An article in the Economist a few weeks ago, entitled “Destination Brussels”, reinforced my conviction that the United Kingdom’s future includes re-establishing its relationship with the European Union. I have maintained over many years in these blogs that Brexit was a regressive, stupid and economic disaster perpetrated by the naked political ambitions of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. The British people, to their disgrace and detriment, allowed themselves to be bamboozled by the blatant lies of these two men and their acolytes. I have always thought that, eventually, the British public would come to its senses, and realise Brexit was an enormous mistake which needed to be corrected as swiftly as possible.
Britain’s Chancellor, Rachael Reeves, announced, in March this year, a new diplomatic push to drive Britain closer to the European Union. “I have today fired the starting gun of where we want to go next, and that is a closer alignment”, she said. In a public speech she “called time” on an era of “globetrotting, post-Brexit Britain that could do without Europe”. The country’s vital national interest lay with its continental neighbours”, she said.
The Labour Government has hinted at such a new approach while officially maintaining that they have no plans to rejoin the European Union. According to Ms. Reeves, the Government is no longer sitting on the fence.
Estimates suggest that the “hit” on Britain’s GDP in the ten years since Brexit is somewhere around 8%. “It would be foolish to just carry on as we are”. Reeves said.
She has also been reported as stating, in public, that “I wish that we had voted to remain, but we can’t go back in time”. That statement would have been political heresy and political suicide, even a short time ago. Today, it looks like the future, especially when you consider that a recent poll showed that Britons would vote to rejoin the EU by a margin of 52% to 29%.
It won’t be easy. Europeans, in general, would seem to welcome the U.K. rejoining, but they have some tough conditions, and who can blame them. This hesitancy is particularly true where certain British Government initiatives in the past have floated the idea that Britain could “cherry-pick” which European rules it wanted to follow and which ones it didn’t.
That situation seems a little like trying to court a woman you have spurned in the past, even though you both would like it to happen. Inevitably, that is fraught with conflicting emotions and conditions. However, I firmly believe it will happen, because it really is in everyone’s interest to see that it does. The question is, when?
I should add here that the idiocies and inconsistencies coming out of Washington under the Trump administrations has only encouraged this reunion, which is about the only good thing I have to say about the political disaster that currently inhabits the White House.
The latest stupidity of the Iran war has doubled down on the growing sentiment to put pre-Brexit Europe back together again. Even worse, or better depending on your point of view, is the White House’s apparent discussions this week to “Kick Spain out of Nato” and “resurrect the claim of Argentina over the Falkland Islands”, both being attempts by Trump to punish those who did not obey his orders to help with the war; namely, President Sanchez of Spain and Prime Minister Starmer of the U.K. I guess that is the second good thing I have to say about dictator Trump.
Overall, I occasionally wonder/wish that I will live long enough to see Europe back together again, and that the American experiment with dictatorship irrevocably disappears. I live in hope!
