Brexit: the cheating Lyons

17/01/2017

For those of us who trail in the wake of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (see page 9) and regard stupidity as a social phenomenon rather than a congenital defect (like an infectious disease, with transmission characteristics similar to STDs), Dr Gerard Lyons is an excellent subject for study.

This is the man who, in August 2014, while he was still working for the current Foreign Secretary, wrote a treatise called The Europe Report – a win-win situation. Amongst the gems he offered was the claim that: "Article 50 explicitly states that the other remaining members of the EU would decide the terms of the exit, not the country that is leaving", thus confirming Bonhoeffer's thesis.

In considering how we would leave the EU, Lyons also argued that the UK should "be proactive in seeking an amicable separation", to which effect he suggested that "not invoking Article 50 would make more sense". It could be seen as "starting with a clean slate in determining the future relationship with Europe".

Basically, all the mad nostrums that were floating around at the time, Lyons Hoovered up and regurgitated on the pages of his report. This led us to conclude that it was a "disgustingly superficial piece of work, technically illiterate, flying in the face of treaty provisions, written under the hand of a man who is as ignorant of the EU as his master".

The thing about Lyons and his ilk, though, is that they occupy their own, intellectually sealed bubble, where contact with the outside world is rigorously controlled and anything but unconditional adulation is totally ignored. Even more temperate criticism from prestigious sources doesn't make the cut, so that where – as was averred – he makes errors of judgement and fact, these remain uncorrected.

I like the measured tone of the piece that tells us that Lyons "states factually that every IMF Chief has been a European and every World Bank President an American". Writes George Magnus, "Jim Yong Kim might beg to differ. He is a South Korean by birth and current President of the World Bank. This doesn't mean Lyons's case for Brexit is irrelevant, but it betrays an inattention to detail".

That same "inattention to detail" had Lyons claim that "the terms of the Norwegian Option [the EEA Agreement] were negotiated by Norway in anticipation of joining the EU, but its people subsequently decided not to join".

This is so absolutely and demonstrably untrue that one despairs that it is so often trotted out – not least because, as we record here, the EEA Agreement stemmed directly from the Oslo Declaration of March 1989 as Efta's response to the plans of Jacques Delors on the completion of the Single Market. The Agreement was crafted as an alternative to EU membership, not as a preparation for it. The Norwegian political elites subsequently tried to join the EU because the EEA Agreement (in refusing common decision-making) did not satisfy their ambitions.

The persistence of this myth illustrates the refusal of Lyons and the co-denizens of his bubble to engage with the outside world. Their arrogance - in assuming that their flawed and often totally inaccurate versions of events represent the truth - makes them the dross they are. But it also ensures that their work will continue to be riddled with errors, false assumptions and the clinical stupidity with which we are all too familiar.

At the time he produced his 2014 report, I wrote of Lyons that he and his like had done us one small service. They had shown us with absolute clarity that the establishment was not the place to look for a workable EU exit plan.

Yet, such is the continued arrogance of the man that, fortified with his own ignorance, he has teamed up with fellow illiterate, Liam Halligan – the "leading Telegraph economics commentator" - to produce a report on the eve of Mrs May's speech. This one is called "Clean Brexit" – purporting to be the very thing he has shown himself incapable of doing – a workable EU exit plan.

In this, we get the ritual demolition of the Single Market (couched as the "Norway option"), with the same tired arguments. Nothing of the debate of the last two years has percolated the man's excuse for a brain.

But it is a measure of how successful we have been in shaping the agenda that Lyons adds to his diatribe by introducing what he calls the "Liechtenstein model". This is what he has to say about it:

Liechtenstein, despite EEA membership, has negotiated its own tailored EU immigration policy, leading some to suggest it could act as a model for Britain outside the EU but retaining Single Market "membership". Liechtenstein, though, is a rather densely-populated microstate, while the UK is the second-largest EU economy and a major immigrant destination.

It is almost impossible, given growing public disquiet across the EU relating to Schengen, that the EU27 would grant the UK the perceived economic benefits of EEA/SM membership, while waiving "freedom of movement". Were Britain to gain such a concession having voted for Brexit, that would fuel already growing demands for EU referenda across other large members states - something Brussels and incumbent EU leaders are desperate to avoid.

Such as this is a more than adequate demonstration of the arrogance of Dr Lyons - and also his almost complete lack of understanding of this subject. Like so many, while he is forced to acknowledge the issue, he does not identify the main source of argument. Instead, he misrepresents it and, in two short paragraphs, purports adequately to have responded to 20 pages of the closely-reasoned argument here and here.

It is this approach which poisons the debate. Lyons sets himself up on high as the arbiter of a sterile argument which he himself defines, having run away from the real issues and avoided engaging with knowledgeable critics. He speaks only to his adoring claque from whom he gets no dissent.

Those less inclined to adoration, however, might note that in 2014, this much-revered man was promoting a comprehensive free trade agreement as "the most likely UK option". Negotiations would be "improved by the threat of Article 50", in which the UK would push for full market access. And that was a serious proposition.

In the view of the Great Man, it was unlikely that the EU would grant full access, a position which he conceded was "not optimal". Despite that, he thought that the "bespoke negating (sic) relationship" would give the UK "the broadest possible operating environment from which to pursue its post exit future".

What is interesting from today's perspective, though, was – in 108 pages – the minimal reference to the WTO option. With only seven mentions, the most substantive comment was when Lyons took note of an Open Europe observation that: "Britain is unlikely to face what some may call a worst case scenario of having to fall back on World Trade Organisation rules".

As a baseline for the current report, this could not be more extreme. With his "Clean Brexit", the UK would pass its "Great Repeal Bill", when the Article 50 window expires. Outside the Single Market and the customs union a Clean Brexit also means, he says, "we are able to walk away without a deal from the Article 50 negotiations, if any deal which is offered is poor".

The UK Government, Lyons avers, should say we are fully prepared to trade with the EU27 outside the Single Market and Customs Union, under WTO rules, with so-called "Most-Favoured Nation" status - "so the EU cannot legally discriminate against the UK, even if some Commission bureaucrats say that might happen". Thus, in the space of less than three years, we have seen an almost complete volte face.

Nevertheless, it is not for the Great Lyons to set out the consequences of a "walk away" policy. All we learn from him is that, if the EU insists on WTO-tariffs on UK goods and services, the UK will retain those tariffs on them in return. "And because we know we can walk away, that should encourage the UK to keep the Article 50 negotiations as simple as possible, giving us the scope to seek sector-specific deals - and that, indeed, is what we would advocate", he says.

It was three years ago that we were discussing this in Flexcit, pointing out the simple truth that, if the UK walks away from the table without an agreement, it confers on itself "third country" status. As such, the EU is obliged to levy its WTO "bound" tariffs. This happens automatically – the EU has no choice.

Then, if UK chooses to match these tariffs, levying them on imports from the EU, in order to conform with WTO rules against discrimination, it must levy the same tariff rates on other MFN partners – in practice all other counties. The Chancellor would enjoy the hit, but it would not do much for the prices index or the "just about managing".

That Lyons apparently doesn't know these basics is the price he pays for his self-induced intellectual isolation. You can ignore your critics, but that means you are doomed, groundhog day-style, endlessly to repeat the same mistakes. He shares this handicap with Peter Lilley who grandly acquaints us with the schoolboy howler, that under MFN terms, "our exporters would pay only £6.5 billion tariffs to continental governments". Does he really not know that importers, not exporters, pay the tariffs?

As much embedded in cloud cuckoo land, though, is Lyons. Under his "Clean Brexit", with the UK "trading under WTO rules with the EU if a separate agreement has not been reached", he actually believes "our exporters would have access to, but not membership of, the Single Market".

The fatuity of this statement almost beggars belief, even if we know what he is trying to say. The man is attempting to convey that we would still be able to trade with enterprises in EU Member States. What he doesn't state are the terms and conditions, and how hard it would be to get our goods into those markets.

This is actually cheating. Unless you are prepared to identify the difficulties and barriers that a preferred option might encounter, and state in some detail how you could overcome them, you are not being straight with your readers.

Being anything but straight, Lyons avers that his Clean Bexit is "quick and predictable" and "helps make leaving the EU as smooth as possible. This is a travesty of a claim. The WTO option would almost certainly precipitate a crisis.