Brexit won’t end the Tory wars

Now that Britain is out of the European Union, it will be very hard to go back in. In the 2016 referendum campaign, one of the things that Vote Leave did most effectively was point out that because the EU was constantly evolving, no one could be confident that a vote for Remain was a vote for the status quo. And now Rejoin campaigners will be the ones who want to rip up current arrangements. There is no certainty about the terms on which the country could rejoin. Would the UK, for instance, be expected to commit to ‘ever closer union’ if in the future it were to return to the fold?

Even if, say, a party were to win an election on a Rejoin platform, that would not be sufficient for Britain to actually rejoin. The view in Brussels is that there would be no point in readmitting the UK unless there was a broad, cross-party consensus in favour.