I'm fed up with everyone tiptoeing around Brexit having been rubbish

[paddleboardingmum]

We can all see how it hasn't stopped immigration, we don't have the more money for the NHS that was promised, and everyone is worse off. I'm sure even many who voted for it - who were conned at the time- also can see it was rubbish. Isn't it time for people to stop pretending it was a good idea. That doesn't mean we need to rejoin right now or blame anybody, but I think it's time to just face facts and stop trying to pretend it was a good idea.

It is simplistic to just blame “Leave” voters. There were plenty of people who did not bother to show up to vote at all, because it rained on the day of the Referendum.
And there are plenty of people who failed to register to vote at all, because they don’t care or do not have faith in the political system (or because they are between addressed).
The vote was very close.

But this basically boils down to “it’s impossible to prove anything conclusively therefore Brexit can’t be blamed”, which isn’t really how economics works. We can’t rerun history with a control UK that stayed in the EU, so economists use comparative modelling and counterfactuals all the time, including for Covid, inflation, tax policy etc.

The broad consensus from bodies like the OBR, IMF, LSE, NIESR and pretty much most mainstream economists is that Brexit has had a negative impact on trade, investment and productivity. The fact the UK economy didn’t literally collapse doesn’t mean Brexit succeeded, it just means the UK absorbed the damage alongside a load of other global shocks. And people keep shifting the goalposts here because Brexit wasn’t sold as “things will broadly muddle along”. We were repeatedly told things would be better.

I have tried to have this conversation with Brexiteers…. The response I receive is ‘it wasn’t done right’ and that if only Brexit had been done properly it would all be rainbows and unicorns.

Be honest about the situation we are now in, and the rational approaches we can take to improve it… everything else is posturing.

TheGreatDownandOut · Yesterday 19:34
I blame Cameron. Why put such an important decision to a public vote when people can be so easily manipulated.

Me too. People usually vote for change but he was confident that the majority would vote Remain. The referendum did not need to happen.

According to a pp the percentage of voters who are still pro Brexit are well outweighed by remainers so surely it would be a vote winner to support rejoining in parties’ manifestos?

"But this basically boils down to “it’s impossible to prove anything conclusively therefore Brexit can’t be blamed”, which isn’t really how economics works. We can’t rerun history with a control UK that stayed in the EU, so economists use comparative modelling and counterfactuals all the time, including for Covid, inflation, tax policy etc."

I think the discussion on whether predictive economics is worthwhile is a long one. It certainly isn't very successful, at least where the big events are concerned. Bank of England inflation forecasting, prediction of the GFC, I could on.

"The broad consensus from bodies like the OBR, IMF, LSE, NIESR and pretty much most mainstream economists is that Brexit has had a negative impact on trade, investment and productivity. The fact the UK economy didn’t literally collapse doesn’t mean Brexit succeeded, it just means the UK absorbed the damage alongside a load of other global shocks. And people keep shifting the goalposts here because Brexit wasn’t sold as “things will broadly muddle along”. We were repeatedly told things would be better."

I'm not really interested in what the main economic orthodoxy thinks. They have their own agenda, and will perform their analysis to fit their agenda and no doubt form a very convincing case to back up their analysis.

I'm not really interested in fortune telling. I'm only really interested in the data. The data doesn't show that much in my opinion, neither success nor failure (I don't believe I ever claimed Brexit was a success, although many people might claim the political benefits far outweigh the apparently negligible economic changes that have taken place).

So for me neither the prophecies of doom, nor the promise of sunlit uplands has been fulfilled. That doesn't necessarily make Brexit a success, but doesn't make it the certain failure a lot of people seem to believe either in an economic sense.

What I do believe is that there is clear historical evidence that when a country goes through a period of economic re-organisation, there is usually a period of pain (and to be clear I don't believe there is significant evidence of this in the data as a result of Brexit) followed by a period of benefit when the possibilities of the new re-organisation are exploited.

We should now be coming out of the re-organisation, so I think we would be stupid to not see whether or not benefits actually start to occur.

Of course if our GDP does begin to shoot up, it can always be attributed to something other than Brexit. This is the wonder of economics. There is always some other reason to blame that fits in with your political agenda.

We should now be coming out of the re-organisation, so I think we would be stupid to not see whether or not benefits actually start to occur.

I think there's a lot of this let's finish what we started in a big experiment. But the people who didn't want this and don't want to carry on in the experiment haven't really even got a political party to go with.

The phrase 'sunlit uplands' is annoying. I wish people would stop using it. I don't ever remember it being used in the run up to the referendum.

