Yes it was worth it. It will always be worth determining your own future rather than being run by a European Union. The sky will not fall in, you can still visit your 2nd homes in Europe, you can still send your kids on gap years. You just can’t dismiss us working classes any more that’s what really stung you, we overruled your handling of our country and you can never forgive us for that. Was it worth it, hell yes!
It’s amazing how so much of the Guardian and BBC content seems to centre on a few minor inconveniences that will only really be experienced by comfortably off people who frequently visit their 2nd homes abroad.
No sympathy from me …
John Riordan
3 years ago
“Ultimately, if Brexit turns out to be a mistake, it’s the fault of Brexiteers alone. After all, taking control means taking responsibility, too.”
That’s nonsense I’m afraid. What part of the last four years makes anyone think that Brexiteers were “taking control”? We have just left under a deal which is surprisingly good under the circumstances, but which is still riddled with compromises that are the direct consequence of the successful sabotage, by the Remain political establishment, of the process of executing the result of the 2016 plebiscite.
The state of Northern Ireland, for instance, is an entirely unforced error – there was never any need by the May government to agree that the UK must bear the consequences of how the EU might react to policy that the UK government decided to implement in Northern Ireland. To agree such a thing was lunacy, and this was pointed out at the time by the Brexit agenda – yet the Brexit agenda was ignored.
To imagine therefore that Brexiteers must answer for the petulant, disloyal incompetence of the actions of the Remain establishment is intellectually dishonest and politically nonsensical.
“The state of Northern Ireland, for instance, is an entirely unforced error”. I think it is probably worse than that, John. I think that the “Irish Backstop” was deliberately confected by May and Robbins to spike the guns of Brexit. It created a choice that no British Prime Minister could make, the session of part of the United Kingdom to a foreign power, which could only be avoided by keeping the UK effectively within the EU’s orbit, providing ammunition for the Remain side, which could then argue that the entire United Kingdom might as well remain in the EU.
Unfortunately the colonisation of NI by the EU is now well underway due to the WA.
Peter Kriens
3 years ago
I’m not sure I can see the point being made in this article? Why did the author change his mind? The only reason given seems that he thinks remainers are wiser and Brexiteers are more vulgar?
Dodgy Geezer
3 years ago
Mr West’s article starts out by explaining all the correct reasons for leaving the EU experiment. These are logical and persuasive.
Then he says he’s changed his mind. But he gives no real reason why. He just says that he doesn’t like some stereotypes of Brexiteers and thinks the price of leaving is too high. These reasons are unconvincing.
I think he is unable to decide between Bakewell tart and brioche. In the meantime, Boris has scoffed the lot and Ed is going over to Anna Soubry’s house for sour grapes.
Howard Gleave
3 years ago
“Once a fervent Eurosceptic, I came to believe that leaving would be a terrible blunder”. We’ve left. It is now a historical fact. I for one am determined to make the best of it.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
‘My sense of being a European has also grown as the potential menace of the Chinese, Russian and Turkish regimes has become clearer.’
If only the same could be said of Merkel and those in Brussels, all of whom are happy to depend on Russian gas and who see China not as an abomination, but as a model to emulate.
The subservient behaviour towards China maybe catastrophic.
However it is hardly surprising considering that both the Titans of Europe are the products of humiliating defeat on an Homeric scale. France in 1940 Germany in 1945.
‘We’ on the other hand grabbed the Victor’s Palm, and never had to endure the phycological shock inflicted on the others, which seems to have permanently disabled them.
True we have certainly squandered some our victory, the rise of Quislington being but one example. However now that we are “no longer shackled to a corpse” things will improve.
Thanks for this excellent article. In the original debate I was persuaded by the logic that the EU was not a functional democracy. .. but that is because it is a set of sovereign states. Poland and Hungary (depressingly) point that out. Then again, the UK with overwhelming majorities delivered by 45% of the electorate (to both Tories & Labour) is not exactly the perfect democracy either. I hope that now their Phyrric victory is secure the illogical, emotional brexiteers will quietly fade and we can establish a new pragmatic relationship with the huge market on our doorstep.
Exactly, the idea that the EU is a power providing security is laughable. Trump pointed out the dangers of the Russian deal to Merkel but of course the media ignored it in their desire to denigrate him and genuflect before ‘mutti’ and the EU
jonathan carter-meggs
3 years ago
When an article tries to be balanced and thoughtful and then includes the phrase “purple faced golf club bores” I start to doubt the author. Attributing a meaningful analysis to a seven year old’s comment is also highly questionable. Of course we haven’t gone anywhere but we have changed our relationship and that will lead to a different future with our own politicians very much more exposed. I am confident we have the people and the will to make it work. Anyway there is no other option.
