Book review: Realism or optimism?

This week’s post, which is a day earlier than usual, is the latest in a series of occasional reviews of Brexit-related books, which can be found via the ‘Book reviews’ tag.
 
Foster, Peter (2023) What Went Wrong with Brexit and What We Can Do About It. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. ISBN 978-1-80530-125-7 (Hardback). 178 pages. £14.99

I don’t think that, in general, Brexit has been very well-served by British journalists. Political journalists, especially, struggled to capture the way that Brexit grew out of, and brought with it, a very different kind of politics from the traditional Westminster ‘game’. Perhaps even more, they struggled with the politics of the UK-EU negotiations, reflecting the pre-existing lack of British interest in the politics of the EU which was arguably a contributory factor, if minor, to why Brexit happened at all. Beyond that, very few journalists seemed able to engage with the deep technical complexities of Brexit, something which contributed to enabling Brexiter politicians to escape media scrutiny.

Indeed, at the height of the Brexit process, between, say, the triggering of Article 50 and the UK’s formal departure from the EU in 2020, I often found non-UK journalists more helpful in understanding what was going on. Tony Connelly, RTE’s Europe Editor, was undoubtedly the foremost of these, but there were others, including Annette Dittert of Germany’s ARD. Of course, there were also some fantastic UK journalists. Faisal Islam, when Political Editor of Sky News (though less so since he became the BBC’s Economics Editor); Ian Dunt, then the Editor of politics.co.uk; and Lisa O’Carroll, at that time the Guardian’s Brexit correspondent, all come to mind, but again there are others.

Peter Foster was and is undoubtedly one them, and I’ve referred to his work countless times on this blog (to the extent that he even has his own tag, though it by no means captures all the references). What he shares with all of those just mentioned is a capacity to understand the ‘big picture’ of Brexit whilst also engaging with the often arcane, technical details. It’s a quality he showed as the Telegraph’s Europe Editor, when, if I recall correctly, his focus was mainly on the Brexit negotiations, and, since then, as Public Policy Editor of the Financial Times. In fact, especially since taking on the latter role, I would say he is the foremost journalist, whether in the UK or elsewhere, in covering the detail of what Brexit means for, especially, businesses, supply chains, and regulation.

Readable, forensic, and realistic analysis

It is these things which are the main focus of the book (which of course means that there are other components of Brexit which aren’t within its ambit), and it provides a superb and authoritative account of them, made accessible by examples and vignettes. This readability of what might otherwise be rather dry material is also aided by a writing style which, and I imagine this is no easy task, transfers well from newspaper columns to the rather different demands of a book-length treatment.

Foster’s explanation of what Brexit has meant for businesses is forensic, if not brutal. Over and over again, he dissects how Brexiters misled themselves and others in what they were doing. Examples include David Frost’s disastrous, “never seriously substantiated” dismissal of the significance of non-tariff barriers to trade (p. 17), the resurrection of freeports which in economic terms “were destined to be empty vessels” (p. 48), the Brexiters’ “red tape fallacy” (pp. 29-38) that amongst other things led to the UKCA debacle (p. 71), and the “magical construct” of an invisible border between Ireland and Northern Ireland (p. 104).

The book also contains a calmly withering overview of post-Brexit independent trade policy (pp. 54-64) and a careful account of what Brexit has meant for immigration (pp. 81-89). Unsurprisingly, at least to those who have read his FT columns, there are also superbly clear explanations of what Brexit has meant for particular sectors, such as chemicals (pp. 73-75), auto (pp. 75-79) and the travel industry (pp. 94-97).

Underneath all these individual issues lies the “magical thinking and dogma” (p. 41) which has consumed the British political and policy-making process since 2016. The story of how that happened is concisely but crisply narrated in chapter three (pp. 39-53).

All of this forms part one of the book, ‘What went wrong with Brexit’, which accounts for about two-thirds of the text. The briefer second part is concerned with ‘What to do about it’. Here, the discussion is equally assured and well-informed, and, in my opinion, realistic in focusing mainly on what can be done to improve the tone of UK-EU relations and the terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. He also suggests that, especially if a better tone is achieved, the UK could re-apply to rejoin the Lugano Convention, having previously been refused, facilitating the resolution of international legal disputes for businesses. Other ideas include seeking to join the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) Convention to harmonize Rules of Origin.

Many of these proposals have been made by bodies such as the UK Trade and Business Commission and the Tony Blair Institute, but are helpfully brought together and clearly set out here. What Foster advocates also looks likely to be (the maximalist version of) Labour policy if they get into power, although he doesn’t put it in these terms, and he spells it out in far more detail and with far more clarity than they do.

Again, in my view, rightly, Foster suggests that, taken as a whole, the value of such an approach is a bit greater than some critics, both pro- and anti-Brexit, allow. But he isn’t starry-eyed about it, being far more honest than Labour politicians are (at least openly) about the “limited overall economic impact” (p. 168) these measures would have. Beyond them, he also advocates (pp. 168-175) more sustained and strategic policy-making, rather than the post-Brexit frenzy of half-delivered and often half-baked ideas, especially about how to re-energize business investment.

