NEWS · 19 February 2022
With Boris Johnson still under pressure from 'partygate', the government has started talking about Brexit again. Their new slogan? "Brexit opportunities"!
So in the recent mini-reshuffle Jacob Rees-Mogg was appointed to the newly-created office of Minister for Brexit Opportunities. A very laid back job, of course, since there are none...
So far Rees-Mogg's only idea for this role has been to write a column in the Sun 'newspaper' where he invited its readers to email him if they have spotted any EU regulations they would like to abolish. (How many Sun readers do you think could name a single EU regulation?)
This approach shows that the Tories have no idea what to do with their supposed Brexit "freedoms", as further evidenced by the government report titled "The Benefits of Brexit".
The "our achievements so far" section of this document is a desperately padded-out set of bullet points including "reintroduced our iconic blue passports" (yuck, and could have been done in the EU anyway) and "enabling businesses to use a crown stamp symbol on pint glasses" – which were also never banned by the EU.
The latest figures show that UK exports to the EU have fallen by £20 billion since Brexit. Those are some expensive passports and pint glasses.
Still, at least one plucky Tory MP has spotted what she calls a "Brexit dividend": Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover, has hailed 650 new jobs in her constituency... inspecting border paperwork.
Tories Out or Rejoin? It's the same project
Another week, another interview where Labour leader Keir Starmer has caused tension on social media by saying (again) that he does not support Rejoin.
Every time this happens, it pushes more pro-EU people into one of two camps: "oppose Labour until they support Rejoin" or "oppose Rejoin to support Labour". But in our view as a campaign, and as we explain further in Routes for Rejoin, this is a false dilemma.
Our position is simple: to support tactical voting to get the Tories out in the next election AND to support longer-term campaigning within political parties to shift their policy positions on Rejoin.
Remember, a majority of the British public (53%) support Rejoin. This majority is growing gradually in each poll, as Brexit's effects hit and more young voters get the right to vote. Today's electoral calculation still counts against us (because of where the swing seats are), but as that changes, so will the policy. Already, 61% of Labour Party members believe that Labour’s policy should be to campaign to rejoin the EU.
Boris Johnson's days in power are numbered. The longer he stays, the harder it is for the Tories to recover. Getting rid of the Brexit government at the next election is very realistic, even likely, and from there the route to Rejoin runs through a growing movement, growing support in the population at large, and finally change within the new government's party (or parties).
And we have some big news about the first part of that process, the Rejoin movement, that we will be able to share in the coming weeks.
