Feb
2026
The Times They Are A-Changin’: Brexit Become Brex-In
DIY Investor
3 February 2026
“Are you laughing at me now? May I please laugh along with you?”
Readers will likely remember that this column was born out of Brexit, and today marks the beginning of my campaign to reverse this, with “Brex-in.”
I know many will shudder at the thought of revisiting that fiasco, others may well actively disagree. But, as the saying goes; too bad!
It should be clear to all but the most ardent of Brexiter’s, that leaving the EU has been one of the great national acts of self-immolation.
I readily accept that this will open all manner of dogma dominated debates, but, it will provide a very clear opposition to Farage’s Reform hordes. Brexit, other than recruiting a bunch of failed Tory deadbeats, is his sole political achievement, its failure is his Achilles heel.
The latest poll I could find goes back to June 2025, which showed that 56% thought that it was wrong to leave the EU, compared with 31%.
Whilst the government can’t be said to be covering themselves in glory, their economic policy under Brexit is akin to playing tennis with one-arm tied behind your back. If you then add their self-imposed fiscal constraints, that’s the other one gone, too!
Aside from the obvious economic constraints imposed by Brexit, there is the issue of a Trump-led US, meaning that our supposed special friend is anything but. As a result, we are on the outside looking-in,
‘leaving the EU has been one of the great national acts of self-immolation’
Trumpism is creating a new realism in many countries who, for the first time, are realising that they will function better without the US. Leaders no longer pretend the US is a reliable ally, or that the old western alliance exists.
In a recent speech to the European parliament, the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “We now live in a world defined by raw power, whether economic or military, technological or geopolitical. In an increasingly lawless world, Europe needs its own levers of power.”
Other European leaders, including France’s President Macron, and the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, have also spoken-out about the need for Europe to collective stand together and not rely on America.
Unfortunately, our own PM, is still seemingly reluctant to join-in. He is struggling to chose between a US that spurns us, and Europe that we spurned. Without mentioning the UK, Mark Carney, the Canadian PM summed-up the situation: “When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness”. This is not sovereignty, he added, and the only choice for “in-between” countries was to compete with one another for favour or combine “to create a third path with impact”.
In summary, the majority of European powers have now accepted that the US’s values-based realism requires Europe and the UK to work more closely than ever.
‘the US’s values-based realism requires Europe and the UK to work more closely than ever’
There could be an added political benefit for Starmer to side with Europe rather the US; it will force Farage’s hand. Should he push the US angle, he will alienate himself further with an electorate who are now not only anti-Brexit, they are anti-Trump.
YouGov’s December’s tracker poll found that 18% of Britons had a favourable opinion of Donald Trump and 77% had an unfavourable opinion. Given the activities of ICE, this month, and Trump’s sabre rattling overseas, it is unlikely his approval rating has risen
In truth, the UK is still in a dire mess, and the government needs to do something and very soon.
The latest area of discontent is our high streets, with research by the University of Southampton, indicating that Labour will be “washed away in a tide of discontent” at the next general election unless it tackles the decline of Britain’s high streets
Improving shopping precincts was the third most important local issue for voters, behind good healthcare and reducing crime, according to polling conducted by YouGov.
Reform UK supporters were more likely than anyone else to say their area had significantly declined, underlining what researchers called a “deep sense of place-based resentment” towards Westminster. Unsurprisingly, Farage is riding this hard, with Turkish barbers to the fore in his criticisms.
Labour MPs, who appear increasingly alarmed by everything and anything, are realising that the state of our high streets have, for many voters, become symbolic of whether their area is prospering. This hasn’t been helped with the issue becoming a focus for a business-led backlash over the significant increases to business rates in November’s budget.
‘Labour will be “washed away in a tide of discontent” at the next general election unless it tackles the decline of Britain’s high streets‘
In yet another U-turn, the government has announced a business rates discount for pubs, alongside the promise of a “high street strategy”. Dan Tomlinson, a Treasury minister, said: “We do understand it’s a tough time for other businesses on the high street … consumers have changed their habits, increasingly working from home and shopping online, and these trends continue to make it harder.”
Prof Will Jennings, who led the University of Southampton research, said Labour’s political fate rested on its ability to address this local gloom. “Our report reveals a high level of place-based resentment in British politics. People tend to think that politicians in Westminster don’t care about their region and that not enough is being done to improve the economic situation.”
The are obvious reasons for the decline of high streets, not least the rise of online shopping and the impact of Covid which forced shoppers to embrace the internet. According to the Office for National Statistics, 28% of retail sales took place online in October 2025, up from 19% in the same month in 2019.
The factor that no one seems to want to admit, is that the majority have no money to shop for anything other than the essentials.
The latest report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (“JRF”), showed that the UK’s poorest families are getting poorer, with record numbers of people classed as in “very deep poverty”: defined as annual household incomes failing to cover the cost of food, energy bills and clothing.
Whilst overall relative poverty levels have flatlined in recent years at C.21% of the population, families living below the breadline are being forced to subsist on incomes beneath the poverty threshold.
About 6.8 million people – half of all those in poverty – are in very deep poverty, the highest number and proportion since records began three decades ago.
Households on the lowest incomes were still experiencing a cost of living crisis four years on, with millions forced to go without food, falling behind on household bills and having to borrow to survive, said JRF.
“Poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years,” said Peter Matejic, the JRF’s chief analyst.
“Poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years,”
Very deep poverty is defined as less than 40% of the UK poverty threshold after rent. The average income of a household in very deep poverty is 59% below the poverty line. For a couple with two young children this amounts to £16,400 or below. Circa 1.9 million people (3%) are persistently in this category.
The most recent estimates show about 3.8 million UK people experienced destitution – a category even more extreme than very deep poverty, in which households cannot afford to stay warm, dry, clean, clothed and fed.
The analysis draws on data for the year 2023-24, the final year of the last Conservative government and the latest for which official figures are available.
During this 14-yrs of Tory misrule, families were subjected to “wide-ranging, ideologically driven welfare cuts, ministers actively sought to make life harder, not easier, for many of the least well-off.”
This was started by the austerity foolishly and incorrectly imposed by Messrs Cameron and Osborne. However, as the report makes clear, much of today’s politicians appear to still believe that Britain’s welfare budget must be cut substantially, in order that the nation’s resources can be diverted towards security spending, to protect against the geopolitics of Putin and Trump. Any further benefit cuts would leave millions of the poorest in society – many of them in work – unable to weather such a storm. Many are already being forced to go without food, deep in debt and unable to pay their bills.
‘we have created a doom loop of despair, which, in itself, is a waste of available human capital’
The absurd, and immoral policy of “guns versus butter” arguments are manna from heaven for the likes of Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage who love to talk of fostering “personal responsibility”. Labour, after belatedly scrapping the two-child benefit cap, appear to have woken-up to the problem, although it is still unclear as to whether attempting to alleviate poverty will become a priority. This is a statement that serves to highlight how far from being a Labour government this shower have become.
The poverty levels reported by the JRF are both scandalous and shameful, we have created a doom loop of despair, which, in itself, is a waste of available human capital, whose potential will not be accessed through welfare cuts that will just further their impoverishment. Rearming at their expense will worsen social cohesion at a time when far-right forces are successfully exploiting a crisis of faith in politics.
As I have written so-many times these are the victims of the L-shaped recovery post-GFC. Austerity, alongside the self-harm of Brexit, has caused economy stagnation and made the poor even poorer. If you add into the mix a pandemic and the cost of living crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its hard to expect anything else.
The real question is when, if ever, will Labour remember what they stand for and start implementing it? The last thing we need is a Starmer / McSweeney inspired Tory tribute act, competing with the far-right, hate-filled toxicity of Badenoch’s Tory’s and Reform.
Just how toxic Reform can be is amply demonstrated by Matthew Goodwin, a known hard-right activist, who is standing in the forthcoming byelection in Gorton and Denton.
Goodwin has been criticised for claiming recently that people from black, Asian or other immigrant backgrounds were not always British, saying: “It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody ‘British’.”
Given that nearly half of the Gorton and Denton population – 44% – identifies as coming from a minority ethnic background, while 79% of the constituency identifies as British, this has the making of a toxic campaign reminiscent of the National Front in the 1970s.
His selection as the Reform candidate has surprised some commentators, given his outspoken views on British nationality and Islam.
Only three weeks ago, he wrote that Britain’s “ruling class” was “silencing” debate about Islam in “one of the most serious assaults on free speech and free expression Britain has ever seen”. More than 25% of voters in Gorton and Denton identify as Muslim.
It would have been interesting to see how the current Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham would have fared against Goodwin, but his candidacy was blocked by Labour’s National Executive Committee, no doubt on the instruction of PM Starmer’s faction.
This appears to be a part of the battle being fought over the parties heart and soul, with the role of kingmaker undertaken by Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. There has been talk that this faction regards the PM as their frontman: a useful idiot who thinks he’s in charge while others behind pull the strings.
‘a useful idiot who thinks he’s in charge while others behind pull the strings’
Clearly, this faction wants the party to continue its direction of travel to the right of centre, based on their belief that it isn’t possible to win from the left, likely compounded by their heavy 2019 election defeat.
They will point the fact that in 2024, after the party had moved to a centre-right platform, they won 411 out of 650 seats in the Commons, C.63 % of the seats. This was achieved on winning 9,708,816 votes, 33.7 % of those cast.
In 2019, under Jeremy Corbyn, they received 32.3% of the votes cast, winning only 203 seats.
What this tells us is that Starmerites are living in a fools paradise. Their 2024 result was due to the peculiarities of our electoral system, and the deep unpopularity of the incumbent Tory’s.
The UK’s problems are deep-rooted and have been creeping up on us for a number of years.
‘we find ourselves increasingly isolated in a Trump-inspired sad new world, hopping around trying to find a bedfellow’
The basis of them is inequality, caused by neoliberalism’s failure to deliver the expected trickle down of wealth, self-imposed fiscal constraints and needless years of austerity. Added to this is privatisation, which has benefitted the few at the expense of the majority, and property being turned into an investment class.
There has been the black swan events of the GFC and Covid, and the self-immolation of Brexit.
Today, we find ourselves increasingly isolated in a Trump-inspired sad new world, hopping around trying to find a bedfellow. The truth is simple, we need to swallow our pride, or what’s left of it, and realign with our European partners, rather than try to woo a careless former lover led by an increasingly megalomania inspired president.
“The fatherland’s no place to cry for
It makes me want to run out shouting
I hear some talk of guns and butter
That’s something I can do without”
Lyrically, we start with Lost Weekend by Lloyd Cole And The Commotions, although the UK has lot somewhat more than just a weekend.
We end with “Guns Before Butter” by the Gang of Four, which was written during the time when Thatcher was forcing the poor to choose and cuts were imposed across the board. Plus ca change!
@coldwarsteve
Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.
Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s
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