Brexit at 10: Jacob Rees-Mogg Debates Alastair Campbell

Two political insiders from opposite ends of the Brexit divide are still arguing a decade after the referendum.

4zeg1j3ir2d73i5[m[ph}nbq_media_dl_1.png Ipsos Political Monitor

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(Bloomberg) — There is a connection between the Brexit vote a decade ago and Bloomberg: It was in 2013, in a speech at our old London headquarters, that then-Prime Minister David Cameron said he wanted a referendum on membership of the European Union. Amid tensions in his own party over Europe, Cameron said he wanted to shape the debate, rather than “simply hoping a difficult situation will go away.”

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In 2016, the outcome of the promised vote ended Cameron’s time in office, beginning a period of unprecedented political volatility and a rolling cast of UK prime ministers. Keir Starmer’s resignation on Monday was the sixth in the decade since June 23, 2016. 

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To mark the anniversary of the Brexit vote, we invited two high profile figures onto a stage in our current London office. In favor of Brexit, then and now, was former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who today presents his own show on GB News. On the opposite side was Alastair Campbell, once Tony Blair’s communications chief and now co-host of The Rest Is Politics podcast. They debated before an audience of Bloomberg subscribers on June 10. 

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Brace yourselves as you read, for personal clashes as well as strong opinions. 

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This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. 

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Mishal Husain: As the results came in in June 2016, what did you not appreciate that we now know?

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Jacob Rees-Mogg: I didn’t appreciate that the Remain side — who had been quite passive in the campaign — would start campaigning much harder after the result than they had done before. My side thought we’d won and stopped. [Remain] never thought they would lose, and it was just a few eccentrics like me in favor of it. I thought at the time we would win — the more I got away from central London, the clearer it became that there was a large base of support for Brexit.

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Alastair Campbell: Jacob is right, the Remain campaign was terrible. I regret [that] I didn’t get that involved. Cameron and [former Chancellor of the Exchequer George] Osborne kept telling us, It’s all fine. Don’t worry about it. What genuinely surprised me was there was just no plan [for Brexit] at all. Lies had been told, myths had been sold, and we had to pick up the pieces.

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JRM: I do think Alastair, of all people, has to be careful about talking about lies, considering his reputation.

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AC: Why? What’s the reputation? 

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JRM: A High Court judge in 1996 saying you’re an unreliable witness.

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Do you mind if we stick to Brexit? 

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JRM: I’m very happy to stick to Brexit, but Alastair brought up this question of lies.

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AC: You drove a red bus packed full of lies.

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JRM: If we’re talking about lies, Alastair needs to look at his own record, because he has done more to damage trust in British politics than anybody else.

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AC: God, we’re getting all the old songs tonight.

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Can we turn to the economic impact of Brexit? According to Bloomberg Economics , it may have already cost the UK economy 2-4% of GDP. The central estimate is 2.5% of GDP lost over the long-run, equivalent to about £30 billion a year in foregone annual tax revenue. How do you feel about that? 

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AC: That’s a very conservative estimate.

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JRM: The figures don’t actually stack up. 

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AC: They lie as well, do they?

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JRM: No, there are different ways of interpreting figures. When you look at how the UK economy has done, we’ve outperformed Germany [and] broadly in line with France.

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Do you accept there has been any economic hit at all in the last 10 years, compared to where the UK would have been had it remained in the EU?

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JRM: I think using our economic freedoms has actually helped us. 

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Is that a yes or a no?

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JRM: It’s a complete answer, if you give me a minute. Our services trade has been roaring ahead; that’s been partly possible because we’re outside the EU. We’re no longer confined by its rules.

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You think overall there’s been a net economic positive?

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JRM: It’s been beneficial to us, yes. Not least, because we got the [Covid] vaccine early. 

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That’s a different point.

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AC: I’m not going to leave this lying thing.

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JRM: All right, well let’s go back to the lying thing. I’ve got some papers.

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AC: I’m sure you have. 

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JRM: A nice record of misleading the House of Commons — sexing up a document you may remember.

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AC: They do not want to talk about the substance. You have made every single person in this room poorer.

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JRM: That’s just not true.

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AC: It is true. You’ve made every single person in this country poorer by the lies you told.

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JRM: You’re the one who destroyed trust in the British government by the lies over Iraq.

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Alastair — would you accept that the economic impact has not been as bad as you thought? Today, the UK is still projected to be the third fastest-growing economy in the G7?

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AC: The economic consequences of Brexit have been catastrophic. If you take some assessments, we’re up to [a] 6-8% hit on the economy. Small firms write to me all the time who have given up trying to trade with the EU because of the red tape these liars said they would cut by leaving. Productivity is lower than it would be.

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If everything you’re saying is true, why are we projected to be the third fastest-growing economy in the G7 this year?

