The Brexit majority comprised an alliance of two groups. First, there were those who felt they had lost out from globalisation and blamed migration for stagnant wages. Then there were the older generation enjoying greater financial security, for whom the performance of the economy just did not matter. It was an alliance of the excluded and the insulated.
I personally believe it would have been far better if we had voted to stay in the European Union, and—with what happens next still far from clear—hope that the coming negotiations produce a result that leaves us positively engaged with Europe. But, just possibly, we can use the shock of the aftermath of the Brexit vote to tackle the deep problems that it revealed.
The troubling truth, revealed by the Brexit vote is that even when the British economy did grow, and even where productivity did improve, very little of that benefit has been feeding through into median wages—many people have simply ceased to gain from growth. Instead, it was all being captured by the most affluent who often also tend to be older. In particular, economic gains were captured by pensioners as extra resources were put into plugging deficits in pension schemes from which young people were excluded.
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October 2016
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