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Oh dear - I do wish staff journalists would stop trying to write about economics. They always seem to produce this odd mixture of truth, half-truth and undefended assumptions, however ridiculous (eg. that economic growth can be unlimited).
But what really stood out was the hidden assumption that an ‘open’ economy is better than a ‘closed’ one - particularly ironic when implied in relation to brexit, because of course the explicit aim of many brexiters was precisely to make the UK more open - and it is indeed true that the EU is in fact (quite rightly) a ‘closed’ or protected market.
He needs to read Ha Joon Chang’s many analyses of how state intervention in the economy, industrial strategy, and above all protection of strategic industry from foreign competition - not ‘open’ free trade - are the keys to a successful economy.
There was failure to recognise that the EU is a very open economy (perhaps that is what the author was thinking) when viewed from the inside - but very protectionist if you withdraw from it and are on the outside looking in.
I think that the Brexiteers also failed to realise that the world has moved on from the sun never setting on the British Empire and we were never going to regain pre-eminence in world trade, that ship (along with its cargo) long since sailed - like it or not the US, EU, and China are the superpowers these days. India might or might not emerge as one, we’ll see (ditto South America but less likely than India I suspect).
It seems that the ERG have gone into meltdown mode over the merest suggestion of a less abrasive relationship with the EU and Sunak has reiterated that there will be no move to closer alignment - so I guess that punching ourselves in the face economically is going to continue for now.
There are tiny green shoots of hope though - 56% think it was a mistake to leave, more people (currently 48% vs 37% with 16% “don’t know”) think we should rejoin than think we should stay out and the word Brexit has been allowed back in the media, albeit briefly and at a low level but with negative associations even in the RW press.
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What’s also interesting about this is that it was never ‘free trade’ - so the brexiters were doubly-deluded. Britain in fact enforced unfair trade through the Navigation Acts, based ultimately not on any entrepreneurial prowess, or ‘British genius’, but on brute naval power.
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Some art perspective fun
2022
Chester, England, this month. Britain is the only Group of 7 country whose economy is smaller now than it was before the pandemic started.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
1965
1928
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Undoing or significanty reversing Brexit is the toxic Elephant in the room of British politics that no political party will visit. The Labour part is currently refusing to even contemplate entering the SM and CU for fear of upsetting the voters in the “red wall” seats they hope and need to win back at the next GE. Such a reversal would need the parties and media (most of which supported Brexit) to admit error, and they 'aint going to do that anytime soon…so I see no major change in this decade other than a few bi-lateral deals.