𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Is the Blob about to take its revenge over Brexit? Make no mistake, the referendum vote to leave the European Union, now nearly 10 years ago, was the biggest defeat for the lefty Europhile establishment they have ever suffered.

Just about everyone in the national and global stratosphere – from Richard Branson and Elton John to Barack Obama and Christine Lagarde – urged the country to remain in the warm embrace of Brussels.

Literally, hundreds of business leaders, international figures – even the Prime Minister of Japan and the King of the Netherlands – doctors, scientists, academics, lawyers, university bosses and arts and entertainment luvvies, spoke out in favour of the EU, issuing dire warnings of plagues of locusts and frogs if the country were to be so stupid as to turn its back on such wonders as the single market and uncontrolled immigration.

The opinion polls too, as referendum day approached, pointed to a victory for the remainers. Then Prime Minister David Cameron was told on the day of the vote that he was home and dry.

It was not to be. Despite the fact that it was opposed by the most powerful and richest in the land, the British public voted decisively if narrowly (52% to 48%) in favour of reclaiming their right to govern themselves.

Then followed three years of dither and delay while the Blob (shorthand for a liberal elite that goes far wider than the mandarin class of civil servant) sought to sabotage Brexit. It took Boris Johnson’s landslide election triumph of 2019 to get Brexit done.

But has it? Boris was slain by the Covid pandemic and our Prime Minister now Sir Keir Starmer actually advocated for a second Brexit referendum shortly before a combination of Boris and Nigel Farage thought they had finally put Brexit to bed.

Now Starmer is full of talk of his “EU reset”, nominally to reduce trade barriers and deepen security ties, but really to draw Britain back into the orbit of Brussels. The jargon of “dynamic alignment” means that we will fall into line behind EU single market rules without having any say in them.

Make no mistake. The “reset’ summit with the EU that Starmer is planning this summer is a smokescreen for unpicking the result of the largest ever vote (17.4 million) for a party or proposition in our country’s history.

But there is more to it than that. Starmer is in deep – probably terminal – political trouble. The Mandelson scandal, the sacking of Sir Olly Robbins, the stagnant economy, rising prices and dismal poll ratings are all combining to strip Starmer of his authority within his Cabinet and Whitehall.

Labour MPs talk privately of paralysis in Downing Street, in which one crisis piles on top of another and in which Starmer has lost virtually all of the people – such as former Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney – who could dig him out of a hole. Nothing gets done and Starmer, who makes Theresa May look decisive, has no one to turn to to tell him what to do.

Enter the Blob – in this case Phillip Rycroft, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, where his predecessor was none other than Sir Olly. In a move that suggests that mandarins have had enough of Starmer, and certainly act in cahoots, Rycroft decided to write an article for The Times in which he said it was time to talk about rejoining the EU.

Going far further than Starmer and his Project ‘Rejoin by Stealth’, Rycroft trashed the UK’s performance under Brexit and pointed to the potential electoral benefits to a disintegrating Labour government.

He wrote: “Is it time, then, for the Labour government to drop its caution and adopt a more bullish pro-EU position? With a majority of left-leaning voters in favour, the political advantage is clear, not least as one means of stemming the haemorrhaging of votes to the more unambiguously pro-EU Greens and Liberal Democrats.”

It is an argument fast gaining ground in Labour circles. Rejoining the EU gives Starmer’s demoralised party a rallying point that might just lure back the kind of progressive lefties who populate the Blob.

If the PM survives the inevitable drubbing he will get in the local, Welsh and Scottish elections on May 7, like a drowning man he might just reach for Rycroft’s straw.

So be it. Brexiteers have seen this coming for some time. Next month, we will gather in London for a Freedom Association conference designed to launch a Brexit fightback.

We beat the Blob last time. We can do it again.