Britain cannot avoid living with its consequences
Journalists have taken great glee in reporting the views of people who voted to leave the European Union but now suffer from truckloads of buyers’ remorse. If we were still in the EU, you could even call it schadenfreude. It is not just the people who perhaps did not quite realise that would mean that big companies like Siemens would ship out, or that regional funds for Cornwall and Wales would end, or that David Cameron would resign, or that the value of their house would collapse. It is also the people who voted ‘Leave’ without realising if ‘Leave’ won, we would in fact, you know, leave.
There was so much rubbish flying around during the referendum that you can forgive people not understanding the details of Brexit. We now know that Jeremy Corbyn and his team were actively sabotaging Labour’s campaign, so much of the message failed to get through. But it is harder to conceive that people voted ‘Leave’ unaware that it would mean Britain would leave the EU as a consequence. People have been told for so long that their vote is a way of giving the politicians ‘a good kicking’ rather than a way to effect massive change.
But aware of it or not, massive change is what we are going to get. The important thing now is to ensure that Brexit happens. If you voted ‘Remain’, you are almost by definition a democrat. That means you must support Brexit. Why? Because if the political class conspire to lessen the impact of the referendum result, through delays to the process, or side-deals on free movement, then the damage to democracy will be far greater than a dip on the FTSE or a sliding pound. A vote is a precious, hard-won thing. In a referendum, there is a binary choice – yes or no. If a majority votes for one of them, it is profoundly undemocratic for politicians to head off in the opposite direction.
This seemed to be the approach of some in the immediate aftermath. Four million people signed an online petition calling for a second referendum. There were demos outside parliament. David Lammy described the referendum as an ‘advisory, non-binding’ poll and called for a vote in parliament to reject Brexit. This is clutching at straws on a grand scale. The people have spoken, in record numbers. Many of them Labour voters in Labour seats. We all have to respect their stated wishes.
Of course, there will be consequences. First, market forces will kick in. Global companies with a presence here, because we are in the EU, will leave. Companies planning to come here will change their minds. So people will start to lose their jobs, and landmark HQ buildings in Canary Wharf and other business districts will lie empty. Then, at some point in 2018 or 2019, large-scale funding to Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and elsewhere will stop. So will farming subsidies, and support for fishing fleets. EU university research funding will end. In a million and one ways, life will change for most people.
Of course, as John McDonnell has said, Brexit means an end to ‘free movement’. Fruit farms will have to find non-EU citizens to pick their fruit. Care homes will have to find non-EU citizens to wipe the bottoms of their elderly residents.
In time, the British will get used to applying for visas ahead of their summer holidays to Spain, and having a smaller NHS. In time, we will grow used to slow, shoddy and expensive heating installation, when the Polish plumbers go home. It will be just like the good old days.
Politicians have long talked about the need to rebalance the economy away from financial services, and why not? Everyone loves to bash a banker. UK financial services contributed £126.9bn to the economy in 2014, and employed over one million people. Brexit will certainly diminish all that. Soon we will be able to look back on the days when international financial firms chose London as their European base.
But McDonnell has argued that financial services should not disappear completely. In his speech on 1 July he offered these reassuring words: ‘While there is a need for fundamental reform for the City, neither should we just allow it to sink beneath the waves.’
So that’s OK then.
As the Conservatives choose a leader, and thus the next prime minister, there can be no back-pedalling on Brexit. Each candidate, whether a Brexiteer or not, must now spell out how they intend to implement the wishes of the people. Brexit means Brexit, not some half-cocked compromise. Boris Johnson was starting to put together a plan for semi-Brexit, demi-Brexit, or even Brexit-lite, and look what happened to him. As a classics scholar, Boris should have recognised that alea iacta est: the die is cast. The Rubicon has been crossed. The people have voted for this monumental calamity, and now there is no way back.
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The Progressive
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