There was a time when the Conservatives were in favour of European collective trading and economic activity and the Labour party were suspicious of EEC/EU as a capitalist con trick.
Then around the time of Margaret Thatcher getting chucked out of premiership it all turned around and the main problem was Delors being associated with the social chapter and Rupert Murdoch not able to get his own way within the single market, which ironically was proposed by Mrs Thatcher.
The social chapter made sure that ordinary workers should have employment rights and free movement within a capitalist system. This angered those who wanted a full throated neo-liberal system which would be effectively a race to the bottom with regards to regulations and limited oversight from bureaucrats.
There was a discussion I had with a conservative friend in 1995 who on the whole was pretty sanguine about life but went all rabid and conspiratorial when the discussion turned to Edward Heath and those in the Tory party in favour of European Union membership. He would call people like Kenneth Clarke etc as traitors and all sort of nutty things.
In the meantime The Labour party had a transformation and became pro European Union except for people like Tony Benn. This transformation was confirmed around the time of the Euro adoption debate and the UK kept membership of the union but also kept the pound a major symbolic symbol for English nationalist.
So in political terms we had membership of a major stabilizing European idea which effectively stopped major wars in Europe with the promotion of friction-less trade and the UK had its own currency.
However, in some quarters this was a betrayal of what England should be. They wanted a English Empire mark II with mass reduction of trade unions and employment laws. They saw the E.U as a major stumbling block for this and wanted out.
To achieve this the played up the anti-immigrant language, attacking East Europeans for doing the jobs British workers did not want to do such as vegetable and fruit picking and stoked the anti-regulation argument by making up stories of regulated banana shape and condoms, which was un true but with Rupert Murdoch leading the right wing press The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail and The Sun fell in line and stoked up anti European feeling.
All this may sound quite straight forward and non-threatening until 2010 when the electorate was bamboozled by a return of the ‘Posh Boys’ of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Boris Johnson!
These three managed to convince the English nationalist that they were in a better place to lead Britain because they were born to rule and were educated with this in mind. the Labour party had lost its way after the Iraq War and the weapons of mass destruction debacle and Putin began seeing the EU and especially NATO as a danger to his ambitions. Putin was joined by China who wanted to expand its Communist political dominated capitalist economy a weird concept which effectively turned China into a major economic power while playing to the West need for extremely cheap consumer and then big industrial goods.
Anti-EU rhetoric gained traction with Russian money greasing the political machinery and David Cameron made the most stupidest decision a British prime minister ever made when he decided that to save the Conservative party electoral ambitions, he would call for a referendum on the EU membership without knowing if he would win it or not, because he did not want to lose a general election by having votes going to UKIP which was led by Nigel Farage another posh boy and a right-wing political hustler.
Boris Johnson seizing his chance decided to lead the anti-EU side as if he lost he would effectively be in position for Tory leader and if he won he would be Tory leader basically a win-win situation.
At the time The Magical Tipster tipped the leave campaign to trade ie because it looked like a 50:50 race betting at 2/1 with a lay at Evens would give a nice profit. The fact that the price went out on the night to 8/1 was not envisaged. Anyway, Brexit won and it was 52:48 split. This was never a ringing endorsement but a win is a win.
The remain campaign was too lackadaisical and those who wanted an end to immigration were really motivated to vote. Since that fateful June 23rd 2016 Britain has basically gone into wishful thinking reality.
Yes we had Covid lockdown but we also had 4 prime ministers (one to be elected from Liz Truss and Rishi Sunack) a decimated fishing and farming industry and the beginnings of the break up of the United Kingdom starting with an effective border down the Irish Sea which Boris Johnson said would never happened but did and now the new prime minister is going to have to deal with this and probably mess up big style
From that fateful moment Brexit became a religion.
This new religion may not seem like a religion to most sensible people put speak to a Brexiteer and they say that the problems with Brexit has nothing to do with those who negotiated the exit deal, it is the problem of left wing judges, left wing press, revengeful EU bureaucrats, an Irish American president, lazy British workers and of course Covid.
It has nothing to do with the exit from a concept of a shared national interest with a trading block similar to shared national authorities like the embassy system which allows sovereign governments to co-exist without having to accept the rules from the host countries . That any law thought up in Brussels leadership has to be ratified by individual parliaments democratically.
It has now become a faith that everything will be brilliant even though people like Nigel Farage, William Rees Mogg have access to the single market and the the report on Russian influence peddling is still under lock and key as they do not want the British public knowing of Putin’s influence on our referendum.
Yes there are some cohesions imposed such as the Declarations of Human Rights and a court to do this. But this has nothing to do with the EU this has everything to do with the aftermath of the Second World War and in my view the greatest written document created by man in the history of civilisation. Anyone against this document is either a fool or a knave.
Most Brexiteers are against the European Court of Human Rights therefore they are either a fool or up to no good. There is no other explanation for it.
So in essence the Brexit debate is no longer about reason as it is clear that real economic damage has happened under Brexit and there is no upside to this process. The only people who would benefit from Brexit are those such as the Scottish nationalist who did not vote for Brexit and now have an open goal to score in if they can manage to get another Scottish independence vote with the caveat of re-joining the EU.