A Call to Brexiteers: For Brexit to be a Success, You Need to be More Like the Remoaners

Within minutes of the referendum result being declared last June my twitter feed was full of panicking Leavers claiming that if Brexit failed it would be the Remain campaigns ‘fault’. Yes, the same Remain campaign that fought tooth and nail to prevent Brexit would be to blame for what Brexit brings about: you really can’t make it up. Even this week on Student Voices, I saw my favourite sparring partner Jimmy Allen shifting some of the blame for the Gibraltar fiasco on the Remain campaign. I thought about making a direct response article to Jimmy’s article, but I thought the Student Voices community and Jimmy (and I) may wish for a break from our debates. Moving on from that, let me be unequivocal about this, if Brexit is a failure it will be the Leave campaigns fault, not just for the Brexit decision itself, but their conduct since June.

Now I want Brexit to be a success, I really do. The gloating from Leave would just about be more bearable than facing long term unemployment after I finish university, so I do want a successful exit. But wishes don’t do anything to help us: Remoaners joining Brexiteers and burying our head in the sand won’t secure Britain a good post-Brexit future, so stop berating us for not doing so. In actual fact, it is only by Remoaning that we can ensure the government secure as good a deal with the EU as possible, anything less than calling for the retention of the benefits of EU membership will hand the government a blank cheque to negotiate those benefits away. By continuing to point out the economic benefits of the single market, the help European co-operation provides on defence & security and the protection EU legislation has provided to the British people and our environment, we ensure the government works towards a deal to protect as much of those things as possible. Brexiteers should really be taking a page out of the Remoaners book, their placing the sacred cow of controlling migration as the only desire from Brexit negotiation is handing the government a free hand to negotiate as paltry a deal as they can muster. It is only by Brexiteers joining the calls to retain some of the benefits of EU membership (you would have to be incredibly naïve to suggest there are none), whilst controlling migration, that Britain truly can make a success of Brexit.

So, yes the Leave campaign have taken back control, there is little that the Remoaners can do now beyond, well, Remoaning. But now it is up to the Brexiteers whether to continue to be blindsided to the many benefits European co-operation has provided Britain, and hand the government a blank cheque, or to be more like Remoaners, and fight for as many of those benefits to be retained, whilst controlling migration. I beg for you to do the latter, it will be the difference between Brexit being a success or not.

Callum Gurr is a writer for Student Voices and student at the University of Birmingham | Twitter: @callumgurr