What happens to Brexit after the next general election? As we appear to be on an inevitable course of 18-odd months of a zombie government trudging along waiting for a miracle to happen and save them from oblivion at the next general election, I thought I would examine how I think Brexit will start to look shortly after GE 2024/25.
Agree with the scenarios - an additional point would be the extent to which the Labour victory came via some pretty catastrophic defeats in southern England for the Cons at the hands of the LDs. Remain voting constituencies defeating the Cons emphatically will add to the post election headache for the Cons. which is why it’s so important people vote tactically. A big Labour majority could potentially leave us in a similar position with the far left of Labour pulling Starmers strings. Best solution is the new Govt brings in PR.
Farage had another advantage that his opposite would not possess: Brexit wasn't just an end in itself, but a means to supercharge culture war and right-wing economic arguments dear to media barons but not intrinsically very popular.
I'm sceptical about an anti-Farage emerging. While I could see a big movement towards rejoin, or at least a closer relationship with the EU uniting much of the sensible media and other civil society organisations, I suspect that this movement would face the same problem it's had since 2016: an unwillingness to undermine Labour. Whereas Farage's backers cared more about their pet issues than the Tory party, I think most of the potential backers of an anti-Farage would fear that their pet issues would be more harmed by 'letting the Tories back in' than by remaining outside of the EU.
While I share your assessment that the Lib Dems have institutional blocks that would likely prevent them from becoming the party you describe, if rejoin looks to be electorally advantageous, it would be very easy for the Lib Dems to dial up their campaigning on this. I don't see how a new party really gains much traction.
Finally, and "I would say this wouldn't I?", I think electoral reform is key. While First Past the Post can lead to dramatic changes (from bad to good as well as the other way around), there is always the risk that a freakish distribution of the votes can produce a random result. It's hard to see how the UK could become politically stable enough i.e. that the growing pro-EU / pro-rejoin majority could be protected from being overruled by a minority populist government, for the EU to be willing to let the UK back in. Of course, if the UK adopted Proportional Representation, then actually many of the changes the country needs could be unlocked.
This is an interesting article, but as an assessment of the future relationship between the UK and the EU it suffers from the same problem as much of the current and past political discussion in the UK. It is entirely UK focused and ignores the opinions and interests of others; again it is the viewpoints within the EU and its member states that are not addressed.
The UK has always viewed its relations with the rest of Europe in transactional terms, and this article continues in that vein. More or less: 'the UK has deep economic problems inflicted by Brexit, so reversing Brexit is what is needed. It is just a matter of convincing the country's parties / political leaders and then deciding'.
Well, as many commentators have recognised, it will take more than that. Some have noted that it will take commitments to rejoin from all the parties in election manifestos, because no one would want Labour to enter accession negotiations that the Conservatives could reverse when they get into power. This seems to me to be to be the bare minimum expectation one could anticipate from the EU and its member states.
The EU is changing (as Barnier has noted) and the political dimension is coming into greater prominence. It and its member states seem to feel a type of liberation from some of the constraints that Britain imposed in the past. Financing mechanisms are changing and there has been a renewed push for common military and security arrangements - all anathema to the UK when it was a member state.
As you imply, it will take close to a decade before the UK would realistically make any application for this to the EU. During that period, the EU will continue to evolve and change. It is not unrealistic, for any future application from the UK, for the EU to expect some sort of commitment to the political dimension of Europe that is coming into being (and that has always been lacking in the UK). What form any such commitment might be is unclear.
The EU has had a very harsh lesson in dealing with a potential member state that views it purely in transactional terms. In future, it may be extremely reluctant to integrate a country with that attitude into the Single Market or into itself. It is not unreasonable for those advocating rejoining the EU or the Single Market to start thinking about this issue as part of any future domestic campaign.
Indeed. That's what I thought Nick was going to tackle in the "3rd" part of his article on external factors, but instead he has only talked about the prospect of a 3rd party being formed within the UK to push for rejoin to a Labour government. I guess that's a harder thing to think about since you have the whole EU27 to consider and possibly little inside knowledge of broader European politics. But it has been the British problem with Brexit all along, the failure to consider that relations with Europe depend on what the Europeans will agree to and want and not just with getting the UK or the Tory party to come up with something.
David, if this is going to be the situation, that it won't be sufficient just to join, but joining is contingent on us having to genuinely love Brussels and EU institutions, and Ever Closer Union, the € over the £, and the Commission, and Strasbourg, and full-on enthusiasm for the Peace Project, and purported EU army etc, then ReJoin won't happen in my estimation.
Our future will be some convergence to EU regulatory orbit, improved relations, better politics, but I can't see any situation where the political class, media, population as a whole etc all coalesce around a love of the EU and it's institutions, and the €, to the level that we're welcomed back with open arms as "true believers".
Shorn of the emotive language about the EU and its policies, that is pretty much my view. The UK will never rejoin the EU. The current political trends in the EU and the UK are divergent and will not substantially close enough for that to be (politically) possible.
I think there is a reasonably good chance that the UK will join the Customs Union within a decade and a lower, but not insignificant, probability that it will join the Single Market. I am somewhat more optimistic than Nick about the chance of joining the SM without being a full member.
