Daniel Hannan's Fever-Dream vs Cold, Hard Reality

What Britain actually looks like after Brexit

Back in 2016, Daniel Hannan spun a fantasy of Britain’s post-Brexit future that, in hindsight, reads more like an ode to nostalgia than a credible political forecast. His vision was one of fireworks illuminating the sky on some imagined "Independence Day," a nation revitalised, striding confidently into a future of economic growth, global influence, and renewed self-belief. It was, to put it bluntly, a fever dream of empire reborn, written for an audience desperate to believe that Britain, unshackled from the EU, would not only survive but thrive. But as we now stand in 2024, what has transpired is a far cry from Hannan's romanticised vision. His article, written with the evangelical fervour of a Brexiteer completely unmoored from reality, has proven to be little more than a glossy cover for a story of decline.

Hannan painted a picture of Britain becoming the world’s "foremost knowledge-based economy," leading the charge in biotech, software, and financial services. In his world, the moment the EU’s regulatory grip loosened, innovation would bloom, and the economy would roar to life. Britain would no longer be held back by the allegedly parasitic eurocrats of Brussels. And yet, reality is a stubborn thing. Far from the boom in financial services Hannan predicted, London has seen its influence wane. The City, which was supposed to soar post-Brexit, has instead had its wings clipped, as firms shift operations to Paris, Frankfurt, and Dublin. The fantasy of Britain retaining seamless access to European markets, while simultaneously rewriting the rules, has crumbled under the weight of customs checks, red tape, and lost opportunities.

Let’s talk about those "new industries" Hannan raved about—driverless cars and 3D printing, a shining example of Britain’s ingenuity unleashed. He neglected to mention that innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. R&D requires partnerships, investment, and, yes, a market. Post-Brexit Britain, alienated from the EU’s innovation ecosystem, hasn’t led the world in anything. Instead, it’s a country grappling with worker shortages in key sectors—shortages brought on, not by a surge in talent from abroad, as Hannan fantasised, but by the exodus of EU nationals and Britain becoming less attractive to immigrant-workers. The "points-based" immigration system, once hailed as a magic bullet to bring in only the "best and brightest," has in practice led to shortages in agriculture, healthcare, hospitality, and construction. Far from attracting the world’s top talent, post-Brexit Britain has become a place where many are simply reluctant to come.

Perhaps the most astonishingly naive of Hannan's predictions was his assertion that trade deals with the rest of the world would swiftly replace any losses from leaving the EU. He spoke of new liberal agreements with India, China, and Australia, positioning Britain as a global trade powerhouse. But anyone with an ounce of common sense could have seen the flaw here. Hannan assumed that Britain, once outside the EU, would command the same negotiating power on its own as it did when part of a bloc of 500 million people. In reality, the UK has found itself reduced to a second-tier negotiator, securing deals that, while flashy on the surface, offer minimal tangible benefits. The much-touted trade deal with Australia, for instance, has been a boon for Australian farmers, while British agriculture finds itself on the losing end. The promise of free trade with the world has, instead, resulted in Britain grasping at whatever scraps it can secure.

On immigration, Hannan’s prediction of a points-based system sounds like the dog-whistle dream of a populist riding the wave of xenophobia. He imagined a Britain able to pick and choose its migrants like items from a supermarket shelf, with the result being an influx of highly skilled, patriotic newcomers, thrilled to contribute to this brave new world. What we’ve seen instead is an unholy mess—immigration has not slowed down in the way Brexiters promised, but the composition has shifted, leaving key industries like farming and healthcare in crisis, as EU workers have largely disappeared, and replacements are hard to find. The Brexit dream of restoring "control" over immigration has resulted in labour shortages that threaten to undermine the very economy it sought to protect.

Hannan’s prediction of harmonious relations with Europe and a soft exit was always far-fetched. He envisioned Britain slipping effortlessly into a free trade agreement with the EU, with all the benefits and none of the political obligations. "Terms were agreed easily enough," he wrote, as if extracting oneself from the most complex trading bloc in history were akin to cancelling a gym membership (while somehow retaining the benefits of membership). But the truth is, Brexit has been anything but smooth. The protracted negotiations, the endless disputes over fishing, Northern Ireland, and regulatory alignment have all highlighted the naïveté of Hannan’s post-Brexit utopia. Instead of leading Europe in a new wave of free trade, Britain is wrestling with the consequences of its own isolation. Northern Ireland, far from being settled neatly as part of the Brexit process, remains a flashpoint of tension, its status within the UK and the EU a constant headache for British and European leaders alike.

Hannan’s vision of a revitalised Britain, shaking off the cobwebs of EU membership and finding itself reborn, is perhaps the most tragic of all his miscalculations. He seemed to believe that Brexit would somehow reignite a sense of national pride and purpose, as if leaving the EU would free the nation from the malaise he imagined had set in. Instead, the UK has seen growing division. Scotland edges closer to another independence referendum, buoyed by the reality that Brexit has dragged it out of the EU against its will. The ongoing tensions in Northern Ireland threaten the very fabric of the Union. Far from "recovering its self-belief," Britain is a country wrestling with a deepening identity crisis, unsure of its place in the world.

In Hannan’s post-Brexit fairy tale, Britain was supposed to "straighten its back" and reassert itself as a global power. Instead, the world looks on as a once-proud nation flounders, diminished and disoriented. The hard truth is that Brexit has not unleashed Britain's potential—it has shackled it to a shrinking reality. Hannan's vision, built on ideology rather than pragmatism, reads now not as a prophecy, but as a cautionary tale of hubris, nostalgia, and the seductive power of fantasy over fact.

In the end, it was all fireworks without the follow-through. Britain’s song, it turns out, wasn’t one of triumph—but of mourning for what might have been.