The referendum may have been a snapshot of public opinion, fought on a fancy franchise with a dodgy question and won by those who told a farrago of lies to do so. But Brexit is going to happen if Remainers don’t change course.
There is a tendency for Remainers to think that the summer has been good for us. The government has retreated from its silly rhetoric of “no deal is better than a bad deal”, the Leavers have had to accept a transitional period which only a couple of months ago they were bitterly opposing, and the general election has given Remainers the chance to amend the so-called Repeal Bill.
These are welcome victories but in truth they are small ones. Hard or soft, Brexit means Brexit. It is true that leaving without agreement would be disastrous and that a transitional period will help business. But the Leavers will still get Brexit in March 2019. And they know that, above all, that is what they have to achieve.
If Brexit is delayed it may be stopped. Brexiters know that because everyday people who voted Leave pass away and would-be Remainers join the electoral register. By 2021, Britain will be a majority Remainer country, a year before the next election. That means that the Leavers must keep on doing what they always have done – using their bully-boy tactics to hound the government and scare Remainer MPs.
You can see that approach at work in the letter apparently drafted by Change Britain and circulated to members of the ironically named European Research Group of Conservative MPs. “The truth” – it is easy to spot a rogue in politics because they always claim a monopoly on truth – says the letter, is that Britain must leave the single market because it is “a political project, and it constantly requires its members to introduce new European Union laws”.
Even Margaret Thatcher conceded in her memoirs, written in retirement when her views of Europe were more hostile than ever, that: “I still believe it was right to sign the Single European Act, because we wanted a Single European Market”. And we got it and it is worth billions of pounds to our economy every year.
Time to get tough
While the Leavers have been focused on forcing through Brexit, Remainers have gone off into huddles. Some think we have to reconcile ourselves to Brexit; others argue that if we keep quiet Brexit will unravel because it is so obviously daft; yet others think the public will just wake up one morning having changed its mind. The reality is that if we want to stop Brexit – and we still can – we need to pull together. Joint marches and street stalls are welcome but insufficient.
Look at it from the perspective of the person who voted Leave and now views with dismay the unhappiness that the vote has caused, perhaps in their own family. Are they really going to clap themselves on the forehead and say, “Doh! How was I that stupid?” Voters need permission to change their minds and they won’t get it if Remainers harp on about how they respect the vote or indulge in technical waffle about customs unions and the European Economic Area.
Remainers still believe Brexit to be bad because we are certain that it will make our country poorer, less influential in the world and at risk of break-up. We don’t trust the arguments of the Leavers because they have repeatedly lied. We know that the rest of the EU isn’t going to give us a good deal, not because they are vindictive but because it isn’t in their interests to do so.
We know that there is no golden future for the UK outside the EU. Indeed, we have watched as first the Leavers conceded we would lose from trade barriers being erected, then that we would have to pay to get out, then that immigration would not be able to be cut dramatically and now that business needs a transitional period. They will go on backtracking on their promises and wriggling over their past statements because they told the people they could have everything good from the EU, none of the bad and, what’s more, the EU would have to agree to all this.
Brexiters lied and cheated their way to victory and nothing they say or do now can undo that dreadful fact.
Remainers need to stop being the nice guy in the fight, who shakes the hand of the man who assaulted him and offers to buy him a drink. It is time to get tough.
