For all the trials and tribulations which the British media
have over the years elevated to the status of great political dramas, none has
had the resonance of Brexit – an episode in which the political establishment
appears to have lost its collective reason. In many ways, it is reminiscent of
the McCarthy era in the US 70 years ago when a political ideologue used the
legal process to conduct a witch hunt against those who did not share his
extreme distaste for communism. As in the McCarthy era, a small coterie of
politicians has hijacked the British parliamentary process and appears intent
on delivering their version of an ideologically pure Brexit whatever the cost
to the British economy.
Wikipedia defines McCarthyism in a wider sense as “the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.” Elements of that definition certainly apply to Brexit: Indeed, some of the more rabid commentators even accused those seeking to minimise the impact of a hard Brexit as treasonous – notably this Daily Mail article, lest we forget. Those advocating Brexit not only pay no regard to the evidence – they make up their own. It was bad enough to lie during the referendum campaign but now that we are seven months away from the UK’s EU departure, they are still at it!
Earlier this month, former cabinet minister Peter Lilley argued that the UK had nothing to fear from a no-deal Brexit because “WTO terms are designed to provide a ‘safety net’ ensuring all members can trade without discrimination.” Lilley claims to know what he is talking about because “as Trade and Industry Secretary, I spent 10 days incarcerated in the Heysel Stadium negotiating the Uruguay Round which set up the WTO.” That’s a bit like saying if you incarcerate someone in Ornenburg’s Black Dolphin Prison for 10 days, they will emerge with an intimate knowledge of Russia.
In fact, the WTO fallback option is not much of an option at all. Brexiteers seem to believe it confers some special status which will allow trade to continue much as it does today. But if it is such a great deal, why do countries seek free trade agreements which confer considerably greater benefits? As Alan Winters pointed out in a blog post, “since the WTO came into being, 243 new Free Trade Agreements have come into operation … None of this suggests that 'WTO terms' are viewed generally as a satisfactory option.” Even the head of the WTO has suggested it is “unlikely” the government will have agreed tariffs and quotas with all other member countries by next March.
And most Brexit supporters clearly do not understand the most favoured nation clause. This merely defines the lowest possible set of barriers that a country will be prepared to offer all other WTO members. It does not mean that the EU will offer the UK any concessions that it is not prepared to offer the likes of Russia, China or the US. In fact, Lilley’s article is full of economic nonsense, as Winters points out. Amongst the highlights was the claim that “we will be free to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Wonderful: Except the TPP does not even exist as it was nixed by Donald Trump soon after he came to office. Moreover, “without a trade deal, Parliament will reject any Withdrawal Agreement offering the EU £40bn … That leaves Britain £40bn better off, and ends our annual £10bn net contribution immediately[1] – boosting our GDP, balance of payments and public finances.” It is hard to know whether this is a deliberate parody or just plain stupidity. My own calculations suggest a no-deal Brexit imposes costs which are roughly three times the monetary savings – a view which is broadly in line with the literature estimates.
Then of course, there is Brexiteer-in-chief, Jacob Rees-Mogg who suggests that the UK could maintain an open Irish border but still impose checks “as we had during the Troubles” – a suggestion that is as laughable as it is offensive. In a functioning democracy, the near half of the electorate which voted against Brexit could expect some parliamentary representation. But the opposition Labour Party has refused to oppose the Conservatives which have taken back control of Brexit policy despite being a minority government. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is widely seen as a Brexit supporter and in a TV interview last week he refused six times to answer the question whether he believes the UK would be better off outside the EU.
To compound the sense of the absurd the government last week issued a series of reports on how various sectors should prepare in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Although DExEU claims that leaving without a deal “remains unlikely given the mutual interests of the UK and the EU,” the fact that it has seen fit to issue such a series of papers suggests it is taking the prospect seriously in the wake of EU pushback against the Chequers plan. There is no reassuring news in the policy papers which effectively highlight all the things that the experts said would happen in the event of no deal (more red tape, higher compliance costs and a need to stockpile in key areas such as medicines). Whatever happened to “they need us more than we need them”?
In short, Brexit is a looming disaster of the government’s own making compounded by the failure of the opposition to set out a credible alternative. It is hard to shake off the suspicion that it represents a coup by right-wing Conservatives desperate to grasp this one chance offered by a non-binding referendum. But heed the lessons of history: Like Brexit, public support for McCarthyism only ever peaked at around 50% in January 1954. Within six months public support had dwindled to only 34%. Joe McCarthy himself was censured by the Senate at the end of 1954 and he was dead within three years.
As William Bennett, noted in his 2007 book America: The Last Best Hope, “The cause of anti-communism, which united millions of Americans and which gained the support of Democrats, Republicans and independents, was undermined by Sen. Joe McCarthy ... his approach to this real problem was to cause untold grief to the country he claimed to love ... Worst of all, McCarthy besmirched the honorable cause of anti-communism. He discredited legitimate efforts to counter Soviet subversion of American institutions.”
