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| Divided Britain, where the Brexit alarm is sounded but no one wants to hear | Divided Britain, where the Brexit alarm is sounded but no one wants to hear |
| (5 days later) | |
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| Tue 28 Nov 2017 20.20 GMT | Tue 28 Nov 2017 20.20 GMT |
| Last modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018 15.29 GMT | |
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| There is a campaign running at the moment to inform people of the dangers of drug resistance. “Taking antibiotics when you don’t need them puts you and your family it risk,” shout the posters. GPs are familiar with the problem. Patients want medicine and don’t like hearing that their flu is caused by a virus. Antibiotics, which treat bacterial infection, won’t work. Misusing the pills nurtures vicious bugs that defy treatment when it is actually required. | There is a campaign running at the moment to inform people of the dangers of drug resistance. “Taking antibiotics when you don’t need them puts you and your family it risk,” shout the posters. GPs are familiar with the problem. Patients want medicine and don’t like hearing that their flu is caused by a virus. Antibiotics, which treat bacterial infection, won’t work. Misusing the pills nurtures vicious bugs that defy treatment when it is actually required. |
| Seeing the slogan, I find it hard not to think that Brexit will one day be recorded as case of quack political medicine on an industrial scale. The obvious diagnosis of the referendum outcome was a majority desire to leave the EU, so the response necessarily begins with a commitment to do just that. The democratic treatment of an election cannot be to ignore the result. | Seeing the slogan, I find it hard not to think that Brexit will one day be recorded as case of quack political medicine on an industrial scale. The obvious diagnosis of the referendum outcome was a majority desire to leave the EU, so the response necessarily begins with a commitment to do just that. The democratic treatment of an election cannot be to ignore the result. |
| But there should also be investigation of underlying causes. And here Theresa May has strayed into gross malpractice. There is nothing about her Brexit method that begins to address the social divisions that were exposed by the referendum. She doles out only wishful thinking and platitudinous snake oil. | But there should also be investigation of underlying causes. And here Theresa May has strayed into gross malpractice. There is nothing about her Brexit method that begins to address the social divisions that were exposed by the referendum. She doles out only wishful thinking and platitudinous snake oil. |
| The scale of the divisions is laid bare in Tuesday’s annual report by the government’s Social Mobility Commission. It describes a nation where children’s life chances – shaped by the results they can expect at school and the wages they can expect to earn – are sharply skewed by geography. | The scale of the divisions is laid bare in Tuesday’s annual report by the government’s Social Mobility Commission. It describes a nation where children’s life chances – shaped by the results they can expect at school and the wages they can expect to earn – are sharply skewed by geography. |
| The commission’s chair, Alan Milburn, notes that London and its economic satellites look like a distinct country. Remote rural and coastal areas fare worst. But there are also pockets of profound deprivation in affluent regions: in the Cotswolds and West Berkshire, for example. “Growing wealth and growing poverty sit side by side in ways that not only feel uncomfortable, but are frankly unsustainable,” Milburn writes. | The commission’s chair, Alan Milburn, notes that London and its economic satellites look like a distinct country. Remote rural and coastal areas fare worst. But there are also pockets of profound deprivation in affluent regions: in the Cotswolds and West Berkshire, for example. “Growing wealth and growing poverty sit side by side in ways that not only feel uncomfortable, but are frankly unsustainable,” Milburn writes. |
| Those disparities have poisoned politics, casting Westminster as an inaccessible fortress of self-perpetuating privilege. How decisive that feeling was in propelling us out of the EU is disputed. The numbers can be crunched different ways. There were wealthy leavers in leafy London suburbs and chocolate-box villages in the home counties. It is also hard to stomach Brexiter claims to speak on behalf of the have-nots when their campaign was supported by tax-shy millionaires. Meanwhile, anti-establishment rhetoric in the mouths of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg is, by any meaningful social metric, preposterous. | Those disparities have poisoned politics, casting Westminster as an inaccessible fortress of self-perpetuating privilege. How decisive that feeling was in propelling us out of the EU is disputed. The numbers can be crunched different ways. There were wealthy leavers in leafy London suburbs and chocolate-box villages in the home counties. It is also hard to stomach Brexiter claims to speak on behalf of the have-nots when their campaign was supported by tax-shy millionaires. Meanwhile, anti-establishment rhetoric in the mouths of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg is, by any meaningful social metric, preposterous. |
| Still, 60 of the 65 most disadvantaged areas identified by the social mobility commission voted leave. Labour MPs sitting in Brexit-backing constituencies have no doubt that the campaign channelled old frustrations, and that Euroscepticism was weaponised by perceptions of an elite class circling wagons around the status quo. When remainers warned that leaving the EU would have drastic consequences, the response was: “Great, where do I sign?” A health warning about slower GDP growth elicited the response: “That’s your GDP, not mine.” | Still, 60 of the 65 most disadvantaged areas identified by the social mobility commission voted leave. Labour MPs sitting in Brexit-backing constituencies have no doubt that the campaign channelled old frustrations, and that Euroscepticism was weaponised by perceptions of an elite class circling wagons around the status quo. When remainers warned that leaving the EU would have drastic consequences, the response was: “Great, where do I sign?” A health warning about slower GDP growth elicited the response: “That’s your GDP, not mine.” |
