There seems to be some naive thinking among Remainers in the UK, that troubles at the border, red tape and tied up fishing boats will lead the UK back into the Single Market, if not the EU itself. It Won’t.
It takes me back to a speech Boris Johnson gave in 2019 when he told a Tory conference audience “It cannot be stressed too much that this is not an anti-European party and this is not an anti-European country. We love Europe. We are European.” The declaration was met with complete, stony, silence leaving the PM to add rather pathetically “well, I love Europe anyway.”
I remember seeing it at the time and realising what it meant, the UKIP takeover of the Conservative Party was complete. Its members didn’t just want to leave the EU, they will continue to hate it and all its works. The PM clearly understood that as well, hence the lousy but ideologically pure Brexit deal; he gave the audience what they wanted, ahead of the national interest. That won’t change, any pain caused by Brexit will be the EU’s fault, every problem another reason why the UK was right to leave, every inch of red tape the revenge of a jealous Brussels or in the end, a price worth paying for sovereignty. Attitudes will harden, the relationship with the EU will get worse, not better
https://jonty.substack.com/