What is there left to say about Brexit? It feels similar to Covid. Though Brexit has been known about for far longer, Covid has come to dominate our national and International conversation over the last 15 months to such an extent that any original thinking feels completely impossible. All the books have been written about both, even though, of course, the numerous public inquiries will ensure plenty more voices are bought to the forefront of public discussion.
However, I thought it would be worth marking the day of the referendum itself, partially for selfish reasons. How so? It was the vote for Brexit and immediate chaos thereafter, that was the catalyst for me starting this blog. There was just so much to write about that, one morning at 2am, I began this very blog. Though I don’t write here as frequently as I used to, partially due to having other outlets where my work is published, I’m still so pleased to actually have a website that I have continually updated, rather than began and quickly given up on. And while many of my political predictions have subsequently been proven incorrect, the belief that politics had erupted, and wasn’t going to quieten down any time soon, was one where I feel wholly vindicated. The summer of 2016 happened so long ago that it is easy to forget just what a crazy, volatile period of time it was. There was something in the air, an atmosphere of rebellion and the established order being toppled. Think about it: a proposition rejected by the vast majority of MPs, experts and figures of the mainstream political establishment had just been endorsed by a small, but decisive, proportion of the electorate. That just didn’t happen in the UK (mainly because national referendums are such a rarity). In the 1975 EEC referendum, 2011 AV referendum and 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the will of the government prevailed. Not so here. Until that point, I had thought of Whitehall and the Westminster government as a place of certainty. Diligent ministers made decisions with the strong advice of civil servants. There was a sense of order and clarity of purpose that guided how policies were formulated. MPs would approve decisions, debate matters and be strongly aware of what was going on. Oh, how naive I was. The Brexit vote revealed Whitehall to actually be a set of playing cards or jenga, easily pushed over with just one false move. Despite Nigel Farage declaring on the night he believed remain to have triumphed, the alternative perspective eventually won out. David Cameron, such a figure of strength after winning an overall majority, was gone the following morning, while Jeremy Corbyn faced a leadership challenge of his own. The established order and conventions had been ripped apart. And that was no doubt what many voters wanted. Whatever your views on Brexit, everyone can surely agree it is an immense turning point after 40 years of membership. Being a part of the European Union before suddenly voting to leave went against all kinds of diplomatic relations and set the UK on an unprecedented path. The voters knew what they had decided; it was the politicians who remained deeply uncertain and surprised by the result. Theoretically, it was a time of great excitement. Politics had never gone at such a speed. In reality of course, the vote created immense instability and fuelled tensions by bringing pre-existing divisions to the surface. I was always of the view that Brexit had to be enacted from the moment the Leave vote has triumphed. I was 14 in June 2016, so obviously didn’t have a vote. Were I able to, I would have voted Remain. The EU was deeply flawed, but I thought the UK’s best interests were served by remaining a member and reforming the organisation from the inside. However, once Leave had won, I felt Brexit simply had to occur. If you frame the question to voters, you simply have to respect their decision, even if you personally disagree with it. That is the definition of living in a democracy. What’s so notable about a great amount of political discourse is how little the people spoken about are allowed to speak for themselves. Take the ‘Red Wall’, a cliché I do my best to avoid using. What is defined as Red Wall? Who are these Red Wall voters? The discourse since the 2019 general election has framed this voters as one homogenous mass, when different parts of the country, and voters within them, will have different concerns. Apart from the occasional vox pop and trip up north, those voters are not able to properly speak for themselves. The same is true with Brexiteers. The key spokespeople for Remain and Brexit naturally tried to speak on behalf of their voters, but, in doing so, would inevitably simplify the complexity of voter coalitions and the justifications people had for leaving. You could even go so far as to argue people voted leave for 17 million different reasons. Instead, Brexiteers were framed as one homogenous mass, when the reality is far different. For example, I was very