Britain finds itself isolated in a dangerous world, it’s time to rethink Brexit - Andy Brown

It was all going to be so easy and it was all going to work out so well. Britain would become great again as the 5th largest economy in the world cut free from the drag of being weighed down by European bureaucracy and bound forward into a new era of prosperity.

So a narrow majority opted for the hope that this was true and voted to leave the EU. Having a lot of extra money to spend on the NHS, securing the future of our fishing communities, and boosting British industry are all pretty reasonable things to vote for.

Offered the choice between all these nice things and David Cameron’s vague threats it is difficult to blame anyone for deciding to take a punt on resetting our national future and striking out on our own.

Almost 10 years after the vote there comes a point when we need to face facts and admit that we were sold a pup. It hasn’t worked and it doesn’t look likely that it ever will.

Making it harder to do business with our closest and largest market has been a bad idea. There hasn’t been a sudden rebound in our steel industry, our car manufacturing, or foreign investment in British manufacturing jobs. There has just been continued decline.

It should have been easy to do better with the money we paid to Brussels and got back in the form of agricultural subsidies along with clumsy and bureaucratic regional aid schemes. It hasn’t remotely turned out that way.

Successive governments have continued to starve local government of funds whilst running wasteful competitions for scraps of money that have a nasty tendency to be handed out to political friends.

Farmers aren’t exactly falling over themselves to thank the government for the ease, the flexibility, the size and the usefulness of the subsidy schemes that have been designed once we got out of the EU.

Our economy has stagnated as we find it hard to persuade investors that it is better to do business in a market of 68 million people than in one of 450 million. Trade deals have been negotiated from a position of weakness that have left farmers vulnerable to cheap imports produced by methods that wouldn’t be allowed in this country. Almost all of those deals are worse than ones struck from a position of strength by the EU.

Strategically Britain has found itself alone in the world without reliable economic allies at a time of increasing instability. Leaving the EU has left us incredibly vulnerable to volatility in the US and meant that our Prime Minister’s only tactic when facing dangerous increases in tariffs was to beg for mercy and think he had played a blinder when he managed to come away with higher US tariffs on British business but lower ones than were originally threatened.

When it comes to issues of national security the weakness has been even more evident. We weren’t consulted about Donald Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran. We weren’t even told. We have similarly been expected to sit on the sidelines and watch as the US took upon itself the right to try and enforce a peace deal on Ukraine that was directly against our most vital national interests.

Economically, politically and strategically Brexit has been a failure. Every recent opinion poll shows that a significant proportion of the British public now thinks it was a significant mistake.

Yet somehow it is a policy error that many politicians feel unable to challenge. The best that the current government seems prepared to countenance is that Britain will move closer to following EU rules in the hope that this will result in our businesses getting easier access to their markets.

Following rules that we have not been able to play any part in shaping is not exactly a great strategy for ensuring the best interests of our nation are secured. If you aren’t in the room when the decisions are made you are unlikely to get a great deal. The only way to get a say is to rejoin.

Sometimes it is better to admit that you’ve made a mistake and reverse a bad decision instead of continually trying to try and limit the negative consequences.

Isolated and on our own in a dangerous world it is increasingly unlikely that Britain can secure a successful economic future. Collaboration may be difficult, clumsy and frustrating but the reality of life is that it is necessary to work with other nations to achieve our economic and strategic interests. Especially our nearest neighbours.

The obvious place to look for allies that share many of our national values is the EU. The sooner we face up to that reality and decide to rejoin the better.

Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley.