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By Jonathan Arnott
It should never have come to this. If there's one thing that supporters and opponents of Brexit can agree on, it's that the whole thing has been handled so badly. There is enough blame to go around.
The British government has lacked competence. The constant changing of officials, ministers and even prime ministers could not have lead to a sensible negotiating strategy.
The European Union has lacked flexibility. Their approach to the financial agreement, to trade negotiations, to Northern Ireland, to migration and to regulatory alignment, has made the relationship between the UK and EU far less close than it should have been.
Opponents of Brexit in the United Kingdom have lacked perspective. They continued to fight against it, even knowing that it was inevitable, treating it as an existential issue rather than respecting the referendum results. They achieved nothing but worsening the terms of the final arrangement.
Some staunch Brexiteers have lacked grace. I recall giving a television interview the day after the referendum result, in which I was asked what should happen next for British members of the European Parliament (MEPs). I said,"we're all diplomats now," explaining that it would be best to avoid unnecessary acrimony. The United Kingdom and the countries of the European Union are close geographical neighbors after all.
Nevertheless, the United Kingdom and European Union have lacked vision. Whilst the British people did indeed vote for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, elected governments in 2017 and 2019 committed to delivering Brexit, and chose pro-Brexit parties in the 2019 European elections, still could not agree on the best route forward.
Supporters of a pro-Brexit group celebrate at Parliament Square in London, Britain, January 31, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]
One opinion poll claims that "two-thirds" of British people would like a referendum on rejoining the European Union. Opinion polls exaggerate such things, because they force respondents to think about a question, which might never have crossed their minds and give an instant kneejerk reaction. For comparison, polls before the referendum on Brexit was announced found that up to 90 percent of people wanted such a referendum. Polls are a weather-vane, but they are by no means infallible. Nor have the consequences been thought through: To join the European Union would mean the loss of the pound as Britain's national currency and replacement with the euro – something which has been unpopular.
Negatives about the European Union were once reported by the mainstream media in the United Kingdom. Now they are not - for example, the"Qatargate" bribery scandal affecting high-ranking MEPs has been almost universally ignored by the British press. The anti-Brexit lobby has been able to argue, without challenge, that Brexit is responsible for nearly every problem impacting the United Kingdom today. Such claims are, at the very least, exaggerated: They forget that high energy prices, inflation and soaring food costs are problems across the Western world thanks to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic, to name just two major causes.
If such a clamour were to result in another referendum (and I personally believe referendums should be generational decisions not to be revisited quickly – I will even support another Scottish independence referendum a decade or so from now), those seeking to rejoin the European Union might find that the end of a one-sided approach and equal time for both sides of the debate would be unfair.
And yet, the economic conditions, which took the United Kingdom into the European Union (known as the "Common Market" at the time) in the early 1970s, were equally negative. With a poor economic outlook comes the desire to make a change. Through our economic infirmity we ended up in an uneasy political union, which never suited either the United Kingdom or the European Union's member states. Hopefully history will not repeat itself, and in the meantime (whatever our view of Brexit) we can hope that the UK government rediscovers the ability to govern competently. In my opinion, it is a dysfunctional government, not Brexit itself, which is to blame for the failure to seize the opportunities provided.
Jonathan Arnott is a former member of the European Parliament.
