Reply To: Brexit and the election

[Siderite]

Rejoining would likely involve us having to consider joining the Schengen zone and the eurozone, which would cause issues among the population. The reduction of a complex situation to a simple binary question was always an issue with Brexit. It’s why we went from Brexiters arguing for Swiss style deals before the referendum to how Swiss style deals are Brexit lite and a betrayal of ‘the people’ afterwards. The referendum caused division and issues partially because the complex nature being presented as a simple one allowed politicians to not pin themselves down to specifics, and to portray ‘softer’ Brexit deals as being against democracy. If there was a more thorough campaign to drill what Brexit would mean before the referendum, it might have been less divisive, because we wouldn’t have had Farage, Hannan and co flip flop around from Swiss style deals to saying that’s against the ‘will of the people’ in a matter of months. It benefited them from a political point to the country’s detriment.

Similarly, any attemps to rejoin will have to be honest about the complexities. Talks of rejoining may sound pleasant to some, but it might sound less pleasant to others when you bring in what it would entail. The EU would want assurances and would be less lenient on opting out of aspects as before, because they wouldn’t want to deal with a state that changes its mind every decade. Also, the time span for rejoining. I suspect any attempts to rejoin wouldn’t be for years, and we should focus on rebuilding ties as much as possible, after years of pretending we can match the trade deals and links with CANZUK or other pipe dreams.