Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Andrew Levi

@andrewprlevi.bsky.social

2.7K followers 490 following 1.5K posts

▫️Technology investor ▫️Former diplomat and tech industry executive▫️“Top” New York Times▫️“Leading” Der Spiegel▫️“Senior” BBC▫️“Valued” Financial Times▫️“Persona non grata” Vladimir Putin▫️

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 10h

That’s flatly untrue. On both counts (the second being completely detached from any credible account of UK realities).

Austerity was dumb (and cruel and/or selfish).

Brexit has been worse.

And, even if not (it has been), it’s beyond dumb to self-harm, especially entirely unnecessarily.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 11h

There’s a pretence in this argument that the security & stability of Europe is inevitable, not fundamental to UK security, prosperity & well-being, &/or is free-rideable by us, &/or that the EU isn’t central to it all.

And that throttling the economy is somehow clever, or unimportant.

All false.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 11h

The question is what we should now do.

We should walk and chew gum.

Take the best domestic policy decisions we can, in our reduced and damaged circumstances, and implement them as best we can.

And take the right decisions and actions to reverse the strategic failure of the last decade. /2. End

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 11h

“Effort”, as you choose to name it, isn’t a fixed resource.

Perhaps you & I can agree, after all, that leaving the EU was a huge strategic error & that Lexit arguments for it were just grimly ill-founded fantasies.

As for “we are where we are” arguments right now, I of course agree: we are. /1.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 12h

What goes to whom depends on political decisions & their execution.

It’s true that whatever the size of annual economic output, that amount can be more, or less, fairly shared.

Throttling it as a way of making people better off is dumb.

Pretending the EU is the - or even a - problem, equally so.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 12h

🙂

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 23h

The difference between being in the EU and not is currently around £140 billion a year in UK economic output.

Deployed as public funds, that’s a govt expenditure increase of 12%, with no danger of stoking excessive inflation.

Your question answers itself. But not in the way you appear to think.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 23h

No. These are weak, sad excuses, old as the hills & as fake as a $3 bill, for parties & govts which fail to gain support for their policies, or do so but are too incompetent to implement them.

The bigger question is why even consider the massive strategic error of leaving the EU in the first place.

Reposted by Andrew Levi

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 2d

Calling all experts on Bluesky who can shed reliable light on the impacts of Brexit: I know you don’t really want to, but I think we must …

“Gully Foyle” has re-upped a November 2024 X 🧵 as a book claiming 75 “Brexit benefits”.

Let’s go through them together.

Many hands make light work. /1.

11 20 22

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 1d

Has the Nobel Prize for Political Sketch Writing been announced yet?

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 1d

Public ownership is available to any EU government wishing it. Fairy tales told about that subject alone could fill a library.

Issues around “neoliberalism” can be addressed within the EU just as well as or better than outside it.

Such objections are very old, very tired, & seriously ill-founded.

1 2

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 1d

The Lexit argument for leaving the EU, like so many other variants of the genre, massively overstates both the (claimed) constraints of EU membership on national governments, and the supposed “freedoms” made available by EU exit. And massively understates the benefits of EU membership.

1 1 2

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 1d

Quite.

Even if any of the “benefits” seen in isolation can be counted as real (that’s a big “if”, and a definite “no” on nearly all of the 75 claims) the net effect, once the negative impacts are taken into account, is very heavily to the UK’s disadvantage, on any credible measure.

1 1 6

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 2d

It’s surely a nonsense.

There are arguments for & against higher or lower contactless limits.

But none for suggesting any significant benefit to the UK from £100 instead of £30 (or £50).

And: with appropriate anti-fraud measures in place, a higher limit was anyway possible as an EU member.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 2d

It’s also untrue to suggest that the UK couldn’t engage Swiss equities trading while in the EU. So far as I know, anyway. Perhaps an expert can clear up the question.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 2d

Seems to me desperation set in on point 1, citing a number representing only part of an overall £ (or € or $) figure which, net, is a *loss* to the UK per year of an amount approximately 10x the supposed “gain”. “Gully Foyle” would deny it, of course. But that’s because he/she/they/it is/are wrong.

Andrew Levi @andrewprlevi.bsky.social · 2d

P.S. Apologies for typo in post 2: the number of posts required to list the 75 claims 5 at a time is, of course (mercifully), only 15. And I’m going to claim that as a Brexit benefit 🙂