Daniel Hannan var pådriver for Brexit, og full av lovord over hvor bra det kom til å bli, om Storbritannia endelig løsrev seg fra EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Hannan
To dager før folkeavstemningen tillot Hannan seg å spå om hvordan rikets tilstand ville være 24. juni 2025.
Ni år etter kikker The New World på utsagnene og sammenligner dem med virkeligheten. Bak betalingsmur, men værsågod! Dette er (tragi)komisk på høyt nivå.
Nine years ago the Conservative peer predicted what life would look like following Brexit in June 2025. His predictions proved a touch optimistic
www.thenewworld.co.uk
Two days before the Brexit referendum, the news analysis website
Reaction published a now-infamous article by the Brexiteer Daniel Hannan headlined “What Britain looks like after Brexit”. In it, he shared his vision of how leaving the EU would have completely transformed Britain by June 24, 2025 (which turns out to be next Tuesday). As you will see from the following annotated extracts, his predictions proved just a touch optimistic.
HANNAN: “It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave.”
REALITY: There are no Independence Day celebrations, because most people recognise Brexit has been a disaster. YouGov’s latest polls (fieldwork June 16-18, 2025) show 56% say Brexit was a mistake (31% against) and that 56% would support rejoining (34% against).
HANNAN: “The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.”
REALITY: The Office for Budget Responsibility says Britain has lost 4% of GDP because of Brexit, or up to £100bn per year. The UK’s economy has underperformed relative to countries in the euro since 2016: GDP per capita growth of 3.9% compared with 10.5%. Our democracy has been invigorated by having six different prime ministers since the referendum, none of whom could make Brexit work. Relations with our neighbours are improving only now a Labour government has ignored the advice of Daniel Hannan and others and started talking to Europeans rather than shouting at them.
HANNAN: “The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy… New industries… have sprung up around the country. Older industries, too, have revived.”
REALITY: The Global Knowledge Index of knowledge-based economies ranks Britain only seventh in Europe. Brexit meant leaving the Horizon Europe research programme, meaning less funding for UK research and lower rankings for UK universities. Meanwhile, manufacturing output remains stuck below pre-2016 levels.
HANNAN: “The last thing most EU leaders wanted, once the shock had worn off, was a protracted argument with the United Kingdom… Terms were agreed easily enough. Britain… kept its tariff-free arrangements in place.”
REALITY: Painful negotiations took more than three years before Boris Johnson emerged with a useless deal that gave the EU almost all it wanted. British businesses trading with Europe were wrapped up in red tape. Many small- and medium-sized exporters and importers stopped altogether.
HANNAN: “Opting out of the EU’s data protection rules has turned Hoxton into the software capital of the world… Bans on vitamin supplements and herbal remedies had closed down many health shops. London’s art market had been brutalised by EU rules on VAT and retrospective taxation. All these sectors have revived.”
REALITY: Hoxton may lead the world in the number of residents per capita who dress like they are in a Wes Anderson film, but it is not the planet’s software capital by a long way. Vape shops and “weird Turkish barbers” (copyright Robert Jenrick) are still more common on the high street than health and art stores.
HANNAN: “Financial services are booming… After Britain left, the EU’s regulations became even more heavy-handed, driving more exiles from Paris, Frankfurt and Milan.”
REALITY: Since Brexit, over 7,000 financial jobs and £1.3 trillion in assets have moved to the EU.
HANNAN: “Our fuel bills have tumbled, boosting productivity, increasing household incomes and stimulating the entire economy.”
REALITY: UK fuel bills are higher than in most of Europe, partly because Britain is no longer part of the EU’s Internal Energy Market, which helped with cross-border trading and price stability.
HANNAN: “Our universities are flourishing, taking the world’s brightest students and, where appropriate, charging accordingly… The number of student visas granted each year is decided by MPs who, now that they no longer need to worry about unlimited EU migration, can afford to take a long-term view. A points-based immigration system invites the world’s top talent.”
REALITY: Declining numbers of EU students post-Brexit, coupled with tighter rules on student visas, have left our universities in crisis. Post-Brexit immigration rules have not worked; not only did net migration hit record highs in 2023 and 2024 but there are labour shortages in key sectors from agriculture to healthcare.
HANNAN: “Several other European countries have opted to copy Britain’s deal with the EU… some followed us out of the EU (Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands). The United Kingdom now leads a 22-state bloc that forms a free trade area with the EU.”
REALITY: Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands are still in the EU and no other nation has been stupid enough to copy our dreadful deal. There is no 22-state bloc that Britain leads.
HANNAN: “The EU… now have a common police force and army, a pan-European income tax and a harmonised system of social security. These developments have prompted referendums in three other EU states on whether to copy Britain.”
REALITY: No it doesn’t. No it hasn’t.
HANNAN: “Perhaps the greatest benefit, though, is not easy to quantify. Britain has recovered its self-belief… We knew that our song had not yet been sung.”
REALITY: And the song turned out to be “We’re on a road to nowhere”. Still, not everyone in Britain has lost out because of Brexit. In February 2021, partly as a reward for churning out ludicrous guff like this, the 49-year-old Daniel Hannan was given a peerage. On current rules, that means he is able to claim £375 per day, plus travel expenses and subsidised restaurant facilities, every time he turns up to the House of Lords until he is 80.