Talks on returning as an associate member after Brexit row are close to agreement, say diplomatic sources
Fair. But for Rejoin to happen, we don’t need Leave voters to vote for it in large numbers - we just need Remain voters to vote for it and Leave voters not to kick up a stink.
Latest polling already has Rejoin leading Stay Out by a 58/42 lead - relative to 2016, that’s a landslide. Electorally, what I suspect will happen next is along the following lines:
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At the moment, unlike pre-2015, there are almost no Lab/Lib Dem marginal seats (Sheffield Hallam and possibly Cambridge are the two exceptions out of 650 seats). So both parties are training their fire on the Tories and going soft on each other.
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During the next Parliament, the Lib Dems will inevitably get a lot more vocal on Rejoin. Partly that’s because talking about Europe is in the party’s DNA. Partly it’s an electoral inevitability - once Labour become the biggest party, the Lib Dems will face an electoral imperative to differentiate themselves from Labour to make inroads among their seats too, and the polling support for Rejoin makes it very fertile territory (especially in the sort of seats the Lib Dems will be targeting).
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That will trigger Labour needing to catch up with the Lib Dems to hold on to pro-Rejoin Labour voters - a bit like how the Lib Dems finishing 2nd in the 2019 European elections forced Labour to finally adopt a second referendum in their manifesto later that year.
But for Rejoin to happen, we don’t need Leave voters to vote for it in large numbers - we just need Remain voters to vote for it and Leave voters not to kick up a stink.
For rejoin to happen one of Labour or Conservatives need to put it as a main selling point in their manifesto to the effect of: “We pledge within our first term to submit an application for rejoining the EU / EEA”. But they won’t do this. Labour might make cute noises around this to fool voters in the South that they are on their side but they’ll never actually go out on an election with this promise. Conservatives won’t either. Fuck the Greens because we don’t like hippies and fuck the Lib Dems because of tuition fees or something I don’t even know anymore 🤷.
Long story short, this isn’t going to happen. Not because there isn’t a large amount of people that want it (I don’t disagree with your polling numbers) but because nobody wants to potentially lose their chances of getting in or staying in power and that’s more important to them.
Realistically I think rejoin is at least two decades away. While the EU would probably love to have the UK back, I think it’s almost certain that some countries will veto any rejoin any time soon.
If Britain rejoins the EU within a generation, I’ll eat a sock. I’m very pessimistic about the chances of it happening.
