"But will you accept the result?"
Ten years on: time to move forward. That starts with accepting the result.
I was often asked during the referendum campaign, “But will you accept the result?” I replied that I would, and therefore I would stand down at the next election: why bother being an MP if we were not to govern ourselves but let the EU do it. The lazy story that I would stand down if we lost allowed me to keep making the point about self-government but I should have replied, “Yes, but will you?”
I still don’t understand why so many people don’t want democratic self-government, especially when scary economic stories have been roundly debunked. But our problem is not merely that we don’t understand one another. It is that people are still bating one another with fury: we are making too little much-needed progress towards change and growth.
I fear until the governing elite accepts the result of the referendum, our country will be stuck in the doldrums with some wistfully arguing to rejoin, a now impossible feat.
The tenth anniversary of the vote
Only one of the many EU exit-related anniversaries really seems to count: 23 June, the tenth anniversary of our voting to leave the European Union. I am hating giving interviews about it: reflecting on the mendacity of those who did everything to reverse or wreck implementation of the result boils my blood. The consequences have been profoundly damaging for us all. I expect that will come over in my contributions to the BBC documentary: Brexit: A Very British Civil War.
I entered politics mostly because of the Lisbon Treaty: that rammed through the Constitution for Europe positively despite its democratic rejection. The constitution of France was changed to avoid a vote and Ireland was made to vote twice. Again, I am dumbfounded not everyone is outraged about this abuse of public consent for political power. Democracy is not a nicety: it is how we change governments peacefully at the ballot box in order to avoid being compelled to attempt it the other way.
The question was asked. It was answered. Leave. That means being outside the jurisdiction of EU law and institutions. Moreover, the question was answered four times: in the referendum, in the 2017 general election in which both main parties stood on leave manifestos, in the European Parliament elections in which the Brexit Party came first, and again in the 2019 general election with an emphatic result. And yet, ten years on from the vote, a significant number of thoughtful, otherwise reasonable people still refuse to accept it. Some are now actively campaigning to reverse it, armed with a battery of economic statistics that do not hold up.
I have used before Wellington’s remark that nothing except a battle lost is half so melancholy as a battle won. It resonates today. People continuing to fight this battle instead of getting on with implementing the necessary consequences harms us all.
The case for moving on is now irresistible. We should consider the factors at work.
