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.

When first married, Catherine spent time in Africa studying wildlife. On her return to Oxford she worked in the voluntary sector: at the local wildlife trust, at the Citizens Advice Bureau and for the National Federation of WIs and Victim Support.

Catherine’s political career began when she became a Parish councillor in Wendlebury, then in Cherwell. She was a parliamentary candidate in the 1997 and 2001 general elections in Banbury and Henley, and then for the European parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2004. She also ran as an Oxfordshire County councillor in 2005. As an active political campaigner, she worked for Dr. Evan Harris, MP in Oxford and was Campaign Director for Britain in Europe in the South East of England.

Elected to the European Parliament in 2009, 2014 and 2019 she served on the Trade, Environmental and Women and Equalities committees. She was an active member of the joint ACP/EU Parliamentary Assembly and was elected by the MEPs as a Quaestor of the Parliament and sitting on the President’s Bureau. Her main focus was environmental protection and fighting the scourge of human trafficking. She was convener of the Cross-party group of Pro European British MEPs during and after the Brexit Referendum and founded the cross-party group MEPs4Wildlife.

Now retired and living in lockdown in Oxford, Catherine remains active in campaigning as a Board member of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, working for the protection of elephants, and for Unlock Democracy, fighting for democratic reform and a written UK constitution.

Helen Jackson: How do you see the Brexit scenario and repercussions affecting life for UK citizens living in EU over the next 5 years?

Adrian Williams: What do you see as the main issues for Brits living in the EU after transition ends, both those with the benefits of the Withdrawal Agreement and those without?

I’ll take these two questions together. Initially there won’t be a lot of difference for those living away from home, the changes will come when their circumstances change, or a piece of non-related  legislation changes. It’s the hidden trip wires that we should all be wary of, as we remember the example of the Windrush victims. For years there was no issue, until they needed to travel, or the government changed the rules.

As the UK leaves the EU, the responsibility for non-native people in each member state becomes the responsibility of each country, no longer an EU issue. So, each country can choose how to treat these ‘migrants’. My guess is that most EU countries won’t initially be vindictive, they are used to dealing with 3rd country nationals and have systems in place, but who knows how that might develop without the protection of European citizenship that Brits had when they made the decision to move. For Europeans in the UK I think it might be trickier. They are now in an entirely new category. Not only have we had problems getting this system sorted, the tech has been tricky, there is still no physical evidence of status (why? It can’t be that difficult!), there are still far too many who don’t realise they must act for themselves and their children, and cut off dates are looming with little publicity. In the first instance we must get that physical evidence of status into their hands or they could face real problems if they travel across borders. We must all be prepared to act to keep this issue in the public eye. Our friends are relying on our support.

Andrew Hesselden: Should and could more have been done to protect the rights of British citizens with European interests living in the UK (in particular those spending only part of the year in Spain for example, all winter or all summer)?

Absolutely this should have been the case. I was amongst the few very early on calling for a stand-alone agreement for the citizens who would be affected by Brexit. I believe we could have got this, had the British government not been so intransigent. They said they were not using citizens as bargaining chips, but they were. Mrs. May refused to take them out of the deal, a deal by the way which neither she nor any of the Vote Leave teams had any plan for.  This was done for Gibraltar. Why? I think they had very little understanding of the issues, the changes that would happen, how it would change so many parts of the lives of those who had done no more than exercise their right to move and live somewhere else. All they wanted to do was look tough on migration, and given there were no votes in it (as so many had shamefully lost this right), they were happy to ignore the plight of so many. I believe this is something they will regret in time.

Steven Wilson: How long will it take before the UK has a realistic prospect of re-joining the EU, & what needs to happen to facilitate that?

Now this is a lot harder to call! It could be a very long time. After all, why would the EU want the Brits to return soon, we’ve not been the easiest of friends. Certainly, there isn’t a groundswell of demand now to rejoin. However, it might happen very quickly once the enormity of it sinks in, and is felt at home, but I doubt that. But then who knew we could act as we have in the face of a pandemic? Homeless off the streets in days, £billions spent supporting jobs, Parliament even voting on-line. We now know that extraordinary things can happen when the political will is there. What is more likely is that N Ireland will rejoin the Republic of Ireland, then Scotland will reconsider its position. Although even Scotland’s chances of rejoining the EU is problematic until the Catalan issue has been resolved. I am confident that one day the reality of being in a club of friendly trading neighbours will dawn and we will rejoin but I have no idea when that will be.

