A fortnight after the British referendum on EU membership, Britain is still in turmoil. Some of the negative lessons are all too clear: don’t try to solve party political problems by invoking existential issues; referendums are volatile and uncertain; if you must have one, get a crack team together first. But, as weary politicians are fond of saying, we are where we are.
So what is likely to happen now?
There are different views about what course of action the referendum requires; but there are also very different views about what it might mean to ‘take back control’, which was the core theme of the campaign.
Category: Brexit
Writes Patrick Honohan for the Peterson Institute’s blog here. I’ve said a few times that the Brexit negotiations will take years (and–gasp–require immigrant labour).
Patrick’s point is well made. The sheer length of the negotiation process may give time to let the British people understand the benefits of being within a free trade area, while also managing somehow starting to solve the problems the referendum result threw up. These could be solved, arguably, by less austerity and more capital spending in areas left behind in recent decades.