At 11pm , 31st December 2020 the UK left the European Union and implemented a new trading arrangement with Europe. The transition period , which had meant that nothing changed after the formal exit on 31st January 2020, came to an endThis brought to an end 43 years of EU membership which began in 1970
Further reading
Just like the referendum vote itself which was passed 51.9% to , opinion on whether this a good thing is polarised
Customs forms must now be filled out to send any goods anywhere in Europe and to Northern Ireland even though it is part of the UK
The departure of the UK has been marked by many passionate and learned articles in the progressive press condemning the move
At the same time the right-wing press notably the Daily Mail and Daily Express could not be more gleeful
How could the UK have taken a step which is manifestly not in its best economic and national interests?
Some history
Tthe UK’s relationship with the EU has always been an uneasy one, despite the fact that that there have been undoubted benefits. The UK flourished particularly after the creation of the single market , one of the biggest free trade areas in the world with freedom of movement bringing in many highly qualified workers from Europe and allowed UK citizens to right to live or work in any of the EU countires without restriction
Many sectors of the economy were galvanised, particularly the building trade which had lacked the numbers needed of trained plumbers, bricklayers and other craftsmen.
EU workers arrived in the UK fully trained at no cost to the UK . Moreover they contributed to the economy as they were younger and healthier than the general poplualtion , paying taxes and national insurance but not being heavy users of the health service
The U.K.’s fruit picking farms flourished with the influx of seasonal workers from eastern Europe who were prepared to live on site and pick fruit for low rates of pay
The UK was instrumental in helping the EU to expand from 12 countries to 27 to bring in the former Eastern European countries that became democracies after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall and for creating the single market.
The UK had also negotiated extremely advantageous terms of membershipwith the EU including an opt out from various laws such as the social chapter, an enhanced rebate on its contributions and exemption from joining the Euro (which turned out to be a wise move – full credit to Gordon Browna nd Ed Balls for resisiting the call to join.
There were always some factions in the UK which resented the membership. The fact that the UK is an island gives it a different identity to the countries of Europe who have land borders with each other
The UK had an extensive empire and in the 19th century was no 1 trading nation of the world , although it has been a steady decline since then and the Empire has now gone.
This history hpwever led many people to regret the passing of the country’s one-time status and also to believe in the country’s inherent exceptionalism compared to European countries
The Second World War is another factor. Britain was not occupied in the war (save for the Channel islands) unlike the rest of Europe. We fought and won the war but many have forgotten that this was only possible with the massive resources then available to the country from its empire and its ability to call on Commonwealth soldiers to fight and the alliances the country made with the USA and Russia. Their contributions are conveniently overlooked but the resourbces and manpower of America and the ability of the Russians to sacrifice millions of troops in the war effort were the key factors behind winning the Second World War
After the war, the countries of Europe were determined to find a better way of living and trading together which is how the EU eventually came together to create a unique and successful partnership to bring peace to Europe as well as a prosperous trading bloc
After the war the UK did not see the need for joining this group. It decided to go its own way leaving the Europeans organise their trading bloc
However it became apparent by the mid-60s that this structure was not working and two attempts were made to join the EU ( rebuffed each time by Gen De Gaulle) before Edward Heath successfully negotiated our entry in 1970
Emotionally many people who hankered over the days of Empire never accepted this is as a good thing
Regrettably successive UK governments did little to improve the understandingope to UK citizens of how the EU worked and why it was successful and improtant to our economy
Many areas of the UK benefitted from substantial EU investment grants but were strangely unaware of the importance of EU regiona funds when it came to the referendum vote (what has the EU ever done for us ……. apart from etc – Life of Brian)
The immediate causes of the Brexit vote
On top of an underlying resentment towards Europe , features of EU regulalions and systems which endlessly criticised by in the right-wing press , Boris Johnson in particular who lampooned some of the technical requirements of EU regulations so that for many , the EU was a joke which insisted that a bananas could not be bendy …
A significant proportion of the UK came to believe that the EU regulation was oppressive and bureaucratic and we would be better off without it
and that EU was not democratic – it was imposing useless burdens on us for nothing
and that freedom of movement under the single market was leading to mass EU immigration which we could not stop and this was responsible for unbearable pressure on our GP services, hosuing and hospital waiitng lists
However generally obsession with the EU was not a concern of most voters before 2010.
What made the difference was
1 the imposition of austerity by the Tory and Liberal coalition in 2010 masterminded by George Osborne and David Cameron. Austerity was their chosen policy for managing the economy . Using household budget analogy, they claimed that the massive increase in debt and the deficit which they inherited on taking office could only be dealth with by cuts in poublic spending
they wrongly balmed the increase in debt and deficit on excess spending by the outgoing Labour government
This policy turned conventional macro economics on its head. Keyens had conclsivley proved that ina recession, when animal spirits are low, buienssess and consumers are trying to pay off their debts, then only the governmetn can supply the spending to increase demand and take the economy out of recessionb
for the government to stop spending when everyone else was , would take the econimy down a depression spuiral as happend in the 1930s when the same polciy and reaosning was applied
The polci also neatly fitted in with their ideas to shrink the state , a long held aim of rigth wing polticis. The aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis as an ideal excuse to bring about this aim
and 2
a capaign of lies about immigration by the right wing press, praying on peoples fears at a time when there was an influx of new immigation from Eastern Europe
For causes of the crash see
in summary the crash which was a result of our of control lending by deregulated banks , lending particularly on property and in the USA and the UK which led to a property bubble.
when the bubble burst and many banks became insolvent in 2007 2008 . The financial sector is in most western economies ground to a halt. Most western economies lost significant amounts of GNP within a very short space of time, in the UK about 6%
The paralysis in the financial sector led to a rapid rise in unemployment, a reduction in tax receipts and an increase of the benefits bill which was exactly as expected. As a result government debt and the deficit rose. This is known to Keynesian economists as the automatic stabiliser
The U.K.’s debt to GDP ration rose from around 30% to 65% after the crash
The proper approach to be adopted should have been a Keynesian stimulus as happened in the USA. However Osborne and Cameron ideological reasons saw their opportunity to use the crash to to “shrink the state” by imposing austerity using the time honoured lie that the government’s budget is like a household budget and you can’t borrow your way out of trouble
In fact Keynes had convincingly shown in the 19 with his analysis of what went wrong in the 1930s that e when the econowing is exactly what had to be done when the economy was in recession. He single-handedly invented macro economics with his writings
Austerity meant savage cuts in public spending which had two main effects. First for the economy did not recover from the recession but went backwards. The growth which had been happening as a result of the Brown Darling stimulus was snuffed out. eg school rebuilding and investment programmes were cancelled
Cuts were made in all government budgets except health
Local authorities lost 50% of their grants over the next 10 years
Cuts in government spending meant loss of public sector jobs , most of those jobs were lost in the poorer regions outside London and in the North
The UK has always had a regional disparity which got worse after 1979 when Thatcherite economic policy was responsible for a huge reduction in our manufacturing industry and an increase in the financial sector based in London
No compensating policies were adopted , as a result many areas of the former industrial Midlands and North never recovered after 1979 and remained areas which were depressed with high levels of unemployment and low skills
Austerity exacerbated this. Inequality and poverty shot up particularly child poverty.
