Peter Jukes is an English author, screenwriter, playwright, literary critic and journalist. He is also the founder and executive editor of Byline Times and co-founder of Byline Festival. 

Follow him on Twitter: @peterjuke

Pat Kennedy: Why don’t more intelligent, well read, long headed (Ulster terminology) clued in people like yourself stand as MPs? Billy Connolly once said that the desire to be one should immediately disqualify one. Has he been proven right?

Had to look up ‘long-headed’! Thanks! Right now, I think the problems with democracy are more profound than just those who stand for Parliament. They only win or lose in the context of a broken fourth estate, where our information is either parlayed by non-domiciled billionaire media owners or twisted by social media giants like Facebook who monetise outrage and conspiracy theory. So, my priority is to do what I can to create (or recreate) an information space where – whatever the political solutions may be – we all accept a common reality and common problems. With the US Republican Party now dominated by the ‘Big Lie’ that Biden stole the election from Trump, and the UK vitiated by Covid deniers, Anti-Vaxxers, and a government still trying to convince us how great Brexit is, this basic substrata of truth seems to be missing.

Mike Phillips: What issue do you think we could prosecute the Johnson government with to successfully prove misconduct in office?

Though there have been noble attempts to use the Misconduct law for prosecutions, I doubt if that’s the real route. It’s too politicised for the judiciary. More effective to me seems the route taken by the Good Law Project and Foxglove in subjecting the government to judicial review over specific policies such as the Crony Contracts scandal (first broken by Byline Times), pork-barrel spending, GP data grabs etc. I note that Matt Hancock, Lord Bethell, Gavin Williamson and Robert Jenrick are no longer ministers. This is – I believe – a direct result of investigative journalism and time judicial review.

The Afghanistan withdrawal displayed a weakness in UK foreign relations. How can the UK continue to work with EU nations to provide an alternative strategy to a US lead foreign policy?

Long before the calamitous withdrawal this summer, the UK’s actual military effectiveness as a junior partner to the US in both the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, was being severely doubted by our superpower ally.  Though individuals have made extreme sacrifices, our deployment in both Basra and Helmand left US commanders wondering what had happened to the British military. We were punching beyond our weight for decades and now are depleted. This may be a good thing. We have traditionally spent more on defence than other European countries. As America becomes more isolationist, and the threat to Europe from Russia post the Ukraine Maidan revolution increases, there will be a space for further European cooperation. And the power of Europe, though it needs military backup, has been mainly soft power. Many former Cold War adversaries are now, through the power of the acquis, firmly in the orbit of liberal democracy. There are problems with Hungary and Poland to be sure, but the main source of violence of the previous four centuries, war in Europe between the Great Powers, is now a very dim and distant prospect. So, my hope is that the UK will realise that, in defence terms as well as economic terms, our main hope is with the rest of Europe.

Valerie Chaplin: Bylines is growing in the UK, but there are many UK nationals residing in the rest of the world. Have you any plans to include them?

Hopefully, they have no problem accessing either the Bylines Network of local and regional sites, or the newspaper and TV channel online. We mail out the paper to many different countries. But I’m sure the Bylines Network would welcome a site for Britons overseas.

Steve Wilson: What is the main aim of the Bylines media network, and is the message cutting through?

The message is simple – truth matters. The only way that democracy can work is with an informed electorate, and with disinformation, dark money and Astro-turfed fake news rife, we have to go back to basics and reaffirm that reality matters. Of course, the Government and its media allies and PR campaigns can try to negate the truth of their terrible handling of the Coronavirus or impacts of a hard Brexit. They can try to distract us with culture wars over statues and taking the knee. But just as in the fantastic TV series Chernobyl – as the Soviet authorities tried to cover up the design flaws in their nuclear reactor – reality has a way of seeping beyond the control of ideology and propaganda. As the whistleblowing scientist Valery Legasov says in the TV series: “The truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants, it doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time.” 

David Eldridge: What are the chances of a “progressive alliance” before the next election, and if such an alliance was formed, what should its main focus be?

I’m not qualified to predict if people will rally around these principles of truth, transparency and accountability before the next election. Certainly, my hope is that more and more people are waking up to the corruption, malfeasance and oligarchical dark money in our midst. If they do, then we should rally around these basic principles of democratic reform, now being undermined by the current Elections Bill. A strong electoral commission, tighter laws on party funding, enforcing the Ministerial Code, banning foreign interference and hidden spending – the list is long but like the 1832 Reform Act, there is a wide public interest that could appeal across the spectrum. 

