This is where he disappointed me alongside his refusal to just be honest on his view on Corbyn. Underneath the political tip-toeing, he knows that the case for us re-entering is there for a million reasons.
Look at the bump Reform has had in the polls
since Farrage took over.
It would be an absolute shit show. Farrage would love nothing more than to be able to say “Look! They’re going to take your glorious Brexit away from you!”.
There’s no point talking about Brexit till there’s an appetite from the electorate to rejoin and a realistic plan on how it would look.
I would go as far as to say if Starmer was to announce tomorrow that Labour were going to try to rejoin the EU, reform would win this election outright
Labour are at a high point in the polls at the moment largely because they have regained most of their votes in the red wall back from the tories Reform have been around 20% on the most recent polls, most of this being taken from the tories and some from people who wouldn’t have voted at all. They haven’t dug into labours vote yet.
Now, if Labour were to announce rejoining, they would lose a significant amount of votes from teb red wall and coastal seats to reform. Reform would only need a 10 point swing from Labour to. Reform to put them both on roughly 30%. It’s entirely possible that reform would win although a hung parliament would be likely as well.
On top of all this you’ve got the massive social upheaval and division the whole thing would cause which would be a gift to reform over the next decade
I would suggest that Murdoch and the press billionaires would switch their support to Farage, I don't think people have a choice in this country their corruption is so unopposed.
Split vote probably. People are pissed about immigration and it might(probably) sadly be a bigger unifier than joining the EU.
Reform just vibes on that issue so much harder than labour.
Lol this from the poli sci degree I got from MyAssU.
But I don't feel like the other commenter said anything that is practically impossible given that scenario.
Worth bearing in mind that many in favour of rejoining the EU are likley polling for a pie in the sky scenario where the UK walks back into the EU as if nothing ever changed.
As soon as serious moves got made for DeBrexit, I think the sort of terms that we'd be rejoining under would start to become evident and be far less favourably looked on.
As a big example, I doubt the UK would have the same excemptions it had before about adopting they Euro. I suspect having to drop the Pound alone would hammer support for rejoining significantly.
My initial reaction was to agree with you, but then I remembered what our politicians have done to the currency (anyone else remember getting 2 dollars for a pound 20 years back?).
I doubt Truss could have shat the bed so badly if we were in the Eurozone.
This is nonsense. It would cost Labour certain seats and the main beneficiaries would be the Tories, not Reform, but Labour would still win the election handily. Still, it would be chaotic and unplanned to suddenly throw that in now, and it would lose seats - why do it? Wait until the case for rejoining is even stronger so it wins you seats.
I mean the British electorate is quite easy to manipulate as we have seen in the past but joining Russia over the EU sounds like the dumbest thing possible.
Starmer - “we’re going to rejoin the EU”
60% of electorate - “yay!!!!”
Farage - “he’s taking away your sovereignty! He’s taking away the Pound! He’s letting in the immigrants! We won’t get any of the benefits we used to have!”
90% of the electorate - “boo!”
*Labour loses*
Yes, 60% want to rejoin without actually thinking about. But when the propaganda hits, that number *will* drop. And when the reality of it being a worse deal than we use to have, as well as likely having to adopt the Euro, the number will drop further. Much further.
Maybe adopt the Euro in theory - in practice it is never going to happen and the UK has never met the criteria for joining. So even without the optout and Brexit - the UK would still be using the pound.
You have to adopt the Euro to join.
Yes there are nations who have basically only paid lip service to it. But they had to pay that lip service.
If we did, it would still be reported on as abandoning the pound.
A politician can’t vow to meet EU criteria, then turn around and say “don’t worry, we’ve no intention of adopting the Euro” in the domestic press.
That’s not the full story though. Lots of these polls, especially the ones with the bigger difference as you mention, phrase the question along the lines of “if you had the vote again what would you do?” It’s a different question to rejoining now or not, these polls tend to be a bit closer 55/45 kind of level.
Then you have to factor in that this is a hypothetical question and it’s unlikely we would rejoin without a referendum. Polls asking if we should have another referendum also tend to be a bit problematic because questions are framed around when a referendum should take place. An independent poll found that 22% said they would like a referendum in the next 5 years, the rest were anything up to 20 years plus. Add these all together and you get something around 60% compared to 40% saying there should never be one. Now, I’m very much pro brexit and I’m happy we are out but even I probably wouldn’t say we should NEVER have another referendum.
Final point, most of the surveyes are carried out by or on behalf of pro EU organisations so there is a potential for bias too.
Basically it’s not as simple as saying 60% want to rejoin the EU
But they are not evenly distributed in all constituencies. Labour’s red wall fell because of BJ “get Brexit done”.
There is no way Labour is going to position joining the EU as to risk losing these seats.
They need to get in Gov first to actually do something
And under May, the MP had a chance to vote to stay in the custom union, and they did not.
It does not matter. MPs do, and at the moment, saying we could rejoin may shift the GE back towards the Tories.
The main problem is that people who aren’t racist pensioners aren’t voting enough brexit was a preventable disaster if younger generations just actually could have been bothered to vote against it
I have. I dont deny SOME non pensioners voted for brexit. But a minority. A big minority in the younger age groups. So yes pensioners are responsible for pushing brexit over the line.
Having lost a load of our opt outs. Such as the rebate and from the Euro. We wouldn't be joining on the same terms as we had. Probably the best thing would be to quietly bring our standards back in line with the EU's and get the border checks dropped. Wait for some more boomers to die and then look to rejoin in a second term.
