Time flies, and the nation finds itself celebrating the fourth anniversary since the United Kingdom finally wrenched itself free from the control of the European Union.
Not everyone is happy, of course, and a cult of Remainers desperately seeks comfort in tiny cheese tariffs with Canada, posting pictures of the occasional passport queue, searching out supermarkets to find some empty shelves to complain about, and of course, acting surprised that bank holidays cause bottlenecks at Dover.
For the most part, those who follow the Gold Stars can be left to gather in diminishing rallies waving their flags and miming Beethoven, while the rest of us get on with life and thank the stars for dodging the bullet before it was too late.
And what a bullet we dodged.
The UK economy did not collapse, as many predicted (and probably hoped). Indeed, while the Eurozone and the major economies lurch into recession, the UK has consistently outperformed Germany and France. Despite a Government frightened of its own shadow and furious institutional friction, we are on the cusp of the global potential of the CPTTP partnership with the growing and emerging markets of the East.
The Reform UK Defence spokesman warned 'dangers remain’
PA
We’ve learnt that only the EU takes decades to negotiate trade deals. Left to itself, the UK has knocked them out of the park. Oh, and London hasn’t been overtaken by anywhere as the leading global financial centre; in fact, it recently overtook New York.
The global influence of the Nation has not diminished. The world still looks to British leadership in the West’s response to Russian aggression in Ukraine; it provides a more powerful voice on countering Iranian aggression than the EU or its members, and its position in major world institutions such as the UN Security Council, Nato, OSCE is secure.
Most importantly, the people of this country can now vote directly for the people who make its laws without fear of transnational jurisprudence undermining Parliament and our courts.
Over three thousand EU instruments have passed into EU law since our final departure. None of them apply to us, and when I say dodged a bullet, this is what I mean.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Some 3,000 EU instruments have passed into EU law since our final departure
PAStupidly, the Government drags its heels over removing EU law from our statute book. Despite this lethargy, the creeping invasive tide of regulations and directives that, with the compliance of a politicised CJEU, has extended deep into our social policy, well beyond its supposed trade mandate, has been halted.
Could it be done better? Of course, it could. The Government should be held to account for not exploiting opportunities quicker. The Windsor Framework is a mess stemming from early failure to confront the EU over its insistence on confecting the Irish Border with exaggerated alarmist rhetoric over security (and I know the border better than most). It’s the EU's job to protect its Single Market access, not ours.
Be under no illusion; dangers remain. The unelected Lord Cameron now heads a Foreign Office plot for closer alignment with EU defence structures. This includes committing UK armed forces to Ursula von der Leyen’s plans for ‘defence unification,’ something he intends to sneak unnoticed past the British people.
The EU craves the UK’s diminished but still potent military capability, while Whitehall mandarins believe that such an alignment would attract EU concessions elsewhere. That this could result in operational control and decision-making on the employment of UK forces being taken in Brussels is not appreciated by the current crop of ministers. Worse, Labour will actively seek it. We must have no part in EU CSDP.
The EU craves the UK’s military capability
GETTYLabour is even more dangerous. They will claim better relations with the EU that will in effect amount to compliance and capitulation. It’s probably too late to prevent a period of Starmergheddon, but forces loyal to Brexit will need to fight him step by step to preserve the gains he would happily give back.
Brexit was a triumph of people power versus the elites, progressives, and liberals. Time and time again, the people prove they have more common sense than the self-righteous cabals in our politics, media, and institutions. That we have a generation of politicians who still feel the need to ignore the people’s instructions is not the fault of Brexit. But that will change, and resisters to the direction the country has chosen face a future being mocked and irrelevant.
The next challenge that the people will have to put right? Net Zero stupidity.