Take back control

Brexit was a mutiny. Like all mutinies, it was driven by anger at authority rather than by a strategy for the future. To date, the consequences have been to deepen polarisation, but triumphant victory for either side is not the way forward. That there is no majority for any of the current options is entirely understandable: they are all awful. We can only break the polarisation with a new strategy. The Brexit mutiny should have been a wake-up call. Instead, the elite are angry that the mutiny was not suppressed, while the mutineers have become ever more distrustful. There is a way out of this nightmare.

Why are all the Brexit options awful? There is no mystery: it is essential for ‘Brussels’ (aka ‘Germany and France’) that any form of exit must be sufficiently damaging to the UK so that no other country will leave. The tactical British mistake was to hand Brussels the power to inflict this damage.