Matt Burton: As discussions around Brexit and Covid almost inevitably lead to people basing their thoughts on their feelings, rather than evidence, what can be done to make our public discourse more data-based?

As I’ve indicated, I do believe that reason, objectivity and a common shared understanding of the basic principles of reality are important for a democracy to function. Byline Times has recently created a Byline Intelligence Team to look at a number of issues, from crony contracts, Conservative donors, to healthcare commercialisation to see what the actual data shows. It is led by Iain Overton, a great pioneer and practitioner of ‘data driven’ journalism. But data needs to be turned into information and then processed a stage further to become knowledge. Ultimately, the final refinement of data is wisdom. And at each stage of that process, appealing to people’s everyday lives, their experiences, values and feelings is very important. As someone who spent most of my previous career in fiction, I do understand the importance of storytelling. But you’re right: storytelling unmoored from reality becomes dangerous – a mixture of myth, bias and self-fulfilling prophecy

Lisa Burton: Do you think we will ever see a Levenson 2 type inquiry to expose the corruption and power of some of the media and what, if anything, could be done to push for one?

Our sister organisation Byline Investigates, run by two former tabloid journalists who have repented of their pasts, has done something to restitute for the gap left by Theresa May’s cancellation of Leveson 2 which was always designed to happen once the phone-hacking trials were over. The civil courts are doing a good job at exposing the privacy intrusions of the Sun and the Mirror Group. The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report exposed some of what Gordon Brown described as “the criminal media nexus”. But because the Conservative Party is so close to the main malefactors in the right-wing press, Leveson 2 is highly unlikely, and I doubt the Labour Party has the stomach to bring it back. But the good news is that the public are much more aware of the cabal operating in the press and much more critical. Their revenues and influence are declining with the rise of new media, and they are kept on their toes by constant public scrutiny and advertising boycotts like those encourage by Stop Funding Hate. The horse has bolted, I fear, when it comes to Leveson2. But there are many other ways to tame the feral press.

Bremainers Ask – October feature: The Bremain Council are holding our annual Steering Meeting on 23 October, followed by our AGM on 24 October in Málaga. We therefore felt this would be a great opportunity for our members to put questions directly to the Council. 

If you would like to submit a question for consideration, please contact us by email, no later than 15 October here: mailto:enquiries@Bremaininspain.com

As part of our regular Bremainers Ask feature, we occasionally ask previous contributors to comment on the latest political developments.

This month we are delighted to welcome back Naomi Smith, Ian Dunt and Jonathan Lis who have all agreed to comment on the current state of play of British politics and, in particular, Brexit.

This is what they had to say:

Naomi Smith

Naomi is Chief Executive Office of Best for Britain and host on the Oh God What Now podcast. She originally answered members’ questions in April 2020

Brexit remains far from done, and a positive we can all take is that this Government’s incompetence is beginning to visibly impede its ability to deliver it.

There are still many issues requiring long-term solutions which aren’t forthcoming from Boris Johnson’s Government. Frustratingly though, while it is easy to revel in their incompetence, British business is suffering as a result, which is something that we all expected but is incredibly difficult to watch, nonetheless

In terms of Brexit-related news to look out for in the media, the end of a grace period allowing chilled meats to move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland expires on 1 October. The key issue here is that the Government has given little indication of their long-term solution to fix it beyond this date. You may have seen this legislation dubbed in the media as the “sausage wars”, and though it may sound trivial when framed like that, it yet again underpins another Brexit failing. Lord Frost called for a “permanent solution” to the issue around chilled meats back in June, but no progress has been announced. We will have to watch this space to see what happens.

The above news is somewhat disappointing, but I do have some good news, which is that the UK Trade and Business Commission will be releasing its interim report in the coming months. The report details key issues on the sausage wars and more, alongside some forward-looking solutions that aim to improve what has been an enormously difficult period for us all. The Commission was launched back in April and is co-convened by Hilary Benn MP and Peter Norris of the Virgin Group. It exists as a cross-party group of Parliamentarians and leading business experts from across the UK.

The Commission has discussed a wide range of topics, and each meeting has always returned to the same inescapable fact; that Brexit isn’t working and is proving to be a real disaster. Whether the issues have been artists needing visas and work permits to tour Europe; the UK’s desperation to agree a poor free-trade deal with Australia; or the enormous challenges that SMEs are having in trying to export across the continent, it has shown that Brexit is not working and, unless the Government moves away from tactics of megaphone diplomacy and towards meaningful engagement, more issues will develop.

