I’ve read two pieces today on why the Brexit debate became polarised.
@freddiesayers blames Blair, for plotting from the start against Brexit. unherd.com/2019/10/how-to…
@AdrianYalland blames hard Brexiters, for pushing an extreme form of Brexit. independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-…
The Sayers thesis simply ignores the progressive Jacobinisation of Brexit, which Adrian pins down. He also attributes an influence to Blair which (for better or worse) it’s hard to see that he has - perhaps especially on the left.
I though would add May/Nick Timothy to Adrian’s charge sheet.
Their decision to go for a hard Brexit (without, perhaps, realising what they’d done, and in May’s case trying, too late and incompetently, to reverse out of it) was the critical one. Anything Blair did is a minor footnote to that misjudgement.
