Yahoo News Voters still don’t want to listen to the hard facts on Brexit
Your leader on Saturday suggested that British voters are now as well briefed on the key Brexit issues as they could be to make a sensible decision about Brexit. However, your words – “Most of the population know as much as they will ever wish to know about trade policy” – point paradoxically to the opposite.
In spite of all the debates, all the facts and figures in the public domain, polls suggest that only a very small proportion of Brexit voters have actually changed their minds. This is because they were never primarily interested in the economic issues, and the clever “Project Fear” mantra excused them from bothering to listen to the overwhelming economic case for staying within the EU, even when it was presented by the most independent and authoritative specialists.
This is not to condemn the mass of the population as ignorant; many highly educated people have also been moved primarily by deeply felt emotions against the European project, blinding them to the poorer, weaker Britain that Brexit will almost certainly deliver in due course.
In a fascinating recent BBC2 programme, What Britain buys and sells in a day, Ed Balls explained, in visits to factories and ports, the complexities of just-in-time manufacture in the automotive industry, and the astonishing speed with which parts and materials imports and final product exports are rushed through ports such as Southampton. It depicted the closeness of our symbiotic relationship with partners and suppliers in continental Europe and the finely balanced logistics that underpin it.
The same considerations apply equally to other key British industries, such as aerospace and pharmaceuticals, on which the wealth of the nation depends. This is just one example. There are other problematic economic issues raised by Brexit, but Brexiteers just don’t want to think about it.
Gavin Turner
Gunton, Norfolk
We’ve been here before
Karl Marx once said: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy and second as farce.” The scenes of protesters in London on Saturday, with flags unfurled and placards hoisted, are a vindication of all those who feel passionately about Britain remaining in the EU. However, this reminds me of a similar public protest in London in 2003, against the British involvement in the war on Iraq. Politicians ignored people’s advice on that issue at their peril; the war went ahead with perfidious repercussions. Is this march any different from its predecessors?
Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London NW2
Misogyny is alive and well in the Tory party
I’m no fan of Theresa May’s party and her tenure at the Home Office was not something this country should be proud of. However, it’s difficult not to see the appalling Conservative Party behaviour over the last three years as misogynistic.
It seems that Boris Johnson has presented a lesser version of May’s deal, having put in just a few days’ work (if you discount the days spent touring the country and cheap photo opportunities with a puppy) compared to May’s hard graft. Misogyny is alive and well in the Johnson/Cummings/Rees-Mogg era. A plague on them.
Beryl Wall
London W4
It’s good enough for Northern Ireland. Why not us?
If Dominic Raab thinks Boris has negotiated a “cracking deal for Northern Ireland” because it will keep frictionless access to the single market, then why – if it is so good – is the rest of the UK being denied this great benefit? And if the deal is so good then why too is Sajid Javid refusing to publish the government’s economic impact assessment on that agreement, believed to show a £130bn hit to the economy? These people just can’t be trusted.
G Forward
Stirling
Pie in the sky
Poor old Boris Johnson. He wanted his pie in the sky. Instead he got his pie squarely in his face, and egg on his chin too. And now he must go cap in hand to those pesky bureaucrats in Brussels. I wonder, is there a big ditch on the way – and is Dominic Cummings going along too?
Robert Boston
Kings Hill
We still don’t have the facts
The problem with Brexit is that the people do not get the full facts. For when you look into the text of the Brexit deal, all other negotiated “free trade” deals agreed from around the world gives the EU powers to stop any trade deal if it is disadvantageous and detrimental to the EU. Therefore we have not achieved “free trade” after Brexit with this agreement unless the EU allows those deals, specifically where the UK has no economic advantage over the EU. So I say make ready for challenge after challenge by the EU under this agreement, and where trade deal after trade deal will be totally open to prolongation, and stopped if the EU sees that they are economically disadvantaged – and they will.
But added to this, primacy will still be given to EU law, tying all other trade agreements ultimately with the EU mandate. And that is the crux of the whole matter, for whoever controls the law, controls everything.
Dr David Hill
Huddersfield
Climate currency
In the context of the climate emergency, contemporary economics is becoming obsolete. In order to mitigate the disastrous effects of climate breakdown with appropriate policy and action, politicians need to know the real value to society of human activity. Currently, the economics profession does not evaluate this. It is blinkered by the metrics of financial transactions and does not consider the quality of experienced outcomes.
Orthodox economics is tied to the ideology of a market economy whereby value is determined by the consumer and, to some extent, governments. What is urgently required is the measurement of this missing dimension: the degree of benefit or harmfulness to humanity of each and every economic activity. This would change perception and have a bearing on present dominant financial value.
Once known, politicians would be able to identify those activities that have negative or mixed outcomes that could be most quickly substituted with alternative, beneficial ones, and direct their action accordingly.
Geoff Naylor
Winchester
Visitor’s welcome
I suppose Janet Street-Porter thinks she’s being smart, but to describe people on the underground as “dumb tourists blocking doors” is truly offensive, not to say unwelcoming.
I assume she is not interested in the contribution visitors make to the economy and presumably, when she visits other countries, she couldn’t possibly be considered “dumb” to local habits.
Dr Anthony Ingleton
Sheffield
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If Brexit was a drug trial, scientists like me would have stopped it
