With far less than one month to go for the EU and the UK to sign a deal on their post Brexit relationship, we have had the farce of the Brexit supporters claiming the covid vaccine is another sign of British exceptionalism. It took five minutes research to show that the vaccine, discovered by Turkish German entrepreneur researchers, developed by an American company and produced in Belgium is no such thing, but by then the claim was well in circulation. Which is presumably much of the point of making it in the first place.
Rather worryingly this is, unfortunately, going to be our future for many, many years to come. Every weak trade deal, month of anaemic growth, fall in unemployment, sporting success, new hospital bed and rainbow, is now going to be claimed as the result of Brexit. Along with the line, “the remainers said this couldn’t happen, look we have once again disproved Project Fear.”
Fact and reality checking will try to find the truth, but will also be denounced as unpatriotic. Firms that leave the UK or invest elsewhere will do so for reasons unrelated to Brexit; firms that come to the UK will do so solely because of Brexit; higher growth elsewhere will be a temporary statistical glitch, low growth here a triumph, and in order to guarantee its success the UK will be driven to constantly cut benefits, worker protections, standards and tax.
Since economists are all predicting lower growth over a long time scale, but not a recession of any kind, this will be an easy sell. Get used to it.
https://jonty.substack.com/
and of course everything bad will be blamed on Covid. Trumpian style Fake News is sadly embedded in Britain too