'In trade, national security, migration, environmental protection and shared education we can and should be working with other European countries,' says Stephen Pound
Recent hugs between our PM Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olof Scholz may have suggested to the susceptible that there is some devious scheme being cooked up in Berlin and Paris to welcome back “perfidious Albion" into the warm embrace of the EU.
There are many reasons why this is a febrile fantasy but the most important one is that the June 2016 referendum – which may have been won by a hair’s breadth – was a democratic decision by the people of the UK in a fair and free election.
Margaret Thatcher in 1975 famously said that referendums are "a device of dictators and demagogues" but on this, I part company with the Iron Lady.
For something as momentous as the decision to cut ties with our biggest trading partner and the guarantors of European peace for the first time in over a century, a national opinion had to be formed.
Had it been simply a component of a general election manifesto then everything would be subsumed into this one key question and the general election would simply become a de facto referendum.
The people spoke in June 2016 and while I deeply regret the decision, I am a democratic as well as a remainer.
Those who called for a second referendum should surely have realised that a second poll might well have indicated a vote for remain but then we would be deafened by demands for a “best of three” neverendum.
A more brutal reason why we are out and will remain so is the fact that readmission would have to be ratified by every single member state – 100 per cent or nothing.
This would give huge power to, for example, Spain who would inevitably demand annexation of Gibraltar as a price to pay for their vote.
The list of demands from France would be eye-watering and as long and as indigestible as the dinner menu at the Elysee Palace and they would not be alone.
Of possibly greater significance is the reality that the EU is no longer a single bloc with common standards and a shared sense of purpose.
Tensions are extraordinarily high within the union with Poland at risk of expulsion, Hungary openly opposing Brussels and Germany reeling from the triumph of the very far right AfD party in Thuringia on September 1.
So, what is the “reset” with the EU that Keir Starmer speaks of so strongly?
Having established the principle of UK sovereignty and got our blue passports bac, we find that there are many areas in which we could profitably work with the EU.
Not necessarily in an associated membership status, as with Switzerland and the European Economic Area, but as a free nation that accepts the reality that some issues must be addressed on a larger stage than that of these small islands.
I well remember the horrors of acid rain which was devastating our waterways and forests at the turn of the century.
Coordinated pan-European action solved that problem.
LATEST OPINION:
The greatest threat to European stability today is unmanaged migration and surely even the most hidebound Eurosceptic must realise that a problem affecting the whole of Europe can only realistically be addressed at a European level.
In trade, national security, migration, environmental protection, shared education, scientific development and even sport we can and should be working with other European countries.
That does not make us any less a free nation but it does open a door to cooperation between equals for mutual national and international benefit.
Working with the EU should be good for UK plc but it will never be a Trojan horse for re-entry. That horse bolted long ago.