The Liberal Democrats have not dropped the party’s commitment to UK’s membership of the EU, nor our determination to rejoin at some point. What we have decided to do is not campaign actively on this now. Political parties are not single- issue organisations, and all the other problems we face such as education, housing, environment and so many other are as important to campaign on. We cannot neglect these issues. But it does mean we will include campaigning on mitigating the disaster that is Brexit. We will be championing people affected by Brexit, as well as the livelihoods and jobs that we know will be affected. We now recognise that we lost the stop Brexit battle and sadly Brexit has happened. Our policy of commitment to our place in the EU is as firm as it has always been, and as soon as we can see our way back in, you can count on the Lib Dem’s being there to lead the charge.

Lisa Ryan Burton: As a long-time campaigner on human trafficking, what are your feelings on the language coming from Priti Patel in particular, on the UK’s commitment to fight people smugglers? Are they making this a priority, if so in what way or is it all just hyperbole?

I am ashamed that we have sunk so low as to have a Home Secretary who is prepared to send the navy out to stop flimsy boats in the channel, rather than see and address the real issues about why and how people are struggling to find a life that is safe for themselves and their families. This is the politics of ‘The Other’, posturing for a right-wing press and nationalist and as soon as it’s off the front page, Patel will move on. People smugglers are not the problem in themselves, although it is a grubby and abusive trade. What drives people into the arms of traffickers is poverty and conflict. We should be addressing this in a comprehensive way. There is also no legal way to seek asylum outside our shores. The flow of people who want to come to Europe will not be stemmed by putting up barriers, but by building legal routes out of conflict, ending economic instability and welcoming those who bring energy and initiative to a new country.

Estevão Vigne: How can we as residents of European Union countries make our voices heard now that we no longer have MEPs?

Brits living in other EU countries can still be represented by MEPs from their host countries and I am sure that MEPs will listen if they have issues. The pan European political parties also meet and campaign on many issues and this may also be a way for expats to find a voice. 

What is shocking is the fact that Brits outside the UK for more than 15 years have no vote. This is a complete anomaly leaving them in limbo. This we must address. Other nations have MPs for non-residents; there is no reason why we cannot do this in the UK. I am now involved with campaigning for democratic reform in the UK, to get PR, an elected House of Lords and a written constitution for the UK. We are nearer this now than we have been for many years and part of that settlement is how non-resident British people are represented in both the UK government (and in the devolved governments if that is their place of origin).

Many thanks to Catherine for taking part in Bremainers Ask. 

Bremain asked former Bremainers Ask commentators to give us their thoughts on where we are now, how they see things moving forward and what we pro-Europeans should be focusing on in the future. This is what they had to say.

Molly Scott Cato – Former Green Party MEP

I remember arguing during the 2016 referendum campaign that it was impossible to make Brexit a reality without destroying democracy.

At that stage I was not so pessimistic as to think that we had any politicians dangerous enough to trash democracy to achieve their absurd ideological ambition of untrammelled sovereignty. Now I know better. Not just the Internal Markets Bill breaking international law, but also the prorogation of Parliament and the stuffing of the House of Lords with pro-Brexit cronies, show that this government does not respect democratic standards. And they can’t. Because they won the election on a lie that they had an ‘oven-ready Brexit deal’, just as they won the 2016 referendum on a whole pack of lies. Those lies will unravel in January, when the transition period comes to an end, but for a while now most British people have not wanted the Brexit project to go ahead. Confidence that leaving the EU was the right decision for Britain has fallen to an all-time low, with only 39% believing we did the right thing, while 50% think we were wrong to leave (Yougov polling). A democratic government would listen to ‘the will of the people’.

We must not despair, so what are we to do?

