Remainer calls to rejoin the European Union are “just a pipe dream”, as Brexit hasn’t proven nearly as disastrous as predicted, admits the Guardian’s economic editor.
The question of whether the UK could – or should – rejoin the bloc has been thrust back into discussions following comments from EU Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen.
The official suggested Brexit could be reversed because leaders had “goofed it up” and that the younger generation could help “fix” the growing rift across the English Channel. She added that the “direction of travel”, in her opinion, was “clear”.
But experts and officials have now poured cold water on any hopes that her words might encourage the growing movement to become an EU member for the second time.
One Brexiteer has combated suggestions that the vote to leave the union was a “disaster” and said the current state of Brexit has relegated the movement to rejoin to a “pipe dream”.
Writing for The Guardian, Larry Elliott, the publication’s economic editor, has said it is “completely illogical” to “hanker for how things were”.
The journalist, who emerged as one of the publication’s few pro-Brexit voices in the run-up to the 2016 vote, has held his view that the departure has proven beneficial for the UK.
Mr Elliott wrote that any successful case to rejoin the EU would require campaigners to prove the country’s post-Brexit economy is a “basket case” and that life within the bloc is “so much better”.
He said “neither criterion has been met”, and while Britain’s economic performance has proven “mediocre” since 2016, it is “not the full-on horror show that was prophesied by the remain camp”.
He added there are signs the economy is “adjusting”, and that the UK has “recovered more strongly” than its European neighbours post-pandemic. Recent figures have shown that, while weak, GDP growth is expected to continue into 2024.
Eurozone GDP, by comparison, fell by 0.1 percent between July and September 2023. UK inflation also fell by 1.4 percent between September and October.
With the EU offering “woeful” economic performance in comparison, the Guardian journalist argued the reasons that enticed Britain to join in the 1970s no longer exist.
Ultimately, he concluded Brexit supplied a “safety valve” unique to the UK that has also protected Britons from the rise of the far-right, seen in Europe.
