03 May 2023

LSE's Kinnock: Lessons from seven lean years of Brexit

Almost seven years on from the Brexit referendum, there remains uncertainty over the future UK-EU relationship. Reflecting on the lessons, Neil Kinnock argues there remains a clear case for the UK being an economic, political, social, scientific and cultural part of the Europe of the future.

It is now six years and eleven months since the Brexit referendum. Of the 52% who voted to leave, it is clear that some wanted to get out of the EU at any cost, but a much larger number were convinced that departure could and would come at little or no cost. After 83 months, it’s time to take stock.

It’s now three years and six months since a government was elected with the cardinal commitment to “get Brexit done” and three years since the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) to achieve that came into effect. Since then, arrangements to complete controls on imports into the UK from the EU have (thankfully) been unilaterally postponed four times by the government because of complexities and a lack of capacity. So they haven’t “got Brexit done”.

But, meanwhile, Brexit will not be “done” for some years yet. Under the TCA and Withdrawal Agreement, between now and 2027 there will be expiries and deadlines, innovations, increases and decreases in areas including financial services, the regulation of electric vehicle components, personal data, chemicals, fisheries and energy co-operation. And, in 2025, the TCA can be reviewed.

After 42 months, it’s time to take stock. In doing that, I apologise in advance for using several figures. Some will be familiar, some you might have intelligently assumed. The scale of others will surprise you. Together, these details – which are far from exhaustive – record some of “the real bills for the bungled Tory Brexit”.

I use those words very deliberately. First, because the “real bills” are huge and rising – and they are political as well as economic, cultural as well as commercial. Second, because identifying them is not “remoaning or “bregretting” by an EU pensioner, it is public interest information from a British grandfather. Third, because it puts the blame for the costs, losses, disadvantages and disruption where it belongs – on the governments of the last 81 months, not on the voters…

A bungled Brexit

The vote to Leave was the rough justice of plebiscitary democracy. Since that vote, the dimension and depth of the woeful effects of Brexit – of breaking away from our largest and nearest friction-free market and source of supply, absconding from political influence, abandoning regional and social support – have been disabling. And they all stem from one source: they are the result of the inveterate bungling of governments....

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