It came as a surprise to some when the government white paper The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union included the line "Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that".
While we are members, we have shared sovereignty in areas covered by the treaty. We are part of the decision making process, through ministers of the UK government, a commissioner, civil servants and of course our elected members of the EU parliament. Over the most fundamental decisions we have a veto, but we have entered a collective process.
Brexit involves withdrawal from that shared sovereignty, "taking back control" by pulling back from that collective process, but also incorporating the vast majority of EU law into the UK (and eventually the devolved administrations') statute book. This is because it's currently our law, and we'd cease to function without it. I would lay a pointlessly large bet on a major part of it still being in place in 50 years time.
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During the election, as I noted in my blog post at the time, Jeremy Paxman asked Theresa May "When did you change your mind on the biggest issue of the day?", referring obviously to Brexit, then "Are you trying to achieve something that you think is bad for us?", since she had been a less than ardent but occasionally visible campaigner to Remain. (The wording of the questions is taken from notes, but I think it's fair.)
On 29 May she wouldn't say that she had changed her mind on Brexit, or that she actually believed in it now, only that she believed in "making a success of it". She must have had a good think about that (or somebody must have had a word), because by 3 June the line was "You can only deliver Brexit if you believe in Brexit".
"You can only deliver Brexit if you believe in Brexit," says Theresa May pic.twitter.com/dDgK4plbkE— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) 1 June 2017
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To wrap up this probably rather strange burrowing into parts of the mind of May I turn to the Florence speech of 22 September, in which she said "The strength of feeling that the British people have about this need for control and the direct accountability of their politicians is one reason why, throughout its membership, the United Kingdom has never totally felt at home being in the European Union".
There's some sense and some truth in both passages. but they also both suggest an oversimplification, a detachment from the real world. There are obviously people who have felt at home in the EU. I bet there are more who hadn't given it much thought until they were put on the spot. And we have negotiated our own relationship with it, as have Denmark and Ireland, and Sweden and probably every member state, whether it's a small part of a protocol (such as the "list of conventions and protocols to which Bulgaria and Romania accede upon accession") or a major reservation (like the UK's opt-out of the euro).
The country has not come together, other than in resignation ("Sod 'em, let them get on with it"). A significant minority feel Brexit as a personal attack, on themselves, their families, their rights and their view of their country. And, at least in the unrepresentative echoings of Twitter I encounter anything but magnanimity from some "victors".
May's own party is not united. Jacob Rees Mogg has expressed his opposition to the proposed transition period and Iain Duncan Smith seems likely to object very strongly when he discovers that his latest repetition of "we will no longer be subject to the EU’s laws or to its court [as of 29 March 2019]" is unlikely to be true.
And it really is pushing it for May to call on the "strength of feeling that the British people have about... direct accountability of... politicians". This is the woman who wasted an extra two months on a supreme court hearing to prevent elected MPs having a say on the triggering of Article 50. To say nothing of her Henry VIII complex.
I'm not persuaded. Is she?
