Boris foolish to dismiss Brexit worries

TWO years on from the referendum, Brexit is at last approaching its final decisive stages, after what sometimes seemed like endless debate. The legislation has passed through Parliament, the date of departure is set, and the issue goes before an EU summit this week.

As is quite proper, the leaders of the country have implemented the will of the people expressed in the vote to leave. But much important detail remains unresolved, even vague. And it is in the nature of tough negotiations over issues of substance between powerful parties, that most of the really big decisions are taken at the very end of the process.

And this is why major British industries and businesses such as Airbus and BMW are now raising the possible difficulties they may be facing.

It is still far from clear to these wealth-producers that they are going to be able to continue with activities which involve manufactured goods crossing and recrossing frontiers, often on tight ‘just in time’ timetables.

No doubt, there are other important national issues at stake. But no serious country can afford to neglect employers, or to treat them with contempt.

In the light of this, the reported remarks of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who is said by European Union diplomats to have dismissed the concerns of business with a four-letter expletive, are dispiriting and frightening.

If you scorn business you scorn the jobs it creates and the people who do them, and you scorn the prosperity, social stability and badly needed tax revenue which it provides. You scorn the education which it requires and supports, the purpose it gives to the lives of those who work in it, the stimulus to science and invention which it gives.

Of course there are other worries, other concerns, from the NHS to fisheries, to the European Court of Justice. But every government must look after the material wellbeing and economic viability of the country.

Sometimes it seems as if the more fervent Brexiteers are in the grip of a form of idealism so overheated that they forget the ordinary and vital details of life and politics. Perhaps this is why their response to the reasoned doubts of successful cross-border business is little more than impatient bombast, mingled with untestable and extravagant claims about the supposedly bright future which lies ahead for a Britain outside the customs union and the Single Market.

This is not what Conservatives are supposed to do. Conservativism is about preserving what is known to work, while reforming things which do not work. It is also about tolerant respect for opponents, a willingness to accept that they too are motivated by good intentions.

There is no doubt that there are many parts of the EU which did not work well for this country, and which we can now cast aside. This is why so many voted to leave and why we will leave. But it does not provide a blank cheque for rash radicalism.

Nor does it license Ministers, however clever they think they are, to shove aside responsible and reasonable concerns with lavatory-wall language.