What should Lib Dems do now?
Should we just be campaign to rejoin the EU? Or something else?
I suggest that we fix Brexit first.
Last year people voted Conservative because they thought Brexit was a distraction from Britain’s real problems. Over 70% of the public thought this. Most people who voted Remain thought this. They thought that the only way to get Brexit out of the way, was to push it through.
Of course this isn’t true. Brexit isn’t over. And we’ll be stuck with the problems it creates for decades.
But if we campaign to rejoin straight away, it will be counter-productive. People won’t see the problems caused by Brexit, because most of them won’t be obvious until the transition period ends.
And, just as everybody sighs in relief that Brexit is over, we’ll look like obsessives wanting to restart the argument. A bit like John Redwood in the 1990s.
The British people have given the government a chance to get Brexit right.
Lib Dems should therefore work to fix Brexit. Fixing Brexit means accepting it’s happening. For now.
That means minimising the damage. Damage done to the economy. And damage done to our friends and neighbours.
Today there are three things we can campaign on.