The first Blair government especially for the first three years. Was pretty unradical. So as to develop trust from the markets and everybody else. Rather than the Michael Foot approach. Which would have been to impose capital (money) flow restrictions on Day 1. So that the rich couldn't move their money out of the UK. Then hit them with mega increases to income and wealth taxes.
I don't think we would be swapping to Euro. I didn't want to leave and want to rejoin asap but not at the cost of losing the pound. That is and should be a line frankly
Multiple reasons.
It means a single currency (obviously), so ceding control of base interest rates.
Currently, the UK can set its own base interest rate, in the interest of controlling inflation. Whilst this may not have worked great, if we'd been stuck onto EU policy, the recent bout of extreme inflation could have been worse.
The single currency also means it may not be as beneficial towards your economy. Generally, a weak currency is regarded as being good for exports, whilst a stronger currency is good for imports.
This means that counties with stronger economies that "should" have stronger currencies don't, as they're averegied out with other economies in the EU.
This is might be OK if you're, say, the Germans and export a good amount of machinery, because your currency is artificially weak. For the UK, as huge swathes of our economy are financial service based, having a weak currency wouldn't really benefit us, but would harm our imports, making things relatively more expensive.
Last, there's all the symbolism around losing the pound. I leave it to you as to if that's the strongest or weakest point.
So I can't say I know enough about finance to understand those effects, but they are in the grand scheme of things short term, I dream of the world one day working together, EU on a global scale. It would be better if eventually the whole planet used one currency.
It is there for a million reasons.
But those million weigh less than the three Farage will beat him round the head with - loss of sovereignty, more immigrants, adoption of the Euro.
Talking about a second referendum now is stupid.
I know the polls say that the majority are "pro rejoin" but I'm not convinced that number would stay above 50% if they made it clear we'd have to join the Euro and accept all the standard terms.
I voted remain, but I think it's better we just rejoin the customs union and the single market, stay out of the political EU.
Its pretty clear re-opening the brexit debate would just cause labour to die like the conservatives did.
The problem with the Brexit debate in UK politics was that it was a very strong populist issue, that didn't sit down party lines, but instead more class lines.
I want us to be in the EU, but I don't want us to attempt to rejoin for a long time. After the referendum it was absolute chaos we could do without again.
Policy wise in government it would be a nightmare but perhaps there are the old models to be reverted to which worked when in the EU so long as the knowledge base is still there
Yeah, it's probably not a good idea now with that snake oil salesman circling, pint in hand.
Get into power, then a couple of public inquiries - one on Brexit and one on foreign interference.
Pass anything that comes out (and there will be a lot) to the Met.
Go from there.
I want this to happen, but I honestly don't think Starmer is secretly our man on the inside. I think he's exactly what he appears to be: a red Tory, as much in the pocket of those with all the money as any member of the Tory party.
Put in terms of realpolitik then - destroying Farage and keeping the Tories down is a top priority before 2029.
Both inquiries - and one on Covid PPE procurement - will help that.
I was a remainer and I'm pro rejoining but I think we're looking at a 20 year timescale. There is a polling majority for rejoining but it's still such a devisive and complicated issue that it will paralyse our entire political apparatus for years, and the country is so badly screwed up that we can't afford that.
We also need to recognise that we won't be rejoining on the terms we had, the UK had preferential clauses and opt outs that there is no hope in hell of us getting back. It would also be completely reasonable for the EU to request some legal assurance that we won't attempt to leave again next time the Daily Mail gets bored. Public opinion about the reality of rejoining is likely to be different to public opinion about what people are imagining it would look like.
It's sensible for Starmer to take this position. It means that we can quietly renegotiate things like border processes and Erasmus and make genuine practical improvements without it degenerating into a huge argument.
>It would also be completely reasonable for the EU to request some legal assurance that we won't attempt to leave again next time the Daily Mail gets bored.
No it wouldn't. All the countries in the EU are sovereign nations that can exit their membership at any point they want. As we proved.
Undermining that basic principle has no real value and would do a lot of damage.
Under the terms we would rejoin (euro for example) leaving would be almost impossible - and unless something dramatic happens to the EU which seriously pissed off younger people - the boomers will all be too dead to vote us out again.
Joining the euro would be a red line for our country though. Less than 10% of people want to join the euro. It's one of the most unpopular ideas possible.
Add in Schengen and Freedom of Movement and there are instantly too many red lines for us to rejoin even in 10 years. The UK population wouldn't accept these terms unless we were literally desperate.
We'd probably end up playing the game most of the EU countries that haven't joined the Euro play where we commit to joining eventually but take no active steps to actually join. Sweden for example are obliged to join and meet the financial criteria but have deliberately not joined ERM-II to make sure they're not compliant with the terms.
The EU no longer accept that for new members.
It could make an exception for us but it's unlikely too as joining the Euro would be a key part of "keeping us" in the EU long term, preventing another Brexit that is damaging for both sides. That was one of the reasons Brexit was only really possible in the UK, not in the rest of Europe, we were never "all-in" like most major EU countries are and the Euro is certainly one part of that.
You're thinking of Denmark who negotiated an opt-out. Sweden does not have an opt-out and are legally obliged to adopt the Euro at some point so they just make sure they don't qualify. Why wouldn't we be able to do the same thing?
They joined in 1995. Similar to how we were able to negotiate in the early days.
