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Brexit, the personal and the political

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Last week I was asked to write, for a German audience, a piece on Brexit that was short and “personal but also political”. This is what I delivered. The German version will be out in mid-April in Magazin Mitbestimmung.

As I write these words it is 1000 days since the 2016 referendum that is propelling the United Kingdom, after almost half a century of membership, out of the EU. It seems like an age. And it is just 10 days before the foreseen Brexit Day on March 29th. Yet confusion still reigns as to the outcome. Despite years of debate, all the options remain on the table: crashing out, leaving amicably with a deal and, after all, staying in. [Read more…]

No good options for the UK – risks but opportunities for the EU

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I recall many years ago discussing an industrial conflict with someone who is now a senior trade union leader.  Sure I can get our people “up a palm tree”, he said. But then I have to know how to get them back down again afterwards. This common sense advice was not taken by the Brexiteers. They and their media friends whipped up British citizens into an apoplexy over the EU and immigration, suggesting that if they vote Leave all the things they dislike about the EU (and maybe about modern life more generally) will disappear, while all they like can be retained. And they won a small but clear majority in the referendum.

It is exhilarating to win: to sit up in the palm tree, survey the turmoil below and feel a sense of empowerment. After a while though, a palm tree is in uncomfortable place. It’s easy to poke holes in the status quo. It’s easy to promise people the moon (assuming one has the requisite pragmatic attitude to telling the truth). But now the Leave camp must lead both its supporters and the British people as a whole down from the palm tree. The problem is there is no ladder. More fundamentally there is no clarity whether to go North, South, East or West of the tree.

So far all the Bexiteers have managed to do is to own up that many promises will remain unfilled. But that will have to change soon. [Read more…]

Progressive economists should support Remain not Brexit – a response to Steve Keen

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Update: Steve Keen replies to my critique here.

140 characters are not a good basis for a debate about complex issues. Let me extricate myself from a potentially useful but frustrating twitter “debate” and write a short response to Prof. Steve Keen’s call to support Brexit.

I follow Steve Keen’s economic work at a distance but with interest and sympathy. Although I have not sought to make a career out of economic theorising, I broadly share many of his views on endogenous money and the central role of instability, uncertainty and bank debt in understanding economic developments. I was therefore surprised and disappointed to read his justification for supporting Brexit. Even if he did not formulate it as such, his statement is bound to be taken as a recommendation by his numerous followers and supporters. Yet his reasoning in the article is poor and – this is the most charitable explanation I can find – politically extremely naive.

There would be some additional points to make, but let me just address Keen’s two main arguments. [Read more…]