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| Never mind cabinet power struggles – the Brexiteers’ vision is chilling | Never mind cabinet power struggles – the Brexiteers’ vision is chilling |
| (17 days later) | |
| T he great decades-long ideological rift in the Tory party is breaking out at its most ferocious. No surprise that it is beyond Theresa May – or any leader – to bridge this chasm. Yet nothing is what it seems. Nobody says what they mean. The Brexiteers themselves have never honestly dared to spell out their true vision, so they cheated and hoaxed their way through the 2016 referendum with promises wildly at odds with their true intent – mendacious Boris Johnson the worst. And nobody thinks the Chequers plan will survive its first encounter with the European Union. Yet May briefly held a temporary truce after last Friday’s meeting, now broken by resignations. | T he great decades-long ideological rift in the Tory party is breaking out at its most ferocious. No surprise that it is beyond Theresa May – or any leader – to bridge this chasm. Yet nothing is what it seems. Nobody says what they mean. The Brexiteers themselves have never honestly dared to spell out their true vision, so they cheated and hoaxed their way through the 2016 referendum with promises wildly at odds with their true intent – mendacious Boris Johnson the worst. And nobody thinks the Chequers plan will survive its first encounter with the European Union. Yet May briefly held a temporary truce after last Friday’s meeting, now broken by resignations. |
| May's plan 'sticks in the throat', says Boris Johnson as he resigns over Brexit | |
| Let’s leave aside the insane leadership jockeying and outrageous disregard for the good of the country: look at what faces us in the few months left before Brexit. Start with the myth that the Chequers plan presented to MPs today is some kind of “soft Brexit” compromise, just because hard-nutter Moggites call it soft-boiled. The enormity of Ireland remains unresolved. But take the other mammoth in the room: to escape the free movement rule, the plan omits services from any trade deal – and that casts 80% of our economy to the winds, a hard Brexit by any account. | Let’s leave aside the insane leadership jockeying and outrageous disregard for the good of the country: look at what faces us in the few months left before Brexit. Start with the myth that the Chequers plan presented to MPs today is some kind of “soft Brexit” compromise, just because hard-nutter Moggites call it soft-boiled. The enormity of Ireland remains unresolved. But take the other mammoth in the room: to escape the free movement rule, the plan omits services from any trade deal – and that casts 80% of our economy to the winds, a hard Brexit by any account. |
| Services are easily forgotten, as they offer no photogenic images of car factories, fishermen or farmers – just people at screens, technical drawing boards, in City trading rooms, or university teachers and other professionals selling their skills to Europe. International lawyers, auditors and others need EU validation for their qualifications with a services deal. And UK lorry drivers ferrying across the EU need a services deal to gain permits. | Services are easily forgotten, as they offer no photogenic images of car factories, fishermen or farmers – just people at screens, technical drawing boards, in City trading rooms, or university teachers and other professionals selling their skills to Europe. International lawyers, auditors and others need EU validation for their qualifications with a services deal. And UK lorry drivers ferrying across the EU need a services deal to gain permits. |
| The 26 million people working in British services create a massive £28bn-a-year trade surplus with the EU, while our goods, employing fewer, give us a deficit. With no services deal, barriers will be four times higher, a very hard-crash Brexit for the services sector. The Treasury relies on services to bring in a huge amount of its tax revenues. What hope for the NHS, housing, social care or schools with such a hefty loss in tax income? | The 26 million people working in British services create a massive £28bn-a-year trade surplus with the EU, while our goods, employing fewer, give us a deficit. With no services deal, barriers will be four times higher, a very hard-crash Brexit for the services sector. The Treasury relies on services to bring in a huge amount of its tax revenues. What hope for the NHS, housing, social care or schools with such a hefty loss in tax income? |
| Philip Hammond and Greg Clark are no fools, so why did they sit there nodding through this crippling negotiating position? Because, like everyone else, they were pretending. They know the EU will never allow a single market deal on goods without services. How often must they repeat that the EU’s four freedoms of goods, capital, services and labour are indivisible? The only “soft” in her plan is the expectation she must be softly pliable when it confronts EU reality. | Philip Hammond and Greg Clark are no fools, so why did they sit there nodding through this crippling negotiating position? Because, like everyone else, they were pretending. They know the EU will never allow a single market deal on goods without services. How often must they repeat that the EU’s four freedoms of goods, capital, services and labour are indivisible? The only “soft” in her plan is the expectation she must be softly pliable when it confronts EU reality. |
| Why did any of the Brexiters pretend to accept this plan? Because they too know that it won’t survive a first brush with the EU. So what’s their endgame? The same as ever: no deal, crash out, walk away. The reason they brought no plan to the Chequers table was because that would draw them into the mire of negotiation and compromise. That’s not for the likes of Boris Johnson and David Davis. | Why did any of the Brexiters pretend to accept this plan? Because they too know that it won’t survive a first brush with the EU. So what’s their endgame? The same as ever: no deal, crash out, walk away. The reason they brought no plan to the Chequers table was because that would draw them into the mire of negotiation and compromise. That’s not for the likes of Boris Johnson and David Davis. |
| In their Brexlandia, there is only clean-break purity. No use telling them that, on 30 March 2019, that means instant no flying, no food, no meds, no money: their ends justify these terrible means. Of course no active politician is foolish enough to admit this, so let’s turn to one of their founding mentors. | In their Brexlandia, there is only clean-break purity. No use telling them that, on 30 March 2019, that means instant no flying, no food, no meds, no money: their ends justify these terrible means. Of course no active politician is foolish enough to admit this, so let’s turn to one of their founding mentors. |
| What irony that ‘metal bashing' places that voted Brexit would be the big losers from the true Brexiteer vision | What irony that ‘metal bashing' places that voted Brexit would be the big losers from the true Brexiteer vision |
| Patrick Minford CBE, former Thatcher adviser and leader of Economists for Brexit, is willing to spell out to me what Brexit politicians dare not. Their goal is no tariffs, no barriers, no regulations, open free trade with the world. That, he claims, cuts 20% off food prices in tariffs and roughly the same again in removing all regulatory barriers. What of food quality? As long as it’s labelled, let the consumer decide. What of farmers bankrupted by cheap imports? Big farmers will do more efficient biotech farming (GM, etc); small inefficient farmers will go to the wall or be paid to protect the environment. | Patrick Minford CBE, former Thatcher adviser and leader of Economists for Brexit, is willing to spell out to me what Brexit politicians dare not. Their goal is no tariffs, no barriers, no regulations, open free trade with the world. That, he claims, cuts 20% off food prices in tariffs and roughly the same again in removing all regulatory barriers. What of food quality? As long as it’s labelled, let the consumer decide. What of farmers bankrupted by cheap imports? Big farmers will do more efficient biotech farming (GM, etc); small inefficient farmers will go to the wall or be paid to protect the environment. |
| What of manufacturing, facing a tidal wave of cheap, imported, unregulated goods? That’s an insignificant 10% of our economy, so let cheaper countries do the “metal bashing”, as we import cheaper cars: we will do high-value intellectual work. And what of all those “metal-bashing” jobs? Here he uses a favourite phrase: the “reallocation of labour”, just like all those “reallocations” of the 1980s on which he advised Thatcher, when unproductive mines, steel works and shipyards closed. Look, he says, over those years most of the 35% employed in manufacturing have been “reallocated”, with a growth in city financiers, consultants and all other services. But what of the people and the places destroyed in the process? | What of manufacturing, facing a tidal wave of cheap, imported, unregulated goods? That’s an insignificant 10% of our economy, so let cheaper countries do the “metal bashing”, as we import cheaper cars: we will do high-value intellectual work. And what of all those “metal-bashing” jobs? Here he uses a favourite phrase: the “reallocation of labour”, just like all those “reallocations” of the 1980s on which he advised Thatcher, when unproductive mines, steel works and shipyards closed. Look, he says, over those years most of the 35% employed in manufacturing have been “reallocated”, with a growth in city financiers, consultants and all other services. But what of the people and the places destroyed in the process? |
| Yes, he admits, the 1980s was a “big shock”, but it rid us of “hopelessly uncompetitive” industries. That’s what unilateral open free trade would do again, clearing out overprotection from global competition with, he claims, a huge economic boost. Short-term pain means long-term gain: a second coming of Thatcher’s 1980s. | Yes, he admits, the 1980s was a “big shock”, but it rid us of “hopelessly uncompetitive” industries. That’s what unilateral open free trade would do again, clearing out overprotection from global competition with, he claims, a huge economic boost. Short-term pain means long-term gain: a second coming of Thatcher’s 1980s. |
| Labour poised to vote down Brexit deal | |
| That’s the vision that dare not speak its name among Brexiteer MPs – for good reason. What irony that “metal bashing” people and places that voted Brexit would be the big losers from the true Brexiteer vision. How the nation’s heart-strings were tugged with promises of new freedoms for farmers and fishermen, but they will be doomed too, fishermen unable to sell fish to the EU. | That’s the vision that dare not speak its name among Brexiteer MPs – for good reason. What irony that “metal bashing” people and places that voted Brexit would be the big losers from the true Brexiteer vision. How the nation’s heart-strings were tugged with promises of new freedoms for farmers and fishermen, but they will be doomed too, fishermen unable to sell fish to the EU. |
| The true heart of Brexit is a vision that is the precise opposite of the one they missold in the referendum. This is what their freedom and sovereignty means: no protections, only an unfettered market. May offers an unrealistic Brexit that must bend to EU rules. But the Tory resigners want to turn their great referendum hoax into a crash-out, no deal, close to the dystopian vision cherished by Economists for Brexit. In the end, people need a final vote between a safe haven close to the EU, or this wild free market Brexit. Borisism must be seen off. | The true heart of Brexit is a vision that is the precise opposite of the one they missold in the referendum. This is what their freedom and sovereignty means: no protections, only an unfettered market. May offers an unrealistic Brexit that must bend to EU rules. But the Tory resigners want to turn their great referendum hoax into a crash-out, no deal, close to the dystopian vision cherished by Economists for Brexit. In the end, people need a final vote between a safe haven close to the EU, or this wild free market Brexit. Borisism must be seen off. |
| • Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist | • Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist |
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