The first sign of great hope is the widespread sympathy and affection that we Brits receive right across the EU. I’ve been amazed by the emotional response from European friends and neighbours. Far from the anger and frustration I would have expected there has been compassion and understanding. They have been through their own political disasters and they want to help us out of ours rather than blame us or laugh at us.

And we must make sure that our younger people become Europeans, as we were given the chance to do. As a Green I will always champion the amazing opportunity of freedom of movement, but I know that is a political longshot. But we can continue to fight to stay a part of the Erasmus scheme that allows thousands of young people every year to live in another EU country and is especially important for those from poorer families. We must campaign to keep this chance for our young people to widen their horizons, and it is a campaign we can win.

We have to continue to cooperate on key global issues, with climate at the forefront. It simply makes no sense to play the sovereignty card when some of the most pressing political issues are global issues. Cooperation over sharing technology, sticking to shared targets, and cooperating over energy policy can help keep us close to our European neighbours.

And finally, we can join the key organization that has always stood for closer ties with the EU. I worked with the European Movement during the referendum campaign and am now on the national council. Having been founded by Winston Churchill in 1949 it has the track-record and authority to act as the key membership organization for those of us who want to keep the closest possible relationship with Europe.

Although times are tough, we know that Brexit as promised cannot be delivered. We need to calmly and clearly point that out, as the wheels come off in the coming months. And we all need to stand up for democracy and make sure that the UK’s political system is reinforced so that a gang of crooks and truth twisters can never again hijack our country for their own ends.

This period will not last forever. On January 1st 2021, the next stage of the Brexit story begins. It is when reality collides with dreams. Every other time this has happened – when Theresa May outlined the backstop, for instance – the Leave lobby lost its mind. We can expect that to play out again in the months to come.

Regardless of whether there is a deal or not, we are about to see the reintroduction of border controls to a region which had grown used to life without them. This means customs declarations, safety and security documentation, regulatory checks for sanitary and phytosanitary products, country of origin requirements, and the grim splatter of whatever system they introduce for the arrangements in Northern Ireland.

These are complex procedures, requiring a lot of different people in lots of different sectors to do the right thing at the right time in the right place. It involves countless hastily-implemented IT systems, with complex inputs, which have to be filled in at the correct moment by officials working for exporters, hauliers, port authorities, importers and government agencies. Customs procedures are black and white. They’re right or wrong. So where things aren’t done correctly, they will stop a shipment and all the other shipments being transported with it. Their sudden implementation, under a tight time-scale, overseen by a government which makes a mess of even much more simple operations, will likely be very chaotic.

When the reality of that hits, the Leave government is going to try and blame someone else. This is what they always do. They blame the Europeans, or the civil service, or the Labour party, or Remainers, or the courts. They are congenitally incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions.

So, our job during this period is simple. We must make them own it. That is not solely for reasons of justice, although it is that as well – people should take responsibility for their actions. It is not solely for reasons of truth, although it is that too – rational political debate is only possible where we accurately observe cause and effect. It is because we must protect the most vulnerable. If we allow the government to blame others for their failures, they will blame the people they always do – those who do not have power, those who do not count as ‘the people’, those from other countries. It’s up to us to stop them from doing that.

The consequences of Brexit will play out for years to come. But the first moment in this second stage begins in January, when the real-world implications of what the project entails finally emerge.

Naomi Smith – CEO Best for Britain

Without wanting to jinx things, it appears that talks between the EU and the UK are progressing once more, after the EU allegedly agreed to Johnson’s demands for Brussels to publicly state that Britain ‘is a sovereign nation’. I’m hopeful that an agreement will be reached.

Johnson’s self-imposed deadline of 15th October, much like his end of July one before it, has come and gone, and while there’s not yet white smoke, there are hopes that a catastrophic no deal will be averted. What there is, of course, very little chance of is a comprehensive trade deal – that is one that would be both broad and deep. There simply isn’t time left for such detail to be negotiated. Which means that the government has failed to deliver, for now at least, what it promised in its 2019 manifesto. The best we can now hope for is a deal that agrees zero tariffs, to keep trade as frictionless as possible. This would not mean that there wouldn’t be trouble at the borders – far from it – as non-tariff barriers will still apply in the event of deal or no deal, and issues like phytosanitary checks on livestock and meats travelling between the EU and the UK will cause significant hold ups, at least in the short term.