There is hope. The Government is having no choice but to listen to the work of the UK Trade and Business Commission. Truth and facts are unarguable, and in having experts show the Government what they are destroying in pursuing a damaging Brexit strategy, the Commission is gaining strength and traction. As we continue to focus on this important work, the road remains bumpy, but we are sure in our convictions that if we keep making the right noises, we may have a chance of better days ahead.

Things aren’t as bad as we think.

You look around and they seem dreadful: a clown-car Prime Minister, the hardest possible version of Brexit, tens of thousands of needless deaths due to the Government’s catastrophically inept COVID response, entrenched cronyism, a barrage of authoritarian legislation and a stubborn Tory lead, no matter what they do. It looks bad.

But when you peer past the day-to-day news, there are glimmers of a more positive future.

Look at that Tory polling lead. It is stubborn, but it is also startlingly volatile. Last year, during the Dominic Cummings Barnard Castle debacle, it plummeted with alarming speed. There is currently a sustained decline in the wake of last month’s opening up, Boris Johnson’s culture war against the England football team and the Matt Hancock resignation.

Look at the recent comments between Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey and Labour Keir Starmer, which suggest that they seem comfortable working together – informally, behind the scenes – in order to maximise their chances of taking on the Conservatives at the next election. Look at the difficulties the Tories are having hanging on to their traditional seats in the south.

Events are not set in stone. This Government has severe weaknesses which will be highlighted, not hidden, by the end of the pandemic.

This is also true for Brexit. The moment of defeat is now behind us. The requirement now is to work out how we build a closer relationship with the EU and then eventually get back in.

That process starts with a narrative. This will not come as a bolt out of thin air. It will emerge over years. And yet you can see it coming together now. How long has it been since you heard a positive story about Brexit? Months. The last one was the attempt to suggest that Britain’s fast vaccine roll-out was a result of having left the EU. This was nonsense, of course, and is now anyway redundant given some European countries have sped ahead of us. But it was generally accepted by many people. Before that, it’s hard to think of any.

There are, however, plenty of negative stories about Brexit: The sudden potential for disorder in Northern Ireland, the barriers to trade within the UK, empty supermarket shelves, outraged farmers and agricultural exporters, exorbitant customs costs, visa charges for holiday-makers. The list goes on and on. It’s a drip-drip-drip of negativity.

It’s easy to sneer when people say this wasn’t the Brexit they voted for. But in fact each time this is said, it reflects another potential convert. Most Leave voters will never say Brexit was wrong. But they can be convinced that it is not going well, and that a future Government needs to fix the relationship, which will inevitably entail us moving closer.

That journey will start with a narrative, of Brexit being a failure. And that is precisely the narrative which is emerging now, slowly, in a long and shallow wave of daily disparate news reports.

Things look bad and it’s easy to get depressed about it. But the Government is weaker than it seems, the public are more open minded than they appear, and in the long term, there are good reasons to be optimistic.

Jonathan Lis

Jonathan is deputy director of the pro-EU think tank British Influence, and a political writer and commentator. He answered our members’ questions in September 2020

The news stories are beginning to dribble in, but few people are listening and even fewer joining the dots. Stories that would ordinarily resonate with the public on different levels – a shortage of blood testing vials, empty supermarket shelves, no milkshakes at McDonalds – aren’t hitting home.

Part of the reason is COVID. It is very easy for the Government and its media cheerleaders to associate shortages with the pandemic because the virus has impacted us in so many different ways already. Less easy to explain is why these shortages did not happen during the first nine months of coronavirus, when we were de facto full members of the EU.

Another part of the reason is Brexit fatigue. There is a feeling, widely shared even by many Remainers, that Brexit has happened and cannot be relitigated. Many people wonder what good can come from ‘I told you so’: it provides little satisfaction to the people saying it, and only alienates the people they are saying it to. Certainly, there is no electoral mileage in telling voters that they didn’t listen to all the warnings and got it wrong. This fatigue, incidentally, also stretches to commentators. I know personally that, after almost six years of endless debate, I feel exhausted by Brexit, and don’t much enjoy writing about it anymore. If that’s the opinion of a former Remain activist, how can we expect ordinary members of the public to busy themselves with it?

