A new campaign to sell Brexit is needed
Yesterday, Donald Trump said that America and the UK were working on “a very, very big” trade deal, a deal that will be done “very, very quickly”. The president is known for hyperbole and there were, of course, no details, but this is exactly the kind of post-Brexit scenario that the British Government should be working towards – and on a global scale.
Unfortunately, the Government has not been doing this. Since the election it has been rudderless and chaotic, allowing opponents of Brexit to dominate the public conversation. These refuseniks have been able to convey the impression that Brexit itself is now in doubt, or at least that Britain’s position is so enfeebled that only an extremely long and potentially permament transition is necessary. Labour and pro-Remain forces in Parliament threaten to undermine the Repeal Bill, the legislative device necessary for Brexit to happen, and the CBI protests that Britain must stay in the single market indefinitely – an unnecessary and wrongheaded idea. All this has to be countered by a serious and concerted pro-Brexit fightback. It is time for a reboot.
The argument for Brexit will not be won in a single battle but waged over several campaigns as part of an ongoing war. First, we need a new Brexit movement outside of the Tory government. Some of the seasoned campaigners who won the referendum need to be rehired and a large organisation created to constantly and forcefully put the intelligent case for a pro-growth Brexit.
Second, Theresa May’s relaunch speech next week must be long on detail and usher in a new era of much improved communications. There needs to be regular updates on exactly what kind of Brexit the Government is fighting for and on its current state of thinking, along with numerous publicly available technical documents explaining exactly how everything will be practicable.
Third, the outreach to business needs to be intensified. The economy is slowing, for now, so the Government must redouble its efforts to explain how it will design a Brexit compatable with maximum economic liberalism. Sympathetic and realistic business leaders should be enlisted, both to make the case for Brexit and to communicate to the Government what they need. The Chancellor must also urgently begin work on a pro-growth, supply-side programme designed to help those parts of the economy that are being affected by the current slowdown or that have required re-energising for a very long time, such as the housing market.
The pessimism coming from those who still cannot accept last year’s referendum is miserable and wrong. Mr Trump’s endorsement of a new trade relationship between London and Washington acknowledges the fact that the UK is a global powerhouse – and it’s not just the US that seeks collaboration.
Last week the EU excitedly announced a trade deal with Japan, but all that was actually unveiled was an agreement to talk. Speaking to the BBC, the Japanese ambassador to the UK said that it took more than four years to nail down the principles of an EU deal and will take yet more time to hammer out the detail. It is conceivable that a deal between Tokyo and London, which the ambassador implied ought to be straightforward, could be concluded before one with Brussels. Switzerland took just two years to do this, which underscores an important fact: bilateral trade deals are a lot easier than multilateral ones.
The militant Remainers claim that leaving the EU limits our economic opportunities, but the opposite is true: we will be liberated to pursue free trade. This is the argument we need to hear both from politicians and those with real world experience. In order to seize the chance to become a more powerful, richer nation, Eurosceptics must revive the dynamic politics of last year’s compelling referendum campaign.