And,
while the hard work will not begin until Theresa May triggers Article 50, it’s
time to focus on new opportunities, not least with those loyal Commonwealth
countries – like Australia – who fought alongside Britain in two world wars and
felt aggrieved when Edward Heath turned his back on this sacrifice at the EEC’s
inception.
This
is illustrated by the recent comments made by Alexander Downer who was
Australia’s foreign minister for nearly 12 years and is now his country’s High
Commissioner to the UK. Not once, he lamented, did a British Foreign Secretary
visit Australia while he was in office between March 1996 and December 2007.
“Instead of sulking, we’ve been forging new markets
in Asia and North America,”
he added. “It’s been hard going but we’ve stuck at it...I can immodestly say
we’ve done well.”
Mr
Downer clearly wishes this country well and says a free trade policy between
Britain and Australia is a priority. The same cannot be said about the EU, and
highfalutin UK academics at the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, who continue
to denigrate Leave voters and accuse supporters of “living on Fantasy
Island”.
What
they don’t seem to realise is that voters only took this unprecedented step
because they were fed up at being told what to do by an overtly-bureaucratic
European Union which has proved totally incapable of reform. If its leaders had
showed a sliver of humility, and accepted the legitimacy of this country’s
concerns on issues like immigration, David Cameron might have been able to put a
more meaningful reform package to the electorate.
No
wonder 54 per cent of people, according to a new poll, want Mrs May to
accelerate Brexit so the country can embrace ‘old friends’ again. Far from
voters regretting the decision of June 23, they feel more than vindicated when
academics and Remain-supporting politicians
resort to insults in the vain hope
that the result can be reversed. It can’t
.
.
YP Comment: Brexit – time to stop the insults. June 23 poll can’t be reversed!