Maybe it’s time to revisit Brexit, and evaluate whether it has been a positive adventure for the United Kingdom and Europe, or not. There appears to be a movement in the U.K., which is growing now that the actual effects of Brexit are coming home to roost, to revise the agreement with Europe, possibly, even to rejoin Europe in some way.
We have to first remember that the U.K.’s pursuit of Brexit was based on a total con, perpetrated by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. They have both admitted publicly that they lied about the statistics they present to the nation. In other words, they presented a totally fraudulent campaign designed to exploit long-term British paranoia about foreigners from across the English Channel. They also used that approach to grab power: Boris Johnson is now Prime Minister and Nigel Farage is the head of his own political party.
The whole concept of Brexit is totally against history, economics, and common sense. It is absolutely time to re-evaluate the concept, take the self-centered aggrandizement of individuals out of the equation, and abolish Brexit for the fraud that it is.
Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the European Council in 2016, when Brexit happened, said at the time that “There will be no cakes on the table. For anyone. There will be only salt and vinegar”. This was in response to Boris Johnson’s comment, also at the time, that “Our policy is having our cake and eating it”. Tusk’s comments have proven prophetic.
Britain’s GDP was 5.2% lower by the end of last year than it would have been if Brexit had not taken place; the issue of Northern Ireland and trade barriers under Brexit threatens the Good Friday peace accord, decades in the making; Brexit has caused a sharp decline in Britain’s trade openness that will cause a drag on productivity and wages for years to come; and the Center for Economic Policy Research reckons Brexit added 6% to food prices in two years. The ego trips and fraud of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are coming home to roost.
If I may say so, when you don’t like what is going on, the immature, self-centered, childish approach, is to “pick up your ball and go home”. The sensible, mature, statesman-like approach is to enter forcefully into the decision process and change it from the inside. Boris indoctrinated the British public with lies so they chose the childish approach. They are now suffering the consequences.
If the U.K. does eventually come to its senses, and sees the fraud that was perpetrated on it, the path to re-unification will not be easy. However, much of the structure of its relationship with Europe is still there; at the time of Brexit, the experts predicted that it would take 25 years to dis-entangle the U.K. from Europe. Only six years have passed so far.
It is tempting to think that the European Union will “stick it to” the U.K. if there is an attempt at re-unification, but it is not in their interest to do so. Certainly, one of the positive aspects of the war in Ukraine, if I may be permitted to think anything positive about that, is the unification of resolve among European countries, including the U.K. NATO is stronger and more unified today than it probably ever has been, so there is hope that economic re-unification is possible.
With each anniversary of Brexit, almost everything the “Remainers” (those in the U.K. that did not want Brexit) feared would happen has come to pass. Unfortunately, they do not have a plan for what they saw coming. They are disorganized and they need to get their act together as a movement to take advantage of the realities of Brexit and the weakening position of the fraud perpetrator, Boris Johnson. The U.K. should be part of Europe, and should be in a leadership role in Europe. That’s in everyone’s best interest, in my not-so-humble opinion.
