Thread by @tony_nog

1) Lilico - the intellectual wing of the #Brexit movement
Warning, could be a long thread!

@andrew_lilico is in the spotlight today for a fairly dispicable tweet which I won't repeat here.

But Lilico is also a "leading" Brexit economist who put together an interesting article

@andrew_lilico 2) here is the article in question, from April 2017, and is a great example of what brexiters were selling us before reality set in & they desperately pivoted from full on "we can have it all" cakeism to "no deal? No biggie" snake oil

reaction.life/seven-key-brit…

@andrew_lilico 3) in the article he lays out 7 "perspectives", 7 British viewpoints all based on the "they need us more than we need them" trade deficit

Below is my take on those 7 perspectives, which were arrogant then but utterly ludicrous 20 months later

musealoudblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/sev…

@andrew_lilico 4) before we jump into the article it's probably important to remind ourselves that although now Davis, Raab, Mogg etc are focused very heavily on no deal Brexit, during the ref campaign the "they need us/we can have it all" spiel was *absolutely* the message

@andrew_lilico 5) Leave supporters seem to have forgotten this but Brexit leaders highlighted the trade deficit between ourselves & the EU as proof that they would be desperate to do a deal on our terms.

There was no question of no deal, only the exact deal we wanted

@andrew_lilico 6) so the article makes 7 points
1 we won't pay any divorce bill
2 we won't accept FoM
3 an EU trade deal is easy
4 we won't make concessions
5 we haven't got the weaker hand
6 we are a global military power
7 if necessary, we'll withold our military & security capability

@andrew_lilico 7) these 7 points are presented as reasons why we'll be successful in negotiations

And he was right on us not accepting FoM

On the other 6 points he was catastrophically wrong

@andrew_lilico 8) using our military & intelligence power to blackmail the EU was considered our Ace card by many brexiters....

Until they tried it, and understood that threatening to withhold protection or intelligence, putting people at risk, wasn't a good look for a modern country

@andrew_lilico 9) as for the other points they were either peacock posturing or just plain wrong. Mostly because they were based on this belief, that the EU economy was weak.

@andrew_lilico 10) this attitude, that we could threaten, and bluster, and threaten to walk out because the EU was weak & craven, was held not just by Lilico but by most of the Brexit "intellectuals" and its important to take a look back because it helps explain how they got it so wrong

@andrew_lilico 11) because although the talk from Lilico, Davis, Lyons & in fact all major Brexit leaders are now presenting No Deal like it was always the plan, it absolutely was not

The EU was going to cave, to give in and give us the exact same benefits - because it was weak

Only it wasn't

@andrew_lilico 12) all of the key leaders of Brexit honestly believed we would get a great cake & eat it deal.
5th largest economy & all that

When it became obvious we *wouldn't* get that great deal, they doubled down and pretended "clean" (ie very very dirty) no deal Brexit had been the plan

@andrew_lilico 13) so it's worth reading this article again to take us back to the mindset of the Brexit intellectuals before reality slapped them around the chops

The strutting arrogance, Empire nostalgia & collosal ignorance that led us into this humiliating dead end

reaction.life/seven-key-brit…

@andrew_lilico 14) fundamentally, Brexit leaders & intellectuals are fools then frauds. They bet the country on "they need us more than we needs them" & when this failed, instead of owning up they switched direction. Without any solutions they turned to the ultimate no solution, no deal

@andrew_lilico 15) and then something magical happened. Leavers followed them!
They forgot cake & eat it, exact same benefits.
They forgot "we can get access to the Single Market"
They even forgot the £350m

"we never believed it"
"We always knew there'd be a cost"
"We voted for no deal"

@andrew_lilico 16) but that wasn't the original offer. We didn't need the SM & CU because we'd get a deal just as good. Brexit was going to be free, if it wasn't, how would we have £350m spare afterwards?

As diabolical,shameless,morally repugnant bait & switches go, its pretty impressive
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