Peter Lockyer
3 years ago
I too had my last minute qualms about Brexit. However the nasty bullying behaviour of Macron using mainly EU lorry drivers as pawns last week reminded me why I voted to leave. Only today the Spanish newspaper El PaÃs reported similar bullying of the people of Gibraltar threatening a special ‘Brexit duro’ for them if there is no ‘agreement’ on its status. The EU has for years talked a great talk on communitarianism etc. But it’s really into control. Glad we’re out of it.
Alan Hinkley
3 years ago
I find Ed’s article regretful in a poignant way but empty of content on his wish to stay in the EU. Leaving the EU doesn’t detach me from the European languages I speak or the European friends and family I have. Those relationships do not depend on our membership of the EU. Of course, if you speak, say, French fluently and have immersed yourself in its culture and conversation, you know the French elite tradition is fundamentally authoritarian – look at the way Macron engineered Christine Lagarde into the ECB, Charles Michel into the Presidency of the European Council and Ursula von der Leyen into the Presidency of the Commission.
Maybe it’s something to do with the Reformation, when the English decided that following their own conscience was more important than subscribing to rules made abroad; but the UK, in my judgement, values freedom more than fixed conceptions. Not surprising that in philosophy we developed the understanding that reality was based on experience whereas our European friends were always more disposed to base reality on abstract thought. So we looked for a European Community that was pragmatic and trade-based; they pursue a vision of an (apparently) United Europe.
The EU, and especially the Commission, struggle to permit difference among their members. They seek uniformity and tend to impose it. Hence, their difficulty in fostering democratic institutions and ways of doing things. The UK, by contrast, IMO, has traditionally been more at ease with debate and disagreement. We don’t fit easily in the EU vision.
We should thank Thomas Cromwell for the ideological victory of the Reformation.
The French and Germans are off course, the very ancestors of those wretched barbarians who destroyed the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century.
They have spent the last millennia and a half trying to rebuild it, and thus exculpate themselves from the original sin. They will fail.
Philip Pickett
3 years ago
What a strange, conflicted and pointless piece. Sorry, but waffle like this is probably best left unheard.
Lionel Woodcock
3 years ago
What a confused article. Having some time on my hands, I scrutinised it several times to search for what West thought was wrong in exiting. That was a fruitless waste!
Having acknowledged that the nation state (aka sovereignty) is the best means of organising society, and that legitimate governance must include the democratic support of citizens, he then proceeds to tell us all about his ‘feelings’. Not liking ERG, ( and most other people), being affronted by the extremes of the debate, how the poor soul now feels a stranger on holiday, how he wants to disown his active role in working for Brexit.
If this is a favoured Unherd piece for the year, the selector must be one of the bosses. Oh, hold on a minute!!
akcita
3 years ago
A rather long-winded way to say you changed your mind. On the meat of the article, or lack thereof…sweeping statements made with no real substance behind them, and an incredible amount of background information ignored, not a great treatise on anything at all. England has it’s own populist movement, and it seems its political establishment is just as inept as the US in dealing with it. Globalism is a tide that does not raise all boats equally despite any protestations otherwise, and convincing people that their best interests lie in trusting provably corrupt bureaucrats is hardly a winning argument without something to support it. Nice words lauding democratic institutions, but when all is said and done, your commitment to them is thimble deep.
Richard Lord
3 years ago
For me this was always about the people having a say on the laws that effect them. A multi layered, mainly unelected beaurocracy in Europe was never going to satisfy this. The deal we’ve ended up with is the best we could get in the circumstances, considering the pathetic Theresa May, the remainers still unwilling to accept defeat and the treacherous SNP. I will be drinking a glass of Nyetimber fizz on Thursday night in celebration.
Katharine Eyre
3 years ago
Asking “was Brexit worth” it at this point is like asking someone whether it was worth it to leave their safe, well paid job to pursue an unusual business venture on the very first day. It’s impossible to know right now and even in future, that question will be judged by different criteria depending on who you speak to. Also, no one knows what the future will bring for the EU. If – as I believe – the EU continues to distintegrate (in view of the persistent rule of law problems, I consider it to have been in a state of disintegration for some time already) then that will also dramatically change the way Britain’s exit is viewed. Then, it may no longer be viewed as “a suicidal mistake” but “prophetic”. The best we can all do right now is to stop rehashing this issue and put our best foot forward, wherever we are and whatever effect Brexit has had on our lives.
“some of us wanted to put the brakes on globalisation, and to have a more egalitarian, high-wage society; others wanted more economic freedom. Clearly those two things contradict each other” May I ask how? And your excellent comparison with leaving a safe (dull) job for opportunity on your own is entirely valid, especially when you consider that UK and USA innovation and disruptive technology are almost entirely absent in the EU, largely thanks to overregulation.
