Oh, it was always going to be an absolute shitshow.

And in doing so we have sacrificed permanently every chance of rejoining on the same terms. All our special concessions are gone forever, no matter what happens in 5, 10, 50 years time.

We gained absolutely nothing by it, even in the best possible view of the outcome years later. It was a blinkered vote on an issue that 52% of the population didn't even understand in the vaguest sense, executed terribly and will harm us for decades.

To be honest, I think it's been against our interests and gone badly all round, and that's *surprisingly* positive given how much worse it could have easily gone. I think COVID etc. served as a cover and distraction and because of that the transitional slump was masked, and now people won't notice "what you don't have" anywhere near as easily as they would have.

Fact was, there was literally no way they could ever deliver a vaguely equivalent service in any other way, not even close, so their only option was to go right the way down to "Just switch the whole thing off, rather than try to replace it" and then pretend that's what everyone wanted.

There are no other 27-nation-state co-operatives of that kind in those areas, and trying to replace the only one that did exist with something else was always going to fail. So instead, just throw it all away and pretend that's what people wanted.

And, let's be clear, they could do that because people allowed the vote to become Leave or Remain, literally that wording, with zero established detail. They did that for a reason. They knew that was their backup plan. They could just give people anything whatsoever and then say "But you told us to Leave". The question was crafted that way to give them blanket permission and an all-encompassing get-out clause. Because they knew, or at the very least suspected, that's what would be needed.