The Observer
In my view 25.08.19 57William
Keegan
@williamkeeganI
have a message for the
many people I encounter
who have given up read-
ing anything about Brexit: I
feel your pain! I sympathise
with those who say: “I am
fed up; why don’t they just get on
with it?” Unfortunately, they could
not be more mistaken.
“Getting on with it” would be –
well, allow me to quote a recent
leading article in my journalistic
alma mater, the normally restrained
Financial Times. A fortnight ago,
the FT warned : “The UK is career-
ing towards the precipice, with dire
implications for its economy, secu-
rity, and the union of nations it
comprises. It is now parliament’s
duty to prevent the British govern-
ment from visiting a calamity on its
own country on October 31.”
This was not one of two or three
leading articles , as is normal prac-
tice. It was what we used to call a
“Death of Queen leader” – so impor-
tant that the entire column was
devoted to it. We at the Observer
have also used this device recently.
With any luck time may allow us
to rename such articles “Death of
Brexit” leaders.
The FT leader appeared a few
days before chapter and verse on no
deal w as provided by our rival paper
the Sunday Times. It was a public
service for that paper to allow the
journalist’s desire for a “scoop” to
triumph over its pro-Brexit views.
For the benefi t of those who have
switched off , the scoop consisted of
a detailed leak of the government’s
own assessment of the damage in
store: chaos in the ports; severe dis-
ruption to food, fuel, chemical and
medical supplies; civil unrest, not
least on the Northern Irish border;
sharp price increases; job losses ;
and much more.
And this is only the short-term
damage. In the longer term, no deal
would be an exercise in severely
harming the economic and indus-
trial base – making the country
poorer to satisfy the ideologues who
have captured the Tory party, and
further hurting those who voted
Leave in protest at the economic or
social ills they had already suffered.
Despite the protestations of the
time-servers in the most unimpres-
sive cabinet in living memory, this is
not a worst-case scenario but a cen-
tral forecast. They told us it was “outof date”. It turned out to have been
fi nalised this very month!
I nearly fell off my chair when
I heard the former Brexit secre-
tary David Davis try to dismiss the
study by saying it was compiled
by Remainer civil servants “who
have the best interests of the coun-
try at heart”. Wait a minute: we are
told by our prime minister that
we Remainers are “collaborators”
with Brussels, in what sounds like a
deliberate historical echo recalling
collaboration with Hitler. Johnson’s
manifest intention is to blame the
rest of the EU – and its “collabora-
tors” – if he does not get his way.
But never mind about all the “pro-
ject fear” stuff, he says: all we need
is to look on the bright side.
My own way of trying to switch
off is to re-read favourite comic nov-
els. But the other day I had more or
less switched off from Brexit at the
theatre during a performance of
the acclaimed banking drama The
Lehman Trilogy. But only up to a
point: there c ame a moment when
we reached the Wall Street crash of
1929, and a leading member of the
Lehman family said that optimism
w ould see them through. Some
hope! But I was immediately think-
ing of Johnson’s absurd bluster:
“Come on, chaps. Cheer up. It will be
great fun going over the cliff.”
One of the high spots of last week
was the sidelong look Angela Merkelgave Johnson during one of his blus-
tering moments. I wonder whether
she was refl ecting that, the way
Brexit was going, there might need
to be another Berlin airlift – but this
time from Berlin to London?
Now there is one aspect of the
damage being wreaked by the
Brexiters that holidaymakers are
noting to their cost, and that is the
collapse of the pound. Our currency
has fallen far more than might be
justifi ed by considerations of inter-
national competitiveness. My long
memory goes back to the time
in January 1985 when the pound
threatened to sink below one dol-
lar and the Thatcher government,
for all its belief in “market forces”,
threw everything into – successfully- propping it up. The pound is not
that low yet against the dollar, but it
is perilously close to one euro.
If this suicidal farce of Brexit is
not stopped, one could not rule out
such a collapse of confi dence in
this country that the government
might fi nd itself in a 1976 situa-
tion and seeking the support of the
International Monetary Fund!
My colleagues are examining all
the possible parliamentary shenan-
igans. But I make no apology for
repeating my view that in the end
we will need another referendum. If
this were to go the wrong way again - which I doubt – then so be it. My
Irish passport has arrived.
We must
not switch
off from
grim truth
about Brexit