Brexit, in its original form, is dead: killed by the new geopolitical realities created by the war in Ukraine.
newstatesman.com/comment/2022/0…
newstatesman.com/comment/2022/0…
"I doubt that the UK will rejoin the EU anytime soon, but its whole attitude to Europe will have to change – on defence, on energy and even on trade itself." | Writes @paulmasonnews 
Brexit, Boris Johnson said, had set Britain free: “free to tread our own path, blessed with a global network of friends and partners, and with the opportunity to forge new and deeper relationships.”
The UK would be the buccaneering free agent, ducking and diving across Asia, the Americas and the Pacific, promoting free trade in place of the established trading blocks.
Where is that freedom now? It has vanished, for four reasons.
Where is that freedom now? It has vanished, for four reasons.
◾️First, China and Russia have forged a strategic economic alliance.
◾️Second, because proximity suddenly matters. Western sanctions on Russia are reshaping the world economy.
◾️Thirdly, we have entered an energy war that will last until the end of the carbon age.
◾️Fourth, in this new situation the European Union either becomes a global power, co-equal to Russia, China and the US, or it becomes the chessboard across which the others fight.
Hard Brexit was always premised on the break-up and decline of the EU. If that were to happen now, it would be a catastrophe for Britain and a victory for Putin.
The emergence of systemic conflict mandates that Britain re-engage with Europe, on defence projects, in space, and even at the basic level of getting humanitarian goods out of Dover into Calais.
"The xenophobes, Little Englanders and Putin stooges who inflicted this predicament on us should never be forgiven." | Writes @paulmasonnews newstatesman.com/comment/2022/0…
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