Brexiteers are congratulating themselves on avoiding further European integration following the appointment of a finance minister and noises from the German coalition talks that a European investment budget is needed. Apart from the fact that we have been calling for better management of the Euro, something which will be of benefit to us, it demonstrates the problem we have in the UK.
If remain had won the referendum, these calls for more integration would have been met with fury by the Brextreme press and all the old arguments would have been brought out again.
There is a congenital abhorrence of European integration in this country which I really do not understand. It is rooted in xenophobia. The USA do not seem to have done too badly but somehow there is a belief that a similar process in Europe would be a disaster.
In the long sweep of history, perhaps Brexit will be seen as a good thing. A period outside might help to dispel the idea of Britain as a global trading power. It will prove, once and for all, that isolation is not an advantage in a globally integrated world. The time when nations could do as they please is long gone.
I personally see nothing wrong with a United States of Europe. If it means we become closer to our European friends this would unequivocally be a good thing.
And I see that the sacked former Education Secretary, Justine Greening (HERE), says unless Brexit is done well, young people might overturn it in future. I think I can tell her that young people WILL overturn Brexit, whatever happens. They will do it because Brexit is an irrational, xenophobic reaction to people who might be different to us and it will only make us poorer.
Many Brexiteers have claimed the EU is "moribund", anti-democratic and finished, Roger Bootle claimed in a long paper in 2012, which earned him £250,000, that the Euro was close to collapse and needed to be "reconfigured". I do not believe for a millisecond that either of these things will happen - ever. The EU will go on, it will be successful and finally, sooner or later, the UK will rejoin.
Young people don't feel the sense of British exceptionalism. It is the older generation, those like me who grew up at the end of empire, that cling to the idea that we always have to be treated as a special case. We will soon be looking across the Channel with envy at their living standards and British politicians will start to make plans under Article 49 to become a member once again, this time for good. It will be Brexit's real silver lining.
