Is this guy right? Should Brexit be reversed?
The article links to some interesting YouGov statistics about current British opinion on Brexit. For example, a majority of Brits support rejoining the EU:
a majority of Brits support rejoining the EU
What a lot of those people actually want are the benefits of being in the EU without conforming to EU regulations, or accepting immigrants, or in general contributing much.
Kinda like how they had it before they left, but I don’t think they’re getting it now. So UK is bound to be stuck in this loop of wanting to rejoin, but not wanting to do anything to rejoin, for a long time.
You know that’s not going to happen, right?
If everything was going great they’d still make it hard to rejoin.
Brexit, like trump, just an astounding own goal.
If I was the EU, I would demand some pretty steep concessions. Like future Brexits have to be approved by a super majority of all EU voters.
Even if we take this poll at face value[0], and assume 56% want to rejoin the EU, would the EU want us to rejoin?
Opinions could easily swing 7% the other way after we did, especially if we didn’t get the same conditions as before. Then before you know it someone holds a referendum on leaving and we’re leaving again, it would be a complete mess.
If we should learn anything from the Brexit referendum, it’s that we shouldn’t be making long term decisions based on slim majorities.
[0] The fact that some of the respondents apparently supported rejoining the EU but not the customs union raises questions IMO, since you can’t join the EU without joining the CU as far as I know.
Broadly I think the EU would happily take us back for one simple reason - it would do further damage to any other Leave movements. Not only did we make an utter fuck-up of leaving in the first place, and not only is it turning out to not have been a good idea, but if we came back and said “please let us in again” whatever minimal energy is left in any other Leave campaign would be killed completely
would the EU want us to rejoin?
We have money, yes they would want us back. Just probably not on the same high footing we once had. Thanks, Cameron.
Yes that’s a fair point about trying to rejoin with a slim majority in favour. The majority could flip after some time, potentially.
Realistically I don’t think the UK is going to rejoin the EU for the next few years, but I think it could well become a more popular political idea over time, as the effects of Brexit become more apparent. People might start to feel it in their pockets more. So maybe the UK will end up rejoining in the next 20, 30, 40 years. Who knows though.