Phil Hogan, the Irish EU Commissioner (HERE) delivered a speech in Brussels yesterday. He says the EU have accepted Brexit and he cannot see it being reversed for many years, "if ever". He also has some very wise words that our leaders would be wise to heed. He said:
“One thing we have already learned from Brexit is that the UK does not have a better idea. It does not have a replacement for the union as a way to improve the life quality of its citizens, its businesses and its standing in the world. The “stubborn facts” overshadow the rosy future painted by Brexiters, he adds.
“Stepping into global Britain is stepping into a difficult world. And there will be a huge gap between hope and experience. One hopes that [Theresa] May’s confidence is not misplaced.”
He says there will be price to pay for a deal with the US, warning that a rapid transatlantic deal would probably depend on American access to Britain’s agriculture and food markets, a factor rejected by the EU in its Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations.
The commissioner believes that once outside the EU, Britain will have medium-sized nation status in trade negotiations. It will regain sovereignty but with “reduced bargaining power, reduced security of its markets and supply chains” and friction and cost added to trade with neighbours in Europe.
And the much vaunted deals with Commonwealth countries would never match the value of the existing trade with the EU, he says.
Official data puts UK exports to the EU at six times the level of trade with the 10 Commonwealth countries tracked by the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
However, I think and hope that with regard to his thinking that Brexit will not be reversed for many years, if ever, he underestimates we remainers and the majority of the British people.
There is a hard core of anti-EU sentiment among the populace but I don't think this is more than 30% at most and it is falling. Another 30% are hard core remainers and the figure is rising. But in the middle is the majority who don't really have strong feelings either way. Some voted to leave based on the exaggerated claims (not to say lies) of the leave campaign, most of which are never likely to happen. Sooner or later there will be a majority to remain in the EU, of that there is no doubt and then one or more political parties will need to respond and offer another referendum. When that happens (as I firmly believe it will) the anti-EU campaigners will have little or no arguments.
What are they going to say? The economy went south and we all became poorer so let's carry on? Life got harder for those least able to manage but stick with it and one day things might get better?
Those arguments will have been neutralised by the facts and simply won't work again. It will be fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
