Sir Andrew Cook: Path towards Brexit will only lead to catastrophe

Dear John,

You might have forgotten that we were once allies. Back in the early 1990s and the heyday of the Bruges Group, I was a prominent ‘Outist’. My company was being damaged by unfairly subsidised competitors in France and Spain, and my repeated and costly appeals to the European Commission and Court brought me no redress.

I developed a profound dislike of the Brussels bureaucracy, its ineffective self-centredness, self-interest and intellectual dishonesty. I debated on television, I made a film and I gave lectures on these iniquities. I supported you and your colleague Bill Cash. In short, I was a confirmed ‘Brexiteer’.

At the time, despite Britain being in the ‘Common Market’, there was little genuinely free trade between Britain and the Continent. My European competitors were subsidised and supported by their national governments, all of which applied a purchasing policy favouring their domestic suppliers. Tariffs still existed. Transport costs were significant. The exchange rate was unhelpful: the policies of Mrs Thatcher favoured a strong pound and paid scant regard to the interests of manufacturing exporters. The thinking within the Conservative government viewed Britain’s future as a provider of services rather than goods. Plus ça change one might say.

At that time I sold more in the United States than I did in Continental Europe. America provided customers, Europe only competitors. Had there been an ‘In or Out’ referendum then, I would have voted ‘Out’.

But, in the words of Lord Keynes, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’. The crusade against unfair subsidies, in part initiated by my own efforts, has been largely successful. Yes, governments still favour their domestic suppliers, and I wish the British government followed their examples.

But the euro has simplified the previous complexities caused by multiple European currencies. Borders within Continental Europe have been abolished. It is as easy to send my lorries from Leeds to Brindisi as it is to Bristol. The EU has become an open market, and I have taken advantage of it.

In your letter, you suggest that the devaluation of the pound following the ‘Leave’ vote should help me. Oh dear, John: your memory deserts you. You are 65, only two years my junior. You cannot have forgotten the 1970s, with the almost continuous and acute inflation which went hand in hand with a constantly devaluing pound. I cannot believe you want to return to this. Can it be that you hope most people have forgotten, or indeed never knew, that dreadful decade, thus allowing you to peddle unchallenged the discredited devaluation ‘mantra’ once so beloved of past Labour governments? Have you forgotten the fundamental, that by raising the cost of imported raw materials, devaluation stokes inflation while having an insignificant effect on price competitiveness?

You are fortunate, John. You hold a safe Parliamentary seat with a huge majority, which could possibly have been won in part thanks to donations your party received from people such as me, not forgetting the influence of our former Prime Minister. You receive a substantial MP’s salary and expenses, paid for entirely by the State. From this position of enviable financial security, you can pursue your political passions with a zeal undiluted by the cold winds of reality.

In stark contrast, I and my 600 employees receive no salaries from the state. We are paid according to what we make and sell by our own efforts. To survive, we must win orders, make products and sell them at a profit. Your support for ‘Brexit’ has created uncertainty among our customers and threatens to erect barriers to our trade. In short, it has put our livelihoods at risk.

On the matter of my donations to your party, you scold me mildly for believing these can influence Government policy to my advantage. Let me correct you. I am not motivated by narrow self-interest. My working life is behind me, a life spent building up and sustaining a modern manufacturing business through repeated recessions and market changes.

I do not worry for myself, but for those younger and poorer than me, for whom I believe ‘Brexit’ will make life harder. I fear the path which you and your ‘Leaver’ friends have caused the country to embark upon will lead it to catastrophe.

I have tried to use my money to warn of this danger. If it has allowed me to oxygenate my concerns, then I regard it as money well spent, not for me, but for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who directly or indirectly depend on the single market for their livelihoods. Do not be blind to this, John. Sooner or later, if as I fear an economic disaster unfolds and you find your 25,000 majority suddenly and unexpectedly at risk, your eyes may open to your folly. But by then it will be too late.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew.