Knuckleheads across the spectrum though
John Longworth
At the beginning of 2015 I was head of the national business group, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). Anticipating that the then PM, David Cameron would seek to negotiate a new relationship between the U.K. and EU, I had the BCC set out in an open letter to Mr Cameron the minimum business requirements for a successful negotiation. I also set about an extensive research and reporting programme for our BCC economists and researchers around the pros and cons of Brexit; national economics, business performance, access to finance and the relative merits of migration, the latter apparently assiduously ignored by government. I also visited with the embassies and High Commissions of many EU countries and key Commonwealth nations.
Within the BCC network was a significant tranche of businesses in favour of exiting the EU, in fact a later survey by the BCC (after I had left), conducted around Easter 2016, showed that the only category of business where a majority favoured remaining in the EU was those that exported to the EU. This group was around 13% of GDP and around 8% of all businesses. Every other category of business member indicated a majority in favour of Brexit.
By the beginning of 2016 I felt well equipped to speak with some authority regarding Brexit.
I had just returned from Brussels where a large group of very senior EU officials had demanded to know why we were allowing non graduates to vote in the referendum (yes, seriously!) and had written an open letter once again to the PM saying that his proposed compromise fell far short of our expectations. Mr Cameron had just stepped off the plane from his visit with Frau Merkel and had declared that he had in his hand a piece of paper …
At the beginning of March the BCC had its national conference, attended not just by business but by all of the national press, TV and radio broadcasters.
That morning I had the pleasure of a very early start on the BBC “wake up to money” radio show where I had said, heartfelt, that the then project fear had reached absurd, biblical proportions, so much so that I would not be surprised to hear the Agriculture Minister declare that leaving the EU would result in a plague of Frogs, the Health Minister a plague of boils and the Met Office that it would rain for a hundred years as a consequence.
No sooner had I finished the broadcast than it resulted in an abusive call from a no 10 aparacik whose dialogue made “in the Thick of it” look tame by comparison.
This made me even more determined to tell the truth at the conference. As it happens, the truth amounted to a declaration that Britain could do well outside the EU. So astonishing was this revelation to the serried ranks of the establishment and therefore so newsworthy, that it made every newspaper and TV channel for days afterwards, very much to the chagrin of no 10 who harangued the poor President of the BCC to have me terminated.
Not quite Putin like but enough that before the weekend was out I had resigned and negotiated a no compensation exit so that I would be immediately free to campaign for Vote Leave as head of the Business Council and to sit with Boris and the team on the Campaign Committee. For me it was now my business and personal.
It did result in a further four years of campaigning for a proper Brexit, including as Chair of Leave means Leave and leading the famous March to leave from Sunderland which concluded with a glorious, sunlit rally in Parliament Square.
On this fifth anniversary of the vote to leave the EU, the Independent Business Network (IBN) representing family owned and/or run enterprises- 85% of U.K. businesses- which incidentally I Chair, has produced a short report reminding us of the claims made by our institutions as to what would happen if we were to vote to leave and which have been proved wrong, and often spectacularly wrong as in fact the opposite has occurred.
The CBI, the International Monetary Fund, the Treasury, the Bank of England and many others were all wrong through incompetence (if charitable), through the pull of vested interest (more likely) or because of pre conceived political prejudice. Whatever the reason that they claimed mass unemployment would ensue, shortages occur, the inability to make trade deals for decades, a collapse of the pound, an exodus from the city, a risk of world war three and of course, the emergence of super gonorrhoea (yes, that was one of the claims), it was not believed by the majority of the electorate.
The sad fact is that this sorry episode has resulted in distrust of those very institutions which is a bad thing in a cohesive, functioning society. Even sadder, many of the culprits are still peddling mis information.
What it does say however, is that people and politicians, have no reason to take as indisputable fact the utterances of the vested interests and should stress test their arguments not least against those of the contrarians, like the IBN. Human progress has been built largely on contrarians not the mainstream who, in every Great Leap Forward have tried to portray the alternative view as incredible.
Brexit is a historic Great Leap Forward for Britain, which also may well impact positively on the world whether the vested interests like it or not.
And go...................................
Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by Trickytreesreds
Knuckleheads across the spectrum though