Universal credit was gradually introduced with mean minded and vindictive conditions and the application of sanctions which would remove all means of support for trivial breaches fo conditions which were often futilem bullying or inconsistent – eg failing to ……
Benefit levels were frozen. Caps Introduced-an overall cap, the bedroom tax and the two child limit
The first time claimants no longer received the level of benefits which had been determined to be necessary to avoid poverty and destitution
A new phenomenon emerged-food banks – for the first time in our recent history hundreds of thousands of people no longer had enough money to buy food
It was against that backdrop that David Cameron without giving much thought to the consequences of the the rules decided to promise a referendum on EU membership. This was designed to kill off challenges to the Tory party from extremist elements such as UKIP. He never considered for one moment that the referendum would be lost even though he and his col;leagues rarely had good word to say about Europe
In fact Europe was blamed for the ill effects of his own policies – austerity
Having made the promise he embarked up on a campaign in Europe to improve the U.K.’s membership terms as to immigration and benefits
He achieved a modest concessions but nobody was convinced
The second factor affecting people’s minds apart from poverty caused by austerity was a resentment towards EU immigration wthe single market had brought in many workers from Europe who were successfully adding to our prosperity generally being well-trained and at no cost to us e.g. doctors and nurses bricklayers took employment paying paying taxes without using services as they were young and healthy. To the extent that they needed the services they had paid taxes for those services
However a deluge of articles over 10 years of the right-wing press convinced many that the source of our woeswas EU immigrants who were taking away jobs from British workers and making it impossible to get GP appointments or places in schools or Council have
None of this was true. The responsibility for all those problems lay with the Tory government and austerity and not with the EU or EU immigration
The EU campaign for remain was a disaster. It was not unified. Jeremy Corbyn from Labour was unconvincing as a remainer supporter. He had almost certainly been a Brexiteer at heart , being suspicious of the EU as an unreformable capitalist club
Labour did not campaign together with the Tories . they had suffered for doing so in the previous Scottish referendum
The main campaign for remain emphasised a climate of fear without mentioning any positives about Europe
On the Brexit side, this was characterised by the shameless lies to gain votes-that savings in our contribution to Europe could be result in £350 million per week being available to spend on the NHS and that Turkey was about to join the EU and this would lead to millions of Turkish immigrants
At no time did the Brexit campaign ever put forward a plan as to how Brexit would work
Since that result in 2016 the country has been in turmoil and no serious work is being done to address any other problems affecting the country
Politicians and citizens supporting remain were aghast at the result looked to find ways to overturn the result with a second referendum – this had happened in other EU referendums in other European countries notably Ireland and Portugal
they considered the referendum result was fundamentally flawed having been based on so many lies
It was that felt that a second referendum putting definite options to public for leaving or remaining was the best way.
Politics was paralysed for years. David Cameron resigned immediately
Teresa May as a disastrous p.m. who could not get her Brexit bill passed . She was deposed and Boris Johnson was elected. He out thought Labour and liberals who gave him the opportunity to fight a general election on the slogan Get Brexit done in December 2020. He won with an 80 seat majority
The EU the UK left the EU formally in January 2020 but with a 12 month transition period
In that time negotiations took place and it’s now clear that the British public were manipulated throughout with the idea that a hard Bracks it would take place . This was almost certainly a hoax
This was a hoax and was never going to happen but the terms were engineered so that they were announced on Christmas Eve 2020 which gave almost no time for scrutiny
what HAPPENS NEXT
every economic indicator suggests Bracks it will be a disaster for the economy and contrary to the interests of the UK people and its economy
The government’s own calculations produced by the OBR are show that GDP will fall by between four and 6% over the next 10 years compared to not leaving
Businesses will be faced with a massive bureaucratic costs of filling out customs declarations to continue trading with Europe
This will add to costs and reduce trade
Already some English firms have said they will not supply goods to Northern Irelandng
The union of the UK is now under great pressure and is likely to break up. First Scotland is in rage at having a hard Brexit imposed upon them against their will and this will be used to win more seats in the Scottish Parliament and to a new demand for another Scottish in out referendum
you paragraph it is very likely that Northern Ireland will be absorbed in southern Ireland as economically speaking it is part of the same block separate from the UK
