As a card carrying Remoaner, as the hard core pro-Brexiters might call me, I have long concluded that the we are not likely to rejoin the EU anytime soon. Brexit dominated the media airwaves for longer than I care to think about and divided the country like not much else. Even the hardest of Brexit supporters can demonstrate not a single benefit of leaving the EU but we can all come up with plenty of downsides. And in many ways, Brexit will never be done because it will continue to diminish our country and make it poorer, but in terms of the seemingly endless debate between, these days, hardline Remainers and those of us who have, for at least the short and medium term, accepted our fate, we’re going nowhere.
I’ll be open about my position. In the long term – and here I mean decades, maybe longer – I would like to see Britain resume its place at the heart of Europe. And I still see the result of the referendum result of 2016 as a direct consequence of lies told by ambitious politicians, wealthy tax dodgers and Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots, who in some instances are the same people. But Brexit happened and Boris Johnson’s ‘Get Brexit Done’ lie that saw the Tories win a landslide election win in 2019 was, at least in my book, the end of Brexit as a debating point for a very long time.
As most people now accept, Brexit has not been good for the country and I understand why my fellow Remoaners find it hard to understand how the likes of me can argue that despite knowing the continuing damage Brexit is causing we can’t go back. Because I know that I am literally accepting the idea that we try to make Brexit work, as Labour puts it. Brexit will always be the turd that can’t be polished and anything we put in its place will not be as good as EU membership. But that’s not the point. In its different ways, The Great British Public has made its choice and we need to lump it.
In the meantime, we need better trade deals with Europe. Some kind of access to the EU single market and a customs union. Not to get round Brexit, but to make it less painful for British people and British businesses. As it happens, we were promised by the lying toe rags of Leave EU and Vote Leave that our membership of both the single market and the customs union would not be affected by Brexit and furthermore, we would still be able to enjoy some freedom of movement, which it transpires we have casually tossed away and then, unbelievably, claimed it as victory.
Labour, having accepted the election hammering it received in 2019, has gone down this road. Our future is outside of Europe and we now need to deal with the here and now, much of which will be invested in reviving a country that is reeling under the calamitous 13 years of Tory misrule. If Labour wins, it will require probably two terms of government to repair the mess bequeathed by Messrs Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Johnson and now Sunak, six of the worst prime ministers in our history. Labour needs to ensure that in 2024, we don’t end up with another disastrous Tory government.
One way we can do that is to neutralise Brexit. While the polls indicate an increasing number of voters now accept Brexit was a mistake, I believe any Remain support is soft and would be sapped if the election became all about Brexit again, and not the things like the cost of living crisis people care far more about. Yes, I know Brexit makes it worse and I understand the apparent contradiction of my argument, but what else can I say?
One day, perhaps when the elderly demographic who most strongly supported leaving Europe have popped their clogs, there could be a light at the end of the tunnel but for me there is only one possibility which, in the medium term, I believe we should adopt.
Norway is not a member of the EU but works closely with it. I would say a kind of Norway Plus deal would suit the country, one where we remain semi-detached from the decision-making process but our people and businesses benefit by closer relations. Yet even that, I would suggest, is a decade at least away. And for the time being, I think it’s time to stop banging on about Brexit and Rejoin and try to negotiate a better Brexit deal than the shit show we got from Boris Johnson.
On X, my position on Brexit is as hated by other Remoaners as much the views of traitors – yes, traitors – like Nigel Farage who tore us out of Europe. Ah well, so be it. I’m right though. Brexit happened, it will never properly get done and one day, probably when I too have shuffled off my mortal coil, sanity will have returned. Until then, I will try not to say anything about Brexit. Nearly everyone is fed up with it, as I am, too.
