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Originally Posted by Damien
To be honest I think the issue is settled now and almost everybody - bar some fanatics - have moved on. The argument that we shouldn't have left but now that we have we might as well make the best of it is not hypocrisy nor contradictory. I think there are a few people in the press and the Government that want to keep pushing Brexit as a divisive issue because it sells papers and is politically useful but there isn't much juice in that issue.
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Characterising the millions who would wish us to move closer to the EU economy as fanatics, is very insulting. When you see hundreds of small exporters and importers struggling to manage the costs and delays to the trade they had built up with the EU, surely you can see why people would want us at least to restore frictionless trade with the EU.
There's a reason why our small exporters and importers would want to trade with the EU rather than the wider world: 1) Shorter distances mean cheaper shipping, 2) Shorter distance involve smaller carbon footprints and 3) JIT delivery is more predictable over shorter distances. Replacing EU trade with worldwide trade automatically builds in those additional drawbacks and costs. Add in the increased red tape and fees at borders, then one can see why small businesses are failing and throwing in the towel daily, especially given that the checks built into transactions with the EU are more complex than anywhere else in the world. Restoring a customs union of some kind would avert all of that.
Many of us would like to start now building a movement to rejoin the EU because we have lost so many individual and freedoms by leaving and we are aware of the disadvantages for trade and European cooperation. We are not a few fanatics. We are real patriots, wanting the best for our country and people. We reject the rabid and xenophobic nationalism that underpinned the Leave campaign, trying to wrest an imaginary independence from Johnny foreigner in Brussels, little realising that all trade deals and treaties require some loss of sovereignty, especially when there are much bigger fish in the sea.
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