A second vote on the EU: why not?

It’s not something to say too loud these days and, believe me, even I find it hard ever to express agreement with Tony Blair, but he’s right in what he says about the UK and Europe.

Certainly, if British voters change their mind, they have the right to a second vote. There’s nothing immoral or undemocratic about that. After all, the first vote was entirely negative: British voters opted to leave the EU, but they didn’t choose to go anywhere in particular. It’s one thing to decide you don’t like your job but, though some do it, it’s always struck me as a little imprudent to resign before you have a new one. How do you know it won’t be far worse?

The vote on 23 June was exactly like that. A small majority voted to leave the EU without expressing any preference on where to go next. That means that majority was made up of people with profoundly incompatible views about what they wanted to happen.

There are at least two major scenarios for what comes next, with many variations in detail between them.

The first is that we really, genuinely leave the EU. Completely. So that in our trade relations with the rest of the world – including the EU – we start from scratch, having to negotiate individual bilateral deals with no particular advantage as a starting point. A deal with China. A deal with the US. A deal with the EU. A deal with Ecuador, Bhutan, Burkina Faso. Our opening position is simply the rules of the World Trade Organisation, with no favourable arrangement with anyone in particular.

The second scenario is that we somehow manage to stay inside the Single Market. That means highly favourable trade terms with the EU – the same as we enjoy right now. That’s an option that comes with conditions, however. The most striking is that, unless Britain negotiates with consummate skill and the leaders of the other EU nations decide to be far more flexible than looks likely, we would have to accept freedom of movement of people and therefore unlimited rights for EU citizens to move here and work here.

The first of these options will, I suspect, look gloomy to a great many people who voted for Brexit. Britain will be paying for years, probably decades, for a decision to reset its trading relationships to zero.

As for the second, Theresa May as Prime Minister has made it clear that there can be no compromise over freedom of movement. By saying that, she endorses the xenophobia which, it’s becoming increasingly clear, was the main drive behind probably a large majority of the Leave voters: keep the foreigner out.

With the alternative to the EU clear, it’s possible the majority might crumble.

“You wanted out,” we’d in effect be saying, “but do you still that way if it means having to face the world alone and start making new deals with every single other nation, without the punch that either an Empire or EU membership gives?”

Or, alternatively, “You wanted out, but do you still feel happy with that arrangement if you have to accept the same terms as Norway, paying in the same contributions as we used to pay, with freedom of movement still in place, accepting all EU regulations but no longer having a voice over them?”

I wonder whether the majority would stand up faced with a stark realisation of what its choice really meant?

Good move on the anniversary of a declaration of war

Postscript It was good to see demonstrations taking place around Britain in favour of the EU, on 3 September – 77th anniversary of the declaration of war between Britain and Germany, for the second time in a generation, back in 1939. It’s worth remembering the depth of horror the EU was designed to avoid in the first place.

Kataryna and the sad tale of lost English opportunity

Kataryna left her home in central Poland to establish herself in Brussels because, she told us, she was “in love.”

The object of this love was a fellow Pole, and they married in Belgium. But it didn’t really take. Two or three years later she decided that it was time to call it a day: they had no kids, nothing that really tied them to each other, and there was no point in struggling on with a marriage that wasn’t going anywhere.

It was a hard decision for her to take. “I’d said for the rest of my life, and I meant for the rest of my life. It was difficult to change that.”

Her Catholic Polish upbringing was against it, but she went through with the divorce.

Her family clamoured for her to come back home. But she resisted.

“I had a life here. And I felt something was waiting to happen for me in Belgium, which wouldn’t back in Poland.”

Kataryna in her Polish bakery and café

So she stayed on. She works in a Polish bakery and café in the mornings – that’s where we met her – but, in term time, she teaches Polish to children in several schools in the Etterbeek district with its large population of Poles.

“And there really was something waiting to happen for me. I fell in love again, with a Belgian, and we’ve been married ten years. He’s 50, thirteen years older than me, and my friends all warned me that he would betray me and leave me. But he hasn’t, not yet. At least, I always feel he’s there behind me, supporting me, and I don’t feel he’s ever been unfaithful. Maybe I’m a fool, but that’s what I feel.”

It seems that she gets physically ill when he’s away, and then miraculously recovers when he returns. Apparently he also feels lonely and incomplete when he’s separated from Kataryna.

Her husband brought her a ready-made family of three. His first wife left him with all three soon after the birth of the last. Kataryna finds the youngest easy, since he has only known her. The other two were more problematic, especially the middle child, a girl now entering teenage.

“It isn’t simple,” she says.

We wished her well. I hope the marriage is as good, as solid as she believes it is. I hope life continues to treat her as well in Belgium as she feels it has so far.

Her café drew us to it on both days we were in the area. Our breakfast was all the more pleasant for listening to her story, although it was surprising that she should speak so openly to strangers. Surprising but also cordial and friendly.

Many more Poles will be able to follow in Kataryna’s footsteps if they wish. And Belgians will be able to go back in the other direction: as my wife and I know from several trips to Kraków, the flows are beginning to reverse, with other EU citizens seeking careers in Poland.

Sadly, in the future, neither Belgians nor Poles will find it as easy to choose to settle in England. Brexit will see to that. Equally, English people who might want to pursue a dream, or love, or just simply a job opportunity, elsewhere in Europe, will no longer find that an easy option.

In England, sadly, we’ve chosen to give up the right to free movement. A freedom, not an obligation. We gave it up so that we wouldn’t have to grant it to our neighbours. We have restricted ourselves in order not to be generous to others.

With her ready smile and open spirit, Kataryna was a living symbol of how valuable a liberty England has decided to abandon.