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AC: I’ve never been one of those anti-Brexit people who thinks the EU is some kind of panacea. Europe is not in a good place, [its] competitiveness is too low. But in wrenching ourselves out of the biggest market in the world, we have done fundamental damage to every single person and business in this country.

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JRM: All these figures are just wrong. 8% is a joke and assumes we would have grown as the US has grown. The US has grown faster because it’s got cheap energy. The productivity question is mainly in the public sector, [which] doesn’t export to the EU.

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You’re never going to agree on a common set of numbers. Let’s turn to the political impact of the last 10 years.

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AC: It’s been a total triumph, hasn’t it? [Audience laughs]

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You’re associated with two parties which have dominated our politics for the last century. Do you accept that both of their political fortunes have suffered because of Brexit? Alastair, do you accept that for Labour?

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AC: Yes, because they haven’t fought hard enough to make sure the public fully understands the calamity that was inflicted upon us by these people. One of Keir Starmer’s mistakes was this idea that we’re going to “Make Brexit Work.” You can change things at the margins, but they don’t want to address the fundamental question.

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I’m going to bring in some polling by Ipsos, given exclusively to Bloomberg News: 52% of British adults would vote to rejoin the EU. Alastair, that is probably not as large a majority as you would hope for, if things have been such a disaster.

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AC: Lots of people completely buy my analysis of what’s happened, but do not want to revisit the debate. Nobody in this room thinks we are going to have a referendum in the near future. While we’ve got the prospect of people like Jacob getting into bed with [Reform UK leader] Nigel Farage, the EU is not going to think about having us back. This is the triumph Jacob can take some comfort in.

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Jacob, the impact on your party, which fractured to some extent over Brexit —

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JRM: It’s been very divisive for the Conservative Party since the 1990s. There’s been a pro-European [and] anti-European wing, and that has made room for Reform to grow.

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Or you could say your party failed to handle Brexit properly?

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JRM: There was no plan for leaving — that was a deliberate policy decision of David Cameron, and it was deeply irresponsible.

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Did you have a plan as someone who was arguing “Leave?”

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JRM: I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t in government. That’s the difficulty with referendums — you don’t have the party that wins the referendum implementing the policy, you have the party in government, who may disagree with the referendum. That was the position we got into.

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AC: That gave them an extraordinary advantage. Leave could mean whatever any of the leavers said it meant. That’s why there was such a catalog of lies. Johnson said one thing; Farage said another; [former Conservative minister] Michael Gove said another.

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JRM: Listening to him on lies is like listening to King Herod on childcare.

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AC: Get back into the modern world, Jacob. I know it’s difficult for you. That’s not an anti-historical point. 

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Part of me is perplexed that people like you Jacob — whose ethos is to conserve institutions and believe in representative government, rather than the “will of the people” — ever thought that a referendum was the right way to make a big decision like this. There’s something almost revolutionary about it.

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JRM: No, there isn’t. 

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So you wouldn’t object to another one then?

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JRM: Referendum is the right way to make serious constitutional changes.

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How long does the mandate for the 2016 one last?

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JRM: The same as the Scottish referendum — a generation. The best part of 50 years. 

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AC: There’s got to be a clear desire for it. I think desire will grow, but unless within the parliamentary system itself there is real pressure, it’s less likely to happen. That’s why I have been disappointed that Labour and the [Liberal Democrats] have basically given up calling out the damage that’s being done.

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JRM: I disagree with the second half of that, but I don’t disagree with the first. There isn’t an appetite to revisit this, but I’m also not sure the EU will exist in 20 years’ time. It’s got major financial problems. It’s got strains within it economically. It’s got strains within it culturally, in relation to mass migration.

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Would you accept Alastair, that immigration was a big part of the debate in 2016, and those tensions have been shown not to be unique — they exist in other places? 

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AC: For sure, but net migration trebled [following] the referendum. This government has managed to get it down to a more acceptable level. Part of the problem with the Brexit debate has always been this sense of British exceptionalism: You watch, the French will follow and the Dutch will follow. None of them have followed. Even the far right like [Marine] Le Pen have looked at the damage we’ve done to ourselves and said, No, this is not the way to go. 

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Tony Blair, your old boss, says that is not really an argument worth having right now — 

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AC: I disagreed with it. 

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— because the UK wouldn’t enter a negotiation from a position of strength.

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AC: That’s because we’ve given up so much of the advantage. We did have the rebate. We weren’t in [the] Schengen [area]. We weren’t in the Euro. We’ve given away so much.

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JRM: Are you accepting that if we joined, we’d have to take all that?

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AC: I’m accepting that it would be a very, very difficult negotiation, which you’ve made a lot harder because of what was lost.

