Rishi’s deal changes everything – even, even if it is eventually sunk by DUP obduracy. What really matters is the change of tone.
Many of my fiercest Brexiteer friends shared with me a horror at the very unBritish, almost yobbish aggression in the UK’s dealing with the EU in these torrid years since the referendum. To some, it seemed, it was not enough to want our sovereignty back, it was also necessary to hate Brussels and all EU members: to question their motives.
Who knows what could be achieved now the tone of our dialogue has warmed
For those of us born in the early ‘50s, the memories are still fresh of the mounting desperation with which the Conservative party battled to join the European Economic Community: the shock that came with De Gaulle’s infamous ‘Non’.
We also took some pride that it was Mrs Thatcher who designed and forced through her pet scheme – the single market – in the face of statist opposition from France and others.
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