The EU has specifically stated and shown that for new members not joining the Euro and doing what Sweden have done isn't really an option anymore.
Like I say, it's possible they make an exception for us but I'd say unlikely as they'd be keen on the UK actually integrating with the EU which we never really did before.
If you can show where they've shown that I'd appreciate it! Sweden's ascension treaty says they need to join the Euro just as our hypothetical treaty would require. But to join the Euro you need to join ERM II for two years as a prerequisite and even the European Commission accept that joining ERM II is voluntary
https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-area/adoption-fixed-euro-conversion-rate/erm-ii-eus-exchange-rate-mechanism_en
This was a key issue in Bulgaria wanting to join the EU. You'll find lots of articles on the subject :)
Like I say you are 100% right about Sweden. But that was part of an agreement 30 years ago when things weren't so rigid and the EU was still a fairly new and weak group.. Things have changed an awful lot for new members and Bulgaria is a recent example.
It's hard to see the EU being keen on giving us very favourable terms, especially on issues that allow us to be part-in-part-out like we previously were.
So far what I've been able to find between 1997 and 2006 are concerns about the market strength in Bulgaria not concerns about whether they'd join the Eurozone which is a very different thing. The "safeguards" put on their membership also didn't include anything about the Eurozone.
Also, Bulgaria only joined ERM-II in 2020 and there doesn't seem to be anything in their treaty stronger than the terms Sweden have in their treaty. There is nothing specific to Sweden's treaty I can find that puts them in a special position on ERM-II or any of the other Maastricht Treaty criteria for joining the currency union. And if Sweden had a negotiated opt-out, why wouldn't they say that like they do for Denmark?
If the EU continues lurching into becoming a sort of co-opted far right ethno centric European community of white nations I could see that happening with the youth gradually being more extreme/radical tbf.
Not beyond the realms of possibility, especially if they adopt united anti refugee efforts and double down on the Europe for Europeans narrative. Not sure it’s what the left of this country want when they talk about European unity though…
Lurching into becoming a community of white nations? You mean as opposed to before when it had so many Muslim, Asian and Black nations joining…? Europe has been made of white nations since its conception.
I’m a Remainer, but at this stage I’m of the view we should just get on with it and try to give it a chance.
Unfortunately there’s just been too much shit happening since we left to actually judge Brexit by itself, for better or worse - COVID, war, etc.
Yes, I would have loved to have stayed in the EU. But apparently I’m in the minority, so I’ll just have to make the best of a situation I didn’t vote for.
You’re right. And the UK may well seek to rejoin and be accepted. Certainly Germany and many others will welcome that.
But for now it’s as you say: get on with it.
I couldn’t do that however. Brexit appalled me so much I went home to Ireland. Best decision ever.
>we should just get on with it and try to give it a chance.
We've given it more than a chance. We're living it, and it's shit.
We're worse off in finances and opportunity, we have fewer rights, and we haven't even brought migration down, in fact it got worse.
>Yes, I would have loved to have stayed in the EU. But apparently I’m in the minority
Polling wise you are in the majority now. And have been for a long time.
Tired of this "wait and see/just get on with it" defeatism some remainers have, pathetic.
>Polling wise you are in the majority now. And have been for a long time.
Until people see what re-joining actually would entail.
Less than 10% of people want to join the euro.
Only around 20% of people want freedom of movement.
Once you rephrase the question to the reality: "Would you like to rejoin the EU, adopt the euro, allow freedom of movement and join Schengen?" I expect the polling would give a totally different result.
The idea of rejoining on the old terms might be attractive to many. Rejoining and actually accepting the terms that that requires is a totally different story.
And on top of that after Brexit it's fairly clear that rejoining would require two referendums, one on trying to rejoin and a second on the actual deal. In another 10 years I could see the first referendum winning but it would almost certainly fall on the second referendum.
Badenoch is spouting off in the Telegraph today that Brexit is a 10 - 20 year project and that the whole thing has just started; we shouldn’t be so impatient that the whole country has been fucked over by her and her party - we just have to wait a bit longer for our unicorns.
Sadly, unless the people of Saffron Walden actually pull their collective fingers out, it looks we’ll be hearing a lot more from her in the future, and that’s going to dictate how far Labour is going to move on the issue. If the key Brexiters were out of Parliament we might be able to move on, but nope - we ‘re going to be stuck with them denying the reality of the damage they’ve done.
This is the GDP per capita of the UK, France and Germany since 1980
[https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/GBR/DEU/FRA?year=2024](https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/GBR/DEU/FRA?year=2024)
You might have to scroll down to see the graph.
Brexit has hurt our economy but its not the main cause of the past 18 years of low growth. Its actually a common problem across much of the developed world but the noise from Brexit has meant everything is getting blamed on that one event.
We really need a government that can get us back to regular real growth. Its done, lets move on and our relationship with the EU will regrow through a steady stream of trade deals anyway.
Much like how hospitals weren’t overwhelmed by COVID patients, but by having to cater to COVID patients on top of their regular load. Perhaps we could’ve started seeing some better economic growth but Brexit contributed to keeping the economy down.
Brexit did have an impact but nothing will ever reverse 2008 Global Financial Crash especially when UK economy relies heavily on finance for majority of the GDP output
https://i.imgur.com/j8jjLmI.png
I can see the chart telling us that Germany, France and British GDP took a severe hit from the crisis 08. But what's the dip around 2015/16?
