I keep complaining that I am sick to the back teeth of Brexit. I was a remoaner, I lost. I just want it to end. It won’t go away so, please, just agree the least damaging Brexit and let’s get on with life. But they won’t let it end. Boris Johnson, who lied to the country that he would ‘Get Brexit Done’, keeps bringing it back to the top of the news agenda and now the former journalist and now hard left political activist Owen Jones makes an unwelcome return to the limited spotlight he craves by blaming Brexit not on the head-bangers of the hard right, but remoaners like me. Christ on a bicycle. Will it ever end?
This is not going to be a long blog because you are probably as sick of Brexit as I am, but the very idea that remoaners are somehow responsible for Johnson’s hard no deal/poxy little deal that will be as bad as no deal is absurd. Yes, there was a well-organised second referendum campaign which failed in its ultimate aim. I didn’t join it because, apart from the odd wobble, I always preferred a soft Norway style Brexit. Somehow Jones seems to think that the second referendum camp was to blame for large swatches of the country moving to the Tories to ‘Get Brexit Done’. But let’s look at the reality of the situation.
From 2015, Labour was in the control of the hard left. Jeremy Corbyn and the comrades controlled all the machinery of the Labour Party. The policy decisions and parliamentary positions and votes were 100% his. Corbyn himself was, and is, a lifelong Eurosceptic, whose anti-EU views were shaped by the late, not very great Tony Benn. Benn’s views on Europe were not far from those of Enoch ‘Rivers of Blood’ Powell, a far right racist rabble-rouser with whom he shared numerous platforms during the 1975 Common Market referendum. During the 2016 referendum campaign, Corbyn stayed quiet. Indeed, he went on holiday twice before voting day. His silence had to be interpreted as representing his dislike and distrust of the EU. At the very least, Corbyn left a vacuum which was exploited by the illiberal elite in the Tory party and of course Nigel Farage’s hard right nationalist campaign.
So, before people get the wrong impression about who was responsible for Brexit – the actual answer to that was the British people – this blog is headed by the actions of the Labour whip under Corbyn’s time as leader. On most of the major issues, Corbyn either whipped MPs to abstain or whipped them to oppose staying in the single market and customs union and even to block a no deal Brexit. These were not the actions of remoaners: they were decisions made by Labour’s worst ever leader. In my view, Corbyn is every bit as culpable as Boris Johnson. Am I calling Corbyn a liar for saying he voted remain? You bet I am.
Corbyn’s Labour did not seek to obtain a soft Brexit. It merely stood to side in order to enable Theresa May to do what the hell she wanted. Remoaners like me could but watch and weep.
There are no remainers/remoaners nor leavers now. We’ve left Europe and it is for the likes of Johnson to determine our future. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
