The ever-changing reasons why Brexit is a total failure.
I'm sure every sane person in the UK has noticed how the language of Brexit has changed:
In 2016 we were promised "sunlit uplands", "prosperity", and "holding all the cards". We were told the EU would be hammering on our doors DESPERATE to trade with us.
Now that reality has hit (higher prices, red tape, stagnant economy), all that ludicrous optimism has vanished, and much darker language has emerged to replace it.
Hardline Brexiters no longer tell us Brexit was a success. Instead, they tell us it would have been a success if only they weren't "betrayed".
The list of scapegoats grows longer by the day:
First it was the Remoaner Parliament.
Next it was the "obstinate" EU.
Then it was the "Civil Service Blob" or metropolitan elite - convenient, undefined enemies that apparently stopped ministers from doing their jobs.
Or was it COVID, or the war in Ukraine?
Conveniently ignored is the fact that other countries faced the exact same challenges but recovered faster.
Even Farage is joining in. In 2023, Farage admitted on Newsnight that Brexit has failed, but blamed the Conservatives for not doing it "properly". This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy: the idea that the only "real" Brexit is a fantasy version not tried yet.
To put it another way, it's the stab in the back myth. It asks us to believe that one of the most powerful governments the UK has had in decades, with a colossal "Get Brexit Done" majority, was somehow frustrated and rendered helpless by a handful of newspaper columnists, civil servants and genuine opponents.
Or is it your fault? Too impatient? After all, one-time Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg once suggested (after the referendum, of course) that we'd have to wait 50 years to see the benefits.
That wasn't on the side of the bus in 2016, now was it?
It's the political equivalent of dog ate my homework. They promised to take back control. Yet now those who led that campaign say they're still helpless victims of global events, secret cabals and "vengeful" Europeans.
Brexit was a disaster, and it's the Brexiters' fault.
In 2016 we were promised "sunlit uplands", "prosperity", and "holding all the cards". We were told the EU would be hammering on our doors DESPERATE to trade with us.
Now that reality has hit (higher prices, red tape, stagnant economy), all that ludicrous optimism has vanished, and much darker language has emerged to replace it.
Hardline Brexiters no longer tell us Brexit was a success. Instead, they tell us it would have been a success if only they weren't "betrayed".
The list of scapegoats grows longer by the day:
First it was the Remoaner Parliament.
Next it was the "obstinate" EU.
Then it was the "Civil Service Blob" or metropolitan elite - convenient, undefined enemies that apparently stopped ministers from doing their jobs.
Or was it COVID, or the war in Ukraine?
Conveniently ignored is the fact that other countries faced the exact same challenges but recovered faster.
Even Farage is joining in. In 2023, Farage admitted on Newsnight that Brexit has failed, but blamed the Conservatives for not doing it "properly". This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy: the idea that the only "real" Brexit is a fantasy version not tried yet.
To put it another way, it's the stab in the back myth. It asks us to believe that one of the most powerful governments the UK has had in decades, with a colossal "Get Brexit Done" majority, was somehow frustrated and rendered helpless by a handful of newspaper columnists, civil servants and genuine opponents.
Or is it your fault? Too impatient? After all, one-time Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg once suggested (after the referendum, of course) that we'd have to wait 50 years to see the benefits.
That wasn't on the side of the bus in 2016, now was it?
It's the political equivalent of dog ate my homework. They promised to take back control. Yet now those who led that campaign say they're still helpless victims of global events, secret cabals and "vengeful" Europeans.
Brexit was a disaster, and it's the Brexiters' fault.