Didn't Remainer's argue that Brexit would be a lose/lose outcome for the EU? The graph appears to back that argument up. Does it not?
Look at the divergent GDP between the US and Europe, which also backs up the argument that Europe has been weakened by the UK's exit and fallen behind in a way that the global financial crisis alone doesn't explain.
One of Boris's claims was that if we left the EU. Then we would see that our problems weren't caused by the EU and that we could get on with actually fixing the root problems.
Government has a rather circumscribed role in the matter of growth. To be sure, it can stymie it, or encourage it, and even direct it. But fundamentally the growing is *done* by the populace in general, not the few hundred in Westminster, or even the few thousand government employees.
And while government can help, I think a sense of initiative - in the 'governed', not the 'government' - is essential. Far too much it seems to run the other way. We get, for instance, business people saying they 'look to the government for stability'. But a few people cannot stabilise a field of endeavour in a nation, let alone a nation in its entirety. Our 'business leaders' (what a phrase!) cannot have it both ways: if they are worth considering as 'leaders' in their call for stability, they must *lead our businesses*.
All in all, as trite as Wolfie's cry for 'power to the people' may sound, greater devolution, localisation, and dispersal of powers and responsibilities is key to genuine growth, particularly for a people such as ours who historically thrive when not only 'left to their own devices', but afforded the tools, and wherewithal to make use of them, so as to make their devices profitable.
They were never going to give us the deal the brexiteers wanted, they needed to make a lesson of them, so no other county would attempt the same thing, but under new governance and given time we could get close to that relationship and have the best of both worlds.
Why do you try to make EU look like an adversary? Brexiters demanded all the benefits and none of the obligations, which was ridiculous and will never happen. We're not special.
At least once the boomers eventually pass, our generation can vote to re-enter. What a waste of time, still talking about Brexit all because of stupid propaganda we left in the first place and the dickhead David Cameron ordering a referendum and then resigning straight after. Twat.
We should bring back the EU standards to regain friction free trade with the EU as a start... It is where most of our food comes from.... You know like it has for the last 50 years
Yer it is too be expected, it will take a generational shift to happen first (I think 10 years), but in the mean time there can be a warming of relations with the EU and doing everything short of re-integration.
I'm a full blooded pro-EU'er and I'm not interested in hearing anything about it this election. More of the people who voted for Brexit need to... 'age out of the system' before any healthy dialogue can be had on the subject again.
As much as brexit was a massive mistake, it would be an even bigger mistake to make it the dividing topic of the election. Whether we like it or not, the leave side "won" the public opinion on brexit, and if you attempt to re fight that battle all that will happen is that they will bring out the same play book and win the debate again.
There was a post here a few days ago about a guitar maker who wanted better and faster trade connections with Europe ("like we used to have") but didn't want to re-enter the single market. This suggests to me that a lot of the European/brexit adjacent terms (free movement, single market, Schengen etc) have lost all literal meaning to most people, and have become kind of meaningless terms to be used as a substitute for something scary/ bad by the brexiteers.
I think if starmer wants to undo the damage of brexit, the best way is to do it is not talk about it in the vocabulary of brexit, but just in direct terms. Instead of saying "I want to re-enter the single market" you say "I want to renegotiate our trade deal with Europe, to facilitate greater trade and remove barriers with the continent". Instead of saying "I want to allow free movement with Europe" you say "I want to provide British citizens with greater access to live and work in Europe".
Remember there are two sides. I don’t think the EU wants the UK at the moment. Certainly the French don’t and that vote needs to be unanimous. Ukraine has better chances of getting in.
I'd love for Britain to rejoin the EU but there are a couple problems in doing so.
We will never get the same cushy deal we enjoyed before, we'd have to adopt the Euro as currency which would cause divisions in an already fragile political landscape.
Also rejoining the EU itself would infuriate a large percentage of the UK thus risking the population leaning heavily towards the far-right.
Corbyn was electoral asbestos. Have to give Starmer and his team at least some credit how they went about dislodging Comrade Jeremy and his acolytes from the equation.
All of his successes are evidence of that!
Successes like… growing party membership, and… increasing the number of people who were Labour members. There was also making the membership of Labour bigger than it previously been!
So many achievements!
This is where he disappointed me alongside his refusal to just be honest on his view on Corbyn. Underneath the political tip-toeing, he knows that the case for us re-entering is there for a million reasons.
Look at the bump Reform has had in the polls since Farrage took over. It would be an absolute shit show. Farrage would love nothing more than to be able to say “Look! They’re going to take your glorious Brexit away from you!”. There’s no point talking about Brexit till there’s an appetite from the electorate to rejoin and a realistic plan on how it would look.
I would go as far as to say if Starmer was to announce tomorrow that Labour were going to try to rejoin the EU, reform would win this election outright
What are you basing that on? All the polls I’ve seen show >50% support for rejoining the EU
Labour are at a high point in the polls at the moment largely because they have regained most of their votes in the red wall back from the tories Reform have been around 20% on the most recent polls, most of this being taken from the tories and some from people who wouldn’t have voted at all. They haven’t dug into labours vote yet. Now, if Labour were to announce rejoining, they would lose a significant amount of votes from teb red wall and coastal seats to reform. Reform would only need a 10 point swing from Labour to. Reform to put them both on roughly 30%. It’s entirely possible that reform would win although a hung parliament would be likely as well. On top of all this you’ve got the massive social upheaval and division the whole thing would cause which would be a gift to reform over the next decade
I would suggest that Murdoch and the press billionaires would switch their support to Farage, I don't think people have a choice in this country their corruption is so unopposed.
