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:
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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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"...you will be re-joining a club that is insufficiently democratic, insufficiently transparent, and which still suffers from a glaring ‘democratic deficit’”
This argument always makes me think of the supreme brexsitter blinkers they choose to wear because it is Britain that has the biggest democratic deficit this side of various failed states.
Unelected hereditary head of state with powers and influence, including the Crown's requested and granted exemption from hundreds of laws. So some people are above the law here.
Unelected upper house of parliament stuffed full of cronies and party donors, one likely Russian spy, hereditaries and the only assured legislative positions for clerics in the world outside of Iran. All appointed incredibly at least (hereditaries) for their lifetimes.
The commons, councils, mayors and police commissioners elected by First Past the Post, an electoral system that might have been the most that could be managed in the era where the fastest communications might have been horse or sail power. But which produces results which can barely be called democracy at all. Governments with overall majorities on 35% of the vote. Parties elected to government that had less votes than the one relegated into 2nd place opposition. MP's elected with 30% of their constituency vote or even lower.
FPTP also makes over half of all seats safe. This makes the MP unlikely to do any campaigning or few other efforts, because he or she takes the voters for granted and there is no effective competition for the seat. It is little better than the Rotten Boroughs of old.
Meanwhile, there are parties with millions of votes getting one or no MP's at all. The EU's Party List PR system suffers none of these democratic outrages.
Single member constituencies. Unlike the EU's multi member constituencies, the UK system means voters going unrepresented for months, years or permanently because of MP's vanishing for various reasons, being lazy or making excuses not to do the work (Nadine Dores). Or else the one MP does not agree with your viewpoint and will not touch an issue.
The Electoral Commission in the UK has judicial powers yet has been taken over by the government, losing it's independence and is now reliant on Gove's decision before making investigations.
The UK parliament is virtually owned by the executive, using it in many ways as a rubber stamp, with whips, threats of deselection and Johnson loyalty agreements. Imagine the backlash if these means were used in the EU Parliament?
The EU has a Parliament elected by PR and multi member constituencies with typically a range of parties in every such area to represent people. It has a Council of elected heads of national governments and the Commission which is just their civil service. Unlike the UK civil service, the Commission heads and deputies are elected by other EU elected bodies. The Commission has no power to pass laws and operates guided by the other EU bodies and in consulting interested parties, much as the Civil Service. The Commission has been widely misrepresented by brexsitters much as everything else has been.
I'd like to see real reform of this cap doffing country where democracy is a fig leaf and in my lifetime, but it seems unlikely.
Very good points on each of those spurious claims!
For myself I would add
1) Some of the opt-outs were even designed to deprive the British people from advances accessible to their European peers.
Best example is Schengen, one of the most obvious achievements of European cooperation.
The UK signed up to all the bits that made government's life easier like access to databases, cooperation and information sharing between members' law enforcement agency.
And then got an opt-out for the bit that is a tangible benefit for normal people, the removal of passport checks when crossing internal borders.
2) "Sending more money" can easily be counteracted by a better approach of accessing EU funds.
When we look at EU budget contributions in the last years before Brexit, the UK have in at fourth place after Germany, France and Italy. It would have been third without the rebate.
If we look at the numbers reduced by EU money spent, the UK suddenly moves up to second place after Germany.
Which means the governments of France and Italy were much better in acquiring EU funding.
Both on the national and regional level.
Essentially the only area in which the UK was good at that was science.
And it was good at that because it didn't require governmental involvement, or rather avoided governmental interference.
3) Indeed. Euro membership requires that a country actually fulfills the necessary criteria.
The opt-out is essentially just a way of hiding the embarrassment of the UK's failed attempt to match them.
It is also one of the opt-outs designed to deprive the British people from another tangible improvement achieved by European cooperation.
4) EU membership (or more precisely Single Market membership) has reduced immigration needs of many member nations.
For example in Austria most open vacancies can be filled by EEA citizens, reducing the need for immigration substantially.
7) Brexit removed the UK from having access to the Schengen database and information sharing of EU members' law enforcement agency, making the British people less safe.
Not even talking about the Brexiters' main goal of reducing health, safety and employment regulations.
10) what Parcel of Rouge said