The British Government is about to embark, this week, on a Brexit Reset, as they call it. About ……. Time! It’s only taken five years!
Actually, I have to admit that I thought it would take longer for the general public to wake up to the fraud of Brexit perpetrated by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. It was therefore encouraging to read The Economist this past week. Two major articles in that edition focused on the proposed reset process. In one of those articles was a chart showing the percentages of the U.K. population in favor and against Brexit since 2016. Those percentages stayed roughly even, with a couple of minor variations, until 2021.
I think it is significant that the U.K. left the European Union in January 2020, and it only took a year for the reality of Brexit’s impact on the British economy to sink into the national psyche.
In 2021 the percentages for and against started to diverge steadily and significantly. In 2024, 64% of the population thought Brexit was a mistake and only 34% thought it was the right decision. Hurrah! It was a stupid, myopic idea perpetrated by Boris Johnson’s ambition to become prime minister, and his rhetoric at the time was based on totally fraudulent information, which he, himself, later admitted. If there was a political jail for politicians who use outright lies to promote their ideas, he should be in it. However, he would be joined by most other politicians in the world, so that suggestion is not very practical!
Sir Keith Starmer, the British Prime Minister, was in Europe this past week to discuss a “reset”. Both Economist articles recommend that he be bold, respond to the wishes of the British public and, basically, start the process of the U.K.’s re-entry. However, he apparently feels restrained by his campaign promises of (1) no single market, (2) no customs union, and (3) no free movement of people.
I would comment, first, what politician ever feels any obligation to implement what they said during an election campaign? Second, it is obviously not what the majority of the U.K. population want, And third, Starmer was elected as a leader, not a wimp who can be swayed by political controversy: He won the election with a huge majority – its time to use that power for the future of the U.K., Europe, and, maybe, even the world economy, given the rise of Donald Trump.
Five years on, the cost of Brexit has become clearer. Trade in goods has suffered most. British goods’ exports globally have fallen by 6.4% since Brexit happened. Small businesses have done worse, with exports dropping by 30%, and 20,000 small firms have stopped all exports to the EU.
The European Union will be a hard negotiator, with good reason in my humble opinion, but Russian aggression, Chinese threats, and the unpredictable chaos coming out of the Trump administration will make achieving re-entry easier, because it’s in everyone’s interest. Not that it won’t take time, everyone has to save face in one way or another, but the path forward to correct the idiocy of Brexit appears to have started. There will always be arguments and fights over certain elements, as there always have been – fishing rights and immigration being serious ones – but any future economic and security scenario clearly shows that a European Union which includes the U.K. will be stronger and more beneficial to all.
Go for it Starmer, and banish that idiot Nigel Farage and his Reform U.K. Party to the dustbin of history – Boris has already politically disappeared. The British people are behind you, and you have the chance to leave a legacy as a person who had vision in British politics – and there are very few of those!
