[Having been grossly misled in the referendum, Britons’ anger is
mounting as the reality of our plight becomes clear ]
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IT IS HARD TO ADMIT BEING WRONG. BUT BREXIT VOTERS ARE DOING SO IN
DROVES  
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William Keegan
February 5, 2023
Guardian
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_ Having been grossly misled in the referendum, Britons’ anger is
mounting as the reality of our plight becomes clear _

Brexit door, by mctjack (public domain)

 

Commentators, politicians and economists tend to think they are
quoting John Maynard Keynes with: “When the facts change, I change
my mind. What do you do, sir?”

I have always been suspicious of the derivation of this putative
remark. Even in this modern world of fake news, facts do not change.
New information may come to light, but facts are facts. I don’t
think there is any evidence that Keynes ever perpetrated such a
canard, and nor does Keynes’s distinguished biographer, Robert
Skidelsky.

It seems to be a bastard version of a remark that _is_ attributed to
Keynes. When once asked why he had changed his mind on something, he
apparently replied: “What else do you do when you find you are
wrong?”

I quote this in the context of recent developments in regard to
Brexit. The majority of respondents to recent surveys now believe the
nation was wrong to vote for Brexit, and a tidy majority would like to
rejoin the European Union [[link removed]].
Admitting one is wrong is not a natural inclination; but in the case
of Brexit many leavers have the reasonable excuse that they were
woefully misled by a gang of lying charlatans.

A powerful condemnation of this bunch was made recently by the
well-known City of London figure Guy Hands
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a former Tory donor – when he told the BBC _Today_ Programme that
Brexit was “a complete disaster” and “a bunch of total lies …
the biggest issue about it, and you can take the Brexit bus as a good
example, is the lies that Boris Johnson and the Conservative party
told about the NHS. In fact, what they did was throw the country and
the NHS under the bus.”

The monstrosity of the Brexit
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British people merits a public inquiry – even an old-fashioned royal
commission. There are even calls for a “class action” in the
courts for the way that an entire younger generation has been deprived
– thus far – of rights it had good reason to expect.

Indeed, one of the reasons public opinion has woken up and moved fast
in the direction of regret for leaving and support for re-entry is
that people may not pay much attention to the macroeconomic damage
that obsesses commentators such as myself, but they do notice when the
loss of freedom of movement inhibits _them_, not just the European
workers on whom the economy had relied for so long.

One of the many mistakes made by David Cameron over Brexit – the
biggest being calling a referendum at all – was in refusing help
from European Commission officials. They could have told the British
electorate what was in store for them.

It is moderately good news that our beleaguered prime minister is
trying to slow down, and possibly halt, the pace of ‘disalignment’

Now, I found it interesting at last weekend’s annual Venice seminar,
where Italian and British journalists discuss economic and
geopolitical issues with Italian ministers, officials and
industrialists, that the mood had changed. For years, the British were
rather condescending about the problems of the Italian economy. Today
there is an air of sadness about the way the UK has inflicted upon
itself the role of sick man of Europe.

Now, while I was in Venice my old friend Ken Clarke, the former Tory
chancellor, was apparently to be heard on the BBC saying that one
essential requirement for dealing with this country’s accumulation
of economic problems was to rejoin the single market. Good for Ken.
After all, in his memoirs he described Margaret Thatcher’s
championship of the single market as her greatest achievement. Ironic,
wasn’t it, that those _soi disant_ Brexit numbskulls who sold the
country down the river maintained that they were doing this in the
spirit of, er, Thatcher.

The biggest factor accounting for the inflation, trade and growth
differential between the UK and comparable economies – which have
all, of course, been hit by Covid, gas prices and higher interest
rates – is Brexit. As former Labour leader Lord Kinnock says, in a
neat variation on an old cliche: “Brexit is the mammoth in the broom
cupboard.”

It is moderately good news that Keir St

armer and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, wish to “align” us
with the EU. Also that our beleaguered prime minister Rishi Sunak is
trying, at least, to slow down, and possibly halt, the pace of
“disalignment” – with negligible support, alas, from his warring
factions in the Conservative party.

But this is simply not enough. As the European parliament’s former
Brexit coordinator, the Belgian politician Guy Verhofstadt, recently
said: “The devil is not in the detail – the very idea of Brexit is
unworkable. As long as Starmer continues to rule out rejoining the
single market and the European Union, Britain will be poorer, as is
the EU.”

_William Keegan [[link removed]] is
the Observer's senior economics commentator_

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