Nick Cohen, the political commentator who writes for The Guardian occasionally and is always very active on Twitter, made the same point that I did a few days ago, namely that we remainers must reconcile ourselves to being unable to rejoin the EU while the Conservative party remains a power in British politics. Like me, he doesn't think the EU27 would encourage an application under Article 49 when there is still a chance the country might later switch to the Tories, still an avowedly Eurosceptic party. His Tweet got quite a lot of reaction:
However badly they lose the Tories have a veto on attempts to remedy the Brexit disaster. The EU can't see the point of negotiating if one day the right can return and wreck any new deal. It's as if we are living under a curse https://t.co/Wwyuz73tnj
— Nick Cohen (@NickCohen4) September 3, 2024
The 'veto' he's talking about is not a formal one of course. But in the real world, whoever is Tory leader at the time could simply declare they would withdraw the application or campaign against membership in the event of a referendum.
I agree with Cohen, Brussels is not likely to want to begin a round of serious negotiations with a country that is not relatively stable politically and united in its future vision. I don't believe they would take us seriously.
What people forget is that in the 1960s there was a political consensus between all three main parties that the (then) EEC was going to become a great European project, it was growing fast and threatening to leave the UK behind. The Fourth Estate was also vociferous in its support, even the Mail and the Telegraph were enthusiastic about joining. The more General de Gaulle vetoed it, the more determined we were to force our way in.
There was opposition on the fringes of both parties but the leadership and membership of the Tories, Labour and the Liberals were generally supportive. Although the referendum in 1975 was pure politics and was only ever a ruse to get Wilson into power without splitting his party, it showed there was also massive public support, driven largely by the media.
Compare that to today. Neither the Tories nor Labour appear to want to resurrect the arguments and reverse Brexit and the media landscape is still largely Eurosceptic and right-wing. The Tory grassroots is packed with Brexiteers and parliament now has five MPs from Reform UK Ltd, the old UKIP with a new name. Things are quite different.
This was all sparked by a report in the i newspaper which said:
"Even if he wanted to drag the UK closer to Europe, Starmer’s hands are tied politically. As we’ve seen, any suggestion that he seeks to reverse parts of Brexit will be met with howls of disapproval from Leavers or impossibly high bars from Remainers. Brexit, unfortunately for the PM, is still so emotive it can derail even the most stable of leaders.
Officials in Brussels know this and have set their expectations accordingly. 'There is no appetite here to get back into negotiations with a partner that has been so unstable,' a Commission source tells the i. 'Starmer is in now, but for how long'?"
The responses to Cohen's tweet are mixed. Most agree but others think we are being too timid ("If you don't ask you don't get" said one) while some think the EU is more "mechanical" and would simply process an application from the UK as it would from anywhere else.
This is naive at best. For the UK to be allowed to rejoin would be a huge step for the EU and it would need unanimity among its members as well as a restoration of trust, a commodity which has been in short supply between the EU Commission and London for a decade or more.
You can imagine the outcry if Starmer came out and openly declared he was going to fire the starting gun on a new referendum and another divisive campaign. It would only reveal the country is still split - albeit now with a majority among the public for rejoining - and open all the old wounds for Brussels and the EU27 to see. It would simply reinforce the view in Brussels that the time was not right.
A prerequisite for any future hope of the UK rejoining is for the Tories to become Europhiles or for the LibDems to overtake them as the main opposition. The former would be helped by a split, with the pro-Brexit faction joining Reform UK under Nigel Farage, and that might be hastened if those who intend to 'march to rejoin' at the end of this month, instead joined the Tory party and started the long process of changing it from within, back to what it was under Heath, Thatcher and Major.
This would reverse what UKIP did in 2018 when Aaron Banks said he wanted to change the Conservative party using a so-called "Blue Wave," dedicated to recruiting former UKIP members - and others who wanted the hardest of hard Brexits - into the Tories.
The other option is to get behind Ed Davey and ensure the LibDems leapfrog the Tories in 2028-29 and become the main opposition. In that task, the Tories are assisting its enemies at the moment by the six candidates for leader being the weakest and most hopeless since the party was formed nearly 350 years ago. Perhaps the time has come to consign them to oblivion.
