Provocateur

No need to fear the Turnip Bogle. Putting some flesh on a ‘Bare Bones’ Brexit.

David Davis is due to brief the Cabinet soon on the implications of a ‘no deal’ Brexit – perhaps on Halloween itself. But we should not be too scared.

Discussions about the prospect of ‘no deal’ frequently generate more heat than light. Often, this is because the participants are not talking about the same thing.

At one extreme, some people interpret ‘no deal’ to mean an outcome where the UK leaves the EU in 2019 without any agreement on the future relationship. In addition to dropping out of the Single Market and Customs Union, this implies the end of cooperation in a wide range of other areas, including aviation, trade in medical isotopes, and security. Planes wouldn’t fly, cancer patients would be denied drugs, and terrorists would find their ghastly work even easier.

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Why this economist is also a Brexiteer

My name is Julian and I voted ‘Leave’. There, I’ve said it. For a professional economist in today’s Britain, this is close to heresy. Those of us who think that the UK is likely to be better off outside the EU have been compared (and not in a good way) to climate change deniers. It’s even been suggested that it is impossible to be both a proper economist and a Brexiteer.

Admittedly, the main reasons why I voted to leave the EU might be described as ‘political’ rather than ‘economic’. I saw the 2016 referendum as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to escape the slide towards a European super-state. The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has at least been refreshingly honest about his desire to create an ever-closer union. Indeed, he would like a Banking Union, a Capital Markets Union, a Defence Union, an Energy Union, a Security Union… extending the reach of the EU into every aspect of our lives. No thank you. I am happy to think of myself as European, but Europe and the EU are not the same thing.

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