Beware a second referendum as older Brexit voters die off leaving Gen Z to pick up the result, says Paul Scully MP

This week, Kemi Badenoch revealed some key data points showing the success of our approach to international trade.

The UK is now the 4^th largest exporter in the world, moving up from 7^th just three years ago, overtaking France, Japan and the Netherlands. The Dutch have tended to punch above their weight because of the strategic importance of the port of Rotterdam to the EU mainland.

Yet in 2020, global giant Unilever chose to headquarter exclusively in London rather than Rotterdam. Similarly Shell have re

Since the referendum on 23 June 2016, our economy has grown faster than Germany, Italy and Japan, three of our fellow G7 countries.

This hasn’t happened simply because of the decision the country took seven years ago, but as a result of being able to play to our strengths like financial services, advanced manufacturing and the creative industries rather than being part of a bigger system that tries to please everyone and ultimately fails to please anyone.

Clearly there’s more to do. Not just in developing our economy to fit the world as it is, pivoting towards the Indo-Pacific region where the main global growth is going to be over the remainder of this century, but in capitalising on our regained sovereignty.

Trade agreements, migration and resettlement treaties pool our sovereignty but we are able to have full control in what we are prepared to give away and for what in return. We had little UK capability in negotiating trade deals because we had no need to do so for some four decades.

But now whether removing trade barriers, developing our vaccine responses or creating bespoke solutions to tackle illegal migration, we have full control. Our politicians now have nowhere to hide from the electorate (as we’re finding).

But that’s what taking back control meant. Instead of lifting up the rock under which we can go back and hide through a second referendum, we need to continue our journey, charting our way through waters which will inevitably be choppy at times, use our size and influence to remain agile and rediscover our national confidence.

I was a member of the British delegation on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe either side of the referendum and I saw Labour politicians queuing up to make speeches apologising for the result of the referendum, the biggest single democratic event ever in the UK.

It’s no surprise that many of them returned to tell their domestic audience that we were a laughing stock abroad when that was prompted by their own confirmation bias.

We have plenty to do in this country to continue turning the corner post Covid rather than looking backwards to a decision taken seven years ago with the most painful aftermath secured by Parliament’s inability to accept the reality and agree on a position.

We are not in a perfect position, but there is no perfect Brexit. But we need to own it, continue to push back on those who want us to cling to a past which never existed and move forward.