The Economist - USA (2020-03-21)

50 TheEconomistMarch 21st 2020

1

I

n 2012, inthe midst of David Cameron’s

austerity campaign, a clutch of newly

elected Tory mps published “Britannia Un-

chained”, a book lamenting Britain’s

“bloated state, high taxes and excessive

regulation”. The authors included Priti Pa-

tel, Dominic Raab and Liz Truss, now

home, foreign and trade secretaries respec-

tively. Later, Boris Johnson would advertise

Brexit as a liberating mission for a nimble

nation. His supporters dreamed of turning

Britain’s face away from Brussels and to-

wards Singapore.

They were swimming with the tide, for

the horizons of the British state have

shrunk over the past 40 years. It intervenes

in fewer markets and owns fewer indus-

tries. Limits on executive power have been

embraced: state aid and competition laws,

human rights legislation, and the expan-

sion of judicial review.

But since 2016 this trend has reversed.

Brexit is one reason: £6bn ($7bn) in funds

and some 20,000 officials have been dedi-

cated to the project, partly reversing cuts to

the civil service headcount. The govern-

ment prepared a bail-out fund for busi-

nesses and emergency ferry capacity in

case of a messy exit. The free movement of

people will be replaced by an occupation-

based visa system, representing a shift to-

wards state planning in the labour market.

The second factor is Mr Johnson’s plan

to level up poorer parts of the country. In

the budget on March 11th, Rishi Sunak, the

chancellor, announced £640bn on infra-

structure spending over five years, the

highest as a share of gdp since the 1970s.

Public spending as a share of gdpunder Mr

Sunak’s plan was due to settle at 40-41%,

higher than any recent point outside the fi-

nancial crisis. Jesse Norman, a treasury

minister, says Brexit and big spending are

linked. “It’s a Burkean understanding that a

nation is a moral idea: a group of people

bound together by a moral affinity. It’s that

legitimating sense of self that underwrites

a nation’s capacity to tax.”

Failing railway franchises have been re-

nationalised with little murmur in recent

years. Controls on energy prices, de-

nounced as Marxist by the Tories when

proposed by Ed Miliband, then Labour

leader, in 2013, were implemented by The-

resa May and will be kept by Mr Johnson.

He plans new taxes on social-media com-

panies, and new rules over online content.

The third factor is Mr Johnson’s aver-

sion to restraints on ministerial discretion.

He hopes to reform judicial review to pre-

vent the courts being used to conduct “pol-

itics by other means”, and wants to review

human-rights laws to ensure “effective

government”. He skips scrutiny hearings in

Parliament and plans to loosen European

Union rules on state aid and procurement.

But covid-19 is likely to do more than all

of these to extend the reach of the state. Al-

ready the government has introduced a de-

gree of social control not seen since the

second world war. Schools are closing in-

definitely. Office workers have been told to

stay at home. The elderly have been urged

to cocoon themselves from human con-

tact. There is widespread expectation of a

lockdown in London. Emergency legisla-

Government

Leviathan rising

The big state is back. The virus is the main reason, but not the only one

Britain

51 Curtainsintheatreland

Also in this section

52 Bagehot: Spirit of the Blitz

Read more from this week’s Britain section:

Economist.com/Britain