10 Reasons Why Britain will not Re-Join the EU

A Contribution to Silly Season

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It’s high summer and so it’s officially Silly Season —that time of year when media engage with more trivial debates. Like the idea Brexit Britain might soon Re-Join the European Union. Always popular among the always interesting #FBPE types on Twitter (Follow Back, Pro European!), and recently promoted by none other than Tony Blair, the question of re-join is never far from the surface.

And it’s not hard to see why.

Britain, as I’ve previously argued, is on the cusp of electing its first (pro-EU) Labour government since 2005. And there’s no doubt the polls are moving against Brexit.

Amid a spiralling cost-of-living crisis, historic levels of immigration from outside the EU, and a general sense of disillusionment with the established parties, feelings of Bregret recently surged to an all-time high, prompting many, like Blair, to once again claim it’s only a matter of time until Brexit is replaced by Brentry.

Only … I’m not convinced.

As I pointed out in a Tweet that’s now gone viral, there are more than a few reasons why Brexit Britain will not re-join the EU anytime soon.

In fact, there are ten very good reasons why —all of which would be deployed, successfully in my view, on the average voter in a future referendum campaign.

As always, I’d welcome your thoughts in the comments below. Here we go:

1. It will not be like it was before. The relationship will be harder and the terms will be worse. You will not get special opt-outs on things like Schengen, justice and home affairs. You will not get rebates. You will have to go all-in. And having already left once you will not be as influential as you were before.

2. You will have to go back to sending billions of pounds of British taxpayers money to Brussels and Strasbourg. You will have to send them more money than you used to. And you will now also have to pay your share toward helping heavily indebted member states elsewhere. Furthermore, you will have to do all this at a time when Britain is only just beginning to recover from the post-Covid cost-of-living crisis, when British families are only just beginning to recover from the sharpest decline in living standards for half a century, and when your own pile of national debt is soaring to near-record highs.

3. You will most likely have to join the Euro single currency, either immediately or over the longer-term. You will certainly not get an opt-out. And you will have to commit to ever-closer union. All of which points to a much bigger and far more profound point: you will simply no longer be a self-governing, sovereign nation.

4. You will have even more immigration. You will have even faster demographic change. You will have even more pressure on housing and public services. You will once again have to accept and live with something you dislike almost as much as as you dislike sending billions of pounds to the EU -the free movement of EU nationals. And nor will this be like it was before. This time it will soon widen to include the likes of Albania, Bosnia, and Serbia. This will not only put mass immigration on steroids but will keep you locked in a broken political economy which now depends on an influx of migrants to keep costs low, wages low, consumption high, and big business happy. You will kiss goodbye to your one opportunity to build an economy that puts British workers first.

5. You will no longer be able to diverge from the EU as you are already starting to do in a growing number of areas like financial services, medical technology, animal testing, creative industries, Artificial Intelligence, and cryptocurrency (while the EU is diverging in areas like security, defence, digital and green policy). The more time time you’ve spent apart from the EU the more you’ve diverged from the EU and so the less sense re-joining makes. Nor will you be able to keep signing new trade agreements, like the CPTPP, with parts of the world that will grow more quickly than the EU. The future for Brexit Britain is forging a new, dynamic, and exciting life outside the EU —not returning to a bloc which has a declining share of global GDP.

6. You will no longer be quick and nimble —like you were with the Covid vaccines and responding to war in Ukraine. Since 2020, Brexit Britain has faced major, unprecedented geopolitical and health challenges and passed them all. The economy has certainly taken a short-term knock but Britain has managed these challenges just as well, if not better, than other major powers. Look also at how the EU has managed the energy crisis and relations with Russia —does this really look like an effective, fast-moving, forward-thinking organization to you?

7. You will be re-joining a club that cannot keep you and your family safe and secure —which is still failing to resolve a major refugee crisis, which was just engulfed by major rioting in France, and which has still not contained the Islamist threat. Are we not better off out, passing new laws like the Illegal Migration Bill and then doing whatever it takes to regain control of our judicial independence, our national borders, and defend our island nation from these growing threats to you, your family, and our way of life?

8. You will be re-joining a club that is still divided economically, between more prosperous northern states and more impoverished, heavily indebted southern states. The Eurozone is unlikely to hold together in the coming decades as southern states like Italy are hollowed out to service affluent northern ones like Germany. Why expose Britain to this? We should focus on levelling-up our own left behind regions before trying to help level-up a big chunk of the EU.

9. You will be re-joining a club that is increasingly divided culturally between East and West —where distant EU elites are trying to impose their socially liberal values on more conservative nations, where many people fear their distinctive national identity, history, and culture are now at risk of being lost forever because of this continual push toward liberal globalism. Many Brits felt exactly the same way before voting for Brexit. Do you really want to go back to this or would you rather preserve and protect your unique identity and culture?

10. And, lastly, you will be re-joining a club that is insufficiently democratic, insufficiently transparent, and which still suffers from a glaring ‘democratic deficit’, where you will simply have no serious influence over executive office. This is why the EU was just rocked by a major corruption scandal and helps to explain why growing numbers of people in the EU are turning to populists like Marine Le Pen and the Alternative for Germany. Does this look like a politically stable and unified organization to you? Britain’s political institutions are not perfect but you have more influence and accountability here than you ever would in the EU, where you would once again be locked into laws which your own democratically=elected governments cannot change. Britain —well, most of Britain— has finally become a self-governing, independent, sovereign nation where you, the people, have serious influence over your rulers. Why give all this up, why put your nation, your home, in the hands of an organization which is insufficiently democratic, insufficiently transparent, and visibly corrupt?

Matt Goodwin’s Substack goes out to more than 18,000 subscribers in 133 countries. Become a paid supporter to access everything —the full archive, extended essays, unique posts, Q&A sessions, leave comments, join the debate, get discounts, advance notice about events, and the knowledge you’re supporting independent, contrarian writers who are making a difference.