This week in Brexitland, August 3, 2023

Debunking Matt Goodwin’s “10 reasons why Britain will not rejoin the EU”

I enjoy the writings of Matt Goodwin very much these days. Mostly because no one else in Britain fills me with more hope that Britain will rejoin the EU sooner than any of us might have thought than he does, and the professor does it constantly. He always gives me new reasons and angles on why the UK will rejoin the European Union that I couldn’t have thought of without him.

Which is odd given he’s arguing for the opposite viewpoint. In fact, this week he gave us his “10 reasons why Britain will not rejoin the EU” - and as usual, they have filled me with renewed confidence that Britain will rejoin the European Union within the next 15 years. This is partly because the reasons he gives are so empty, they unconsciously seem to make the exact opposite argument professor Goodwin appears to be trying to create. I would love to debate him on this subject some day, but given I have less 100k Twitter followers - sorry, X followers - and didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge, and further to the point, am not Alastair Campbell and therefore won’t be a lot of help selling his book, he probably won’t be interested. But let’s debunk his 10 reasons why Britain won’t rejoin the EU, one by one, anyhow:

1. “It will not be like it was before. The relationship will be harder and the terms will be worse. You will not get special opt-outs on things like Schengen, justice and home affairs”

This is pure conjecture on Matthew’s part. There is nothing to suggest the relationship would be harder and in fact, plenty to suggest it might even be easier than it was pre-2016 if we rejoined. The work I’ve done on this suggests that Britain rejoining, at least if they conditions were right in the UK at the time, would be welcomed in every member state. This is Matthew indulging, strangely enough, in FBPE thinking: we’ve sinned against Europe, so they’ll never have us back and if they did, it would be on punishment terms. Strange that he led with this one as it’s possibly Matthew’s worst point of the 10.

2. “You will have to go back to sending billions of pounds of British taxpayers money to Brussels and Strasbourg. You will have to send them more money than you used to”

This is Matthew’s most solid point - and arguably, in fact, the only legitimate one at all on his list. Yes, if we rejoined, we’d have to pay into the budget again. There would almost certainly be no rebates. In fact, that’s the only legitimate discourse to be had here - would it be worth it to invest in single market membership again for all of the massive economic benefits it brings? I would say yes and I think many in future will say yes also. Spending money to make it makes sense.

3. “You will most likely have to join the Euro single currency, either immediately or over the longer-term”

I have been travelling through four Eastern European EU countries over the last couple of weeks, only one of which has the Euro for its currency - and none of them look likely to take the Euro up any time soon. I like the single currency myself, but the idea that the EU Commission is forcing it upon member states is not shown up by the evidence whatsoever. This is mostly a false flag by Brexiters desperate for a more valid argument.

4. “You will have even more immigration. You will have even faster demographic change”

He goes on to elaborate about Albania, Serbia and Bosnia joining the EU. This is just the “Turkey is about to join the EU and 77 million of them will come here the next day” argument used in 2016. It’s nonsense. It has no basis in reality whatsoever and isn’t worth discussing further.

5. “You will no longer be able to diverge from the EU”

This is a dead end argument, as the UK now accepting the CE certification permanently and dropping the silly idea of creating a UK only certification aptly demonstrates. I spent two years investigating how much diverging from EU regulation could ramp up the British economy and was shocked, even as a Remainer, at how little there was that would be beneficial. The idea that we can deregulate our way to an economic Valhalla has been all but disproven.

6. “You will no longer be quick and nimble —like you were with the Covid vaccines and responding to war in Ukraine”

This is just a rehash of the “Covid and Ukraine equals Brexit benefits” fallacy. The vaccine rollout happened when we were still under single market rules and so does not prove our ability to be “nimble” given we were still effectively in the EU for regulatory purposes at the time. As for the Ukraine idea, that’s even weaker - we could have done everything we have done for Ukraine had we still been a member of the EU.

7. “You will be re-joining a club that cannot keep you and your family safe and secure”

Netflix won’t keep your family safe and secure either, but you still might like a subscription in order to watch movies. This is a total non-argument. The point of the EU is not to keep you safe and secure. This is a misunderstanding of what the EU is and what it looks to do, either wilfully or otherwise from professor Goodwin.

8. “You will be re-joining a club that is still divided economically, between more prosperous northern states and more impoverished, heavily indebted southern states”

This argument would carry more weight if the southern states wanted to leave the EU - or, for that matter, northern ones wanted to as well because they felt they were economically carrying the southern member states. This problem doesn’t exist, however. EU membership is incredibly popular throughout every member state. This point from Matthew had some validity over a decade ago, but not any longer. This argument is massively out of date and is Brexiter wishful thinking about the EU dissolving, a recurring theme in their thinking despite all of the evidence being to the contrary.

9. “You will be re-joining a club that is increasingly divided culturally between East and West”

This is his most bullshit GB News argument on the whole list. It depicts an Eastern Europe of the populist, British imagination, not of anything close to reality. Hungary has green policies that would put lots of Western Europe to shame from a pro-green perspective. Most Eastern European countries have all sorts of policies, in fact, put forth by right-wing governments in those countries, that British national conservative types would throw up at the sight of. The idea that Eastern European countries are massively conservative in any traditional sense, never mind in a populist sense, is in fact a very London metropolitan liberal elite way of thinking about Eastern Europe. It’s far more prosperous and more liberal - and clearly growing more so on both counts - than people who only read about it via Visegrad Group press releases would surmise. Beyond that, between Eastern Europe and Western Europe there are far, far, far less cultural divides than exist between the UK and the US, and I’m not saying that to be anti-American in the slightest, just to point out what should be an obvious fact. I know Brexiters tend to hate that the UK is part of the continent of Europe but there are undeniable ramifications of that fact, and I’m sorry professor Goodwin, but facts don’t care about your feelings.

10. “And, lastly, you will be re-joining a club that is insufficiently democratic, insufficiently transparent, and which still suffers from a glaring ‘democratic deficit’”

I’m so glad professor Goodwin ended with this one, because it perfectly represents the argument Brexiters always reach for when all of the rest of their points getting blown to dust - yeah, but sovereignty! This isn’t even an argument with a logical basis on his part, just a desperate last gasp, so I’ll stop here.

I wish the Brexiters had better debating points. I know that sounds strange, but I genuinely do. They believe in Brexit so deeply, I wish they had something to back it up that wasn’t as lame as the stuff they constantly come up with. Seriously, the leading thinker of the Brexiters, professor Goodwin, has written 10 reasons why we’ll never rejoin the EU - and this is it? Like I say, the man always provides me with great hope of rejoining the EU, and this week has certainly been no exception.

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