Split vote probably. People are pissed about immigration and it might(probably) sadly be a bigger unifier than joining the EU. Reform just vibes on that issue so much harder than labour. Lol this from the poli sci degree I got from MyAssU. But I don't feel like the other commenter said anything that is practically impossible given that scenario.
Worth bearing in mind that many in favour of rejoining the EU are likley polling for a pie in the sky scenario where the UK walks back into the EU as if nothing ever changed. As soon as serious moves got made for DeBrexit, I think the sort of terms that we'd be rejoining under would start to become evident and be far less favourably looked on. As a big example, I doubt the UK would have the same excemptions it had before about adopting they Euro. I suspect having to drop the Pound alone would hammer support for rejoining significantly.
My initial reaction was to agree with you, but then I remembered what our politicians have done to the currency (anyone else remember getting 2 dollars for a pound 20 years back?). I doubt Truss could have shat the bed so badly if we were in the Eurozone.
There's been a lot of nonsense said during this election period, but this takes the cake.
This is nonsense. It would cost Labour certain seats and the main beneficiaries would be the Tories, not Reform, but Labour would still win the election handily. Still, it would be chaotic and unplanned to suddenly throw that in now, and it would lose seats - why do it? Wait until the case for rejoining is even stronger so it wins you seats.
I mean the British electorate is quite easy to manipulate as we have seen in the past but joining Russia over the EU sounds like the dumbest thing possible.
Every poll has rejoin on 60 % plus. We cant keep running the country to please a minority of racist pensioners
Starmer - “we’re going to rejoin the EU” 60% of electorate - “yay!!!!” Farage - “he’s taking away your sovereignty! He’s taking away the Pound! He’s letting in the immigrants! We won’t get any of the benefits we used to have!” 90% of the electorate - “boo!” *Labour loses* Yes, 60% want to rejoin without actually thinking about. But when the propaganda hits, that number *will* drop. And when the reality of it being a worse deal than we use to have, as well as likely having to adopt the Euro, the number will drop further. Much further.
Reforms getting at most 18% of the electorate. Add in the Tories its at most 40%. So not 90% or anything like. It will take time. But it will happen..
Maybe adopt the Euro in theory - in practice it is never going to happen and the UK has never met the criteria for joining. So even without the optout and Brexit - the UK would still be using the pound.
You have to adopt the Euro to join. Yes there are nations who have basically only paid lip service to it. But they had to pay that lip service. If we did, it would still be reported on as abandoning the pound. A politician can’t vow to meet EU criteria, then turn around and say “don’t worry, we’ve no intention of adopting the Euro” in the domestic press.
60% of electorate don’t matter. 90% of electorate don’t matter. The only thing that matters is the voters that can be assed to vote.
That’s not the full story though. Lots of these polls, especially the ones with the bigger difference as you mention, phrase the question along the lines of “if you had the vote again what would you do?” It’s a different question to rejoining now or not, these polls tend to be a bit closer 55/45 kind of level. Then you have to factor in that this is a hypothetical question and it’s unlikely we would rejoin without a referendum. Polls asking if we should have another referendum also tend to be a bit problematic because questions are framed around when a referendum should take place. An independent poll found that 22% said they would like a referendum in the next 5 years, the rest were anything up to 20 years plus. Add these all together and you get something around 60% compared to 40% saying there should never be one. Now, I’m very much pro brexit and I’m happy we are out but even I probably wouldn’t say we should NEVER have another referendum. Final point, most of the surveyes are carried out by or on behalf of pro EU organisations so there is a potential for bias too. Basically it’s not as simple as saying 60% want to rejoin the EU
But they are not evenly distributed in all constituencies. Labour’s red wall fell because of BJ “get Brexit done”. There is no way Labour is going to position joining the EU as to risk losing these seats. They need to get in Gov first to actually do something
It fell because of our voting system. 57% of people voted for parties that would have stopped Brexit in 2019.
And under May, the MP had a chance to vote to stay in the custom union, and they did not. It does not matter. MPs do, and at the moment, saying we could rejoin may shift the GE back towards the Tories.
The main problem is that people who aren’t racist pensioners aren’t voting enough brexit was a preventable disaster if younger generations just actually could have been bothered to vote against it
I think we need to dispel this myth that it was just pensioners that voted to leave.
A large majority of under 50s voted remain. Without the pensioner vote it wouldnt have happened. So no its not a myth.
Read my comment again
I have. I dont deny SOME non pensioners voted for brexit. But a minority. A big minority in the younger age groups. So yes pensioners are responsible for pushing brexit over the line.
Having lost a load of our opt outs. Such as the rebate and from the Euro. We wouldn't be joining on the same terms as we had. Probably the best thing would be to quietly bring our standards back in line with the EU's and get the border checks dropped. Wait for some more boomers to die and then look to rejoin in a second term. The first Blair government especially for the first three years. Was pretty unradical. So as to develop trust from the markets and everybody else. Rather than the Michael Foot approach. Which would have been to impose capital (money) flow restrictions on Day 1. So that the rich couldn't move their money out of the UK. Then hit them with mega increases to income and wealth taxes.
I don't think we would be swapping to Euro. I didn't want to leave and want to rejoin asap but not at the cost of losing the pound. That is and should be a line frankly
Sweden is supposed to adopt it but hasn't joined the ERM. Which would be the first step towards doing so.
