For such a momentous change, the hurdle was set remarkably low – a bare majority in one referendum. But the deed is done and the divisions and uncertainty it has created can’t be wished away.
Foremost among the voter grievances reflected in the outcome was the weakening of British control of immigration. Britain can regain all the control it wants, but at what economic cost? It will not get to jettison the bits of the EU construct it doesn’t like while keeping the bits it likes.
The victors portray the result as a great economic opportunity, as if the UK economy was a caged tiger at last liberated from its continental captors. This is nonsense. Britain’s days as an economic tiger are more than a century behind it. The reality is that as a mature economy burdened by a huge welfare state the UK has done well out of integration within Europe – now an economic area larger than North America in population and production – notwithstanding those irksome regulations.
The EU is flawed, does infuriating things and needs reform, but the setbacks on Britain’s road to modernisation and greater prosperity since it joined the EEC in 1973 were mostly made in Westminster, not Brussels.
Could the British economy do better outside the EU? Economic openness is in the British DNA, so perhaps eventually it could be better off, after bearing all the costs of changing the model of international economic engagement it has been locked into for 43 years – but even then a great many things beyond Britain’s control would have to go right for it, and its own politics would have to allow it to make all the right policy choices in the things it does control.
My money would be on the assessments by HM Treasury and many other organisations and economic experts, that there will be a permanent cost of several percent of UK GDP. Those studies are a realistic assessment of the price Brits will pay to regain control of their border – not, as suggested by some on the leave side, a conspiracy of the establishment to deceive the masses.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > Brits will pay high price to regain control
Brits will pay high price to regain control
Foremost among the voter grievances reflected in the outcome was the weakening of British control of immigration. Britain can regain all the control it wants, but at what economic cost? It will not get to jettison the bits of the EU construct it doesn’t like while keeping the bits it likes.
The victors portray the result as a great economic opportunity, as if the UK economy was a caged tiger at last liberated from its continental captors. This is nonsense. Britain’s days as an economic tiger are more than a century behind it. The reality is that as a mature economy burdened by a huge welfare state the UK has done well out of integration within Europe – now an economic area larger than North America in population and production – notwithstanding those irksome regulations.
The EU is flawed, does infuriating things and needs reform, but the setbacks on Britain’s road to modernisation and greater prosperity since it joined the EEC in 1973 were mostly made in Westminster, not Brussels.
Could the British economy do better outside the EU? Economic openness is in the British DNA, so perhaps eventually it could be better off, after bearing all the costs of changing the model of international economic engagement it has been locked into for 43 years – but even then a great many things beyond Britain’s control would have to go right for it, and its own politics would have to allow it to make all the right policy choices in the things it does control.
My money would be on the assessments by HM Treasury and many other organisations and economic experts, that there will be a permanent cost of several percent of UK GDP. Those studies are a realistic assessment of the price Brits will pay to regain control of their border – not, as suggested by some on the leave side, a conspiracy of the establishment to deceive the masses.
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