Commenting Yet Again on Martin Wolf: "The Bitter Lessons of BREXIT"
Our text yet again this morning comes from the highly estimable Martin Wolf:
Martin Wolf: The bitter lessons of Brexit: ’A classic populist alliance of fanatics and opportunists mixed simplistic analysis with heated rhetoric and outright lies to weaken the UK’s most important economic relationship and threaten its domestic stability…. This supposed liberation has greatly curtailed the freedom of many millions…. Whose freedom has it increased? That of British politicians. They can act more freely…. What have they done with this freedom? They have lied about… the Northern Ireland Protocol… threatened to break international law… destroyed the country’s reputation for good sense, moderation and decency. All this is a natural result of the classic populist blend of paranoia, ignorance, xenophobia, intolerance of opposition and hostility to constraining institutions… <https://www.ft.com/content/717c3c59-795b-4620-ad9b-a44a359077ca>
Martin concludes that much depends on mending fences with the E.U., harmonizing rules on “movement of people and workers and over regulatory standards, especially in food and manufactures[, nor] would UK-specific regulation of artificial intelligence or a carbon-border adjustment mechanism make any sense. More boldly… rejoining the customs union…” In the hope that these plus other sensible policies will enable “the next government… to improve the economic trajectory…” In short, a return to not-stupid neoliberalism.
The problem is that nobody likes neoliberalism. And perhaps that problem is raised to critical mass by the fact that nobody is putting forward a clearly superior alternative. So nobody will be happy doing what Martin suggests.
But is there a better alternative? Right now I do not see one. So I think we are stuck.
Let me explain what I mean: