The FT on Britain’s fall from the world stage. When you see it written down then it’s really quite stark.
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Also, set out so clearly you can see who was not at the party, and therefore might gain from the demise of theUK.
I’m not a fan of evidence free conspiracy theories - but one can’t help wondering (again) how much of this was deliberate ploy by Putin.
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The seeds of Brexit were already there within the Tory Party - the key point was Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum (for which there was absolutely no public pressure) in the hope of squashing his Eurosceptic wing and seeing off the (overinflated) electoral threat from UKIP.
At that point I think Putin and friends had something to do with it - there was a heck of a lot of disinformation put out on social media during the referendum campaign that was directly or indirectly traceable to Russia.
The other key point was Boris Johnson throwing his weight behind the Leave campaign - if he had put a similar amount of effort into backing Remain I think the result would have been 52% to 48% in favour of Remain. Without him the Leave side were mostly a bunch of nonentities, apart from Farage, who let’s not forget has only just managed to get himself elected to Parliament at his 8th attempt.
But we shall probably never know the truth of it all, and it’s done now.
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Dangerous words 
Well - done-ish. 
Not going to be reversed any time soon I think you’ll agree.
Yes, I would.
In fact I am fairly certain it will not be reversed in my lifetime (20-30 years if I’m lucky).
Times are changing. Since Brexit the world is a far more unstable place from the European perspective. Gaza and Ukraine have the potential to trigger major conflicts with possibly cataclysmic consequences.
If the EU sees ways of benefiting from closer ties with Britain, and the Brits realise that the Brexit dream was a falacy, anything is possible. Where there is a will there is always a way.
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Absolutely - but I think Sir William B is right that it will be a lengthy process - because EU rules don’t allow for simply reinstating the old UK deal with was festooned with opt-outs - the UK would have to form an orderly queue and fill out all the requisite membership forms for standard EU membership, and even if Labour decided they want to start that today (which they don’t) it would take a while.
One of the conditions I believe is unanimity among a candidate nation’s political parties for joining (or at least a strong majority) - so until the Tories can bring themselves to say “oops, it was all Boris’s fault” and back Rejoin, it can’t happen.
It takes two to tango and Labour is tied to the dead horse of Brexit for at least the next 5 years and no matter what the circumstances I don’t see the EU soliciting our membership without a clear and stable majority of the population and major political parties in support of membership.
So, in practice, I think ten years minimum before we’re making any serious move to *thinking* about rejoining, further down the line before we try to set anything in motion and understandable caution from the EU before it let us back in. Also the Tories could still surprise us all by being electable in 2029 and the way Starmer is going he might not have fixed enough for the country to want to give him another five years - look what happened to Biden.
I still think membership of the SM and CU but not the EU itself would “suit” the UK but the planet sized elephant in the room is that there is no pre-packaged route to that status.
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Closer ties hopefully there will be, in many areas. I believe Macron and Starmer have already discussed defense etc. But UK rejoining the Union, I do not see.
Re the Brexit lies. I remember at the time I was following the outcome of Turkey’s bid to join the EU quite closely and was relieved when progress was officially put on hold indefinitely. It was a good few days after that announcement that I was surprised to read in one of the mainstream uk dailies, I think but not sure the Telegraph, that Turkey was definitely about to join. In my naivety I was surprised and shocked by the ‘mistake’ and fully expected to see it corrected. It was only after this did not happen, and I noticed other things, that I understood the British electorate was deliberately being fed lies. And the rest is history, lies became the norm and trust was lost.
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Or, to properly go into fantasy land, they’re replaced by the LibDems as the official opposition.
Well at one point it looked as if that might actually happen, but thanks to FPTP enough Tories managed to cling on to their constituencies - including our local prize s#it Jeremy Hunt…
(he managed that mainly because the LibDems chose an almost equally disliked pillock as their candidate for Godalming & Ash …)
The fat lady hasn’t just sung, she’s left the building.
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In the immortal words of Douglas Adams " This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
I agree we aren’t going back - but we should remember that we were conned and exactly who conned us.
I guess the bottom line is that the UK will never get the sweetheart EU membership deal it had again, which will make selling reentry difficult domestically. Trump doesn’t care about the “special relationship”. So the UK has little to offer to China or India or anyone else really. It has painted itself into a corner. However I agree with @GusMorris things are changing. What may seem politically unpalatable relationship wise now may make great sense in a couple of years, for the UK and EU.
Thing is, not all of us were ‘conned’. How was it that nearly half the entire population did not remotely believe Brexit would be in anyone’s best interest?
Where and how the Remain section reached their conclusions could be studied in order for the easily conned group to learn how not to be so easily conned again.
The trick now is to get the conned group to concede they were conned - nobody likes to admit a mistake, especially one that had such huge implications - many are not ready to do that yet I think, which is another reason why rejoining the EU will require the passage of time.
Or as Phil Moorhouse put it, wait for the old wrinklies who mostly voted to Leave to die off.
(He didn’t actually use the term “old wrinklies”…)
(The above are just my opinions as a Remain-voting wrinkly)
I was at the German embassy in Paris yesterday and, after the speeches, they played the anthems of Germany, France and the EU. I’ll readily admit to feeling a deep sense of melancholy about what we’ve lost.
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Indeed - but as we have seen with Brexit, and most recently with the US elections is that somewhere around 50% of people who vote are fully prepared to be taken in by lies and simplistic messages.
Not to mention those morons living in Spain who didn’t want foreigners in the UK and voted leave then it came back and bit them on the arse regarding residency rules being implimented when we were all able to come and go easily.
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