Reality comes calling

Like most of you, I am sick to the back teeth of Brexit. I’ve said more than my bit. I always thought there were no benefits for anyone except the illiberal billionaire elite and, for once in my life, I think I was right. But it doesn’t matter. We left the EU last January and all that’s left is our future relationship with Europe following the transition period which ends in a few short weeks. We will either leave with no deal and so plunge the country into chaos or we will leave with a minor trade deal which will be damaging in both the short and long term. No other options are possible. It’s pointless looking back, but I’m going to anyway.

Looking back, it’s obvious that, despite the crooked nature of how Brexit came about, us remoaners should have worked not to reverse it, but to put all our energies into a moderate Brexit. A Norway + deal would have preserved membership of, or at least access to, the single market and the customs union. I’m sure we could have done a deal on preserving some level of free movement, too. But it didn’t happen. It was left to the hardliners who wanted the hardest of Brexits versus those who wanted a second referendum to effectively reverse Brexit. Inevitably, given the financial and media clout of the establishment Brexiters, this was only going to end in one way.

In last year’s general election campaign, Boris Johnson lied to voters that he was going to ‘Get Brexit Done’. He had ‘an oven ready deal’ and we could forget all about it. But now, Brexit is back in the news again, as it will be for years to come, as Britain will be tied up in endless negotiations with the EU. In truth, Brexit is only just starting.

I mostly keep quiet about Brexit these days. Leave voters are still unable to provide a single benefit to the country in general and them in particular and I suspect that in private they know that to be true. But for all that, I now leave it to others to keep on fighting the battles of 2016.

David Cameron will go to his grave as the man who by calling an unnecessary referendum on EU membership purely in order to end the endless rows in the Conservative party and so ended the post war consensus. The likes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson will be remembered as little more than liars, opportunists and chancers and slowly but surely Britain will become less important, less influential and certainly less powerful as an inward looking small island in a global future world. That, like it or not, was the choice we made and from 1st January 2021 reality will come calling.