"But, in the biggest irony of all, if this is to benefit British capitalism it will require a makeover – to become more high investment and stakeholder-oriented, working closely with government. It will have to look… more European," smirks Will Hutton, on his way to suggesting that one of tomorrow's anti-Brexit Labour rebels would lead the party to victory in 2029 on a manifesto commitment to re-join the EU.
And Vince Cable calls for "a European (and Asian) approach [that] would disappoint the hard-core, Atlanticist, economic libertarians of the Tory party and Brexit movement. But I suspect that the prime minister will feel he has already delivered for them on Brexit and needs some new friends. He will make a lot of friends if he steers post-Brexit Britain in the direction of being a bit more European, even perhaps more German (but don't mention the war)."
Well, we were in the EU for nearly 50 years. During that time, did we "become more high investment and stakeholder-oriented," with capital "working closely with government"? Or did we in fact become very markedly less like that than we had been on 31st December 1972?
We had more than long enough to become "a bit more European", but we did the opposite. The approach that Hutton and Cable advocate works a great deal better in Norway or Switzerland, outside the EU, than it ever worked in Britain during our decades of EU membership.
No comments:
Post a Comment