Brexit not 'a disaster' shock

 The Graun clings to credibility (and readability, although I wouldn't pay for it) by continuing to employ the blessed L Elliott who defies them with pieces like this:

I’ve got news for those who say Brexit is a disaster: it isn’t. That’s why rejoining is just a pipe dream

 any successful [rejoining] campaign would need to do two things: convince voters that the UK economy had become a basket case since the Brexit vote and that life for those still in the club was so much better.

Neither criterion has been met. Britain’s economic performance in the seven years since 2016 has been mediocre but not the full-on horror show that was prophesied by the remain camp during the weeks leading up to the referendum. The doomsday scenario – crashing house prices (falls of up to 18% could result, warned then chancellor George Osborne) and mass unemployment – never happened.

there have been signs of the economy adjusting. Nissan’s decision to invest more than £1bn in its Sunderland plant with the intention of building three new electric car models is an example of that. Microsoft’s £2.5bn investment in the growing UK AI sector is another.

That’s not to say that the process is complete. Brexit provided opportunities to do things differently but those opportunities have so far not been exploited

Covid-19 scarred the economy deeply and the long-term costs of ill health and children missing out on school will grow over time. Even so, Brexit Britain has recovered more strongly than either France or Germany from the pandemic. Relative performance matters. The rejoin camp tends not to focus on what is happening on the other side of the Channel, and it is not hard to see why.... Over a prolonged period, not just since the arrival of Covid-19, the EU’s economic performance has been woeful.

A number of factors are to blame for the EU’s economic woes. The one-size-fits-all nature of the single currency is one; the lack of a federal budget to match in size that of the US is another; the adherence to neoliberal economic ideas– such as tough controls on the size of budget deficits – a third. The problems go right to the heart of the EU.

at the same time as its economy has struggled, the number of migrants has increased. One result has been the rise of aggressively rightwing politics...Something has gone seriously awry when politics in four of the founding members of the European project have turned so ugly....Sweden and Finland have both seen the emergence of ultranationalist rightwing parties....Britain is one of the relatively few European countries to buck this trend.

Throughout the whole campaign, a major silence was maintained on what  the EU could offer exactly, at least once the original Great Lie was nailed -- that the EU made a net contribution to the UK, generously funding community renewal projects all over the country. The myth remained that the EU was the source of economic prosperity, but even the Europeans doubted that could continue. 

 

That left only the romantic myth of 'Europe' as some blessed community based on British cultural cringe and memories of nice holidays.That might still energise apparent 'support' among the UK young for rejoining, although even el Graun is sceptical that it will lead to any actual politics.