STEPHEN M GRANT

Before the referendum, I was a 'remainer'. On balance, I considered the advantages to be greater than the disadvantages. The concept of international cooperation across areas from commerce to anti-terrorism seemed to me to outweigh the prospect of federalism, and I believed that whilst we were members, it would be difficult for the federalists to realise their agenda. And then of course, there was the commission – the EU's 'executive' who seemed to be gaining more and more executive power by the year.

 

Shortly before the election, I had a few drinks with my old and trusted friend Jim Reeve – a man whose judgment and opinions I hold in high regard – which is not to say we don't disagree. The subject of the referendum inevitably arose, and I had assumed that an urbane, well-travelled guy who did his own version of the Grand Tour as a young man and who had a truly international outlook would be a staunch remainer.

Of course he would.

 

It quickly transpired that he most certainly was not.

 

Now the thing about Jim is that the opinions he holds are informed. If he knows little of a subject, he says so and whether the opinion is strong or just a preliminary view, he is open-minded and open to debate. His is the very antithesis of cancel culture.

 

There followed a series of exchanges during which I learned that he knew a good deal about the structure of the EU, how it is managed and indeed who the leading players were and where they came from. Suffice to say he was no fan, and he successfully amplified my concerns over the powers of a non-elected executive and creeping federalism. After an evening of fulsome debate which ended up including half the regulars of the Blacksmith's Arms, he had shaken my remainer resolve to the core. As the days passed and as I learned more, my opinion changed and I voted to leave.

 

The point of the personal history lesson is that Jim's concerns and observations have materialised as though they were the kernels of a script for the last year.

 

The events of recent weeks are proof positive of these concerns. The commission tried to block the export of vaccines to the UK whose expertise and whose taxpayers came up with a vaccine in the first place.

 

The single market arrangements the EU put at the very heart of its negotiating stance and which they declared to be their red line, critical to the peace process and that even the possibility of a border was an unacceptable risk for the return of the dark days of violence etc. was swept aside less than a month after the treaty was signed – without even informing Dublin or London.

 

That backfired pretty quickly, so they resorted to casting doubt on the vaccine itself as I detailed here on March 8th. Even though European scientists themselves said the fears were misplaced, the politicians continued to pour scorn on the very vaccine the export of which they were trying to prevent. If there were any doubts that these measures were purely political, they were surely dispelled altogether when they thought they had found proof that the nasty, selfish Brits were smuggling vaccines from Italy and mounted a police raid – military police at that. I can't help the Keystone Cops coming to mind. It's nothing less than demented.

 

The flip-flops continued with concerns over blood clots. Anything, in fact, to shield themselves from the inevitable criticism as they saw the UK surge ahead and look forward to easing lockdown in April whilst they faced a third wave.

 

Following the referendum, I had friends and acquaintances who looked at me agog and simply couldn't believe that I had 'voted the same way as Farage'. It was as though I had voted for Farage and got caught drowning kittens on the way back from the polling station. They hadn't realised variously that I was a closet xenophobe, a racist, that I was plain stupid or thick, naïve, so easily influenced and so on. You see all the clever, educated people voted to stay and only the great unwashed, uneducated or extreme right wing voted to leave.
It really was that simple and there were graphics in the Guardian to prove it, not to mention a media echo-chamber of incredible proportions.

 

The remainers were right about one thing though. Brexit has given rise to protectionism, to chauvinist politicking and to a nasty, insidious form of populism contrasted with an open, accommodating and magnanimous opposite. They just got the geography wrong way round.

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