Leaving the EU is still the safer choice – and Boris is the man to make that happen
‘Without the UK at the table, the new European Commission, under Ursula von der Leyen, will pursue faster integration’
Framed at home, I have a chunk of wall from the Vote Leave warroom, which will be familiar to anyone who watched Benedict Cumberbatch’s tour de force, Brexit:
The Uncivil War. It is the piece of plasterboard where Dominic Cummings scrawled our key messages: “Europe Yes, EU No”, “Our money, our priorities”, “Take control” and “Safer choice”. Our campaign successfully argued that, in a vote with no status quo on the ballot paper, Leave was the safest of the two future paths.
This general election also presents voters with only two realistic options. The first is a hung Parliament where Labour re-enters government with the support of the SNP, who will want a referendum on Scottish independence. The second is a Conservative majority and a mandate for the PM to ratify his deal and progress to the future trade talks and his domestic agenda.
A Leave vote overturned via a second referendum, under the first of these scenarios, would massively prolong the uncertainty.
The EU is markedly different from the bloc we campaigned to leave over three years ago. Without the UK at the table, the new European Commission, under Ursula von der Leyen, will pursue faster integration – including revisiting its long-desired aim of tax harmonisation and the phasing out of national vetoes to all EU tax policies.
Brussels has previously attempted introducing a common consolidated tax base, standardisation of VAT, a levy on financial services and a new digital tax. Emboldened by Angela Merkel’s dwindling influence, Emmanuel Macron now favours a joint eurozone budget, the creation of a new EU finance minister role, and a body with oversight of EU-wide economic policy.
And the EU’s increasingly protectionist tendencies were highlighted last month, when the US won the largest arbitration award in World Trade Organisation history against the EU, for illegal subsidies to Airbus. This is the EU we would remain trapped inside with a minority Labour/SNP government.
Whereas a Tory majority would enable Parliament to approve the PM’s deal speedily, allowing our trade negotiators to begin formal trade talks with major economies. Progressing to phase two will give firms the signal they have been waiting for to release the investment they have had to withhold during this political impasse.
On the economic front, weak global growth combined with historically high debt levels worldwide mean we can’t discount the possibility of a global recession in 2020 or 2021. Germany almost slipped into its own recession in the third quarter of this year, owing to falling car sales. The US-China trade war is the most profound challenge to the world economy, with the Chinese economy so far failing to be recharged by stimulus measures. And Brexit uncertainty has been especially harmful to UK business investment and capital spending – the two most direct means to combat a slowdown.
Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell’s doctrinaire approach would turn UK plc into a haggard scarecrow for investors and entrepreneurs, and trigger a new-year contraction in GDP and an inevitable financial crisis. Labour’s agenda would turn back the hard-won economic advancements secured by Margaret Thatcher and hamstring the UK’s financial services sector – a symbol of our country’s innovation, internationalism and influence. And their plans for massive borrowing and debt are merely deferred extra taxes to be paid in future, by the younger voters they claim to support.
In contrast, a business-friendly, tax-cutting government with a strong mandate to deliver on the referendum will be free to build a more enterprising economy that returns more sustainable funding for public services and security for citizens young and old. Boris Johnson brought energy, vision and drive to Vote Leave, and we would not have won the referendum without him. And his optimism as Prime Minister is matched by a proper understanding of business, wealth creation and commerce, and a desire to embrace the opportunities of an independent trade policy.
At the CBI last week, the Prime Minister announced a review of business rates, with a firm aspiration of reducing the tax burden. He also plans to cut National Insurance contributions and increase R&D tax credits to boost the UK’s world-leading manufacturing, professional, scientific and technical services sectors.
On Dec 13, we will find out whether voters have, once again, wisely avoided the treacherously unlucky path, instead embracing not just the safer choice for the country, but an exciting, prosperous future for all.