Misplaced optimism?

Clear-sighted as all this is, and constructive as its suggestions are, there’s a degree of optimism about it that may be misplaced. Foster’s guiding theme is that “it’s time to think again about Brexit by taking an approach based on facts, not fantasy and fallacy” (p.8). That leads to his overall conclusion that “post-Brexit Britain, quite literally, cannot afford more of the wishful thinking that has blighted UK policy-making since the 2016 referendum” (p.168) and “what is now needed is a realistic, sober vision for what Britain should look like in 2050 – allied to fact-based strategies for how to get there” (p. 175).

Again, I think Foster is completely right, but I fear he underestimates the extent to which Brexit has made that all but impossible. As I said in my own Brexit book, it has created a situation of it often seeming as if there are ‘Brexiter truths’ and ‘Remainer truths’. Ultimately this may, and hopefully will, change, but for now it means that “an approach based on facts” – which Foster’s certainly is – will too readily be dismissed, for all his attempts at even-handedness, as the work of a ‘remainer’, or perhaps even as being typical of the ‘globalist’ Financial Times. How can such an approach succeed when even the most basic of facts is so bitterly contested?

That is well-illustrated  by Daniel Hannan’s spiteful and dismissive review in the Telegraph (£), which I refer to, reluctantly, simply because it is illustrative; it has no other value. This describes the book as “myopic”, “pro EU”, and an example of “Brexit Derangement Syndrome” that will only interest remainers. In a related way, Foster rightly calls for “ending the politics of betrayal” (pp. 121-127) as part of the way forward but, as I’ve often argued on this blog, though it is far more eloquently discussed by the Irish journalist and author Fintan O’Toole, that politics is inseparable from Brexit.

Within the context of such tribalism and its associated betrayalism, not only are facts disputed they also get distorted. For example, on one of the few occasions Hannan touches on the substance of Foster’s book, it is to criticize him for not seeing that the UK’s continued use of the CE mark (rather than insisting it be replaced by the UKCA mark) should be regarded as a welcome possible “step towards mutual recognition”. But, for all that it may seem as if there are Brexiter truths and Remainer truths, on these kinds of issues some things are true and some are false. And Hannan’s claim is simply false, for the obvious reason that there is no prospect, and not even any proposal or suggestion, that the EU will start to recognize the UKCA mark reciprocally with the UK’s recognition of the EU mark.

This is only a tiny example, but it is misunderstanding, misrepresenting or ignoring the kinds of ‘nuts and bolts’ issues that Foster specializes in which allows Brexiters to continue to resist – indeed, to viciously disparage – a “realistic, sober vision … allied to fact-based strategies”. That is, it enables them both to ignore reality and to construct an alternative reality.

Catching or contributing to the tide of pragmatism?

Now perhaps the tide is turning, and the influence of Brexiter ideologues like Hannan is diminishing. That seems possible given Sunak’s at least sporadically more pragmatic approach to the EU compared to his predecessors (though as one was a pathological liar and the other plain bonkers, that’s not a high bar), and even more likely if Starmer’s Labour come to power.

Foster clearly believes that this, and growing public disaffection with Brexit, means “that space is now emerging for a re-think” (p. 4). If so, his book may have caught the tide of the times. I hope so. But, as he frequently and strongly emphasizes, “time is of the essence” (p. 8), and it must be an open question whether, especially with the pro-Brexit media denouncing every step towards sense as betrayal, any UK government can move fast and far enough to deliver even the still relatively cautious prospectus the book advocates.

On the other hand, one danger which a Labour government looks likely to face is that, along with Brexiter denunciations, it will also be attacked by remainers and rejoiners as being insufficient to the magnitude of the task. The positive reading of that is it will push Labour towards Foster’s more maximalist version of its presently disclosed policy. The negative reading is that, squeezed between those who say it is too much and those who say it is too little, the space for pragmatism will remain vanishingly small.

None of these observations detracts from that fact that this is an excellent book which should be read by anyone who wants to understand the intricacies – and idiocies - of what Brexit has meant for trade, businesses, supply chains and regulation, and what could be done to address some of them. Indeed, although some of its prescriptions have been made by various think-tanks and committees, this is perhaps the only book providing a serious and sustained analysis of what Britain might now, realistically, do about Brexit. So, even if the tide has not yet turned in a more pragmatic direction, it could help it to do so.

As such, I hope it is widely read, not least by policy-makers and by commentators who, if they shared Foster’s depth of knowledge and acuity of analysis, could do so much to re-shape the tone and content of the debate about Britain’s post-Brexit future.

My only gripe, but it is quite a big one, is with the publisher rather than the author (as I assume it is an issue of house style): the book gives no sources or references and, even more surprisingly, and very irritatingly, does not even have an index.