Robyn Lagrange
3 years ago
I don’t think anyone has ever spent the time or effort to explain how the ordinary citizen benefitted from membership. As a country our industry has been decimated. We have issued contracts to European countries for public works. How many European public works have we participated in? How many French or Spanish Warships have we built? Our ability to feed ourselves was compromised because our farming has been shackled to the needs of France and our fishing industry was given away to all comers. It was always a one sided arrangement which provided a benefit to a minority who took us in, on a false prospectus and continued to dig us in deeper by deception and mendacity. If it was such a good deal those tactics wouldn’t have been necessary. It has taken us over 40 years to free ourselves from this disasterous arrangement and I’m not interested in the author’s sentimental tripe. Leaving the E.U. was not an end in itself. It was just the first step in a process of re-invigorating our country. If the establishment believe they can disadvantage a whole nation for their personal advantage then they had better think again. Change is in the air.
Geoff Allen
3 years ago
I have to say that the deal is a great relief for me personally as I now don’t have to listen to all the crap that BBC reporters ( as I dont class them as Journalists) continually spouted. As for Ed Davey, John Major, Tony Blair and that idiot outside Parliament in his top hat and his megaphone and his EU flag – they can now go down in history as speaking utter rubbish.
Saul D
3 years ago
Britain leaving is, in the long run, a serious problem for the EU. Not now particularly, but it leaves an antagonist at the gates and it sways EU power towards a German centric-model with EU policy gradually moving to reflect a German-led agenda.
The complaint is not that it is Germany, but that any centralised institution that becomes beholden to the largest member runs the risk of alienating countries outside the main power orbit potentially creating more fractures down the line.
The EU is also absorbing more powers to itself, to enable it to discipline members for their local laws. Ireland has felt it on tax. Poland and Hungary on legal reform, and immigration. Greece, Spain and Portugal on budgets. Pushing ‘ever greater union’ means more centralised EU decision-making, within structures that create policies without mandates, and where ordinary voters lack mechanisms to rally against bad law. The principle of subsidiarity is slowly diminishing and deals done in darkened rooms do require at least the semblance of the ability for some form of democratic review.
The cartoon issues of bendy bananas weren’t literal. They were idioms for a sense of loss of control to a distant power, that only a statement about sovereignty could stop. Sovereignty is always stronger than economics, as 17 EU countries that have gone through an independence struggle will understand.
The shock of the Brexit vote should have led to reflection at the EU level. This wasn’t the first rejection of EU policies of centralisation at ballot boxes. But instead of review, the train ploughed on regardless. The UK need not have left, if the EU had been prepared to hold some form inquiry, and identified some mechanisms to improve the link between policy and electorates, or someone important had resigned for the policy failure.
In contrast, Britain on the doorstep as the possibility of creating an alternative circuit for those upset with the direction of the EU. Particularly if Britain encircles the EU with trade treaties, and plays its historic role of niggling at the affairs of European competitors.
However, Brexit also reflects a wider change in politics – the shift to localism as a counterpoint to globalism. Globalism is always presented as ‘inevitable’, but without any real description of how power will be balanced between central and local concerns. For example Gilets Jaunes protests initiated by taxes on diesel, put in place to assuage global treaties on pollution – local vs global. So we get issues of offshoring, globalised supply chains, free movement of capital, and now COVID lockdown rules – local versus global.
Yes, the world is complex and interconnected, but politics can’t just be decided on the word of technocrats. Those technocrats need to do the expensive work of winning over electorate as citizens, not treating them like subjects to be controlled by externally imposed rules and bureaucracy.
Derek M
3 years ago
Given that you seem to have made a living by working in politics or writing about it, your understanding of it seems rather shallow, indeed superficial. It also seems dominated by a dislike of individuals or mythical stereotypes of individuals to an unhealthy degree. I’d suggest myself that your original thoughts about the EU and the reasons for leaving it. Changing your opinion is not necessarily the mark of an open mind, perhaps just an empty head.
Russ Littler
3 years ago
I see that you’re now not a “leaver”, but in all honesty, I think leaving would be good for you……and the sooner the better.
Mark Corby
3 years ago
“Conscience doth make cowards of us all”. (WS)
Spiro Spero
3 years ago
“Ultimately, if Brexit turns out to be a mistake, it’s the fault of Brexiteers alone. After all, taking control means taking responsibility, too.”
Well said Ed! But, ultimately that is unlikely to happen, isn’t it? The entire basis of Brexit, including it’s damaging execution and now mediocre and anticlimactic conclusion (that is, if it really is ‘over’, which is doubtful) is that all the internal problems of Britain are the fault of somebody else, beyond, outside, foreign, etc. It suggests these debates need to happen at home first, before being projected outwards. Regularly, throughout our history this has been the go-to response. Always the ‘solution’ required involves some ‘special’ English … rebate, treaty, trade deal, constitution, law, church, … etc. Worth pondering perhaps? Having read a bit of our ‘Christmas present’ trade deal, I have been left with a sinking feeling that, from the EU perspective at least, they are now keen to the see the back of us, but the 1000 pages includes much designed to ensure that the madness be contained.