But I think that, in the end, Rees Mogg's comment about being a "rule maker, not a rule taker" too accurately reflects the general attitude within the UK to permit rejoining the EU as a member state to be possible.
I think that the problem with EFTA, who, you correctly identify as not being inclined to let the UK in (lots of Norwegian politicians were opposed) can be dealt with by amending the EEA treaty and adding the UK as a third pillar of the EEA (alongside the EU and EFTA).
That also resolves the issue that EFTA members aren't allowed to be in the customs union. EEA members are. This would involve amending the EEA treaty to do this, but it would create a permanent place that works until such time as the UK wants to join the EU. It could also finesse some of the ECJ issues: EFTA uses the EFTA court (which is separate from the ECJ though it abides by ECJ precedent), so the UK could establish a new court just for UK/EEA matters, which would probably be half UK judges and half judges from other EEA nations (ie EU and EFTA) or similar. Locating that in London at the Supreme Court would satisfy a lot of idiot Brexiters. Locating it somewhere else in the UK would be interesting too, and there's lots of "levelling up" type arguments for doing so - perhaps Sheffield, as the most pro-Brexit of the big cities?
Reference for Norway and not letting the UK into EFTA:
Creating a third tier of EEA membership before attempting Brexit would have been the smart move.
This could even have been done before the referendum!
At a time when the other EEA members would have had very good reason to keep the UK (or any other potential leave candidate) around, at least economically.
But of course that would not only have required planning, it would have required long term planning.
Not something the recent UK governments are particularly good at.
Sure, on one hand it would have made the prospect of Leave less scary, potentially increasing support for that option.
But on the other hand it would also have dramatically decreased any change for a "no-deal" Brexit.
But I worry very much that your idea of Pro-Europe party, the Anti-UKIP, is based on one (charismatic) figure. That is more of the same problem. The solution is to stop following charismatic politicans at all, and start with parties based on principles that people can get behind, and which are logically followed through, and grown from that, a sensible programme with spelled-out plans that can work in reality.
Because I don't see Labour having principles where I can logically derive their position on topic X from. (That Tories' principles are "Party before country, and myself before party, and soundbites that go well with Sun-readers" is obvious).
Principles not "automatically pro-EU the way the ERG are automatically anti-EU" but rather "we are for Human rights, therefore need written constitution guaranteeing them; we are for cooperation national and international, therefore our foreign policy is X, Y and Z; we are for ... "
You also have not mentioned at all that Labour can't and shouldn't talk about rejoining EU in a vacuum, but solving the larger problems, like the non-representative FPTP voting system; the non-accountability of MPs; just undoing the mess Tories under Johnson etc. did by grabbing powers from Parliament to Ministers without any control; the whole non-representative House of Lords...
Because if Labour does not get more than 1 win, the rejoining is further away than ever, especially because EU is fed up with the internal squabbling while denying reality and appeasing the sun-readers, so EU wants not only a real majority - 70% upwards - but also working institutions.
Labour needs to start governing on reality again, having the courage to tell voters the cold facts of reality.
If Starmer can't manage telling the truth despite the Sun writing mean things, then he and Labour can't enact any meaningful reforms, and future looks bleak for GB.
There is no pro-Rejoin Farage-type character. Certainly not currently, although maybe in time. Almost everyone successful in public life and business is pro-EU, literally dozens or hundreds, "could" be one of these figureheads, from Richard Branson and Alan Sugar, to Dr. Brian Cox and Sir Richard Attenborough. And certain "untainted" politicians like Rory Stewart.
At what point would the message coalesce into momentum to Rejoin, at what point would such universally liked or respected figures fully tie themselves to the mast, rather than just be Twitter warriors?
I can't see it until at least a second consecutive EU-friendly Labour administration wins in 2028, at that point the brown stuff will truly have hit the fast moving propellors.
If the comments on all the blogs I've read from Nick are anywhere near accurate ie that Rejoin is going to become dependent on us wholesale changing the national attitude from "what can Europe do for us?" to "what can we do for Europe?", including enthusiasm for adopting the € and free movement and Ever Closer Union/federalism etc, then I can't see us ever rejoining.
By the time this mythical point in time of potential stability of politics to consider Rejoining arrives, the EU will have expanded ever further, federalism will be ingrained even further, there will be no exemptions offered that we had before, and our post-EU economy will have adapted more to the Trans Pacific Partnership area, and individual agricultural trade deals with countries like Morocco.
There may be a culture of discontent as we remain outside the EU, but our adaptations will mean our gravitating away from the EU model will make Rejoining torturous, and I can't see any political party, even one as pro-EU as Labour wanting to waste a decade in negotiations with Brussels if we're stabilising in a decade with new markets, and somewhat warmer and smoother relations with Brussels.
Starmer is best placed to navigate Brexit to a better outcome, this alone will mean a pivot to Rejoin less likely.
I thought you had a bit missing here - you said you were going to talk about external factors. By that, did you just mean to talk about the prospect of some pro-European Rejoin party being formed, and to wonder about who the anti-Farage could possibly be?
