Read the main front page headline in the Telegraph today... then read my article!
The Tories have carefully, deliberately, cynically shifted the conversation around Brexit and the damage it's causing. Instead of denying it, they're now blaming others. link.medium.com/EKYTk1qT5jb
This isn't some off-hand remark by a couple of disgruntled MPs at a fringe Tory Party Conference event.
This is a shift at the highest levels, from the PM on down.
And this new strategy has consequences for Labour, and all of us. Because it means the Brexit pain won't stop.
Indeed, the Brexit pain doesn't need to stop. It's all part of the journey towards a future high-wage, high-productivity Britain.
A fantasy, but one which will be compelling to a significant portion of the Tory base. (Alternative: admit to themselves their 2016 vote was wrong.)
Going back to the Telegraph article, it's masterful how the Tories parlay Brexit warnings FROM businesses into a list of grievances aimed AT businesses.
Every Brexit problem firms signalled would happen is now an opportunity to chastise those same firms for a lack of mitigation.
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More and more Tories are jumping onto the "Short-term Brexit pain? Sure - it's a milestone on the way to higher pay." train.
If enough Leavers swallow it (alternative is to admit to themselves they voted wrongly) they'll have cemented that contingent.
Oh, and Lexit is dead.
This approach has several advantages for the Tories:
- The first part, i.e. the bit we see now, matches reality: there are Brexit problems. ("Aha, but they're Brexit-problems-for-a-good-cause...")
- Stuffs Labour. Already impossible to out-Leave the Tories, now double impossible.
Other advantages...
- Once people become invested in the idea, they will accept almost any hardship. Why? Because of the sunk cost. They've already "accepted" the current damage. That's the price of continuing to believe in Brexit. So reversing their thinking becomes ever harder.
The Tories seem to be pivoting to an "Everyone voted to be poorer, and all we did was implement the result of the vote" Brexit strategy...
It's a controversial move. But it has some merit, from their POV.
It doesn't tell Leavers they were stupid or didn't know what they were voting for. Instead, it's subtle: it forces them to agree to something terrible to avoid admitting to themselves they were wrong about Brexit.
IF Leavers buy into it, then the more everyone else points the finger at everything that's going wrong, the more likely they are to retreat into an even more defensive strategy.
Ultimately: "Of course there are problems. It's Brexit. But it will be worth it in the end."
Something happened on 1 October that will severely hurt inbound tourism to the UK & damage the business sector too...
As Priti Patel boasts, the Tories binned the use of national ID cards to enter the UK. But an estimated 200 million EU citizens only have ID cards not passports.
School trips, especially, will be a thing of the past.
A national ID card, ubiquitous in most EU countries, will get EU citizens into over 50 countries and territories. (See list below.)
The ONLY exception is the UK. We've slammed the door by demanding passports only.
The final nail in the coffin for school trips is that the Tories also got rid of the "List of Travellers" scheme for non-EU citizens accompanying EU citizens on class trips. So it's now harder for EU citizens to come (they need passports) and much harder for non-EU citizens.