Read on Twitter
A thread on why I’ve changed from being an unromantic but firm Remain voter in 2016 to being a Re-Leaver who is prepared to see us Leave with no deal if we have to. I should say for clarity at the outset that I’m a Conservative Party Member. 1/25 #StandUp4Brexit #ReLeaver
I‘ll make no bones about it. In my teens & early 20s I was very pro-EU (I’m 36 now). It was after I started working in the public affairs industry that my fervour for further EU integration slowly ebbed away as I came into more regular contact with EU melodrama & bureaucracy 2/25
Like many middle class graduates I grew up seeing the EU as a fact of life. In my early 30s it seemed an imperfect reality. It was laughably tone deaf, pompous & weirdly nanny state in some competence areas.Nevertheless I felt it had value as a trade bloc & a cooperation hub 3/25
I was an adherent to the inter-governmentalist school of thought on how the EU should evolve. My views were similar to Cameron in terms of further single market liberalisation and the UK having a hard break to prevent being swept up in any further drift to supranationalism 4/25
I was obviously dispirited by how little Cameron brought back from his re-negotiation - I hadn’t had mammoth expectations, but I had felt he would secure more than he came back with given most of his asks were already fairly modest in substance. It was an underwhelming deal 5/25
But at that point I still felt the UK would on balance opt to Remain. I was of course unnerved, though not surprised, when one of the UK’s sharpest political minds, @michaelgove, joined the Vote Leave campaign. I knew he’d give Vote Leave more gravitas, strategic nous & grit 6/25
The only moment where I fleetingly thought “am I right to vote Remain?” was during Gove’s brilliant Sky News Debate showing where he made an incisive case for a liberal Brexit. But that feeling lasted mere minutes & I firmly felt Remain was the right choice heading into vote 7/25
I felt Remain was the right choice for many reasons & will stick to the headlines. One was in the context of being a necessary hub in an increasingly interconnected but contested world order. I also bought fully into the Treasury/ BOE/CBI narrative on an immediate downturn 8/25
Crucially I believed the UK business investment and inward investment would fall off a cliff within months of a Leave vote, and that unemployment would spiral. To my regret, finally I tended to see most Brexiteers as “little Englanders” - a very lazy misreading on my part 9/25
After the result I was initially gutted. My worldview was shaken. It felt like a series of kicks to the stomach as not only did Remain lose, but two politicians I admired - Cameron and Osborne - left office in their prime, and then my ideal replacement Gove self-destructed. 10/25
But then clarity began to set in. The skies hadn’t fallen. The economy and the psyche of the British public proved more robust than I and many others expected. The economy grew, albeit it at a slow pace, and life went on. What did change was my perception of elite Remainers 11/25
I always knew the EU would give us a hard time in the negotiations -they had to. Brexit is a profound democratic rejection of the current EU operating model & its intended direction of travel. I can’t blame them for aiming to “teach lessons” about the “follies of Leaving” 12/25
So EU animus was to be expected. What dismayed me was the sheer dogmatic vehemence with which *some* elite, ardent Remainers in Labour, the Tories, academia & other quarters of the British establishment rejected any compromise with Brexit & belittled those who backed Leave. 13/25
At a time when the country could have started to heal, they instead pursued a war of attrition - a veritable “I will burn this village to save it” ethos. What I found unedifying were the constant attempts to talk the UK down as little Britain & dampen economic confidence. 14/25
What was even worse was to see politicians whose ability and integrity I had long respected like Ken Clarke and Andrew Adonis openly lining up to pro-actively give advice to the EU on how to approach the negotiations and undermine the UK in the media & party political arena 15/25
I also came to feel that for all the constant sneering, the UK economy has held up remarkably well during a period of real political volatility and market uncertainty. We also secured concessions during May’s negotiations that the ultra-Remainers said were impossible. 16/25
Back in 2016 before the Ref I felt that Brexiteers in Parliament were pretty dogmatic and Remainers in Parliament were almost universally reasonable & pragmatic. By 2018 I felt the inverse was true. Many Brexiteers in Parliament were prepared to swallow a hell of a lot 17/25
Conversely many Tory & Labour Remainers would mouth platitudes about respecting the result but then in the same breath argue for a model that would mean the UK’s relationship with the EU remained largely unchanged -meaning no control of borders & no independent trade policy 18/25
Personally freedom of movement was never a big issue for me, although I think it should be tweaked by the EU. I’m personally in favour of skilled migration, but I can understand why many Leave voters had concerns. It was a key factor in why Leave won, & can’t be ignored 19/25
Ultimately, I believe the outcome of the 2016 referendum must be implemented. It would be so dangerous to set aside the result of the largest ever exercise in direct democracy this country has seen. I think the UK can succeed economically with an independent trade policy. 20/25
Outside the EU we have the opportunity to reshape our regulatory model and create an even more attractive, competitive, low tax business environment where entrepreneurship and innovation can thrive. We have a dynamic business community & should be confident about the future 21/25
If we can clinch a deal with the EU that has a clear exit mechanism from the backstop then we should grasp it. But if not we should exit on WTO terms & go from there. Ultimately the backstop is intended to be leverage for the EU’s to force us into a permanent Customs Union 22/25
The fact that they’ve blinked on an extension to Article 50 shows they want unfettered trade with the UK. We should hold our nerve and wait for them to come to us with a more reasonable solution to the backstop issue we can sign up to. Mrs May Hammond must also go very soon 23/25
We need fresh dynamic leadership for the country by people who actually believe in Brexit and in the opportunities it presents for greater economic competitiveness, tax cuts, regulatory innovation (in the consumer and business interest) and most crucially civic renewal. 24/25
I get why passions run so highly amongst Remainers esp re what Brexit means for our place in the world. My parents are Irish, my sister has lived in Italy for 26 years,& my own wife is a non-EU resident. I think we can use Brexit to frame a positive global engagement agenda 25/25
