By almost every economic and financial measure, parting ways with the EU almost eight years ago has been disastrous for the UK. Is there no end in sight?
I was a remainer but unfortunately I don’t think rejoining would win a vote any time soon.
We had a good deal when we were in the EU and won’t get the same terms - and joining under the standard terms (Eurozone membership, common agricultural policy etc) would not be attractive. It’ll be harder fight to electorally to rejoin than it was to stay in, at least at the moment.
I think it’s more likely we will fudge rejoin by rejoining the single market, taking the rules without a say but it’s hardly any party’s priority. The tories have imploded and Labour dare not mention the EU as all they care about is winning the election this year. The EU just isn’t talked about as an electoral issue anymore.
Also I should say from within the UK, leaving the EU hasn’t felt particularly negative. Our economic problems started before we left the EU with the financial crisis in 2011, so we were used to "austerity"and anemic growth. Also while the country hasn’t grown it also hasn’t contracted, it’s stagnated. That’s not good but it’s not as impactful on ordinary people. And Covid had also been a distraction - a lot of economic harm has been blamed on Covid even though the EU and USA in particular have more than bounced back while the UK has only really gone back to baseline.
So for most UK citizens we haven’t seen the doom and gloom that was warned about specifically from leaving the EU, hence the lack of a push to rejoin.
I think it may be some years yet before rejoining the EU is on the cards. And in fairness there is a lot that could be done to improve growth even without rejoining the EU - so I suspect it’ll be ignored as an issue for at least the next parliament (5 years).
Most of the population has massive Nationalistic Delusions Of Grandeur, including Remainers (one of the Remain arguments was “We should stay in the EU and change it from the inside” or in other words, Britain and it’s 50 million people know best and should be making the other 470 million and 27 countries to change their community for the benefit of Britain), though the Leave campaign was incredibly deluded, mainly anchored on what can be summarized as “we’ll leave and they’ll still give us the priviledges of membership but without the obligations”.
There really was none of the “let’s cooperate for the common good” spirit that most other countries have (some more of it, some less) with regards to EU membership, and their take on the EU was all “what can we get from it” and, as far as I can tell, still is.
(This, by the way, is quite consistent with how Britain behave when inside the EU: it was allways “what’s in it for me”, always a you win or you lose vision, seldom if at all win-win)
Until that widespread heavilly nationalist and quite deluded spirit amongst the British population changes (and all that stuff is heavilly pushed by the local Press, with for example the coverage of International news there always slanted to make it seem like other countries are listenning to Britain and its PM, which is very much not the idea that the coverage of the same news in other countries passes) Britain won’t be back, and frankly, having seen it up close and personal from the inside, I think is best for the rest of the EU that Britain stays out until its people accept it’s just another mid-sized country and Britain becomes a normal country rather than this “old wierd uncle of Europe who is constantly going on and on about war stories which are almost a century old”
The UK thought it was getting a poor deal, when it had the most exceptions in the EU. It will still need another generation or two for the UK to realise that it is not the old empire anymore.
I was a remainer but unfortunately I don’t think rejoining would win a vote any time soon.
We had a good deal when we were in the EU and won’t get the same terms - and joining under the standard terms (Eurozone membership, common agricultural policy etc) would not be attractive. It’ll be harder fight to electorally to rejoin than it was to stay in, at least at the moment.
I think it’s more likely we will fudge rejoin by rejoining the single market, taking the rules without a say but it’s hardly any party’s priority. The tories have imploded and Labour dare not mention the EU as all they care about is winning the election this year. The EU just isn’t talked about as an electoral issue anymore.
Also I should say from within the UK, leaving the EU hasn’t felt particularly negative. Our economic problems started before we left the EU with the financial crisis in 2011, so we were used to "austerity"and anemic growth. Also while the country hasn’t grown it also hasn’t contracted, it’s stagnated. That’s not good but it’s not as impactful on ordinary people. And Covid had also been a distraction - a lot of economic harm has been blamed on Covid even though the EU and USA in particular have more than bounced back while the UK has only really gone back to baseline.
So for most UK citizens we haven’t seen the doom and gloom that was warned about specifically from leaving the EU, hence the lack of a push to rejoin.
I think it may be some years yet before rejoining the EU is on the cards. And in fairness there is a lot that could be done to improve growth even without rejoining the EU - so I suspect it’ll be ignored as an issue for at least the next parliament (5 years).
Why not? It would still be much, much better than not being in the EU, economically speaking. Is it about pride?
I lived in the UK for a decade until Brexit.
Most of the population has massive Nationalistic Delusions Of Grandeur, including Remainers (one of the Remain arguments was “We should stay in the EU and change it from the inside” or in other words, Britain and it’s 50 million people know best and should be making the other 470 million and 27 countries to change their community for the benefit of Britain), though the Leave campaign was incredibly deluded, mainly anchored on what can be summarized as “we’ll leave and they’ll still give us the priviledges of membership but without the obligations”.
There really was none of the “let’s cooperate for the common good” spirit that most other countries have (some more of it, some less) with regards to EU membership, and their take on the EU was all “what can we get from it” and, as far as I can tell, still is. (This, by the way, is quite consistent with how Britain behave when inside the EU: it was allways “what’s in it for me”, always a you win or you lose vision, seldom if at all win-win)
Until that widespread heavilly nationalist and quite deluded spirit amongst the British population changes (and all that stuff is heavilly pushed by the local Press, with for example the coverage of International news there always slanted to make it seem like other countries are listenning to Britain and its PM, which is very much not the idea that the coverage of the same news in other countries passes) Britain won’t be back, and frankly, having seen it up close and personal from the inside, I think is best for the rest of the EU that Britain stays out until its people accept it’s just another mid-sized country and Britain becomes a normal country rather than this “old wierd uncle of Europe who is constantly going on and on about war stories which are almost a century old”
The UK thought it was getting a poor deal, when it had the most exceptions in the EU. It will still need another generation or two for the UK to realise that it is not the old empire anymore.