Five years after Brexit, the UK must restore its relationship with the EU

Editorial: Although it is true that not all of the fears Remain voters had have come to fruition, a great many of them have. Worse still is that hardly any of the promises made by the Leave campaign have been met

Five years ago this month, Brexit was “done” and the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the European Union. It seems a suitable moment, therefore, to take stock and weigh the implications for our future – hence our special report.

Let us say from the outset that some of the fears of those who wanted to remain in the EU have not materialised.

For example, Britain has not been isolated in world affairs. We have, in particular, played a leading role in rallying support among democratic nations for the people of Ukraine in their defence against Vladimir Putin’s aggression – something for which Boris Johnson, whatever his failings, deserves praise.

Nor has the Union between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom been broken. In fact, the prospect of separation seems further away than at any time since that other referendum, on Scottish independence, in 2014.

The status of Northern Ireland has been one of the most difficult consequences of Brexit, yet it has not so far prompted a return to sectarian violence there comparable to that of the past.

As for any actual benefits of Brexit, however, it has to be said that even the most ardent supporters of the Leave campaign struggle to identify them. It is possible that Britain was able to roll out coronavirus vaccines slightly faster than EU member states because we could act more like a “speedboat” than the EU “tanker”, in the words of Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president.

We also have blue-black passports back; a symbol that matters to many people, although, as with the vaccine rollout, we could probably have gone our own way under EU law.

The most striking Brexit “dividend” that has failed to materialise is lower immigration. The Independent has always been in favour of a healthy level of immigration, and therefore welcomed free movement within the EU as one of the great boons of membership.

We reluctantly accepted, however, that the majority of the British people took a different view, and that the government of Mr Johnson, the leader of the Leave campaign, was entitled to restrict immigration after Brexit. We were as surprised as most Leave voters that Mr Johnson succeeded in quadrupling net immigration instead. Even for The Independent, this may be too much of a good thing, and we are relieved that the figures are now heading towards more sustainable levels.

The other great claim of the Leave campaign was that spending on the National Health Service would increase. Indeed, it has done so – and by more than the “£350m a week” once scrawled on the side of the bus – in real terms.

But that is not because that money has been diverted from our payments to the EU. Our net payments to the EU were about half that, and in any case, they are continuing as part of the withdrawal agreement, and will continue until 2065. So all that we have succeeded in doing is paying a bigger share of a smaller national income to fund an NHS that is still struggling to recover from the shock of the pandemic.

Indeed, we cannot escape the one big fact of Brexit: that it has left us poorer, and that we will continue to fall behind where we would have been as an EU member over the years. That may have been a price some Leave voters would have been prepared to pay for lower immigration, but that has not happened – hence Nigel Farage’s continued role on the political stage.

Some Leave economists, meanwhile, argue that the loss of national income is temporary, and that the freedom to trade around the world will in time allow us to exploit opportunities that the EU cannot. After five years, however, there is absolutely no evidence that any such notional advantage will come close to compensating for the loss of trade with the EU.

The considered view after five years must be that the best way to make us more prosperous would be to ease the trade frictions between Britain and the EU. We do not yet have to discuss the possibilities of rejoining – it will probably take longer than five years to persuade the EU to consider such a thing. But a softer Brexit on better trading terms was on offer between 2016 and 2019, if we had given up the nearly worthless right to negotiate our own trade deals.

If we are to learn the lessons of Brexit, Sir Keir Starmer should have the courage to propose an ambitious new deal to restore the closest possible trading relationship – short of actually rejoining – with our most important export market.