The Brexit reality A Key Opportunity for European Reform

Editor: Vladimir Bajic | Tactical Investor

Brexit reality

Brexit reality; lies and distortion of the truth?

Of course, alas, distortions in the British media’s reporting of anything to do with “Brussels” are not confined to the Telegraph. This is the weekend of the Ambrosetti forum, at the Villa d’Este, Lake Como. Here, two years ago, I witnessed a speech by Barnier that was thoroughly reasonable but widely misreported in the British media – including, I regret to say, by the BBC.

When I returned to London I could hardly believe the way Barnier had been reported. The theme was that the rest of the EU were out to punish us. What he actually said was that there would be consequences, for us and them, if we went ahead with Brexit.

By the way, I have no idea what the outcome of this farce is going to be, but I do know that many of us Remainers regret that over the years we ourselves were not more positive about the advantages of belonging to a powerful customs union, with more than 70 trade agreements, and a single market that has brought many good things to our daily lives, to say nothing of all the environmental and safety benefits, as well as freedom of movement – often confused with the separate issue of immigration. Full Story

Brexit Reality; It’s become a game of blame each other now

It encourages a public (many of whom are understandably fed up with the process and the game playing – on all sides – of the political class) to believe that ‘closure’ might be just weeks away. But this is completely spurious. The reality of ‘no deal’ is that it would leave all the most intractable issues about our future relationship with the EU unresolved, and leave it unclear whether there would even be a subsequent process to resolve them. It would, in other words, be just the start, not the end.

This era perhaps now bears more similarities with the gold standard era – with its free capital mobility, its open trade, and its staggering complacency – than any other. That era came to an abrupt and violent end with world war one and its key features could not be resuscitated for decades. Many sage figures bearing considerable similarity to our current political leadership confidently pronounced in the early 20^th century that conflict was now completely impossible between developed democratic states, given their economic interconnectedness. We know how that turned out.

Dani Rodrik, writing both of the gold standard era and our own, coined the term ‘impossibility theorem’: that democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible; and that we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three, simultaneously and in full. That is, in my view, profoundly right. And it is the trilemma at the core – or rather, it should be at the core – of our Brexit debate Full Story

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