‘Bre-entry’ Is A Pipe Dream

Earlier this month former Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting and future long-shot party leader candidate Wes Streeting caused a bit of a stir when he not only declared that the United Kingdom leaving the European Union was a ‘catastrophic mistake’ but he advocated the country should actually rejoin.

Sure enough, the English right spun into action, spurred by their indignation, with the BBC reporting that…

Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake seized on Streeting’s comment, saying “whilst Labour relitigate Brexit, Britain is not being governed”. Hollinrake called the remarks “yet another distraction… at a time when families and businesses want the government focused on the cost of living, the economy, public services and Britain’s defence”.

The same article also shows how Reform (Burnham’s main opposition in Makerfield) are hoping to use the issue in their campaign because of course they will.

So, what are we to make of all this?

While this may have been a reflection of Wes Streeting’s beliefs I would argue his intervention was NOT principled. Anand Menon (director of the UK in a Changing Europe) wrote a piece for ‘the Guardian’ in which he articulated that Streeting’s intervention was designed to create difficulties for Andy Burnham both in Makerfield (a constituency that voted leave) and in the forthcoming Labour leadership contest (whose membership seems relatively Europhilic).

The hope, presumably, is that Burnham is either driven to say something that makes the people of Makerfield less likely to vote for him (which Burnham seems to be avoiding), or that he is forced to adopt a position that makes members of the Labour party less likely to vote for him (which seems to be the chosen direction).

While Burnham navigates that bind, Streeting says as little that commits him to actually doing anything as possible. In his speech to a conference held over the weekend by the think tank Progress, the former health secretary spoke in splendidly vague terms about a new “special relationship” with the EU while mentioning he’d like to see the UK rejoin one day. That’s it. That it was enough to set so many hares running is a tribute to his political nous – but not a signal of intent when it comes to EU policy.

In other words, Streeting is playing a political game. The intervention was clever from a tactical perspective on his part, but it merely illustrates how Brexit is still the neuralgic third rail in English politics, the great untouchable.

Whilst some, such as Tim Wallace in the Telegraph who wrote to explain why they think Streeting is wrong, disagree with Streeting’s assertion that Brexit was a mistake, I would argue the evidence shows that Streeting is bang on the money.

But it doesn’t matter.

The problem is that Brexit has become an ideological totem on the right, an article of faith, a touchstone of identity. We all recall how the true believers of Brexit constantly bewailed every compromise in the negotiations with Europe as a result of those tasked with the talks not being committed enough, or being undermined by remainers in the civil service. How the counter to hard data presenting negative truths was a command that people should ‘believe in Britain’ as if sheer force of will would overcome economic reality.

Any setback is therefore not due to the idea being fundamentally awful but because it is either sabotaged or mishandled by those entrusted with power who don’t have faith in it.

Brexit can never fail. Brexit can only BE failed.

And that is why ‘bre-entry’ is a pipe dream. The minimum pre-requisite for the United Kingdom to return to the European Union is a broad, cross-party consensus supporting membership that stretches from the left to much of the right. Without that consensus, there is no point in bringing the United Kingdom back in given the disruption it would cause.

And that consensus does not exist. We can all read the polls. The current Labour government seems fated to be but a brief interregnum in the reign of the euro-sceptics, whose implacable faith in the correctness of Brexit is unshakable and who will brook no disbelievers nor apostates. Their looming return to power portends the resumption of an antagonistic relationship with the European Union and with Northern Ireland being plunged back into the frenetic, chaotic uncertainty of the Brexit years as collateral damage (something for us to look forward to).

Streeting and Burnham’s manoeuvring over Brexit is meaningless until such time as the effective veto of the English right on accession is broken and that means the English right will have to be persuaded of the merits of rejoining themselves.

Voters in Northern Ireland and Scotland who desperately want a return to the European Union are probably better off campaigning for reunification and independence respectively than awaiting the day that those who backed Farage, Johnson and Truss see the light.

And before anyone points out the polls which show most people in the Britain now agree that Brexit has been a mistake, I would counter it is much too late for that. They mourn the bespoke model they had prior to 2016 and which will never be on offer again. The barrier to entry is now much, much higher than it was.

Right now, it is insurmountable.