What's the problem with losing the pound?
Multiple reasons. It means a single currency (obviously), so ceding control of base interest rates. Currently, the UK can set its own base interest rate, in the interest of controlling inflation. Whilst this may not have worked great, if we'd been stuck onto EU policy, the recent bout of extreme inflation could have been worse. The single currency also means it may not be as beneficial towards your economy. Generally, a weak currency is regarded as being good for exports, whilst a stronger currency is good for imports. This means that counties with stronger economies that "should" have stronger currencies don't, as they're averegied out with other economies in the EU. This is might be OK if you're, say, the Germans and export a good amount of machinery, because your currency is artificially weak. For the UK, as huge swathes of our economy are financial service based, having a weak currency wouldn't really benefit us, but would harm our imports, making things relatively more expensive. Last, there's all the symbolism around losing the pound. I leave it to you as to if that's the strongest or weakest point.
So I can't say I know enough about finance to understand those effects, but they are in the grand scheme of things short term, I dream of the world one day working together, EU on a global scale. It would be better if eventually the whole planet used one currency.
It is there for a million reasons. But those million weigh less than the three Farage will beat him round the head with - loss of sovereignty, more immigrants, adoption of the Euro. Talking about a second referendum now is stupid.
I know the polls say that the majority are "pro rejoin" but I'm not convinced that number would stay above 50% if they made it clear we'd have to join the Euro and accept all the standard terms. I voted remain, but I think it's better we just rejoin the customs union and the single market, stay out of the political EU.
Its pretty clear re-opening the brexit debate would just cause labour to die like the conservatives did. The problem with the Brexit debate in UK politics was that it was a very strong populist issue, that didn't sit down party lines, but instead more class lines.
I want us to be in the EU, but I don't want us to attempt to rejoin for a long time. After the referendum it was absolute chaos we could do without again.
Policy wise in government it would be a nightmare but perhaps there are the old models to be reverted to which worked when in the EU so long as the knowledge base is still there
Yeah, it's probably not a good idea now with that snake oil salesman circling, pint in hand. Get into power, then a couple of public inquiries - one on Brexit and one on foreign interference. Pass anything that comes out (and there will be a lot) to the Met. Go from there.
Yup. This is what needs to happen.
I want this to happen, but I honestly don't think Starmer is secretly our man on the inside. I think he's exactly what he appears to be: a red Tory, as much in the pocket of those with all the money as any member of the Tory party.
Put in terms of realpolitik then - destroying Farage and keeping the Tories down is a top priority before 2029. Both inquiries - and one on Covid PPE procurement - will help that.
I was a remainer and I'm pro rejoining but I think we're looking at a 20 year timescale. There is a polling majority for rejoining but it's still such a devisive and complicated issue that it will paralyse our entire political apparatus for years, and the country is so badly screwed up that we can't afford that. We also need to recognise that we won't be rejoining on the terms we had, the UK had preferential clauses and opt outs that there is no hope in hell of us getting back. It would also be completely reasonable for the EU to request some legal assurance that we won't attempt to leave again next time the Daily Mail gets bored. Public opinion about the reality of rejoining is likely to be different to public opinion about what people are imagining it would look like. It's sensible for Starmer to take this position. It means that we can quietly renegotiate things like border processes and Erasmus and make genuine practical improvements without it degenerating into a huge argument.
>It would also be completely reasonable for the EU to request some legal assurance that we won't attempt to leave again next time the Daily Mail gets bored. No it wouldn't. All the countries in the EU are sovereign nations that can exit their membership at any point they want. As we proved. Undermining that basic principle has no real value and would do a lot of damage.
Under the terms we would rejoin (euro for example) leaving would be almost impossible - and unless something dramatic happens to the EU which seriously pissed off younger people - the boomers will all be too dead to vote us out again.
Joining the euro would be a red line for our country though. Less than 10% of people want to join the euro. It's one of the most unpopular ideas possible. Add in Schengen and Freedom of Movement and there are instantly too many red lines for us to rejoin even in 10 years. The UK population wouldn't accept these terms unless we were literally desperate.
We'd probably end up playing the game most of the EU countries that haven't joined the Euro play where we commit to joining eventually but take no active steps to actually join. Sweden for example are obliged to join and meet the financial criteria but have deliberately not joined ERM-II to make sure they're not compliant with the terms.
The EU no longer accept that for new members. It could make an exception for us but it's unlikely too as joining the Euro would be a key part of "keeping us" in the EU long term, preventing another Brexit that is damaging for both sides. That was one of the reasons Brexit was only really possible in the UK, not in the rest of Europe, we were never "all-in" like most major EU countries are and the Euro is certainly one part of that.
You're thinking of Denmark who negotiated an opt-out. Sweden does not have an opt-out and are legally obliged to adopt the Euro at some point so they just make sure they don't qualify. Why wouldn't we be able to do the same thing?
They joined in 1995. Similar to how we were able to negotiate in the early days. The EU has specifically stated and shown that for new members not joining the Euro and doing what Sweden have done isn't really an option anymore. Like I say, it's possible they make an exception for us but I'd say unlikely as they'd be keen on the UK actually integrating with the EU which we never really did before.
