I understand the right honourable S.O. Baldrick, MP has cornered the market in turnips, but is open to negotiations.
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The combined “not-tories” have zero choice but to be neutral on Brexit in the run up to the election - 2024 cannot be a re-run of 2019 with the Tories running on a ticket of “Saving Brexit” and the significant fringe RW parties standing down in support.
But even the Tories have given in on some of the ideological nonsenses of Brexit - UKCA is dead, we are back in Horizon - it’s not beyond hope that alignment on food standards and simpler travel could be around the corner.
But I agree that rejoin is some way off yet, though demographics make it more likely each year that passes.
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And that would be a bad thing because …?
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I recently heard an expression “they’re more scared of the solution than the problem”, and I suspect it applies here.
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Sauerkraut Pickled Cabbage is for officers’ MPs’ use only.
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I hope so, though the terms of accession will be set by the EU, who are not going to be that keen to readmit a troublemaker when they already have Hungary causing deep problems. We’ve already shown ourselves to be bad partners who negotiate in bad faith and renege on promises, so there’s no reason to hurry and welcome us back.
Any terms of admission would definitely not include any of the opt outs we had when in the Union; it would mean - amongst other things - adopting the Euro. For some reason, despite its many failings as a currency over the past fifty years or so, the Brits have a weird attraction to the Pound. And that alone might be a deal breaker.
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My favourite expansion on Brexit isolationism was written by A A Gill (for The Times, but here risking a bit of infringement…)
The dream of Brexit isn’t that we might be able to make a brighter, new, energetic tomorrow, it’s a desire to shuffle back to a regret-curdled inward-looking yesterday. In the Brexit fantasy, the best we can hope for is to kick out all the work-all-hours foreigners and become caretakers to our own past in this self-congratulatory island of moaning and pomposity.
This week was the fourth anniversary of leaving. Nobody here is celebrating that. At all.
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The Dream of BrexitTM is to travel back into a past that never even existed outside of, say a Enid Blyton story. All warm and fuzzy. With clearly drawn lines between nasty foreigners of the wrong kind and on the wrong side of the channel, and noble Britons Englishmen on the other, all while being worshipped and nurtured by a multitude of colonies comprised of the right kind of foreigners, i.e. those who know their place.
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When the English Conservative Party goes and the billionaire press is discredited it will be an easy enough process.
Britain actually had a reputation as a particularly good faith member of the EU in legal circles. Italy was traditionally the one that the commission took to court over failing to observe directives and regulations.
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Whereas the public perception was that of a club member who whinged everybody else into giving them special rates just to make them shut up - and then all they contributed to the team effort was even more whingeing from the sidelines.
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That was Italy!
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No, that was Maggie “I want my money back!” Thatcher beating Helmut Kohl into submission with her handbag.
Anyway, Italy traditionally gets cut some slack because they have fantastic food and drinks, beautiful clothes and shoes, sleek cars, really nice places to spend vacations, and whatnot to offer. And that goes a long way. Every German who isn’t secretly wishing to be Irish, secretly whishes to be Italian. Nobody wishes to be English, not even the Anglophiles.
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… wait, what 
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I love the old story of Thatcher meeting Kohl on his own at some EEC thing and an aide coming into Kohl to tell him there was an urgent domestic problem and he had to leave. Thatcher was at a loose end and went for a stroll to see Kohl sitting in a cafe with coffee and a bun living his best life happily….
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