Both chancellor Jeremy Hunt and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves went to the annual Davos World Economic Forum last week proclaiming that Britain was “open to business”.
These mundane statements of the obvious reminded me of the character in one of Michael Frayn’s ¬novels who had an open mind – “open at the front and open at the back”.
For that is what Brexit has achieved. We spent almost 45 years opening our markets to what is now known as the European Union, adding the considerable benefit of membership of the single market – not least thanks to Margaret Thatcher and Jacques Delors. From the abandonment of monetarism onwards, the emphasis of British economic policy was on attracting overseas investment.
But in one fell swoop – thanks to a wholly unnecessary referendum, founded, alas, on ignorance, prejudice and lies – the Cameron government opened the back door. The single market was designed, from the UK’s point of view, to boost trade with and investment from the EU, but the exit was opened and Britain has suffered.
We are now experiencing the consequence of the bad influence that Thatcherite political economy had on our polity, and the rejection of the good. That is to say: so many of the ills that now so manifestly beset the nation result from the Thatcherite obsession with “¬rolling back the frontiers of the state”, while the economic performance of that same state is now impeded by the rejection of her greatest beneficial contribution to the country – namely membership of the single market. » | William Keegan | Opinion | Sunday, January 21, 2024
