David McKee on why the campaign to overturn Brexit failed

We are now six weeks from the end of the Brexit transition period. Britain has already left the EU - in a few weeks time the transition period within which we continued to trade as though we were still part of the body will be over.

At the time of writing Britain and the EU appear to be scrambling to finalise a deal.

David McKee on "The Article" site reflects here on why those who tried to overturn the Bresit referendum and keep Britain in the EU failed to do so. I suspect that in the future it will seem astonishing that they came as close as they did to success.

McKee has written an interesting piece.

Personally I voted Remain but am not a "Remainer" in the terms of this article because I have accepted from the day after the vote that the narrow win for Leave did reflect the balance of views in a bitterly divided nation and that Britain had to cease to be a member state of the EU in accordance with that democratic vote.

In my humble opinion those who waged a three year campaign to try to overturn the Brexit vote behaved very similarly to, and almost as badly as, Donald Trump and his die-hards are behaving now in refusing to accept that Biden won this years' US Presidential election and they lost it.

There is no doubt in my mind that if the people who voted Remain had been willing to fight for a softer Brexit which was completely compatible with the arguments which prominent leavers were expressing up to and including the day of the referendum - but which became "BRINO" and a betrayal to the likes of Nigel Farage the following day - they could have got their way. 

But because they split all over the place - with the most vocal seeking to overturn the referendum entirely - we ended up with years of political deadlock followed by a much harder Brexit than could have been obtained had the majority of "Remainiac" MPs not gone for all or nothing.

Ironically there was almost an unholy alliance between those who tried to stop Brexit altogether and those who wanted a much harder Brexit than Theresa May did, both convinced that if they succeeded in sabotaging her strategy they would get what they wanted, or something closer to what they wanted, instead.

Both were taking an extreme - indeed, in my opinion, irresponsible - risk. The risk taken by the hardline remainers did not come off and they brought about the very outcome they worst feared. The gamble taken by the hardline Brexiteers has brought about the result they wanted - a very hard Brexit. Quite how hard we will find out within six weeks. 

We will also find out whether an old saying is applicable - be careful what you wish for.


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