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📊 The 2016 Brexit electorate no longer exists.
Peter Kellner has updated the sums using YouGov and ONS data.
Since 2016:
🔹 Around 3.8m Leave voters have died, against 2.1m Remain voters.
🔹 Around 7m new voters have reached voting age, overwhelmingly pro-European.
🔹 Around their minds 👉roughly three-quarters of them moving from Leave to Rejoin.
His estimate of how Britain would vote now:
🇪🇺 REJOIN: 20.0m 👉 63%
🇬🇧 STAY OUT: 11.8m 👉 37%
A majority of almost 9 million.
Brexit happened. Britain has lived with it for a decade.
But democracy does not freeze the electorate in 2016 forever.
The question is what Britain wants now not what it indicated in 2016.
Peter Kellner has updated the sums using YouGov and ONS data.
Since 2016:
🔹 Around 3.8m Leave voters have died, against 2.1m Remain voters.
🔹 Around 7m new voters have reached voting age, overwhelmingly pro-European.
🔹 Around their minds 👉roughly three-quarters of them moving from Leave to Rejoin.
His estimate of how Britain would vote now:
🇪🇺 REJOIN: 20.0m 👉 63%
🇬🇧 STAY OUT: 11.8m 👉 37%
A majority of almost 9 million.
Brexit happened. Britain has lived with it for a decade.
But democracy does not freeze the electorate in 2016 forever.
The question is what Britain wants now not what it indicated in 2016.
📊 The Brexit majority hasn’t just slipped 👉it’s vanished. Completely.
This chart from Peter Kellner/YouGov shows:
• 5 million 2016 voters have died
• New young voters back Rejoin by 5:1
• 29% of Leave voters now want to rejoin
• Net result: Rejoin 19.8m vs Stay Out 11.7m
ty for Rejoin.
Britain is now a pro-EU country.
The only people keeping Brexit alive are politicians who benefit from the damage.
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🚜 You cannot explain the crisis in British 🇬🇧 farming while refusing to talk about Brexit.
Excellent piece in Farmers Weekly from Matthew Mountain, a Lincolnshire farmer, responding to @RupertLowe10 criticism of Defra.
Matt agrees with much of the diagnosis: chaotic farm and the impossibility of running a farming business when government policy keeps changing.
But there is an enormous hole in the argument. 🔥 Brexit.
British farmers lost frictionless access to our biggest neighbouring market. We left the Single Market and Customs Union.
We lost our influence over the rules governing that market.
And while British farmers face new barriers exporting to Europe, post-Brexit trade policy has exposed them to greater competition from producers operating under different cost and regulatory structures.
As Matt puts it: “Pooling sovereignty strengthened our bargaining power over the conditions under which farmers competed.”
That goes to the heart of what Brexit did to British farming.
We supposedly “took back control”, but gave up our seat at the table where the rules affecting our most important agricultural market are made.
The answer now isn’t to pretend Brexit never happened.
Repair farm support.
Protect family farms.
Restore access to the Single Market.
Because food security is national security and British farming cannot afford another decade of politicians refusing to confront what Brexit has done.
Excellent work, Matt. 👏🇬🇧🇪🇺
Excellent piece in Farmers Weekly from Matthew Mountain, a Lincolnshire farmer, responding to @RupertLowe10 criticism of Defra.
Matt agrees with much of the diagnosis: chaotic farm and the impossibility of running a farming business when government policy keeps changing.
But there is an enormous hole in the argument. 🔥 Brexit.
British farmers lost frictionless access to our biggest neighbouring market. We left the Single Market and Customs Union.
We lost our influence over the rules governing that market.
And while British farmers face new barriers exporting to Europe, post-Brexit trade policy has exposed them to greater competition from producers operating under different cost and regulatory structures.
As Matt puts it: “Pooling sovereignty strengthened our bargaining power over the conditions under which farmers competed.”
That goes to the heart of what Brexit did to British farming.
We supposedly “took back control”, but gave up our seat at the table where the rules affecting our most important agricultural market are made.
The answer now isn’t to pretend Brexit never happened.
Repair farm support.
Protect family farms.
Restore access to the Single Market.
Because food security is national security and British farming cannot afford another decade of politicians refusing to confront what Brexit has done.
Excellent work, Matt. 👏🇬🇧🇪🇺
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Liz Webster retweeted
russia is about to use a humanitarian crisis it CAUSED as a PR stunt.
