Anthony Seldon's ill-timed Brexit conversion

The author and academic Anthony Seldon was one of the most eloquent opponents of Brexit, writing in 2020 how “all my working life, as a school teacher, and running a university for these last five years, I have been with young people, and they have been overwhelmingly pro EU”.

He went on: “They have no problem at all in identifying as English, or Welsh/Scottish/Irish, as European, and equally as global citizens. Not for them the fantasies of sovereignty, but the reality of global concerns and multiple identities.”

And indeed, as chief chronicler of the inhabitants of Downing Street – he has penned insider accounts of the last six of the last seven prime ministers – Seldon painted an extraordinary and deeply troubling, if not really very surprising, picture of the Brexit campaign.

His book on Boris Johnson tells how, having thrown in his lot with the Leave campaign, and having helped lead it to victory, a “distraught” Johnson was “ashen faced” when he heard the referendum result. “Oh shit,” he said. “We’ve got no plan.”

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Yet bizarrely, now – despite mounting evidence that Brexit has been an utter disaster – Seldon has reassessed his views on it and seems to have decided that it’s gone fine after all.

Under the headline ‘I regret my intolerance over Brexit’, Seldon this week used a diary column in the Spectator – edited by Vote Leave co-leader Michael Gove – to tell its readers how, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Brexit is a “score draw”.

“The truth about Brexit is that neither the disaster predicted by Remainers nor the benefits hoped for by Brexiteers have transpired. At best, it’s been a score draw,” he writes. “I remain sad we left the EU, for all its flaws, having taken 50 groups to hear the Last Post ceremony performed under the Menin Gate at Ypres, and believing the EU our best bet to prevent future war. But I regret still more my anger and my intolerance over Brexit.”

Sadly for Seldon, his column arrived a day before news that a group of experts, including a senior Bank of England economist, has told the Office for Budget Responsibility that it was wrong to say that leaving the EU has reduced GDP by 4%. Instead, its research concludes, Brexit has cost the country between 6% and 8% of GDP per person over the last decade, a hit of £180 billion to £240 billion.

So, not quite a score draw. A bit more like the sport headlines that say ‘Blues lose out in seven-goal thriller’ and when you read the story you find out you’ve lost 6-1!