Oborne calls on Britons to 'swallow their pride' and think again about Brexit!

In 2016, the right-wing Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne, was an ardent Brexiter along with the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the E.U. in the referendum of June 2016. But in a 4,000 word article that was written for Open Democracy in April 2019, he called on Britons to think again and swallow their pride.

In the article Oborne argued that Brexit had paralysed the system and had turned Britain into a laughing stock. He asserts that Brexit is certain to make us poorer and to lead to lower incomes and lost jobs and says that Brexit, has led to the collapse of investment-led growth and the announcement of job losses at Nissan, Sony and Honda. Oborne points out that few of the 40 trade agreements that Liam Fox vowed to sign by March 2019, have been agreed and that prominent British backers of the Leave Campaign like James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe, have already moved assets abroad.

Last year, that most prominent of Brexiteer's, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the chairman of the European Research Group (ERG), who advocates a clean break with the E.U., was forced to answer embarrassing questions about why the city investment firm 'Somerset Capital Management' (SCM), a firm in which he is a partner (but does not make investment decisions), had relocated part of its business to Dublin. The firm's prospectus had warned that Brexit was a 'risk' that may cause 'considerable uncertainty.'

Much of what Oborne says about the economic consequences of Brexit have been borne out by even government analysis. Last November (2018), a government report stated that the UK would be poorer economically under any form of Brexit, compared with staying in the E.U. 'Operation Yellowhammer' the government's own assessment of what could happen if Britain left the E.U. without a deal, warned of fresh food supplies decreasing, key ingredients being in short supply, and prices increasing which could impact vulnerable groups, because of problems caused by disruption and the inability to trade efficiently.

The problem with the referendum vote in June 2016 was that people were given two choices i.e. leave or remain, but they were never told what Brexit meant or what it might entail. A majority of MP's in the British parliament do not want to leave the E.U. because they think it is folly and will be economically ruinous. In short,  Brexit means different things to different people.  Although I believe people were sold a pup with Brexit and that its not a simple right/left issue, I nevertheless,  believe it is essentially a right-wing project. For neo-liberal free-market types like Gove, Raab and Johnson, leaving the E.U. will be an opportunity to get shut of a host of regulatory powers and to bin such things as environmental and consumer protections along with workers rights, to give Britain a competitive edge against our European neighbours - a kind of race to the bottom to attract inward investment.

As Oborne points out in this video, Brexit is also likely to lead to the break-up of the Union. If Brexit ultimately leads to the reunification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland and the demise of the Tory Party, then in my view Brexit might have been worthwhile. A recent poll in Northern Ireland found that a majority of people who live in the region did not consider themselves either Unionists or Nationalists and 51% said they were in favour of reunification. This figure is likely to increase now Northern Ireland has been annexed by the Johnson Tory government. No wonder Sein Fein like Boris Johnson's Brexit Deal.