Lesley Riddoch: Bargain basement economic future is the stark reality of the Tory Brexit project

Phillip Hammond, pictured, let the cat out of the bag a day earlier when he laid bare the political project behind Brexit.

Describing the new Golden Era that lies ahead for Brits bold, smart and rich enough to grasp the opportunity, the Chancellor predicted that: “A low tax Britain with a US trade deal could be a magnet for businesses wanting to escape regulation and tax.”

Asked by a German reporter if the UK aims to become a “tax haven”, he said: “I personally hope we will be able to remain in the mainstream of European economic and social thinking. But if we are forced to be something different, then we will have to become something different.

“If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term. In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness.”

In plain speech folks (cos Phillip disnae dae that) he means a model of tax cuts and low wages. A size zero economic model.

That wee “contribution to the debate” is extraordinary on a number of levels.

Firstly, the language – “if we are forced” to leave the mainstream of European economic and social thinking.

Forced? Ya what?

The Westminster Government chose to have a referendum on EU membership, it then chose to pursue the hardest kind of Brexit, despite a fairly close result. It has chosen to leave the single market and to lend a rubber ear to any devolved government that might support a different course – even though the Supreme Court has ordered them to consult. Every step of the way has been May’s chosen step. And the British Government suggests it is the victim of some spiteful European gang?

Purlease.

The Prime Minister doubled down on this crazy notion of a European “threat” in her Brexit speech. “We want to remain in the mainstream of a recognizable European-style taxation system,” her official spokeswoman told journalists. “But if we are forced to do something different, if we can’t get the right deal, then we stand ready to do so.”

Forced. Unbelievable.

And keeping the bully-turned-victim theme going for a third day, Boris Johnson piped up, warning the French president against trying to “administer punishment beatings” in the manner of “some World War II movie” to any country that tries to leave the EU.

Yup.

“Our” foreign secretary evoked memories of the darkest period of recent French history because an adviser to Francois Hollande said Britain should not expect a better trading relationship outside Europe than it currently enjoys inside.

It was a statement of the bleedin’ obvious, but the British riposte was offensive, aggressive and way over the top. But we must learn to live with it. Foreign, macro economic and trade policies are all reserved to Westminster, so this petulant, British Bulldog-like excuse of a negotiating stance is being struck in OUR name and there is no way out – except independence.

But if the language of hard Brexit is offensive, the reality being described by these Tory bunions is far, far worse.

What lies ahead is a lifetime of Tory Governments administering tax cuts for the rich, deregulating every area of commerce and industry so the nightmare of precarious, low wage work extends to almost everyone, and shrinking every aspect of the welfare state until the English NHS will appear positively well-funded.

Is that what you thought the Brexit vote was all about? Did any Leave campaigner ever explain that Britain would “be forced” to become a “bargain basement” economy – a world centre for job insecurity, low pay, speculators and spivs? Did you know a vote to leave Europe was actually a vote to leave this century and return to a Dickensian society characterized by greed, poverty and chronic inequality?

Did anyone who voted Leave realise they were flashing the green light for Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple and all the other multi-nationals without taxable British profits during 2014 (aye, right) to come back and do it all over again? Did Leavers know Brexit would mean an end to deals with nations which believe in workers rights and welfare states and the start of life as the traumatised 52nd state of Donald Trump’s half-wrecked America?

It’s all a very far cry from the Great Lie of Brexit – the promise that money saved from EU contributions would give the NHS an extra £350million a week.

But there it is.

The Tory Government at Westminster is about to embark on a political project so right-wing and so far-reaching even Mrs T couldn’t have conceived it.

Without explaining that Brexit would pull Britain back into the failed austerity of George Osborne’s programme, Theresa, Philip and Boris think they’ve found a way to wrap up all the flapping loose ends of Brexit and change British society forever. It’s called Dancing with the Devil.

There’s one wee problem. Hell no. There are masses.

Firstly, cosying up to a barking US President didnae work for Tony Blair with George Dubya, and it won’t work for Theresa May and Donald Trump. Of course, we all know The Donald’s views on Mexicans, locker room chat, women, Muslims, wind turbines and Obama (“the founder of ISIS”). We know, we quake and we comfort ourselves that he’s safely ensconsed on the other side of the Atlantic, waging phoney wars against so many minorities that he huznae time to visit his golfing interests in Scotland.

Wrong.

Trump may be a nightmare for the USA but a hard Brexit makes him our nightmare too.

Leaving the single market means not having a trade deal with members of the EU or (in all probability) the EEA (except, of course, for all those cherry-picked opt-outs including the City of London and the British car industry. Hard Brexit therefore means a near total reliance on an American trade deal. And relying on America means relying on Trump.

With every week that goes by, that becomes a scarier and scarier prospect.

Nine members of Trump’s cabinet are climate change deniers – so May won’t find investment for Scotland’s excellent renewables industry in an American trade deal. Mind you, that’s fine, because her government disnae believe in wind, wave or community hydro energy either.

Trump describes Syrian refugees in Europe as “illegals”, thinks NATO is obsolete and suggests Germany’s Angela Merkel – not Vladimir Putin – is the biggest threat to Europe. So don’t expect a conscience, a tolerance of human rights or even a consistent foreign policy once May has hitched Britain on to Trump’s tawdry and garish star-spangled jalopy.

Don’t even expect the moneymen to be happy. Sterling rallied from its lowest level since the 1980’s when Theresa May finally delivered some detail about the style and pace of Brexit. But the surge proved short-lived. By the close of trading yesterday, sterling was one per cent lower against the dollar and the euro. Nice.

And there’s another wee snag.

Scots have rejected this Tory vision of a tax-haven society (actually not a society at all, just a gigantic market) in every possible way at every different ballot box for decades.

We haven’t signed up to chum Trump, to detach Britain from European social and economic values, to dismantle the welfare state and dispense with the workers rights Thatcher didn’t manage to trample decades back. Scots didn’t vote to leave the European Union – sure. But we voted to stay in far more ways than just in trade.

We voted to live in Europe not America. We voted for broadly social democratic politics. We voted for workers rights. We voted for PR, consensus, an end to winner takes all in the economy and at the ballot box. We voted for a respect for minorities and refugees, and a combined, concerted approach to tackling wars and displacement.

The European Union isn’t perfect. But its flaws are our kinda flaws. The issues it grapples with are largely the issues we also need to tackle. Indeed, compared to Trump’s America, the EU looks like Nirvana.

The minute May starts making formal overtures to Trump is the minute that Britain’s post-war consensus dies. And the minute that goes is the minute Scots must decide whether we are in that crazy charabanc or are instead finally setting off in a direction of our own choosing.