It’s the gift of Boris Johnson and is crafted to the cost of everyone. If it grates, it’s because it jars with the reality

But this is the problem with the argument though. Any evidence Brexit harmed the economy is dismissed as “biased orthodoxy”, while any future growth can be claimed as proof Brexit worked. That’s not really a falsifiable position. And again, the point is not that Britain collapsed into economic ruin. The point is that we were promised Brexit would make us more prosperous, boost trade, reduce bureaucracy and unleash growth. Nearly a decade on, even you’re describing the economic effects as “negligible” and “pretty much the same”. That alone is a long way from what was sold to voters.

In a way it’s like “green shoots”. It is coming, honestly.

https://news.sky.com/video/was-brexit-really-a-catastrophic-mistake-for-the-uk-the-graphs-that-tell-the-story-13545326

Andrea Leadsom and Jacob R-M both used it. It was a common expression to describe how the UK would thrive outside the EU, and used by critics to mock those who thought Brexit was the dawn of a brave new world. TBF, it was, just a more shite world.

Well yes.

When you look at the facts and the facts tell you nothing remarkable happened over the time period then it is hard to come to any fast conclusion about what Brexit has done to the economy because of the complexity of the analysis.

So you won't be surprised to learn that a lot of people aren't convinced by arguments either way. No matter how many TLA are behind them.

We may have been told Brexit will make us richer. We were also told Brexit would make us poorer.

So who was more mis-sold, the voter who voted remain because they wanted to be less dependent on the EU politically but was fearful of the projected economic outcome by Project Fear ?

Or the voter that wanted to remain for political reasons but voted leave because of the promise of large economic benefits ?

There isn't a good claim that either side covered themselves in glory here in my opinion.

@GasPanic Remain had the far more complex argument to get across and failed. Fear was incorrect - reality was. Our trade is obviously harmed and was always going to be. We needed to trade with our near neighbours! It was totally obvious. Yet people let their hearts rule their heads and think of Rule Britannia as we slowly die! The electorate have a very low understanding of economics and are very open to being manipulated. Starmer and Johnson worked this out.

Well they had the Lib Dems in the 2019 election.

Who made no impact whatsoever. That's why all the major parties dropped it from the ticket.

If the major parties view there is enough political capital in it, it will come back.

But the fact it is not coming back tells you something. And even if it does come back, there is no guarantee the party supporting it will fulfill their promise.

Many parties managed to campaign on a Brexit referendum for years but refused to allow that referendum once they were elected. Which ultimately was what led to the success of UKIP.

I think the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour all supported a Brexit referendum at some point during the 90s/00s.

I think it is a side issue for most voters. People will not vote solely on it in a GE.

I know you aren’t talking to me, but I bloody wouldn’t.

I firmly believe that if we tried to rejoin now, we’d be punished for leaving. And we’d be made an example of what happens should any other country decide to chance their arm at any point in the future. We’d be signed up to the Euro before tea time and would lose any ability to opt out of anything. If we think things are bad now, we’d be the whipping boy of the EU. It happened. I think we just need to crack on and make the best of it.

Cameron fucked up royally by offering a referendum. I cannot imagine what he was thinking, other than his decision was based on arrogance and a failure to understand just how many people were completely fed up and feeling like the EU was responsible. Any fool could see that it would have zero impact on illegal immigration, that Farage & co didn’t have the power to give millions to the NHS, and that the benefits we’d have after leaving were largely guesswork. The campaign for remain was woefully inadequate and I think our terms for leaving were agreed by a bunch of bumbling idiots who had too much confidence in their abilities to negotiate.

Apparently some regret it so put it to the electorate as just going over the same things for another decade won’t help. It sounds like the challengers to Starmer will bring it up at GE.

It gets tippoed round because some voters still think it was a good idea and poltican want to win elections and these days those margins are thin so if they avoid talking about it they may still get those votes.

Oh the UK electorate is definitely dumb - 30% think that Reform is the answer and another 20% thinks that the Greens are the answer- so that's roughly half of all voters!

And let's not forget that many voted for Labour on the basis "that they can't do a worse job or a more chaotic job than the Conservatives did".

i don’t know anyone who thinks it was a good dea and everyone seems pretty vocal about that! I’m going through the tedious process of getting my kids Irish passports so they have the freedom to work there. It’s an often discussed topic on shows on Radio 4 so not sure why you think people are generally happy with it?

Cameron massive fucked up - then fucked off.

I think it should have either not been put to public or made it binding so needing a certain majority. Very least a decent remain campaign should have been run.

Instead it's been years of calling voters stupid and uneducated.

I voted remain by the way.

However I am increasingly worried how many now insist not everyone should be allowed to vote as they are too thick look at brexit rather than they may have different veiws and priorties and we need to make better poltical case so our party get support.

I think he was appeasing the anti eurpope bunch in his party and assuming ,(shame he didn’t leave London and ask around the country) that a large ish majority to staywould result and shut the grumbles up.

Unbelievable, isn’t it.

I wonder how many rampant anti Brexiteers live along the SE and south coast