This week in Brexitland, July 20, 2023
The three latest reasons why Brexit is falling apart
CPTPP accession
This week, the UK joined CPTPP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Judging by the noise made by leading Brexiters in the media, you would have thought Britain had regained the Empire, including the United States of America, as opposed to just signed up to a mild trading arrangement with a bunch of countries that are very far away. A big claim they like to make around the UK joining CPTPP is that it spells the end of any chance of us rejoining the EU.
In fact, the opposite is more likely the case: CPTPP is the beginning of the end for Brexit. For one, it is the last piece of positive Brexit-related news anyone is likely to get for a long time, possibly forever. New checks on goods from the EU are being phased in from October, bringing with them higher prices, greater red tape, more protectionism and all of it clearly 100% Brexit related this time. Crowing about lower quotas on goods from Peru will seem pretty mild compared to the effects of that.
The idea that joining CPTPP is the end of any hope of rejoining the EU is ludicrous for several other reasons. One is that the Brexiters love going on about sovereignty, so isn’t it hypocritical for them to claim that, if the UK wanted to rejoin the EU in future, it would be unable to? Doesn’t that suggest that joining CPTPP is a forfeit of at least some British sovereignty? Also, it’s entirely possible that we could retain the benefits of CPTPP while being an EU member again, given it’s possible that the EU could sign some sort of a deal with CPTPP eventually. So, nothing there that suggests rejoining the EU has become impossible due to CPTPP. Also, the economic benefits of being in the European single market exponentially outweighs the benefits of CPTPP, as will become clear over the next decade.
The Brexiters have staked a lot on CPTPP saving Brexit. It will not.
The ever-increasing Tory meltdown
Today, there are three by-elections in seats that elected a Tory MP at the last general election, all of them by majorities of over 7,000. The governing party are expected to lose every single one of them in spite of this fact. Yet even if they manage to keep hold of one of these seats or even two, it will be small consolation for what is happening within the Conservative party at the moment anyhow.
There will be an interesting book to write about the journey of the Conservative party from 2005 to 2024. From accepting Cameron as the leader, seeming to give into modernity, only for Cameron and those around him to become scared of UKIP’s rise. They then felt they had to give up something to appease those on the harder right who were unhappy about the relatively liberal direction of the Tories under Cameron. From that simple fear, the party over time has have morphed into a version of UKIP that is more UKIP than the UKIP of 2010 had been. And this has led directly to them being 20 points in the national polls behind Labour.
Despite their poll numbers, most Tories continue to be convinced that a version of UKIP wearing blue rosettes can win a general election. They have allowed Keir Starmer to take up all of the space in the centre and centre-right the Tories have vacated and sort of become something that looks roughly like the Tories of 2010, only with all of the centre-left in the tent as well. No one wonder Labour hover around 50% in the polls.
What’s clear is that Brexit has rotted the Conservative party from its very heart, out to its limbs. Its brain is still convinced it can become healthy again without confronting the disease that is killing the body, even as the symptoms get worse. At some point, the centre-right will understand they backed a loser in Brexit and that it has set the stage for a decade, perhaps even more, of Labour government. While Labour suffered more due to Brexit before we actually left, it was the Tories in the end who took us out and who will be stuck with the consequences of that for a long time. If they spit out the poison now, they can begin the healing process. They aren’t there yet, obviously. More pain will follow for them as a result.
The polling for Brexit
Public attitudes to Britain leaving the European Union have sharpened over the last year, hardening into a feeling that it was a mistake, with the numbers inching up for rejoining the EU. This week marked a milestone - the first time a poll showed a solid majority for rejoining, not simply a majority being created out of those saying “I don’t know” or “wouldn’t vote” being taken out. A YouGov poll told us 51% of British voters would vote to rejoin in another referendum - against only 32% saying they would definitely vote to stay out. The numbers for those who think Brexit has worked are even starker: 81% of Britons think that Brexit has been a failure or at the very least has not been a success.
So there we have it: Brexit reaching its high water mark with nowhere left to go, the Tories being crushed under the weight of Brexit, and the polling on leaving the EU at all time lows. And yet it will take the Westminster bubble time to catch up. There lies the great irony of Brexit: it started out as a rebellion against Westminster’s cosy consensus and has ended up as a project mostly sustained by the Westminster bubble itself, with most of the British public rejecting it after the fact.
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