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Barack Obama famously said “Don’t do stupid things”. (Actually, he said something much stronger.) This is always good advice. That is particularly good advice for today’s UK. It would be wonderful if he could start doing sensible things. But one should keep one’s hopes in check. However, it should certainly be possible to stop doing really stupid things.
Brexit itself was a stupid thing. Very few people with serious knowledge of the matter doubt it. It has raised barriers against the country’s closest neighbors and most important trading partners. As the Office for Budget Responsibility noted this month, “recent evidence suggests that Brexit has had a significant adverse impact on UK trade.” It has reduced the overall trade volume and number of trading relationships between UK and EU firms. The OBR assumes, quite rationally, that “UK trade intensity as a result of Brexit would be 15 per cent lower in the long term than if the UK had remained in the EU”. Meanwhile, “global Britain” has evaporated as hopes for closer trade relations with China and the US disappear. is done
While Brexit was silly stuff, the idea is that there is an easy way back into a closer relationship with the EU. Renewed membership is unthinkable. This is not just because it would escalate the UK’s political civil war. It is also because EU members are too wise to trust the UK to be the enthusiastic member of the EU that it is and is likely to be. From their point of view, the sight of a flutter outside the UK is a helpful lesson on the perils of exit. Importantly, Brexit has allowed the EU to progress more quickly than it would have done in the teeth of the UK’s customary obstruction.
Most of the options for full membership – such as joining the single market, the customs union or both – would also reignite the civil war between the two main parties, Brexit. These options are self-evidently worse than membership, as they will impose obligations without being stated in the rules. Moreover, once again, the EU has good reason not to trust the UK: its behavior on the Northern Ireland Protocol certainly proves it.

Trying to change the core features of an existing unhappy relationship is pointless. But that cannot justify making things worse. It is, for example, a basic conservative principle to change only if there is no better alternative to do so. Change itself is expensive. So, what could possibly mean for the “Retained EU Law Bill”, a plan to “review or repeal” up to 4,000 pieces of EU-derived legislation that forms the basis of much of national life today? This will increase uncertainty and cost of doing business.
Savvy businesses do not want to operate under a multiplicity of different regulatory regimes. That was the logic of Margaret Thatcher’s single market project, which Brexiteers are apparently unable to understand. Such a plan would make the UK ever less “investable”. Dismal figures on UK investment do not belie these fears.

What would be a positively sensible approach for British policy makers? It must have started with a realistic view of weaknesses and priorities. Consider the difficulty of building on undeveloped land, the failure to make buildings more energy efficient, persistent regional inequality, excessive centralization of government, chronically low national savings and investment rates, the failure of pension funds to invest in productive capital. The country’s failure to create world-class companies and a chronic failure to raise skills to sufficiently high levels.
None of this has anything to do with the EU. But it has long been “too hard” to do anything about it all. So, instead, we have Brexit as a diversionary exercise, culminating in the Liz Truce and Quasi Kwarteng Show, which was ill-timed and irresponsible as it was intellectually void. It was Brexit as performance art in its purest form.
I hope this government will do something more positive before the next general election especially amidst the energy and inflation crisis. But it’s not too much to ask him to stop doing stupid things. Therefore, do not consider regulatory changes unless they are clearly for the better. Don’t promise control over what you can’t shift. Do not stick to the option of differentiation on food standards, which makes the Northern Ireland issue so difficult to resolve. But try hard to preserve the ability of our scientists to cooperate closely with their European colleagues. And, at the very least, stop the incessant barking by the British Bulldog.
Dealing with major problems may now be impossible. But, even though the government is now in a deep hole, it can at least stop digging it deeper.
martin.wolf@ft.com
Follow along with Martin Wolf myFT And Twitter
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