| That is why many Brexiters feel they have little to fear from the publication of government “impact assessments” handed reluctantly and incompletely to parliament yesterday. Remainers expect the verdict to be gruesome – perhaps so harrowing as to shake some leave voters’ confidence in their decision. But if belief in the value of Brexit could be undermined by economic modelling from Whitehall, the UK wouldn’t be leaving the EU at all. It is possible that Cassandra forecasts have more traction now than they did last June, but it is as likely that they will once again be vaporised by public scepticism about the messengers’ motives. | That is why many Brexiters feel they have little to fear from the publication of government “impact assessments” handed reluctantly and incompletely to parliament yesterday. Remainers expect the verdict to be gruesome – perhaps so harrowing as to shake some leave voters’ confidence in their decision. But if belief in the value of Brexit could be undermined by economic modelling from Whitehall, the UK wouldn’t be leaving the EU at all. It is possible that Cassandra forecasts have more traction now than they did last June, but it is as likely that they will once again be vaporised by public scepticism about the messengers’ motives. |
| Places where the leave vote was a plea for protection from inclement winds of globalisation will feel a sudden, icy blast | Places where the leave vote was a plea for protection from inclement winds of globalisation will feel a sudden, icy blast |
| Pro-European excitement about the assessments has been stoked by David Davis’s pettiness in obstructing their release. He agreed only when MPs voted that he must. He has now gutted the dossier, ostensibly to avoid leaks of market-sensitive data and anything that might give Brussels an insight into the government’s negotiating hand. (That supposes the UK knows things about Brexit that the rest of the EU hasn’t thought of yet, when the pattern of talks so far demonstrates that the opposite is true.) | Pro-European excitement about the assessments has been stoked by David Davis’s pettiness in obstructing their release. He agreed only when MPs voted that he must. He has now gutted the dossier, ostensibly to avoid leaks of market-sensitive data and anything that might give Brussels an insight into the government’s negotiating hand. (That supposes the UK knows things about Brexit that the rest of the EU hasn’t thought of yet, when the pattern of talks so far demonstrates that the opposite is true.) |
| Labour MPs warn that Davis’s partial compliance puts him in contempt of parliament. The essential issue – what Brexit will do, and to whom – has been subsumed into debate about constitutional propriety and government transparency. Such things matter, but they do not swing many votes. | Labour MPs warn that Davis’s partial compliance puts him in contempt of parliament. The essential issue – what Brexit will do, and to whom – has been subsumed into debate about constitutional propriety and government transparency. Such things matter, but they do not swing many votes. |
| It is already clear that the leave proposition was a banquet of lies: about how easy it would all be, about money for the NHS, about the sweetness of the cake and how it could be had and eaten too. | It is already clear that the leave proposition was a banquet of lies: about how easy it would all be, about money for the NHS, about the sweetness of the cake and how it could be had and eaten too. |
| What has not yet emerged, but can be anticipated, is that the cost of the government’s version of hard Brexit will be felt most acutely in those places where resilience is most depleted. EU agricultural subsidy and development funds for deprived regions will go. | What has not yet emerged, but can be anticipated, is that the cost of the government’s version of hard Brexit will be felt most acutely in those places where resilience is most depleted. EU agricultural subsidy and development funds for deprived regions will go. |
| The Treasury, already staring at dismal revenue prospects, will struggle to make up the shortfall. Self-expulsion from the single market will send the UK off to seek trade favours from ruthless giants – the US, India and China (and, of course, the EU itself). This will be a bruising transition. People who already have skills and capital will be best placed to adapt. Places where the leave vote was a plea for protection from inclement winds of globalisation will feel a sudden, icy blast. | The Treasury, already staring at dismal revenue prospects, will struggle to make up the shortfall. Self-expulsion from the single market will send the UK off to seek trade favours from ruthless giants – the US, India and China (and, of course, the EU itself). This will be a bruising transition. People who already have skills and capital will be best placed to adapt. Places where the leave vote was a plea for protection from inclement winds of globalisation will feel a sudden, icy blast. |
| This warning needs to go out, but pro-Europeans are not trusted to deliver it and the Brexit doctors insist there is nothing to warn against. They hardly looked at the nation’s ailments before diagnosing inadequate sovereignty, brought on by excessive exposure to European regulatory bacteria. They had written out their prescription long in advance of the consultation, lining up pointless antibiotics for a virus of inequality and social dislocation. | This warning needs to go out, but pro-Europeans are not trusted to deliver it and the Brexit doctors insist there is nothing to warn against. They hardly looked at the nation’s ailments before diagnosing inadequate sovereignty, brought on by excessive exposure to European regulatory bacteria. They had written out their prescription long in advance of the consultation, lining up pointless antibiotics for a virus of inequality and social dislocation. |
| The drugs won’t work. And when the symptoms persist, there will be less scope for remedy. When so much has been promised that cannot be delivered, the result will be increased resistance to ever trusting politics again. Britain is undergoing the wrong treatment for a fever of discontent. It risks incubating an even more virulent strain of anger. | The drugs won’t work. And when the symptoms persist, there will be less scope for remedy. When so much has been promised that cannot be delivered, the result will be increased resistance to ever trusting politics again. Britain is undergoing the wrong treatment for a fever of discontent. It risks incubating an even more virulent strain of anger. |
| • Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist | • Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist |
| Brexit | Brexit |
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| European Union | European Union |
| Foreign policy | Foreign policy |
| David Davis | David Davis |
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