The third reason, though, should spur us on. Namely, the insidious pact between the Government and parts of the media to actively deny the role of Brexit in the current and future difficulties. The problems are not happening, or they are nothing to do with the EU, or do not remotely prove that the Brexiters were wrong. It is in everyone’s interests that we tell the truth about what happened, what’s happening now and what is still to happen. It’s the only way we can safeguard truth and integrity in public discourse.

Anna Bird is the CEO of the European Movement UK. She joined the European Movement in September 2020, having previously led political influencing campaigns at Scope, the Fawcett Society and Mind. Anna is a passionate Europhile, a European Studies graduate and Erasmus alumnus, who studied in France and Italy and started her career as a stagiaire in the European Parliament.

Alan Brown : European Movement describes Brexit as a historic, national mistake and says it “will fight to rejoin the EU as soon as it is politically possible”. Given that no political opposition party wants to talk about the Brexit mistake, how will it ever be ”politically possible” to rejoin, or even achieve a version of the single market?

It’s our job to make it politically possible. We can’t rely on the political parties, that’s abundantly clear!

How do we do it? We have to expose to the public the huge harm that is being done by this Brexit deal. By using local issues and human stories, we can make the impact of Brexit resonate with people at an emotional level, not just a rational one. We’re providing the tools for our local groups to do just that.

And then we need to offer hope and the possibility of something different. We talk at the European Movement about building back step by step. Some of these steps might include: rejoining Erasmus, securing a deal on veterinary standards, getting an EU-wide visa waiver for touring artists … we’re campaigning on all these issues.

Clearly, this government’s Brexit just isn’t working. We’re seeing that in the empty shelves in the supermarkets, the tension in Northern Ireland and workforce shortages. So, change is inevitable. That provides an opportunity to move us closer to the end goal.

Valerie Chaplin :You have over 100 groups around the UK, that campaign for upholding citizens’ rights etc. Which UK citizens’ groups do you work with in the EU 27?

Well… Bremain in Spain, obviously! You are a valued EM affiliate. As a member of European Movement International we have links to citizens groups across all EU member states and beyond. And we met just this week to explore opportunities with British in Europe, who are doing great work advocating for UK citizens in Brussels.

There’s no doubt much more we could and should do to build our links across the EU with UK citizens’ groups, and to be able to offer more to our members who live on the continent. Any suggestions for how to do that – I’m all ears.

Steven Wilson : European Movement have a reputation for being middle-aged, male and white. How do you intend to encourage more diversity in the organisation?

If we want to stay relevant, this has to be a top priority and as a lifelong equality campaigner, this matters to me very much. One of my first actions was to propose 3 new candidates to join EM’s Executive Committee to improve diversity at the top table. I was delighted that the National Council approved the nominations of Molly Scott Cato, Jane Thomas and Sajjad Karim, and all three have made an outstanding contribution in the few months since they joined. 

As CEO, I have started to embed an inclusive, flexible working environment (as a mum to two young children this is vital for me, but it works well for others in the team who juggle caring responsibilities, needy dogs and political and non-exec roles alongside their day jobs!)

And I’m working with Andrew (Adonis, our chair) and Molly on much deeper reform of our governance structures, so that diversity is ‘baked in’ for the future. The proposals would ensure a much larger National Council in which no less than 40% of seats go to women and there are reserved places for people from Black and Minority ethnic communities and young people. Alongside this we intend to recruit a diversity officer to the board, who will work with appointed diversity leads in our local groups, to build a diverse pipeline of campaigners, ambassadors and leaders for our movement.

We’ve got a long way to go but change is afoot – and importantly, it’s already making the EM a much more vibrant, creative and fun place to be.

Anon : Can the government be defeated at the next election, and if so, how?

I tend to leave the political punditry to others in the European Movement, so I don’t know that I’m the best person to answer this question! But 130,000 people have died during the pandemic, key industries have been betrayed over Brexit, the peace process in Northern Ireland has been undermined – these are all conscious choices made by this government, a shameful legacy for Boris Johnson, and this will be the backdrop to the next election.

I hope that progressive parties will work together to oust this government, and I also hope and expect that any future Tory leader will want to signal distance from this regime and will soften its stance somewhat on our relationship with the EU, if only to mitigate the economic impact of this hard Brexit deal. But we have to play our part for these things to happen. We need to hold this government to account robustly and prevent the impact of Brexit being swept under the Covid carpet. We can give a platform to politicians from across the political spectrum who are willing to call out the harm that is being done and those willing to voice pro-EU views. We need to organise and mobilise so that we are a strong voice when that election comes. That’s why the EM is investing to grow our membership for the future – there’s a long road and some big campaigns ahead!

Michael Frederick Phillips : There are many protest groups representing UK residents in the EU focused on how to hold the UK government to account for the detrimental effects of Brexit. How best can we form a strategic alliance of these groups to focus on the EU and raise our visibility?

A strategic alliance is a great plan: the more united the voice, the more profile and impact you will have. I’d be interested to know what’s preventing that now – is it resources and time, or different views and approaches? If the European Movement can help facilitate a coming together, we’d be very happy to do so. Could we convene a summit or a regular (e.g. quarterly?) roundtable for groups to share intelligence, find some shared goals and campaign opportunities? Could we extend some of our campaign tools and training offer to groups like yours to build your firepower? We’re open to ideas and happy to help.

David Eldridge : As you used to work in the mental health field, what effects do you think Brexit is having on people’s mental health?

Brexit is leading to all sorts of negative impact for people – precarious work situations, families and living arrangements being thrown into chaos, communities losing jobs and investment, and people’s fundamental sense of identity and belonging under threat.  All of these social and economic factors are determinants of mental ill-health too, so there’s no question that there will be a mental health impact. But I suspect it will be hard to calculate and to some extent masked by the huge mental health impact of the Covid pandemic.

We all have a role to play in supporting people through. Now more than ever, groups like Bremain in Spain and other groups in our network can provide some comfort and solidarity to those affected by Brexit. We are a community of like-minded people with a shared goal – to rebuild our relationship with the EU. That’s one of the many reasons why building our movement is so important – people affected by Brexit need to know that we are here to bear witness and expose the harm that’s been done.

Next month will see the return of our occasional feature – Bremainers Ask Revisited. We will be asking former contributors to comment on the current state of play of British politics, in particular Brexit. We are delighted to be welcoming back Naomi Smith, Ian Dunt and Jonathan Lis, and look forward to hearing their thoughts on the subject.

Terry Reintke is Vice-president of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament and the group’s coordinator for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. She is Co-president of the LGBTI Intergroup and founder of the EU-UK Friendship Group.

She studied political science in Berlin and Edinburgh. She was spokesperson of the Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) before entering the European Parliament in 2014. She was featured in TIME magazine’s coverage for Person of the Year 2017 as part of the “Silence Breakers” speaking out against sexual abuse and harassment.

Michael Soffe : As I have lost my vote in European elections in Spain due to Brexit, do you think the EU should consider giving us disenfranchised residents in the EU our vote back, as we have no voice in Europe despite paying taxes in our European county of residence?

Hey Michael, we Greens have fought to expand the right to vote for a long time. We will continue to try to give a voice to those who are currently disenfranchised. It is important that we build a strong civil society, that voices their opinion and is strong enough to push for change. Giving voting rights to third party citizens is ultimately a decision by the member states. We can and will push from a European level for them to do so, but it remains difficult.

Pat Kennedy : How much damage, if any, do you think that the UK’s exit has done to the EU?

Hey Pat, that is a hard question to give a short answer to, because I think there is more than one dimension to it. On an economic level as well as trade-wise I think the damage to the EU may be noticeable, but not as impactful as formerly claimed by Brexiteers. The damage done to the trusting relationship or to the peace situation in Europe remains however more severe. Since the EU was founded almost everyone was sure that Europe and the EU countries would only grow stronger together, be more interdependent and nation states to become less and less important. Brexit damaged that belief. It also damaged the trust EU members have in the British Government, because time and time again it broke promises, ignored treaties and flat out defamed the EU and EU institutions. That trust on a governmental level will need to heal in the years to come. Brexit was also a reckless mission that was not thought through by those advocating for it. They did not have a plan for the situation in Northern Ireland and therefore jeopardised the Irish peace process. One main point of the European Union was to ensure there will never be war again in Europe. Brexit put that at risk. With the Conference on the Future of Europe starting now, we will have to find back to a mode that ensures something like Brexit will not happen again.

Lisa Ryan Burton : How is the EU-UK Friendship Group progressing? What is the make-up of the group and what do you hope it will be able to achieve?

