Brexit. What’s going on and what’s going to happen? A thread. /1

Famously, the British were not much bothered by the EU until suddenly they were. A lot of effort has since been put into analysing why one group or another voted leave. Less thought has been given to what motivated those who forced Brexit on to the agenda. /2

It’s easy to reach for some variant of Empire nostalgia or Xenophobia. That’s not what emerges, however, from @PeterKGeoghan’s excellent book ( https://www.waterstones.com/book/democracy-for-sale/peter-geoghegan/9781789546033). /3

The think tanks and pressure groups that have pushed for Brexit (and with which so many of the leading Brexiter ministers have been associated) are free market groups. They believe in a small state, low tax and, most significantly, de-regulation. /4

EU Membership is a bar to de-regulation because so many of the labour, food and product standards are agreed and enacted at EU level. /5

So, whilst, for many voters, the point of “taking back control” is both end and means (“it’s all about sovereignty”), for the free marketers, control is a means to a different end: deregulation. /6

But haven’t Brexit advocates insisted that standards will not be diluted? Yes. That’s because they have a problem: standards are popular. The small state, low tax, low regulation vision is one they can’t sell to British voters. Brexit is a popular means to an unpopular end. /7

But understanding that de-regulation is their goal begins to make sense of what is otherwise an uncomfortable whipsawing about in Govt behaviour. If our standards are always going to be at least as stringent as those in the EU, why is “level playing field” so problematic? /8

Why do we have one MP assure us we would never accept chlorinated chicken whilst another is telling us that refusing to eat it would be no more than elitist snobbery? /9

Why is the Govt so troubled by the EU’s wanting information about possible divergence from standards before listing the UK as an approved third party for food exports? /10

It helps to ask another question: If you had a popular means to an unpopular end and felt no particular compunction about concealing your motives, what would you do? /11

What you’d do is see the means through to completion as fast as you possibly could. In other words, you do whatever was necessary to get out asap. You’d also take no deal over a deal which limited your ability to de-regulate. Otherwise, what would it all have been for? /12

That begins to look like the situation we're presently in. But what comes next? Once out, opportunities open up. Free of any constraint, you set about de-regulating. There’s no reason to believe that that will be any more popular, but you can then present it as a necessity. /13

The economic harm caused by no deal becomes the rationale for doing what you always wanted to do. Increased unemployment becomes the justification for making employment more “flexible” by reconsidering employment rights. /14

Food standards have to be modified because without a deal with the EU, a deal with the US becomes all the more important, etc, etc /15

We had a foretaste last night where compliance with International Law is a standard we’re willing to abandon in the interests of supposed urgent national interest. /16

Prediction: De-regulation will be presented as the vital rope ladder out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. /end