Brexit Breaking Badly?

Revolutions that are not driven by at least a surface appreciation for liberty, including in the economic sphere, can lead to unhappy consequences.

Tyler Cowen reports on the new British Prime Minister and Brexit:

The Economic Policies of Theresa May

Also in The Sun on Sunday, May argued that outside of the EU, “we’ll be able to do lots of common-sense things, like cut back on red tape and let local councils buy British.” She went further in her speech launching her leadership campaign saying, “A proper industrial strategy wouldn’t automatically stop the sale of British firms to foreign ones, but it should be capable of stepping in to defend a sector that is as important as pharmaceuticals is to Britain.”

Here is more.  I would say that puts her one for three.  I’ve also heard talk of May embracing a “worker codetermination” model for the UK, similar to that used in Germany.  It works less well for services, and besides Gorton and Schmid estimated it cost German firms about 26% of shareholder value (pdf)).

So that puts her at one for four, and it seems she was the best of the plausible candidates.  The perceptive Janan Ganesh put it this way:

But if Tory history pits the spirit of freedom against the claims of social order, the one periodically dominating the other before giving way, she might herald the latter’s resurgence.

As he clutched his second Wimbledon trophy on Sunday, Andy Murray saluted David Cameron, the outgoing prime minister, as the doer of an “impossible job”. Ms May has only won the right to choose whose hearts to break. Free-marketeers, gird yourselves.

I am not surprised that Brexit is working out badly, but I am surprised how quickly it is becoming obvious that Brexit will not mean more individual liberty for the Brits.  Here is Richard Tuck making the left-wing case for Brexit.

-RW