and it makes little sense now for Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK
Many Brexiteers are delighted that we have left the European Union and that we have therefore managed to stop EU immigration and freed ourselves and EU regulations and got back sovereignty
Is this correct and will it address our problems
The answer is that it is not correct. First of all immigration EU ion and thn has been replaced by non-E WERE BEFOREN AND THE NUMBERS ARE HIGHER THAN THEY WERE BEFORE THE AGE DIFFERENCE IS THAT RIGHT WING PRESS STOPPED PAYING ON ABOUT IMMIGRATION THEREFORE PEOPLE@S THE PEOPLE ARE WORRIED LESS ABOUT IT AT< IT IS NO LONGER AT THE TOP PEOPLE@S ANXIETIES
As for getting rid of deregulation and getting back some sovereignty this is nonsense. First of all we are be which is oregulations if you want to trade with Europe which is our biggest market 45% of our trade. we cannot diversion standards without sanctions being imposed or the last trade
Secondly as to bureaucracy we now have a ton of that was before we had none
UK citizens can no longer travel live and work freely in Europe. This will again will be very bad for prosperity and trade and will be felt particularly by young people who enjoy this freedom
Is Bracks it over and done with
Absolutely not. The agreement is very thin and there will be years of talks to address all the other matters which have not been resolved. In particular servi the agreems 80% of our economy is not covered by the agreement at all now the qualifications of professionals are no longer recognised in Europe. This will be a nightmare for accountancwork in Ectors architects and lawyers wishing to work in Europe
The restriction on immigration will of course give us headaches in that we desperately need more doctors and nurses care workers and fruit pickers and builders are now ready to get therefore there will be skills shortages the health service and care sector will suffer fruit be rotting on the ground
Will Bracks it voters rumble lists and see that they have been conned
Some say that they will not notice because it will take time for the economic disadvantages to become apparent, is like a slow puncture with the air being left out gradually over 10 years
However there is no doubt that Bracks it workers voter insecurity nced that the source of their problems insecurity and property was the EU and immigration
Bracks it does not supply an answer to those problems and never will
The only thing that can improve their prosperity and economic security is investment by the government in regional policy and public services. Howeverll Tories don’t like doing that kind of thingof all Tories don’t like doing that kind of thing. That I believe in regional policy or investment in public services nor will we have very much money available. The economies is on its knees after Covid and public debt has of course gone through the roof as a result. The Chancellor is itching to bring back some kind of austerity by cutting spending and increasing taxes
Is never going to result in any levelling up
Levelling up itself is a gimmick intr is no by the Tories but it’s meaningless. There is no overall strategy or ideology. To the extent that levelling up is needed it was caused by the Tories in the first place with posterity and their lack of regional policy
Itenlyms extremely far-fetched to consider that suddenly Tories will a Tory government will abandon the habits of a lifetime and start investing in left behind areas of the North yds available for porkbarrel projects a limited funds available for porkbarrel projects such as new bypasses and bridges for favoured constituencies to buy votes for the next election
Will we ever go back
Many of us will never give up her campaign to go back. It is manifestly a good thing to be part of the EU and where we belong
We prove that over 43 is. Exiting is a massive backward step, an unprecedented act of self harm that Rex huge barriers to trade in the first the first trading deal ever to do such a thing
You can imagine at another government selling the idea of joining European single market extolling its virtues and saying how it will lead to hugortunities f extra business and prosperity and opportunities for our citizens
What has happened is that many Bracks it voters have had their votes bought in the selling of a mass delusion. My view is that the politiciaut thecern at the right wing press never cared about the prosperity of the country but only use this issue to gain power
Having done it they actually don’t quite know what to do with it as there is no plan which is coherent which can take that the so-called advantage of the newfound freedoms outside the EU
I am convinced that the disadvantages of leaving the EU will become so apparent coupled with the fact that an older generation that hankered that never quite got over the loss of empire or some fond memories of our role in the Second World War even though most of them didn’t have to live through it together with a younger generation who will see the future of the country infinitely better served by being a member of the European Union in order to fight global pressures, other superpowers such as China and America and India, and bring about a proper green revolution for sustainable change
My prediction is that we’ll be back if not in five years then in 10 years
