When David Cameron, the new foreign secretary, said he was “determined” to bring Britain and the EU closer together, Guy Verhofstadt, who headed the European Parliament’s Brexit committee, said the UK ought to cut the nonsense and simply rejoin. New comments from Ursula von der Leyen, no less, reveal that this isn’t just the view of Brussels’ more nutty wing but the bloc’s official stance.
The Commission president believes it is up to the next generation to “fix” Brexit—that is, to override the 2016 referendum and get Britain back into the EU. She told Politico:
I must say, I keep telling my children: ‘You have to fix it. We goofed it up, you have to fix it.’ So I think here too, the direction of travel—my personal opinion—is clear.
The paper pointed to polling which it said “consistently shows a majority of voters in the UK would back rejoining the EU if asked to do so at a referendum,” while conceding that the topic is “toxic” in Westminster and will not be touched by either of the two main parties.
In fact, both the Tories and Labour were quick to hit back against von der Leyen’s remarks. Despite reports that Labour is eyeing rejoining the Brussels bloc, a spokesman said that “we’re not rejoining in any form,” including the single market and customs union.
In his typically uncouth manner, which is enjoyed yet ignored by Rishi Sunak’s government, Tory Party Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson said that the Commission president “needs to shut up.”
But Brussels officials are unlikely to keep quiet on the Brexit issue. The same holds true for persistent British ‘Remainers’ (or ‘Rejoiners’), who fail to see the “truth” of the EU project. That is according to Reform Party Deputy Leader Ben Habib, who told The European Conservative:
The truth of the EU is also the opposite of what rejoiners put about. The EU is a failing trade bloc. It is shrinking. It is over-indebted and its major economy, Germany, is facing a crisis over the ridiculous decision to terminate the internal combustion engine. The EU is a basket case. Still, that will not stop our feckless political class indulging their inability to do right by our country.
