Heavily diminished Prime Minister
Theresa May keeps saying she wants to unite the UK behind Brexit. This is
a tough ask as tens of millions have long ago realised how damaging it will be,
but all the same there is a potential strategy she has not yet tried.
The winning margin was very narrow –
closer than 52% to 48% - but one thing that was striking was how many top Leave
campaigners promised that even if we left the EU, we would remain in the Single
Market.
Boris Johnson, Owen Paterson,
Daniel Hannan, and the man who bankrolled Brexit, Arron Banks, were among those
who took this line. So it is reasonable to assume a fair proportion of the 52%
who voted to leave the EU wanted to STAY in the Single Market. Clearly all the
48% who voted Remain wanted this, so if you add to that the Leave voters who
also wanted Single Market membership, you end up with a proposal that seems to
enjoy considerably more support than the proposition to leave the EU, and could
become a compromise around which a substantial majority of the country would
rally.
But bizarrely, Theresa May ruled
out Single Market membership, saying people had voted against it, even though
they plainly had not. Even more bizarrely, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
supports Theresa May.
I personally believe the UK should
remain in the EU because I cannot find any form of Brexit that will not be
worse than what we have now. But if Leavers were prepared to implement their
promise of leaving the EU but staying in the Single Market, this is a
compromise I, and I suspect most of the country, would accept.
What a shame for the UK then that
both Tory and Labour are ruling it out.
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