UK Politics
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I'm an American. I do understand the cost of re-entering the EU; given how clearly abysmal the decision was, why is no party talking about a re-join process? Is it because many of Labour's base were Leavers? Is it something that might come up if they have a couple of successful terms? Is it political cyanide?
Why, when Brexit is clearly unpopular, has had directly and observable damage to the British economy, and was a shock to everyone that it passed (not least the protest voters, which we're struggling with over here ourselves) - why is no-one bringing up a Join effort?
ELIaA (explain like I'm an American)
Yes, part of it is because Labour's base has many leave voters. This screwed Labour in 2019 as no-one could square that circle (amongst other problems).
But also: even if there's a very real "brexgret" thing, good luck getting anyone to admit they voted wrong. "Leave" became such a central identity to many people that poking that would have unpredictable emotional reactions.
Given how long a rejoining process might take anyway it's better to leave it for a while, make some smaller and less controversial agreements with the EU.
I understand there's also an ego thing. Britain had a pretty sweet deal under the previous EU membership, and they won't get that again if they rejoin.
But if Europe weathers the nationalistic wave (as it seems to be), and gains more members, things are going to get increasingly worse - relatively - for Britain.
But, fuck, I have no idea why Trump was able to win in 2016, and even more why he's got any chance in 2024. So I'm in no position to judge the stubborn holding to Brexit, as it destroys the livelyhoods of the very people who voted for it.
Everyone’s sick and tired of hearing about Brexit. A big reason the conservatives won the last election is they campaigned on “Getting brexit done”.
Labour also hadn’t won for 14 years, so they played basically the safest campaign possible. Imagine if the GOP had had 4 presidents in a row, the democrats would have campaigned on a super centrist campaign, because thats the only way they can gain voters. Same here. Labour barely proposes any “big” changes, because they were very careful in order to not fuck it up again.
Firstly, the decision to leave was made through a diplomatic referendum, which makes it practically and politically awkward to reverse without making the UK look even more foolish on the world stage. Another big reason is that the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly. Like the proverbial oil tanker, turning around is no quick and easy task -- it would take years to reverse what has already been done and would leave Britain in an appalling position when it came to negotiating the terms of reentry.
Realistically, it's been estimated that if the UK can get back on its feet and make a good go of it, the earliest point at which reentry would be advisable is in about ten years time.
On top of what others have said, most Brits (even a lot of remainers) are under the deep delusion that Rejoin means Rejoin on 2016 terms.
Earliest rejoin is 10 years in theory, but in reality it will probably be decades before the Brits are ready to swallow their pride and join the EU on the same terms as everyone else (no funny license plates, blue passport, no funny big ag exemptions, no more special opt-outs, and most importantly immediate euro adoption). The EU does not have any more political incentive to offer the broad exemptions the UK used to benefit from, and have publicly stated as much.
If a British party ran on a rejoin campaign and actually won, they'd fuck themselves about as hard as Cameron did because the political reality does not match the ludicrous expectations. If Brits have to turn in their Pound notes for Euro notes, the political backlash will be so enormous that it will set off seismometers in Bucharest.
the libdems, scottish greens, and snp all talk about rejoining. it's just that labour and the tories are all trying to pander to the north of england, who are predominantly leavers.