Sunday, June 25, 2023
An anniversary to forget?
Friday was the seventh anniversary of the Brexit vote and as a result we have been subjected to the odd bit of gloating by Brexiteers, who are clearly inhabiting a different world to the rest of us. Just in case the likes of Nigel Farage et al have missed it, Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian sets out precisely how that vote has left the UK poorer and more isolated in the world:
We don’t need to rehearse on this seventh anniversary all the ways in which Brexit has disappointed even those who voted for it. Farage and Redwood, along with Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the rest, promised increased prosperity, cheaper food, flourishing trade and a flush NHS. They said we’d be free of all that tedious European red tape and would take back control of our borders, encouraging anyone agitated by immigration to believe that fewer people would come in. There would be no downside, only upsides. As David Davis pledged soon after the vote, our exit deal would “deliver the exact same benefits” as EU membership.
Look around to see how all that turned out. The country is in the grip of a cost of living crisis, food prices are rocketing, trade is either down or static while it’s surged for our EU neighbours, and the NHS is ailing. Post-Brexit red tape is strangling thousands of small businesses, whether travelling musicians or exporters of goods, tying them up in daunting forms or extra charges that cost time and money they don’t have. Those who thought legal migration of 330,000 people a year was too much when they voted in 2016 now contemplate an annual figure nearly twice as high: 606,000. As for the terms of our exit, ask anyone who buys from, sells to or is stuck in a queue to visit the continent if we enjoy the “exact same benefits” we once did.
These are not remainer facts. They are facts understood and absorbed by a growing majority of the British people, including a good chunk of those who voted leave.
But is there a way back? Freedland is very much in tune with my own thinking, that we need to ease our way back gradually, not least because we need to take the people with us, but also because the EU would be reluctant to have us, and certainly would not accept us on the previous more favourable terms of membership. He believes that rejoin negotiations could span two Parliaments, and who has that sort of political capital to spend? We have to take lessons therefore from the Brexiteers:
The long march from 1975 to 2016 required a dogged, even obsessive, persistence and, as important, a strategic patience. They didn’t move straight to their end goal: before they were Brexiters, they posed as mere Eurosceptics. They were prepared to play the long game, inching incrementally – a rebellion over the Maastricht treaty here, opposition to joining the euro there – towards their ultimate goal of exit. Sad to say, it worked.
Rejoiners should do the same. Start with commonsense, popular demands – say, a new, reciprocal exchange scheme for young people, closer cooperation on security or shared food safety and environmental standards – moves only an ideologue could oppose. A review of the EU-UK trade agreement is due to start in 2026: with a Labour government in place, that could be the vehicle for steady, gradual convergence. After that, the Overton window could be sufficiently open to let in a conversation about re-entering the customs union and the single market. And once you’re talking about that, rejoining the EU itself becomes the natural course of action.
Step by step by step. Mocked and on the margins at first, dismissed as unrealistic or swivel-eyed, prepared to be a Europe bore – the Brexiters showed us how it’s done and what it takes. It might be harder for us than it was for them. We have the young, but they had the old and the old vote. We have facts, but they had myths, and myths are often more potent. Still, theirs is a path worth studying. It led them to a rupture from our neighbours. It might just lead us to a reunion.
I'm up for it, are you?
We don’t need to rehearse on this seventh anniversary all the ways in which Brexit has disappointed even those who voted for it. Farage and Redwood, along with Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the rest, promised increased prosperity, cheaper food, flourishing trade and a flush NHS. They said we’d be free of all that tedious European red tape and would take back control of our borders, encouraging anyone agitated by immigration to believe that fewer people would come in. There would be no downside, only upsides. As David Davis pledged soon after the vote, our exit deal would “deliver the exact same benefits” as EU membership.
Look around to see how all that turned out. The country is in the grip of a cost of living crisis, food prices are rocketing, trade is either down or static while it’s surged for our EU neighbours, and the NHS is ailing. Post-Brexit red tape is strangling thousands of small businesses, whether travelling musicians or exporters of goods, tying them up in daunting forms or extra charges that cost time and money they don’t have. Those who thought legal migration of 330,000 people a year was too much when they voted in 2016 now contemplate an annual figure nearly twice as high: 606,000. As for the terms of our exit, ask anyone who buys from, sells to or is stuck in a queue to visit the continent if we enjoy the “exact same benefits” we once did.
These are not remainer facts. They are facts understood and absorbed by a growing majority of the British people, including a good chunk of those who voted leave.
But is there a way back? Freedland is very much in tune with my own thinking, that we need to ease our way back gradually, not least because we need to take the people with us, but also because the EU would be reluctant to have us, and certainly would not accept us on the previous more favourable terms of membership. He believes that rejoin negotiations could span two Parliaments, and who has that sort of political capital to spend? We have to take lessons therefore from the Brexiteers:
The long march from 1975 to 2016 required a dogged, even obsessive, persistence and, as important, a strategic patience. They didn’t move straight to their end goal: before they were Brexiters, they posed as mere Eurosceptics. They were prepared to play the long game, inching incrementally – a rebellion over the Maastricht treaty here, opposition to joining the euro there – towards their ultimate goal of exit. Sad to say, it worked.
Rejoiners should do the same. Start with commonsense, popular demands – say, a new, reciprocal exchange scheme for young people, closer cooperation on security or shared food safety and environmental standards – moves only an ideologue could oppose. A review of the EU-UK trade agreement is due to start in 2026: with a Labour government in place, that could be the vehicle for steady, gradual convergence. After that, the Overton window could be sufficiently open to let in a conversation about re-entering the customs union and the single market. And once you’re talking about that, rejoining the EU itself becomes the natural course of action.
Step by step by step. Mocked and on the margins at first, dismissed as unrealistic or swivel-eyed, prepared to be a Europe bore – the Brexiters showed us how it’s done and what it takes. It might be harder for us than it was for them. We have the young, but they had the old and the old vote. We have facts, but they had myths, and myths are often more potent. Still, theirs is a path worth studying. It led them to a rupture from our neighbours. It might just lead us to a reunion.
I'm up for it, are you?
Comments:
<< Home
The problem is that the Brexiteers were doing it in a period of relative plenty. They and their supporters could play the long game.
Now the house is on fire and the proposal is ... to do it slowly?
I'm sure you can see the fundamental problem here.
Post a Comment
Now the house is on fire and the proposal is ... to do it slowly?
I'm sure you can see the fundamental problem here.
<< Home
