Which way is the wind blowing for little Britain?
Little? Yes. We are a tiny, isolated, island in a corner of the North Sea, now quite alone in the world, lost, and lonely.
We’ve turned away from our closest allies, our neighbours on our continent, with whom we used to enjoy a close affinity, and a leading role, as a full member of the European Union.
But our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has made it clear: there is no path back.
For the past five years, Sir Keir, as Labour leader, has emphatically declared, “There is no case for going back into the EU and no case for joining the single market or customs union.”
No case! That’s the door shut.
Yet Labour’s promises hinge on one critical factor: economic growth – and lots of it.
Persisting with barriers to trade with our biggest trading partner in the world – our continent – is the antidote to economic growth.
If Sir Keir refuses to look east towards Europe for economic opportunity, will he turn west instead, aligning with Trump’s America? Increasingly, this seems to be the strategy.
Starmer is now pursuing a trade deal with the USA, a long-cherished but elusive goal of Brexiters. He has assembled a ‘mini-Cabinet’ of senior ministers tasked with achieving this objective.
Back in 2019, when Trump was President and Starmer wasn’t yet Labour leader, he opposed Brexit plans to prioritise ties with the USA over the EU.
Such a deal, he warned, would have “obvious consequences for our public services, for businesses, for food and environmental standards and for workers’ rights.”
It was not something, he stated, that Labour “will ever countenance.”
How times change.
Now, despite being desperate for an economic lifeline to reverse Britain’s post-Brexit fortunes, Starmer has dismissed Europe as the solution.
Of course, Trump may well say ‘NO’ or demand huge trade-offs for a trade deal.
But Reform leader, Nigel Farage, has offered the Labour government his help to seal what GB News described as a “mega-Brexit deal” with the US.
“The US is our most important relationship in the world,” Farage told The Telegraph. “Forget Brussels.”
If Britain looks west rather than east, the dream of Rejoiners – to rejoin the EU – could be extinguished for a generation or longer.
This, despite consistent polling showing that most Britons believe Brexit was a mistake and now support EU membership.
But where is the big campaign to explain why we should join the EU again? It doesn’t exist.
In the nine years since the referendum, there has not been any prominent, powerful, professional campaign to present to the nation the positive benefits of EU membership for Britain and Britons.
If Britain chooses the west, the chance to reorient eastward may slip away – perhaps forever.
This could well be our last opportunity to chart a course back to Europe.