Heroes: Britannia in Chains 

 

“Thrash, me crush me, beat me till I fall 

I wanna be a victim for you all”

 
 
As the Tories, especially the hard-right of the party, continue with their nihilistic ideology, running the country further into the ground, we open the year by considering why? 

Ever since Thatcherism destroyed British industry in the name of free markets and efficiency, the country has been running on two-speeds. The economy has been supported by the financial sector and supporting businesses, meaning that London and the SE dominate. Post the GFC, whilst the sector continues to thrive it has exposed our economic shortcomings. 

The Tories, who disingenuously blamed Labour for the GFC, took power and tried to fund the banking bailout with austerity. This policy achieved several things; it reduced an even greater percentage of the country to poverty, decimated public services leaving the country unnecessarily exposed to Covid, and their misguided tax cuts worsened the budget deficit, exacerbating the wealth gap. 

So far, so bad, what came next was a disaster. Right-wing agitators led by UKIP and Farage started blaming the EU for all our troubles. The victims of Tory misrule clung onto this to such an extent that we decided to settle the issue via a referendum. A cleverly run “leave” campaign, backed up by lies and half-truths led to the ultimate act of self-harm a “hard” Brexit. 

There is a constant stream of data highlighting the folly of this. 

A recent survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) showed that C.75% of firms say the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU has not helped them to expand their business in the last two years despite promises that Brexit terms were “oven-ready”. 

Specifically, 56% of members who trade with the EU said they had experienced problems complying with new rules for exporting goods, while 45% reported issues trading in services.  

The BCC’s director general, Shevaun Haviland, said: “Businesses feel they are banging their heads against a brick wall as nothing has been done to help them, almost two years after the TCA [trade and cooperation agreement] was first agreed. The longer the current problems go unchecked, the more EU traders go elsewhere, and the more damage is done.”  
 

‘Brexit had shaved 5.5% off GDP and cost £40bn in tax revenues’ 

 
Another report the Centre for European Reform (CER) thinktank claimed Brexit had shaved 5.5% off GDP and cost £40bn in tax revenues. 

The report, using the doppelgänger method compares Britain’s performance since Brexit with a basket of similar economies, finds that: “If the UK economy had grown in line with the doppelgänger, tax revenues would have been around £40bn higher on an annual basis.”  

The estimated shortfall would have been sufficient to have prevented 75% of the spending cuts and tax rises that were announced in November. 

Just before Christmas, it was reported that the Metropolitan police would be buying armoured ministerial cars from Audi because no UK firm was “able to meet the requirements of the tender”. Yet more proof of the supply-chain problems that are impacting British producers, and a malaise that has caused annual UK car production to fall by more than half since 2016. 

Liz Truss made the claim that growth was what the UK needed, and went on to say that opponents of her policies were “anti-growth”. She would have been more accurate in saying that Brexit is anti-growth. 

Brexit aside,  the economy has achieved poor growth for most of the 12-years the Tories have been in power. On a per-person basis the economy has grown just 7% in real terms since the GFC, and our productivity lags behind our peers. 
 

‘the economy has grown just 7% in real terms since the GFC, and our productivity lags behind our peers’

 
Productivity is at the heart of one of the less pleasant innovations post the GFC, zero-hours contracts; perhaps better described as “when is a job not a job”? 

The over-50s have been especially impacted; C.300,000 people aged 50+ have zero-hours contracts, the highest number for this age group since records began in 2013 and almost double the number 10 years ago. Source: Office of National Statistics. 

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said that zero-hour contracts are on the rise among older people because, “sadly, it’s often very hard to find a new job in your 50s and beyond, because ageism is rife in the labour market. Yet in reality, there is a wealth of knowledge, talent and experience among older workers, who frequently make fantastic contributions through the jobs they do”. 

At the other end of the spectrum there are the millennials.  

“The Tory government has failed my generation – millennials – who have come of age and entered the labour market under 12 years of Tory rule, with punishing housing and childcare costs, combined with stagnant wages, preventing the building blocks of what Conservatives believe make the good life.”  

These are the words of a young Tory, Ryan Shorthouse, on leaving the “liberal conservative” thinktank Bright Blue, which he founded. He continued, taking aim at his “decent” fellow millennial Rishi Sunak for being “shortsighted politically and … a bad judge of character”. 

A YouGov poll in December showed that only 13% of voters between the ages of 25 and 49 would consider voting Tory, for 18- to 24-year-olds the figure was 6%. 

Increasingly, the culture war policies of the Tory’s alienate the young, many of whom increasingly embrace progressive social values such as anti-racism and LGBTQ+ rights. Both sides view each other as the enemy, and new research shows that young voters will not move to the right as they age.  

The young are the left behind. The economic model propounded by the Tories promises individual freedom, but has only delivered mass insecurity 

Tory baby boomers enjoyed free university tuition but support raising university costs for today’s students. The Conservatives depend on the older electorate. The current industrial unrest only serves to highlight how hard the working-age generation continue to be squeezed, while pensions are protected. 