A similar epitaph may yet be written for Brexit: genuine concerns about the EU undermined by the efforts of Brexit supporters. But a no-deal Brexit is like McCarthy unleashing the nukes to solve the Soviet problem. And even he was not that stupid.
Wikipedia defines McCarthyism in a wider sense as “the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.” Elements of that definition certainly apply to Brexit: Indeed, some of the more rabid commentators even accused those seeking to minimise the impact of a hard Brexit as treasonous – notably this Daily Mail article, lest we forget. Those advocating Brexit not only pay no regard to the evidence – they make up their own. It was bad enough to lie during the referendum campaign but now that we are seven months away from the UK’s EU departure, they are still at it!
Earlier this month, former cabinet minister Peter Lilley argued that the UK had nothing to fear from a no-deal Brexit because “WTO terms are designed to provide a ‘safety net’ ensuring all members can trade without discrimination.” Lilley claims to know what he is talking about because “as Trade and Industry Secretary, I spent 10 days incarcerated in the Heysel Stadium negotiating the Uruguay Round which set up the WTO.” That’s a bit like saying if you incarcerate someone in Ornenburg’s Black Dolphin Prison for 10 days, they will emerge with an intimate knowledge of Russia.
In fact, the WTO fallback option is not much of an option at all. Brexiteers seem to believe it confers some special status which will allow trade to continue much as it does today. But if it is such a great deal, why do countries seek free trade agreements which confer considerably greater benefits? As Alan Winters pointed out in a blog post, “since the WTO came into being, 243 new Free Trade Agreements have come into operation … None of this suggests that 'WTO terms' are viewed generally as a satisfactory option.” Even the head of the WTO has suggested it is “unlikely” the government will have agreed tariffs and quotas with all other member countries by next March.
And most Brexit supporters clearly do not understand the most favoured nation clause. This merely defines the lowest possible set of barriers that a country will be prepared to offer all other WTO members. It does not mean that the EU will offer the UK any concessions that it is not prepared to offer the likes of Russia, China or the US. In fact, Lilley’s article is full of economic nonsense, as Winters points out. Amongst the highlights was the claim that “we will be free to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Wonderful: Except the TPP does not even exist as it was nixed by Donald Trump soon after he came to office. Moreover, “without a trade deal, Parliament will reject any Withdrawal Agreement offering the EU £40bn … That leaves Britain £40bn better off, and ends our annual £10bn net contribution immediately[1] – boosting our GDP, balance of payments and public finances.” It is hard to know whether this is a deliberate parody or just plain stupidity. My own calculations suggest a no-deal Brexit imposes costs which are roughly three times the monetary savings – a view which is broadly in line with the literature estimates.
Then of course, there is Brexiteer-in-chief, Jacob Rees-Mogg who suggests that the UK could maintain an open Irish border but still impose checks “as we had during the Troubles” – a suggestion that is as laughable as it is offensive. In a functioning democracy, the near half of the electorate which voted against Brexit could expect some parliamentary representation. But the opposition Labour Party has refused to oppose the Conservatives which have taken back control of Brexit policy despite being a minority government. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is widely seen as a Brexit supporter and in a TV interview last week he refused six times to answer the question whether he believes the UK would be better off outside the EU.
To compound the sense of the absurd the government last week issued a series of reports on how various sectors should prepare in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Although DExEU claims that leaving without a deal “remains unlikely given the mutual interests of the UK and the EU,” the fact that it has seen fit to issue such a series of papers suggests it is taking the prospect seriously in the wake of EU pushback against the Chequers plan. There is no reassuring news in the policy papers which effectively highlight all the things that the experts said would happen in the event of no deal (more red tape, higher compliance costs and a need to stockpile in key areas such as medicines). Whatever happened to “they need us more than we need them”?
In short, Brexit is a looming disaster of the government’s own making compounded by the failure of the opposition to set out a credible alternative. It is hard to shake off the suspicion that it represents a coup by right-wing Conservatives desperate to grasp this one chance offered by a non-binding referendum. But heed the lessons of history: Like Brexit, public support for McCarthyism only ever peaked at around 50% in January 1954. Within six months public support had dwindled to only 34%. Joe McCarthy himself was censured by the Senate at the end of 1954 and he was dead within three years.
As William Bennett, noted in his 2007 book America: The Last Best Hope, “The cause of anti-communism, which united millions of Americans and which gained the support of Democrats, Republicans and independents, was undermined by Sen. Joe McCarthy ... his approach to this real problem was to cause untold grief to the country he claimed to love ... Worst of all, McCarthy besmirched the honorable cause of anti-communism. He discredited legitimate efforts to counter Soviet subversion of American institutions.”
A similar epitaph may yet be written for Brexit: genuine concerns about the EU undermined by the efforts of Brexit supporters. But a no-deal Brexit is like McCarthy unleashing the nukes to solve the Soviet problem. And even he was not that stupid.
[1]
Didn’t the leavers claim the cost savings would amount to £350 million per
week, or £18bn per year? Saving £10bn per year amounts only to £192 million per
week.
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