible. And it reminds me of the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller who could have been describing the position of many Brexit voters:
“First they came for the EU supporters, and I did not speak out -
Because I was not an EU supporter.
Then they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out -
Because I was not an immigrant.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”
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