Reflecting on the depressing economic prospects facing this country and many parts of the world, I am reminded of a line in PG Wodehouse’s Much Obliged, Jeeves.
The narrator – that Boris Johnson-like figure Bertie Wooster – sinks back in his chair, face buried in hands. “It is always my policy to look on the bright side,” he says, “but in order to do this you have to have a bright side to look on …”
Well, in my view, the result of last weekend’s French presidential election offers a peep of a bright side. The concerns about the rise of the extreme right have been well aired, and there has been plenty of commentary about the fractured nature of the French polity and the mountain of problems confronting a re-elected Emmanuel Macron, who, it is to be hoped, has learned the lessons of his past mistakes.
But to read a lot of the commentary, a visitor from outer space could be forgiven for concluding that Macron had actually lost the election, instead of winning by a greater margin than had been predicted. As Francisco, one of the sentinels, says in the opening scene of Hamlet: “For this relief much thanks.”
Although Madame Le Pen had softened her anti-European stance for electoral reasons, there was much at stake. After Brexit, there had been a great deal of speculation about Frexit. And although the idea of France, a founding and pivotal member, leaving the EU had been formally dropped, it was obvious that Le Pen’s programme would have come pretty close to leaving the EU in all but name.
As more and more citizens of this country are realising, leaving the EU is not such a great idea. In common with other economies, this country is experiencing the inevitable and damaging losses to national – and therefore individual – income from a sharp deterioration in what economists call the terms of trade. This is the ratio of export to import prices, which is reflecting the sharp increase in the cost of imported energy, grain and other essentials as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.
On top of this we have Brexit; the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe calculates that the trade barriers we have imposed upon ourselves through the folly of leaving the EU have directly raised food prices in this country by 6%. Meanwhile, thanks to the arduous task of coping with all the red tape resulting from Brexit, the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance finds that trading relationships between UK and EU companies have declined by a third since the introduction of the EU-UK trade deal in January 2021. This largely reflects the blows to small- and medium-sized firms, which are supposed to be the lifeblood of the entrepreneurial economy to which this benighted government is supposed to aspire.
Moreover, having seen the difference between the promise and reality of Brexit, the public seems to be having a serious rethink. The campaign group European Movement UK has recently conducted a poll which suggests, in the words of its chair, Lord Adonis, that 98% “do not want to leave the EU in its entirety”.
The phrase “in its entirety” obviously leaves all sorts of scope for argument. There has been much discussion among those who were Remainers about what sort of relationship can be developed with our former partners. But do we really have to go back to the 1950s, when alternative relationships were experimented with as substitutes until it became obvious that the only sensible thing was to apply to join properly?
I was surprised to find my colleague, the estimable Rafael Behr, dismissing those who wish to rejoin the EU as “only a fanatical minority”. I can tell him that in my experience there is a growing number of these “fanatics” around, and they hardly constitute a minority. And I was especially struck by the remark of the novelist Julian Barnes, when in a recent interview he described himself firmly as a “Rejoiner”, not a Remainer.
Back to President Macron. He thinks Brexit is crazy and would surely be in favour of acknowledging the UK’s historic mistake and inviting us back. The Ukraine crisis assuredly underlines the importance of his vision of a stronger and more united Europe.
It would help if the Tory party came to its senses, ejected Johnson and did not replace him with another Brexiter – or at least chose a former Brexiter who had seen the error of his or her ways. In Guys and Dolls, the ensemble sings: “But the passengers they knew right from wrong/For the people all said” – to Nicely-Nicely Johnson – “Sit down, sit down, you’re rocking the boat.”
In the case of the Johnson we have suffered for far too long, it is surely time to throw him overboard.
