ROCCO FORTE: By roping us to the sinking EU ship, the Chancellor will drag Britain
The cat is out of the bag. Rachel Reeves has finally stripped bare this Government’s shallow pretence that it somehow respects Brexit, or that it honours the democratic will of the British people who voted so decisively to leave the EU.
Speaking openly about her plans for the future in yesterday’s Mais Lecture, the Chancellor could hardly have been more direct, promising a ‘deeper relationship with the EU’ while insisting that re-integration would bring one of the ‘greatest growth opportunities for Britain in the decade to come’.
Britain’s ‘fate as a country is inescapably bound with that of Europe’, she declared.
Brexit, in other words, will be betrayed.
Her words were exactly what the Remainer establishment has long been demanding, of course.
Sir Keir Starmer and Reeves have been preparing for this moment ever since Labour regained power in the summer of 2024. Bit by bit, and with no one seeming to notice, they have been tying us ever more closely into European rules and regulations – at great cost, and without any influence over how those rules are applied.
We’ve also been softened up with a stream of propaganda about the supposed failure of Brexit. Only yesterday Reeves claimed – preposterously – that we have taken an 8 per cent hit to our gross domestic product (GDP) through leaving the EU. I don’t believe it for a second.
It’s thanks to this constant belittling that we’ve become obsessed with short-term irritations – such as the friction at borders when exporting goods – rather than focusing on the big stuff: namely the disastrous failure of the European project as a whole.
In yesterday’s Mais Lecture, the Chancellor could hardly have been more direct, promising a ‘deeper relationship with the EU’
Outside the EU, Britain remains free to change course – if only we had a government with the gumption to seize the day
Reeves claims we will find a crock of gold at the end of the EU rainbow. Yet that is fantasy economics. The very opposite is true.
The Chancellor’s decision to rope us to the EU’s sinking ship will drag what remains of Britain down beneath the waves, perhaps for good.
The basic figures tell their own story. Fifteen years ago, the GDP of the EU as a whole was equal to that of the US. Today, with its economy stagnating, the EU can manage barely half what America generates.
I know from my own experience of doing business in Europe that the causes are entrenched. The leading economies of the EU are hampered by huge bureaucracies, soaring public spending and punitive taxation.
A catastrophic addiction to welfare-ism sits alongside a sluggish, sclerotic approach to the crucial business of generating wealth.
Bearing down on the enfeebled national governments, meanwhile, squats the leviathan of EU bureaucracy, a beast which specialises in snuffing out initiative and stifling growth.
No wonder many of Europe’s nations have sky-high levels of debt – above 100 per cent of GDP in the cases of Italy, France and Spain.
Germany, for two decades the engine of European prosperity, is now close to recession. The manufacturing base which once powered its economy is suffering from high energy costs and the onslaught of cheaper Chinese goods.
I’ve seen the problems at first hand. Take Italy, the country where my parents and my wife were born.
If you attempt to conduct business there, it soon becomes clear that the bureaucracy and employment costs are crippling.
And, worse, that it’s essential to know the right people – to ‘know your way around’ – to get anything done in the first place.
In France and Germany, meanwhile, I’ve found the unions wield such power over key business decisions that it takes twice as long to get anything done as here in Britain. Yet this is the world that Reeves and Starmer want us to embrace.
When it comes to reversing Europe’s catastrophic decline, I have found neither confidence nor clarity.
Reeves claims we will find a crock of gold at the end of the EU rainbow. Yet that is fantasy economics. The very opposite is true
I’ve seen the problems at first hand, writes Sir Rocco. Take Italy, If you attempt to conduct business there, it soon becomes clear the bureaucracy and employment costs are crippling
Across the continent, a fatalistic mood is setting in. Business leaders and professionals I meet in Germany, France and Italy believe nothing will improve because nothing can improve.
The EU and its constituent parts are gripped by a socialist mindset which is strangling the life out of business and industry.
In a major report published last year, Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, proposed measures including an €800 billion annual investment boost to reverse the EU’s economic decline. He spoke about closing the innovation gap with the US and China.
Needless to say, his far-sighted proposals were rejected by myopic, short-term national interests.
In France, when Emmanuel Macron sought the modest reform of raising the pension age from 62 to 64, French voters revolted and the plans were scrapped.
Reeves claimed yesterday that Britain would not be rejoining the EU single market or the customs union and that there would be no resumption of free movement.
But any closer integration of the sort she hopes to see is bound to involve further damaging concessions.
Already, reports suggest that Downing Street is drawing up plans to allow EU students cheaper university tuition fees in return for cooperation from Brussels.
If Europe is economically enfeebled, its impotence is equally apparent on the stage of world politics. Its leaders prance and pose, issuing noble statements but they are rarely capable of following up with effective action.
It is particularly galling that, despite the Brexit vote ten years ago, Britain has continued moving in much the same damaging direction as Brussels.
We absorbed a great deal of European legislation in the years leading up to the 2016 referendum and very little of this has been removed or changed since we left.
Our formerly flexible economy has been steadily shackled by successive governments of both parties, each more willing than the last to intervene, regulate and restrain.
Even the City, which was once the beating heart of our economy, has been emasculated with ever more restrictions and turned into a risk‑free zone.
Yet there remains one crucial difference.
Outside the EU, Britain remains free to change course – if only we had a government with the gumption to seize the day.
It is vital we stop deluding ourselves. A return to the stifling, Brussels-centric model of economic dirigisme cannot and will not deliver national prosperity or security.
The lesson of the last decade is stark: the EU’s cumbersome bureaucracy and lack of dynamism have mired its member states in mediocrity.
Meanwhile, a Britain shackled by Brussels-inspired regulations risks the same dire fate unless we rediscover the entrepreneurial spirit that once made us great.
Thanks to Brexit, we finally have the freedom to shape our own destiny, to cut burdensome red tape and unleash innovation.
If we can summon the courage to grasp this opportunity then, rather than drifting meekly back into the European fold, we can build a freer, more prosperous nation that leads the world once again.
Surely, we cannot and must not allow ourselves to sink back down into the continental morass.