ha ha ha... Labour has just (re)committed to 'making Brexit work'....
I get that they need rot narrow their policy profile to give a small(er) target to the rabid right press.... but if this is what they really think they're fooling themselves, if its not what they think then their trying to fool (some of) us....
its just hopeless, this fix we've got ourselves into....
@ChrisMayLA6 Given that brexit is a reality, has been for a while and will be for the foreseeable future, I'm not sure what they should be saying instead? Committing to give up and let everything fall apart even more? 'Brexit's shit, so we'll just let things fester' doesn't seem like an attractive slogan. Nor does it seem like the kind of attitude which would persuade any EU member states to let us back in.
Fair comment.... and perhaps the story just caught me at a bad moment.... I think its the sentiment behind such statements that makes me grind my teeth, but I accept your criticism of my remark(s)
"Brexit was a bad idea and we shouldn't trust any organisation or publication who said otherwise at the time" would be both an honest admission about the past and a sensible policy going forwards.
It may be a painful admission, yes. But as Brecht said, the road to extremism begins when one picks a comforting lie over a painful truth.
@passenger@ChrisMayLA6 As welcome as it would be to have honesty about the past, I don't see that as an alternative to talking about the present and the future.
We have to try and make the best of the current bad situation; be honest about the past, yes, but that doesn't address any of the practical problems caused by brexit. The UK cannot be a good neighbour to the EU without trying to work with what our government agreed to; the UK cannot expect a better deal in the 2026 negotiations without being seen to be a good neighbour; and only through building an ever closer and more dependable relationship with the EU during and after the 2026 deal can we ever hope to persuade 27 member states that we should be allowed to rejoin.
Saying that we should try to 'make Brexit work' isn't a denial of how we got into this mess. It's the only possible way out of it. And right now, the best - perhaps only - protection against extremism is to make people's lives better. It's not a comfortable lie but an acceptance of the hard slog ahead if that's going to be achieved.