Still talking at cross-purposes

Twelve months ago, in the immediate wake of the EU referendum, those of us who continued to point out that the UK had made a major policy mistake were derided as “Remoaners” bent on subverting “the will of the people” and that we should all pull together to make the best Brexit possible. I make no apologies for opposing Brexit and disagreeing with its proponents. The known economic costs are too high relative to the unknown economic benefits (if any) whilst the UK’s negotiating position is hopelessly naïve. But as I have pointed out in the past couple of weeks, there are increasing signs that people are beginning to realise the magnitude of the task involved and the voices arguing for a change of tactics are getting louder.

One of the more thoughtful interventions was from former PM Tony Blair (here) who went so far as to suggest that “European leaders, certainly from my discussions, are willing to consider changes to accommodate Britain, including around freedom of movement.” Blair also pointed out that because the opposition Labour Party’s position on leaving the single market is similar to that of the government’s, those wishing for a Labour government to change the terms of the Brexit debate may be disappointed. Indeed, he argued that the combination of the economic policy programme advocated by Labour, coupled with the fallout from Brexit, would be a disastrous combination leaving Britain “flat on our back and … out for a long count.” The problem is that whilst Blair is perhaps the most successful UK retail politician of the last two decades, his legacy has been tarnished by his association with the Iraq War to the point that people within his own party no longer listen to him.

Blair is not alone in his position. An op-ed piece in The Times on Friday by Philip Collins pointed out that “we can’t leave Brexit to the Tory wreckers” (here if you can get past the paywall). He makes the point that whilst it is tempting to ask those who got us into this mess to get us out, “they don’t know what they are doing. Their view of the EU is too ideologically narrow.” That latter point hits the nail on the head. It harks back to my point on homophilous sorting, in which like-minded people talk only to each other without hearing the arguments of the other side.

During the course of the referendum campaign, the simple message peddled by the Leavers resonated with an electorate which wanted to believe that leaving the EU was easy. As Tim Harford notes in his latest piece “last year’s Brexit campaign was based on a simple piece of wishful thinking: Boris Johnson’s idea that the UK could have its cake and eat it. How, exactly, was never quite clear, but desirability bias gave a foolish idea more credibility than it deserved. Voters hoped that Mr Johnson was right, and so they began to believe him: it is so much easier to believe what we already wish is true.”

But for all the evident difficulties in negotiating Brexit and the fact that the collapse in sterling is already making people poorer, there is not a lot of evidence to suggest that many people who voted for Brexit are ready to change their view. A radio phone-in discussion (here), in which a journalist skewered all of the arguments put forward by a Leave supporter who refused to change his view in spite of all of the evidence, is a classic example of all that was – and is – wrong with the debate. I must confess that I was not sure whether to laugh or cry having heard it.

More sober proponents of Brexit, such as Daniel Hannan, remain as resolute as ever. The fact that Hannan is one of the more rational proponents of Brexit should be taken with a pinch of salt:  He was once described by a cabinet minister as an “arsonist.” In an article published in the Telegraph, Hannan calls Remainers “childish” and argues that “there is no prospect of Article 50 being reversed.” This is where I have difficulties with the likes of Hannan: saying something which is unproven as if it were a fact. Lawyers disagree on whether the government can rescind the Article 50 notice, but I am sure the EU27 would be delighted were it to happen (although it is unlikely). Where Hannan is right is that “staying in the customs union would be the worst of all worlds: it would mean that Brussels continued to dictate our trade policy without our having any input into that policy.” Indeed, I made this point a year ago – but what he fails to point out is that leaving is even more damaging. Hannan further stretches the boundary between fact and fiction by arguing that “the majority of the 48 per cent [of remainers] … now want Brexit to succeed. Publicly undermining our negotiators can have only one effect, namely to encourage Brussels to offer harsher terms.” 

One of the real difficulties in the Brexit process is that two sides in the domestic debate cannot agree on how to proceed. We are thus wasting far too much time debating the issue at home when what is required is the presentation of a coherent set of arguments in Brussels. Unfortunately, what we have been presented with over the past year is neither realistic nor sensible, and many people who voted Remain cannot buy into these plans because they represent ideas which are clearly not in the national economic interest. Brexiteers do not seem to understand the damage which a hard Brexit will cause to the UK economy. What is worse, they do not seem to care.

In their book Democracy for Realists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels describe a new phenomenon in US politics whereby voters imagine that one party holds a position which fits their view of the world when it clearly does not. This helps explain why those voting for Brexit listen only to the anti-EU part of the Brexit message without hearing the discussion about costs. It may also explain why people voted for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, as a protest against the hard Brexit Conservatives but without hearing the anti-EU part of Labour's policy.  If this hypothesis is true – and I suspect it is – we have moved beyond rational debate and into the world of dog-whistle politics (though I guess that is not really news). However, it does not mean we should stop making a rational case as to why Brexit is an act of economic self-harm. One day, someone might just listen.