Countdown to Brexit begins
departure from the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. Their protests last week, with dead haddock hurled into the Thames outside Parliament, signalled the beginning of a new ideological battle about how much change Brexit will bring.
Eurosceptics are concerned about the delivery of key demands of the Leave campaign during the 2016 referendum: taking back control of money, laws and borders. On that scorecard the Prime Minister rates only one out of three so far.
While Britain’s annual multi-billion annual payments to Brussels are scheduled to be phased out by the end of the decade, the issues of unravelling unwanted EU regulation and tightening immigration controls have barely been broached by ministers.
Over the coming year the Prime Minister will have to start making policy choices that cannot satisfy both Mr Rees-Mogg and the leading Tory Europhile Tory Anna Soubry.
If Brexiteers want to cheer themselves up they only need to take a look at the Remain camp. Every attempt to sabotage or delay Brexit through legal or parliamentary means has been thwarted.
THEY have been reduced to ridiculous stunts such as Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable’s unsuccessful attempt to recruit European prime ministers to his call for a second referendum.
On the positive side Mrs May can expect a desire to celebrate Brexit to grow as exit day draws closer. “A lot of us griping about compromises and betrayals are getting a bit bogged down in the fine details,” one leading figure in the 2016 Leave campaign told me. “When March 29 2019 comes around we are still going to have one hell of a party.”
Voters turned off by the negotiation nit-picking will become increasingly aware that a truly momentous day in the country’s history is coming. Ministers and Whitehall officials will soon have to begin considering suitable ways to mark the day of destiny. Recent decisions, such as the Royal Mail’s rejection of Brexit stamps and the move to manufacturer the new blue UK passport abroad, suggest a lack of serious thinking so far.
Mrs May’s team will need more imagination if they are to foster a spirit of optimism and national renewal. Her whistle-stop tour of the UK next week makes for a bold start. An opportunity to show the way towards the glittering prize of Britain’s Independence Day is there to be seized.