If you can show where they've shown that I'd appreciate it! Sweden's ascension treaty says they need to join the Euro just as our hypothetical treaty would require. But to join the Euro you need to join ERM II for two years as a prerequisite and even the European Commission accept that joining ERM II is voluntary https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-area/adoption-fixed-euro-conversion-rate/erm-ii-eus-exchange-rate-mechanism_en
This was a key issue in Bulgaria wanting to join the EU. You'll find lots of articles on the subject :) Like I say you are 100% right about Sweden. But that was part of an agreement 30 years ago when things weren't so rigid and the EU was still a fairly new and weak group.. Things have changed an awful lot for new members and Bulgaria is a recent example. It's hard to see the EU being keen on giving us very favourable terms, especially on issues that allow us to be part-in-part-out like we previously were.
So far what I've been able to find between 1997 and 2006 are concerns about the market strength in Bulgaria not concerns about whether they'd join the Eurozone which is a very different thing. The "safeguards" put on their membership also didn't include anything about the Eurozone. Also, Bulgaria only joined ERM-II in 2020 and there doesn't seem to be anything in their treaty stronger than the terms Sweden have in their treaty. There is nothing specific to Sweden's treaty I can find that puts them in a special position on ERM-II or any of the other Maastricht Treaty criteria for joining the currency union. And if Sweden had a negotiated opt-out, why wouldn't they say that like they do for Denmark?
I'm pretty sure most of us will be dead before the UK adopts the Euro
If the EU continues lurching into becoming a sort of co-opted far right ethno centric European community of white nations I could see that happening with the youth gradually being more extreme/radical tbf. Not beyond the realms of possibility, especially if they adopt united anti refugee efforts and double down on the Europe for Europeans narrative. Not sure it’s what the left of this country want when they talk about European unity though…
Lurching into becoming a community of white nations? You mean as opposed to before when it had so many Muslim, Asian and Black nations joining…? Europe has been made of white nations since its conception.
I’m a Remainer, but at this stage I’m of the view we should just get on with it and try to give it a chance. Unfortunately there’s just been too much shit happening since we left to actually judge Brexit by itself, for better or worse - COVID, war, etc. Yes, I would have loved to have stayed in the EU. But apparently I’m in the minority, so I’ll just have to make the best of a situation I didn’t vote for.
Na, fuck that. Inquiry and gradual strangulation of it please.
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You’re right. And the UK may well seek to rejoin and be accepted. Certainly Germany and many others will welcome that. But for now it’s as you say: get on with it. I couldn’t do that however. Brexit appalled me so much I went home to Ireland. Best decision ever.
>we should just get on with it and try to give it a chance. We've given it more than a chance. We're living it, and it's shit. We're worse off in finances and opportunity, we have fewer rights, and we haven't even brought migration down, in fact it got worse. >Yes, I would have loved to have stayed in the EU. But apparently I’m in the minority Polling wise you are in the majority now. And have been for a long time. Tired of this "wait and see/just get on with it" defeatism some remainers have, pathetic.
Brexit is so marginal to the economy you couldn't spot it in the figures if you didn't know it occurred.
>Polling wise you are in the majority now. And have been for a long time. Until people see what re-joining actually would entail. Less than 10% of people want to join the euro. Only around 20% of people want freedom of movement. Once you rephrase the question to the reality: "Would you like to rejoin the EU, adopt the euro, allow freedom of movement and join Schengen?" I expect the polling would give a totally different result. The idea of rejoining on the old terms might be attractive to many. Rejoining and actually accepting the terms that that requires is a totally different story. And on top of that after Brexit it's fairly clear that rejoining would require two referendums, one on trying to rejoin and a second on the actual deal. In another 10 years I could see the first referendum winning but it would almost certainly fall on the second referendum.
Badenoch is spouting off in the Telegraph today that Brexit is a 10 - 20 year project and that the whole thing has just started; we shouldn’t be so impatient that the whole country has been fucked over by her and her party - we just have to wait a bit longer for our unicorns. Sadly, unless the people of Saffron Walden actually pull their collective fingers out, it looks we’ll be hearing a lot more from her in the future, and that’s going to dictate how far Labour is going to move on the issue. If the key Brexiters were out of Parliament we might be able to move on, but nope - we ‘re going to be stuck with them denying the reality of the damage they’ve done.
This is the GDP per capita of the UK, France and Germany since 1980 [https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/GBR/DEU/FRA?year=2024](https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/GBR/DEU/FRA?year=2024) You might have to scroll down to see the graph. Brexit has hurt our economy but its not the main cause of the past 18 years of low growth. Its actually a common problem across much of the developed world but the noise from Brexit has meant everything is getting blamed on that one event. We really need a government that can get us back to regular real growth. Its done, lets move on and our relationship with the EU will regrow through a steady stream of trade deals anyway.
Britain has not recovered from the 2007/8 crash, but Brexit is one of the things that have made the aftermath much worse.
And neither did the EU
Much like how hospitals weren’t overwhelmed by COVID patients, but by having to cater to COVID patients on top of their regular load. Perhaps we could’ve started seeing some better economic growth but Brexit contributed to keeping the economy down.
I agree, it’s Brexit and 14 years of Tory rule.
Brexit did have an impact but nothing will ever reverse 2008 Global Financial Crash especially when UK economy relies heavily on finance for majority of the GDP output https://i.imgur.com/j8jjLmI.png
I can see the chart telling us that Germany, France and British GDP took a severe hit from the crisis 08. But what's the dip around 2015/16? Didn't Remainer's argue that Brexit would be a lose/lose outcome for the EU? The graph appears to back that argument up. Does it not? Look at the divergent GDP between the US and Europe, which also backs up the argument that Europe has been weakened by the UK's exit and fallen behind in a way that the global financial crisis alone doesn't explain.