Hey Lisa, the Friendship Group is made up of over 100 MEPs and former MEPs from all political groups and countries. Our latest project was to try to open new perspectives for the future of the Erasmus program in the UK. For now, we feel like the Friendship Group has done a good job keeping in touch with our friends and colleagues. We will try to organise events with British civil society groups in autumn and join the COP26 in Glasgow this November for further events. With the interparliamentary delegation to the UK in the European Parliament established, we will look into the role the Friendship Group will have in the future.

Molly Williams : Should the EU have more executive power over member states, so they can implement legislation to protect minority groups whose rights are under attack in certain member states e.g. the LGBTQ+ community who are being targeted in Hungary, Poland and Romania?

Hey Molly, that’s a question I work a lot on. The EU needs a Commission that has the courage and the political will to use the executive powers they have to defend citizens’ rights and the treaties. In addition to this, the requirement of unanimous votes must be removed. Too often important steps to protect minority rights are being blocked when we really need decisive action to protect civil rights.

Harry Shindler OBE : Is there any possibility that the EU would consider offering EU citizenship/an EU passport to British citizens living in the European Union?

Alan Brown : UK citizens permanently resident in the EU have lost European citizenship and the many beneficial rights that went with it. Do you see any way by which those rights can regained?

Hey Harry and Alan, those are interesting and important questions, but also ones which won’t be solved easily. We need to look into possibilities now, but there is a long road ahead of us. At the conference on the future of Europe we will discuss how member states could and should strengthen EU citizenships and we also should look into how these citizenships with their rights could be expanded. But I also don’t want to give you false hopes. This probably will not happen over a short period of time due to the constitutional and political challenges ahead. We will continue to fight for you, but we are in for a long fight. I know that’s not the answer you would like to hear and I really and deeply feel with everyone who lost so much because of this reckless Brexit project. We need to keep working together, get stronger together and build back everything that has been lost. We might need to take a lot of small steps, but I strongly believe that in the end we will grow back together, stronger than ever.

Next month’s Bremainers Ask guest will be Anna Bird. Anna became leader of European Movement UK in September 2020 and, under her leadership, we have already seen the organisation become more diverse. She previously campaigned for mental health and homelessness charities.

If you have a question for Anna, please email it to us before 7 July at enquiries@bremaininspain.com.

After being appointed to the House of Lords in 2005 he became Minister for Schools. In 2009, he became Transport Secretary and was the originator of the prospective High Speed Two (HS2) rail network. He later served as Director of the Institute for Government from 2010 to 2012 and was founder chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission from 2015. He resigned in 2017 over the government’s pursuit of Brexit and became a leading figure in the People’s Vote campaign. He is Chair of the European Movement. His latest book is Ernest Bevin: Labour’s Churchill.

Turning it into a mass-membership organisation. This means engaging with the grassroots, renewing our social media and communications and raising public awareness that the European Movement exists and is the primary vehicle for pro-European and Remain movements in the UK.

Tom Maguire: What policies would you advise a Labour government to adopt on the EU?

Rejoin, step by step. Brexit is the biggest foreign policy blunder in my lifetime and will negatively impact our economy and geopolitical status. Nothing less than reversing the mistake our country has made should be the policy of any party credibly working in the national interest. But it will need to be done in stages, starting with the Customs Union and the Single Market.

We must focus on building organisations like the European Movement which have a presence and can reinforce the benefits we’ve achieved from European integration. History is a crucial factor here too. As the wartime generation has largely receded, we’ve become disconnected from their experience of how the continent healed itself after WW2.

I know from past experience that new parties find it extremely difficult to break through in our electoral system, although Labour did it a century ago, and the SNP has just done it in Scotland. What we should be aiming to do is offer a return to Europe as part of a broader progressive agenda – advocated across all progressive parties – and seek to work together to establish a coalition that, like New Labour, is electable, radical and passionate about European integration.

Lisa Ryan Burton: In the aftermath of the 2010 election, is it true you attempted to form a Labour/Lib-Dem administration and, if so, why did that fail in favour of a Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition?

Yes, it is. I published a book called ‘5 Days in May’ which gives a behind-the-scenes insight into the talks following the 2010 election. It failed because the Lib Dem leadership considered itself closer to the Cameron/Osborne austerity agenda rather than the progressive economic strategy that was being implemented by Gordon Brown and which also featured in the Lib Dems’ own activist-approved manifesto.

Next month’s Bremainers Ask guest will be German MEP Terry Reintke. A very vocal anti-Brexit supporter, Terry serves on influential EU committees, is Vice President of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament and an active member of the EU-UK Friendship Group. If you have a question for Terry, please email it to us before 7 June at enquiries@bremaininspain.com.

