Brexit Benefits or Socialist Stagnation?

This week I hosted a drinks party for the launch of a book entitled 75 Brexit Benefits by Gully Foyle, which was well-timed. It coincides with a change in tone by the Labour government in relation to Brexit and a characteristically well-thought-out article in the Times by Lord Finkelstein arguing that Labour ought to go into the next election promising to reverse Brexit.

Finkelstein, who always writes compellingly, makes the case that as Labour in its budget is clearly choosing the European social model, it makes sense to take it to its logical conclusion and rejoin the EU. Sir Keir Starmer always opposed leaving the EU and was a leading advocate of a second referendum. As Finkelstein says, “Labour doesn’t believe in Brexit. It thinks Brexit was and is stupid.” He goes on to point out that they do not want to make Brexit a success anyway, even if they had a clue how to.

It is a forceful argument. Labour is an internationalist party, it does not believe in the nation-state and is wedded to a world order based on its view of international law. Lord Hermer is the leading advocate of this as the Attorney General, but it fits in with Sir Keir’s well-known world view and his edit to the ministerial code, which requires ministers to abide by international as well as domestic law, reversing a change made by David Cameron, is further proof of this.

It is also a different argument from those used to encourage membership of the EU in the first place. Most people wanted to join and then to remain because they thought it would make the country richer, and that outside the EU our economy would be less successful.

This is self-evidently not true, as the 75 Brexit Benefits book shows. We are saving at least £25 billion a year, before considering contingent liabilities, by not contributing to the European budget, free trade deals with Australia, India, America, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP); all allow cheaper goods into this country and open markets for our exporters, while deregulation, or at least the absence of new EU rules, is allowing the UK to take a lead in, for example, AI.

This is helping our economy to grow more than the EU. If we left the Paris Agreement and concentrated on cheap energy, things we can do outside the EU but could not if we were a member state, then we would have an opportunity for greater growth and to make up some of the lost ground. The EU-inspired Climate Change Act has cost us dearly.