Brinǀng back the B-word will only cause more misery
There are some words that you type or read on a screen that make your heart feel like a stone dropping inside your chest. It can be the name of a former partner, or a reference to a place that is long gone – but still missed. You never know what it will be until it happens.
As I found out recently, one of those words that triggers this reaction deep within my soul is “Brexit”. Christ, even spelling it out just now was painful. “Britain mulls Swiss-style ties with Brussels,” the Sunday Times told us over the weekend. All the greatest hits were played in the story. The government wants closer ties with the EU but doesn’t want free movement; the ERG is preemptively frothing at the mouth; the EU should want this as much as we want it; “Lord Forst”; “Chequers”. That last one made me flinch.
If you managed to miss the story, due to “having a life” or “seeing the word Brexit and closing the tab immediately”, it’s all pretty straightforward. Some in government think that it is time for Britain to form stronger economic ties with the European Union.
The goal would be to pursue frictionless trade (those words! argh!) and “remove the vast majority of trade barriers with the bloc” over the next decade. It would require a more liberal migration policy for EU citizens and payments to the EU budget, as well as greater oversight for the European Court of Justice.
You can probably imagine how a healthy portion of the Conservative benches reacted to this news. If you can’t, imagine driving over someone’s puppy – then dial up the hysteria a little further. It’s all been very dignified.
Though Downing Street has already denied that any Swiss-style deal is on the cards, fingers have already been pointed at Jeremy Hunt – the all-powerful chancellor and former Remainer. The tussle between No 10 and No 11 will be interesting to follow over the next few weeks and months as, lest we forget, Rishi Sunak always was a Brexiteer. Can Hunt make an economic case strong enough to supersede the political one?
Or perhaps more importantly – should he? At the risk of drawing the ire of the FBPE crowd, I simply am not sure that there is any point in reigniting the Brexit wars at this point in time.