The Brexit White Paper agreed by the Cabinet at
Chequers has more or less already been rejected by the EU. They want still more
concessions. So a plan that amounted to Brexit in Name Only, where the UK would
mimic the EU Single Market and Customs Union, where we would have all of the
disadvantages of Remaining in the EU but none of the advantages of Leaving,
where we would be rule takers with no say whatsoever in the forming of those
rules, isn’t enough for M. Barnier and friends. The EU thinks it is Rome and
that Britain is Carthage and that they can demand tribute and a Carthaginian peace.
But as we have told Frenchmen down the ages we must remind M. Barnier that we
still have our fingers. We haven’t been defeated.
All Britain wants is a free trade deal and the
ability to depart in peace in such a way that it is of mutual benefit to
everyone. We want to cooperate with the EU and treat them as friends and good
neighbours. But it is becoming ever clearer that the EU is desperate to punish Britain
for the temerity of voting the Leave. They want Brexit to fail. They want us
either to see that the terms of leaving are so bad that we choose to give up on
our Brexit dream, or else they want us a few years down the line to admit that
we cannot do without EU membership and apply to rejoin. Can you imagine the
terms they would offer? We would have to promise to join the Euro, promise to
join Schengen and we would have no rebate and so would have a vastly increased
membership fee.
Worse than all of these things, Britain would be
humiliated. We would have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. This
is what the Remainers are offering us. They want us to fail. At every stage of
our journey they have tried to hinder us rather than help. Whatever obstacle they
could find they have put in our way. They have delighted when the EU has said
this is impossible or that Britain will have to pay more. They would prefer
defeat to victory and the worst peace treaty possible. We would have lost both World Wars and the
Cold War too if so many had sided with our opponent.
But there is a strain in Post War British thinking
that wants to apologise for our history and hopes only to manage decline. It is
this above all that meant from 1945 to 1979 we had a mini-dark age where everything
was drab and frequently the lights would go out. We joined the Common Market
out of despair, not quite knowing how to cope with the modern world.
But this changed in the 1980s. We began to create a
modern economy. We began to be productive. Those things that had hindered
Britain, such as nationalisation, ultra-powerful unions and bureaucracy were gradually
reformed. Young people today have no idea at all how poor we were in the 1970s.
Britain has an excellent economy today, because we dared in the 1980s to do
something differently. We threw out the post-war consensus of the Tory Wets and
Old Labour and created a new Britain that wasn’t in decline any more.
Now those same Tory Wets and Labour moderates
horrified that Britain might actually succeed in creating a successful economy
outside the EU are desperate to get us back into managed decline.
I would prefer a few years of Corbyn if only he’d
follow his convictions and actually get us out of the EU. At least Corbyn
believes in something and hopes for something better. He is wrong of course,
but perhaps Labour voters need to be taught once more that socialism doesn’t
work. At some point it will be their turn. It would certainly be much worse
than a Brexit on WTO terms. It might even be 1979 all over again if not 1917.
But that’s democracy. We cannot prevent a Labour Government because we think it
would be bad for the economy and would lead to economic disaster. That would be
undemocratic wouldn’t it? But somehow people think we can stop Brexit before we
have even tried it, as if that wouldn’t be equally undemocratic.
So what is to be done? It is quite clear that the
whole EU strategy is designed to prevent Britain from making a success of
Brexit. This is why they wish to tie us to the EU as closely as possible. Why
do they reason in this way? It is because they know that Britain will make a
success of Brexit if we can just get free from the EU. The reason Brexit will
be a success is that we can use it to reform our economy in a similar way to
the 1980s. We can get rid of all the EU bureaucracy. We can begin to gradually
limit paying subsidies to farmers, which will have the effect in time of making
our farms more efficient. We can lower tariffs unilaterally and no longer
enforce the EU’s Common External Tariff. This will mean that food and other
consumer products will be cheaper for our shoppers. We can offer free trade
deals to anyone in the world who will reciprocate. We can make Britain the
cheapest place in Europe to do business, lowering our business rates beneath
those of the Republic of Ireland.
Whenever Remainers are gloomy about the future and
whenever they predict disaster, I try to respond with both realism and
optimism. I would much prefer a free trade with the EU and I would much prefer
to cooperate with them. It would be far from ideal for both us and the EU if we
cannot agree reasonable terms. But I would prefer to simply trade on WTO terms
than to surrender when we haven’t even been beaten. If we surrender now we give
up, perhaps forever the optimism and renewal that Brexit could bring to our
country. We go back into the gloom of managed decline.
The Government should start doing all that is
necessary to prepare for leaving the EU in March and should withdraw from all
talks with M. Barnier and friends until they wish to be more constructive. We
should spend whatever it takes to get ready for March. Above all we should not
listen to Remainer threats. In the end they amount to a country without an air force
threatening to close its airspace. It’s rather like the ant threatening the
elephant. Why should we even notice?