Your description of the Tory/UKIP dilemma matches the one faced by the US Republican Party. Is it electorally possible for Torys to back away from Brexit and still have a chance to win control of the government? Because the equivalent is not possible in the US right now or the immediate future. The Devil drives a hard bargain.
Cheez, the Republican/Democrat divide is hugely deep and ingrained. The Electoral College keeps elections on a knife edge with less populated states inflated in electoral significance compared to more populous states/cities.
And the culture war of populist Right versus liberal Left is irreconcilable.
In contrast, Brexit appeared ingrained as a similar peoples versus the elites binary, but it's been shown to be a "snapshot revolution", wide but not deep, the apogee of a period of dislocation of the working classes where Brussels was the target of blame.
Now with Brexit failing, economically, migration levels effectively unchanged, and no intrinsic upheaval of our democratic deficit, working class Brits anger is turning to the incompetent bunch who both negotiated such a bad deal and who are mismanaging things day to day.
There was a Brexit revolution, and it's the Tories who will be revolved out en masse.
Trump's Build The Wall facade literally failed, but his revolution has lost very little popular support.
Indeed, I'm proud of my fellow Brits. Yes, the Leave vote could easily be argued as a moment of mass psychosis. I was a hairsbreadth away from voting Out myself. But other than at the margins, Brits have acknowledged in many cases how they were conned, and are open to new approaches.
You're saying the Tory voters are rational. I can believe that, and you're lucky.
I was thinking of the divide within the Republican Party itself. Some large percentage of them are not all in on the violent overthrow of a duly elected government as a great idea, but if they repudiate that, they run a real risk of being an irrelevant minority party because those voters will either stay home or join a 3rd party. I'm extremely interested in how the Torys thread that needle and how Labour tries to unwreck the train. Thanks.
Cheez, yes I may be guilty of over optimistic thinking.
What's needed is a purge of the Brexit Ultras at the GE.
If a BxtMax opposition led by Kemi Badenoch crashes on the rocks at 2028 GE, at that point there'll be no alternative but for Tories and Tory voters to acquiesce to a more pro-EU position.
I mean, the LibDems, and SNP will *each* have more MPs than the Conservative Party after 2028.
Anda, unlike the Leave lightning rod that was Nigel Farage, the ReJoin message will have to be organic, from political scientists and economists providing the data, actors, writers and historians providing the "heart" of any message, and a generation of politicians on right and left providing the arguments/logic.
Much will depend on how the Tory civil war pans out 2024-2028.
My money is on Kemi Badenoch as Tory opposition leader following their rout in 2024, who will promote a BrexitMax and front foot forward culture war opposition to Starmer.
Only if Tories are routed in 2028 and they install a Rory Stewart type One Nation/pro Rejoin type leader, will both parties be pointing the same way on the EU, and only then will ReJoin be a tangible concept, the 2032 govt coming in on a ReJoin prospectus, negotiating the deal that we'll be invited to vote on, in mid-2030s.
Don't forget there will be possibly 150 former Tory MPs following the next election. I have met and know one Government minister who calls the average Brexiter quote a Knuckle dragging moron, this minister was a Remainer but obviously accepts the result.
A lot of former Tory MPs, as they will be, will say what they actually think about Brexit once they are out of power........this will push the Re-Join cause even more.
"Three, if there is a hung parliament with Labour being the largest party, I think that gets really messy in a hurry. I believe that such a result would mostly allow an unreconstructed Conservative party to get back into government in a couple of years time and basically just muddle along doing the same awful crap they are up to at the moment."
Doesn't assume that either or both the Lib Dems and SNP would bring down a Starmer government, Nick? I think Davey would be happy to prop it up, and while I do agree the SNP can't be trusted, I think they are self-conscious enough to realise that helping usher in a new Tory government would do them and the Scottish independence movement an immense amount of damage.
"The main problem with this idea is that I am starting to wondering whether rejoining the single market without full EU membership is even possible now."
There are alternative Soft Brexit options though to full SM membership. Labour could shift back to its previous policy that the UK should be in the EU customs union or try to do a Swiss-style deal with the EU. I'm assuming you think the EU wouldn't be any more open to those, Nick?
As has been mentioned in previous blogs, it seems like the EU could drive the hardest of bargains. €, Schengen, zero rebates etc on day one, certainly € plunge within a very short period of time. I view Barnier's "we would welcome Brits back with open arms" with great skepticism. After seeing how UK dealt with leaving, I have no confidence about us rejoining.
Whether Brits in 10-15 years are happy with the harshest of Rejoin conditions remains to be seen.
I'm afraid Brussels insistence we join the € will be a "hard bargain" with the British people.
Just refer back to our ERM disaster three decades ago that triggered tens of thousands of business failures and hundreds of thousands of mortgage defaults and repossessions, and the titanic battle Gordon Brown had with Tony Blair for the Labour govt not to ditch the £. And it will be this insistence of € adoption more than anything that will mean we need full disclosure of what ReJoin demands will be ahead of any Third And Final Referendum on EU membership (1975, 2016, ?2035?).
On the contrary, I think the very example of the previous failure to join the € would make it easy to "sell".
Being unable to join when the UK wanted to should make it pretty obvious that it would never match the entry criteria when it does not want to.
In any case, opposition to the main achievements of European cooperation will have to have become negligible before any membership application can even be considered to be serious.