It’s easier to add building blocks to a structure that is already in place. A deal, therefore, remains preferable to those of us who want the UK to have a close relationship with Europe. That’s not to say we couldn’t start to build back from a no deal scenario, but it would be harder and slower.

Pro-Europeans must keep shining a spotlight on the benefits of multilateral cooperation and dialogue and keep pressure on Westminster and Brussels to work together on non-trade issues too, such as vaccines, medicines, research and security. We can also highlight good news stories about EU funded projects and initiatives happening in the 27, because they’ll likely get precious little coverage in the UK press. We can paint a picture of what’s been taken from, the opportunities we’ve been led away from, by a group of nativists hell bent on making Britain an inward, not outward looking country.

Above all, we must keep positive and engaged in the fight. Hard won rights are easily lost, and for too long those who believed in open society took it for granted. If Biden wins the White House, the political power compass will shift across the West, and we can once again begin to feel the tide turning in our favour.

Jonathan read English at the University of Cambridge and then completed a Masters degree in social sciences at the London School of Economics. After a period of teaching – and training to be an actor – he went to work for an MEP at the European Parliament in 2012, focusing on foreign affairs and human rights. His particular areas of focus were EU enlargement, engagement with the Balkans and post-conflict resolution, and the Western Sahara. He then worked at the Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organisation, where he advocated for, among others, anti-slavery activists in Mauritania, the Uyghurs, and the people of Abkhazia. In 2015 he returned to Britain and began working on the campaign to remain in the EU, writing a report on Brexit and the Commonwealth. After the referendum, he became Deputy Director of the think tank and campaign group British Influence, working for a soft Brexit, then a referendum, and now the closest possible engagement with the EU. He has published almost 200 comment pieces for, among others, the Guardian, Prospect and Washington Post, and regularly appears as a political commentator on broadcasters including the BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera and LBC. 

How soon could the UK realistically re-join the EU, and do you think there will be an appetite in the country to make that happen?

I would love this as much as all of you, and even in the days after the general election I thought there could be a new movement to rejoin. That quickly proved unrealistic. Rejoining is at least a decade away and probably longer. Brexit must fail and be seen to fail, and even if it does, there’s no guarantee of a public appetite to rejoin. People accept the status quo, move on and don’t necessarily want to refight old battles. Certainly, there’d be no chance whatsoever if a future government had to commit to join the euro or Schengen. We also don’t know how the EU will look or think in a few years’ time. The virus has demonstrated that the world is completely unpredictable, and events are out of our control: things can turn on their head in a matter of weeks or months. Having said all that, the work to prepare for that movement needs to start now, and in fact already has. If and when there is a space in British politics to rejoin the EU, we need to be able to hit the ground running. The public may also be a lot more pro-European than they are now. Attitudes don’t last forever. There is no reason why the public in the 2030s can’t be as enthusiastic as they were in the 1970s and 80s. So don’t be despondent. Every bit of campaigning and activism now is like an investment for the future – even if it doesn’t always feel like it at the time!

How will Brexit affect you personally, and how do you mitigate against it?

The irony of Brexit is that, in the main, it stands to hurt Leave voters more than Remain voters. People with more money can more easily shoulder higher food prices, for example, and more expensive holidays. If you have a number of qualifications you will still probably be able to work and live in the EU. I am desperately sad about the confiscation of my rights with regard to free movement, but materially and professionally I don’t think my life will change that much. I don’t work in one of the countless goods and services sectors that could be brought to its knees. For me Brexit is emotional and political and about the country as a whole – who we really are, who we want to be and where we are going. This, for me, is the main source of turmoil and sadness. We mitigate it by battling every day for a country and world we can be proud of, in small steps and large. We oppose people with facts, don’t sink to the level of Brexit’s leaders, and treat everyone with kindness and respect. Ultimately, in spite of everything happening in the world, we must never lose sight of our personal happiness and well-being and those of the people we love and care about.

