To start the year, we asked three former Bremainers Ask contributors to tell us about their highs and lows for 2022 and their hopes for the coming year. This is what they had to say.

The low point of 2022 for me was without question Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By the same token, the highpoint was seeing the courage of the Ukrainian people in refusing to yield to Russian aggression, under the inspiring leadership of Ukrainian President, Volodomyr Zelensky.

I was glad to see the UK respond so robustly to Russia’s invasion. Though I might question some of the motives behind Boris Johnson’s decision to champion the Ukrainian cause, I genuinely believe the British Government has shown impressive leadership on the issue. Johnson’s own visit to Kyiv in the spring undoubtedly boosted Ukrainian morale. I am willing to give him credit for that. I was also glad to see the UK work constructively with the EU and NATO to galvanise an effective international response, including by coordinating sanctions against Russia, and conducting a long overdue clamp down on Russian money and influence within the UK.

I was disappointed this did not translate into wider reflection within the British Government on our post-Brexit relationship with European partners. I had hoped that cooperation on Ukraine might prompt greater willingness to put UK-EU cooperation on broader foreign and security policy matters onto a more structured footing. Instead, many Brexit advocates argue it is proof that the UK can successfully coordinate with the EU from the outside, even though such coordination is now far more time-consuming and burdensome, and we have lost our direct influence on EU decisions.

I had also hoped that the need to stay united on Ukraine might persuade the British Government to adopt a more constructive approach on Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, the UK persists with its threat to renege unilaterally on certain aspects of the Northern Ireland Protocol unless it is renegotiated to British satisfaction. While the mood music on this issue has improved, it remains to be seen whether Sunak will be willing to face down the hardliners in his party in order to strike a deal.

From a purely domestic perspective, 2022 was the year of British politicians behaving badly. I do not need to recount all the shameful examples. The UK’s global reputation, already badly damaged by the incompetent, dishonest handling of Brexit, took a further battering. The disastrous Truss premiership was the absolute nadir.

At least with Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, a veneer of normality has returned to British politics. But just as Donald Trump’s Presidency still casts a long shadow over American politics, so the continuing influence of Boris Johnson and his ilk casts a long shadow over the Conservative party and British politics. Like his predecessors, Sunak seems to remain afraid of the extreme wing of his party, and willing to compromise again and again in an effort to appease them.

As a result, even though restoring the British economy is Sunak’s priority, he is unable to pursue some of the easiest ways to achieve this, such as by relaxing immigration to address UK labour shortages, or by staying aligned to EU standards in order to facilitate UK-EU trade. Instead, he is pressing ahead with the Retained EU law bill to shred all outstanding EU legislation on our statute books by the end of the year. Not only does this risk many important environmental, consumer, worker, health and safety protections being lost, without time to draw up adequate replacements, it also risks UK businesses being left without a stable and predictable legislative environment within which to operate. Even worse, the draft bill gives unprecedented powers to the Government to draft new laws without proper parliamentary  oversight, using so called Henry VIII powers, representing a further erosion of British democracy.

I wish I could be more optimistic for 2023. Instead, I fear the war in Ukraine will grind on with more bodies and blood, as the West still hesitates to send Ukraine all the weapons it needs. I also fear that Sunak will remain in thrall to the right wing of his party, and that Boris Johnson and his supporters will also constantly try to undermine him in hopes of engineering Johnson’s return. British politics risks continuing on an unstable, damaging path.

For me, the big question for 2023 is whether British opinion will finally swing sufficiently decisively against Brexit, that it will give the Labour  party the political space it needs to adopt a stronger position in support of UK-EU cooperation. Opinion polls suggest that more and more British voters are coming to regret the decision to leave. Our challenge is to demonstrate how top voter concerns like the poor state of the economy, the NHS and other public services, are directly related to that decision to leave.

2023 is also the year in which we need to nail the Brexiter narrative that if Brexit is not going well, it is only because it was poorly implemented, or “thwarted” by Remainer elites, or because Ministers have yet to take proper advantage of the so-called opportunities of Brexit. Brexit never was and never will be the solution to the UK’s problems.

It’s always daft to write history when you are still living it, but the past year has been so crazy I’m happy to give it a go. The year 2022 will be seen by future British historians rather as Olaf Scholtz spoke of his country when he became Germany’s Chancellor. The United Kingdom is at a “Zeitenwende” – a turning point. Everything seemed to change, including our three prime ministers in four months and the resignation of at least 60 government ministers, plus the notorious Kwasi Kwarteng political suicide note. He called it a “fiscal event,” forgetting that a cardiac event is to most of us just a heart attack. The good news was that we managed to change our head of state and head of government almost simultaneously with no revolution, gunfire or rioting. The worst that happened was a leaky fountain pen and a temporarily grumpy King. I felt sorry for King Charles at that perfectly normal human moment when he was ambushed on TV by an inky malfunction.