Vital to remember that people are still in Oleshky because russia held them hostage as human shields. Putin will try rewrite history & pretend he cares about saving lives. But russia caused this.
Vital to remember that people are still in Oleshky because russia held them hostage as human shields. Putin will try rewrite history & pretend he cares about saving lives. But russia caused this.
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🔺 EXCLUSIVE: Andy Burnham has opened the door to Britain readopting the European Union’s free movement rules, arguing that an “honest discussion” is needed, reports @benrileysmith
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If @andyburnham is serious about taking Britain back towards the EU, he has to confront the farm tax.
Because rejoining means returning to a Single Market built around free movement of capital, non-discrimination, competition and a level playing field.
For decades the European Commission has explicitly warned member states that inheritance and gift taxes must not endanger the survival of viable family businesses.
It recognised the obvious problem: succession taxes can force heirs to strip cash from a business, sell productive assets or sell the business altogether.
That principle applies with particular force to farming.
British farmland is highly capitalised, farm margins are tight and the business requires huge continuing investment just to produce food.
So if Burnham wants Britain back inside the European economic system, he cannot simply ignore a domestic tax regime that can weaken farm succession and leave British producers carrying a structural disadvantage.
He may choose to restore APR and BPR. He may choose another release valve.
But “rejoin Europe while doing nothing about the competitive burden on British farming” is not a coherent position.
A serious rejoin strategy has to include agriculture, succession and the level playing field.
@anandMenon1
Because rejoining means returning to a Single Market built around free movement of capital, non-discrimination, competition and a level playing field.
For decades the European Commission has explicitly warned member states that inheritance and gift taxes must not endanger the survival of viable family businesses.
It recognised the obvious problem: succession taxes can force heirs to strip cash from a business, sell productive assets or sell the business altogether.
That principle applies with particular force to farming.
British farmland is highly capitalised, farm margins are tight and the business requires huge continuing investment just to produce food.
So if Burnham wants Britain back inside the European economic system, he cannot simply ignore a domestic tax regime that can weaken farm succession and leave British producers carrying a structural disadvantage.
He may choose to restore APR and BPR. He may choose another release valve.
But “rejoin Europe while doing nothing about the competitive burden on British farming” is not a coherent position.
A serious rejoin strategy has to include agriculture, succession and the level playing field.
@anandMenon1
Andy, @andyburnham I am pleading with you to end this nightmare for farming families.
Farmers have now lived under the shadow of the farm IHT changes for nearly two years. Behind all the Treasury calculations and political arguments are real families, real farms and an enormous e friend of my son died by suicide just a week before his wedding. He had been deeply worried about what divorce could mean for the future of the family farm.
This year, the brother of one of my closest friends died intestate. His death has left the farm and his family facing terrible uncertainty and complexity at the worst possible moment.
These are not wealthy people sitting on disposable assets. A farm is a home, a business, a livelihood and often the work of several generations bound together.
For nearly two years families have been trying to work out whether they must sell land, restructure businesses, change wills, divide farms or somehow find money that simply does not exist in cash.
The human strain of that uncertainty is immense.
Please, Andy, use the Budget to bring it to an end.
Restore proper APR and BPR for genuine working farms and family businesses and release farming families from this burden.
They need certainty. They need to be able to plan for succession rather than fear it. And, above all, they need to know that passing a viable farm from one generation to the next is not something government intends to punish.
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The EU does not mean one identical system everywhere. It means common rules around the edges, with national governments free to choose how they operate inside them.
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Liz Webster retweeted
It’s insane that MAGA is pitching this like the Trump Family just ended the war.
russia has attacked Ukraine hundreds of times already today and Putin is still trying to wipe it off the map. Worth remembering that.
russia has attacked Ukraine hundreds of times already today and Putin is still trying to wipe it off the map. Worth remembering that.
Exclusive Senior Advisor to First Lady Melania Trump Marc Beckman: "Yesterday she single-handedly brokered a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine"
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Liz Webster retweeted
This footage is from the very beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Look at that little Ukrainian boy, walking towards the border in tears, surrounded by families fleeing a Russian invasion. Now consider the extraordinary moral bankruptcy of Trump, Rubio, Hegseth and Musk, whose message to Ukraine increasingly amounts to: “Fuck Ukraine. Russia gets our sympathy.”
Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff apparently sees Putin as some sort of humanitarian. Quite remarkable. Most people can distinguish a humanitarian from a man whose army bombs hospitals and forces children to flee their homes. Apparently, this requires a level of intellectual sophistication beyond certain members of the American establishment.
