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Brexit is a tragedy that reads like a satire

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The economic consequences of this terrible mistake require us to make an urgent retreat

One should have thought that in the production of Richard III at Islington’s Almeida theatre on the night the referendum results were declared, the cast would have relished the following exchange:

Richard: What news abroad?
Hastings: No news so bad abroad as this at home.

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Theresa May’s new government might find Brexit is not for beginners

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Delaying the triggering of Article 50 until next year may offer time for common sense to prevail and parliament to reassert its sovereignty

It was while I was on my way out of a reception, amid the imperial grandeur of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, that I learned that our new prime minister had appointed Brexit’s most charismatic liar as her – and, I am afraid, our – foreign secretary.

What a farce. What an insult to us all, and to the world at large. Last week, Alexander “Boris” Johnson got what he deserved from the American press corps travelling with the US secretary of state, John Kerry. They had little time for such characteristically blustering nonsense as Johnson’s protestation: “There is a rich thesaurus of things that I have said that have, one way or the other, I don’t know how … been misconstrued.”

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George Osborne deserved the sack. But not for defending the EU

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The former chancellor’s fiscal policies have been disastrous, but he fought for a worthy cause in trying to keep Britain in Europe

For, I trust, understandable reasons, this column has been so preoccupied with the demons released by the referendum that we have not taken time to refer to the departure from the government of one George Osborne.

His summary dismissal was long overdue, but it took a new prime minister – memorably described by one of Osborne’s predecessors, Kenneth Clarke, as “a bloody difficult woman” – to do the deed.

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Leavers should be ashamed of the harm yet to come from Brexit

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Theresa May’s new government is unshowy and serious for a good reason: there are sobering times, and sobering budgets, ahead

No one can accuse the English of not being perverse! A number of post-referendum analyses have produced some intriguing results. Many of the areas of the country that were the most obvious beneficiaries of funds from Brussels or the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg voted to leave the European Union. And, although the initial impression that there was a big protest vote in the north seems to have been borne out by further study, it also emerges that the number of Leave voters in the north was easily exceeded by those in the more prosperous south.

Bogus claims about “sovereignty”, and ill-judged bleating about “Brussels”, influenced many people I met, even before we were presented with the results. This was one reason why I expressed such nervousness in advance, the other being that most people did not seem to appreciate that, in the last month or so, most of the bets with the bookmakers were on Brexit even though the quoted odds were distorted by the weight of big money that had been placed earlier on Remain: that was before everything in the campaign seemed, from the point of view of us Remainers, to go wrong.

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Brexit is truly daunting: this is the biggest crisis I have known

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Bafflement abroad, political paralysis at home: the vote to leave the EU has taken us from having the best of both worlds to the worst

The leader of the Lib Dems, Tim Farron, struck a chord last week when he said that as a result of the Brexit vote, Britain had become a laughing stock abroad.

He is quite right. I myself have been receiving baffled inquiries from friends overseas. And on two recent trips to get away from it all – to Crete and Provence, since you ask – we could not escape. Everyone we encountered – yes, everyone – asked why this country had taken leave of its senses.

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It is not ‘time to move on’ over Brexit: it’s time to fight

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As the reality of what lies before Britain dawns, the voice of the people, which spoke via the referendum, may well wish to speak again

Shortly before the fateful referendum, Lord Carrington, the Tory party’s most distinguished elder statesman, was at a Sunday lunch in the country, listening patiently to the younger element discussing the merits or otherwise of one Alexander (Boris) Johnson. When they eventually paused for breath, the great man spoke, and brought the conversation to a halt with the simple remark: “Anyway, he won’t do.”

I recalled this episode last week when Ken Clarke, one of my favourite Tories of the generation after Carrington, and now in turn very much an elder statesman in his own right, was reported as saying something that could be paraphrased as “anyway, the referendum won’t do”.

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The Corbynistas may have a majority, but the Brexiters don’t

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Opposition to the Labour leadership from MPs who remember the 1980s is easy to understand. But it is time to focus on the grave prospect of EU exit

‘Why are you going to the Labour conference?” asked the Liverpool taxi driver.

“Well, I’ve got used to attending funerals this year.”

