Brendan Donnelly, Director of the Federal Trust was the guest speaker at our January dinner held at the Hydro Hotel.
In his talk entitled ‘Should we campaign to re-join the EU?’ he posed the question; given the damage that Brexit has done should we do something about it? He went on to explore the economic, political, and constitutional impact of that damage.
Economic: we see the impact on the economy every day; a 4% reduction in GDP, the loss of jobs in the financial services, the removal of 10% of bank assets from the country and the impact on the farming and fishing industries.
Constitutional: Brexit has adversely affected the constitutional structure of the UK. There has been a massive interest in nationalism in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and this is having a destabilising effect. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, and we could see a united Ireland and an independent Scotland emerging in the future.
Political: Brexit has fundamentally changed Britain’s place in the world. Dishonesty very much worked in the 2016 Referendum and our political culture has changed. Events in the last few years have shown that our electoral system is perverse and does not work.
There is a view that it is not possible to challenge Brexit; that it is a done deal, we can’t do anything about it and electors are just not ready to re-join the EU. Even if this were so it is not a reason to do nothing. We know that over 50% of people think that Brexit was a bad idea - politics is about changing things and campaigning groups should not be hesitant about putting forward these views.
Some prefer re-joining by stealth believing that by campaigning firstly to re-join the Customs Union and Single Market this will gradually edge people towards re-joining the full EU including the Euro and Schengen Agreement. But, if we want to re-join the EU, we should be proud to be part of the whole thing. Sovereignty sharing is what the EU is all about but politicians have never really sold the EU in these terms to the electorate. The EU would certainly not welcome back a country that prided itself on not being part of the Euro or the Schengen Agreement.
We cannot predict how re-joining the EU will happen; perhaps we need a new political party or a movement but, we should be working towards this by lobbying, expressing views and actively campaigning to bring this about.
Our next dinner is on 9 February 2022 where our speaker will be Professor Amelia Hadfield, Head of Politics University of Surrey. If you would like to know more about the European Movement or come along to one of our dinners, please call Paula Welch on 07510 851722.
