So, Bojo decided it would be a great idea to reach out to "Remoaners" and unify the country behind his dream of a deregulated free trade utopia. How did that go ?
The speech brought with it a litany of ludicrous suggestions. The ‘Boris bridge’ to France saw an unexpected return from the policy graveyard, while Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown were co-opted into a narrative about excessive European Union regulations.
Even a crass reference to ‘cheapo flights to stag parties’ was thrown in for good measure. All of this, however, was designed to distract from the speech’s real message: the denunciation of the single market, a suggestion that cutting ourselves off from Europe is somehow internationalist, and a reiteration of the ‘take back control’ narrative that so divided the country in 2016.
The argument against the single market continues to make little economic sense. Johnson paid no attention to the fact that two-thirds of our trade consists of components, rather than finished products, and therefore to leave the single market would cause huge disruption to the pan-European supply chains in which the United Kingdom participates. Big industrial companies, often based in poorer parts of the UK – like Airbus, which employs 11,000 people in north Wales and Bristol, and Nissan, which employs 7,000 in Sunderland – are liable to bear the brunt of a hard Brexit.
The single market makes British industry more competitive, allowing our manufacturers to work without the barriers to trade that would make component manufacturing so much more expensive for foreign businesses.
He suggested that our relatively high defence spending meant we would always be integral to Europe, and that our wider internationalism as a nation – there are more Britons living in Australia than in the EU – would help us weather Brexit. In doing so, he ignored the broader point – that the world looks at Brexit and sees a nation in retreat.
By ending freedom of movement and attempting to distance ourselves from some of our most steadfast allies, we inevitably look narrow-minded and isolationist. Johnson forgets that Europe has never constrained our ability to act as a nation on the global stage.
He claimed that it would be ‘disastrous’ to reverse Brexit, citing ‘feelings of betrayal’. He conveniently forgot, of course, that the 16-point margin in favour of a referendum on the final terms of Brexit is a result of the feelings of betrayal created by the ‘Leave’ campaign.
He failed. Badly.
http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2018/0 ... ng-out-to/