Since the Brexit referendum, consistent and growing voices from all quarters have presented irrefutable evidence of Brexit’s economic and social damage and called for action. The initial aim was to stop the wretched vehicle in its tracks, and then, from 2020, to urgently consider the case for rejoining what we foolishly left.
The UK is now living the nightmare which was accurately predicted: reduced trade intensity and investment, increased border friction and uncertainty, higher consumer prices, lower choice, and depressed living standards.
As the recent budget revealed, £40bn in lost tax receipts, as a result of Brexit, are to be painfully extracted by way of tax rises. For sure, Covid and Ukraine have not helped, but these are global issues; Brexit is a self-inflicted British mess. The populist politics from which it fed spawned political bluster, lies and incompetence, plus a swarm of free-market grifters all eagerly inflicting grievous financial, political, and social harm on swathes of the population.
The UK has left the EU and will continue to suffer the consequences of its decision; the election of Trump as US President will do nothing to help, and may make matters yet worse. As the level of discontent increases, so too will the eventual cry to re-join under a convenient narrative that Britain’s problems are due to Brexit. But Britain’s problems are its own; Brexit simply crystalised them.
And even Labour is now slowly acknowledging the damage caused, albeit ring-fenced with red lines.
The outside view
Cross the channel and view the UK through the other end of the Brexit telescope and the picture is quite different.
Over 50 years ago, as a nation shaped by a history of Empire and dominance, but with its world status rapidly fading and its industry reeling from decades of neglect and under-investment, the UK eventually, and some might argue reluctantly, first applied to join the original 6-member EEC. It was a shadow of its former self; a semi-desperate nation marooned in the sepia-tinted haze of the last-chance saloon but with little sense or obvious desire to be an integral part of a greater Europe.
Over the following decades, the EEC expanded and morphed into the EU and major nations pooled sovereignty and currencies. Yet the UK stood back and used its position to argue not only for opt-outs and budget rebates but that the EU should bend and change its rules to suit the UK’s domestic politics; the proverbial family member who sought to contribute less while the rest pitched-in to help build the home. The view through the EU’s end of the telescope would show the UK as a nation:
- Which purports to be European when it suits, but otherwise class-ridden, anglosphere-loving, and self-deluding ‘world-beating’.
- With an electoral system that is anything but proportional and only partly democratic, without a written constitution and where no government is bound by the decisions of its predecessor. Now, with a ruling Labour party commanding a huge parliamentary majority but where four fifths of the electorate either did not vote for them or chose not to vote at all.
- With respectable GDP per capita but gross inequalities within; high levels of poverty and rising destitution, stubbornly poor industrial productivity the result, in part, of low investment and yet content to play concierge to some of the world’s most grotesquely wealthy.
- With an impoverished housing market, price-whipped beyond recognition, and foreign-owned utilities each free to financially gouge society in general and the most vulnerable in particular. And even, as recently reported, a Royal Family who while mouthing platitudes about helping end homelessness, shamelessly trouser huge sums of taxpayer and charity monies as rents on assets seized centuries ago whilst remaining largely immune from taxation themselves.
- Where foreign-owned and foreign-influenced media are free to write, print and influence whatever fact-free populist dog-whistles they wish to a woefully under-educated largely mono-linguistic population.
- With a post-industrial services-based economy propped up by a financial sector designed to maximize short-term gain, and a class-based tax system designed to minimise taxes on the wealthiest.
These are the UK’s problems alone and stem from its society and history; none could ever be solved by leaving the EU, indeed, Brexit was the ultimate opt-out.
Why now?
Yet even today the steadily diminishing platoons of Leavers / Brexiters continue to decry the failings of the politicians they entrusted to deliver their wretched baby. As the UK slowly awakes from a world of Brexit denial, it risks stumbling into an internal debate about which form of cherry it should pick from the EU cake, while remaining silent on which slice, if any, of its own it should offer in return. And, as always, with almost zero recognition of any need to become more European, its first teetering steps cloaked with the paranoia of never rejoining the EU or its institutions. The EU may well welcome some modest re-adjustments in exchange for closer security cooperation, but only by seeking to (re)join the EU will the UK start to unravel Brexit’s true damage.
However, without a UK democratic / constitutional model able to safeguard renewed membership, an application based on ‘we’re feeling economic pain and wish to rejoin’ would likely receive short shrift. Just as an employer might ask “why do you want to work here?” and expect to hear why the applicant seeks that particular job from that particular employer, a blank “because I need the money” is unlikely to be successful.
Contrary to the beliefs of many Brits, the EU is not an inter-governmental trading mechanism. Its institutions, governance and laws are designed for ever-closer political, economic, and monetary union; a fact fully understood by its members and those wishing to join.
A barometer of the UK’s European motivation is evidenced by how it chose to respond to the EU’s request for a youth mobility scheme. Not by signaling its recognition of the value of cultural exchange, particularly for those in an age group that were too young to vote in 2016, but by boiling the subject back to the UK’s congenital bitterness towards immigration and an insistence on ‘no return to Freedom of Movement’.
Despite all this, as an EU member, the UK would indeed add value to the community; a significant market, a major security and defence partner, and the ability to help stabilize the EU’s political shift from drifting slowly to the right.
A thaw at last
Recent events suggest 2025 will indeed bring a welcome thawing of the UK-EU relationship, with a genuine desire on both sides to define and negotiate the much-touted ‘Brexit Reset’. How the UK responds, given that its needs are far greater than the EU’s, will doubtless set the direction and duration of travel. The EU may well seek youth mobility, fishing rights, and European Court involvement as prerequisites to a ‘reset’.
Let’s hope that this time the UK views itself through the Brexit Telescope as a genuine European partner as it enters the tentative first phase of Getting Brexit Gone.
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