For example this current government who have done really well over the last 12 months-school results, track and trace, school meals etc. Yes it was tough being the government during the Covid outbreak, BUT they have made so many basic mistakes, even obviously political ones like not firing Dom and priti. Not a government who takes any responsibility, as many of us suspected!
Governments across the West have been utterly useless and insane in their response to Covid. Moreover, there is an interesting article by Ross Clark over at The Spectator which claims that the UK is a long way ahead of the EU and its constituent nations (or colonies) in terms of making the various vaccines available. Of course, should the vaccines turn out to have all sorts of nasty side effects, this might not be a good thing.
I suspect that they are indeed keen to see the back of us in the sense that they can now set about creating a tyrannical superstate, (mis)governed from Brussels, unhampered by any objections from the UK. Of course, this will lead to the continued, USSR-style immiseration of much of Europe as the thousands of bureaucrats in Brussels dream up of new ways to hamper enterprise and innovation, that being their raison d’être.
All the indications thus far are that the deal is very good for the UK. Various people from Farage to Stephen Barnett (a commercial barrister who has studied the text) in The Spectator have given it their blessing, and that is good enough for me.
It’s a great shame. Until 15-20 years ago I was very pro-EU and I lived, worked and paid taxes in four EU countries (including the UK). 25 years ago I would have supported the creation of a superstate. But I am older and wiser, and I have witnessed the awfulness and incompetence of those who would govern such an entity. No thanks.
I think the EU has provided all the evidence needed to support Paul Embery’s conclusion that the highest level of law-making should be the “nation state”
I’m afraid chaps that all the comments under this article (so far) only confirm what I have belatedly come to realize, and I suspect others, like Ed too, that this Brexit is an enormous mistake.
Yes, you are absolutely correct, it’s just that nostalgia is a very powerful opiate. For my lot there is no time left to ‘grow up’, but for the younger definitely so, but with moderation.
As an American conservative (old school), watching Brexit from the start reinforced my love for the US Constitution, namely that no action as fundamental as Brexit could happen without supermajorities voting over years of time at different levels of the government. A one-off popular vote changing so much… Wow.
I am not saying I was, or am, for it or against it. And I wish the people of Great Britain well in all things. But one referendum changing the basic rules of government so dramatically? In America, that’s reserved for places like California, and thankfully they can’t overrule the US Constitution!
It’s worth remembering we entered the EEC without a vote after an election won by the Conservative Party in which there was little discussion of joining the EEC. This was subsequently legitimised after the fact by a referendum. WE proceeded then into the EU under another Conservative PM with no mandate for it before or after the event. We then were signed up to a new EU constitution (Lisbon Treaty) without a referendum (despite having been promised one) by a Labour PM. The latest referendum was the one and only chance of correcting that and we only got that because the establishment assumed the plebs would do as they were told.
As for the US system, well there is much that is admirable about the US constitution but the checks and balances also result in stasis in the political system which of course suits the ruling elite just nicely (notwithstanding the admirable efforts of Donald Trump).
Vijay Kant
3 years ago
It is laughable to think that a sovereign country with a population (consumers) of 60 million will have the same economic negotiating power as a union of countries with a population of 300 million in an increasing globalising world. The Brexiters suffered from lack of imagination.
I don’t think anyone ever thought that Britain on its own would have “the same negotiating power”. I think the argument was more that Britain would be able to negotiate more quickly and achieve free trade deals better tailored to its own needs rather than having to faff around for 7 years negotiating with Canada only to get held up at the last minute by Wallonia. And your opinion (besides many others I have seen) seems based around an assumption that the EU will continue to exist in perpetuity. Which is by no means assured. An organisation that has to make compromises on the most basic of principles underpinning the whole structure (i.e. the rule of law) cannot be said to be in a state of rude health. Giving in to Poland and Hungary to get the budget through when there was another way through the impasse was exceptionally short-sighted, like digging up the foundations of your house so that you can live in it happily together. The British are very good at navel gazing and tend to completely overlook the other problems which the EU has when they talk/whinge about leaving.
The UK has already negotiated about 30 trade deals, with more in the pipeline. It is the UK that is responding to a globalised world, while the EU is, to a large extent, a corporatist and failing protection racket.
I read an article in German Focus magazine today that lambasted the EU’s deal on Covid-19 vaccines. Eastern European countries wanted a cheaper vaccine, despite Pfizer costing peanuts compared with the cost of the pandemic. The EU Commission backed the wrong horse, Sanofi, out of German over deference to the French, the article said. Mere size is overvalued. Nimbleness is as important. The EU proceeds at convoy speed. I consider the British state’s response to Covid to be incompetent. But the EU has few if any lessons to give us. And the British vaccination effort, though seriously suboptimal, puts the EU in the shade.
Yes it was worth it.
It will always be worth determining your own future rather than being run by a European Union.
The sky will not fall in, you can still visit your 2nd homes in Europe, you can still send your kids on gap years.
You just can’t dismiss us working classes any more that’s what really stung you, we overruled your handling of our country and you can never forgive us for that.
