Pain and anger as Brexit looms

While the United Kingdom’s forthcoming exit from the European Union is no doubt being celebrated long and hard in the pubs and clubs of Brexit-loving areas of England, I have been receiving gloomy messages from the many contacts who over the past three-and-a half years have kept faith with the Remain cause.

“My last Christmas as part of the European family of nations,” one simply said.  Another darkly predicted “lots of pain and heartache along the way as the false Brixeteer slogans are blown to smithereens”.

The regret is just as heartfelt among many Europeans, with the Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans writing: “Since I went to a British school you have always been part of me. Now you are leaving and it breaks my heart.”

There is also anger, with Sweden’s Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström saying she cannot forgive the UK’s political leaders for causing Brexit.

“It is an historic mistake and a big problem for all of us,” Wallström said.

With the year about to turn and the final month of the UK’s membership looming, a Polish Member of the European Parliament sees Brexit as ultimately a good thing for the EU.

Radoslaw Sikorski says the UK’s long and anguished exit has so shocked other members of the bloc that any thoughts of following Britain out of the door have vanished.

“English Europhobes wrongly assumed that the UK’s departure would trigger a domino effect and cause the EU to collapse,” Sikorski said.

“Actually, the opposite has happened. The EU has never been as popular and has never commanded this widespread loyalty as a result of Brexit.

“People have seen the mess the UK has got itself in and don’t see that as an example to follow.”

Sikorski also made a good point when he said that in supporting Brexit in the recent General Election, British voters had also rejected the perception of Marxism and anti-Semitism that dogged the Opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn was never going to win the election and put up such a poor showing in opposition to Brexit that he split and disheartened the Remain vote.

It is now up to a new Labour leader to chart a course for the party. There will certainly be elements that point to the losses in traditional Labour areas as reason to accept a post-Brexit Britain.

However, opposition to the now arch-Brexiteer Conservatives and Prime Minister Boris Johnson can only result from a critical stance of his policies, most of which are going to stem from Brexit.

There will also be the issues of Scotland and Northern Ireland on which Labour must make a stand.

As Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has rightly pointed out. The General Election may have given Johnson a mandate to take England out of EU, but that did not extend to Scotland where the pro-independence (and pro-EU) Nationalists virtually swept the board.

The Johnson deal that will treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK has left Unionists with a sense of betrayal and galvanised Nationalists to call for a new referendum on union with the south.

Having been virtually ejected from Scotland, where it was once the dominant party, it is likely the new Labour leadership will move towards supporting a new independence vote, especially as Johnson has already said he would not allow one.

It may also consider that the gradual realignment of politics in Northern Ireland makes a future referendum on union with the south inevitable.

As has often been said the past, the price of winning Brexit could be the loss of the United Kingdom.