Dreams of Breturn

Irish republican lessons in strategic patience

"You build convincingly from the outer edges in ... If you shoot too high and miss, then everyone feels more secure" - Mark Felt ("Deep Throat") cited in All the President's Men (1974) by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

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The best the UK was ever going to get out of Brexit was discretion on how to subsidise farmers and manage fish stocks, unchanged economic relationships with the EU and its trading partners, and no MEPs.

But the best was removed as an option when Theresa May decided seven months after the 2016 referendum that leaving the EU also meant leaving the European Economic Area (EEA). After that, only degrees of worst were on the table and – short of withdrawal without an agreement – May’s successor chose the worst of the worst.

So it should surprise no one – not even a Brexiter after “a drink or two”¹ – that Brits have withdrawal symptoms. An Omnisis poll to mark year three of the revolutionary era found that, excluding don't cares, 62% would vote to rejoin the EU if a referendum were held tomorrow. Across age cohorts, the only holdouts are over-65s while enthusiasm for rejoining grows in direct correlation to how long people still have to be economically active: 55-64-year-olds (53%), 45-54 (58%), 35-44 (76%), 25-34 (79%), and 18-24 (80%). Funny that.

While support for rejoining the EU grows, any residual hopes among Conservatives that they could eke out an electoral victory next year fade. The latest Politico poll of polls puts the Labour Party 23 points ahead and betting markets assign a 63% probability to the scenario that Labour will have an overall majority - an unthinkable prospect a year ago. A large-scale poll conducted by Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus even found that the Tories could be wiped out at the next election - leaving the Scottish National Party as the official opposition to Labour. Surely now, argue Rejoiners, Tory defeat is so assured and Brexit so discredited that Labour can offer a near-term roadmap back into the union.

Vote once, vote twice

In his Financial Times column this week (Brexit could be reversed - here's how), Gideon Rachman makes a compelling case. The abject failure of the project, the coming out of British europhilia after 50 years in the closet, and the revolution in European thinking catalysed by the war in Ukraine create a permissive environment for a swift return. The French government would be difficult, Rachman admits, but - given what would be overwhelming pressure from Germany, the Netherlands, and the Nordic and eastern states - Paris would demand no more than re-accession sans opt-outs. That would mean no budget rebate and a commitment to swap sterling for the euro (although this is easily dodged by failing to meet its adoption criteria - something the Swedes have done for a quarter-century). To get Breturn done, all that’s needed is two referendums² – one in 2026 to open negotiations and a second on the terms of the draft accession treaty.

This won’t happen. Not only has Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, ruled out rejoining the EU, but he has also pledged not to return to the EEA (sotto voce: “in a first term”). It’s remarkable how many ardent Remainers inside his shadow cabinet - David Lammy (foreign affairs), Pat McFadden (budget), and Peter Kyle (Northern Ireland) to name just three - and outside heavyweights like Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and Hilary Benn have buckled to the line. So many, in fact, that it’s reassuring. They wouldn’t have been so obliging if they believed the policy held into a second term.

So, Rachman’s wish won’t come true but should it? If I could turn back the clock, I would. And not just back to 22 June 2016 but to the mid-90s, before Gordon Brown used the EU as a wedge against Blairism. My heart is with Rachman and that old euromantic Guy Verhofstadt …

… but my head is with Deep Throat. The post-May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak administration has a lot of economic and diplomatic repair work to do without throwing a lifeline to the Brexiters. There will be enormous political pressure on Starmer to spend substantially more on defence and social care and repeat the Blair/Brown healthcare-spending tsunami. One way or another, taxes will have to increase. Staying popular enough to keep the Tories out of power will be a daily struggle without inviting the reunited right to distort the euro, budget rebate, and free-movement issues that would come along with a midterm referendum campaign.

From the outer edges in

Far more important than risking everything to restore the full political trappings of EU membership is a return to the EEA - the single market. I’d prefer Labour followed the lead of the Liberal Democrats and committed to a path back to the EEA. It would make Starmer’s economic programme more credible and motivate Remainers. But I understand the reticence since the EEA comes with conditions that would be exploited by the Conservatives and Nigel Farage: a budgetary element, “rule-taking” and - above all - free movement. Instead, the first Starmer term will be devoted to rebuilding diplomatic trust with the EU, renegotiating the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) in 2025, and mending obvious fences (a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement and full participation in the Horizon Europe research programme, for example). Nothing beats a return to the EEA as a support to British economic performance but these measures and the improved relationship would be an important start against the backdrop of a much-changed, post-war European landscape.

It’s imperative that the pressure never lets up on Starmer once he’s in office but my side needs to learn the kind of patience shown by Irish republicans. As the Omnisis poll shows, the young want to rejoin - although I’m convinced that what they value above all is free movement rather than EU membership. Analysis of polling data by Joris Frese, Juho Härkönen, and Simon Hix found that 35% of the aggregate decline in support for Brexit since 2016 is due to “voter replacement” rather than Leavers changing their minds. Of 2016 Leave voters who now think it was a mistake, 42% are under 50 and only 13% over 70. Older Brexiters are gradually being replaced by young Rejoiners.

As a governing project, Brexit is over but a premature Rejoin campaign could still revive it as a culture-war movement. Better to show a little patience, improve the TCA, restore trust, keep the Tories in the wilderness, and return to a democratised and rebranded EEA in a new post-24/2 Europe.

1. "[I]f you get a Brexiter on a sort of quiet moment, perhaps they've had a drink or two, they will admit it's been a disaster" - Amber Rudd, former home secretary, on the Desperately Seeking Wisdom podcast.

2. Before referenda lobbyists storm off, I urge them to read the last pedantic word on the debate by J. Tobin Grant and Yasuko Taoka.