It hardly takes a magnificent imagination to work out which side these gentlemen might have found more accommodating in 1939.
“Never again” was supposed to mean something. It wasn’t a decorative slogan to be dusted off once a year while making excuses for the next dictator.
And to those who admire Russia as some glorious defender of Western civilisation, perhaps try learning something about the country. Russia has millions of Muslim citizens. It is hardly the anti-Muslim paradise some of its Western admirers imagine. Nor does Putin’s dictatorship represent the democratic freedoms they claim to cherish.
But then, understanding history, geography or basic human decency does rather spoil the pleasure of having absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
That little boy understood who the aggressor was. Remarkable how many supposedly powerful adults still struggle with it. x.com/Microinteracti…
Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff apparently sees Putin as some sort of humanitarian. Quite remarkable. Most people can distinguish a humanitarian from a man whose army bombs hospitals and forces children to flee their homes. Apparently, this requires a level of intellectual sophistication beyond certain members of the American establishment.
It hardly takes a magnificent imagination to work out which side these gentlemen might have found more accommodating in 1939.
“Never again” was supposed to mean something. It wasn’t a decorative slogan to be dusted off once a year while making excuses for the next dictator.
And to those who admire Russia as some glorious defender of Western civilisation, perhaps try learning something about the country. Russia has millions of Muslim citizens. It is hardly the anti-Muslim paradise some of its Western admirers imagine. Nor does Putin’s dictatorship represent the democratic freedoms they claim to cherish.
But then, understanding history, geography or basic human decency does rather spoil the pleasure of having absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
That little boy understood who the aggressor was. Remarkable how many supposedly powerful adults still struggle with it. x.com/Microinteracti…
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The Brexit defence campaign claims that remainers have persuaded people to believe bad things about Brexit which aren’t true.
But of course Brexit beliefs are lived experience and people can see/feel Brexit’s impact in every day life.
Life was better in the EU and people remember this.
But of course Brexit beliefs are lived experience and people can see/feel Brexit’s impact in every day life.
Life was better in the EU and people remember this.
Brexit voter in Makerfield tells Beth Rigby,
"Everything seemed better when we were in the European Union. Boris Johnson just convinced everyone that we would be so much better off, didn't he"
Another says he didn't make the right choice to vote for Brexit because Brexit ended, ent, the freedom of travel"
My view:
Johnson helped sell Brexit as a painless route to prosperity, then chose a version that put new barriers between British firms and their biggest nearby market. When the trade-offs became unavoidable, he blamed others rather than own the consequences.
Farage helped turn grievance into a political movement, but campaigning for a rupture is easier than taking responsibility for its aftermath. He could claim victory, leave others to manage the fallout and return whenever there was another grievance to exploit.
That is the populist trick: make a complicated choice sound effortless, dismiss anyone describing the costs as an enemy, then blame someone else when those costs arrive.
The people who believed the promises deserve honesty now. The politicians who made them owe the country an accounting.
And if Brexit voters in Makerfield have changed their minds, they are far from alone.
YouGov’s latest polling found 59% support for rejoining the EU, against 32% opposed.
With Britain needing stronger growth and more opportunities, the case for restoring closer ties—and the freedom to live, work and study across Europe—is stronger than ever.
#RejoinEU
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Liz Webster retweeted
🇺🇦🔥 FORMER NATO CHIEF JENS STOLTENBERG DELIVERS A POWERFUL MESSAGE ON UKRAINE!
🗣️ “Supporting Ukraine is not charity. It is an investment in our own security and in the future of a democratic and peaceful Europe.
We cannot allow Russia to succeed.
The fight for freedom must continue.” 🇺🇦🇪🇺
🗣️ “Supporting Ukraine is not charity. It is an investment in our own security and in the future of a democratic and peaceful Europe.
We cannot allow Russia to succeed.
The fight for freedom must continue.” 🇺🇦🇪🇺
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What happens in the EU with farm and business IHT?
There isn’t one EU IHT system.
Member States design their own farm-succession reliefs.
Ireland reduces the taxable value of qualifying agricultural property by 90%, subject to active-farming conditions.
Germany can exempt 85% or even 100% of qualifying business assets, including agricultural and forestry businesses, subject to conditions designed to keep the business going.
And you cannot ignore land values.
England: €32,700/ha
EU average: €15,224/ha
(but prices vary enormously between countries)
British farmland carries very high capital values while producing comparatively modest annual returns.