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The kindness of baffled strangers won’t save us from Brexit

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Mark Carney warned months ago about the difficulty of financing Britain’s deficit when confidence in us is collapsing. He was right

We Remainers must not give up. The future of this country, and indeed of Europe, is far too important to accept the argument that we are bad losers and “it is time to move on”.

It cannot be repeated often enough that on the evening of the fateful day, 23 June, when the initial results of the referendum seemed to be going against him, Nigel Farage declared that, if the result were to be 52% for Remain and 48% for Leave, then there should be another referendum.

Brexiters crow that the roof has not fallen in. Or, as the man said toppling from the skyscraper: 'So far, so good'

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Brexit is a case our conflicted PM shouldn’t have taken on

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Theresa May should be true to her pre-referendum views – and put our departure from the EU to a parliamentary vote

People in high places have been shocked by the ignorance of the leading Brexiters, who are embarked on a course which threatens, unless they are thwarted by our sovereign parliament, to bring this country to a sorry state. It is astonishing that in the early days after that fateful day of 23 June it had to be explained to the leading Brexiters what exactly a customs union was!

This reminds me of the occasion a few years ago when my old friend Lord Lawson and I were invited to address a conference of high-powered lawyers and accountants on the subject of Europe at a resort in Portugal, our oldest ally. We were on different sides of the argument about our membership, but we both gave the audience a historical perspective from our own vantage points. It later became apparent that many of the intelligent members of the audience were grateful for the history lesson because, as they confessed, they knew little about the origins of the EU, not least the way it was designed to bring previously warring nations together in the hope of achieving a lasting peace by linking them economically.

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Trump’s election reinforces the need for Britain to turn against Brexit

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The consequences of US isolationism, or an alliance with Putin, are so ominous that leaving the EU is the last thing the UK needs

All right: the egregious Donald Trump’s victory is, in his words, “Brexit plus, plus, plus”, and it is far more significantly ominous for the rest of the world than Brexit.

But what Trump’s triumph also does is to strengthen the case for re-examining the Brexit decision. Europe is now faced with huge geopolitical concerns. It should be pulling together, and resisting the centrifugal forces which the result of the British referendum can only aggravate.

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Of course the forecasts are bad: no one has a plan for Brexit

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The Leavers somehow managed to deflect the blame for austerity on to ‘Europe’. But they are far less convincing about our economic future now

The European Union did not cause the 2007-08 financial crisis. The European Union did not instruct George Osborne to introduce an austerity policy which magnified the deleterious effects of that crisis. The European Union did not impose neoliberal and excessively deregulatory policies which contributed to a situation where the “fruits of globalisation” were concentrated in the top 5% of the population.

However, in a propaganda feat which will go down in history, the Leave campaigners managed to persuade enough British voters that the EU was the source of many of our problems, and, just as bizarrely, that leaving the EU would be the answer.

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We’ll get a Brexit that suits Europe, not one that suits us

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The process of leaving is descending into a farce that reminds one of The Fast Show – except that it is happening so excruciatingly slowly

The Fast Show, which ran on BBC television from 1994 to 1997 – the last few years of Ken Clarke’s chancellorship – has been voted the second-best television sketch show ever, after Monty Python.

What we are now witnessing is the Slow Show – this excruciating, drawn-out process of Brexit, which shows every sign of eventually proving the most dangerous and self-defeating political tragicomedy of our age.

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Brexit’s slow-burning fuse will reach a powder keg this year

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The effect of voting to leave the EU will become all too clear as prices rise and earnings are hit

This is the year when our politicians and the so-called “people” – all 28% of the population who voted to leave the European Union – will reap what they have sown. Unfortunately, unless sense prevails, the rest of us will also suffer the product of their wild oats.

The absurdity, indeed perils, of Brexit become more obvious by the month. Business is nervous; so is the City, which constitutes far more hundreds of thousands of employees than the small, avaricious band of bankers who made their notorious contribution to the financial crisis.

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Theresa May is trapped between a rock and a hard Brexit

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The prime minister’s simultaneous promises to exit the EU and look after the interests of Remainers simply cannot be given credence

Theresa May is hopelessly conflicted. Quite simply, she cannot reconcile her promise to look after the interests of those who voted Remain with her commitment to a hard Brexit. To put it another way, she cannot look after the interests of the 72% of “the people” (that is, including those under 18) who did not “speak” on 23 June.

