There's no worthier fight than against those who want to destroy Britain, says Ben Habib
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Ben Habib is Deputy Leader of Reform UK
I rarely talk about Brexit anymore. For years it consumed my political campaigning, but political discourse has moved on. There is a myriad of threats facing the country and the Brexit debate has taken a backseat.
That is a shame because had we genuinely achieved Brexit the country would now be in a much better place. Indeed, we would still be a country; a claim we can no longer in good faith make. There is a border in the Irish Sea and Northern Ireland has been left behind in the EU.
The country did not leave the EU as one United Kingdom.
For re-joiners, Brexit was an act of unparalleled self-harm. In fact, it should have been an unremarkable event: the UK taking its place alongside 167 countries in the World that are not members of the EU.
For Brexiteers, it was a vote to get our country back from the grip of an anti-democratic supranational entity with imperial designs. In the event, the establishment did not approve, and we got the mess we have.
There can be no doubt that the political turmoil we have suffered since 2016 is fundamentally a result of Parliament standing against the will of the people. Had Johnson actually Got Brexit Done we would no longer be dancing to the EU’s tune of thousands of laws and regulations.
Ben Habib appearing on GB News
GB NEWSHad he not signed two new treaties, we would have jettisoned the weight of our EU legacy. HMG would have had to up its game. Taxes would have been cut. We would have rediscovered the entrepreneurial DNA which comes with being British.
Instead, we left our seat at the table in Brussels and changed little else with the exception of hiving off over 1 million British citizens in Northern Ireland – that was the true act of unparalleled self-harm.
So, the fight for Brexit continues. It may not be called Brexit but when we campaign for ditching the Windsor Framework/ Protocol, cutting taxes on the working and middle classes, cutting taxes on business, ditching DEI and Net Zero, slashing immigration and stopping illegal migration, taking back our fishing, scrapping quangos, leaving the ECHR and building our defences we are fighting for Brexit.
It is an uphill struggle. The establishment is still dead against it.
It prefers the culture of dependency created by 40 years of EU membership. Much easier to control and influence a dependent populace. Aspiration, even if vital for the human spirit, is troublesome to govern.
Large government, borrowing, taxation and spending are the order of the day. Wealth redistribution of ever smaller amounts of wealth is preferred to wealth creation.
Nation states themselves are abhorred by the illiberal intellectual elite. They want to be rid of national identity. Contempt for the Union flag exceeded only by contempt for St. George’s. They “decolonise” the English language, trash our history and open our borders.
They want to destroy our confidence in Britain and for us to lose our contextual position as British citizens.
Why?
Because they want to take us back into the EU.
The Tories never wanted to leave, and Labour will take us ever closer, if not back in.
They do not like me saying it, but re-joiners are anti-British.
Without doubt Starmer will do whatever he can to defeat the little kernel of Brexit we have. He may well try a second referendum. If so, he must be resisted. As exhausted as we are, we must never give up.
There is no worthier a fight than the fight for the United Kingdom. I for one will never leave the battlefield.