Doped by a lullaby of Johnson’s lies, the nation sleepwalked out of Europe.
After the dream comes the awakening to a nightmare reality.
Brexit has been a disaster.
The sunny uplands of prosperity promised by the Leavers never materialised. Business with the EU, our biggest trading partner, is down sharply. Controls are up.
The big global trade deals are a distant prospect. Boris Johnson didn’t get Brexit done. He just got Britain undone. Even many of those who voted Leave are now realising this has been the country’s greatest self-inflicted wound.
In a recent YouGov poll, 56% of voters thought it was a bad idea to quit, and only 32% still believed it was a good idea.
But what to do about it?
Rumours in Westminster that Rishi Sunak was planning a closer, Swiss-style relationship with the EU spread panic among hardline Tory MPs this week.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt talked of “unfettered” trade with Europe, raising fears that the UK could re-enter the Single Market – originally pioneered by Margaret Thatcher.
Downing Street had to rush out a denial that the Government was contemplating any such thing.
“I voted for Brexit, I believe in Brexit and I know that Brexit can deliver,” bleated Sunak to the employers’ outfit, the Confederation of British Industry.
The Conservatives are now, effectively, the Brexit Party.
And Labour, anxious about voters in its own Leave heartlands, is scuttling to get on the bandwagon. Sir Keir Starmer talks blithely about “making Brexit work”.
This is rather like Napoleon making the case that Waterloo was actually a good outcome for the French.
The battle over Europe is not over. In a sense, it is just beginning.
Britain still has to negotiate a new relationship with the 27 countries, and their 450 million people, who live closest to us and account for so much of our prosperity.
Former Tory leader William Hague (the one with a brain) says time is running out for Brexiteers to make their project work.
“By the late 2020s,” he says “ministerial musings about Switzerland could be much more serious.”
Ironically, Brexit was good for the EU. It brought the members closer together, once they realised the harm it had done to the UK.
If whacky, lying Boris Johnson, opportunist turncoat Liz Truss, space-cadet Jacob Rees-Mogg and barmpot Nigel Farage are all in favour of something, how hard is it work out that it’s probably not a good idea?
