I’VE heard some mad ideas in Westminster but the latest plan to take us back into the EU must be the most bonkers of all.
And if they cannot get us to rejoin, they want us back in the Customs Union instead.
Anyone who thinks that is the answer to the Government’s problems must have lost their minds — but people around the Prime Minister are urging him to do just that.
Ministers seem to have started blaming Brexit for all the country’s problems, but the truth is that it has been neither the calamity the Remainers warned, nor the triumph the Leave campaign promised.
Just this week, Keir Starmer said we must carry on “reducing frictions” with the EU, and that the country must accept that Brexit “significantly hurt” the economy.
“We have to keep moving towards a closer relationship with the EU,” he said.
Crazy coalition
Everyone can remember how furious the Labour Party was about the referendum result, but some of them seem obsessed by it and have talked about little else since.
This weekend, Alastair Campbell was still going on about “Brexit lies, crimes and misdemeanours” and boasted of “never tiring of pointing out the damage Brexit has done”.
But now, with Labour languishing at fourth in the opinion polls, pro-EU campaigners have spotted their chance. The plan, I am told, is to make cuddling up to Brussels the big issue at the next election.
They reckon they can pile up the pro-EU votes in a crazy coalition made up of Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP, and Uncle Tom Cobley to take on Nigel Farage, Reform and what remains of the Tory Party.
The Government is already struggling to impose its authority. No10 thinks Cabinet members are plotting to ditch the PM. Ministers are being pushed around by bolshie backbenchers.
And that’s with a massive majority. Imagine the chaos with a rag-bag coalition. And who can think what mad policies the Greens or Corbyn’s loony lefties would force them to implement.
I voted Remain, but I always thought the public’s verdict at the referendum had to be respected, and pleaded with Parliament to back a deal that would have supported trade and protected jobs.
Instead, some tried to block the whole thing — and it looks like they still haven’t come to terms with it.
Now the Remainers think that with the referendum happening almost ten years ago and the result so close, the electorate has changed, and they could overturn it if the country voted again.
Posh lefties in London always think they are so clever and they are convinced they are right.
They always know better than the rest of us. “Surely the fools who voted Leave have come to their senses now,” they sneer.
“How could the clever people possibly lose?”
They should be careful what they wish for
They should be careful what they wish for.
Voters might be cheesed off now but they would be furious if this plan takes hold.
And the last referendum would be a tea party compared to another one. It would put rocket-boosters under Reform.
Farage would make immigration and anger at Westminster the main issues. It would destroy any remaining support among the traditional working-class voters Labour is supposed to stand up for.
It is the Government’s job to bring the country together, not cynically search for a battle to divide us all over again, or abandon their traditional working-class supporters to chase after votes in major cities and the South.
It should be obvious by now that Labour only wins elections with the support of Britain’s middle and lower-income majority. The only answer is to support aspiration and ambition and bring jobs and growth to the rest of the country.
Boris failed to keep his promise to level up, but Labour could get Britain back onside by backing businesses and investment to get the economy moving in the Midlands and the North.
They should use government spending to buy British and back our own industries.
Move 100,000 civil servants out of London to boost growth and bring jobs to areas that have been left behind for too long.
That would also help the mandarins and bureaucrats to find out what life is like for the rest of us, too.
And with Vladimir Putin on the march, it is obvious we are going to have to increase defence spending, so open more steelworks and arms factories in our traditional manufacturing heartlands.
In the end, there is no difference between voters in the forgotten North and the prosperous South.
We all want good jobs, safer streets, decent schools and hospitals, and action to tackle immigration and welfare.
That is how Labour can turn things around — not splitting the country to cuddle up to the EU.