If the British electorate can't see the value in removal of artificial obstacles between the European community of peoples, then they are not ready yet to be part of it.
Nick - one thing to consider is what happens if Scotland gains independence. Ignore how, but just assume that it happens. Look at the map. They would immediately seek to join the single market, form a celtic arc with Ireland & Northern Ireland and a shipping route into the EU. UK is finished. A hard border forms with England which would be welcomed on both sides. England shrinks further economically. Worth thinking about.
Maybe think about which country Scotland does the vast majority of its trade with, and who funds Scots to the hilt. Yes, the UK, or more specifically, the English. No promise of some extra trade with the EEC would compensate for that.
Throw in the membership fee, and financial promises needed to be made to Brussels, and Scotland independent within EU is even more a phantom.
And Scots are even more skeptical of the € than the English.
And after Sturgeon's debacle with Trans Self ID law, independence is even more a distant dream.
Spain wouldn't gain anything by blocking Scotland's membership application.
The situation during the run-up to the independence referendum in 2014 was very different as it would have set a precedence that Spain didn't want to have.
I.e. a break-away region of a member joining as an equal.
With Brexit this is no longer a concern.
Now the situation of an independent Scotland would be similar to the situation of newly independent nations of other 3rd country unions, e.g. Slovenia or Croatia.
The thing for Spain is that if they would not have vetoed Scotland's accession while the UK still a member, they would have had no grounds to veto Catalonia's.
Since the UK is no longer a member, their agreement to Scotland's request would not restrict their options in the Catalonian case.
In any case likely a pretty hypothetical situation as I have my doubts Spain would even veto continued EU membership of a newly independent Catalonia.
Continuation of absence of borders is in both parties' interest.
Scotland can't survive without the English taxpayer propping it up, Wales even less. Ireland would be taking on a massive financial burden absorbing NI. Secessionist movements talk big, but the practicalities are insurmountable.
I'll bet any money the UK rejoins the EU before there is the merest risk Scotland throws away it's financial pipeline from London.
You know, I never believe these confident assertions from anti-independence people that Scotland is receiving large subsidies from the English taxpayer.
This will very much depend on Labour's success with their decentralisation ideas.
If they manage to pull this off and find a way so it can't be easily reversed by the next Tory government then it might make enough people reconsider their support for independence movements.
If they fail, it will massively strengthen voices for separation.
Because unlike Brexit, such separations would actually "take back control".
The difficulty is that it will take at least two parliamentary cycles to draft and implement the necessary reforms.
At a time when the government has to deal with lots of other things.
While I disagree that Scotland could not pull it off, I agree that it is not likely to happen soon, if at all.
Irish reunification will almost certainly just be a matter of time
Anda, there's a common misconception that the UK is federation or confederation. We are not Germany. That's why it's more accurate to replace the term Scottish (and Welsh) independence with secession. Devolution as engineered under Tony Blair was deliberately designed that UK govt in Westminster maintained supremacy. Just check the recent spat with Sturgeon as Sunak employs Section 35 to step on her frankly crazy Self ID law. Devolution was not aimed in any way as to giving Scotland (or Wales) nation status. Indeed it can be argued that devolution is one of the worst results of the Blair government. Unlike most European nations, we are a unitary state, centrally governed. But devolution to the regions, and up to Brussels, is incongruous with our nation state.
All more devolution under a Starmer govt will do (extra law making powers to Scotland and Wales, tax raising powers to London and other major city majors, the North, South West etc) is exaggerate frustrations that can't be satisfied. Scotland is the very embodiment of this.
But certainly I can see Labour presiding over a fatal weakening in the Union that can only disadvantage our common cause. Not even to Brussels' liking, the EU has already said Scotland's debt ratio (well over 100%), lack of reserves (London bankrolls Edinburgh), inability to fund its own defence, basically it's total dependence on the UK, means Brussels will not accept an application until these areas are addressed. And as Sturgeon believes UK will keep Scotland in the £ Sterling post independence vote and allow free movement across Hadrian's Wall despite EU insisting on a hard border, Scots need to be aware of these facts rather than the fiction the SNP feed their people.
Indeed, Sturgeon is just as disreputable a nationalist/populist over Scottish secession as Tories/Johnson was over Brexit, yet gets a free ride in liberal circles.
Well, certainly Brussels will offer maximum support to Ireland to cope with the exhorbitant costs of reunification. Dublin is no Bonn.
Scotland? And Wales? Maybe when their taxpayers actually realise that they'll finally have to cover the costs of their public services once the English are out of their hair, and God forbid, contributing to EU membership, they'll realise secession is a pipe dream.
Agree with the scenarios - an additional point would be the extent to which the Labour victory came via some pretty catastrophic defeats in southern England for the Cons at the hands of the LDs. Remain voting constituencies defeating the Cons emphatically will add to the post election headache for the Cons. which is why it’s so important people vote tactically. A big Labour majority could potentially leave us in a similar position with the far left of Labour pulling Starmers strings. Best solution is the new Govt brings in PR.
Farage had another advantage that his opposite would not possess: Brexit wasn't just an end in itself, but a means to supercharge culture war and right-wing economic arguments dear to media barons but not intrinsically very popular.