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JRM: Shengen, Euro, and no rebate?

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AC: I don’t know, because I think it’s going to be a very different Europe. I want to see a Europe that has Ukraine in it — even Turkey because of their military strength, which we’re going to need, particularly as the Americans seem to be deserting us on that front. I want to see Norway [join]. Iceland’s having a referendum. I would get rid of the power of the veto — we’ve got to have a very different Europe. In fact, I’ve become a bit of a fan of the Pope since his encyclical on AI — I still “don’t do God” —

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You’ll have that in common then, Jacob being a Catholic.

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JRM: I’ve read the Pope’s views on AI.

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AC: It’s wonderful. Did you agree with it?

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JRM: It’s very important. 

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AC: I hope you agreed as well with his fears about growing inequality. But he said to nurture the process of European union, which is not merely a counterweight to other powers, but a gift to humanity. Did you agree with that?

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JRM: It’s not an infallible statement. The Holy Father is only infallible when he speaks on a matter of faith and morals ex cathedra. I could point to [Pope] Pius IX, that actually the European Union is the apostate state and eternally damned, but that’s perhaps a little bit spicy. [Audience laughs]

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Do you think that Brexit has led us to the multi-party politics we are in now? 

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JRM: The parties managed to come too close together. You had David Cameron wanting to be the heir to Blair — he accepted a lot of changes under Labour.

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AC: Quite right.

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JRM: Labour accepted a lot of the changes Margaret Thatcher made, which I may think is quite right. One of the reasons for Brexit is that people felt whoever they voted for, nothing changed — and therefore they needed to vote for fundamental change. Very little has changed in the 10 years since. We are still massively over-regulated. We still have too big a state. Now, they’re looking at other parties.

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AC: This kind of atomization — I’m not sure it’s directly related to Brexit, but I think Brexit played a part in it. A lot of people who voted for Brexit are disappointed [it] hasn’t delivered a better life for them; beyond the symbolism, the flags and the fake debate about sovereignty. For millions of people in this country, their lives are still pretty crap, so they’re looking around. Tribalism has broken down. 

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Do you think Farage could be the next prime minister, Jacob?

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JRM: It’s not impossible. 

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Have you considered joining Reform?

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JRM: I’m not going to join Reform.

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AC: Robert Jenrick said that.

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JRM: I hope the Conservatives and Reform will work together. I’d like to have a pre-election pact. It could be very successful. Reform would bring something — the charisma of Farage — [and] the Conservatives have depth and policymaking strength that Reform lacks. Reform remains, basically, a one-man band.

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Would you be looking to him to rip up the current agreements with the EU and start again? That’s pretty much what he told me.

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JRM: Absolutely. Leave meant leave. We are out. We should not be making new agreements.

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Alastair, when you look at Keir Starmer and his likely challengers — Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham — these senior Labour figures have got slightly different positions on rejoining. Does that disappoint you?

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AC: We’re in a very strange place — it all disappoints me, to be absolutely frank. I worry if this Labour government is not a success, our politics is going to a very dark place. Around Europe, the populist radical right is on the march. Jacob may think that’s a good thing, I think it’s a terribly dangerous thing. What we’ve seen, exacerbated by the influence [of] Elon Musk, in Belfast and Southampton is the politics of Reform and Restore. We treat them as normal mainstream politicians. I don’t believe they are — they’re dangerous. Brexit was a vehicle for them. 

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JRM: I don’t agree with that. I think Farage is within the normal bounds of British political life. I think our politics is actually pretty stable. Our democracy works; it changed governments [in 2024] when it thought a government had failed; that is a proper process.

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To close, it’s 2036, we are all gathered again to mark 20 years since Brexit. What do you think the relationship with the EU will be then? 

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JRM: It will be a friendly third-party relationship. The EU will no longer be hankering for us to return — if it still exists — and we will be thriving outside. We’ll have made trade deals globally. I’m very excited about it.

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AC: The trade deals promised were a big part of the lies.

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JRM: No, they are happening. All of which we’d have to give up if we re-join.

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Alastair — the relationship in 2036.

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AC: The truth is, I don’t know.

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What do you hope for?

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AC: A totally different organization in which it’s possible to have different levels of membership; for the Western Balkans to be in on one basis; Ukraine to be in on the other; [and Turkey] to be part of a defense alliance.

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JRM: No one in the [European] Commission is talking about this.

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AC: Some of them are.

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JRM: Cameron couldn’t get anything out of his renegotiation.

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But I think Alastair’s actually imagining a very different kind of EU. 

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JRM: All right, but that isn’t on offer.

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AC: She’s asking [about] 20 years. You have to look ahead, Jacob. 

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Mishal Husain: I’m going to take a deep breath and very thankfully leave the stage now. Thank you both very much indeed.

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