Anyone making
an honest effort to explain what’s going on in the UK to a foreign audience faces
a major dilemma - namely that we know either
too much …. or too little…Let me explain…..
If you’re one of the few who really understands the ins and outs of the arguments and issues of Brexit over the past 3-4 years, you will effectively have become an “expert” and therefore (as Steven Pinker has so eloquently explained) unable to convey your message clearly to your audience – whether in writing or speech.
You will suffer from what is called “the curse of knowledge” - unable to put yourself in the shoes of the average person who has difficulty understanding jargon such as “single market”, “WTO rules”, “Red lines” or “the backstop”.
If you’re one of the few who really understands the ins and outs of the arguments and issues of Brexit over the past 3-4 years, you will effectively have become an “expert” and therefore (as Steven Pinker has so eloquently explained) unable to convey your message clearly to your audience – whether in writing or speech.
You will suffer from what is called “the curse of knowledge” - unable to put yourself in the shoes of the average person who has difficulty understanding jargon such as “single market”, “WTO rules”, “Red lines” or “the backstop”.
If, on the
other hand, you know very little, then you shouldn’t be trying to explain things to
other people!
Most British
journalists fall between these 2 extremes – they know enough to be able to pretend
they know more than they do. Don’t take my word for it – just read the website of Richard North,
one of the original Brexiteers.
It was his site that alerted
me to the speech earlier this week by one
of the few real experts on Brexit – our erstwhile Ambassador to the EU from
2013-2017, Sir Ivan Rogers.
Rogers had just been knighted when he wrote a memo, subsequently leaked,
warning that a settlement with the EU could take as long as ten years to
achieve….Such unpalatable advice was not acceptable to the government and he
chose to resign when it got out….
Since then his
speeches (and appearances before parliamentary Select Committees) have proved
to be a thorn in the government’s side.
Earlier this
year Ivor Rogers gave a lecture at
Cambridge University entitled Brexit
as Revolution which he has now capped with a lecture entitled Nine Lessons. It’s
22 pages long and my initial reactions were very positive – this, I felt, is that
rare expert who can actually put himself in the shoes of the average citizen
and help us understand…Unfortunately he couldn’t sustain this focus and….. about
half way through…I fell by the wayside or – as we say - “he lost me”..
But I will
persevere – and now try once more this technique of translating arguments into
language I can understand – but this will take the rest of the day….So I will
leave you for the moment with the 9 arguments as he expressed them……The Guardian nicely summarised the nine lessons here
Brexit’s Nine Lessons
|
1. Brexit means Brexit
|
2. Other people have sovereignty too. And they too may choose to “take
back control” of things you would rather they didn’t.
|
3. Brexit is a process not an event. And the EU, while strategically
myopic, is formidably good at process against negotiating opponents. We have
to be equally so, or we will get hammered. Repeatedly.
|
4. it is not possible or democratic to argue that only one Brexit
destination is true, legitimate and represents the revealed “Will of the
People” and that all other potential destinations outside the EU are “Brexit
in Name Only”.
|
5. If WTO terms or existing EU preferential deals are not good enough for
the UK in major third country markets, they can’t be good enough for trade
with our largest market.
|
6. the huge problem for the UK with either reversion to WTO terms or with
a standard free trade deal with the EU is in services.
|
7. Beware all supposed deals bearing “pluses”.
|
8. you cannot, and should not want to, conduct such a huge negotiation as
untransparently as the U.K. has. And in the end, it does you no good to try.
|
9. real honesty with the public is the best - the only – policy if we are
to get to the other side of Brexit with a healthy democracy, a reasonably
unified country and a healthy economy.
|
By the way, if you;re read this far you might well want to pose the question of where I lie in what might be called the "spectrum of ignorance". That's what they call a "leading question" to which I'm happy to answer that I am neither an expert nor totally ignorant.......which just goes to show...how tricky dilemmas are!
Other References
The Causes and Cures of Brexit (Compass 2018)
Other References
The Causes and Cures of Brexit (Compass 2018)
December
2018 Brexit Select Committee Report on The Withdrawal Agreement
http://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-brexit-ultras-could-have.html
Ivor Roger's previous two Brexit speeches
Ivor Roger's previous two Brexit speeches
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