That is the fundamental problem with saying “well, farmers managed before 1992” or “other countries tax inheritance”.
You have to compare the whole system:
Land values, farm-gate returns, succession relief, agricultural support and the cost of keeping the farm productive.
If Britain moves back into the Single Market, its farmers will be competing directly with producers operating under those other national systems.
You cannot impose a structural succession disadvantage on British food production and pretend that is a level playing field.
There has to be a release valve somewhere and APR/BPR, an equivalent succession relief, or compensating agricultural support.
And ultimately, you can’t eat tax.
You need viable farms left to produce food.
There isn’t one EU IHT system.
Member States design their own farm-succession reliefs.
Ireland reduces the taxable value of qualifying agricultural property by 90%, subject to active-farming conditions.
Germany can exempt 85% or even 100% of qualifying business assets, including agricultural and forestry businesses, subject to conditions designed to keep the business going.
And you cannot ignore land values.
England: €32,700/ha
EU average: €15,224/ha
(but prices vary enormously between countries)
British farmland carries very high capital values while producing comparatively modest annual returns.
That is the fundamental problem with saying “well, farmers managed before 1992” or “other countries tax inheritance”.
You have to compare the whole system:
Land values, farm-gate returns, succession relief, agricultural support and the cost of keeping the farm productive.
If Britain moves back into the Single Market, its farmers will be competing directly with producers operating under those other national systems.
You cannot impose a structural succession disadvantage on British food production and pretend that is a level playing field.
There has to be a release valve somewhere and APR/BPR, an equivalent succession relief, or compensating agricultural support.
And ultimately, you can’t eat tax.
You need viable farms left to produce food.
@LizWebsterSBF @andyburnham What do they do in the EU?
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🚜 🌾 🌽 🐄 🐑 🐖 🐓 What did farmers do before 100% APR was introduced in 1992?
They had agricultural inheritance relief already.
And in 1992 John Major’s government increased the relief for working farmers from 50% to 100% for a very specific reason.
Treasury ministers said inheritance tax could force heirs to take money out of productive businesses, money that could otherwise be invested, or even force the business to be sold.
Norman Lamont said the change meant businesses would no longer have to be “broken up on death”.
That was the policy objective.
And remember what else was happening in 1992: Britain was preparing for the completed European Single Market.
So the lesson from 1992 is not that farms somehow managed perfectly well with less relief.
It is that government looked at the economics of succession and decided that extracting capital from working farms and family businesses was economically destructive.
Thirty-four years later farming is vastly more capital-intensive, machinery costs have exploded and farm-gate margins are under extraordinary pressure.
You cannot eat tax.
And if Britain is moving back towards the Single Market, government cannot leave its own food producers carrying a structural succession disadvantage without providing some other release valve.
Food production requires capital continuity.
That was understood in 1992 and matters even more now that govt are telling you to stockpile.
They had agricultural inheritance relief already.
And in 1992 John Major’s government increased the relief for working farmers from 50% to 100% for a very specific reason.
Treasury ministers said inheritance tax could force heirs to take money out of productive businesses, money that could otherwise be invested, or even force the business to be sold.
Norman Lamont said the change meant businesses would no longer have to be “broken up on death”.
That was the policy objective.
And remember what else was happening in 1992: Britain was preparing for the completed European Single Market.
So the lesson from 1992 is not that farms somehow managed perfectly well with less relief.
It is that government looked at the economics of succession and decided that extracting capital from working farms and family businesses was economically destructive.
Thirty-four years later farming is vastly more capital-intensive, machinery costs have exploded and farm-gate margins are under extraordinary pressure.
You cannot eat tax.
And if Britain is moving back towards the Single Market, government cannot leave its own food producers carrying a structural succession disadvantage without providing some other release valve.
Food production requires capital continuity.
That was understood in 1992 and matters even more now that govt are telling you to stockpile.
@LizWebsterSBF @andyburnham What did they do before the 100% relief was introduced in 1992?
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But surely Suez is exactly why Macmillan is worth listening to. Yes, he initially backed the disastrous hard line.
Then he watched Britain discover, in real time, that imperial prestige was not the same thing as actual power. He learnt the lesson the hard way.
After Suez he x.com/bleating_lamb/…lationship around interdependence and increasingly concluded that Britain needed Europe too.
So dismissing his later warnings bc he had been wrong beforehand rather misses the point. Experience is what you get just after you needed it.
