Last Friday, two programmes on the BBC showed without much doubt how public opinion on Brexit is changing.
After Fiona Bruce on Thursday's Question Time couldn't find anyone who had seen a benefit of Brexit, we had Any Questions on Radio 4 where a Tory MP, James Cartlidge, tried to argue the UK's economic problems were a result of Covid and the war in Ukraine until the SNP's John Nicolson interjected to add Brexit. The audience broke into loud spontaneous applause, cheers, and whistling:
Cartlidge responded by saying the country voted for Brexit, which also got some applause but much less. Nicolson then says the nation has a right to change its mind, and again more applause.
Later, on Friday night's BBC Television we had the leaders' debate with Stephen Flynn of the SNP declaring Brexit had been "a disaster" and voters should ignore the "snake oil salesman who had delivered it" - clearly meaning Farage, a few feet away from him on the stage:
The word 'disaster' triggered what seemed to me to get the biggest round of applause of the night.
Normally, this sort of thing wouldn't mean very much but the BBC goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure their audiences are balanced and represent the political make-up of the electorate based on the last election results. The audiences would have had a majority of Conservative voters and probably a balance of leave/remain voters from 2016.
We got a pretty good idea of the nation's current opinion on the subject of Brexit something the two main parties are refusing to discuss at all. None of this is a surprise. It simply reinforces the latest opinion poll from Omnisis/WeThink that shows a majority are in favour of rejoining the EU by 62% to 38%, a near supermajority.
The Tories might just have made a better fist of Brexit under Mrs May but they owe their fate to Boris Johnson. Rory Stewart, the former Tory MP, minister thinks the party’s demise began with his election as leader in 2019. He says, rightly in my opinion, that Boris Johnson was a “comical, dishonest buffoon.”
But he not only set the Tories onto their present downward spiral he is also the reason Brexit is as unpopular as it is. The hard Brexit he allowed Frost to negotiate has had a profound impact on just about every industry and every business. It has meant sluggish growth, higher taxes, and food prices, delays, job losses, paperwork, and red tape with no corresponding benefits.
I am not sure now if anything we did over the last seven or eight years has had the slightest impact on what people think about Brexit, apart from making ourselves feel a bit better.. It was always going to be difficult if not impossible for men like Davis or Johnson to show Brexit in a good light. Reality has simply caught up with them.
Brexiteers have been in government since July 2016 and certainly in charge since July 2019 when BoJo entered Downing Street and blaming remainers for their project's failure is looking pretty desperate.
But all that is about to change on 5 July when remainers will have the whip hand. We'll see what they do with it.
