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June 28, 2024
What will Brexit look like in 2026?
By Brendan Donnelly, leader of the Rejoin EU Party and parliamentary candidate in Finchley & Golders Green
Since 2020, when the UK left the European Union, British public opinion has moved in only one direction. More and more British voters are coming to realise that Brexit was a major error. The promises of its advocates remain unachieved and will continue to remain so in the foreseeable future.
This radical shift in public opinion against Brexit is all the more striking given the lack of political leadership on the subject. All the national parties continue either to pretend that Brexit is working, that it can be made to work, or that re-joining the EU can only be envisaged in the dim and distant
future. There is no major political party echoing the growing majority of voters in repeated opinion polls who don't merely believe that Brexit was a mistake, but was a mistake that should be reversed.
That is where the Rejoin EU Party comes in. Like UKIP in its early days, we are a small party standing in a limited number of seats (26) at this general election. We want to give the voters an option to say loudly and clearly that their political leaders are lagging a long way behind British public opinion on Europe. The name of our party is a manifesto in itself. We want to end the damage Brexit is doing. We want to bring back economic growth, clean rivers, easy travel within Europe, the opportunities for our young people to work and study abroad that we had before Brexit.
Perhaps most importantly, we want to restore the international respect for the UK which Brexit has destroyed. It seems likely that this election will be won by a party claiming that it wants to “make Brexit work.” Every vote cast for the Rejoin EU Party in the election sends a message to this new incoming government. Brexit can't be made to work. Re-joining the EU is the only sensible option for the UK.
In a probably unnecessary attempt to reassure Eurosceptic voters, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has given a number of specific pledges about not joining the European single market and the Customs Union and not accepting European freedom of movement. These pledges will return to haunt him. His hopes for a better relationship with the EU and for a consequent improved economic performance for the British economy are built on sand as long as he echoes the defensive and negative rhetoric of Euroscepticism. In two years' time, Starmer will be under much greater pressure than now, from within and outside his own party, genuinely to reset the UK’s relationship with the EU. For this reset to occur, our European partners will understandably demand more from the UK than warm words and attempted cherry-picking.
The Rejoin EU Party will be part of that coalition encouraging the UK on its road back towards the EU. Once the first steps are taken on this journey, it may well turn out to be shorter and easier than is often assumed.
Visit our website at www.therejoineuparty.com, follow the party on Twitter at @rejoinp and read our 2024 General Election manifesto at therejoineuparty.com/manifesto-2024
The Rejoin EU party is campaigning to re-join the EU because we believe re-joining is the only way to solve the multiple problems Brexit has created. Brexit is broken and it’s breaking our country too. All the promises on which Brexit was sold to the electorate in 2016 were nonsense. Far from reducing red tape and providing £350m a week for the NHS, Brexit makes trading with the crucial European market more complex, difficult and expensive and threatens to reduce funding for public services. If you agree Brexit is making our country poorer, less tolerant and less united, join us and send a message to Westminster that you want your EU membership back, with all its freedoms and benefits.
Promoted by Richard Hewison on behalf of Brendan Donnelly and the Rejoin EU Party, 86-90 Paul St, London, EC2A 4NE.
