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WillowOne's Positions

Brexit

My Positions

  1. The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) was a strategic error and should not have occurred.
  2. A referendum on such a complex and far-reaching constitutional matter was inappropriate, given the general public's limited access to accurate, comprehensive information about the implications, and given that the question was put without any definition of what "leave" would mean.
  3. The United Kingdom should actively pursue re-accession to the European Union at the earliest feasible opportunity, and in the meantime should rejoin the Single Market and Customs Union as a step towards it.

Notes

  1. The UK should not have left.
  • Economic impact. The UK economy has experienced slower growth, reduced investment, and diminished trade with the EU. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that Brexit will reduce the UK's long-run productivity by around 4 per cent, and its trade intensity by around 15 per cent, compared with remaining. [Source: OBR, Economic and Fiscal Outlook, March 2023, and the OBR's Brexit analysis page.] Independent estimates from the Centre for European Reform, the LSE, and Goldman Sachs are in the same range or higher.
  • Loss of influence. By leaving the EU, the UK forfeited its role in shaping EU legislation, trade policy, and foreign policy. It now has to comply with much EU regulation to trade with its largest market, without any say in what that regulation is.
  • Damage to sectors. Financial services, higher education, scientific research, agriculture, fishing (which was promised the most and received the least), and the performing arts have all suffered from increased regulatory friction, labour shortages, and lost market access.
  • Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Protocol and its successor the Windsor Framework (2023) have created political and economic tension, effectively placing a customs border in the Irish Sea and testing the Good Friday Agreement. There was never a version of Brexit that reconciled an open Irish border, no customs border in the Irish Sea, and departure from the Customs Union; the three were incompatible, and this was pointed out before the vote.
  • The promised benefits have not materialised. The trade deals with the rest of the world have been small, or roll-overs of EU deals on worse terms. Regulatory "freedom" has been used sparingly because divergence raises costs. Immigration, the issue that decided the vote for many, rose to record levels after Brexit.
    2. There should not have been a referendum.
  • Complexity of the issue. EU membership encompasses a vast range of policy areas, including trade, immigration, financial regulation, environmental law, security, and scientific cooperation. Most voters, including, as later became apparent, most of the politicians, lacked the specialist knowledge required to evaluate the consequences of leaving.
  • Disinformation and misinformation. The referendum campaign was marked by misleading claims, most famously the assertion painted on the Vote Leave bus that the UK sent £350 million per week to the EU, a figure the UK Statistics Authority publicly described as misleading. [Source: UK Statistics Authority, letter to Vote Leave, 27 May 2016.] The Leave campaigns were also found by the Electoral Commission to have broken electoral law on spending.
  • The question was undefined. "Leave" could mean anything from a Norway-style arrangement in the Single Market to a complete break with no deal. Each voter imagined their own Brexit, and no majority existed for any particular one. This is why Parliament spent three years unable to agree on what the result meant.
  • Lack of contingency planning. No post-Brexit strategy was presented by the Leave campaign, and the government did not conduct or publish a full impact assessment before the vote. The electorate was asked to decide without adequate foresight, and the then Prime Minister had instructed the civil service not to prepare for a Leave result.
  • Constitutional precedent. Major constitutional decisions in the UK are normally made through parliamentary processes, not referendums. A simple majority on a single day, with no threshold and no requirement for a confirmatory vote on the terms, was an inadequate basis for an irreversible change of this scale. The referendum was in law advisory, but was treated as binding, which was the worst of both arrangements.
    3. The UK should rejoin.
  • Economic recovery. Rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union, and eventually the EU, would restore frictionless trade, revive investment confidence, and improve labour mobility, supporting growth and stability.
  • Political alignment. The UK shares the EU's fundamental values and strategic interests, including democracy, human rights, climate action, and the defence of Ukraine (see Russian War in Ukraine). In a world of large power blocs, a medium-sized country outside all of them has little leverage.
  • Public opinion. Polling has consistently shown, since 2022, that a majority of the UK public now believes Brexit was a mistake, and that a plurality would vote to rejoin. [Source: YouGov tracker, "In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?", and the UK in a Changing Europe polling summaries.]
  • Challenges of re-accession. Rejoining would be complex and politically sensitive. The UK would re-enter under Article 49 as a new applicant, without the opt-outs and rebate it previously enjoyed, and might be required to commit to the euro and to Schengen. The EU has indicated the door remains open but that it would want evidence that the decision was settled and would not be reversed again. None of this makes re-accession impossible; it makes it a long project that should be started now.

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