Thread by @hhesterm

I fear I profoundly disagree with Andrew in this regard. Leaving for the sake of leaving as @iainmartin1 expresses here is entirely legitimate - and we would be better of if people had been frank and open about this. Let me explain this point of view (thread)

https://twitter.com/AndrewPRLevi/status/1440606843882016773

@iainmartin1 But I do not want to explain this in terms of Brexit, but in terms of Switzerland (yes, I did that once years ago, but it‘s worthwhile to recall that). So here we go: Switzerland is a great country. Richer than we are. And many would say more democratic than many /2

However, I do not want to be part of Switzerland. Personally I do not get the Swiss type of democracy, I cannot emotionally relate to the magic formula at all and would not call Switzerland more democratic. But it‘s the Swiss way and that‘s fine with me from the outside. /3

Much in the same way it is legitimate to say you do not want to be part of the EU. You cannot relate to that specific form of democracy. (EU law, of course, explicitly provides for that choice) /4

IF Brexit had happened along this line that we do not want to take part in the EU, because this is too much supranationalism for us. We do not claim it is not democratic, nothing wrong with anything, just not our choice, we would be better off now. Why?

Because right now we could, free from supranationalism, do what the UK used to be very good at: evaluate what is good for the country, what is not and act accordingly based on that information.

We could say that there is no appetite at the moment to diverge from SPS rules, hence we can align, but with a 1-year termination clause, reducing trade friction (and we can get out if we are not happy with alignment).

Instead, we are locked in a mortal exercise of pretending that we get enormous benefits from anything that smells different. That we will become part of North America. That we will become world leaders in everything. And we categorically cannot work with anything continental.

(And yes, I do realise that there‘s a reason the Brexit campaign wasn‘t run along those lines. The identity / too much supranationalism crowd was not large enough - and so economic claims were made and political claims were made that landed us where we are today)