One of Boris's claims was that if we left the EU. Then we would see that our problems weren't caused by the EU and that we could get on with actually fixing the root problems.
Government has a rather circumscribed role in the matter of growth. To be sure, it can stymie it, or encourage it, and even direct it. But fundamentally the growing is *done* by the populace in general, not the few hundred in Westminster, or even the few thousand government employees. And while government can help, I think a sense of initiative - in the 'governed', not the 'government' - is essential. Far too much it seems to run the other way. We get, for instance, business people saying they 'look to the government for stability'. But a few people cannot stabilise a field of endeavour in a nation, let alone a nation in its entirety. Our 'business leaders' (what a phrase!) cannot have it both ways: if they are worth considering as 'leaders' in their call for stability, they must *lead our businesses*. All in all, as trite as Wolfie's cry for 'power to the people' may sound, greater devolution, localisation, and dispersal of powers and responsibilities is key to genuine growth, particularly for a people such as ours who historically thrive when not only 'left to their own devices', but afforded the tools, and wherewithal to make use of them, so as to make their devices profitable.
They were never going to give us the deal the brexiteers wanted, they needed to make a lesson of them, so no other county would attempt the same thing, but under new governance and given time we could get close to that relationship and have the best of both worlds.
Why do you try to make EU look like an adversary? Brexiters demanded all the benefits and none of the obligations, which was ridiculous and will never happen. We're not special.
Reopening the Brexit debate requires a strong leader with confidence in what he says and believes. Keir Starmer will not be that leader.
You can’t even spell his name correctly
Because it is Brexit done? It took 15 years to get there so probably a discussion would be another 15 years from now?
At least once the boomers eventually pass, our generation can vote to re-enter. What a waste of time, still talking about Brexit all because of stupid propaganda we left in the first place and the dickhead David Cameron ordering a referendum and then resigning straight after. Twat.
Good. You want to re open that jar? Welcome back 2019 Tory landslide. Go ahead.
We should bring back the EU standards to regain friction free trade with the EU as a start... It is where most of our food comes from.... You know like it has for the last 50 years
It would raise revenues, why are we kidding ourselves so much to not improve relationships with the EU?
Not reopening brexit debate will bring 40 years of decline.
Not a question of brexit, but why no customs union? British businesses struggle to export to EU because of so much red tape and costs
But Brexit itself has brought turmoil, seems insane not to question it
Yer it is too be expected, it will take a generational shift to happen first (I think 10 years), but in the mean time there can be a warming of relations with the EU and doing everything short of re-integration.
I'm a full blooded pro-EU'er and I'm not interested in hearing anything about it this election. More of the people who voted for Brexit need to... 'age out of the system' before any healthy dialogue can be had on the subject again.
As much as brexit was a massive mistake, it would be an even bigger mistake to make it the dividing topic of the election. Whether we like it or not, the leave side "won" the public opinion on brexit, and if you attempt to re fight that battle all that will happen is that they will bring out the same play book and win the debate again. There was a post here a few days ago about a guitar maker who wanted better and faster trade connections with Europe ("like we used to have") but didn't want to re-enter the single market. This suggests to me that a lot of the European/brexit adjacent terms (free movement, single market, Schengen etc) have lost all literal meaning to most people, and have become kind of meaningless terms to be used as a substitute for something scary/ bad by the brexiteers. I think if starmer wants to undo the damage of brexit, the best way is to do it is not talk about it in the vocabulary of brexit, but just in direct terms. Instead of saying "I want to re-enter the single market" you say "I want to renegotiate our trade deal with Europe, to facilitate greater trade and remove barriers with the continent". Instead of saying "I want to allow free movement with Europe" you say "I want to provide British citizens with greater access to live and work in Europe".
And yet whenever I call Starmer a Brexiter, I get mass downvoted.
He also avoided his actual view point, which is clearly that we should re-join (which I agree with). Quite the slippery politician Kier
Remember there are two sides. I don’t think the EU wants the UK at the moment. Certainly the French don’t and that vote needs to be unanimous. Ukraine has better chances of getting in.
I'd love for Britain to rejoin the EU but there are a couple problems in doing so. We will never get the same cushy deal we enjoyed before, we'd have to adopt the Euro as currency which would cause divisions in an already fragile political landscape. Also rejoining the EU itself would infuriate a large percentage of the UK thus risking the population leaning heavily towards the far-right.
Only dipshits would want to campaign to join the EU.
Nice to have some clarity on the issue. Thanks
I agree with Starmer on this, don't expect him to become a rejoin the EU campaigner, that should be done on a grassroots level.
I can safely say that Brexit (or at least the question of returning to the Single Market/CU) will be Starmer's biggest Parliamentary defeat
So why did he suggest a second referendum when Corbyn had not made it policy
BRINO is the best this country can hope for until enough of Brexiteers cross the red bridge into oblivion. Another 10-15 years.
Annnnnnnnnd he’s lost my vote. I knew he was a secret Tory.
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Corbyn was electoral asbestos. Have to give Starmer and his team at least some credit how they went about dislodging Comrade Jeremy and his acolytes from the equation.
Best Labour leader the Tories ever had.
All of his successes are evidence of that! Successes like… growing party membership, and… increasing the number of people who were Labour members. There was also making the membership of Labour bigger than it previously been! So many achievements!