🇺🇸 And there may be a lesson there for Donald Trump. America is enormously powerful.
But if it alienates allies, fractures Europe and assumes it can dictate terms indefinitely while China grows in economic and technological weight, it may eventually discover the same thing Britain did:
Great-power status is not something you possess forever. It depends on the alliances and economic structures that sustain it.
Then he watched Britain discover, in real time, that imperial prestige was not the same thing as actual power. He learnt the lesson the hard way.
After Suez he x.com/bleating_lamb/…lationship around interdependence and increasingly concluded that Britain needed Europe too.
So dismissing his later warnings bc he had been wrong beforehand rather misses the point. Experience is what you get just after you needed it.
🇺🇸 And there may be a lesson there for Donald Trump. America is enormously powerful.
But if it alienates allies, fractures Europe and assumes it can dictate terms indefinitely while China grows in economic and technological weight, it may eventually discover the same thing Britain did:
Great-power status is not something you possess forever. It depends on the alliances and economic structures that sustain it.
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Liz Webster retweeted
@LizWebsterSBF The UK is an extreme outlier on privatisation, which is a very British disease. 40 per cent of the total value of assets privatised across the OECD between 1980 and 1996 were in the UK.
opendemocracy.net/en/privatisati…
opendemocracy.net/en/privatisati…
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This looks like the ultimate Batman-villain version of inequality.
Extraordinary wealth accumulates in fewer hands.
The very wealthy have access to sophisticated tax planning while public services struggle for money.
Governments debate cutting welfare and collective provision.
Meanwhile billionaires pour billions into biotechnology designed to extend healthy human life, potentially far beyond what previous generations imagined possible.
A society that allows extreme private fortunes to compound while public capacity erodes eventually reaches a grotesque point:
The richest people can spend fortunes trying to escape ageing, while everyone else is told the state can no longer afford to look after them through ordinary life.
This is tech progress being privatised for the few to create world which only works for the few.
Extraordinary wealth accumulates in fewer hands.
The very wealthy have access to sophisticated tax planning while public services struggle for money.
Governments debate cutting welfare and collective provision.
Meanwhile billionaires pour billions into biotechnology designed to extend healthy human life, potentially far beyond what previous generations imagined possible.
A society that allows extreme private fortunes to compound while public capacity erodes eventually reaches a grotesque point:
The richest people can spend fortunes trying to escape ageing, while everyone else is told the state can no longer afford to look after them through ordinary life.
This is tech progress being privatised for the few to create world which only works for the few.
🚨 👿 Russia’s male life expectancy is around 68.
Yet Putin’s circle is pouring state resources into gene therapy, 3D-printed organs and longevity research while he openly discusses humans living to 150.
His daughter Maria Vorontsova even describes the next stage of longevity heat God or nature”.
Putin and Xi were caught on a hot mic in Beijing in September 2025 discussing repeated organ transplantation, biotechnology and the possibility of humans reaching 150. Putin later confirmed the conversation.
This shows how authoritarian leaders demand extraordinary sacrifice from millions of others become preoccupied with escaping the one fate they share with everyone else.
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🚨 👿 Russia’s male life expectancy is around 68.
Yet Putin’s circle is pouring state resources into gene therapy, 3D-printed organs and longevity research while he openly discusses humans living to 150.
His daughter Maria Vorontsova even describes the next stage of longevity heat God or nature”.
Putin and Xi were caught on a hot mic in Beijing in September 2025 discussing repeated organ transplantation, biotechnology and the possibility of humans reaching 150. Putin later confirmed the conversation.
This shows how authoritarian leaders demand extraordinary sacrifice from millions of others become preoccupied with escaping the one fate they share with everyone else.
Yet Putin’s circle is pouring state resources into gene therapy, 3D-printed organs and longevity research while he openly discusses humans living to 150.
His daughter Maria Vorontsova even describes the next stage of longevity heat God or nature”.
Putin and Xi were caught on a hot mic in Beijing in September 2025 discussing repeated organ transplantation, biotechnology and the possibility of humans reaching 150. Putin later confirmed the conversation.
This shows how authoritarian leaders demand extraordinary sacrifice from millions of others become preoccupied with escaping the one fate they share with everyone else.
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Liz Webster retweeted
You're right, @elonmusk. Someone has grown very rich off money flowing from Ukraine. I work in Starlink supply to Ukraine, so I see these numbers firsthand.
Ukrainians bought 117,000 terminals in September alone (~$42M), plus monthly subscriptions for each one. And that's just official commercial imports. Not counting government contracts, donor-funded deliveries, direct orders from your website or grey imports.