Whilst baby boomers benefitted from the slew of affordable housebuilding after WW2 todays young can only dream. In 2022, the average house price was C.£295,000, while the median annual salary is only £33,000.  

Sunak’s recent compromise with his backbenchers will probably block housebuilding,  pushing the young out of cities in search of affordable accommodation. This could negatively impact Conservative majorities in the commuter belt. Sunak’s conundrum is that whilst increasing housing supply would help younger people by lowering prices and creating alternatives to the private rental market, it would be against the interests of the Conservatives’ electoral coalition. 

Brexit is only on part, albeit a very large one, that see’s the Tories struggling between self-interest and what is in the national interest. This is amplified by their choice of leaders. 
 

‘C.300,000 people aged 50+ have zero-hours contracts’

 
When they made Johnson leader, Tory MPs set aside misgivings about his moral character because he served a purpose: he was the only Conservative with a populist appeal to see off Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn, and deliver the Brexit craved by the Tory hardliners. Whilst Johnson’s fall-out with the EU satisfied their initial blood lust, it was never going to be sufficient. Brexit to them is a on-going crusade, they wanted a bonfire of regulations, rights and taxes 

Instead Johnson proposed investment and rising taxes, in what became known as “levelling-up”. In the 2019 election he was able to keep the electorally poisonous excesses of Tory economic thinking in-check, whilst attracting supporters who were socially conservative, but who had developed a profound distaste for austerity. 

This was never going to last. Covid aside, his plans were an anathema to the party. Conservative MPs and the elderly, shire-dwelling Tory members weren’t appalled by Johnson’s deceit and lies, but by his lack of Thatcherite zeal. His successor needed to have a hardcore economic agenda. 
 

‘Tory members weren’t appalled by Johnson’s deceit and lies, but by his lack of Thatcherite zeal’

 
Cometh the hour cometh the woman; Liz Truss was the committed ideologue they craved. Penny Mordaunt was the one candidate who could have opposed Truss, but her campaign failed because she was deemed too soft on trans people.  

Truss’s undiluted hard-right economic agenda delighted the grassroots, but was an economic disaster costing £20bn+. This catastrophe repelled many of those who opted for the Tories in 2019 and, combined with the resulting political turmoil, led to a near total collapse in the opinion polls. 

Out of necessity Sunak became a compromise leader. Whilst his personal ratings remain competitive with those of the Labour leader, his premiership is doing little for Tory support. 

Where does this leave us? 

When Johnson resigned, the Tories were around 7-points behind Labour, now that deficit is >20 points.  

Readers will recollect that in the very first article, “Brexit: The Never Ending Story”, I predicted that the fall-out from the referendum could see the party splinter, and this has been the case. Along with their media friends, the Mail, the Telegraph, GB News and TalkTV, the hard–right has become steadily more eccentric and unhinged. 

This fracture in the party makes the leadership role all the more difficult, as Sunak has to appease the small state/low tax hard-right with the interventionist / spending of the “red wall” MPs. 

This fracture offers opportunity to Reform UK, who are planning to field 600 candidates at the next general election, and, unlike 2019, they will not be standing aside to allow Tories an easy passage. 

While Reform UK is unlikely to win a seat in the next election, if their performance matched where they currently stand in the polls, the 8% of votes would come largely from disgruntled Conservative voters. 

Whilst there is no sign of Nigel Farage returning as Reform UK Leader, he tells us that “Britain is broken.” 

That statement is the only thing he and I will agree on. It was his Brexit that broke us. 

Despite what I think, Farage returning as leader would have a positive impact electorally for the party. 

Iain Duncan Smith, Dominic Raab and Theresa Villiers are among a number of Conservative MPs who could lose their seats in the face of competition from Reform and a swing towards Labour. Their seats are among the 300 constituencies where the Brexit party (Reform’s predecessor) stood-down in the 2019 election.  

Many are in the “blue wall” areas of southern England, where the sitting MP is already defending a majority of less than 10%, and would still be vulnerable even if Reform UK candidates attracted a relatively small numbers of voters. 

Reform UK would be able to leverage off the immigration issue, and voting for them would be a way for Brexit-supporting voters to register their displeasure at Conservative economic mismanagement while remaining true to their leave credentials. 
 

‘75% of 2019 Tory voters, think Britain has lost control of its borders’

 
Polls show that six out of 10 voters, – and 75% of 2019 Tory voters, think Britain has lost control of its borders. Farage has greater backing to deal with this issue than either Sunak or Starmer. One in six 2019 Tory voters claim they would vote for Reform next time. Suella Braverman is attempting to position herself as the leader of these Farage-fearing Tories. Sunak is not standing up to them. 

Farage’s popularity and influence should never be underestimated. As I have written before he is one of the most influential politicians of the last 20-yrs. He speaks in a manner that catches voters imagination. His influence over the Tory party is undeniable, they fear him far more than either Ed Davey or Kier Starmer. Hard-right Tory’s may have wanted to leave the EU from the moment we joined, but it took Farage to make it happen. Without Farage Brexit would have been inconceivable.  
 