With the passing of the date that would ‘allow’ Britain to extend the transition period, if the U.K Government subsequently asked for an extension, would the EU grant one?

The short answer is yes. My basic argument throughout this process has been that the EU will not throw us off the cliff unless we insist on jumping. The long answer is, it’s not that simple. 

You would need to amend the treaty or find some clever legal trick to accomplish the same result. That would meet real reluctance from an EU that has endured quite enough of our nonsense already, but I suspect they would do it. The real problem is that we are led, in Britain, by fundamentalists who see any such extension as wartime surrender. I suspect the most likely outcome is a deal where the UK works very hard to present climbdown as victory, but that won’t involve extending the transition in any formal sense.

Where do pro-European campaigns go from here?

As I said in my earlier answer, we keep on fighting for what we believe in: an open, inclusive, pro-immigration Britain which wants to cooperate and coordinate with our European neighbours economically, culturally and politically. We extol the benefits of harmonising with the EU and, in a broader sense, working as part of a big team. When the government harms the national interest by turning inwards, we oppose it and campaign against it. This is the longest of long games and we act strategically. We don’t call for rejoining now; we show how being in the EU benefits us all and how Brexit is harming us. We lay the seeds and groundwork for a better future and a political movement. Eventually, we hope, the public will realise that we’re better off in. Even if they don’t, we never stop arguing for the Britain we want to see.

After numerous public scandals involving members of the Tory Government, and now with release of the Russian Report, do you think public support will ever say enough is enough?

I absolutely do. The biggest mistake the Tories make is to believe themselves infallible and untouchable. They are not. I said in May that the Cummings scandal could be a turning point, and still think that could prove the case. The government has lost the most valuable currency it has: trust. Once you lose that, it is almost impossible to recover. They now stagger from crisis to crisis in a way unseen since the last few years of John Major’s premiership. Coupled with the leadership of Keir Starmer, who has won broad approval in polling and from the centre-right media, the Tories could be in trouble. You never write them off, of course, and the next few years could be as unpredictable as the last – but if they continue with the current level of complacency and incompetence they could be in for a very rude shock.

Since 2016 the UK government has disregarded the Scottish government, parliament and people at every turn, making an obscene mockery of the 2014 pre-referendum ‘vow’ that Scotland and its views would be taken seriously. A greater proportion of Scots voted to be a part of the EU than the UK, and a large number of Scots Remainers have now fully thrown in their lot with the independence movement. That is not to say that independence would be easy, and the hard Scottish-English border will be the key issue of any new referendum campaign. But I do think the UK government will have to permit that campaign. The SNP will likely win the 2021 parliamentary elections on a clear manifesto pledge to hold the vote, just as they won the general elections in Scotland in 2019 and 2017. It is hard to see what more the Scottish people have to do to signal their approval for the SNP’s main policy, and – watching what happened in Catalonia – the UK government cannot say no forever.

You worked with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, working with marginalised nations and peoples. Did you always want to be involved in human rights and journalism or was it a natural progression?

I have always been fascinated by both human rights and journalism but actually came to both careers by accident. In 2012 I began working on a short-term basis for an MEP who was part of the European Parliament’s Human Rights Committee. That turned into a long-term job and brought me into regular contact with human rights defenders from around the world. I drafted the European Parliament’s report on human rights in the Sahel and Western Sahara, which also brought home how valued the EU was on the international stage. Working for a human rights NGO was the obvious next step after I left the parliament, and if it hadn’t been for Brexit I’d still probably be in that field. I’ve always loved writing, and penned a few opinion blogs years ago, but again fell into journalism mostly by accident. In 2016 and 2017 some publications asked me to write about my work on the single market and post-Brexit foreign policy, and that set me off!

Read Jonathan’s latest article on Boris Johnson in the Byline Times.

Many thanks to Jonathan for taking part.

Our guest for September’s Bremainers Ask feature is philosopher and prominent anti-Brexit campaigner A.C. Grayling. His 2017 book Democracy and Its Crisis examines the threats facing representative democracy today in the light of the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum.