OPINION: Five years on, we finally know what Brexit means: a worse deal for everyone – By Polly Toynbee (The Guardian) / June 24 2021
On trade, finance, migration, food standards and more, the UK suffers fresh ignominy on a daily basis
Five years ago today, in the early hours, Britain discovered what it had done – and what had been done to it by the liars, charlatans and rogues who mis-sold Brexit as “taking back control”. The wound is as fresh as ever. Breaking apart political parties and reversing erstwhile red or blue wall seats is a minor matter, but Brexit’s explosive division of the country by social class, geography and a deep sense of personal identity is a lasting injury.
Few have changed their mind: though polls put remain (or return) ahead by a nose, no one wants to be put through that hell again. Brexit is done for the foreseeable future, though a government thriving on national disunity strives to keep it alive with infantile culture wars and “anti-woke” phoney patriotism. Polls give the Conservatives a 14-point lead, as they head into next week’s Batley and Spen byelection. No surprise, for what party in power could dream of a better boast than this: the vaccines are genuinely bestowing the gift of staying alive on every single citizen. And Britain is out ahead of other European countries: pollsters tell me voters sincerely (though unjustly) believe that had we remained in the EU, we couldn’t have had our own programme. Despite EU vaccinators catching up, and the UK having more people dead and more debt than they do, Covid is still a convenient cover.
Yet barely a day goes by without further proofs of Brexit’s damage, some of it now forcing its way into the Tory press. This week, pigeon fanciers are barred from having their birds participate in cross-Channel races by new rules. Less niche is the alarming 17% rise in food prices: Ian Wright, of the Food and Drink Federation, tells me Brexit costs and obstructions have sent commodity prices soaring, and those are now working their way on to the shelves. The unexpected £2bn fall in UK food and drink exports to the EU in just the first quarter of this year is, Wright tells me, “no teething problem, but very real and sustained. Smaller firms have stopped exporting”, overwhelmed by the new obstacles. The government may turn a permanent blind eye to import checks starting next week: “But that soon gets dangerous. When no one checks, who knows if imported food is what it says on the tin, and not, say, horse meat?”
Financial services are migrating to the EU: by March, Brexit had already driven away an estimated £1.3 tn of assets and jobs. By April, more than 440 finance firms had fled, taking 10% of the UK’s financial sector assets, worth a staggering £900bn, while foreign investment subsides.
CONTINUE > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/24/five-years-brexit-calamity-uk
