Don't let a good disaster go to waste

(Edit: This is easily the most thoughtful analysis I've seen of Brexit. Summary: yes it's bad, but not nearly as bad as it's made out.)

Last week, as you may have heard, my country got voted out from under me. ("My country" in this context being, of course, Europe.) I wonder if this is how the Serbs felt, all those years ago.

I wasn't present to witness the campaign on either side, but nothing I have seen of it leads me to believe that any sort of rational thought went into that vote - on either side. Neither Leavers nor Remainers made the slightest attempt to explain the issues soberly, they both went straight for the id. It was pure - instinct. The instinct of people who have spent their whole lives being protected from their own instincts, because that's what modern civilisation does.

But second-guessing the result is a mug's game. Lots of things could have been changed. If the Greeks had been forced out of the euro, if the French had been a bit more competent at policing (and protecting) their own immigrants, if the Germans had been just a little less high-handed in their treatment of everyone else in the HRE - sorry, I mean EU - if the Irish had managed their own banks better, if the Labour Party hadn't adopted its insane "democratic" leadership election process, if Nick Clegg hadn't made that stupid pledge about tuition fees in the first place...

But they did. And there's no point guessing what might be going on in a thousand parallel universes where history was a little different, because there's only one that we get to live in. There was a vote, and it went the way it did. Everything else is so much applesauce.

So let's at least try to be constructive. What should happen now?

Well, first of all, there's the position of the 3 million-odd non-UK EU nationals currently living in the UK. They should be guaranteed a place for life. Every single one of them, without exceptions, right up to and including the mass murderers among them, should be allowed to remain in the UK just as long as they want to, and to come and go as they please, forever. Anything else would be so unjust, it would bring lasting shame and well-deserved vitriol on the whole country.

Then there's the however-many non-EU immigrants. It would be odd if, having just voted out of the EU, the country's first independent act was to discriminate in favour of EU citizens at the expense of other potential partners and allies. So they'll be staying, too.

There's all the EU red tape about consumer products. This is, of course, already built into UK law, and I heartily recommend that the UK adopts the same policy as New Zealand does toward Australia - viz, if something meets Australian product standards, it can also be sold in NZ with no further paperwork required. (The Australians, in turn, also accept EU or US certification and testing.) However, this doesn't have to be reciprocal. That would mean you could sell things in the UK that would not be legal in the EU.

This could, of course, be a very bad thing. But it's just as likely to be beneficial. A lot depends on the next government's attitude to consumer protection.

Manufacturing that's required to be inside the EU will move. Let's make no bones about it - that will be a disaster for many areas, e.g. Sunderland, whose early declaration was so foreboding on the night. There will be a huge temptation for the next government to move heaven and earth (i.e. pay out ungodly sums of money) to prevent this, but it would be a catastrophic mistake to give in to that pressure. Instead, they should pay out some of that money to people who are willing to set up new enterprises to employ people outside the EU. (And not just "manufacturing", either. Don't be dogmatic about what sort of industry it should be. A job is a job.)

Presumably, EU R&D programmes will no longer be portioned out to the UK. I'm pretty sure most UK researchers will see this as an unmitigated disaster. It's natural to see "disaster" when the assumptions that you've based your career on are changed. Natural - but not rational. In those areas where British researchers and departments are among the best, the Europeans would be fools to exclude them. Where they're not, they're fools now to include them, and I think that might go some way to explain the glacial pace of EU R&D over the past 40 years. Academically and intellectually, I think Britain could be better off out than in - IF, and it's a honking big "IF", the best minds don't get swept away in the current tide of anti-intellectualism and ideological hysteria.

And the City of London will lose much of its current business. Again, what can't be cured must be endured. Worst case, this might result in a massive recession in the British banking sector. Or to look at it another way - the beginning of the much-longed-for redistribution of wealth away from the top 0.1%, and the long overdue decline of house prices in southeast England.

So cheer up, Remainers. Whatever you did to win the vote it wasn't enough, so now you've got a lot more work to do in the aftermath. One thing I'm sure of - that if you spend your energy now on denial, recriminations and fantasies of fleeing the country, the UK is screwed. Because those same people who voted it out will be running it.