The Long Review of 2022 (Pt. II)

For the land of my birth, 2022 was the Year of the Two Monarchs, the Three Premiers and the Four Chancellors. The death of Queen Elizabeth II was sudden and unexpected; but once the news had been digested, a process of acclimatisation began immediately. Getting used to saying 'the king' instead of 'the queen'; talking about 'His Majesty's Ambassador' instead of  'Her Majesty's Ambassador' when referring to the same person; realising that the monarch who had ruled since before my birth was no longer on the throne. 

A change of prime minister is something that happens far more often than a change of monarch - in my lifetime one monarch per 64 years, compared to one premier every four-and-half years. But to see three prime ministers in one year - and that's a year without a general election - has been unprecedented.

Brexit is the underlying cause; the liar Johnson was finally thrown out of No 10 by his own party, to be replaced by the hapless Liz Truss, a weak and wavering human being, unsure of whether she was against the monarchy or for it, which party she was in, or if she was in favour of remaining in the EU or a Brexiteer. Her innate weakness was seized upon by the 'ultras' in the Tory party who wanted someone pliant in No 10 who they could manipulate to push their radical agenda - lowering taxes for the wealthiest in society. Together with her chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, she terrified the markets with a combination of cash hand-outs (to help cope with the energy crisis) and tax cuts. Kwarteng's budget resulted in the pound falling to $1.03 and almost £20 billion being spent over the next four weeks by the Bank of England on a bail-out to save the value of pensions.

Truss was out after 45 days - an absolute record, "a shorter shelf-life than a lettuce", also ousted by her own party. She was replaced by Rishi Sunak, the first British prime minister that I don't viscerally object to since pre-referendum Cameron. I found myself hurling abuse at the TV set or monitor whenever May, Johnson or Truss spoke about Brexit - but somehow Sunak doesn't fire up the same emotions in me. Yet his stunning wealth (richer than King Charles III, richer than Trump) makes him out of touch with people's everyday concerns - and it shows at every PR stunt that has him interfacing with reality (buying fuel in a petrol station, serving homeless people at Christmas).

The upshot of all political turmoil is tragic for me; the country that was once the world's number one soft power, an exemplar of good governance and common-sense solutions, has in just a few years become a global laughing stock. Once upon a time, "examples of British best practice" were usually worth following or at least making note of. A mere six and half years it took to turn this situation around diametrically.

Brexit is damaging the UK economy way beyond what one would expect from cyclical downturns - even those exacerbated by a European war and a global pandemic. Britain's growth next year (-0.4%) and into 2024 (+0.2%) is forecast to be among the lowest among the OECD group of the world's richest nations. It's clear that life in the UK for the average citizen is worse today than it was in 2019, before Covid, before the UK left the single European market, and before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. All those three factors need to be taken together, yet other European economies affected by the pandemic and the war are faring better - not having cut themselves off from the world's richest trading bloc.

I do not feel the chill winds of the British economy directly - only in the way Brexit impinges on my freedom of movement and increasing financial restrictions, inability to send gifts to the UK without them being intercepted by customs for duty payment etc. However, at work I see this every day - the UK has cut off its nose to spite its face. Brexit is working asymmetrically - hurting British exporters much more than it's hurting Polish exporters. Why should any Polish firm bother importing goods from the UK and deal with 17 new onerous procedures when it can buy similar goods from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Holland or Sweden? British corporates can pay for the necessary legal advice, accountancy services and logistics to ensure their goods continue to reach their EU customers - but Britain's small- and medium-sized exporters - selling pallet-loads rather than truckloads - are at a clear disadvantage.

Trading the other way, Britain has still not imposed border controls on food and products of plant or animal origin (postponed until 1 Jan 2024), nor changed from the CE conformity mark to the new UKCA standard (postponed to 1 Jan 2025). So British food producers have massively lost out in competitiveness to their EU-based rivals.

In the long term, Britain's return to the EU is inevitable - the only question is when it will happen. Mere demographics will make this so; of the 17.4 million who voted for Brexit, maybe around a million and half are dead, whilst no one born this century voted to leave the EU. Generation Z has had its prospects blighted by Brexit - freedom of movement, freedom to work and study across the EU, but above all the fact that the UK economy will be shrinking in size relative to where it could have been had it stayed in.

The next few years will see Britain eating humble pie. Its economy will be increasingly lagging behind those of EU member states - Poland's GDP per capita is expected to exceed the UK's  by 2035 (and if you strip out London by 2030). Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng wanted 'growth'. Growth is hard to achieve if there are around 1.2 million job vacancies in the economy. But then the referendum was about 'taking control of our borders' and stopping highly motivated workers from across the EU coming to the UK to pick fruit, work in bars, hotels and restaurants and look after Britons in their hospitals and care homes. So there you have it - low growth (and indeed, low unemployment), high inflation and far less choice in the shops.

I will return to the UK to celebrate the day it rejoins the EU - and not a day sooner. If you voted Leave and have not yet repented - you are my life-long foe.

This time last year:
Wintery gorgeousness and filthy air

This time two years ago:
Jakubowizna - moonrise kingdom

This time five years ago:

Rural sunlight, Derbyshire

This time eight years ago:
Derbyshire in the snow

This time nine years ago:
Is Britain over-golfed?

This time 11 years:
Everybody's out on the road today

This time 12 years ago:
50% off and nothing to pay till June 2016