I'm sceptical about an anti-Farage emerging. While I could see a big movement towards rejoin, or at least a closer relationship with the EU uniting much of the sensible media and other civil society organisations, I suspect that this movement would face the same problem it's had since 2016: an unwillingness to undermine Labour. Whereas Farage's backers cared more about their pet issues than the Tory party, I think most of the potential backers of an anti-Farage would fear that their pet issues would be more harmed by 'letting the Tories back in' than by remaining outside of the EU.
While I share your assessment that the Lib Dems have institutional blocks that would likely prevent them from becoming the party you describe, if rejoin looks to be electorally advantageous, it would be very easy for the Lib Dems to dial up their campaigning on this. I don't see how a new party really gains much traction.
Finally, and "I would say this wouldn't I?", I think electoral reform is key. While First Past the Post can lead to dramatic changes (from bad to good as well as the other way around), there is always the risk that a freakish distribution of the votes can produce a random result. It's hard to see how the UK could become politically stable enough i.e. that the growing pro-EU / pro-rejoin majority could be protected from being overruled by a minority populist government, for the EU to be willing to let the UK back in. Of course, if the UK adopted Proportional Representation, then actually many of the changes the country needs could be unlocked.
This is an interesting article, but as an assessment of the future relationship between the UK and the EU it suffers from the same problem as much of the current and past political discussion in the UK. It is entirely UK focused and ignores the opinions and interests of others; again it is the viewpoints within the EU and its member states that are not addressed.
The UK has always viewed its relations with the rest of Europe in transactional terms, and this article continues in that vein. More or less: 'the UK has deep economic problems inflicted by Brexit, so reversing Brexit is what is needed. It is just a matter of convincing the country's parties / political leaders and then deciding'.
Well, as many commentators have recognised, it will take more than that. Some have noted that it will take commitments to rejoin from all the parties in election manifestos, because no one would want Labour to enter accession negotiations that the Conservatives could reverse when they get into power. This seems to me to be to be the bare minimum expectation one could anticipate from the EU and its member states.
The EU is changing (as Barnier has noted) and the political dimension is coming into greater prominence. It and its member states seem to feel a type of liberation from some of the constraints that Britain imposed in the past. Financing mechanisms are changing and there has been a renewed push for common military and security arrangements - all anathema to the UK when it was a member state.
As you imply, it will take close to a decade before the UK would realistically make any application for this to the EU. During that period, the EU will continue to evolve and change. It is not unrealistic, for any future application from the UK, for the EU to expect some sort of commitment to the political dimension of Europe that is coming into being (and that has always been lacking in the UK). What form any such commitment might be is unclear.
The EU has had a very harsh lesson in dealing with a potential member state that views it purely in transactional terms. In future, it may be extremely reluctant to integrate a country with that attitude into the Single Market or into itself. It is not unreasonable for those advocating rejoining the EU or the Single Market to start thinking about this issue as part of any future domestic campaign.
Indeed. That's what I thought Nick was going to tackle in the "3rd" part of his article on external factors, but instead he has only talked about the prospect of a 3rd party being formed within the UK to push for rejoin to a Labour government. I guess that's a harder thing to think about since you have the whole EU27 to consider and possibly little inside knowledge of broader European politics. But it has been the British problem with Brexit all along, the failure to consider that relations with Europe depend on what the Europeans will agree to and want and not just with getting the UK or the Tory party to come up with something.
David, if this is going to be the situation, that it won't be sufficient just to join, but joining is contingent on us having to genuinely love Brussels and EU institutions, and Ever Closer Union, the € over the £, and the Commission, and Strasbourg, and full-on enthusiasm for the Peace Project, and purported EU army etc, then ReJoin won't happen in my estimation.
Our future will be some convergence to EU regulatory orbit, improved relations, better politics, but I can't see any situation where the political class, media, population as a whole etc all coalesce around a love of the EU and it's institutions, and the €, to the level that we're welcomed back with open arms as "true believers".
Shorn of the emotive language about the EU and its policies, that is pretty much my view. The UK will never rejoin the EU. The current political trends in the EU and the UK are divergent and will not substantially close enough for that to be (politically) possible.
I think there is a reasonably good chance that the UK will join the Customs Union within a decade and a lower, but not insignificant, probability that it will join the Single Market. I am somewhat more optimistic than Nick about the chance of joining the SM without being a full member.
But I think that, in the end, Rees Mogg's comment about being a "rule maker, not a rule taker" too accurately reflects the general attitude within the UK to permit rejoining the EU as a member state to be possible.
Well, we left for a reason...
A single reason?
Well, maybe 17,410,742 of them, lol.
I think that the problem with EFTA, who, you correctly identify as not being inclined to let the UK in (lots of Norwegian politicians were opposed) can be dealt with by amending the EEA treaty and adding the UK as a third pillar of the EEA (alongside the EU and EFTA).
