Had fun debating Patrick Minford on Brexit. He wasn’t best pleased when I accused him of being an extremist.
Here’s a short thread explaining why I think this is accurate:
Here’s a short thread explaining why I think this is accurate:
A former key advisor to Thatcher, Minford is currently a leading member of ‘Economists for Free Trade’ (formerly ‘Economists for Brexit’). Throughout his career he has pushed an extreme free-market agenda, and vehemently opposed even the mildest progressive reforms.
In the late 1990s, Minford strongly opposed the introduction of the minimum wage, arguing that it would cost more than 200,000 jobs. He has, of course, been proven spectacularly wrong: prospectmagazine.co.uk/economics-and-…
In 1999, Minford wrote that the NHS “cruelly constrained” private health providers and that NHS services should be “rationed severely and brutally to the vast majority who ought to be paying for themselves”. patrickminford.net/news_archive/d…
During the EU referendum campaign Minford admitted that his plan to unilaterally abolish all trade barriers would “mostly eliminate manufacturing”. In our debate he said this was a “nonsense misquote”, but you can see the proof here: thesun.co.uk/archives/polit…
Minford also told a parliamentary select committee that after Brexit the UK will need to “run down” industries like car manufacturing, “just like we ran down the coal and the steel industries.”
In his analysis showing the supposed benefits of Brexit, Minford assumes that the UK imposes no health, safety or environmental standards on imports after Brexit, as @jdportes as highlighted. For Minford, this is all just unnecessary “red tape”.
Minford is also perfectly content to see inequality increase dramatically: his own analysis of his proposals predicted that unskilled workers’ wages would fall by 14%. But he doesn’t care as long as the rich get richer cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/…
Essentially Minford wants to create a world where capital is free to exploit people and the environment without consequence. This is what Brexit is all about for him and his Tory supporters, who often cite his work. This is why a no deal Brexit must be opposed.
The full debate can be listened to here. At the end he accuses me of “acting on behalf of clients who don’t want Brexit”, and of “dressing up my arguments with “pseudo economics.” Irony is dead.
