EU's Chucked Its Dollies

[Protheroe]

we have rolled the dice to gain what exactly?

This is why it's pointless debating the issue with you any further. Your entire view is through the prism of loss, it's an entirely understandable psychological phenomenon - I get it, I really do.

It's pointless talking about the margin of victory when the decision to leave has been endorsed in every Parliamentary (and European) election since. It no longer matters what the margin was, and madness is the only destination in fighting yesterday's battles.

What have we gained? Simple. We have recovered the democratic deficit we'd lost progressively since 1973. You can already see the Tory backbenches flexing this recovered democratic brio whether the issues at hand are directly related to the EU or not. Surely that's a good thing.

We have recovered the ability to act on a more agile basis as illustrated by the accelerated deployment of the Covid vaccine, the benefit of this agility will become all the more clearer as the years progress not least in the regulation and tax treatment of financial services, FinTech, GM technology etc.

I sense some who remain with their arses in their hands about leaving the EU have the same worldview as those Peter Shore talked about in that Oxford Union debate; that Britain is somehow too small, too timid and too daft to make it's own way in the world. As a liberal positivist I think that view is as fatalistic as it is deranged.

You're right to point out some of the downsides, but none of these are terminal, some will be transitory, others will be addressed through dialogue, a few never will be. That's life.