EXCLUSIVE: The Jacob Rees-Mogg Interview – unvarnished

Summary

Extracts from the Jacob interview

What Brexit was really about – democracy

“Democracy has won – that you can change your government and the government can change your laws. That was always the biggest benefit of Brexit. It’s then up to governments how they use it.”JR-M also discusses Remainer-Rejoinerism and why he is optimistic they will not win Some of the Brexit benefits so far.”

“We’ve saved £191 billion by not being part of the EU’s COVID recovery scheme. So that’s really important. I mean that is a huge amount of money, even in terms of our relatively bloated deficit, that we wouldn’t have had control over how it was spent.

“So, two major things before you get on to the financial services reform. The financial services reform bill is now almost through the House of Lords, will help make the City of London competitive again, dealing with issues like Solvency II, boosting economic growth. And that’s before you get on to the free trade deals, the signing up to the Pacific trade deal, which takes us into the biggest growth market in the world.”

“Why should we spend all our mental energy on the EU when there is a larger, faster-growing world economy outside the EU?”

On the Remainers

“The fascinating thing about Brexit was that the Remainers didn’t start campaigning till after they’d lost.

“They never really thought they were going to lose, and they were so shocked and so angry that they have then started campaigning to try and make us still part of the European ambits, where they’ve blocked so many of the reforms that we’ve tried to bring through.”

On re-joining the European Union

“Going back to the EU on the EU’s entreaties would require us to adopt Schengen and it would require us to adopt the euro. But it would also mean paying into the European Union’s budget without the rebate that we had whilst we were a member beforehand, so it would cost us more. It would bind us into economically unattractive options.

“It would invalidate all our free trade deals that we’ve been negotiating since we left. And the democratic deficit would be reintroduced, so it would be an act of self-harm to go back into the European Union.”

On Northern Ireland

“The relationship between GB and Northern Ireland – Great Britain and Northern Ireland – is not working as it should, and we should have been bolder in dealing with those problems.

“We should always have said to the European Union, we’re not going to put a border in Ireland, you put one in if you like. We should not have tied ourselves in to protecting the single market. That’s their business, not ours.”

On the EU’s money troubles

“Well, the EU has many problems in it, primarily the economic one of the euro, which essentially was funded by Germany. And the question is, can Germany carry on funding it? And it’s harder, as interest rates go up, to maintain the funding that Germany has been providing [as it] becomes more expensive.”

On the benefits of Brexit to the cost of living

“The biggest opportunity from leaving the European Union is that we should welcome free trade with the rest of the world on the basis that free trade benefits consumers. You see, the EU’s approach is to protect producers, whereas actually an economy works better if you do things to the advantage of consumers.

“Most people, when talking about trade, focus on what you can export. What we should think about is how much can you import more cheaply that allows individuals, consumers, to improve their standard of living.”

On the benefits of EU deregulation

“The second major change is that we should move away from a detailed regulatory system, back to a common law system.

“Because we are suffering from the inflationary problem, it seems to be getting worse rather than better. It seems to be more deep-seated than the Bank of England forecast. Now, one of the ways to deal with that is by increasing interest rates, but that’s painful. That hits everybody. That makes mortgage holders less well off.”

“What you can do to make that easier, is reduce regulation so the cost of goods comes down, so your economy is more competitive and prices fall. And that ameliorates the interest rate rise and makes people better off, which you couldn’t do in the European Union.”

On any new government’s ‘second referendum’

“Well, nobody votes to give away their rights. We currently have a right to elect our own government. Why would you vote to give that away? It is all fundamentally democracy. And then after democracy, it is having confidence that we can actually govern ourselves better than we will be governed by a bureaucracy, a remote bureaucracy in Brussels.”

“It would be very surprising if people in the UK ever wanted to rejoin the European Union. The way to get us back in would be by stealth, not by an open referendum.”

Observations

We are very grateful to the ever-gracious former Cabinet Minister, the Rt Hon Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for North Somerset, for giving up his time to bring our readers his exclusive thoughts on all things Brexit.