Ross Clark
a year ago when it was already clear that the Treasury had been hilariously wrong, archRemainers were still foreseeing dark times. “Now the prospect comes into view that the Remainers’ Project Fear might just have been true after all. They just got the timing wrong,” wrote Simon Jenkins in the Guardian in January last year.
Replying to an FT survey of economists in the same month, former Monetary Policy Committee member David Blanchflower predicted: “My expectation is that growth will slow to below one per cent.” More than three in five of the 122 economists surveyed turned out to be unduly pessimistic and one in five shared Blanchflower’s view that economic growth would be less than one per cent.
The wonder is that the Remain lobby – which accounts for a majority of economists and government officials – has not caused a recession simply through talking down the economy. Sentiment is a huge influence on the economy – not for nothing did FD Roosevelt say in the depths of the Great Depression that Americans had “nothing to fear except fear itself”.
I suspect there are Remainers who would be privately overjoyed if we were in recession – happy to suffer financial pain purely for the joy of having been proved right. That they have failed to provoke a recession is an indication of how badly they are losing the argument. While they continue to shout ever louder the country is no longer listening to them.
Much to the disappointment of Remainers there has been no discernible shift in opinion on Brexit since the referendum. One poll published last month claimed a 10 per cent majority in favour of staying in the EU but that was conducted between December 5 and 8 – the days between the DUP’s rejection of the Irish border arrangements and a deal being struck by Theresa May in Brussels. In any case, polls before the referendum consistently indicated a Remain win. Out in the real world, away from the fantasies of arch-Remainers, several things are clear. First, the vast majority of the country, along with MPs, have accepted the result of the referendum and are preparing for Britain to leave the EU in March next year.
SECOND, the ongoing Remain campaign has damaged itself by overstating the economic consequences of a vote to Leave. It is still pumping out scare stories easily debunked – such as the claim that 10,000 EU nationals who were working in the NHS have left. While it is true that 10,000 EU nationals have left jobs, 13,000 have joined.
Third, while the economic news is not universally good – real incomes fell last year as pay rises failed to keep pace with inflation – the general direction is positive. This is especially true in the case of manufacturing exports, growing at their fastest in 30 years.
Moreover, while net migration has fallen there has been a rise in EU nationals coming to Britain to take up job offers. This is exactly what we wanted – a fall in low-skilled migrants who end up on benefits, while our labour market is open to those who will contribute to the economy.
We will not be able to leave the EU without any disturbance. But most of us see that there is every reason to feel optimistic about the outcome.
‘No shift on Brexit since the referendum’