When Luis Figo, the subject of what remains modern football’s most controversial transfer, returned to the Camp Nou with FC Barcelona’s hated rivals Real Madrid in November 2002, one of the jilted Catalans threw a pig’s head at him from the stands.
No such porcine dramatics are expected when David Maddox gets his first run-out in the Commons’ press gallery in his new role as political editor of the Independent, having made a shocking switch from the Daily Express. But readers of the left-leaning title should brace themselves for a pig’s ear or two from a Westminster veteran who has become regarded as one of Fleet Street’s most strident Brexiteers.
Early Maddox scoops on the matter included “Brexit will save the NHS” (Nov 2016), “EU exit to save billions” (Dec 2016) and “Brexit will bring golden era for City” (Mar 2017). And despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s still at it.
“Coming soon! Brexit’s big wins for Britain” was his front-page splash in February 2023, “EU admits Brexit humiliation” followed last November and this year’s gems have included “Remoaner doom-mongers wrong again” and the not-at-all-deranged-sounding “World class Brexit Britain smashes EU to claim new global status in Rejoiner hammer blow”.
In August 2019 Maddox announced that “a historic trade agreement between Britain and the United States is set to be signed next month” and in January 2020 there was to be a “US trade deal this summer”. This proved optimistic, as did his prediction last October that “Brexit-hater Donald Tusk faces humiliation as vote threatens to end Poland’s EU membership”. Tusk is now Poland’s prime minister and Polexit remains a fantasy.
With Boris Johnson on the ropes over Partygate on March 25, 2022, Maddox wrote: “It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the politician most in danger now is Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.” Johnson resigned on June 7, and Maddox declared on TV that this was due to no fault of the feckless, libidinous dissembler but because there had “been a project from right back after the referendum to portray Boris as a habitual liar and to discredit him and discredit Brexit.”
Luckily, he got over it in time to make another spectacular prediction to which time has not been kind. “Boris’s politics as entertainment is over, Liz is about grit and hard work,” Maddox declared on September 7, 2022, just before the details-light, Instagram-heavy chancer hastily sketched out an unchecked financial statement that crashed the economy. How readers of the Independent – a title that backed Remain in 2016 and campaigned for a “Final Say” referendum two years later – will greet stuff like this remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, a devastating Bloomberg critique of the last eight years by its former editor Matthew Winkler declares that “Brexit’s lasting damage is looking inescapable”. The EU economy, says Winkler, “is growing 2.3 percentage points faster than the UK’s on an annual basis, with GDP advancing 24% since 2016, compared with the 6% for the UK.” Whereas in the decade before the referendum “EU GDP lagged behind the UK annually by 12 basis points, since 2000 by 9 basis points and the two decades preceding Brexit, by 149 basis points.”
The conclusion – as Luis Figo might say – is that Brexit has been a bit of a swine. But don’t expect to read that from the Indy’s new signing.
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