Name one Brexit benefit? How about 75?
In a guest post, writer Gully Foyle on the Labour pains associated with his new book and why we need to keep making the case for leaving the EU.
There is an inherent risk to writing literature about current events – the events continue to change the outcome of the book you’re writing, when you’re trying to finish it. That’s certainly what I found when I started to turn an ever-growing social-media thread into a book.
In response to a question often repeated on social media – ‘Name ONE benefit of Brexit!’ – I started compiling Brexit benefits and publishing them on X. It’s not just the obvious things, like not having to fork out billions in those headline EU contributions that were such a focus during the referendum campaign. Brexit has been the gift that keeps on giving.
By the time my list grew to 75, I made the decision to convert it into printed form – but I was innocent to the realities of getting a book finished and published. It was early November, I was in the final stages of interviews for what would become my new job in late November, and I had 100 sides of typed A4 chock full of notes and short form write-ups of my 75 chosen benefits. I had convinced myself that I could finish the book within weeks and have it out on sale in the spring of 2025.
Oh, how wrong I was! It turns out that writing and editing a book is hard, especially when you have a full-time job. Who knew?
Events, dear boy, events
The core text of the 75 benefits was pretty-much locked in by late April. But then we had the joy of the EU Reset summit. I had to draw the line. The book had already seen whole chapters replaced, whole benefits swapped out due to recent events. The India trade deal and the tariff agreement with the US would add a good few pages in their own right. But the EU Reset had the potential to upend or in some cases completely delete multiple benefits within the book. Of course, we know that these negotiations will take many months to even commence let alone complete (if ever), but the intention was there. So, what was I to do?
I made the decision to draw a line. To not accept any additional information and include a disclaimer towards the front of the book. This disclaimer essentially states that the outcome of the EU Reset is unknown at the time of writing, but that it has the potential to hinder or remove a great many already tangible benefits of leaving, and that risk should be highlighted.
The reality of ‘dynamic alignment’
So, I can already hear you asking, what are these great inherent risks that you are speaking about, Gully? Surely having a good relationship with our friends and neighbours on the other side of the Channel is a good thing?
Well ask yourself this question: which of your friends and neighbours have you decided to put in charge of what food you’re allowed to sell and to eat? What’s that, you haven’t done that, because it’s a stupid idea?
‘Dynamic alignment’ is the sneaky little phrase used. One of those terms that really doesn’t tell you what it means at all. Picture the scene: you are a loveable rogue that has, through a series of lucky chances and shrewd investments, become the leader of a mining colony on the planet Bespin. You have made a decision to sell out your friend to the enemy in the agreement that you will be left alone. But once you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain, you are told by the man in black with the funky helmet that he is ‘altering the deal’, and to ‘pray’ that he doesn’t alter it any further.
What you’ve just imagined is dynamic alignment. A one-way agreement that says that, as long as you do as you are told, then you’ll be left alone. That you’ll be allowed to trade freely, as long as you bend the knee. Keir Starmer is, of course, quite famous for his willingness to bend the knee, but I digress.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
The only actual part of the EU Reset agreement that was agreed and put into place was the sacrifice of giving EU trawlers continued access to UK fishing waters at the existing levels of quota, for a further 12 years. Nothing else was achieved. This tithe to the church of the European Union was set in stone. It was added very promptly to the terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) so that the UK could not renege on the agreement without giving the EU the ability to use the terms of the TCA to retaliate.
What did the UK get out of this offer? This gift of 12 years of continued access to UK waters on the same uneven and gracious terms? The offer to open negotiations to discuss the possibility of things the UK wanted, in exchange for further sacrifices by the UK, of course.
So, with absolutely no intentional comparison to Lord Vader at all, we hear from the EU in the past week that the UK must now also accept a generous youth mobility scheme, or the deal is off before the talks even commence. All except the thing about the fish, of course; we’ve already paid that tithe.
‘I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.’
The benefits of Brexit are real – so let’s keep them
We don’t have to bend the knee to this particular Empire, when it strikes back in vengeance for having the gall to think the benefits of membership are outweighed by the freedoms afforded by national sovereignty. We only need look at the reciprocal tariffs from the Trump administration, to see that the UK being a nimble and freestanding nation in its own right allows for negotiations to move at pace, decoupled from the drama and baggage that the EU brings to the party.
As the day of my book launch arrives, I am thankful that the contents remain both accurate and relevant to the current debate. Sadly, we know that our current government came to the party with its kneepads already on, and is only too happy to demonstrate just how low they can kneel, if only someone were to ask. See Mauritius with Chagos, and Spain with Gibraltar, for more examples in the Starmer supplicant greatest hits.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We need to keep holding this government to account. Hopefully, my book will be a useful contribution to that process.
Gully Foyle is an outspoken online researcher, commentator and now published author, whose first book, 75 Brexit Benefits: Tangible Benefits from the UK Having Left the European Union, went on sale today (Monday 29 September). You can get your own copy now at Amazon and all good bookstores. The book will also be available at the Battle of Ideas festival bookshop. Tickets for the festival are still available, you can find all the details on the festival tickets page.