[ad_1]
“It’s a great Christmas present,” said a shopper on the main street of Ashby-de-la-Zouch upon hearing the news of a Brexit trade deal.
The market town, described by its local MP as “the heart of central England”, voted overwhelmingly in favor of leaving the EU and was one of the last stops for Boris Johnson on the last day of the Vote Leave campaign on June 22. of 2016.
Jeff and Rosemary Henson weren’t particularly impressed that Boris Johnson had landed a deal.
At the time, he had spent an hour on the street after interviewing Mr. Johnson, and could not find a single person to vote to stay in the EU. For me, it was the first time I had a real idea of the direction the country was heading.
In fact, the city of North Leicestershire voted overwhelmingly in favor of leaving the European bloc.
So, I almost fell over when the first couple I spoke to today about the new Brexit deal told me they had voted to stay.
Jeff and Rosemary Henson weren’t particularly impressed that Boris Johnson had landed a deal.
“I think the problem was that he [Boris] got into ‘I’ll end Brexit’ and I guess he did! “Rosemary said.
Jeff concluded: “The thing is, people still don’t really know what Brexit is.”
Rosemary went on to correctly predict that the new agreement spelled the end of Britain’s participation in the Erasmus program, which allows students from different European countries to exchange places.
“We have grandchildren who won’t be able to do their Erasmus and all that kind of stuff,” Rosemary said. “Our girls went to college and they were able to do all of that. I think we’re losing a lot. We don’t really know what was lost. I think they were lied to from the beginning.”
A Brexit voter said he was ‘glad to hear’ of a trade deal
But others on Main Street were more in line with what I expected. “Glad to hear it,” said a gentleman.
Did you vote for Brexit? “I did.”
Is this what you were waiting for?
“No, we expected this to happen a long time ago!”
The most common view was that this agreement meant that the UK had regained sovereignty and the ability to create its own laws. The old “regain control” mantra was repeated to me. The slogan that was so successful, because it was a distillation of what people told Vote Leave strategist Dominic Cummings in focus groups on the EU, that the UK had lost control of its laws, money and borders.
Andrew Bridgen (center) stood by Boris Johnson’s side when he campaigned for Brexit in Leicestershire in 2016
But a man on Main Street said: “The conversation has shifted from net migration to more about vacations and commerce. People started to worry about the trucks lining up in Dover, if the food would run out and if they will be able to go. on vacation in Europe “.
There had been mounting tension over what not reaching a deal would mean for the UK, and there was a sense of great relief that that bullet had been avoided at a time when the country was already in financial trouble for the pandemic.
People now wanted to look ahead and perhaps more inward. “Buy British, create more British jobs,” said one buyer.
But the local MP, who was standing next to Boris Johnson the day he campaigned in the city, said this was an opportunity to look outside.
Andrew Bridgen campaigned for a tough Brexit and would have been satisfied without a deal, but he received the news of a trade deal with cautious optimism. Bridgen said now is the time to create a new trading bloc with Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
He told Sky News: “I hope that in the next 12 months we will have free trade, free movement and the ability to live, work and start a business in Canada, New Zealand or the UK.
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What will be the impact of the Brexit trade deal?
“We are all parliamentary democracies based on the same democratic system, we are all relatively rich countries. And the difference is with Canada, Australia and New Zealand: we are not going to make the laws of others.”
Bridgen believes that such a deal would lead to a flow of migration out of the UK, as people take advantage of the larger landmass in those less populated countries.
The Brexit campaign has waited decades for this moment, but it was only nine years ago that someone correctly raised the question of what our relationship would be like after we left.
In a debate in parliament in October 2011, William Hague asked: “If we voted to leave the European Union, would that mean that, like Norway, we were in the European Free Trade Association and in the European Economic Area, but still paying the budget, or, like Switzerland, not in the European economic area … Would we be in the single market, or not, still subject to its rules or not?
In the years that followed, this question was often forgotten, but now, finally, we have the answer: neither Norway nor Switzerland, but rather Canada.
We have left the single market and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union, but there will be a new independent arbitration body and, where UK and EU laws diverge, the fees could continue.
We may have relief in a deal, but this is a tougher Brexit than many initially imagined.
While the UK is now expected to rally behind it, there is a threat to the Union in Scotland as nationalists will seek leverage in the deal for their own purposes.
Much of this sentiment was reflected in the mood on the main street of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Although we are closer to the end result, there is less certainty and consistency about what it all meant.
In 2016, Brexit was a simple set of slogans – four and a half years later, we are only just beginning to see what it looks like.