That also resolves the issue that EFTA members aren't allowed to be in the customs union. EEA members are. This would involve amending the EEA treaty to do this, but it would create a permanent place that works until such time as the UK wants to join the EU. It could also finesse some of the ECJ issues: EFTA uses the EFTA court (which is separate from the ECJ though it abides by ECJ precedent), so the UK could establish a new court just for UK/EEA matters, which would probably be half UK judges and half judges from other EEA nations (ie EU and EFTA) or similar. Locating that in London at the Supreme Court would satisfy a lot of idiot Brexiters. Locating it somewhere else in the UK would be interesting too, and there's lots of "levelling up" type arguments for doing so - perhaps Sheffield, as the most pro-Brexit of the big cities?
Reference for Norway and not letting the UK into EFTA:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/07/norwegian-politicians-reject-uks-norway-plus-brexit-plan
Creating a third tier of EEA membership before attempting Brexit would have been the smart move.
This could even have been done before the referendum!
At a time when the other EEA members would have had very good reason to keep the UK (or any other potential leave candidate) around, at least economically.
But of course that would not only have required planning, it would have required long term planning.
Not something the recent UK governments are particularly good at.
Sure, on one hand it would have made the prospect of Leave less scary, potentially increasing support for that option.
But on the other hand it would also have dramatically decreased any change for a "no-deal" Brexit.
Nick, interesting points you make.
But I worry very much that your idea of Pro-Europe party, the Anti-UKIP, is based on one (charismatic) figure. That is more of the same problem. The solution is to stop following charismatic politicans at all, and start with parties based on principles that people can get behind, and which are logically followed through, and grown from that, a sensible programme with spelled-out plans that can work in reality.
Because I don't see Labour having principles where I can logically derive their position on topic X from. (That Tories' principles are "Party before country, and myself before party, and soundbites that go well with Sun-readers" is obvious).
Principles not "automatically pro-EU the way the ERG are automatically anti-EU" but rather "we are for Human rights, therefore need written constitution guaranteeing them; we are for cooperation national and international, therefore our foreign policy is X, Y and Z; we are for ... "
You also have not mentioned at all that Labour can't and shouldn't talk about rejoining EU in a vacuum, but solving the larger problems, like the non-representative FPTP voting system; the non-accountability of MPs; just undoing the mess Tories under Johnson etc. did by grabbing powers from Parliament to Ministers without any control; the whole non-representative House of Lords...
Because if Labour does not get more than 1 win, the rejoining is further away than ever, especially because EU is fed up with the internal squabbling while denying reality and appeasing the sun-readers, so EU wants not only a real majority - 70% upwards - but also working institutions.
Labour needs to start governing on reality again, having the courage to tell voters the cold facts of reality.
If Starmer can't manage telling the truth despite the Sun writing mean things, then he and Labour can't enact any meaningful reforms, and future looks bleak for GB.
There is no pro-Rejoin Farage-type character. Certainly not currently, although maybe in time. Almost everyone successful in public life and business is pro-EU, literally dozens or hundreds, "could" be one of these figureheads, from Richard Branson and Alan Sugar, to Dr. Brian Cox and Sir Richard Attenborough. And certain "untainted" politicians like Rory Stewart.
At what point would the message coalesce into momentum to Rejoin, at what point would such universally liked or respected figures fully tie themselves to the mast, rather than just be Twitter warriors?
I can't see it until at least a second consecutive EU-friendly Labour administration wins in 2028, at that point the brown stuff will truly have hit the fast moving propellors.
If the comments on all the blogs I've read from Nick are anywhere near accurate ie that Rejoin is going to become dependent on us wholesale changing the national attitude from "what can Europe do for us?" to "what can we do for Europe?", including enthusiasm for adopting the € and free movement and Ever Closer Union/federalism etc, then I can't see us ever rejoining.
By the time this mythical point in time of potential stability of politics to consider Rejoining arrives, the EU will have expanded ever further, federalism will be ingrained even further, there will be no exemptions offered that we had before, and our post-EU economy will have adapted more to the Trans Pacific Partnership area, and individual agricultural trade deals with countries like Morocco.
There may be a culture of discontent as we remain outside the EU, but our adaptations will mean our gravitating away from the EU model will make Rejoining torturous, and I can't see any political party, even one as pro-EU as Labour wanting to waste a decade in negotiations with Brussels if we're stabilising in a decade with new markets, and somewhat warmer and smoother relations with Brussels.
Starmer is best placed to navigate Brexit to a better outcome, this alone will mean a pivot to Rejoin less likely.
It is more a question of "what can we in Europe do together".
One of the implications of needing unanimous consent for changes to the setup is that such changes are done very carefully.
At a pace that allows all member nations and their people to prepare and adapt.
Treaty changes take years of consultation and negotiation before they are even drafted.
Given all the challenges going on at the moment I'd be surprised if there is much time for any major changes.
I thought you had a bit missing here - you said you were going to talk about external factors. By that, did you just mean to talk about the prospect of some pro-European Rejoin party being formed, and to wonder about who the anti-Farage could possibly be?
Your description of the Tory/UKIP dilemma matches the one faced by the US Republican Party. Is it electorally possible for Torys to back away from Brexit and still have a chance to win control of the government? Because the equivalent is not possible in the US right now or the immediate future. The Devil drives a hard bargain.
Cheez, the Republican/Democrat divide is hugely deep and ingrained. The Electoral College keeps elections on a knife edge with less populated states inflated in electoral significance compared to more populous states/cities.
