EXCLUSIVE: The John Redwood Interview – Getting us back on track

Summary

Extracts from our interview with the Rt Hon Sir John Redwood, MP for Wokingham

 

Our questions and Sir John’s answers

 

Firstly, how is Brexit going?

”I think it’s great that we are now an independent country. I want us to use our freedoms rather more than we have so far. I think people have been a bit nervous and haven’t understood the joys of freedom, but nonetheless we we’ve had some good wins since we left the European Union. And above all, of course, we’ve spared ourselves an awful lot of money that we would have had to pay for them for their latest budgets. And we’ve ducked the coming big liabilities, because of course now the EU is borrowing billions upon billions of money in its own name, and all that has to be backed by the member states. And as one of the richer member states, we’d have been in for a huge liability.”

 

What have been the primary successes? What have we managed to garner so far from our newfound independence?

“I think we’ve done a good job on trade, because we’re now joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is an exciting, fast-growing area of about 500 million people, and it’s where a lot of the action is in Asia these days, and I think it’s very important. More importantly, of course, we are a very strong service sector exporter. We’ve gone to new records in service sector exports. And when we negotiate a trade deal, unlike the European Union, we give a lot of prominence to services. So, I think the TPP will be a model for others, and I think we will add better service sector deals to the free trade deals that we inherited from the EU and have rolled over with the other countries.”

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2023 – click to enlarge

 

What should we be doing with our post-Brexit strategy?

“I think one of the big changes, which is coming through quite soon, is we’re going to revert from their very restrictive, code-based law to common law, and I hope it means we get closer to the US then, in terms of digital success. We’ve got this fantastic revolution being launched in artificial intelligence. The UK is very well placed to do well at that. But very important that we weren’t then locked down to saying “this is all you can do under the title artificial intelligence”, which is the way the EU seems to be going with its wish to be very prescriptive in its lawmaking. The EU wants to legislate for it before most of us have an idea of just how far it’s going to go and what its fantastic potential is. So, we can now be on the innovation fast track alongside the United States of America, which at the moment is completely dominating the digital space in the West. And it’s the U.S. that has created the great success stories, the Microsofts, the Alphabets, the Amazons, the Apples. And there is no great European company occupying that space or up with the modern age, and I think it goes back to the wrong kind of law and far too much prescriptive regulation.”

 

What are the opportunities that the United Kingdom has actually squandered?

“I wouldn’t say we squandered anything. I mean, the joy of being an independent country is if the politicians are too slow or haven’t done the right things, then you can put pressure on them, or you can change the politicians. I hope it’s putting pressure on them, because we’ve currently got a Conservative government. But there are certainly things they should speed up on and and do better. I’m very impatient to get on with getting the taxes down. VAT was a Europe-wide imposed tax. They imposed minimum rates on us and they imposed whole categories of goods and services we didn’t necessarily want to have it on. Well, we’ve had two little wins on that so far, because we’ve got it off female hygiene products and we’ve got VAT – for a period – off green products. I’d have liked to have taken that off domestic energy as well. It seems to me when you’ve got dear energy and an energy crisis, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to to be taxing it. That’s one of the missed opportunities that I would urge the government to reconsider.”

 

Brexit has been accused of all sorts of things, of causing all sorts of issues that the country has faced in in recent history. Is this just plain lies?

“Remain politicians have never understood what Brexit was all about. They seemed to think it was about fiddling around with our trade arrangements, and they then claimed that our trade arrangements would be worse, not better. But it wasn’t mainly about trade, it was about freedom to do the right things yourself, for freedom to get rid of the governments and politicians that weren’t serving you well, or the ability to pressurise them so that they did serve you well. But there was also a lot of totally misleading, bad forecasting. We had the Bank of England, the Treasury and others telling us that if we dared to vote to leave the EU, after the vote we would get a big rise in unemployment. Instead, we’ve got the other problem. We haven’t got enough people to do all the jobs, and unemployment fell, not rose.

