The Notebook: Rejoining the EU is the single biggest way to kickstart growth

Where the City’s movers and shakers have their say. Today, it’s James Chapman, director of Soho Communications, with the pen, talking Brexit, the cons of polling, and a reading recommendation

Brexit has left voters disaffected

Brexit, the great unmentionable of this general election campaign, is what has really sealed the Tories’ fate.

Those who voted to remain have been alienated and infuriated to watch the disaster that has unfolded. In traditionally true blue commuter belt seats like Esher and Walton, where I live, the Liberal Democrats look set to clean up at the expense of the Tories as a result.

Those who voted leave are no more impressed with the Tories’ handling of Brexit. They consider that the Brexiteers told them a pack of lies and can’t be trusted, a sense compounded by Boris Johnson’s dissembling over Partygate. The economic benefits that were promised have palpably failed to arrive, and instead the damage Brexit has done to the economy is obvious, even masked as it is by the impact of Covid.

As a result, voters are deeply disillusioned with the entire Brexit project. Less than a quarter (24 per cent) now think the UK should remain outside of the EU, while 71 per cent say the economy is worse off because of Brexit.

Polls consistently show that over 60 per cent of voters would opt to go back in, given the chance. Even if the UK was forced to join the euro as a condition of reentry (and surely an accommodation would be reached to enable the UK to stay out, given its longstanding position on the pound), almost half of all voters already want to rejoin.

Labour has steadfastly refused to engage with the subject in this campaign. Indeed, its election manifesto commits to staying outside the EU and even vows to ‘make Brexit work’. This is simply incompatible with Labour’s pledge to pull all the available levers to stimulate economic growth. The single biggest thing the party could do to kickstart the economy – rejoining the EU single market – is ruled out, apparently forever.

Promises of a better trading relationship seem certain to prove hollow given this position.

Having promised to make it work, Labour will quickly find that it owns the problem in government. If we have learned anything about Brexit, it’s that like all revolutions it devours its children. It will destroy Keir Starmer too, in the end, unless he changes course.

To poll or not to poll?

Like all political geeks, I’ve been glued to the opinion polls over the last few weeks. It has been diverting to watch the Tories plumb ever-lower depths thanks to their car crash campaign. But is there a case to ban polls in the run-up to polling day? Countries like Canada, Greece, Mexico and Norway all restrict pre-election polling. In 2015, the polls arguably distorted the result by pointing to a hung parliament which led to a relentless focus on a potential Labour deal with the SNP. Certainly, without all the polls we might have concentrated a little more in recent weeks on what the next government actually proposes to do for five years.

Reform’s selective hearing

Senior figures in Reform have started bleating in advance about the election result, complaining that the first past the post system fails to translate votes into seats for smaller parties. They have clearly forgotten that we had a referendum on electoral reform in 2011, and 68 per cent voted ‘no’ to ditching first past the post and adopting the alternative vote system. Surely Reform accepts that the referendum result reflects the ‘will of the people’ and can never be revisited? Or am I missing something?

Victoria Starmer impresses

Up until this weekend, Keir Starmer’s wife Victoria hadn’t appeared with him at a single political event in the campaign, with a charming picture of the couple attending a Taylor Swift concert marking the one other time she has been seen. Political gossip websites have shabbily tried to imply this might mean there is something wrong with the Starmer marriage. In reality, Starmer appears determined to shield his family from the toxic political spotlight. He and his wife have chosen never to disclose their children’s names publicly. This, and Victoria’s determination to leave the campaigning to her husband, seems entirely admirable.

‘Swift’ campaign pitstop. pic.twitter.com/VdSo7Pb0i5

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 21, 2024

What I’ve been reading

I have been re-reading my favourite contemporary novelist David Mitchell’s magnum opus Cloud Atlas, which is somehow 20 years old. Mitchell has developed a cult following and I am told my signed first edition is now worth hundreds of pounds, though I don’t intend to part with it. It has been a long wait since his last book in 2020 and I can’t wait for the next one, which hasn’t been announced. However there are rumours that it will be a Viking saga with the usual supernatural twist.