Brexiteers and Remainers alike need to face reality
◆ The only thing that matters is getting the UK back into the single market, writes Kenny Macaskill
Rishi Sunak’s Belfast visit was underwhelming not just because he hasn’t grown into the Prime Ministerial office. His trumpeting how good a deal Northern Ireland has with access to the single market and reduced Brexit frictions was all but lost. Overshadowed by global events and the momentous accession of a Nationalist First Minister. Unionists despondent and Republicans savouring the moment and eyeing the bigger prize of a border poll.
Meanwhile, industrialists and manufacturers in Scotland and across the UK could only look on and envy. Why invest in Scotland, even with a few quid thrown at the A75, when options lie across the North Channel? The absurdity of Sunak stating how good a deal it was for NI but persisting with pursuing the Brexit Valhalla for the rest of us was starkly evident.
Rejoining the single market is critical. Magical post-brexit trade deals just aren’t happening. Canada’s has been sent back to the drawing board and most obtained so far are either derisory or even damaging. Another US president will soon have come and maybe gone and still no trade deal with the USA, which was to be the anchor for the brave new world we would enter on departing from the EU’S shores.
Yet wilful blindness afflicts Labour leader Keir Starmer as much as Sunak. Not only is Tory economics to be continued but so is this absurdity of refusing to get back into the single market. A step which would allow businesses to trade with relative ease with markets nearby, ones of greater scale that they know well.
Of course, the reason is that they both reject free movement of labour, which would be consequent to the single market. Having made immigration their major issue they’re also now left with the perversity of a labour shortage requiring them to bring in workers from abroad who are less skilled, and from countries whose people are far harder to assimilate.
But blame for this self-inflicted harm has also to apply to those seeking to join the EU. The mantra “We Love EU” never worked in 2016 and has long since ceased to have relevance, let alone validity. Pushing against the grain, rather than delivering the practical and something far easier to sell to a sceptical public, has come at a cost to us all.
Ending the love affair with the EU and where mournful zealots live for the return to the Promised Land is also essential. The EU never was a paragon of virtue and certainly isn’t now. Those who condemn the Tories and live for a return of the ancient regime should consider what they’re arguing for.
Priti Patel and her ilk are odious on immigration but have they had a look at the EU? UKBA are boy scouts in comparison to Frontex. A friend who visited Bulgaria and the EU border with Serbia said the behaviour was barbaric. “Repel the boats” is benign in comparison to what’s happening there.
So can Brexiteers stop living the lie that it is working and Remainers cease looking back to supposed halcyon days that aren’t returning. And let’s just get back into the single market for our economy and society’s sake.