Where are the sensible Brexiteers? Do they even exist?

One of the most perplexing things about Brexit is the absolute dearth of serious Brexit supporters, by which I mean people who want Brexit to happen, have articulate reasons for wanting Brexit to happen, and have an actually coherent strategy for achieving a lasting departure from the EU.

Anyone capable of the slightest nuance is capable of understanding that the EU is neither perfectly good, nor evil, but a bit of both.

For every good thing the EU has delivered like the working time directive, consumer protections, frictionless trade and travel, clean rivers and beaches, and equal rights legislation, there's something bad to counterbalance it, like the unaccountable European Central Bank, the imposition of ruinous austerity in Greece, attacks on Internet freedoms, and endless examples of absurd legislation aimed at stuff like outlawing the term "veggie burger".

Militants on either side will focus exclusively on the good or bad, while most sensible people will acknowledge both sides and try to weigh things up for themselves.

Once you have some understanding of the inner workings of the EU, you can't really blame anyone for adopting a Eurosceptic position. In fact I'd go further than that. Anyone who isn't sceptical about at least some of the EU's activities and institutions is basically an unthinking political cultist who would unquestioningly support the EU even if it resorted to truly evil policies like genocide, or ethnic cleansing.

However there is a huge chasm between being a Eurosceptic, and being a Brexiteer who supports Boris Johnson and the Tories' hard-right bodge job of a Brexit proposal.

Just look at the state of him.

When confronted with the fact that his renegotiated Brexit deal creates a border down the Irish sea to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, Johnson just lies that it won't.

When asked to explain why Scotland needs to be dragged all the way out of the EU against their will, while Northern Ireland get to keep frictionless trade with the continent, he hasn't got an answer.

When Johnson and the Tories are confronted about people's legitimate fears that a hard-right Brexit would lead to the break-up and mass privatisation of the NHS, they simply lie that they're not planning to privatise the NHS, even though that's exactly what they're doing right now, with more NHS services than ever being outsourced to private profiteers.

When Johnson is asked to explain why the protection of workers' rights were stripped out of his Withdrawal proposal, he just refuses to answer.

When asked to explain why the UK government is pursuing a version of Brexit that will trigger a recession, and annihilate our agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing industries, Johnson and his pals just witter platitudes like "will of the people".

Even if you are a Eurosceptic who thinks leaving the EU is best for Britain, how on earth could you end up trusting such an evasive liar to deliver it in such a rushed and shambolic way?

If you genuinely want Brexit to succeed, what's the logic in leaving the process in the hands of a dishonest charlatan who outright refuses to explain or acknowledge the obvious implications of his own hastily cobbled together plan?

If you want Britain to quit the EU, why would you want to do it in such an obviously chaotic, divisive and economically damaging manner that it seems doomed to fail from the outset, meaning it'll just end up getting eventually reversed?

And if Boris Johnson's hasty bodge-job does end up collapsing and getting reversed, surely we can see that Brexit would go down as one of the worst mistakes this country has ever made, meaning not a snowball's chance in hell of Brexit ever being resuscitated and done properly.

It's fully understandable that hard core Remainers and assorted other Brexit-sceptic people hate Boris Johnson's Brexit bodge, because it's an absolute mess of a proposal that would devastate the country if it's ever implemented.

But serious Brexit supporters should clearly be hating it even more, because Johnson's hasty bodge job Brexit is going to end up making Brexit look utterly stupid if it's ever implemented, make Brexiters look utterly stupid for endorsing it, and most likely end up being reversed and consigning the concept of a credible, sensibly-planned Brexit to the dustbin of history forever.

The fact that Johnson's ludicrous shambles of a Brexit proposal isn't attracting derision from concerned Brexiters suggests there's really not a very significant number of them who have actually thought through even the most obvious implications of what's happening.

Maybe 'sensible Brexiteers' are such a vanishingly small minority that they simply don't even register in the divisive, dishonest, and downright delusional screeching match our political discourse has descended into over the last few years?

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