The Ancient Mariners of Brexit are losing the plot

So the white smoke emerged from Whitehall as the prime minister didn’t quite say “Habemas a Deal”. at the end of the much-hyped UK-EU reset talks. The good news is that there is some amelioration of the 2020 Brexit Treaty negotiated by Boris Johnson. The bad news is that it won’t satisfy many on either side of the Brexit divide, writes Denis MacShane, ex-UK Europe minister.

In 1992 the Swiss voted against the Maastricht Treaty enshrining Margaret Thatcher’s campaign to create a single market Europe with its four freedoms of movement of capital, goods, services and labour. Pope (Saint) John Paul II: said "Mrs Thatcher’s Treaty will hasten the process of European integration. A common political structure, the product of the free will of European citizens, far from endangering the identity of the peoples in the community, will be able to guarantee more equitably the rights, in particular the cultural rights, of all its regions. These united European peoples will not accept the domination of one nation or culture over the others, but they will uphold the equal right of all to enrich others with their difference.”

Quickly Europe’s richest nation in the Alps realised they had shot a crossbow arrow into their foot. Negotiations started and continue to this day to improve Switzerland’s access to the four freedoms without actually joining the EU.

The Alpine nation is governed by referendums and there have been 20 so far on aspects of the EU-Swiss relationship. 17 agreed to proposals put forward by negotiators in Berne and Brussels and 3 said no. In 2010 as David Cameron and Nick Clegg announced their referendum which both leaders thought would put the Europe question to bed the Swiss voted against allowing Europeans to work in sectors like care homes, agricultures, mountain tourism, or construction which Swiss like Brits chez nous didn’t want to work in.

Swiss employers recoiled in horror and launched a campaign to reverse the decision. Despite the fulminations of the anti-EU Swiss People’s Party a second referendum was held and Switzerland now benefits from access to the European labour market pool while the UK imported more than a million workers from Africa and Asia to do the work native Brits shunned.

Britain is now embarking on the laborious slog of the mountain climb of gradual  step by step improvements in the 2020 deal Boris Johnson signed.

This has led the ageing tenors of anti-European ideology emerging like Japanese soldiers from the jungle 20 years after the second world war ended still believing their inevitable triumph is just around the corner.

From Boris Johnson, through Jacob Rees Mogg, Priti Patel, David Frost, Andrew Neil or assorted peers and retired Oxbridge dons  the chorus of “Surrender!”, “Betrayal!”, or “Sell-out!” continues but is weaker and weaker.

As Rod Liddle who helped turn Today when he edited it into a platform for Nigel Farage and anti-European keenies now notes the old heartlands of Brexit know it has delivered none of its promises and just want to move on.

Some Labour ministers use Theresa May’s slogan, nemely she “would make Brexit work”. That is an oxymoron. When the very conservative governor of the Bank of England says there will be no growth if we continue to set our faces against trade with Europe, that is an ex-cathedra statement saying Adieu to Brexit. 

The Prime minister has none of the flair, nor drive of a Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher but after the excitements of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, voters opted for caution, prudence, and stability.

It will be a long haul but the 30-year-long Brexit era of British politics is over. One day Polish workers will be welcome back in Britain and attendance at Sunday mass will go up.

Denis MacShane is the former Labour Minister for Europe. His book Brexiternity. The uncertain future of Britain is published by Bloomsbury.

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