Now that the process of leaving the EU has formally begun, I have been musing on the links between government and economic performance and the implications for the future of the EU and the UK. We have decided to leave the EU primarily for reasons of governance, that is to say, the desire to “take back control”. Nevertheless, this can potentially have decided economic effects.

Most Brexiteers do not believe they will be negative. On the contrary. Yet it seems that many European politicians and officials confidently believe that the UK has acted profoundly against its economic self-interest. Sometimes, they even seem to believe that, isolated and impoverished, the UK will barely manage to stay afloat at all. So they see Brexit as a futile but costly political gesture.

Our Remoaner MPs seem to believe something similar. It is amusing, although also troubling, to hear many of them on the Left, who have spent a lifetime trying to make things more difficult for British business, and whose closest brush with the harsh realities of finance is filling in their own expense forms, bewailing Britain’s fate if we don’t have “full access” to the single market – whatever they think that means.

But why are both domestic Remoaners and continental opponents of Brexit so pessimistic about our prospects? I think the answer is largely to do with their conception of the government/economy nexus. Many seem genuinely to believe that prosperity flows from the fountain pens of the politicians, officials and diplomats who make laws and sign agreements.

And:

Over the last 80 years, there have been only six countries in the whole of Europe that have escaped invasion or government by dictatorship – Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and the UK. It is striking that the first three of these countries were neutral during the war while the fourth and fifth were part of the British Empire. They weren’t under dictatorship but neither were they normal democracies.

This history of recent political and national trauma explains why many European countries have been unperturbed by the cession of so much sovereignty to Brussels. Their own political cultures are riddled with the consequences of their troubled past. We stand out as not suffering from this problem.

As we are about to recover our independence, we now have the opportunity both to breathe new life into our own democracy and, through better governance, to improve the performance of our economy. I don’t see much sign of either of these things developing across the Channel.

David Fuller's view

I think Roger Bootle’s points are very well taken. 

I also think that most EU bureaucrats and government officials cannot believe or accept that their 60-year project is failing, especially as the USA provided so much aid, encouragement and praise, at least at the beginning.  Those same EU officials will also be aware that they are not popular in their home countries.  They are also afraid that other EU countries will enact their own versions of Brexit when they see that the UK is actually better off under its own sovereign control. 

Here is a PDF of Roger Bootle’s column.