Polly Toynbee on Brexit.
The Guardian and FT have done the country a great disservice by their grotesque and one-sided opposition to Brexit. The Guardian’s journalists and editorial have attempted to find a Brexit angle on every subject under the sun. Most of its old warhorse journalists have no credibility, having been consistently wrong for decades on almost everything they have written about. Polly Toynbee and Will Hutton are the worst offenders. Nick Cohen was a fervent supporter of the war in Iraq. William Keegan remains an unreconstructed Keynesian decades after the theory was set aside. These hacks would have promoted their cause best by staying silent.
That the FT should have taken such a one-sided anti-Brexit stance is surprising, as the EU’s trade and economic policies would have been sharply criticised by the FT journalists of a generation ago. What does not exist is a balanced counter to the extreme Brexiters, and so the issue is presented in black and white.
The economic case for Brexit has hardly been stated, even by its advocates: that it is an opportunity get shot of the EU’s terrible trade and economic policies, though how long it will take a UK government to wake up to the possibilities is another question. Brexit will certainly lead to immediate problems, which will of necessity be quickly sorted out under pressure on politicians from industry.
Less easily solved are the medium term structural problems, which will persist for five years at least. By that time, if the economic cycle runs to schedule, the recession of 2026 will be about to hit, for which Brexit will be blamed. It will be wrongly blamed, because ever since 2010, monetary and other policies have been committed to stoking up the housing (land price) bubble. It is Ponzi economics and, on the basis of previous experience, can be expected to bust spectacularly, leading to a recession which will continue into the early thirties. One can only speculate what the political fall-out will be.
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