No laundry machines needed. It goes straight to SpaceX.
Ukrainians bought 117,000 terminals in September alone (~$42M), plus monthly subscriptions for each one. And that's just official commercial imports. Not counting government contracts, donor-funded deliveries, direct orders from your website or grey imports.
No laundry machines needed. It goes straight to SpaceX.
What’s actually going on in Ukraine is that there is a massive incentive difference between the elites and the people.
The former have grown very rich off the hundreds of billions flowing to Ukraine, while the latter’s children are conscripted to die in trenches.
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Liz Webster retweeted
No, @elonmusk, the U.S. stopped funding Ukraine last year. In fact, U.S. companies make money on American weapons for which we Europeans pay.
The more you meddle in our politics and the more you play politics with your products, the more you damage your brand.
The more you meddle in our politics and the more you play politics with your products, the more you damage your brand.
And some of that US taxpayer money comes back through multiple laundry machines to fund political campaigns in America, which is why you see some politicians caring more about Ukraine than America!
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Liz Webster retweeted
@elonmuskctually going on is there’s a huge difference between the shit you say and reality. ‘The people’ in Ukraine are soldiers I meet every day who volunteered to fight to save their nation from an imperialist takeover.
Those same people you claim to speak for actually tell me you are putting their lives at risk by shutting off starlink.
Those same people you claim to speak for actually tell me you are putting their lives at risk by shutting off starlink.
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🚨 This energy crisis is like switching on a giant vacuum cleaner.
Money is sucked out of households, farmers, manufacturers and public services through higher fuel and energy costs and transferred towards those producing scarce oil and gas.
🇳🇴 But Norway shows there was another choice.
Instead of simply consuming its North Sea windfall, Norway 🇳🇴 invested its petroleum wealth for the future.
The oil is finite.
The capital created from it does not have to be.
Today Norway’s sovereign wealth fund compounds investment returns for the whole country, allowing one generation’s natural resource to create shared wealth for generations that follow.
😮 Norway’s fund has received about NOK 5.4 trillion in net petroleum inflows.
😮 Its investments have generated around NOK 13.5 trillion in returns.
🇬🇧 Britain had North Sea oil too.
We largely treated the revenues as current income.
🇳🇴 So when oil prices surge today, Norway’s people collectively own an enormous financial asset built from their petroleum wealth.
🇬🇧 British households mainly experience the other side of the equation: higher fuel, food and energy costs while private producers enjoy windfall profits.
🇳🇴 Norway turned an exhaustible resource into a compounding national asset.
🤔 This is the difference between extracting wealth and building shared wealth.
Money is sucked out of households, farmers, manufacturers and public services through higher fuel and energy costs and transferred towards those producing scarce oil and gas.
🇳🇴 But Norway shows there was another choice.
Instead of simply consuming its North Sea windfall, Norway 🇳🇴 invested its petroleum wealth for the future.
The oil is finite.
The capital created from it does not have to be.
Today Norway’s sovereign wealth fund compounds investment returns for the whole country, allowing one generation’s natural resource to create shared wealth for generations that follow.
😮 Norway’s fund has received about NOK 5.4 trillion in net petroleum inflows.
😮 Its investments have generated around NOK 13.5 trillion in returns.
🇬🇧 Britain had North Sea oil too.
We largely treated the revenues as current income.
🇳🇴 So when oil prices surge today, Norway’s people collectively own an enormous financial asset built from their petroleum wealth.
🇬🇧 British households mainly experience the other side of the equation: higher fuel, food and energy costs while private producers enjoy windfall profits.
🇳🇴 Norway turned an exhaustible resource into a compounding national asset.
🤔 This is the difference between extracting wealth and building shared wealth.
This is why Britain eventually has to confront the obvious.
You cannot solve a structural growth crisis with an endless cycle of tax rises and spending restraint while deliberately keeping barriers between yourself and your largest market.
The OBR still estimates Brexit leaves 4% lower in the long run.
British goods exports have badly underperformed our competitors since the TCA came into force.
So yes, fix planning.
Fix energy.
Invest in infrastructure.
Support industry and farming.
But the biggest structural growth reform sitting in front of Britain is the one Westminster still struggles to say out loud:
📢 reintegrate with Europe.
Single Market.
Customs Union.
And ultimately, if Britain wants its full influence back, EU membership.
You cannot budget your way around geography.
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