"STOP BREXIT" needs a message for the future
While the goal for all those who believe Brexit is a mistake must be to keep the UK in the European Union, this should go beyond a simple return to the status quo. Even for those who hold sympathy for the pro-EU cause, a message of rolling back to 2010-15 will be fundamentally unconvincing. For many voters those were difficult years, battered by the financial crisis and austerity. If the European project is to inspire those people, it is essential to offer something better than "as we were".
A key point that EUnionists must address is the question of opt-outs. While there is a certain satisfaction to point out the self-defeating nature of Europhobes fighting for Brexit and then making it inevitable that we'll have to rejoin the EU at some point or another without our opt-outs, the opt-outs themselves are fundamentally a Europhobic construction.
All together: the opt-outs regime is toxic and bad for Britain.
Opt-outs are not some glorious defence of Britain's national interests, they have consistently been short-termist (and naive) attempts to placate the Europhobic right. In re-booting the UK's relationship with the EU, abandoning the opt-outs should be embraced, not feared.
On one level the opt-outs sour our relationships with our closest partners and allies. They engender a feeling that we're only half-committed to the relationship and that we're keeping our options open to go see other people if things get tough. That's not healthy for anyone involved. We can only expect our partners to be as committed to us as we are to them. To fail to appreciate that means that our alliances will never be as strong or enduring as they could be.
On a second, and just as important, level, opt-outs lock Britain out of ideas and programmes that would be fundamentally good or at worse, neutral. We made a big fuss of staying out of Schengen, but in reality it would have changed very little. As an island we have few direct borders and so would inevitably have to impose passport checks just about everywhere we do now (the Eurostar, going directly from a train station the heart of France to London, could be a rare exception). Most of our borders would be external borders into the Schengen zone anyway and so would require passport checks, the same as we do now. Britain gained almost nothing concrete from the opt-out, but clearly signalled that it was not going to be a serious partner to other European countries. This was a loss to our national interests. Joining Schengen as part of our new relationship with the EU would be one of the easiest wins and shows of goodwill we could achieve.
If we were only willing to properly engage, Britain could play a vital leadership role at the heart of the EU. We could realise what many other EU states have, including the big ones, which is that the EU can magnify our national interests, not diminish them. People have spent so long focussing on the Europhobic perspective that our policy was replaced by EU policy, that they lose sight of the other side of the picture: in a great many instance, EU policy was our policy. And when the EU acts as we would have done anyway, the backing of the world's biggest political and economic union can only boost our interests and make Britain stronger on the world stage.
It is essential that in the forging of our new role in the EU, we don't try to recreate what has gone before. The old model was dysfunctional because it was the product of appeasing the Europhobia of a narrow right-wing elite. The new model can work better only if it is the product of genuine enthusiasm for the European project.
A key point that EUnionists must address is the question of opt-outs. While there is a certain satisfaction to point out the self-defeating nature of Europhobes fighting for Brexit and then making it inevitable that we'll have to rejoin the EU at some point or another without our opt-outs, the opt-outs themselves are fundamentally a Europhobic construction.
All together: the opt-outs regime is toxic and bad for Britain.
Opt-outs are not some glorious defence of Britain's national interests, they have consistently been short-termist (and naive) attempts to placate the Europhobic right. In re-booting the UK's relationship with the EU, abandoning the opt-outs should be embraced, not feared.
On one level the opt-outs sour our relationships with our closest partners and allies. They engender a feeling that we're only half-committed to the relationship and that we're keeping our options open to go see other people if things get tough. That's not healthy for anyone involved. We can only expect our partners to be as committed to us as we are to them. To fail to appreciate that means that our alliances will never be as strong or enduring as they could be.
On a second, and just as important, level, opt-outs lock Britain out of ideas and programmes that would be fundamentally good or at worse, neutral. We made a big fuss of staying out of Schengen, but in reality it would have changed very little. As an island we have few direct borders and so would inevitably have to impose passport checks just about everywhere we do now (the Eurostar, going directly from a train station the heart of France to London, could be a rare exception). Most of our borders would be external borders into the Schengen zone anyway and so would require passport checks, the same as we do now. Britain gained almost nothing concrete from the opt-out, but clearly signalled that it was not going to be a serious partner to other European countries. This was a loss to our national interests. Joining Schengen as part of our new relationship with the EU would be one of the easiest wins and shows of goodwill we could achieve.
If we were only willing to properly engage, Britain could play a vital leadership role at the heart of the EU. We could realise what many other EU states have, including the big ones, which is that the EU can magnify our national interests, not diminish them. People have spent so long focussing on the Europhobic perspective that our policy was replaced by EU policy, that they lose sight of the other side of the picture: in a great many instance, EU policy was our policy. And when the EU acts as we would have done anyway, the backing of the world's biggest political and economic union can only boost our interests and make Britain stronger on the world stage.
It is essential that in the forging of our new role in the EU, we don't try to recreate what has gone before. The old model was dysfunctional because it was the product of appeasing the Europhobia of a narrow right-wing elite. The new model can work better only if it is the product of genuine enthusiasm for the European project.
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