Britain’s Failed Attempt at Monetary and Fiscal Exceptionalism

Abstract

Abstract The autumn 2022 economic upheavals that brought down British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government represented an ultimate extension of a high-risk exercise in British exceptionalism: the June 2016 referendum decision to leave the European Union. The ill-fated 23 September 2022 ‘mini budget’ introduced by Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, her chancellor of the exchequer – like the referendum outcome six years earlier – was a landmark gesture of national independence. ‘The most ambitious and disastrous budget in modern British history’ illustrated how the intertwining forces of politics and economics set limits on ‘go it alone’ policies. The lessons reverberate beyond the UK’s borders.