Was it worth it, hell yes!
It’s amazing how so much of the Guardian and BBC content seems to centre on a few minor inconveniences that will only really be experienced by comfortably off people who frequently visit their 2nd homes abroad.
No sympathy from me …
“Ultimately, if Brexit turns out to be a mistake, it’s the fault of Brexiteers alone. After all, taking control means taking responsibility, too.”
That’s nonsense I’m afraid. What part of the last four years makes anyone think that Brexiteers were “taking control”? We have just left under a deal which is surprisingly good under the circumstances, but which is still riddled with compromises that are the direct consequence of the successful sabotage, by the Remain political establishment, of the process of executing the result of the 2016 plebiscite.
The state of Northern Ireland, for instance, is an entirely unforced error – there was never any need by the May government to agree that the UK must bear the consequences of how the EU might react to policy that the UK government decided to implement in Northern Ireland. To agree such a thing was lunacy, and this was pointed out at the time by the Brexit agenda – yet the Brexit agenda was ignored.
To imagine therefore that Brexiteers must answer for the petulant, disloyal incompetence of the actions of the Remain establishment is intellectually dishonest and politically nonsensical.
“The state of Northern Ireland, for instance, is an entirely unforced error”. I think it is probably worse than that, John. I think that the “Irish Backstop” was deliberately confected by May and Robbins to spike the guns of Brexit. It created a choice that no British Prime Minister could make, the session of part of the United Kingdom to a foreign power, which could only be avoided by keeping the UK effectively within the EU’s orbit, providing ammunition for the Remain side, which could then argue that the entire United Kingdom might as well remain in the EU.
Exactly, well said.
May & Co are very close to the definition for traitors.
Sadly, the old penalties are no longer practiced, but if I recall correctly it was the ‘stake’ for women, something do with modesty apparently.
Unfortunately the colonisation of NI by the EU is now well underway due to the WA.
I’m not sure I can see the point being made in this article? Why did the author change his mind? The only reason given seems that he thinks remainers are wiser and Brexiteers are more vulgar?
Mr West’s article starts out by explaining all the correct reasons for leaving the EU experiment. These are logical and persuasive.
Then he says he’s changed his mind. But he gives no real reason why. He just says that he doesn’t like some stereotypes of Brexiteers and thinks the price of leaving is too high. These reasons are unconvincing.
Is he trying to have his cake and eat it?
I think he is unable to decide between Bakewell tart and brioche. In the meantime, Boris has scoffed the lot and Ed is going over to Anna Soubry’s house for sour grapes.
“Once a fervent Eurosceptic, I came to believe that leaving would be a terrible blunder”. We’ve left. It is now a historical fact. I for one am determined to make the best of it.
‘My sense of being a European has also grown as the potential menace of the Chinese, Russian and Turkish regimes has become clearer.’
If only the same could be said of Merkel and those in Brussels, all of whom are happy to depend on Russian gas and who see China not as an abomination, but as a model to emulate.
The subservient behaviour towards China maybe catastrophic.
However it is hardly surprising considering that both the Titans of Europe are the products of humiliating defeat on an Homeric scale. France in 1940 Germany in 1945.
‘We’ on the other hand grabbed the Victor’s Palm, and never had to endure the phycological shock inflicted on the others, which seems to have permanently disabled them.
True we have certainly squandered some our victory, the rise of Quislington being but one example. However now that we are “no longer shackled to a corpse” things will improve.
Thanks for this excellent article. In the original debate I was persuaded by the logic that the EU was not a functional democracy. .. but that is because it is a set of sovereign states. Poland and Hungary (depressingly) point that out.
Then again, the UK with overwhelming majorities delivered by 45% of the electorate (to both Tories & Labour) is not exactly the perfect democracy either.
I hope that now their Phyrric victory is secure the illogical, emotional brexiteers will quietly fade and we can establish a new pragmatic relationship with the huge market on our doorstep.
Exactly, the idea that the EU is a power providing security is laughable. Trump pointed out the dangers of the Russian deal to Merkel but of course the media ignored it in their desire to denigrate him and genuflect before ‘mutti’ and the EU
When an article tries to be balanced and thoughtful and then includes the phrase “purple faced golf club bores” I start to doubt the author. Attributing a meaningful analysis to a seven year old’s comment is also highly questionable. Of course we haven’t gone anywhere but we have changed our relationship and that will lead to a different future with our own politicians very much more exposed. I am confident we have the people and the will to make it work. Anyway there is no other option.
I too had my last minute qualms about Brexit. However the nasty bullying behaviour of Macron using mainly EU lorry drivers as pawns last week reminded me why I voted to leave. Only today the Spanish newspaper El PaÃs reported similar bullying of the people of Gibraltar threatening a special ‘Brexit duro’ for them if there is no ‘agreement’ on its status. The EU has for years talked a great talk on communitarianism etc. But it’s really into control. Glad we’re out of it.