The bad news however was everything else, and a group of failed politicians it was impossible to feel sorry for, especially Matt Hancock whose bush tucker and other trials did not seem stressful enough. In Roman times he would not have been on I’m A Celebrity. He’d have been forced on to I’m a Gladiator and fed to hungry lions. But the event of the year – as Oscar Wilde might have said – is that for the British people to lose one prime minister might be seen as unfortunate. To lose two is carelessness. In fact, we have lost five prime ministers in six years and none of them struck me as up to Gladstone and Disraeli standards.

What was exposed ruthlessly in 2022 is not merely the characters of some very strange people who rise to the top in politics. It’s a failed system of governance where those in power seem to make up the rules to suit themselves. Liz Truss became our prime minister because around 80,000 people who pay just over £2 a month to join the Conservative party decided she was The Right One. Or Far Right One. Rishi Sunak became our prime minister because Conservative MPs decided trusting their own party members was a disaster, so they chose him. Boris Johnson became prime minster because he undermined his two immediate predecessors and the party whose supposedly “secret weapon is loyalty” rewarded his disloyalty with the top job.

The one serious bit of good news of 2022 was that the B-word returned in public speech. Brexit, that greatest self-inflicted wound that we British have inflicted upon ourselves in recent years was finally regarded as something which could be discussed in polite company. My hopes for 2023 therefore include the real possibility that the unravelling of Brexit will become so obviously clear that the leadership of the Labour party will aggressively try to unpick its worst aspects even if they pretend to be living up to what was once supposed to be “the will of the people.” Many of the people who voted for Brexit have inevitably changed their minds.

My second great hope is that we start to remember what is meant by patriotism. To be a patriot is not to sit in front of a Union Jack and witter endlessly about the non-existent benefits of Brexit. To be a patriot is to want the best for your country, and to avoid making British citizens, wherever they may live, poorer and experiencing more difficulties in their lives. By that definition Brexit is one of the least patriotic events in British history.

Some years ago, while down an absolute rabbit hole of research, I came across an old interview with the author Graham Greene. Unfortunately, I cannot find the recording now but suffice to say that Greene came across as extremely grumpy and when prodded on why that might be, complained that he was very easily bored. He went on to describe an incident where, while on a boat in the Suez Canal, he and the rest of the passengers came under fire from the shore.

“At first,” Greene said – and I paraphrase – “one felt an immense fear and excitement – but soon it gave way to boredom… it was just very, very boring”.

I remember wondering at the time how anyone could ever think that dodging bullets in the middle of the Suez could ever be described as ‘boring’, but as the last eight years, of at times cartoonish events, have unwound, I think I’m beginning to get it.

Living through extraordinary times can get very boring indeed and ever more, the country has felt like an absurd soap opera in which a team of frenzied writers have been cooking up crazy plot lines.

Since the Scottish independence referendum in 2015, the once United Kingdom has reeled from one crisis to another, like a drunken bear fighting a donkey on acid, in a glassware shop. In hindsight, the Scottish referendum was but an amuse bouche for the uncivil war of Brexit that followed in 2016. That disastrous folly wrecked our global standing, screwed our political institutions and wreaked economic turmoil on us all. What followed whipped back the curtain on the libertarian lies of British exceptionalism – and the myth that we ‘don’t need the EU’. But in the process, it also took a sledgehammer to the old political consensus.

In all the chaos that followed, whether that be the inanity of the culture wars, the misery of Covid, lockdowns, the migrant crisis, the on-going disaster in Northern Ireland or the tsunami of other miserable stories lost in its wake, people’s positions have been largely defined by how they voted in that referendum.

At the same time, the pandemic and war in Ukraine have been a salutary lesson in how very dangerous it is to take our certainties for granted. World events can turn in a moment and threats to our peace and security can come out of nowhere. All of this has, I believe, irrevocably changed the political landscape. Britain’s new political lines are no longer defined by left, right and centre, but by ‘pragmatic and progressive’ versus ‘chaotic cloud cuckoolandism’. The good news is that, if polling is to be believed, most voters now sit, ever more, in the ‘pragmatic and progressive’ camp.

As we’ve gone through Prime Ministers and Chancellors faster than most of us get through underwear in a heatwave, this country seems to have edged ever more back towards a general consensus – that we want to be a grown-up country once more.

So, call me a crazy optimist and cross your fingers very tightly, but I’m beginning to think there are brighter times ahead. Happy New Year.

Coming next month

Keith Glazzard

Is there any justification at all for changing Human Rights legislation in the UK?

Thankfully, one of the few sensible things the Truss government is doing is drop the Bill of Rights Bill which would have gutted the Human Rights Act. However, we cannot lower our guard because the fear is that this right-wing government will simply try to insert into a range of new legislation the horrors that the BORB would have delivered in one place.

There is no justification for substantially changing the Human Rights Act, which has proven its value for nearly a quarter of a century. In particular, it ‘brought rights home’ so that claimants no longer have to make the long and expensive trek to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (which of course is separate from the EU) to seek to enforce their rights, but can do so in domestic courts.

I thoroughly concur with the views expressed in this letter in June from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I sit.

