by Ella Mason
I am bereaved.
The referendum result has knocked me for six. I have always been determinedly pro-Europe. So much so that my political friends mock me for being a rubbish Tory because of my love for the EU (alongside a couple of other lefty things).
I realised this morning that is because being British in Europe is a huge part of my identity and that has been torn apart overnight.
I saw Britain as part of a great project of cooperation. I thought we had found a way of maintaining peace through the imperative of economic collaboration.
I believe free markets are the best way to generate the wealth we need to lift up the poorest while creating amazing lives for ourselves. But I understand that a pure free market is a thing from a text book: it isn’t possible in reality.
The EU single market and all the regulation involved in creating and maintaining it was actually taking it and us toward that goal, not away from it as so many people would have you believe. The regulation involved was about homogenising the market to allow us to trade freely not about micromanaging our entrepreneurial flair.
I believe in free trade and with it freedom of movement across borders. Migration of the labour force is central to free trade. Any libertarian will tell you that. In fact, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove will tell you that.
I agree with both of them about a lot of things economic which is why I cannot comprehend why they thought this was a good idea.
The only thing I can really think is that they didn’t actually think they could win. They saw it as a route to winning a Tory leadership election down the line in 2019; not as something that would actually happen and that they would subsequently have to manage now.
