With Brexit just around the corner, never has the economic outlook for our country looked so bright.
As we look ahead to this week’s Spring Statement, a no doubt Tigger-ish Chancellor will remind us of the unexpected tax windfall he was able to announce in last November’s Budget.
He will point to the record monthly surplus we saw in January – the largest January surplus since records began in 1993. He will highlight the fastest growth in UK salaries in almost a decade, with real pay growth at a two year peak and employment levels at their highest since the 1970s.
There is a global slowdown but Britain is seeing none of it. The British economy has shown a stubborn resilience and steely British businesses have paid no attention to those who warned of an “immediate and profound economic shock”.
Jaguar Land Rover has announced that it is making a major investment in advanced manufacturing in the UK, Boeing opened a manufacturing plant in Sheffield last Autumn and the UK received more foreign direct investment last year than the US did.
None of this welcome news surprises me. We are, after all, a country that had the good sense to vote to leave the failing institutions of the European Union. And as that moment comes closer, more of our businesses are waking up to the huge opportunities of Brexit, as we become a sovereign nation, championing free trade around the world.
But things aren’t going so well for the countries who we will be leaving behind in the EU. The EU is failing the countries of Europe with France and Germany on the brink of recession, Italy’s economy contracting and the EU’s share of the world economy almost halving since the Single Market was formed in the early 1990s.
And unemployment is rife in the EU: five times higher than ours in Greece, almost four times higher in Spain, double in France and between 17-19 per cent higher in much of the south of Italy. Youth unemployment stands at 35% in Italy, almost 39% in Spain and a devastating 44% in Greece.
Even the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has admitted this week that he’s not as worried about a no-deal scenario as he was three months ago.
That’s because our country has started, at last, preparing to leave the EU under World Trade Organisation terms. The Prime Minister was right when she said that “no-deal is better than a bad deal”. We’ve got to be serious about walking away from the negotiations without an agreement, as that’s the only way to make sure we get a blistering deal for this country.
For too long the EU thought we were bluffing, which is what caused them to offer us the appalling set of terms that MPs from all parties overwhelmingly rejected in January.
So I am sure that the Prime Minister is preparing not only to vote to keep a no-deal Brexit on the table next week, but to give a firm instruction to Conservative MPs to do the same.
Anything less than this would fly in the face of every rule in the negotiating handbook, would signify an end to any semblance of governance and would give the EU a hammer with which to beat us into submitting to an even worse deal than the one we’re already trying to amend. And a “free vote” would be seen by many as tacit support for ruling out a no-deal and scuppering any realistic chance of delivering Brexit.
But before we get to any of this, I am really hopeful that the Attorney General (AG) is going to be successful in renegotiating the backstop with his counterparts in Brussels. I will be opening my mind and my heart to everything Geoffrey Cox has to say, with the aim of supporting the Prime Minister’s deal. But as part of this process, it’s vital that MPs are assisted by our Star Chamber of forensic legal minds – otherwise the AG will be marking his own homework.
The House of Commons rallied around the Brady amendment which requires significant, legally-binding changes to be made to the Withdrawal Agreement.
If the AG’s changes give us a clear and unconditional route out of the backstop, there’s every chance the deal will be passed on Tuesday. MPs are not asking for much – just for a little common sense, pragmatism and goodwill from the EU and for the government to honour the terms of the Brady amendment, passed by a majority in the House of Commons just over a month ago.
The AG must give his colleagues enough time to properly digest whatever these amendments are. Deals with the EU are often last minute affairs but Parliament should be given an appropriate amount of time to digest and debate any amendments that are brought back from Brussels, before being asked to vote on them.
If the Star Chamber is satisfied that the changes to the backstop are legally watertight, and MPs feel they have had enough time to weigh up both the Attorney General’s statement to Parliament as well as his official, written legal advice, I am convinced that dozens of my colleagues will relish the prospect of supporting the deal on Tuesday.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan is the Conservative MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed