Adonis, Heseltine and Sturgeon are no longer Remainers — they are full-on Rejoiners
Andrew Adonis and his comrades-at-arms who support Britain rejoining the EU are entitled to their opinion — but so am I — and I shall never shirk from telling you what these advocates of the EU superstate are saying when they are on manoeuvres. They have no respect for the greatest display of British democracy in the country’s history and rather than make it work for the good of all they are seeking to undermine and then overturn it.
Together with the forces of the EU, they are on the march; they have reassembled and are recruiting full-time staff to run their campaigns. They are well funded and have no worry about resources — but they lack decent arguments. I know this because they have to make up scare stories and immediately claim any problem faced by the UK has been caused by Brexit.
Rather than damage the case for Britain regaining its sovereignty it makes them look mean spirited, anti-democratic and plain foolish.
So you know who is actively involved in supporting the EU’s rearguard action I have produced this ‘Rogues Gallery’ of Rejoiners…
Andrew Adonis, the former Labour Cabinet member in the Blair and Brown governments, following ennoblement as Lord Adonis, became Chairman of the European Movement last year. Unsurprisingly Adonis is in favour of the UK rejoining the EU, making plain at a speech in Oxford on 27 October 2021 “we need to re-join as soon as possible”. He has gone even further, backing membership of the Euro, saying in a Tweet he has since deleted:
“It is my view that when we rejoin the European Union we should also join the Euro. Probably we won’t be able to rejoin on any other terms anyway Next time we can’t be ‘half in, half out’.”
Explaining his strategy for rejoining at a talk to a Labour Party conference fringe meeting on 26 September 2021, Adonis said:
“Step-by-step towards rejoin should be our strategy.
“And what should our policy at the next election be? With the Liberal Democrats, with the Greens, with all other people of goodwill, it is very, very straightforward: rejoin the customs union and rejoin the single market.
“Next step, back into the EU.”
In 2019 Tony Blair’s former Press Secretary, Alastair Campbell, was expelled from the Labour Party because he decided he could not vote for it for the first time in his life — telling BBC Radio 5 Live he chose to vote for the “Remainer party” the Liberal Democrats.
Recently Andrew Adonis received the public support of Campbell. When Lord Adonis tweeted in November 2021, “Time to move step-by-step towards Rejoin” it was ‘liked’ the same day by arch-Remainer Campbell.
It is hard to believe Campbell would not jump at the chance to campaign to rejoin the EU, speaking on Brexit to Sky News in November 2021 Campbell said:
“It’s not settled by any manner of means. I am a passionate opponent of Brexit, I wish I had got involved more in the referendum campaign because like everybody else I just thought Remains are probably gonna win. Since then, I got involved in a campaign, to try and get a second referendum on the outcome of the negotiations [but] we lost that.”
Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine never stops ‘banging on about Europe’ — regularly and patronisingly conflating Europe with the EU. When the transition period ended on 1st January 2021 and Britain finally left EU laws behind he told Andrew Pierce on LBC: “The battle starts again”.
He has argued EU loyalists must “never give up” and sets his own example by never passing up on any opportunity to suggest the UK must rejoin at the earliest opportunity. Speaking on Times Radio, Heseltine said a forced resignation of Boris Johnson would “throw the whole thing up in the air” and bring up the chances of a second referendum. When speaking at Nottingham University on 3 November 2021 he said:
“Our purpose is clear. We must restore Britain’s position in the corridors of European power. That is our natural home and not only much of our history but also much of our future will lie.”
The SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland is an unequivocal supporter of Scotland joining the EU if it ever secedes from the UK. Indeed joining the EU is a central feature of her campaign to break up Britain.
Her view is not universally shared by SNP members, over a third of whom are estimated to have voted ‘Leave’. Sturgeon has sought special treatment from the EU — such as Scotland being able to join the Erasmus+ programme separately but was rebuffed by EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Writing in the Irish Times on 2 January 2021 Sturgeon said:
“We didn’t want to leave and we hope to join you again soon as an equal partner as we face the opportunities and challenges of the future together.”
Although Sturgeon called for a second Brexit referendum after being on the losing side in 2016 she has no intention of supporting a fresh vote on EU membership if Scotland was to secede. Speaking at a media briefing in April last year the SNP leader said holding another referendum on EU membership was “not my policy”. She explained a second independence referendum would double up as an EU membership referendum:
“Just as in 2014 people had a detailed prospectus on which to base their vote, that’s my intention in a future independence referendum too, and that will involve frank answers about all of the questions people have, including what we see as the journey back to European Union membership.”
Please be under no illusions there is an almighty campaign brewing to try and get the UK back into the EU. It is being led by a variety of committed political personalities and they have a central strategic aim — to overturn the government so that we end up with a single party or coalition of parties committed to taking us back into the EU.
They may not be so obvious as to say they are going to take us back to the EU — they probably don’t think they can sell that — just yet. NO, they will use the tactic of boiling a frog — slowly heating the water until the frog does not realise what’s happening and becomes powerless to prevent the outcome. We would find that over time the UK would align with so much EU law and be involved and co-opted to so many EU projects that we would be told we might as well become members.
The chances of there being another referendum would be very slim — the politicians would not give the British public a second chance to ‘make a mistake. Parliament would simply rubber-stamp an agreement — just like it did for Ted Heath in the 1970s.
So let’s keep our guard up, let’s keep making the arguments and let’s keep demonstrating to any doubters — and to new generations of young people who get the vote for the first time every year — that being outside the EU ensures our sovereign freedom so we can then choose to do what we want — without other countries imposing laws upon us.
And let’s stop talking of ‘Remainers’ — anyone carrying on the debate now and not working to make Brexit work is by definition a ‘Rejoiner’ — so let’s be honest with everyone and unless we are discussing history only speak of ‘Rejoiners’ from now on.