For hard Brexit is what her policy is. By repeatedly placing controls over immigration above continued membership of the European customs union and the single market, she makes it abundantly clear that she has been captured by the Brexiters.

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This belated Tory conversion to industrial strategy is tragic

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The abandonment of laissez-faire capitalism would be welcome indeed – if the shadow of Brexit were not looming over our whole economic future

‘If America had a parliamentary system, Donald Trump … would already be facing a vote of no confidence. But we don’t; somehow we’re going to have to survive four years of this.” Thus wrote the Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times recently. Unfortunately, although we in the UK do have a parliamentary system – indeed, the “mother” of them – the signs are that the majority of our parliamentarians are prepared to go along with the prime minister’s plan to invoke article 50 of the Lisbon treaty.

It was Edmund Burke who, in his celebrated address to the electors of Bristol, said that MPs should regard themselves as representatives of their constituencies, not delegates. As far as one can gather, although Conservative Brexiters such as John Redwood and Iain Duncan Smith make all the noise, the majority of MPs think Brexit is a crazy idea, with the potential to do enormous harm – and last a lot longer than four years of Trump.

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What use is sovereignty when MPs deny their conscience over Brexit?

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The majority in both houses believe leaving the EU is a disastrous idea. But only a principled few have tried to steer Britain away from its fate

‘The first duty of an MP is to do what he [or she] thinks … is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate.”

These are the wise words of Sir Winston Churchill, ignored by the majority of our elected representatives in last week’s vote on the Brexit bill.

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Brexit is a Whitehall farce that threatens the heart of Europe

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It is not just the British economy at stake: the absurdities and evasions of the Leave campaign are jeopardising hard-won stability across the continent

There are many problems afflicting the British economy, and many afflicting the European Union. The trouble with Brexit is that it is almost guaranteed to aggravate both.

Although I continue to emphasise the economic damage likely to result from cutting ourselves off from half of our export market, in common with many Remainers I am also exercised by the geopolitical risks in any move that encourages the current outbreak of nationalism in Europe.

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We will all need a stiff drink to swallow Hammond’s austerity

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Despite their conciliatory words, the chancellor and Theresa May are merely continuing the damaging small-state policy of George Osborne

As the immensity of the consequences of the referendum strikes home, the May government is becoming increasingly dependent on the Conservative party’s rediscovery of the need for “infrastructure” and “industrial strategy”.

It was therefore entirely in keeping with the chaotic approach of the Brexiters that Theresa May should sack one of her leading advisers on both these subjects last week, because she did not like Lord Heseltine’s opposition to Brexit.

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We’re in a fine mess if George Osborne is our last hope of halting Brexit

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Amid warnings of the dire economic impact of leaving the EU, we are reduced to hoping the Evening Standard’s new editor can counter the Brexit nonsense

To adapt Dr Samuel Johnson’s famous saying: attacking the BBC for alleged bias is a last refuge of the scoundrel. In this case, the scoundrel is one Julian Knight MP, who last week assembled some 70 fellow Brexiters to attack the BBC for allegedly being biased in favour of the Remain camp.

Yes, we Remainers still exist and, according to an interesting finding by Alastair Campbell, our numbers may well be growing, which could help to explain why the Leave camp, ostensibly monarch of all it surveys, is displaying increasing signs of insecurity, as the falsity of its prospectus becomes manifest to a more reflective audience.

The terrible truth is that the Conservative and Unionist party has become the Conservative and Ukip party

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Brexit hasn’t happened yet – and it is changing all the time

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The rationalisations and concessions are starting to emerge as the reality of leaving dawns. This is not the moment for Remainers to despair

There is nothing one can do to avoid natural disasters, or “acts of God” as they used to be called. But the prospect of Brexit is a man-made disaster. I say prospect because it hasn’t happened yet and could still be avoided, despite the fact there seem to be a lot of people around who think it has already happened.

The “best face” and rationalisation process has already begun. Last week saw inspired reports that, on her trip to Saudi Arabia, Theresa May was softening her tone from the earlier approach towards a “hard Brexit”.

There might be a revolt of the young, who stand to lose far more than the comfortably off 'sovereignty' brigade

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