Nine years on…
June 23rd, 2016. The ill-fated, ill-timed, unnecessary, unwanted United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. The referendum that PM David Cameron did not have to hold. The referendum that he and his advisors were so confident that they would win that they did not prepare properly. The referendum that represented a different type of vote to the one that the majority of British citizens were used to. The referendum that millions of voters used as a protest vote against the government. The referendum that was swayed in part by voter manipulation and lies.
Nine years on and five years after having left the EU, the UK is poorer in every sense. It is accepted by economists and the Office for Budget Responsibility that Brexit has created an annual loss to the UK of 4% of GDP, which translates into a loss of around £40bn a year in tax revenue.
A new YouGov poll shows that 56% of voters think it was wrong for Britain to vote to leave the EU. The key findings are as follows:
- 56% think it was wrong for Britain to vote to leave the EU
- Only 31% continue to say Brexit was the right decision
- Two thirds of Leave voters (68%) still believe they made the right choice
- 61% say that Brexit has been more of a failure than a success
- 88% blame the Conservative Party for Brexit not being a success
These figures hardly demonstrate a passionate wish to rejoin the EU, but it is always worth remembering the ongoing damage Brexit is wreaking. Here are two examples I came across recently – there are of course many others:
- Brexit was supposed to ‘free us from the bureaucracy of Brussels and its red tape’. Life was going to be easier for businesses. Reality check: it has created nearly two billion extra pieces of paperwork for businesses – enough to wrap around the world 15 times. If they were all laid end to end they would reach to the moon and halfway back again, an analysis of research by the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade has found.
- Brexit was supposed to leave the UK able to make its own rules. Olivier Picard, Chairman of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), believes that ‘lives are at risk like never before… with the loss of EU-wide medicine safety checks fuelling online sales. Before Brexit, all legitimate sites selling prescription medicine were monitored and publicly listed. There’s no longer a trusted way for patients to distinguish between a regulated pharmacy and an illegal operation – because a lot of the rules we used for years, around the supply of medicine and the identification of fake medicine, were introduced by the European Union.’
The EU/UK summit in May was a baby step back in the right direction, in that agreement was reached regarding the ending of routine border checks in food imports and exports, but it is a long way from tariff-free trade with our largest market.
Nine years and counting; my fervent wish is that a resurgence of common sense will lead us back into full membership of the EU, but I’m not taking bets.