Brexhausted! Four Years of Brexit Blunders, Part One: Defeated by Victory

LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 5: Prime Minister David Cameron speaks as London Mayor Boris Johnso
Toby Melville - WPA Pool /Getty Images
Jack Montgomery

Britain left the European Union in name in January 2020, but remained subject to the EU, its judges, and its migration regime through a so-called “transition” period. It left in a real sense at 11 pm on December 31st — according to supporters of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s exit deal, at least. But how did the country get here?

This is part one of a three-part series.

Brexit has been a marathon, not a sprint. From the campaign to get Britain out of the European Economic Community in the 1975 referendum — Prime Minister Ted Heath had taken the country in without consulting the people in 1973 — to Thatcher’s Bruges speech in 1988 and the foundation of the Referendum Party and UKIP in the 1990s, it has been a long haul.

The latest chapter in this story really begins in 2014, with former Tory leader David Cameron leading a weak government in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a fanatically pro-EU party, into the 2014 European Parliament elections.

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) taking first place in that election, with the Conservative Party in third behind Labour and the Lib Dems winning just one seat, prompted two Conservatives MPs back home in the House of Commons to defect to the Nigel Farage-led party and trigger by-elections — and they won both.

This caused panic in Downing Street, and Cameron, who like many Tories had long posed as a “eurosceptic” for votes but was actually firmly committed to EU membership, offered the public a referendum on the bloc to stem the proverbial bleeding ahead of the 2015 general election.

Most believe he never had any intention of delivering such a referendum, and that he expected, like most of the country, the election would result in another hung parliament and coalition or minority government. The Tory leader could make a show of attempting to organise a referendum, perhaps, but safe in the knowledge that Parliament would block it.

That plan went awry when Cameron’s referendum promise resulted in the Tories beating the pollsters and winning an outright (if slim) parliamentary majority.

Defeated by Victory 

Cameron was forced to hold his referendum. He by no means played it with a straight bat, however, setting out a timeline for it far shorter than the Electoral Commission guidelines recommended. Cameron also allocated spending limits for the officially designated campaigns and political parties in a way that allowed Remain to massively outspend Leave, and poured millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money into an official government pamphlet recommending people vote against Brexit on top of that.

He did allow Conservative parliamentarians who supported Brexit to campaign for it — if they dared — but this only highlighted how hollow the Conservatives’ pretence of being a “eurosceptic” party was, with an overwhelming majority of the Cabinet and a clear majority of backbench MPs backing Remain.

Two so-called heavyweights who did throw their lot in with the Leavers, however, were Boris Johnson — the Mayor of London who had cultivated a popular public profile by leaning into the character of a lovably buffoonish posh boy — and Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs and a personal friend of Cameron.

Neither had been ‘out’ Brexiteers prior to the referendum being called, and Johnson delayed his entry to the campaign until fairly late — famously penning two newspaper articles, one backing Leave, and one backing Remain, before deciding which side he would join.

Many rank-and-file Brexit supporters who came to see Johnson as their champion did not realise how committed to the EU cause he once was, having argued passionately for Brussels to embrace Islamist-led Turkey, in order to reunite “the two halves of the Roman Empire… in an expanded European Union” only a few years before the referendum.

Taking Back Control

The full story of the referendum campaign would take too long to recount, but suffice to say Nigel Farage, with a little help from Johnson and Gove — among many others — pulled off the upset victory in June 2016, with David Cameron ultimately becoming the biggest casualty of his own surprise win in the 2015 general election.

The prime minister had pledged he would stay in his post to see Brexit through if the Eurosceptics won, but in the end, he and his right-hand man George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had gone too far with the Remain side to remain credible, having threatened the public with economic calamity and a harsh “punishment budget” in the event of a vote to Leave.

Cameron announced his resignation within hours — Osborne clung on, having to be thrown out by his fallen patron’s successor — and renounced Parliament altogether not long after.

Johnson was the man of the hour, with Cameron’s job as Tory leader and prime minister regarded as all but his — but it was Tory Remainers who would heed his call to “take back control” in the immediate of the Brexit vote.

The blonde-haired Tory was in many ways the author of his own demise; slow to capitalise on the referendum result, and slower still to launch his bid to succeed Cameron. He was more popular than ever among ordinary Conservative Party members, yes — but he had never had much of a following among the Remainer-dominated politicians in the parliamentary party, who to this day wield far more power over who can ascend to the party leadership than party members — and in 2016 they were shellshocked and not a little embittered by the referendum result.

Many Tory MPs put their names forward for the leadership. Under party rules, it was up to MPs to whittle down the contenders to a final two who would be put to the party membership for a wider vote. With Johnson failing to gain steam as everyone had expected, however, Michael Gove was persuaded his ally was not up to the job, abandoning his erstwhile ally and putting his own name forward.

Leaver MPs were split. No longer believing he could make the final two, Boris bowed out — just like that.

The man who wields the dagger seldom wears the crown, however, and Gove soon found that his own position of untenable, with Johnson loyalists vowing they would never support his assassin. He soon found himself out of the running, as well.

The final two came down to Home Secretary Theresa May — a Remainer — and the hitherto unheralded Andrea Leadsom. Many expected the little-known Brexiteer would triumph –party members being heavily for Leave, even though the party politicians were not — and become one of the country’s most unlikely prime ministers.

But they never got the chance. Leadsom bowed out, saying she did not believe she could command enough support among her Remainer colleagues in Parliament if she won. May was crowned party leader — and, consequently, prime minister of the United Kingdom — without anyone outside the House of Commons having a say in the matter.

Mayday

Mrs May had kept a low profile during the referendum. She had backed Remain, yes, but was not on the front lines as Cameron and Osborne had been, threatening the public with Armageddon if they voted Leave.

She had even attempted to strike something of a eurosceptic pose, saying that while she thought Britain should stay in the EU, it should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), so often used by foreign criminals, illegal aliens, and even terrorists to bleed taxpayers and avoid deportations with lawfare.

Needless to say, this idea was dropped like a stone as soon as she achieved power. She committed herself to the Brexit cause, promising a proper Brexit which would take Britain out of the EU’s Customs Union and the Single Market, with its Free Movement migration regime, and a “no deal is better than a bad deal” approach to negotiations with Brussels.

She rode the wave of popularity and the misplaced trust this stance provided into a crushing victory in the local elections in 2017, gaining almost 600 new local councillors while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour lost close to 400, with the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats shedding dozens of representatives, as well.

Pollsters expected a bloodbath if Mrs May called a fresh general election, with many believing she would win a majority of well over 100. Labour politicians even claimed that such a vote would be somehow “undemocratic”, as the scale of the Tory victory would be so great as to render them an irrelevance.

Pollsters were, as in 2015 and 2016, dead wrong.

Breitbart London will publish an account of the Theresa May years — Brexhausted! Four Years of Brexit Blunders, Part Two — tomorrow. 

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