In spite of what some business-orientated media are saying, there is no unambiguous signal that the UK population south of Hadrian's Wall is itching to get back into the European Union. The opinion surveys show that those with fixed views are as roughly equally divided as the "Yeses" and "Noes" of the period before the last referendum. The mistake commentators seem to be making is to count all the "Maybes" as people who will vote for Remain parties or candidates at the next general election.
As Prof David Kynaston pointed out on last Friday's Long View - Rethink, Britain is a very conservative country. That applies to Labour sympathisers as well as Conservative voters. So those Maybes will melt away as they did in 2017 and before last year's election. There is going to be some hardening on the Conservative benches, too. We have already seen that Conservative MPs whose instincts are that it was better for business to be in have had to follow the Johnson line or be deselected by their local constituency Tories. The infiltration of local parties by National Front sympathisers and other xenophobes is only going to make matters worse.
It will take an economic decline so severe that even Johnson will not be able to attribute it credibly to the Covid-19 emergency to cause a change of heart. The trouble is that, the more Britain's fortunes decline, the less attractive we will be to the EU27. One must also bear in mind that a decision by the EU nations to admit an applicant must be unanimous.
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