The legal basis of the Brexit vote was only ‘advisory’. However politically it was seized upon by the Leave campaign as an irresistible political imperative. It became ‘the Democratic will of the people!’ that no politician dare ignore. There was much talk of ‘direct democracy trumping traditional representative democracy. This has a whole range of serious constitutional implications if it were to become part of the political system. Other countries that use referendums have thought through the implications carefully and are very careful about how they are run. The Brexit vote was 48/52, quite a narrow majority and the issue itself was complicated with many facets.
Most voters have very little idea about how international trade works, what country buys and sells, so the economic consequences were unclear and the Leave campaign emphasised that they should not by concerned about warnings because these were part of ‘Project Fear’ orchestrated by the Remain campaign.
Brexit was tremendous fun for the millionaire businessmen behind the Leave campaign. They were unelected and able to exercise an outsized influence on UK politics. Cameron was fearful of the Eurosceptic wing of his party and their wealthy backers. Labour was equally threatened by its own Eurosceptic wing who regarded the EU and its single market as a capitalist enterprise.
The EU and Brussels have long been resented as a competing executive authority by UK politicians from both sides of political spectrum. The benefits of a large single market have never been explained.
It is rather like the contention between the States and the Federal government in the US. The fear was the EU was evolving into a federal superstate.
This fear is not unique the UK. Poland, after a couple of decades of economic investment by the EU may now be required to contribute more into the EU than it gets out. It now has a strong nationalist movement, that puts a premium in national sovereignty and resents interference from the EU and its concerns over constitutional changes and the politicisation of the judiciary.
Other EU members are worse. Hungary is even more nationalist and were close to Polish nationalists until the closeness of Hungary to Putin forced a serious reality check in Poland. Being part of a big club like the EU and NATO makes a lot of sense in Central Europe because it affords some protection against mad dictators invading from east or west.
That existential fear does not exist in the UK because it is a defensible island. It has always regarded Europe as where the bad things come from and history bears this out. Euroscepticism is easy to understand in this context, but it does not translate to trade policy. The EU is a huge economic block, very nearby, and trade with it is essential for the prosperity of the UK.
If the Conservatives actually had a plan for post Brexit to transform UK trade, they would have had some credibility.
However they did not. Trade deals take years and are hard won. No-one told the UK voters that and so now the economy is facing a huge loss of trade.
They simply did not ‘Get Brexit Done’ as Boris Johnson proclaimed in his populist campaign. There are lots of loose ends and no amount of boasts about immigration control and strong borders is going to reduce the economic effects that will now be clear to the electorate.
It is astonishing how Truss proclaimed growth to be the solution and yet her whole party is committed to the most anti-growth economic policy of all: Brexit.
Will Sunak be able to develop policies that stimulate the economy when the UK trade relationship with the EU is trashed and the Truss approach of unfunded tax cuts for rich folk is now discedites?
I am waiting for a new ‘Cunning Plan’ and I hope it is better than the last one.