I find Ed’s article regretful in a poignant way but empty of content on his wish to stay in the EU. Leaving the EU doesn’t detach me from the European languages I speak or the European friends and family I have. Those relationships do not depend on our membership of the EU. Of course, if you speak, say, French fluently and have immersed yourself in its culture and conversation, you know the French elite tradition is fundamentally authoritarian – look at the way Macron engineered Christine Lagarde into the ECB, Charles Michel into the Presidency of the European Council and Ursula von der Leyen into the Presidency of the Commission.
Maybe it’s something to do with the Reformation, when the English decided that following their own conscience was more important than subscribing to rules made abroad; but the UK, in my judgement, values freedom more than fixed conceptions. Not surprising that in philosophy we developed the understanding that reality was based on experience whereas our European friends were always more disposed to base reality on abstract thought. So we looked for a European Community that was pragmatic and trade-based; they pursue a vision of an (apparently) United Europe.
The EU, and especially the Commission, struggle to permit difference among their members. They seek uniformity and tend to impose it. Hence, their difficulty in fostering democratic institutions and ways of doing things. The UK, by contrast, IMO, has traditionally been more at ease with debate and disagreement. We don’t fit easily in the EU vision.
But neither Europeans nor the British will go away. We have many centuries ahead of us, as we have behind us, to agree and disagree, collaborate and be individualistic. Vive la différence!
We should thank Thomas Cromwell for the ideological victory of the Reformation.
The French and Germans are off course, the very ancestors of those wretched barbarians who destroyed the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century.
They have spent the last millennia and a half trying to rebuild it, and thus exculpate themselves from the original sin. They will fail.
What a strange, conflicted and pointless piece. Sorry, but waffle like this is probably best left unheard.
What a confused article. Having some time on my hands, I scrutinised it several times to search for what West thought was wrong in exiting. That was a fruitless waste!
Having acknowledged that the nation state (aka sovereignty) is the best means of organising society, and that legitimate governance must include the democratic support of citizens, he then proceeds to tell us all about his ‘feelings’. Not liking ERG, ( and most other people), being affronted by the extremes of the debate, how the poor soul now feels a stranger on holiday, how he wants to disown his active role in working for Brexit.
If this is a favoured Unherd piece for the year, the selector must be one of the bosses. Oh, hold on a minute!!
A rather long-winded way to say you changed your mind. On the meat of the article, or lack thereof…sweeping statements made with no real substance behind them, and an incredible amount of background information ignored, not a great treatise on anything at all.
England has it’s own populist movement, and it seems its political establishment is just as inept as the US in dealing with it. Globalism is a tide that does not raise all boats equally despite any protestations otherwise, and convincing people that their best interests lie in trusting provably corrupt bureaucrats is hardly a winning argument without something to support it. Nice words lauding democratic institutions, but when all is said and done, your commitment to them is thimble deep.
For me this was always about the people having a say on the laws that effect them. A multi layered, mainly unelected beaurocracy in Europe was never going to satisfy this. The deal we’ve ended up with is the best we could get in the circumstances, considering the pathetic Theresa May, the remainers still unwilling to accept defeat and the treacherous SNP. I will be drinking a glass of Nyetimber fizz on Thursday night in celebration.
Asking “was Brexit worth” it at this point is like asking someone whether it was worth it to leave their safe, well paid job to pursue an unusual business venture on the very first day. It’s impossible to know right now and even in future, that question will be judged by different criteria depending on who you speak to. Also, no one knows what the future will bring for the EU. If – as I believe – the EU continues to distintegrate (in view of the persistent rule of law problems, I consider it to have been in a state of disintegration for some time already) then that will also dramatically change the way Britain’s exit is viewed. Then, it may no longer be viewed as “a suicidal mistake” but “prophetic”. The best we can all do right now is to stop rehashing this issue and put our best foot forward, wherever we are and whatever effect Brexit has had on our lives.
“some of us wanted to put the brakes on globalisation, and to have a more egalitarian, high-wage society; others wanted more economic freedom. Clearly those two things contradict each other”
May I ask how?
And your excellent comparison with leaving a safe (dull) job for opportunity on your own is entirely valid, especially when you consider that UK and USA innovation and disruptive technology are almost entirely absent in the EU, largely thanks to overregulation.
I don’t think anyone has ever spent the time or effort to explain how the ordinary citizen benefitted from membership. As a country our industry has been decimated. We have issued contracts to European countries for public works. How many European public works have we participated in? How many French or Spanish Warships have we built? Our ability to feed ourselves was compromised because our farming has been shackled to the needs of France and our fishing industry was given away to all comers. It was always a one sided arrangement which provided a benefit to a minority who took us in, on a false prospectus and continued to dig us in deeper by deception and mendacity. If it was such a good deal those tactics wouldn’t have been necessary. It has taken us over 40 years to free ourselves from this disasterous arrangement and I’m not interested in the author’s sentimental tripe.
