We’re all Brexiters now?

“We’re all Brexiters now,” says defence secretary Michael Fallon. “We have to be.” We do? Since when?

Two weeks ago the electorate voted by a majority to leave the European Union. That much is unarguable. The politicians now appointed to conduct negotiations have to do so. No amount of petitions or campaigns will change that. We’re on our way out. But I am not now, all of a sudden, a Brexiter.

I didn’t suddenly become a Conservative after last year’s general election when the electorate voted for a Conservative government led by David Cameron. (Whatever happened to him?) Why on earth would Fallon think we have all had a change of heart?

Absolutely nothing has changed for me. I voted Remain on 23 June, I feel even more strongly today that voting to leave the EU was a terrible mistake. The evidence is piling up that leaving will be an expensive mistake. The economy is tanking, the pound is collapsing, investment is drying up, good jobs are drying up for young people and meanwhile no one has a clue what to do. I didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and think, “Oh, this Brexit malarkey – it might well wreck the country but maybe it needed to be wrecked after all!”

I haven’t been aware that the Great British Public has taken control just yet. Everyone who told us we would regain control, of whatever it was we would regain control of, has disappeared into the ether and we’ve got a new prime minister, elected by no one (not that we elect PMs, but you get the idea) and we’re just watching from the same distance we were when David Cameron held the job.

We have as little control as we did before the referendum, arguably less. The next years of our lives will be consumed with the fall out from Brexit and if you believe the open warfare in the Tory Party has ended yet, you are living in Dream Town. I will not dwell on it here, but the Tory Party is hopelessly divided on things like the Single Market and that cannot be resolved easily, if at all, without a major downside for the people.

So I am not leaving my position on the losing side anytime soon, whatever the likes of Michael Fallon say. The Brexiters need to deliver on their promises, that’s for sure, like the extra £350 million a week for the NHS, greater prosperity for all of us plus the freedom to live, work and study in Europe, as Boris Johnson and the Leavers said we could still have.