Richard Corbett was an MEP from 1996-2009 and 2014-2020. During that time, he was the spokesman of the Socialist & Democrat Group  on constitutional affairs, Parliament’s rapporteur on the Lisbon Treaty and, for the last three years, Leader of the Labour MEPs and therefore a member of Labour’s NEC and Shadow Cabinet. From 20010-2014, he was senior advisor to the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. He has written extensively on European issues from his regular blog to university textbooks.

Helen Johnston: How wary would the EU be of welcoming the UK back?

Brexit is bad for the EU too. Losing a Member State for the first time in its history, reduces its size, population and economy, and losing one which has a seat on the UN Security Council on the G-8 reduces its clout in the world. And what better advertisement for the benefits of EU membership and the perils of leaving than to see a return of the departed country? So, there would be considerable incentives for the EU to welcome Britain back, possibly even accepting some of the special features of Britain’s past membership, such as no obligation to participate in Schengen or the euro (on which point it would not be alone in the EU).

However, the EU would not want to risk going through the whole episode of Brexit again, nor would it want an obstructive member that blocked every new EU initiative. It would have to be convinced that Britain had genuinely changed its mind and that it would not walk out again a few years later. That in turn means that, politically, a new referendum would be needed, and won by a clear majority.

Matt Burton: Many Remain supporters seem unable to forgive and forget Leave voters for Brexit. What would you say to those that blame them for our situation?

I would blame those who led the Leave campaign and those politicians who enabled Brexit to happen, rather than direct my ire at all ordinary leave voters who were lied to, not just in the campaign but over many years in much of the British press. 

Leave voters are entitled to say that Brexit bears no resemblance to what they were promised, namely that it would be easy, save lots of money (that would all go to the NHS), be good for the economy and have no down-side as “Britain holds all the cards”.  We need to get regretful Leave voters on our side. Talk to them!

Lisa Ryan Burton: Congratulations on your appointment as a secretariat member of the Conference on the Future of Europe. Why do you think a Brit was selected considering our departure from the EU, and what are the forum’s aims?

I suppose I was asked because of my previous experiences as the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the Lisbon Treaty and other things I did in the Parliament. My British nationality was secondary, but it does show that the European Parliament has nothing against Brits!

The Conference is intended to be the widest process of engagement with citizens that the EU has ever organized outside of elections, involving deliberative discussions and consultation exercises in all Member States, pan-European Citizens Panels with randomly selected participants, discussions with civil society organisations, and an interactive Multilingual Digital Platform on which any group of citizens may place their contribution. These will all feed ideas and proposals into a Conference Plenary, composed of representatives of the national parliaments, governments, European Parliament, regions, social partners, and civil society representatives. It therefore has the potential to engage a vast number of citizens in informed debate about the EU and its future and to distil broadly accepted demands about EU priorities and the way it works.  

Steven Wilson: Do you miss your days as an MEP, and would you consider running as an MP in Westminster?

The European Parliament is a fascinating, diverse and innovative place to work. Unlike many national parliaments, who are often controlled and stifled by their government through its loyal majority and strict whipping, the European Parliament is freer, is not stifled and holds genuinely pluralistic debates. Majorities are built through explanation, persuasion and negotiation, not handed down by ministerial dictat. MEPs actually shape European legislation in a way that backbenchers at Westminster can only dream of.

Pat Kennedy: If you were leader of the Labour party, how would your approach to the E.U. and the fall-out from Brexit differ from the current Labour leadership?

I don’t think Labour can avoid addressing the considerable problems arising from Brexit in general and Johnson’s deal in particular. Job losses, disruption to supply chains and exports, losing access to shared police databases, extra costs to businesses and administrations, failure to fully protect rights of UK citizens resident in the EU and EU citizens in the UK, and the gratuitous vandalism of leaving the Erasmus student exchange scheme – the list goes on. And on.

Keir Starmer has focussed on criticising the government’s incompetence, its cronyism and its failures to address the COVID pandemic quickly enough.  It is time to broaden that attack.

Next month’s Bremainers Ask guest will be Lord Andrew Adonis, the newly appointed Chair of European Movement UK and a staunch anti-Brexit campaigner.  If you have a question for Lord Adonis, please email it to us before 7 May at enquiries@bremaininspain.com.