No.4 – Good To Meet you at the House of Commons
Dear James,
It was good to meet you for the first time on Monday at the House of Commons. Our brief chat and your subsequent e-mail has helped me to understand your current position on Brexit.
I fully accept that you are a loyal conservative MP which I suppose means that you support the current leader of your party. There are, of course, pressures around, internal to the Conservative Party, to change your leader and we shall have to see how that turns out and whether your loyalty remains with any leader of your party or whether you may wish to change your allegiance on the basis of principle rather than the need to keep your party intact.
On the question of principle, I would like to ask you how you can continue to support the present Brexit Withdrawal Agreement as a matter of principle and not just as a matter of Tory Party survival. All major studies (OBR, IFS, IMF, OECD) show that this agreement will leave this country poorer than it would have been if we had not had the 2016 referendum. Indeed it is already poorer. From a pre-referendum annual GDP growth of 2.5%-3.00% - at the top of the G7 nations - we have slumped to 1.00-1.5 % - at the bottom of the G7. Each drop of one per cent of GDP accounts for a loss of national income of approximately £20bn p.a. That means that since the referendum the nation has already lost about £50bn simply from loss of GDP. Add to that the loss of forward investment again to the the tune of another £40bn plus the so-called divorce fee of £39bn, the cost to the UK economy since 2016 is already in the region of £120bn. The current agreement may cause a slight lessening of these figures but will not do much to improve them. The cost of Conservative policy to the nation however, is not the only problem of principle. The current agreement will still subject the UK to the ECJ. It will also prevent the negotiation of trade agreements between the UK and other countries. It also fails to solve the problem of the Northern Irish border. All of these were once Mrs May’s ‘red lines’. Of course, all these elements are only fixed for the duration of the Transition Period and, in the longer term, a future free trade agreement will have to be hammered out. With the government already having hit the brick wall of European solidarity, what chances will there be for the UK even further down the line? The French and Germans are already indicating that to continue to enjoy the benefits of membership of the Single Market and Customs Union, we shall have to continue to obey their rules and pay a fee for that membership. Having witnessed the humiliation of Messers Davis, Fox and Johnson in their futile efforts to change the EU's views during the negotiations to achieve the current Withdrawal Agreement, I do not give Mrs May much chance in the even more complex negotiations implicit in the future Political Protocol. She may dream of a ‘Deep and Special Relationship’ with the EU but it will be far inferior to the deep and special relationship that we already have!
Regarding the question of principle that the nation made an irrevocable choice in 2016, I would merely refer you to David Davis’s speech in 2012 in which he said, ‘A democracy that cannot change its mind ceases to be a democracy.’
In summary, I believe that there are two main principles in conflict here. Either you adhere to the principle of the survival of the Tory Party no matter what. Or you have to ride above party and choose the principle of national interest. I know of no party for the last one hundred years that has gone to the people with a manifesto to make the country poorer. You may think that the gain of political sovereignty is worth paying for a loss of wealth. However, there is a difference between ‘formal sovereignty’ and ‘effective sovereignty’ and there is probably an inverse relationship between the two. In today’s world of global networks and treaties, the more formal sovereignty that you have, the less effective sovereignty you get. With maximum formal sovereignty a country ends up as an autarchy, impoverished in its proud independence. Only in a world where a government seeks treaties using maximum bargaining strength, will we maximise our effective sovereignty. In other words, our country would be far better off by remaining in a market of 500m consumers rather than act alone as a market of 65m.
One way or another, you will soon have to decide and I know it will be a difficult decision to make. If your main principle is to ensure that the Tory Party survives no matter what, then I would say that would make it clear that you are a Conservative rather than a One-Nation Brit. If you vote on the principle of the National Interest however, e.g that no deal will leave anyone poorer in our country, then that might be seen as a truly heroic vote.
I look forward to a heroic response!
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent