Britain’s woes did not start—and do not end—with Brexit. The country needs a leadership with ideas that rise to the challenges the UK faces today.
Any serious analysis of the UK’s current condition starts with Brexit; and so will the argument that follows. But, as we shall see, Britain’s problems don’t end there—and, indeed, didn’t begin there.
Seven years ago the most famous bus in Britain offered the hope of a brighter future. On its side, in massive letters, it proclaimed: “We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund the NHS instead.”
Kellner is a nonresident scholar at Carnegie Europe, where his research focuses on Brexit, populism, and electoral democracy.
The figure was nonsense, and exposed as such at the time. But as propaganda it was a complete success, and contributed to the 52-48 percent vote to leave the EU.
Today, buyer’s remorse has set in. The latest Ipsos poll finds that just 23 percent say Brexit has been good for Britain, while 54 percent say it has had a negative impact—the widest anti-Brexit margin yet. We should not be surprised. According to the latest research by the Centre for European Reform, an independent think tank, the UK’s economy is now 5.5 percent smaller than it would have been had the UK remained in the EU.
If that were the only drag on Britain’s economy, it would be bad enough. The problem is that it is not. Even if we add in the costs of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, we still do not account fully for the problems facing families throughout the country.
The fundamental truth is that Britain was in trouble well before Brexit, Covid-19, or Ukraine. Consider this verdict from the OECD:
“The United Kingdom (UK) has spent less on infrastructure compared to other OECD countries over the past three decades. The perceived quality of UK infrastructure assets is close to the OECD average but lower than in other G7 countries. Capacity constraints have emerged in some sectors, such as electricity generation, air transport and roads.”
That judgement is not some post-Brexit, post-pandemic moan. It was published in 2015. It tells us not that a healthy economy has been suddenly wounded, but that Brexit has crippled a weak economy further. An analysis by the Financial Times, a paper not noted for left-wing hysteria, recently published a feature under the headline: “Is life in the UK really as bad as the numbers suggest? Yes it is.” Underneath was a secondary headline: “The past 15 years have been a disappointment on a scale we could hardly have imaged.”..
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