The Independent Human Rights Act Review led by former Appeal Court judge Sir Peter Gross – ignored by the unlamented Dominic Raab as it largely gave the HRA a clean bill of health – suggested just a few relatively minor reforms, which can be read in the executive summary of their report. Sir Peter also gave evidence a few weeks ago to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (on which I sit). Here are the transcript and the recording.

A major recommendation of Sir Peter’s review was to increase ‘public ownership of rights’ through greater public and civic education. I thoroughly endorse this call, as the myth peddled by much of the press that the HRA only assists criminals and illegal immigrants is untrue but highly persuasive and corrosive. As we saw, the rights of people in care homes – not least, their right to life – was a big casualty of the Covid pandemic.

Michael Soffe

How would you convince me (as a 110% “Rejoiner”) to vote for the Lib Dems in the next election?

Valerie Chaplin

Why are the LibDems not supporting the call to rejoin the EU when the majority of the British public now think Brexit was a mistake?

Lisa Burton

It was good to see you speak at the National Rejoin March. What would you say to those who say it is too early to discuss re-joining the EU?

I am grouping these three questions together as they raise essentially the same ‘Rejoin’ issue. The Liberal Democrats have passed several conference motions post-Brexit, but the latest one was in March 2022 which reaffirmed the party’s support for a longer-term objective of UK membership of the EU.

I think a key paragraph is “Conference therefore recognises that as the UK seek to build a closer partnership with Europe, it must first convince EU member states that the UK is serious about rebuilding the relationship and forging stronger links, which can only be built back gradually over time.” The same applies to public opinion in the UK. The full policy paper which the motion endorses is here.

Given the awful mess Liz Truss has got us into in terms of our EU relationship, seeking to breach the Northern Ireland Protocol unilaterally – and unable even to say whether President Macron is friend or foe! – a gradual ‘road map’ approach simply reflects the political and economic realities.

Had it not been for our September conference having to be cancelled due to the sad death of the Queen, we would have debated (and undoubtedly passed) our first ‘sectoral’ motion deriving from our road map policy, on UK-EU cooperation on foreign and security policy.

I would also draw attention to this excellent Times article (26 September) by Edward Lucas, a senior journalist as well as LibDem parliamentary candidate in City of London and Westminster, on LibDem policy.

So while we do not call for ‘Rejoin Now’ as that is simply impractical, our commitment to the end goal of rejoining is not in any doubt whatsoever, and I shall be speaking at the rescheduled National Rejoin March on 22 October.

Sue Scarrott

Can the Labour party be persuaded to dispense with the undemocratic first-past-the-post voting system in favour of proportional representation?

The jury is out on whether Labour can be persuaded to abandon FPTP in favour PR. John Harris observed in the Guardian that ‘Polling suggests that 83% of Labour members now support electoral reform. In the build-up to its conference this week, about 140 constituency parties have submitted motions calling for exactly that’ but ‘Unfortunately, Keir Starmer and his allies still see changing our systems of power and politics as an irritating distraction, and are clearly terrified that any conversations about coalitions and partnerships will be a gift to the Tories.’

A conference resolution proposing a new voting system is due to be debated as I write this. The deputy political editor of the Guardian tweeted that she expected it to include ‘Labour must make a commitment to introduce proportional representation for general elections in the next manifesto’ – but we will see!

David Eldridge

What, for you personally, has been the worst aspect of Brexit?

We are all losers in a material sense, as imports and exports have become more expensive and burdened by red tape, through the loss of amenities we used to enjoy in the Single Market and Customs Union such as free data roaming, pet passports or EU border channels. I entirely sympathise and seek to support those who have experienced the worst effects, whether businesses ruined, or lives disrupted, by the loss of free movement and having to go through the settlement schemes.

For me, the worst part of Brexit has been an emotional wrench, a kick in the guts. I lost my husband three years ago and so it has been a period of intense grief from all directions.

I first felt ‘European’ nearly 60 years ago, on our family camping trips down through France to Spain, thinking ‘I belong here’. Then as a student I studied European history and current affairs, was an intern (‘stagiaire’) then for seven years an official at the European Commission, and later for 15 years an MEP. So it is a strong part of my identity. I have been able to reclaim my European citizenship by getting my Irish passport; I did not have to apply for citizenship as I am Irish from birth due to my mother having been born in Dublin. (I realise this understandably arouses jealousy, but it’s not from anything I did myself!). As I have no intention of ever moving from London, the main value to me is that it restores that part of my identity that was brutally torn away. I hope by working towards Rejoin to get it back for all Brits.

In next month’s newsletter we are delighted to be featuring National Rejoin March founder, Peter Corr.

Peter is a former soldier and lorry driver who lost his job thanks to Brexit and decided to do something rather special to protest about that. Peter is organising the biggest pro-EU, anti-Brexit demonstration and rally for years.

As the march is scheduled for October 22 in London, we are delighted that Peter has agreed to be our next featured campaigner in Bremainers Ask, especially at this very busy time.

Please note that the feature will be published after the march, at the end of October, but your questions will be submitted to Peter before the march takes place, so please bear this in mind when you submit your questions.

If you would like to put a question to Peter, please email us at enquiries@bremaininspain.com no later than Thursday 6 October.