This week in Brexitland, August 22, 2024

In my final entry, I explain why I’m not going to be writing this column any longer

I don’t think I can do this anymore. Write this every week, I mean. When I started this weekly newsletter, almost three years ago, I had hoped to create something beyond it. A new movement to rejoin, I probably thought in my grander moments, but at least some greater collective action towards reverse the very worst of Brexit. I had hoped the general election would bring with it some movement towards this - sadly, I don’t see it happening. As a result, I’m stopping the weekly newsletter.

I want you to understand that I haven’t given up on Britain rejoining the EU. In fact, I feel more strongly than ever that it will happen, not only one day, but probably a day that feels impossibly close given where we are now. We’ll get there, don’t worry. But I don’t feel I have enough to say about it every single week, anything more to add than what I have said over the last three years. I think now that we have a Labour government, people on the centre-left will be much less vocal in complaining about what is happening on the Brexit front. Given being anti-Brexit has become almost an entirely left-wing thing over the last half a decade, that means pretty much everyone.

I don’t think this will last forever. At some point, even the most Labour diehard pro-Europeans will begin to complain about Labour’s “Make Brexit Work” policy. Perhaps even the Lib Dems will see which way the wind is blowing and become vocally pro-European once again. But that feels at least a couple of years in the future. In the meantime, I can’t keep paddling out here in the waters of anti-Brexit alone.

I will keep writing my “Today in Brexitland” paid column. You can subscribe here if you are interested in that. In fact, I pledge to write a lot more on there than I have done over the last year and a half. I will try and write four or five columns a week from here on, starting early next week. Back when I started my first blog, I made a pledge to write something every day, no matter what. I think I’d like to try to get back to something like that. I won’t write about Brexit every day, but I will write about it there when it is pertinent. If that sounds fun, subscribe, join us.

Please stay subscribed to this Substack - I will use it for big anti-Brexit announcements, to publicise anything I think the anti-Brexit community needs to know. Also, I will be launching a new free Substack here in a few weeks’ time. It won’t be totally focused on Brexit, but that will still be a part of what I will talk about every week. At least stick around and see if you like it. Like I say, the first edition is only a handful of weeks away.

Thanks for reading me these past three years. I have enjoyed writing this newsletter, at least I did up until the last few months when it started to become a bit of a slog. In early autumn 2021, I felt like resignation had struck on the Brexit front, yet under the surface, there was a growing anger at the way the whole thing had turned out. I like to hope that in some small way, I was part of making that frustration heard, helping it to surface. Pro-Europeans time will come again. All the best to everyone.

As mentioned, a new Substack will be coming very soon. All you have to do is stay subscribed here - or subscribe if you haven’t done already - to check it out.