Certainly, and at what point will people then realise that the systems in place ensure that we still don't have that anyway? Much of what the EU was blamed for was just UK government using it as a covenient get out. Much of what would've been EU immigration has been replaced by Non EU, is that a benefit of leaving?

The only meaningful change is a lack of right to live in the EU, meaning that people are trapped within our housing market as opposed to having options. Brexit is only useful if a government is in power that makes the most of it as an opportunity. I'm of the view that there is nothing to suggest that will happen in the coming decades. As such whether being better in or out is still very much an open question going forward. For instance in a future scenario where the EU or other union of nations decided to clamp down on outside immigration for whatever reason and we didn't (about as likely as the opposite scenario occuring) would people still laud our self determination or would we forget about all that with joining a union of countries suddenly becoming a great idea again?

And there were/are huge economic upsides to it. But our political class have simply not been willing to make it a success. This is the issue.

Mea culpa, I genuinely hoped that this country would make a real go of Brexit but the Tories have been a joke. How we are still in the ECHR and why we have still not revoked entire swathes of EU legislation is simply beyond me.

Utterly betrayed.

I have actually had a bit of 180-degree turn of late based on the revelation of just how cucked our structure of Governance actually is. Brexit is ultimately pointless if we do not have the leadership to pursue it to its logical conclusion. And we don't. Institutionally, the UK is unwilling to pursue a seperate future.

And given all the crap from the US these days, then maybe our future has to be European. Throw in how much more willing our European brothers and sisters are to resist, even if their efforts are largely unfocused, at least that energy is there.

If we do go back into the EU then I will not be resisting it. I did have some hopes that the Reform Party, with Farage at the helm, might offer a genuinely new future but that is plainly not happening.

Brexit has not failed. Our system has failed it.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

Tell that to the Labour left. He is far cleverer than people give him credit for

The first part is nonsense. Upsides were never even a pale shadow of downsides. And it was always obvious this would end up making us even more of a vassal of the US. See my posts from 8 years ago. And the trouble is the US has a broken legal system in thrall to its highly divisive politics

He is certainly more devious than given credit for.

I do give him credit for dealing with Corbyn robustly though.

I can see a fun times ahead as the left and right of the party, Rayner and Reeves for example start fighting in public as the election gets nearer

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

Again, a major mea-cupla on my part in that I never truly understood the scale of how our ruling political elites hid behind the EU in terms of blaming it for their own incompetence.

It effectively allowed an entire swathe of modern British politicians to have a get-out-of-jail-free card when it came to hiding their sheer uselessness because they could always just blame Brussels.

In many ways that is perhaps the most dangerous, and lasting, impact of the EU on the UK.

BUt given the trend of many EU countries to move towards the Right, and not the mealy-mouthed kind the modern UK Conservative Party represents, then maybe we need to be back in the fold. That the political battle to shape the next 100 years is actually being fought in Brussels? That a Pan-European Right is the only hope of truly resisting globalism? The EU is still as awful as ever but at least it does, at its very core, have something approaching a vision.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.