interested by a piece inUK in a Changing Europe looking at affluent leavers in the Home Counties, a demographic often ignored. Simplicity was prioritised in far too much of both the campaign and way voters were discussed afterwards. Indeed, a referendum will always, ultimately, result in a lowest common denominator discussion of issues. The whole reason we live in a representative democracy is to elect individuals who work for a living to make decisions on our behalf. People naturally have busy lives and so don’t want to spend hours pouring over bits of UK or EU legislation. Again, I think that is the same regardless of what side of the divide you were on. Instead, both the campaigns and post-referendum narratives had to appeal to abstract values to try and harness the strongest parts of support. Remainers would appeal to the aftermath of the Second World War and countries pooling their sovereignty to try and promote peace. Leavers appealed to notions of sovereignty, self determination and that oh so famous phrase about taking back control. Speculation and prediction was inherent to the Brexit process. Nobody could say with full certainty what the political, social and economic situation would be for the UK and EU after our departure. Everyone could only at best, guess, make a judgement and hope it was the correct decision. Time and again, we heard that nothing was agreed between the UK and EU until everything was agreed. Every time Theresa May was able to return from Brussels with a new part of the agreement was always done in the knowledge that it could all fall apart. Clarity was never a priority. Brexit however, really reached boiling point after November 2018 when a deal had been agreed. Dominic Raab and Esther McVey resigned the day after, and who can forget May’s repeated Brexit defeats? Both ardent Remainers and staunch Brexiteers continued to prevent Theresa May’s agreement, which treated the whole of the United Kingdom in the same way, from passing Parliament. Whatever changes she was able to reach, it was a failure three times in a row. No wonder the public became frustrated. For so long, March 29th 2019 had been voiced as the day of departure, the time by which the UK would enter the transition period and begin its new future. I never supported leaving without any kind of agreement at all, always believing that an agreement provided some certainty in ensuring both the referendum result was respected and economic security was also protected. I also never supported a ‘People’s Vote’, that most elusive, slippery of phrases reminiscent of a slogan from New Labour. As I say, if a referendum is put to the electorate the first time, the result of it should be implemented. I even thought the political and social consequences of failing to enact Brexit would far outweigh any economic consequences of our departure. Soft Brexiteers who initially had accepted Brexit by supporting Article 50 saw a Hung Parliament as a way to water down Brexit, and eventually try to stop it altogether. And they got none of it. In trying to gamble everything, soft Brexiteers lost everything. Johnson’s deal was far ‘harder’ than Theresa May’s agreement. Indeed, one of the Prime Minister’s strengths is in continuing to shock and surprise people. Despite his agreement being the EU’s original proposal, he was able to frame it as a strong victory. Pushing ‘no deal’ away as an immediate threat meant any delay to an election was no longer justifiable. The 2019 election is hopefully the last winter election I’ll see in my lifetime. Cold, bitter and full of febrile animosity, I can’t imagine how it must have been for party workers campaigning in the dark. A mixture of domestic issues alongside Brexit no doubt framed voting intention. Brexit held a much higher salience, not least because of the repeated delays and the fact the main opposition party were pledging to potentially overturn it. The 2019 election therefore became a debate over whether Brexit would happen at all, rather than the different models of Brexit on offer. Whatever your politics, 13th December 2019 provided a certainty nobody had seen since since 24th June 2016. It became clear that the UK would definitely leave on 31st January 2020 with Johnson’s deal and that Brexit was an inevitability. All the campaigning, all the amendments, taking over the parliamentary order paper was to cease. Calm was to resume… Or so we thought. Covid, the Northern Ireland protocol, the union as a whole and the impact of the transition period ending at the end of December 2020 (despite a post-Brexit trade deal) has meant that, while the government will try to keep Brexit out of the headlines, it is not disappearing any time soon. The consequences of it are being felt today and will continue to do for years to come. In looking to the future, it is important not to forget how Brexit came about and that referendum campaign like no other which sent shockwaves across the world.
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