Painting Brexit By Numbers

A Handy Guide
Zero, cero, zéro, null, nada, zip, zilch.  This is the number of plans that the Brexit designers and implementors had before the referendum, after and even now with only 229 days to Brexit day at the time of writing.  40 years of thinking and they came up with … ONE BIG FAT ZERO.  There was and is no plan.  Chequers agreement was the “almost” plan, a dead hatchling – it was a plan they all agreed to but none of them wanted and was full of things they knew the EU can’t actually agree to.

ONE hour is the amount of time MPs are allowed to view the secret Brexit Impact assessment document entitled EU Exit Analysis — Cross Whitehall Briefing, dated January 2018 which sets out the cost of Brexit under different scenarios. There is great security around the document, MPs are not allowed to take any electronic devices in.  Part of it was leaked early this year and here are the much-publicised numbers for the regional assessments.  

	DROP IN GDP
REGION	EEA MEMBERSHIP	FREE TRADE AGREEMENT	WTO (NO DEAL)
London	<1%	5.0%	8.0%
South West	1.0%	2.0%	5.0%
Yorkshire/Humber	1.5%	4.5%	7.0%
South East	1.5%	5.0%	7.0%
East of England	1.5%	5.0%	8.0%
East Midlands	1.5%	5.0%	8.0%
Scotland	2.5%	6.0%	9.0%
Wales	1.5%	5.0%	9.0%
North West	2.5%	8.0%	12.0%
Northern Ireland	2.5%	8.0%	12.0%
West Midlands	2.5%	8.0%	13.0%
North East	3.5%	11.0%	16.0%

As the sharp-eyed without Brexit Beer Goggles amongst us can see, the regions which voted most heavily to leave are amongst the ones with most to lose under all scenarios, the regions in fact who have had the greatest benefit from EU funding and EU membership.  I wonder will those regions be helped in our glorious new isolated world?  Well Tory track record on helping regions is not great as any of us who lived through the 80s will attest.  I will just leave that thought dangling. 

TWO.  That's the number of days it took for Leave promises to start melting away, like an ill thought out unicorn shaped ice sculpture at a fancy Mediterranean wedding that doesn’t even make it to the speeches in one piece. For many of us, its continuous dribbles and drips of absurdity have created a kind of hideous Chinese Water Torture we wake to every morning.  It’s also the number of years it has taken for the “sunny uplands” to have been abandoned and instead an enticing era of “adequate food” has been conjured up for our delectation.  Even Leave proponents now admit Brexit will cause us damage.  A certain Mr Rees Mogg even surmised in an interview it could take 50 years of pain to get to his great vision of nirvana.

FIVE WAS Britain’s rank in the list of the world’s largest economies.    Phillip Hammond confirmed a slide to 6 in his budget speech November 2017.  As confirmed recently by Mark Carney of the bank of England we have moved from being the fastest growing economy pre referendum in the G7 to the slowest.  The best estimate is that the prospect of Brexit especially the version of it favoured by the ERG fanatics has knocked 2% off what our growth rate would have been without Brexit.

Our recovery after the 2008 banking crisis was painfully slow thanks to a government strategy that concentrated too much on cutting costs, encouragement of investment in property which does not create jobs and not enough on growth strategies and investing in job creating industries.  Brexit knocked us back just at the point we in the business community had painstakingly pushed that elusive ball of growth back up to the top of the hill - and we haven’t even left yet.

TWENTY TWO is the number of months since Mr Fox tried to emulate his animal namesakes and cunningly declared we would use our EU27 citizens as negotiating fodder.  There are many more questions than there are answers.  Some have already voted with their feet to end uncertainty and taken up opportunities in the EU27.  A German friend who has now decided to take UK naturalisation to secure emotional and actual investment here, told me he was very angry.  He could have looked to America or Canada for bigger opportunities in his field but FOM fortunately brought him to us. By voting leave you told these talented young Europeans we don’t want them and we don’t like them. Spare me your cries of “but I didn’t mean those kinds of immigrants”.  One day they are our equals the next day they will have to ask permission to remain in their homes.  No wonder the NHS reports chronic unprecedented staff shortages and difficulty in replacing those leaving. 

The British in the EU have even less information.  What will happen with their access to healthcare, pensions, voting rights, the right to move back to the UK with non-British or non-EU spouses or children or parents? What about the right to move to another EU country in the 27, will they be landlocked?  Will their UK qualifications in their respective fields be valid in the country they are in? Will being outside the single market for services and the digital single market have consequences on their cross EU work?  Tell me how people can make significant plans for their family lives if there is a big dark wall of mystery surrounding their rights and status? Answers on a postcard please.

FIFTY EIGHT is the number of Sector Analysis reports that David Davies claimed had been prepared.  I just couldn’t resist reminding you all of this bizarre and mendacious display from our prominent politicians.  At first, it was a big secret, for Brexit Department eyes only.  After some pressure in December 2017 Mr. Davies finally admitted they were a figment of his department’s imagination.  Mr Davies stopped short of blaming the dog for shredding his homework.  In these bizarre times, it seems that just ignoring being caught out in a whopping big lie is effective in getting away with it.  But why should I be surprised? Are these not the same people who came up with the genius scheme of painting lies and false promises on the side of a bus?

ONE HUNDRED is the number of constituencies who voted Leave and have now switched their support to Remain in a recent comprehensive analysis of polling data by Focaldata.   Most other leave voting areas have now narrowed the gap. 