And the culture war of populist Right versus liberal Left is irreconcilable.
In contrast, Brexit appeared ingrained as a similar peoples versus the elites binary, but it's been shown to be a "snapshot revolution", wide but not deep, the apogee of a period of dislocation of the working classes where Brussels was the target of blame.
Now with Brexit failing, economically, migration levels effectively unchanged, and no intrinsic upheaval of our democratic deficit, working class Brits anger is turning to the incompetent bunch who both negotiated such a bad deal and who are mismanaging things day to day.
There was a Brexit revolution, and it's the Tories who will be revolved out en masse.
Trump's Build The Wall facade literally failed, but his revolution has lost very little popular support.
Indeed, I'm proud of my fellow Brits. Yes, the Leave vote could easily be argued as a moment of mass psychosis. I was a hairsbreadth away from voting Out myself. But other than at the margins, Brits have acknowledged in many cases how they were conned, and are open to new approaches.
You're saying the Tory voters are rational. I can believe that, and you're lucky.
I was thinking of the divide within the Republican Party itself. Some large percentage of them are not all in on the violent overthrow of a duly elected government as a great idea, but if they repudiate that, they run a real risk of being an irrelevant minority party because those voters will either stay home or join a 3rd party. I'm extremely interested in how the Torys thread that needle and how Labour tries to unwreck the train. Thanks.
Cheez, yes I may be guilty of over optimistic thinking.
What's needed is a purge of the Brexit Ultras at the GE.
If a BxtMax opposition led by Kemi Badenoch crashes on the rocks at 2028 GE, at that point there'll be no alternative but for Tories and Tory voters to acquiesce to a more pro-EU position.
I mean, the LibDems, and SNP will *each* have more MPs than the Conservative Party after 2028.
Then reality will absolutely bite.
The idea of an "untainted" leader of a pro-EU movement/party is intriguing.
It would probably have to be someone who is already a public figure.
Someone who already has some media coverage which they could tap into.
That would likely mitigate some of the obstacles you mentioned.
Anda, unlike the Leave lightning rod that was Nigel Farage, the ReJoin message will have to be organic, from political scientists and economists providing the data, actors, writers and historians providing the "heart" of any message, and a generation of politicians on right and left providing the arguments/logic.
Much will depend on how the Tory civil war pans out 2024-2028.
My money is on Kemi Badenoch as Tory opposition leader following their rout in 2024, who will promote a BrexitMax and front foot forward culture war opposition to Starmer.
Only if Tories are routed in 2028 and they install a Rory Stewart type One Nation/pro Rejoin type leader, will both parties be pointing the same way on the EU, and only then will ReJoin be a tangible concept, the 2032 govt coming in on a ReJoin prospectus, negotiating the deal that we'll be invited to vote on, in mid-2030s.
Don't forget there will be possibly 150 former Tory MPs following the next election. I have met and know one Government minister who calls the average Brexiter quote a Knuckle dragging moron, this minister was a Remainer but obviously accepts the result.
A lot of former Tory MPs, as they will be, will say what they actually think about Brexit once they are out of power........this will push the Re-Join cause even more.
"Three, if there is a hung parliament with Labour being the largest party, I think that gets really messy in a hurry. I believe that such a result would mostly allow an unreconstructed Conservative party to get back into government in a couple of years time and basically just muddle along doing the same awful crap they are up to at the moment."
Doesn't assume that either or both the Lib Dems and SNP would bring down a Starmer government, Nick? I think Davey would be happy to prop it up, and while I do agree the SNP can't be trusted, I think they are self-conscious enough to realise that helping usher in a new Tory government would do them and the Scottish independence movement an immense amount of damage.
"The main problem with this idea is that I am starting to wondering whether rejoining the single market without full EU membership is even possible now."
There are alternative Soft Brexit options though to full SM membership. Labour could shift back to its previous policy that the UK should be in the EU customs union or try to do a Swiss-style deal with the EU. I'm assuming you think the EU wouldn't be any more open to those, Nick?
As has been mentioned in previous blogs, it seems like the EU could drive the hardest of bargains. €, Schengen, zero rebates etc on day one, certainly € plunge within a very short period of time. I view Barnier's "we would welcome Brits back with open arms" with great skepticism. After seeing how UK dealt with leaving, I have no confidence about us rejoining.
Whether Brits in 10-15 years are happy with the harshest of Rejoin conditions remains to be seen.
Standard membership terms as any other country could hardly be considered as "hard bargain".
Better arrangement than the half-in/half-out situation before and definitely better than the all-out position right now
I'm afraid Brussels insistence we join the € will be a "hard bargain" with the British people.
Just refer back to our ERM disaster three decades ago that triggered tens of thousands of business failures and hundreds of thousands of mortgage defaults and repossessions, and the titanic battle Gordon Brown had with Tony Blair for the Labour govt not to ditch the £. And it will be this insistence of € adoption more than anything that will mean we need full disclosure of what ReJoin demands will be ahead of any Third And Final Referendum on EU membership (1975, 2016, ?2035?).
On the contrary, I think the very example of the previous failure to join the € would make it easy to "sell".