 

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2023 – click to enlarge

They told us that house prices would crash, and actually house prices carried on going up, so that they’re really rather expensive for people. But it was the opposite of what what they were forecasting. And they’ve been forecasting a deep recession. Well, we didn’t get a deep recession, unlike other countries. And which country is in recession, the UK or Germany? Well, it’s Germany actually that’s in recession. But that isn’t the fault of Brexit either. It’s nothing to do with Brexit. It’s the monetary policy being followed. It’s the nature of the industrial background. It’s the fiscal stance of the government and so forth. And again, these are all things that we can now control and change.

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2023 – click to enlarge

I mean, do I think our tax system is right now? I think we want lower taxes. Do I think that the Bank of England has done a good job on controlling the money? No, it’s been as bad or worse than the European Central Bank has been for the euro area. But the joy now is we can have a good row about it in the UK, and try and get it right. Whereas all the time we were in the EU we had absolutely no chance of changing these things. I remember well, as a government minister, realising how we’d lost control of our ability to make our own decisions and our own laws. However good you were at playing the political game in Brussels, if France and Germany and the Commission had decided on something, it was extremely difficult to get anything different.”

 

What would Britain’s future be if it starts to make its way back into the EU’s regulatory orbit – in fact, if it even rejoins the EU?

“The more bad rules and bad economic performance you adopt from the EU, then the worse it’s going to be, isn’t it? I mean, the EU is a relatively low-growth area compared with the United States and compared with much of Asia. The EU is a very over-regulated area, which drives good investment and innovatory ideas and companies away from its shores. That is why it’s failed to have any of the giants of the great digital revolution. And if we just took ourselves more closely to that, or align even more closely to that, we miss most of the opportunities that Brexit brings. But I’d still rather be out of the EU, because at least we’re not going to be on the hook for all those huge financial liabilities which the EU is now building up at a colossal speed. Because the EU sees the way of strengthening its power over its member states is to borrow loads the money. And to use the money they borrowed, at the expense of the member states, to bribe the member states into acquiescence with their policies.”

 

What have been some of the the worst misconceptions that have been peddled by the other side about Brexit?

“I think it’s the relentless gloom. And whenever there is a bad economic figure then “oh, that is the fault of Brexit”. But you never are told that a good economic figure, and we’ve had quite a few of those as well, was a result of Brexit. And why isn’t it the low unemployment? It’s the result of Brexit. If they thought high unemployment was going to be the result of Brexit. I mean, it’s all full of illogicality and it’s very selective. So, any bad news is Brexit. Any good news is nothing to do with Brexit. It’s just not like that.”

 

There was a lot of criticism of the Brexit campaign. What would be your response to that?

“I think the central one was the famous bus. And I think the bus was very effective, because it rightly pointed out that we pay an awful lot of money into the EU. And that once we were out of the transitional period, we were not going to have to pay them all that money anymore. And it pointed out that we could then spend that on the NHS. They now say that didn’t happen. But it did. And we put in far more to the NHS, as it turns out, than the amount we saved on Brexit. That was partly to do with COVID, but it was partly to do with the choices of an independent country. But it was easier to put all that extra money into the NHS, because we didn’t have, going forwards, that huge bill to look forward to.”

 

What would your message be to future governments, who come into power in Brexit Britain?

“I would like them to share my enthusiasm for what freedom can bring you, and to say it’s full of opportunity. And you can manage any downsides you think are out there, but I think it’s primarily opportunity. I think the people were more sensible than many of their politicians. But they now, the people, expect the politicians to pick up the banner, to enjoy the freedoms and to make their lives better. So, strip away those taxes that don’t work. Get rid of the unnecessary regulations that block innovation, choice, greater freedom and greater prosperity. Do those bigger trade deals with the rest of the world, particularly oriented around services that we are very good at. Understand that going over to our own democratic law and common law system is an awful lot better for enterprise, as our big and successful neighbours, the United States of America, has shown very dramatically in the last 20 years.”

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