1/10 #BREXIT – A LONG VIEW IN A SHORT THREAD: The EU (previously the EEC or Common Market) was the lifeboat that Britain jumped into (very enthusiastically) after the Empire sank and the prospects for further exploitation of our former colonies receded. #Max12to1 
2/10 Any good history of Britain post-WW2 (e.g. Ben Pimlott’s biography of Harold Wilson 👇 – highly recommended) shows how fundamentally shattered the British economy was after 1945. We have never really recovered. #Max12to1 goodreads.com/book/show/1756…
3/10 The economy lurched from crisis to crisis under both #Tory and #Labour govts, with the balance of payments in particular disarray as we struggled to come to terms with the over-valuing of our currency in a world that now looked to the mighty dollar instead. #Max12to1
4/10 The free-market experiments of the last 40 years have done little or nothing to alter our fundamental economic weakness (e.g. British productivity remains stubbornly low 👇) but have done a great deal to worsen #inequality and #poverty. #Max12to1 ft.com/content/e7a8cb…
5/10 The same inability to face up to economic realities and a new world order (plus nostalgia for past-Imperial “greatness”) persists. It underlay the fantasy-thinking that led to #Brexit as a means (for some) of averting feelings of shame and loss around our decline. #Max12to1
6/10 Well, recently, we decided to jump out of the lifeboat just as the world’s seas have become very choppy indeed. We’ve almost certainly done a very stupid thing economically (it is early days to be fair) and the social and political fall-out looks grim too. #Max12to1
7/10 The UK will likely re-join the EU in some shape or form at some point in the medium-longer term. It makes no sense to be isolated in the world as it is now and as it is shaping up. Geopolitical realities, if not economics alone, will dictate. #Max12to1
8/10 For now though, we probably have to suffer the consequences of #Brexit. Given that the whole #Brexit project was an exercise in hubris and shame-aversion, its supporters will almost certainly feel unable to lose face and change course. #Max12to1
9/10 A non-#Tory govt will be a necessary first step but, as this course-correction will involve a long haul, it would be better if that govt was based on a #ProgressiveAlliance that can keep the #Tories out for a long time (or forever) while the damage is undone. #Max12to1
10/10 Further arguments for why we need a #ProgressiveAlliance govt and not just a @UKLabour govt are set out below 👇. Thanks for reading. #Max12to1
https://twitter.com/Max12to1/status/1463075761900904450
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