Being unable to join when the UK wanted to should make it pretty obvious that it would never match the entry criteria when it does not want to.
In any case, opposition to the main achievements of European cooperation will have to have become negligible before any membership application can even be considered to be serious.
If the British electorate can't see the value in removal of artificial obstacles between the European community of peoples, then they are not ready yet to be part of it.
Anda, your reply perfectly encapsulates why ReJoin is not on agenda and likely will not happen, if at all, for decades.
It could indeed become a generational thing.
Nick - one thing to consider is what happens if Scotland gains independence. Ignore how, but just assume that it happens. Look at the map. They would immediately seek to join the single market, form a celtic arc with Ireland & Northern Ireland and a shipping route into the EU. UK is finished. A hard border forms with England which would be welcomed on both sides. England shrinks further economically. Worth thinking about.
Maybe think about which country Scotland does the vast majority of its trade with, and who funds Scots to the hilt. Yes, the UK, or more specifically, the English. No promise of some extra trade with the EEC would compensate for that.
Throw in the membership fee, and financial promises needed to be made to Brussels, and Scotland independent within EU is even more a phantom.
And Scots are even more skeptical of the € than the English.
And after Sturgeon's debacle with Trans Self ID law, independence is even more a distant dream.
Agree, and whatever Spain says politely to the Scots........they will veto their membership.
Spain wouldn't gain anything by blocking Scotland's membership application.
The situation during the run-up to the independence referendum in 2014 was very different as it would have set a precedence that Spain didn't want to have.
I.e. a break-away region of a member joining as an equal.
With Brexit this is no longer a concern.
Now the situation of an independent Scotland would be similar to the situation of newly independent nations of other 3rd country unions, e.g. Slovenia or Croatia.
Fair point, my thoughts are the Catalans can argue that once independent accession to the EU is possible.
Sure, but officially that would always be true.
Any European nation can apply.
The thing for Spain is that if they would not have vetoed Scotland's accession while the UK still a member, they would have had no grounds to veto Catalonia's.
Since the UK is no longer a member, their agreement to Scotland's request would not restrict their options in the Catalonian case.
In any case likely a pretty hypothetical situation as I have my doubts Spain would even veto continued EU membership of a newly independent Catalonia.
Continuation of absence of borders is in both parties' interest.
Scotland can't survive without the English taxpayer propping it up, Wales even less. Ireland would be taking on a massive financial burden absorbing NI. Secessionist movements talk big, but the practicalities are insurmountable.
I'll bet any money the UK rejoins the EU before there is the merest risk Scotland throws away it's financial pipeline from London.
You know, I never believe these confident assertions from anti-independence people that Scotland is receiving large subsidies from the English taxpayer.
I believe this is true.
This will very much depend on Labour's success with their decentralisation ideas.
If they manage to pull this off and find a way so it can't be easily reversed by the next Tory government then it might make enough people reconsider their support for independence movements.
If they fail, it will massively strengthen voices for separation.
Because unlike Brexit, such separations would actually "take back control".
The difficulty is that it will take at least two parliamentary cycles to draft and implement the necessary reforms.
At a time when the government has to deal with lots of other things.
While I disagree that Scotland could not pull it off, I agree that it is not likely to happen soon, if at all.
Irish reunification will almost certainly just be a matter of time
Anda, there's a common misconception that the UK is federation or confederation. We are not Germany. That's why it's more accurate to replace the term Scottish (and Welsh) independence with secession. Devolution as engineered under Tony Blair was deliberately designed that UK govt in Westminster maintained supremacy. Just check the recent spat with Sturgeon as Sunak employs Section 35 to step on her frankly crazy Self ID law. Devolution was not aimed in any way as to giving Scotland (or Wales) nation status. Indeed it can be argued that devolution is one of the worst results of the Blair government. Unlike most European nations, we are a unitary state, centrally governed. But devolution to the regions, and up to Brussels, is incongruous with our nation state.
All more devolution under a Starmer govt will do (extra law making powers to Scotland and Wales, tax raising powers to London and other major city majors, the North, South West etc) is exaggerate frustrations that can't be satisfied. Scotland is the very embodiment of this.
But certainly I can see Labour presiding over a fatal weakening in the Union that can only disadvantage our common cause. Not even to Brussels' liking, the EU has already said Scotland's debt ratio (well over 100%), lack of reserves (London bankrolls Edinburgh), inability to fund its own defence, basically it's total dependence on the UK, means Brussels will not accept an application until these areas are addressed. And as Sturgeon believes UK will keep Scotland in the £ Sterling post independence vote and allow free movement across Hadrian's Wall despite EU insisting on a hard border, Scots need to be aware of these facts rather than the fiction the SNP feed their people.
Indeed, Sturgeon is just as disreputable a nationalist/populist over Scottish secession as Tories/Johnson was over Brexit, yet gets a free ride in liberal circles.
Well, certainly Brussels will offer maximum support to Ireland to cope with the exhorbitant costs of reunification. Dublin is no Bonn.
Scotland? And Wales? Maybe when their taxpayers actually realise that they'll finally have to cover the costs of their public services once the English are out of their hair, and God forbid, contributing to EU membership, they'll realise secession is a pipe dream.