Remainers and leavers don’t exist in Britain anymore, a friend noted the other day. You can’t be in favor of remaining or leaving something you have already left. That ship has sailed. The new divide, he said, must surely be whether you are in favor of Britain rejoining the European Union or staying out.
This observation, made somewhat in jest, contains a number of truths. The first, most obviously, is that Brexit has happened—it is no longer a proposition but a living, breathing project. Fundamentally, now that Britain has left the EU, those seeking to lead the country must offer more than opposition to Brexit, but a program that seeks to make it work. This leads to the second truth, which is largely unacknowledged but no less real: The very fact of Brexit has turned many erstwhile pro-Remain members of Parliament into de facto Brexiteers—the more they succeed, the more they are able to help grow the economy, the more they improve conditions for ordinary people, the more they make their opponents’ case that Brexit was worth it. Only in Britons’ collective failure do the old remainers win, and actively seeking national failure is not a vote winner.
Read more at: Will Britain Rejoin the EU? - The Atlantic
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