Leaving the E.U. was not an end in itself. It was just the first step in a process of re-invigorating our country. If the establishment believe they can disadvantage a whole nation for their personal advantage then they had better think again. Change is in the air.
I have to say that the deal is a great relief for me personally as I now don’t have to listen to all the crap that BBC reporters ( as I dont class them as Journalists) continually spouted. As for Ed Davey, John Major, Tony Blair and that idiot outside Parliament in his top hat and his megaphone and his EU flag – they can now go down in history as speaking utter rubbish.
Britain leaving is, in the long run, a serious problem for the EU. Not now particularly, but it leaves an antagonist at the gates and it sways EU power towards a German centric-model with EU policy gradually moving to reflect a German-led agenda.
The complaint is not that it is Germany, but that any centralised institution that becomes beholden to the largest member runs the risk of alienating countries outside the main power orbit potentially creating more fractures down the line.
The EU is also absorbing more powers to itself, to enable it to discipline members for their local laws. Ireland has felt it on tax. Poland and Hungary on legal reform, and immigration. Greece, Spain and Portugal on budgets. Pushing ‘ever greater union’ means more centralised EU decision-making, within structures that create policies without mandates, and where ordinary voters lack mechanisms to rally against bad law. The principle of subsidiarity is slowly diminishing and deals done in darkened rooms do require at least the semblance of the ability for some form of democratic review.
The cartoon issues of bendy bananas weren’t literal. They were idioms for a sense of loss of control to a distant power, that only a statement about sovereignty could stop. Sovereignty is always stronger than economics, as 17 EU countries that have gone through an independence struggle will understand.
The shock of the Brexit vote should have led to reflection at the EU level. This wasn’t the first rejection of EU policies of centralisation at ballot boxes. But instead of review, the train ploughed on regardless. The UK need not have left, if the EU had been prepared to hold some form inquiry, and identified some mechanisms to improve the link between policy and electorates, or someone important had resigned for the policy failure.
In contrast, Britain on the doorstep as the possibility of creating an alternative circuit for those upset with the direction of the EU. Particularly if Britain encircles the EU with trade treaties, and plays its historic role of niggling at the affairs of European competitors.
However, Brexit also reflects a wider change in politics – the shift to localism as a counterpoint to globalism. Globalism is always presented as ‘inevitable’, but without any real description of how power will be balanced between central and local concerns. For example Gilets Jaunes protests initiated by taxes on diesel, put in place to assuage global treaties on pollution – local vs global. So we get issues of offshoring, globalised supply chains, free movement of capital, and now COVID lockdown rules – local versus global.
Yes, the world is complex and interconnected, but politics can’t just be decided on the word of technocrats. Those technocrats need to do the expensive work of winning over electorate as citizens, not treating them like subjects to be controlled by externally imposed rules and bureaucracy.
Given that you seem to have made a living by working in politics or writing about it, your understanding of it seems rather shallow, indeed superficial. It also seems dominated by a dislike of individuals or mythical stereotypes of individuals to an unhealthy degree. I’d suggest myself that your original thoughts about the EU and the reasons for leaving it. Changing your opinion is not necessarily the mark of an open mind, perhaps just an empty head.
I see that you’re now not a “leaver”, but in all honesty, I think leaving would be good for you……and the sooner the better.
“Conscience doth make cowards of us all”.
(WS)
“Ultimately, if Brexit turns out to be a mistake, it’s the fault of Brexiteers alone. After all, taking control means taking responsibility, too.”
Well said Ed! But, ultimately that is unlikely to happen, isn’t it? The entire basis of Brexit, including it’s damaging execution and now mediocre and anticlimactic conclusion (that is, if it really is ‘over’, which is doubtful) is that all the internal problems of Britain are the fault of somebody else, beyond, outside, foreign, etc. It suggests these debates need to happen at home first, before being projected outwards. Regularly, throughout our history this has been the go-to response. Always the ‘solution’ required involves some ‘special’ English … rebate, treaty, trade deal, constitution, law, church, … etc. Worth pondering perhaps? Having read a bit of our ‘Christmas present’ trade deal, I have been left with a sinking feeling that, from the EU perspective at least, they are now keen to the see the back of us, but the 1000 pages includes much designed to ensure that the madness be contained.
I think you and Ed are missing some subtlety here.
Many voted to leave in order to stop the UK government blaming the EU for their own failures in dealing with UK issues.
Leaving allows voters to replace useless governments with fully-empowered alternatives.
For example this current government who have done really well over the last 12 months-school results, track and trace, school meals etc. Yes it was tough being the government during the Covid outbreak, BUT they have made so many basic mistakes, even obviously political ones like not firing Dom and priti. Not a government who takes any responsibility, as many of us suspected!
Governments across the West have been utterly useless and insane in their response to Covid. Moreover, there is an interesting article by Ross Clark over at The Spectator which claims that the UK is a long way ahead of the EU and its constituent nations (or colonies) in terms of making the various vaccines available. Of course, should the vaccines turn out to have all sorts of nasty side effects, this might not be a good thing.
