![]() Just as it was pre-eminently the constraints of the recurring crises of the currency which determined first Macmillan, then Wilson, and finally Heath, to seek to anchor the United Kingdom within the wider European economy in the first place. So, there is no exaggeration in the assertion, amid all the complexities of our future international strategic and trading relations, and internal political, economic, social and cultural cohesion, that there is a simple truth: the fate of Brexit rests upon the fate of sterling. The euro has in fact been the critical factor in determining Brexit, which was, as is now abundantly apparent, inevitable as long as we remained outside it. But causation can also flow the other way: the Scottish electorate’s present preference for retaining sterling over joining the euro represents one of the principal barriers to Scottish independence. And clearly adopting the single currency would be the prerequisite of, and the precursor to, any recovery of London’s financial services status. Such an expectation is utterly misplaced.Īll this is merely to state two sides of the same coin: economic difficulties sufficient for a Rejoin movement to succeed would almost certainly entail such damage to sterling as to make joining the euro acceptable. And far too many even very committed and outspoken British pro-Europeans appear to expect that we could be re-admitted to the EU essentially on the same terms as we enjoyed prior to our voluntary departure: with opt-outs from monetary union and Schengen, and from the aspiration of “Ever Closer Union”. Were Scotland to secure its independence, that too will be irreversible. The business now being lost to the City of London, which seems certain to eventually destroy its status as the principal financial services centre in Europe, will be very difficult, if not impossible, to recover. We are weighed down in particular by two considerations: the scale of the damage inflicted by Brexit that might be necessary to persuade the electorate to revisit the issue and the scale of the change in the electorate’s understanding of the European project that would merit approval for such a return by the EU-27. Some, whose grasp of history is limp, even compare our situation to that of the Jacobites following the failure of the ’45. There is much talk amongst erstwhile Remainers that we must not anticipate, let alone advocate, an early British return to the European Union.
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