An island nation isolated

You may think that, following Brexit, Britain has rather abdicated any leading role it might previously have enjoyed in Europe. So it’s curious to find that in one respect, at least, it hasn’t. Or, at least, if it isn’t playing a leading role, it has at least acted as a highly effective teacher.

It seems that attitudes across the remaining nations of the EU have shifted substantially since Brexit. In those countries for which comparative figures exist, it seems that far fewer people favour leaving the Union in the latest survey in 2020-2022 than in the previous one in 2015-2016.

The mess Britain is in has served as an invaluable object lesson to the rest of the EU on how deeply damaging it can be to leave.

Curiously, the same change in views seems to have happened in Britain itself. Where the original referendum of 2016 was won by 52% favouring departure against 48% preferring to stay, today 54% think Britain was wrong to leave, against 35% who think the decision was a good one while 10%, rather amazingly, don’t know.

Meanwhile Britain continues to suffer the baneful effects of a decision which just 35% still think was good and 10% can’t make up their mind about. 

• The country is being torn apart by strife. 
• Over 2 million people had to use a foodbank at least once in the course of the last full year for which we have figures. 
• Heart attack and stroke victims are waiting on average over 90 minutes for an ambulance to reach them.
• Record numbers of those who make it to hospital are waiting for treatment longer than the stated maximum time. Over 43,000 people waited more than 12 hours last year.
• Economic growth is being seriously hit by the loss of trade with its nearest neighbours, from which Brexit isolated Britain.

Some of these difficulties are direct consequences of Brexit (such as the impossibility of recruiting enough staff for the National Health Service, for catering or for farming). But even the others are made indirectly worse by a crisis which, though it’s undoubtedly affecting other nations too, is made for worse for Britain by the fact that is emerging from it more slowly than any comparable countries. 

The decision to leave the EU is the factor that clearly differentiates Britain from those other nations. 

A lone demonstrator getting it right

That is the legacy of Brexit. Its supporters promised that it would let the country take back control. It seems, as Remainers warned, simply to have plunged it into the control of people who are systematically wrecking it. 

The saddest aspect of all this is that the 35% of people who still back Brexit seem to be exercising a disproportionate and baleful influence on British politics. The Conservative Party, architects of Brexit, naturally remain committed. But Labour, anxious to win back votes from among that 35%, are refusing to do the right thing. They oppose ruling out making any change to Brexit to mitigate its effect, despite that being the view of 54% of voters.

Labour instead has launched the slogan “Make Brexit Work” which is rather like saying “Make this legless horse win the Derby”.

The words ‘island’ and ‘isolate’ come from the same Latin root. It’s dangerous, however, to confuse the two.

It seems to me that Britain was once a strong, proud island nation. But now it’s merely insular. And in decline.

Which is nothing to be proud of.