We’re seeing a co-ordinated push by the defeated Europhile elites who will not accept the referendum result
The hope seems to be that, faced with unpalatable terms, we will give up on the whole idea
HERE it comes – the backlash.
We’re seeing a co-ordinated push by the defeated elites – the men who, having told us what to think for 50 years, can’t accept the referendum result.
Three separate but linked campaigns were launched this week.
First, a leaked document prepared by officials repeated the tired old lines about an economic hit after Brexit.
Second, Europhiles in the House of Lords plotted to amend the Brexit bill to demand a parliamentary vote at the end of the negotiations, in the hope MPs will rescind our withdrawal.
Third, the EU itself has come up with a way to keep us in in every sense except that we lose our veto.
The hope seems to be that, faced with unpalatable terms, we will give up on the whole idea.
It’s worth remembering that the Treasury officials who produced these scary forecasts have been spectacularly wrong so far.
During the referendum they argued that, in the two years after a Leave vote, GDP would fall between three and six per cent.
In fact, it grew by 1.9 per cent in 2016 and 1.8 per cent in 2017,
They told us that unemployment would rise by between 500,000 to 820,000.
Instead, unemployment has fallen every month, and more people are in work than ever before.
Exports, manufacturing orders, output, consumer confidence and the stock exchange have all risen since the vote.
The Calais jungle has not moved to Kent. Support for Scottish independence has dropped.
As for the Lords, they know that MPs voted by a stonking majority of 372 to begin the withdrawal process.
In theory, a new election could be held, one of the big parties could change its position, that party could win the election and the procedure might be halted.
Such a series of events is ridiculously unlikely, but would at least be democratic.
That, though, is not what Europhiles have in mind. They have no intention of asking people their opinion again.
Rather, they will use their majority in the House of Lords – a majority that rests heavily on quangocrats and busybodies, some of them in receipt of fat Brussels pensions.
For the Lords to overturn a result supported by more British voters than anything else in history would be outrageous.
No one would fall for the claim that they simply wanted a vote on the final terms. People would see it for what it was: an anti-democratic coup.
Even more dangerous than scheming peers, though, is the transition arrangement proposed by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, on Monday. Monsieur Barnier wants us to, in effect, postpone our departure by 21 months. We would keep all the bad bits of membership until the end of 2020. We’d pay into the budget, be subject to EU laws including on free movement, and
Brussels would continue to run our trade policy. But with one important difference. We would no longer have a veto.
Britain would, in other words, be a colony, subject to EU laws with no voice in shaping those laws. We’d have taxation without representation.
Some argue that, appalling as this prospect is, it will last for only 21 months. If that’s the price we pay to get out after 44 years, they say, so be it.
But why assume that it will end after 21 months? The EU will have us where the more extreme Euro-federalists have always wanted us: unable to prevent the rush to closer union, and unable to opt out of it. Several of the measures that Britain has blocked over the years could be imposed on us to make sure that we have no competitive advantage. Why should Brussels offer a deal after that?
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It would be better, frankly, to take an Iceland-style deal as our transitional arrangement. Under an arrangement like at least we’d be outside the EU’s policies on farming, fishing, foreign policy and criminal justice. We’d pay less. And, most important, we’d be able to sign our own trade deals from the off.
The underlying problem is that Brexit is being implemented by people who dislike it. Even those who are honestly doing their best to honour the referendum think in terms of damage limitation rather than opportunity. Other than on immigration, they can’t understand why anyone voted Leave. They have no interest in using Brexit to improve our competitiveness, our democracy or our global links.
With such people in charge, the danger is that their leaked document becomes self-fulfilling, and we really end up worse off.
They cannot be allowed to succeed.