Brexit has nothing to do with Labour's catastrophic economic mistakes

A single poll can never be taken as a certainty of how the public mood is, but if it is part of a trend then the lessons it points to need to be considered more seriously. The latest poll from FindOutNow is a component of a persistent downward trend measuring Labour support – only this latest one puts Labour at third (15 per cent), behind the conservatives in second (17 per cent) and Reform way out in first place (more than double Labour’s popularity at 32 per cent).

Add to this the recent polling that shows Keir Starmer’s personal ‘satisfaction rating’ is the lowest ever recorded for a British prime minister (-66 per cent) and Rachel Reeves (-56 per cent) the least popular Chancellor. Starmer is lower than Thatcher, Major, Sunak or Gordon Brown ever were. So yes, Labour is desperate and what better way to absolve itself of the blame than to suggest it is all Brexit’s fault?

This gaslighting fits in with the self-rewarding belief that the British public is experiencing buyers’ remorse in the form of Brexit regret. There are polls showing voters would be willing for the UK to rejoin the EU, but they are only telling those that never wanted to leave and are unable to accept the democratic choice we made what they want to hear.

Apart from the fact there is no menu available of what poor terms rejoining would deliver and certainly no prices on that menu that could make any decision well informed and meaningful, there is nothing like a debate on EU membership pros and cons as the vast majority of people have moved on and want to talk about other issues.

Indeed, when asked if membership of the EU means having the Euro the majority then want to stay out of the EU. The fiscal problems the UK now faces – and which are driving the need for tax rises – are the responsibility of successive Conservative and Labour governments and their poor economic decisions rather than Brexit. Indeed it is fair to argue that our problems would now be worse but for Brexit and the fate of Britain would be far worse were we to rejoin that parasitic club.

Firstly, total British trade to the World is up and rather than the project fear nightmares of being unable to access EU goods being made real the EU is exporting more goods to us than before. On the financials, import revenues provided since leaving amount to £23.3bn, and according to facts4EU.org £88bn has been saved on membership fees. That is a black hole of £111bn that Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves would have had to cover.

Going forward the potential UK share of Brussel’s membership fees that would follow the EU’s new expansive budget would make a mockery of any attempt at financial prudence while opening up our growing unemployment queues to greater competition that would depress wages and make it harder for British workers to get a job.

Reaching for my copy of “75 Brexit Benefits” by Gully Foyle I find many new EU costs we have avoided or would have to pay in future. These include the EU’s packaging taxes worth £2.9bn we avoided over the last three years and the emissions trading scheme revenues of £1.5bn estimated for payment in 2027. Without Brexit Labour would be in a worse financial mess than it has made for itself.

Then there are those who think they are having some ironic fun (and sticking it to Nigel Farage in particular) by saying Brexit has caused the problem of the illegal migrants coming by boat. This ignores conveniently that illegal migration was already a problem before Brexit, only the route of choice was hiding in lorries rather than using inflatables.

And yet when we look at another group of islands receiving illegal migrants using boats we can see that while it was only 1,308 in 2018 it had risen to 39,000 in 2023 and reached 46,000 in 2024. This compares with illegal channel entries of 36,816 in 2024.

The numbers I’m comparing with the UK are for the Canary Islands; as part of Spain it is in the EU and even though the Canaries are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean its numbers are staggering (especially in proportion to its resident population). The rise in illegal entries is not peculiar to the UK because of Brexit but is explained by a change in tactics by people traffickers who operate across North Africa and inside the EU. Rejoining the EU’s open borders would do nothing to discourage the migrations, but would simply make them legal.

The real problems the UK faces come from the economic decisions of successive corporatist chancellors of an unconservative Tory Party, only made worse by a squeeze-the-rich Labour Government – both parties relying upon ideas from Labour think tanks like the Resolution Foundation.

These included encouraging non-doms to leave the country and take their tax high revenues with them while expanding the catchment of inheritance tax, punishing risk-taking entrepreneurs and raising taxes on capital assets are part of the centrist economic cocktail that has slowed the UK’s productivity growth (especially in comparison to the US).

The remaining tax traps affecting child benefit and the £100,000 earnings rate, together with the continued freezing of tax thresholds, attack aspirations to work harder – and by 2027 will require every recipient of the state pension liable for a tax return. This is economic absurdity becoming fiscal perversity, discouraging improved productivity and personal saving that makes us more prosperous.

None of the foregoing errors had anything to do with the EU, meaning Labour has learned nothing and will only repeat its mistakes – Brexit or no Brexit.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and senior advisor to the Tax Reform Council