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND are the minimum estimates of the crowd at the March for the People’s Vote in June.  It is thought the numbers were much greater than that but regardless,  I was proud to be there in the sea of blue and gold stars, a swell of people determined to bring common sense back to our lives and put an end to this bizarre act of national self harm. 

FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE THOUSAND AND SEVENTY NINE POUNDS was the overspend found by the Electoral Commission to have been committed by Vote Leave.  Vote Leave broke the Law and has been fined and BeLeave also broke the law and Darren Grimes has been fined accordingly for his part.  The overspend would have bought a lot of clicks on Facebook in the last two weeks of their campaign which is when they spent a large amount of budget.  The DCMS Select Committee published the Facebook ads placed on Facebook by the Leave campaigns through AIQ in the EU referendum. 45% of them were spreading an anti immigration message.   The ads are a mix of scurrilous dog whistles, lies and distortions.  Some of them do not even have the campaign’s branding so people wouldn’t have known who was serving the ad or indeed that it was an ad.  

Most of us remainers didn’t see the majority of those ads because they were carefully targeted to get a certain portion of the vote out or to collect accounts who would be good targets for such propaganda.  Additionally, it turns out the campaigning by Vote Leave continued during the days after the murder of Jo Cox by a far right supporting man, when all campaigning was supposed to be suspended as a mark of respect.

This whole murky world surrounding Vote Leave, Be Leave and other campaigns, relationships with Cambridge Analytica, links to Russia etc calls into question the validity of the final result given the slim margin.  The excellent and heroic Carole Cadwalladr has chipped away at this illegal activity for 2 years bringing us the truth little by little.  I would recommend a review of her extensive writing on this complex subject.

SIX HUNDRED AND SEVEN THOUSAND AND NINETY TWO is the number of people who have signed the Independent petition for a final say as of writing.  You can watch the new signatures ticking in. The petition was only started on the 24^th July. 

THREE MILLION & ONE POINT THREE MILLION.  These people all come at the top of my list of Brexit concerns having  people close to my heart in both situations.  None of the 3 million EU27 citizens were given a vote and many Brits living in the EU were also disenfranchised.  If you voted leave YOU have affected the lives of these people. They have been left in limbo for 2 years with little idea of how their lives will be affected.  Worse still they have been unashamedly used as leverage in negotiations by British politicians. Dehumanisation of foreign born people has been a strong feature of the last few years.  Scandalous Vote Leave facebook ads were targeted at people most likely to respond to anti foreign sentiment.  Politicians have spoken about FOM and immigrants as if foreigners a problem and never an asset.  Tabloid headlines smeared  and sneered at fellow EU citizens for years.  An incredibly shocking extension to this is the apparent abandonment of any feeling for the plight of British citizens stuck in a state of uncertainty.  “Why should we care, they moved abroad.   It’s nothing to do with us” I hear.  It seems along with voting leave, people voted to banish empathy from their hearts.

SIXTEEN MILLION ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO  people voted to Remain
SEVENTEEN MILLION FOUR HUNDRED AND TEN SEVEN HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO  people voted to Leave
THIRTEEN MILLION registered voters did not vote at all

I know how you feel my friends,  but we can’t avoid these numbers, we have to look at them squarely in the face.  Leavers, you are right, you won we lost.  So why are you still so angry and confused?  If it makes you happy then why are you so mad?  Why do you hurl abuse at those who would hold you to account for your referendum promises and the law of the land and why do you tell judges and parliamentarians they are traitors?  Is it because you know how intrinsically weak the numbers are, how fragile the margin is?    Only 37.4% of registered voters voted to leave the EU.  What did they vote for?  It’s all so mysterious like an Agatha Christie novel – so many motives for bringing a disaster to the door of the UK.  Some say they want to crash out without the single market or the customs union, some want the EEA, EEA plus or minus or Canada whatever, some just wanted to give Cameron and London a good old-fashioned kick in the nuts.  Some believed that £350 million more pounds would be sent to the NHS every week because a big red bus said so.  Many wanted rid of foreigners.  Yes, they did, don’t argue, in bigger numbers than we would like.  Leavers, that is something you have to face up to and look squarely in the eye.  That’s on you, not us. 

Numbers are essential for our everyday decision making in our little business so I am used to following them.   It's clear to me the Leave margin is fragile and that the British public opinion is moving towards the view we should take the time to think again.  Is leaving the EU really such a good idea given what we have now learned?  

Really?  Here is a handy checklist of questions. 
You want to be poorer?
You want to make your neighbours poorer? 
You want to send all your EU doctors and nurses away because they feel unwanted? 
You want to get rid of the consumer and market protections that EU membership brings just as they battle against price fixing and cartels on our behalf and focus on finding cooperative solutions for aggressive tax management by global companies. 
You want your children to miss out on the fantastic opportunities FOM gives them for their lives, their education, their jobs? 
You want to limit your own chances for a little travel or a spell living abroad later in life in one of 28 countries where you can access healthcare and your pension and all the other reciprocal benefits we enjoy as EU citizens? 
You want your region to lose its EU regional funding? 

Is this what you want?

If your answer is yes, I don’t believe you.  

Democracy is not a snapshot of the will of the people in a particular moment.  It's not a single answer to a simple question about a  complex 40 year relationship with our trading partners and friends to be interpreted as a decision cast in stone when the evidence shows what a bad decision it is.   If that were true women would not have the vote.  Hell, if that were true, not even working class middle aged white men would have the vote.

@redalphababe  #brexit #peoplesvote #stopbrexit #finalsayforall #eureferendum