There is a whiff of 'I told you so' about some of the anti-Brexit commentators but I think what really upset Stanley is the fact that it's true or has a large dollop of truth in it.
When the president of the US has a meeting with 27 national leaders in the EU to shape future policy towards Russia and Britain is not even invited this is big news - for me anyway. It is undeniable that we cannot know the internal nuances of the European position as it develops. Who is strongly in favour of more action militarily or increased sanctions and who is not. That sort of thing. You can learn a lot from internal discussions to which we are no longer privy.
Ukraine is focusing minds on future European defence and there is no doubt that the EU will become more self sufficient, able to defend itself without UK or US help. Our defence spending is going down as EU defence spending increases. We are headed for more irrelevance and that is unarguable.
The NLAW (next generation lightweight anti-tank weapons) that we have sent to Ukraine are Swedish designed and built in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by the French company Thales. They are not even British. Our own Star-Streak system is only now being deployed and let us hope it's successful against Russian aircraft.
But back to Mr Stanley and his article : Will Britain ever be rid of Brexit Derangement Syndrome? This is sub titled: As their reaction to the recent Nato summit proves, the UK's arch-Remainers cannot move on from yesterday's hurt.
First of all, he has clearly been stung by comments as well he might. The images of Boris apparently alone among NATO leaders looking shifty with his hands in his pockets like a bloke who has just stepped out of the pub, wiping the froth from his lips with the back of his hand and trying to remember what he's supposed to be doing next, did not look good.
Stanley says:
"There is a point at which all this goes beyond a fair debate about policy and tips over into an unhealthy obsession that, like Morris Dancing and incest, needs to be marginalised by polite society. To still be ranting about Putin stealing a referendum in 2022, when he is, before our very eyes, trying to steal a whole country, is arrested development. It is also irrelevant. It is also boring. Accepting that there is still a Protocol to renegotiate and dividends to cash in (Boris said we could cut VAT on fuel bills, so why don’t we?), the vast majority of us would like to forget about that referendum and focus on more pressing issues, such as building a bomb shelter.
"So, let me tell the angry Remainers that the one thing Britain isn’t right now is irrelevant, that if Vlad ever presses that button, you can rest assured that we’ll be one of the first countries to be irradiated. Now, go and enjoy the sunshine!"
He cannot accept that Brexit was Putin's principal foreign policy objective and that he himself was one of the 'useful' idiots who helped him achieve it. And the idea that Putin has provably interfered in American, French and other elections but somehow kept out of Brexit is to me totally implausible. Also, the Russian money pumped into the Tory party was at best taken naively and is going to prove very awkward at the next election.
The Russian state owned broadcasters RT and Sputnik were enthusiastic supporters of UKIP, Farage and Brexit from the beginning, paying them handsomely to appear and promote any anti-EU policy they liked, the more anti the better. Why did Putin do that?
Stanley says remainers are displaying "an unhealthy obsession that, like Morris Dancing and incest, needs to be marginalised by polite society." It is as if we remainers are a small and shrinking band of flat earthers pursuing an impossible dream. Not so.
Unfortunately for him, the series of YouGov polls asking if, in hindsight Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU published its 205th poll a few days ago and it showed the gap between those saying we were RIGHT (38% and those think it was WRONG (49%) is now pretty steady at 11%
RIGHT has not been above 40% since August last year in 14 polls. On the other hand, WRONG has not been below 47%. The gap has been between 8-13% consistently. The people are not being fooled any longer.
This leads me to believe it is Stanley in the minority and not us. He is the Morris dancer in a digital world. There is no good Brexit news about to come to rescue him and somehow prove that he was right and we were wrong. In fact as far as you can see only bad news is coming down the track, with the OBR in the March Fiscal Outlook having found by the fourth quarter of 2021 total advanced economy trade volumes had rebounded to 3 per cent above their pre-pandemic levels while UK exports remained around 12 per cent below.
The OBR say, “UK therefore appears to have become a less trade intensive economy, with trade as a share of GDP falling 12 per cent since 2019, two and a half times more than in any other G7 country.”
I wonder what could have caused that?
If anyone is suffering from Brexit derangement syndrome, it's him.
