Yes, of course Brexit was the right decision. And that’s exactly what I said, yesterday, on BBC Politics Live when a lot of jaws in the studio hit the floor.
Amid the ninth anniversary of the British people’s decision to leave the European Union (EU), I took direct aim at the anti-Brexit ruling class in this country by listing just a few of the advantages we now enjoy being outside the EU.
Like the fact we no longer have to pay billions every year into the EU budget, billions more covering the EU Covid loans, and billions more supporting another round of ‘EU enlargement’, that will see another wave of poor countries, like Albania, Bosnia, and Serbia, take more out of the EU economy than they will put in.
Like the fact we now have an independent trade policy in this country that has made it possible for us to sign more than seventy trade deals with other nations around the world, including America and India. And like the fact we are no longer shackled to an inefficient, sluggish and divided EU block that represents a declining share of global GDP, down from more than 20 per cent in the mid-1990s to only 13 per cent today.
But you know what? Brexit, for me at least, was never just about the economics and it was never just about the final destination. Personally, I always saw Brexit as an off-ramp we could take to move in a completely different direction and firmly away from the dreary consensus that unites the Blairites and Brussels.
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