Whom do you suggest as gòod replacements for the present lot?
I haven’t given that any thought.
In 2024 I would hope to see some more ambitious and executable manifestos for people to decide upon.
If I’m still alive I’ll judge that government’s record in 2029 🤞
I suspect that they are indeed keen to see the back of us in the sense that they can now set about creating a tyrannical superstate, (mis)governed from Brussels, unhampered by any objections from the UK. Of course, this will lead to the continued, USSR-style immiseration of much of Europe as the thousands of bureaucrats in Brussels dream up of new ways to hamper enterprise and innovation, that being their raison d’être.
All the indications thus far are that the deal is very good for the UK. Various people from Farage to Stephen Barnett (a commercial barrister who has studied the text) in The Spectator have given it their blessing, and that is good enough for me.
It’s a great shame. Until 15-20 years ago I was very pro-EU and I lived, worked and paid taxes in four EU countries (including the UK). 25 years ago I would have supported the creation of a superstate. But I am older and wiser, and I have witnessed the awfulness and incompetence of those who would govern such an entity. No thanks.
I think the EU has provided all the evidence needed to support Paul Embery’s conclusion that the highest level of law-making should be the “nation state”
Nation States are a good thing? So Scotland, Wales (and Ireland?) Should go their own way? Oh yes, and Cornwall.
(joke)
If the majority of Scots or Welsh want to go it alone as a nation, then absolutely !
I’m afraid chaps that all the comments under this article (so far) only confirm what I have belatedly come to realize, and I suspect others, like Ed too, that this Brexit is an enormous mistake.
We’ve made worse mistakes, August 1914 & September 1939 for example and still survived, and shall do so again.
True. But never over anything so pointless as post-imperial wounded pride. Time to accept reality and grow up methinks.
Yes, you are absolutely correct, it’s just that nostalgia is a very powerful opiate.
For my lot there is no time left to ‘grow up’, but for the younger definitely so, but with moderation.
Let’s hope so.
As an American conservative (old school), watching Brexit from the start reinforced my love for the US Constitution, namely that no action as fundamental as Brexit could happen without supermajorities voting over years of time at different levels of the government. A one-off popular vote changing so much… Wow.
I am not saying I was, or am, for it or against it. And I wish the people of Great Britain well in all things. But one referendum changing the basic rules of government so dramatically? In America, that’s reserved for places like California, and thankfully they can’t overrule the US Constitution!
It’s worth remembering we entered the EEC without a vote after an election won by the Conservative Party in which there was little discussion of joining the EEC. This was subsequently legitimised after the fact by a referendum. WE proceeded then into the EU under another Conservative PM with no mandate for it before or after the event. We then were signed up to a new EU constitution (Lisbon Treaty) without a referendum (despite having been promised one) by a Labour PM. The latest referendum was the one and only chance of correcting that and we only got that because the establishment assumed the plebs would do as they were told.
As for the US system, well there is much that is admirable about the US constitution but the checks and balances also result in stasis in the political system which of course suits the ruling elite just nicely (notwithstanding the admirable efforts of Donald Trump).
It is laughable to think that a sovereign country with a population (consumers) of 60 million will have the same economic negotiating power as a union of countries with a population of 300 million in an increasing globalising world. The Brexiters suffered from lack of imagination.
I don’t think anyone ever thought that Britain on its own would have “the same negotiating power”. I think the argument was more that Britain would be able to negotiate more quickly and achieve free trade deals better tailored to its own needs rather than having to faff around for 7 years negotiating with Canada only to get held up at the last minute by Wallonia. And your opinion (besides many others I have seen) seems based around an assumption that the EU will continue to exist in perpetuity. Which is by no means assured. An organisation that has to make compromises on the most basic of principles underpinning the whole structure (i.e. the rule of law) cannot be said to be in a state of rude health. Giving in to Poland and Hungary to get the budget through when there was another way through the impasse was exceptionally short-sighted, like digging up the foundations of your house so that you can live in it happily together. The British are very good at navel gazing and tend to completely overlook the other problems which the EU has when they talk/whinge about leaving.
The UK has already negotiated about 30 trade deals, with more in the pipeline. It is the UK that is responding to a globalised world, while the EU is, to a large extent, a corporatist and failing protection racket.
I read an article in German Focus magazine today that lambasted the EU’s deal on Covid-19 vaccines. Eastern European countries wanted a cheaper vaccine, despite Pfizer costing peanuts compared with the cost of the pandemic. The EU Commission backed the wrong horse, Sanofi, out of German over deference to the French, the article said. Mere size is overvalued. Nimbleness is as important. The EU proceeds at convoy speed. I consider the British state’s response to Covid to be incompetent. But the EU has few if any lessons to give us. And the British vaccination effort, though seriously suboptimal, puts the EU in the shade.