Ten Years On: It's Time to EMBRACE a Brighter Post-Brexit Future
A new book, "The Brexit Effect, 2016–2026" edited by Anthony Seldon, contains much I don't like, but I commend to you my chapter with Prof Paul Dolan on how to move on. Goodness knows it is time.
Brexit was largely a macroeconomic non-event.
– Wolgang Munchau (not a Brexiteer)
On this the tenth anniversary of our vote to leave the EU, I find we are refighting the referendum in the same old terms. Surely it is time to move on and build a brighter future?
But should we? Can we without returning to the EU?
I keep engaging with the arguments of those who want to rejoin, making claims of terrible economic harm. I find those claims don’t stand up, as economist Julian Jessop has been proving.
Now a new paper from economist Dr Gerard Lyons, published by the Centre for Policy Studies shows that Jessop and pro-EU commentator Wolgang Munchau have been right:
In summary, after the initial temporary shock, there is little to suggest that Brexit has had a material impact on the UK’s economic growth trajectory, either in terms of GDP or GDP per capita. As I pointed out in my 2024 paper, most of the reports of a permanent shock do not stand up under scrutiny.
In truth, leaving the EU left us performing mid pack with competitor EU economies. Covid was the big shock and Germany is the under-performer. Here is the data:
So if returning to the EU is not the answer to our economic woes, how can people of good faith engage with one another in a way designed to help them move on?
Toleration is a fundamental principle of a free society: we should be willing and able to agree to disagree where people are doing no harm and move on together. Those of us fighting for a free future should care how toleration can be promoted.
It turns out behavioural scientists, and my friend Prof Paul Dolan in particular, have some great ideas about how to embed tolerance by design and enable “adversarial collaboration”. Paul wrote the book Beliefism: How to stop hating the people we disagree with and together we have founded The Provocation People to offer companies and institutions services to embed a happier and more productive culture of constructive disagreement.
In the final chapter of a new book from Cambridge University Press – The Brexit Effect, 2016–2026 – Paul and I summarise the arguments and set out his EMBRACE framework for better disagreements. I commend our chapter to you.
