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Roland Smith Profile picture
Roland Smith
@rolandmcs
Following the Brexit movement since the last days of Thatcher as PM. Tweeting mostly about Brexit, the drivers behind it and the fallout from it. Also @ Bluesky
4 subscribers
Apr 3, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Further insights and conversation on the history behind Brexit... 🧵

Thanks @cslowe451. t.co/IujTkhm7Aj This point certainly resonates – that imperial thinking drove *pro-EU* politicians, not eurosceptic ones as is often claimed by modern Remainers – and is something that Grob-Fitzgibbon also touched on.
Apr 2, 2023 • 21 tweets • 6 min read
Great thread from @EmporersNewC tackling the Brexiter argument at the nucleus of Brexitism: that the European project is heading towards becoming a superstate "and we want no part of it".

Some threaded comments in return.... Steve's thread shows there was undoubtedly a thread running through the European project's history that showed a 'superstate' ('a country called Europe') was not sought.
Jan 2, 2023 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Suggested (controversial) new year's resolution for Remainers:

Give up on trying to Rejoin the EU. Make a Norway-esque 'single market relationship' your new stretch goal. Do not waiver in pushing for it. Labour will grow into the idea and will join you. And who knows... more than a few wobbly Leavers may join you too. Healing may begin.
Dec 31, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Once again demonstrating a correlation between those who believe in Hard Brexit and those who believe in any number of nutty conspiracies. It's not a cast iron link but it indicates an intellectual predisposition for needing hidden (and often simple if fantastical) explanations to explain a complex world. This explained it well.
Oct 26, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I may have missed this thread first time round but it is spot on.

A return to empire is not what drives Brexiters. It is more about being the embattled plucky underdog; and that belief & determination will carry us to success, no matter what. In this narrative, it is *Remainers* who want to amplify Britain through forms of empire (including 'Europe'), as per below....

Brexiters merely want to stand pluckily alone with their grit & belief while nerdy Remainer experts nit-pick.

Sep 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I love how The Left Behind ™ applaud at being left behind. Have the press found the last two yet and raked over their entire life history?
Sep 2, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Morning.

[Chokes on Corn Flakes] Apparently, government needs to be honest because politics is about persuasion.

Ya don't say...
Aug 14, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
12 years of Conservatives in Downing Street, 6 years since the Brexit vote, over 3 years of a sizeable Tory majority.... so how's it going in the eyes of Telegraph columnists? A basket case, apparently
Jan 20, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"Reeves also made it clear that Labour would not reverse Brexit. Asked if she could see Britain rejoining the EU or single market in the next 50 years, she replied: “No, I can’t see those circumstances.” "She said she would “make Brexit work” by improving on the EU-UK trade deal signed by Johnson, and endorsed by Labour, by seeking to widen access to the single market for professionals, the cultural industry and the City."
Jan 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I was just wondering where Gerald Ratner is these days Alternative tweet: Bono joins the rest of the country.
Sep 9, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Our priorities are: War with France... Image On hating the French (by @edwest )
unherd.com/2021/03/why-is…
Aug 29, 2021 • 55 tweets • 18 min read
The practical start of post-war euroscepticism/Brexitism. Image From Grob-Fitzgibbon's Continental Drift.
Aug 2, 2021 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
A hypothesis on what was wrong with UK/EU relations:

The shape & meaning of the EU/EEC and of UK-EU relations were and are in the eye of the beholder.

While this is true to some extent for life in general, the EU and UK/EU relationship went further in this regard. Thread.... /1 If, as a UK citizen in 1975, you wanted to show that the EEC and its members were heading for full political union, you could (and can) do so. There's plenty on the historic record suggesting this is exactly what would happen. You could then agree or disagree with that goal. /2
Jul 30, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This will be no surprise to anyone who has tracked Pete North in recent months. Once part of "sensible Leave" centred on staying in the EEA, now a full-on anti-immigration, anti-RNLI Farageist spewing BS.

turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/brexit/so… "Ever since the Brexit insurgency was quashed, they’ve behaved as though Brexit never even happened. We’re back to square one."

WTF is he on?
Dec 29, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Hmm, I find nothing interesting, surprising or original in this, never mind anything revelatory.

It's all very standard late-1990s "the internet will be a force for liberation/libertarianism", described in a thousand articles and books, including by non-Tory tech people. Look, Rightist Brexiters have a belief: it's a belief in smaller, limited government (which they believe often gets it wrong) and a correspondingly larger private sphere (which they believe often gets it right).

And that's basically it.
Dec 27, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Smirk... I'm not explaining it to him. These people claim to have their own experts so why do they need anyone else...?
Dec 23, 2020 • 43 tweets • 4 min read
In June 2016, no one knew about No Deal AKA the WTO Option. Almost no one was calling for it. I had published something in 2015 about what would happen in a No Deal situation. It was not until June 2016 that people picked up on it and the FT phoned me. No one understood. THREAD In June 2016, a lot of people didn’t expect Cameron to resign.
Oct 19, 2020 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
This a great piece by Ferdinand Mount, warmly reviewing a book about Enoch Powell and also providing additional context relating to Brexit and Brexiters.

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/… On how the people were being allegedly deceived by those "high-ups"....and how familiar this will sound to modern ears.
Oct 18, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A few Brexiters used to say that we needed domestic political reform at the end of all this, to avoid ever being taken into the EU again without the fullest consent.

We now need to broaden that into wholesale political reform to also avoid us getting into this current mess again Right now, I suspect it is futile arguing for particular 'options' outside EU membership until we fully confront the unchecked nature of our politics and the ever-reducing quality of our politicians.
Oct 17, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"There was Theresa May’s accidental premiership.... There was her refusal to go for a quick and easy EFTA deal, at least in the short term."

Refusal? I don't recall Brexiters pushing for such a single market option early in May's leadership. "Had it not been for the belief that Brexit might be overturned, perhaps Brussels would have listened to those who, in the aftermath of the referendum, wanted to draw Britain into a market-only tier, part of a “ring of friends” around the EU."

Umm...

Aug 13, 2020 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
So I commuted into London from Bucks today, on business.

Impressions...

Amersham station car park was very quiet - at 8.30am.
The platform had one other person on it. And there were 6 of us in the train carriage all the way to London Marylebone. All masked. /1 Marylebone station was dead. TFL staff standing to one side looking bored/sad.

A sudden thought: HS2 and more capacity - really?

Entered the tube alone, watched by one staff member. Now I'm starting to feel sad. The times I've been on this network since a child, always busy.