Why Our Brexit Glass Is More Than Half Full

Where exactly are we now that we have concluded a democratically inclusive process the result of which is a mandate to leave the EU?

And I mean where are we? Not where do some of the most pessimistic canards speculate that we are.

Well, as of some day (fairly) soon we will no longer be beholden to a regime that takes ￡8.5bn net from the UK tax payer each year. This amount is the same amount that the Government collects in Capital Gains Tax and theoretically would allow for that levy to be abolished. Put another way, it’s a potential tax cut of 1.6% for all of us*. Wouldn’t you agree that such additional purchase power in people’s pockets might create boosted consumer spending then more jobs, more taxes paid and so on?

At the time of writing, no company has said they are leaving Britain further to the EU vote. No banks have upped sticks and left on a Eurostar.

Only two people have lost their jobs as a consequence of Thursday’s vote. The UK High Commissioner to the EU Lord Hill, and David Cameron. No swathes of unemployment. No statements from the big business execs that signed letters supporting Remain extolling how they are now decamping to Bruges.

There is, as yet, no sign of World War 3 that the Government predicted, should we depart the EU project. Taxes have not increased. The FTSE ended UP on the week. And Govt borrowing for long term money just got cheaper. The Bank of England base rate is still a lowly 0.5%.

A slightly shrunken pound (by 6%) has made property prices lower for foreign investors and exports cheaper, boosting manufacturing and service industries. Europe will buy our goods because they want to, not because EU Commissioners tell them to. And now they are even better value than they were on Thursday.

Sajid Javid MP, the Business Minister, said on the Andrew Marr show this morning (Sunday) that he did not now think that there would be a rise in unemployment and a crippling recession, as he and his Remain colleagues had consistently warned during the referendum campaign. He has rather changed his mind.

We are set to be truly legislatively autonomous now. Free to shape, enact, amend and repeal our own laws via the people that we elected to do just that.

Obama’s immediate reaction to the leave vote was to be nice to us again. Supportive even. He values the special relationship after all and despite his misplaced words when standing beside DC a while back where he said we would ‘be at the back of the queue’ if we shunned Europe, he now says that we’re all pals really and he’d relish the US talking about buying our Range Rovers again, retaining James Corden and Robbie Williams; welcoming British filmmakers, designers, fashion gurus, engineers, inventors etc. POTUS has well and truly improved his view. ‘Dave who?’ he probably said to Michelle on Friday morning.

There’s less red tape, some might say, especially for small business owners that can spend the time and money running their businesses instead of pandering to a Brussels Stasi. Working Time Directives and the Temporary Agency Workers’ Directive can go (saving another ￡6bn according to Open Europe). And powerful hoovers can now return.

And if immigration is managed to just those that will benefit our society, it means less buyer competition for UK housing. And more technical and professional skills from non-EU countries benefitting our economy.

Energy Performance Certificates can be scrapped at a saving to Joe Public of ￡100m per annum.

The housing market is sound and defined by a cemented imbalance between low supply and ever increasing demand, low mortgage costs and an aspirational home owning culture that runs through us like seaside rock. Rumours around it's early demise are very greatly exaggerated. 

No more legal aid extradition support through the European Court system at public expense for terrorist suspects playing the ‘Human Rights’ card albeit that we do need to repeal the Human Rights Act and set out our own, fairer and more robust Bill of Rights first (leaving the EU might be seen as the start). Just like our American friends did a few hundred years ago with quite reasonable effect.

All this said and done, I’m just a would be property entrepreneur with a basic Basildon education. I’m not as clever a commentator on this stuff as the politicians and economists and journalists that are currently making much of our forthcoming Brexit journey, predicting all sorts of possibilities and probabilities around the implications of our EU divorce. Actually, I know a lot of people that are divorced. And they are all, emphatically, definitely happier since their split.

I’m not an economist by any stretch but merely make my case for optimism in the face of a number of pundits that are now attacking our prospects because they were on the losing side. I may not have Nobel prize winning credentials but there is some logic and common sense to what I have set out here. Britain has had its fair share of adversity through the years and has long stood tall on the world stage, especially in troubled times. I guess that’s why we were known as Great Britain (what ever happened to that?)

Some of our achievements include…

We fought off the Roman Empire. Eventually.

We won a world war (twice) and defeated fascism.

We saw off a global financial crisis whilst the rest of the planet yielded to it.

Our Empire has ruled the world, traded with it and, actually, gave rise to mass immigration and multiculturalism. A good thing in my book.

We invented the pencil; the Christmas card; radio; colour movies; the telephone; broadcast TV; the computer; the Internet; the internal combustion engine; the railway and the sandwich. Ice cream; the toilet; the light bulb; the postage stamp; steel; plastic; vitamins; and Viagra. Evolution; DNA; plus the tank; the submarine; the bouncing bomb and the first printed book. The metric system (ironically). The seat belt; tarmac; traffic lights and Formula One. We discovered hydrogen and then oxygen. Helium, aluminium and silicone. A Brit was the first to run a sub four minute mile.

As Victorians we built railways, viaducts and the underground.

We wrote the European Convention on Human Rights.

We are founding members of the League of Nations, later the UN. And NATO.

We have the best free health service in the world.

We can boast the greatest financial trading centre on Earth.

Our head of state is the most famous, respected and admired woman anywhere.

But all this patriotic bravado aside, my passionately held view is that the negative hyperbole will now subside and that we will, as a country, knuckle down as we always do and will prevail as a strong and vibrant economy with a bright future.

We are a tough, entrepreneurial, tenacious and proud nation.

We are great and we must not allow opportunist headline grabbing sour grapes to convince us otherwise.

Now, let’s just bloody well get on with it shall we.

*Total UK HM Revenue receipts in 2015 - ￡533bn