Spies, lies and Britain’s prize: We still need a Brexit inquiry

After the BBC unearthed photos of three Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia attending a Brexit committee in Westminster in 2016, two words not heard for a long time have started to resurface among some excitable Remainers: Brexit inquiry.

Eager though I am to see Britain return to the European Union, the pictures hardly offer conclusive proof that Vladimir Putin bought the referendum. I don’t know why the Bulgarians were there; perhaps obscure parliamentary hearings are part of a grand tour of Britain laid on for all agents of the Russian secret state, that includes as its centrepiece a trip to Salisbury Cathedral, famous for its 123-metre spire. But if I were part of a secret plot to subvert British democracy, I’m not sure I’d sit at the heart of British democracy, all but waving for the cameras.

None of that damages the case for an independent inquiry into the causes and effects of leaving the European Union. This should not be the full play-by-play unpicking of 2016 that some would like; cathartic as it would be to see Michael Gove and Boris Johnson squirm when asked to defend some of Leave’s outlandish claims, that seems pointless, when Remain’s George Osborne could be made to do the same. Musing on press bias (or is that press freedom?) also feels like a total dead end.

There is some value in getting to the bottom of unanswered – and in some cases, unasked – questions about the source of campaign donations in 2016, and over Kremlin interference, raised by the 2020 Russia Report. But of more value is to examine what has been said and done since 2016 and to ask some wider questions with implications for the future.

First, if we look at all the evidence and speak to all the experts, what can we definitively conclude about how badly this has gone wrong? Is the hit to GDP 4% (as the Office for Budget Responsibility says), or more, as other economists suggest? Or have we felt nothing at all, as the Institute of Economic Affairs insists? What happens to those forecasts if we rejoin, or join the European Free Trade Association? Or if we jump off a cliff and swim to Singapore-on-Sea, towelling ourselves down with a copy of the World Trade Organisation rules?

Second, if we agree that immigration was a key driver of the 2016 vote and continues to play on the minds of many Britons, what can we say about the positive and negative impacts of EU migration on the UK while free movement was in place? What has the impact of EU nationals leaving our public services been, and how should we fill those gaps? What about migration in general, then and now, the economic contribution and the effects on public services and infrastructure? What level of migration will we need in the future to sustain an ageing population? 

And third, how should the next British referendum be organised, funded and policed? Binary or multiple choices? Supermajorities or not? Donation caps or a free-for-all? Wristslaps or jail for infractions? 

At a time when the desire for rapid and radical change seems stronger than ever, it seems important to set the rules now – whether the next referendum is on quitting net zero (and therefore reality), on legalising assisted dying, legalising cannabis or on leaving the ECHR. Or even on joining the European Union once again.