Shortly before 11am, committee room nine began to fill up. First in were Owen Paterson, Steve Baker, Peter Bone, David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, Bill Cash and Andrew Bridgen. Next was Matt Ridley. Always useful to have a climate change denier who destroyed Northern Rock onboard. Then came Jacob Rees-Mogg, followed a short while later by a sleep-deprived Boris Johnson, trying to slip in unnoticed. A full house. Just about all those whom no sane person would dream of leaving in charge of the country were gathered together to tell the world how they proposed to run the country if given half a chance.
It was all very confusing. Last week, we were told by the Brexiters that they would be announcing their alternative cunning plan to the prime minister’s Chequers deal this week, only for them to change their mind when it was revealed the best they could come up with was to turn the UK into a tax haven, spend billions on a “star wars” defence system and invade the Argies.
Then, on Monday night, Duncan Smith insisted it wasn’t the job of backbench MPs to come up with credible alternatives. Fortunately, that still left room for some entirely incredible alternatives. Though Rees-Mogg was careful to explain that this alternative plan wasn’t necessarily the alternative plan.
The event had been billed as “economists for free trade”. The plural turned out to be optimistic, as there was only one economist in the room. And only then if you apply the term economist very loosely. Patrick Minford is a man who has made a career out of being wrong about nearly everything, and he wasn’t about to break the habit of a lifetime.
Every other economist had predicted a no-deal Brexit would lead to a 7% decline per year in GDP over the next 15 years. But Minford had news for them: they had all been looking at their graphs the wrong way up. If you turned them all upside down then the UK would see an unprecedented 7% year-on-year increase in GDP. It was simple, if only you knew how. Far from being broke, we were going to have an extra £1.1tn to spend.
It rapidly got even better than that. If Brexit caused a devaluation of the pound then everyone would be a lot better off. But if Brexit pushed the pound higher then we would also all be a lot better off. There literally were no downsides to Brexit. Nothing could possibly go wrong because “any competent government would sort out any problems”. Minford had rather missed yet another obvious flaw in his argument. Looking around the room, it was hard to spot anyone who would count as competent.
Johnson’s eyes began to close – it’s been a rough few days – and even Rees-Mogg, looking increasingly like an undertaker in an oversize suit, didn’t appear entirely convinced by Minford’s analysis. After thanking him for his work, he advised everyone not to be too concerned about the exact figures. Rather to just concentrate on the fact that everything was going to be great if we left with a no-deal Brexit. So great that he now said his preferred option was something entirely different to what Minford had proposed. What he really wanted was a Canada-style deal. Just because he wanted to be friendly with the EU. Apparently.
Things really began to fall apart, though, when the media were invited to ask questions. Though Rees-Mogg tried to keep order, several of the Tory MPs were less than impressed – Duncan Smith and Cash were especially grumpy – that no one seemed to be taking any of their ideas in the slightest bit seriously and were only interested in whether this was an open challenge to Theresa May and, if so, whether Johnson was leading it.
“This isn’t about personalities,” snapped Baker. Johnson looked surprised at that. Why else was he hanging out with these people he didn’t really like if not to get their support for his ambition? He had meant to try to get through the hour without saying anything, but then his narcissism got the better of him. He tried to find some words, but only managed to mumble something incoherent that brought him sympathetic applause from his embarrassed colleagues, who were beginning to look as desperate as he was.
There was just time for one more spat, as Baker insisted he was a numbers man and he had all the numbers he needed – one plus one equals one trillion – before a relieved Rees-Mogg drew the event to a close. Johnson left the room and promptly headed the wrong way down a dead end. It had been that sort of day. A theatre of the absurd.
