Boris Johnson’s EU manifesto: a sphinx with only half a riddle
Jonathan Lindsell, 7 August 2014
After three days’ hype around London Mayor Boris Johnson’s speech at Bloomberg, in which he endorsed an EU report by his head economist Gerard Lyons, the reality is very disappointing. The EU discussion was an amuse-bouche to the main course: Johnson’s intended return to parliament.
The report itself should offer new analysis and convincing arguments that, although ideally the EU needs reform, a well-managed Brexit would be great for London. Boris is making much of this distinction: he’d rather leave than tolerate with the EU as it is today. He thinks Britain can flourish outside Brussels’ influence. On the basis of Johnson’s immense stature, it’s likely that his favoured report will influence the EU debate strongly in the general election run-up. This makes its distinct lack of precision shocking.
Along with preamble and history, the report explains four potential futures but focuses its hundred pages on discussing reform – what should happen within Europe to maximise growth (for London)? Of these reforms, there are no new suggestions or innovative means for achieving them. Most ideas have been produced by Fresh Start, Open Europe or other think-tanks. However, Boris’s own stated reform demands are more accurate and more ambitious.
Lyons includes hard figures and average growth percentages for each scenario, accurate to 0.1% employment growth, or £5bn, over twenty years. Such accurate predictions are impossible to trust since the paper’s eight proposed reforms are so vague and discursive. (Two are ‘accept the need for reform’ and ‘create a reform timetable’). The vision of a ‘positive Brexit’ is virtually a mirage, it’s so sketchily described. We simply aren’t shown the assumptions behind the growth projections, or how they’re calculated.
That leaves the problem of exit. How will ‘Undecideds’ and Pro-EU voters be convinced that independence need not hold fear, if the paper claiming to assuage their concerns has barely a page of detail on how to leave positively?
The paper predicts that Britain will be able to get a better deal than Switzerland through manipulation of the Lisbon treaty, but how can Westminster use Article 50 as a ‘threat…like a nuclear weapon’? The conclusion convincingly argues Article 50 gives too many powers to the remaining EU. It doesn’t follow that threatening to use it will convince Germany and France to grant all the exit concessions we ask.
Lyons spends time rejecting models for Brexit, which reads as contradictory. He dismisses the ‘Norwegian option’ because Norway’s EU exports must follow ‘rules of origin’ – yet the eventual solution he offers, a ‘Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement’, fails the same test. It even says so in his table.
Too many questions remain unanswered. Why would the City be any better off out? What happens to farmers, to fishermen? cui bono?
Proper blueprints for exit do exist, and should be given more prominence if Eurosceptics are to do more than preach to the choir. If Boris wants to say “exit is a safe option”, then like Alex Salmond, he must show what that exit actually means.
Two upcoming Civitas papers (13 August and September 2014) examine Brexit differently. With Friends Like These has a full discussion of possible exit mechanisms and strategies for achieving Britain’s goals. Softening the Blow asks key industries what a ‘worst case scenario’ would look like, so policymakers know what to avoid, then constructs a ‘best case’ goals list.