‘he is one of the most influential politicians of the last 20-yrs’

 
With the hard-right in power Brexit will never be reformed let alone undone. All the time our politicians refuse to speak against it the Brexit myth becomes stronger. This is why I find Labour under Starmer so underwhelming. Late last year he was still claiming that “there’s no case for going back to the EU or going back into the single market”, and only “a very good case for making Brexit work”. Included within this is a return to the EU’s customs union. 

The reason why a “remainer” takes this line, in the face of what opinion polls say, is that Labour party needs to woo back “leave” voters who voted Tory in 2019. The assumption is that they would not support any moves to reform or reverse Brexit.  

In conclusion, the political future of the country now looks as muddled as everything else. The Tories, devoid of ideas, are doubling-down on a failed Brexit by creating a them and us situation based on strikers and immigrants damaging the country. In other words, the usual hard-right find a scapegoat tactics that have made Britain such a miserable third-world country. 

Labour are doing us all a disservice. Starmer knows full well that Brexit was a mistake. His ”a very good case for making Brexit work”, will achieve nothing. At the very least we need to re-join the customs union.  

For this country to prosper we need growth, that is driven by trade, you cannot achieve this sitting outside of the world’s biggest free-trade zone. 

Until Brexit is reversed or revised UK plc is going to be second best. Low growth means low tax revenues, which equals no money to spend. The only alternative then is higher taxes.  

This article is dedicated to the late Dame Westwood, who I had the pleasure of meeting in those heady days of 1976. Vivienne would have told the hard-right: 
 

“I want to destroy your passion boy 

‘Cause I, I want to be, anarchy 

In this fuckin’ city” 

 
 
 
A new year, but some familiar themes from Philip; as the UK seems to slide further down the gurgler, his column is one of the few places where Brexit remains front and centre as the main culprit. 

Nobody is going to claim that Covid and the invasion of Ukraine haven’t heaped on the misery, but Brexit has left the UK lagging by almost every metric as the Black Knight of Europe.
 

 
Still, no fear, cometh the hour, cometh the, er, maths teacher; Mr Sunak has now set out a five-point plan, against which he is happy to be judged.

The lack of measurable objectives brings to mind a chap I shared a flat with at university. Every bit as out of touch with reality and ill-equipped to deal with real life as the PM, whereas we turned up for the start of term with some hearty stodge and maybe an apple pie, ‘Kev’ once turned up with some crab meat that ‘nanny’ had sent. I once accompanied him on a shopping trip that was very much like Rishi’s great quest to put some juice into a borrowed Kia Rio to prove his ‘cred’.

Kev asked for ‘some’ eggs, and ‘some’ apples, thought the shop-keeper was pulling his leg when he proffered a tin of corned beef that was like nothing he had ever seen, and then finally lost it when he was informed that they didn’t sell ‘Harris’ screwdrivers. 

Given that Keir Starmer’s new year offering was every bit as unconvincing, will Boris claw his way back, or will the footage of him in a onesie pleasuring himself in Scarborough count against him; or will Nige and blue rinsers be the king makers?

It won’t be dull. What was Philip thinking?

There is a steady flow of data that continues to highlight that Brexit is of no economic benefit to the country. But then, that was never its raison d’etre. Brexit was about British exceptionalism, being better than those damn Europeans who just hold us back. Put another way it is an ego trip for small minded people living in Victorian Britain.

Research suggests we have lost £40bn in tax revenues as a result of it. No wonder we are bust!

A senior lawyer I know said post the referendum, “Brexit was voted for by old people who care more for themselves than their children and grandchildren”.

These are the same old people who are, in the main, too young to have fought in the war they claim to have fought for us in, who are now bleeding the country dry with their “triple-lock.

As the article states the average house price is now 8.9x the average salary, how many of them would have bought a house under those conditions? Very few!

What does the government do? Nothing.

The PM tells us the NHS isn’t in crisis. Sounds like he was on the E’s over Christmas. Instead, we carry-on with their contemptible blame game; unions, immigrants, they are the source of our problems. Simply pathetic.

His solution, extra maths. Ideal for all those nurses and trainee doctors. How many fingers do you need to add up their pay? Answer, not very many. Perhaps instead we should have “finding a wife / husband” training, then we can all marry like Rishi.

Finally, I have looked at the rise of Reform UK, the potential return of Farage, and what this might mean – much more of that next week.

Lyrically, it’s over to Vivienne. The country was a mess in 1976, but not quite up to today’s nadir. Then I immersed myself in punk. Punk has one thing in common with hard-right politics, nihilism.

We start with X-Ray Spex and “Oh Bondage Up Yours” in homage to Liz Truss et al and their book “Britannia Unchained”.

We finish with the “house band”, the Pistols and “Anarchy for the UK”….It’s coming sometime, maybe..” Enjoy!

 
@coldwarsteve
 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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