Britain is leaving the EU – hug a remainer/leaver for Christmas

Just saying those words – “Britain is leaving the EU” – and knowing them now to be true , will be enough to make many of those who voted for departure from the European Union break into a broad grin.

Myself, I got so immersed in election night and the scale of the drubbing dished out to Magic Grandpa and the Marxist Maniacs that it wasn’t until after breakfast on Friday that I remembered. My goodness, we are leaving the EU. Almost four years since 17.4m Britons gave the clear instruction that, all things considered, it was time not to be a member of the undemocratic integrationist effort. Britain is actually going to leave the sodding thing. (Stifles hurrah.)

To put it mildly, not everyone will be pleased by what is about to happen.

Many remainers are hurt, angry and beyond disappointed. The end result of all that energy and excitement – Go Lady Hale! Look at my spider brooch t-shirt! Thread that Twitter, trade expert lawyer until you hit 47 tweets in a row on the WTO! Order! Order! – is a Tory majority of 80, the Lib Dems leaderless, and Labour in ruins. The Labour parliamentary party is now peppered with some epically unsuited Corbynista bears of very little brain. Bear of little brain is from Milne – A.A. not Seumas.

Is it too much, though, to hope that the leaders of the ill-conceived People’s Vote campaign reflect a little on what a mess they made of it, ushering in what is likely to be a harder Brexit than would have been the case if they argued for maximum closeness in an EEA compromise and accepted that the referendum result had to be implemented? Take five minutes. Goodness, take five years.

Not much stuns me when it comes to politics, but I am still astonished that eminent people (some of them worthy of great respect on other matters, several of them my friends) thought it was somehow okay to try and overturn the 2016 result before it had been carried out as promised by the state. Can they try – please – to imagine what message this sent to their fellow voters who were in the majority in the referendum?

Mistakes were made in the last few years by leavers too, of course. There have been many. If I never see the term ERG again I’ll be happy. The core problem with my side was – and is – that because victory rested on having built a broad coalition, to maximise the vote, there was no plan and leavers themselves disagreed a lot on everything other than not wanting to be in the EU. It encouraged magical thinking to fill the gap. I was guilty of it at points, hoping always that something would turn up. In a way it did, with Boris. Although let’s see what emerges from the trade talks.

Scottish Nationalists will have to reflect on this. If there is another referendum north of the border they will cry “Project Fear” again when the warnings are rolled out. Some of their critics will point out that in glossing over the practical difficulties they sound like hardline leavers between 2016 and now. Others will point to the massive shortfall there will be between revenue and outgoings post-independence, and the way in which Brexit makes separation with England more complex. Scottish trade is overwhelmingly with England, not the EU.

On Brexit, a word the Tories want to banish so that we can all “move on”, the Prime Minister has talked of healing. It is a message that will have widespread appeal in the country, among the majority of sensible leavers and remainers who want to get on with the rest of their lives.

Will the plea work with the most furious remainers? Do not hold your breath. The campaign for a second referendum created in this country an active (if small, at the couch) movement for the EU that did not exist before, back when membership was a fact of life and David Cameron had yet to conceive of a referendum. In time, hopefully, all that remainer energy can be redirected into tackling the numerous problems the country faces. We all have to live here and the prospects are good – in the industries of the future, in our universities, in our small businesses, in towns keen to rebuild, in cities outside London that have picked themselves up in the last few decades, in our people. We’ll do it outside the EU, while still, thank goodness, being part of Europe, a continent and civilisation that is much older than the European Commission.

What can each of us do on either side of the divide? Look, as Tony Blair always says when he’s trying to get unconvinced people to move on, I’m – not – saying “hug a remainer/leaver” for Christmas. Actually, if that feels appropriate, and they say in writing that they want a hug, go for it within reason.

Happy Christmas. I almost said Happy Brexmas there, but that is not in accord with the spirit of the moment. Happy Christmas.