This observation, made somewhat in jest, contains a number of truths. The first, most obviously, is that Brexit has happened—it is no longer a proposition but a living, breathing project. Fundamentally, now that Britain has left the EU, those seeking to lead the country must offer more than opposition to Brexit, but a program that seeks to make it work. This leads to the second truth, which is largely unacknowledged but no less real: The very fact of Brexit has turned many erstwhile pro-Remain members of Parliament into de facto Brexiteers—the more they succeed, the more they are able to help grow the economy, the more they improve conditions for ordinary people, the more they make their opponents’ case that Brexit was worth it. Only in Britons’ collective failure do the old remainers win, and actively seeking national failure is not a vote winner. [...]
With Brexit, if Johnson follows through with his plan to return what he has called “full legal autonomy” to Britain, he will suddenly have the power to create new dividing lines in a raft of new areas, from immigration and trade policy to fishing rights and agricultural subsidies, as well as those that were already in the government’s control, like prison sentencing, taxes, and public spending. As with all policy changes, there will be winners and losers: Domestic producers, for example, are forecast to benefit, while consumers are not; fishing communities might prosper, but at the cost, according to the EU’s negotiating mandate, of the wider British economy, which will have to pay a higher price when selling goods and services to the continent. The benefactors of these decisions might win big and have a vested interest in maintaining the new status quo, while the losers might barely notice at first, only paying the price over time. Such is the alchemy of politics that votes can be won by hitting large numbers of people a little bit for the great benefit of just a few. [...]
The reality of the political cycle also means that any push to rejoin is likely to be some years away. The Conservative government has a commanding majority that will be hard for the opposition to overturn by 2024, the scheduled date of the next election. There is every chance that Johnson will be prime minister until close to 2030. Conventional wisdom suggests that for Labour to even stand a chance of winning, its next leader will have to seek votes from those who abandoned the party in 2019—many of whom voted for Brexit. Would they really vote for a party offering to reopen the question? Would any Labour leader really hang their leadership on this peg?
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