Brexit: Job Opening For Leadership on EU Discussion

SITUATION VACANT: Responsible person to make powerful argument in favour of Britain staying in the EU. Or, at least, getting a good deal on leaving.

Since the EU referendum last year a new stereotype has emerged in British politics  – “the Remoaner.” The Brexiteers have turned a deaf ear to them, dismissing them as “sore losers” and claiming that all will be revealed in the new land of prosperity that awaits the country.

But more and more doubts are arising as the Government sends out confused messages about Brexit negotiations and problems keep surfacing in unforeseen areas such as Euroatom or Europol, the European police body.

According to some polls, if Britain were to have another referendum the Remainers would shade it. According to others, the country is all gung-ho about the pull-out. So who do you believe? Certainly not the Government, which is not even sure about which ministers to put forward to spin a positive message.

Is it hard, is it soft, or is it anything in between? Should Britain negotiate with humility and respect or tell the Europeans to “go whistle” as Boris seems to believe?

And what chance of the Remainers getting a second opportunity to state their case and pull us back from the brink?

The most strident and coherent voice against Brexit has, so far, been one Tony Blair. Some, without putting too fine a point on it, have described the former Prime Minister as “the most hated man in Britain.”

They quote his legacy of taking us to a wasted war in Iraq, to committing troops to a senseless time in Afghanistan, to concocting a secret deal with Sinn Fein and the IRA to let 222 former IRA terrorists have a de facto amnesty with a secret “get out of jail” letter.

Everywhere he turns he has scorn poured on both his views and the motives for them. Yet, isn’t he talking good, common sense. Wasn’t he a Premier we all once listened to with respect?

Take Blair’s views on Brexit:

“The country is deeply divided: between young and old; metropolitan and outside the cities; better off and worse off,” he wrote in an article for his pompously-named Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.”

“The country is suffering from the state of its politics. This time last year we were the fastest-growing economy in the G7. We are now the slowest. The international investment community is negative on us.

The savings rate is at its lowest in 50 years. Incomes are stagnating. The international reputation of Britain is rapidly losing altitude. There is a daily drip of worrying news on Brexit. The Grenfell Tower tragedy sums up for many the sorry condition of our social cohesion.”

“We feel like a country which has lost its footing and is stumbling; but seemingly with no choice but to stagger on.”

Blair may be right. But who listens – and crucially – trusts him anymore?

The tragedy is that Blair’s famous gift for explaining and “selling” a political message might once have filled the vacuum left by Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron, Theresa May and all the other one-time opponents of Brexit who have so abysmally failed to stop the Brexit bandwagon but Blair’s total lack of credibility means he is the wrong messenger, no matter how accurate the message.

The frustrating thing is that Blair has given us a taste of the arguments that Corbyn, for instance, might be deploying if Corbyn was actually reflecting the anti-Brexit views of his own young supporters.

“The election result should enable a fundamental re-appraisal of Brexit,” Blair has said. “Large numbers of people voted to stop a Hard Brexit and rejected explicitly the mandate Theresa May was demanding.”

“I agree that if the will of the British people remains as it was last June, then Brexit will happen. We know our currency is down around 12%; already jobs are going; there is not £350m a week more for the NHS; and we actually need most of the migrants who come to work in the UK. Brexit is the biggest political decision since the Second World War.”

True, true and true. The trouble is that the case for the defence – for those who want to Remain – is being stated by a man with zero credibility.

 

by Bob Graham

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