Two years ago, the world-famous broadcaster David Attenborough was comparing opposition to the EU to spitting in each other's faces, and 'criticised the decision to put leaving the European Union to a referendum because people had not been given “the facts"'.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-attenborough-brexiteers-spit-europeans-eu-leave-uk-bbc-michael-gove-experts-a7967591.html
More recently, without publicly declaring himself a Remainer or Leaver (and that in itself indicates consciousness of enduring public division), he has said:
“I think that the irritation of the ways in which the European community has interfered with people’s lives on silly levels or silly issues has irritated a lot of people who don’t actually understand what the advantages and the disadvantages are.” ...
“They’re just fed up with somebody over there who doesn’t speak their language, telling him how much money they’ve got to charge for tomatoes or something silly.”
Asked if he was more of a Brexiteer than a Remainer, Sir David said he believed “there had to be a change, one way or another”.
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-08-21/sir-david-attenborough-people-are-fed-up-with-european-union/
It's interesting that he understands that there may indeed be disadvantages in our EU membership, and that the EU attempts to micromanage in a counterproductive way.
I read this as a sign that at least part of the Establishment is becoming aware that the Referendum result was not merely a flash in the pan and that there is much settled feeling against the European project.
Granted, in the quotation above the speaker seems to say - as so many Remainers said, immediately after the vote and persistently from then on, that such people 'don't actually understand' the issues (though I really don't see much clear, logic- and fact-based argument for the advantages, from Remainers).
But I sense a shift. And I think the traffic is more this way than that.
This post also appears on All About Brexit: https://allaboutbrexit.blogspot.com/2019/11/remainers-softening-straw-in-wind.html
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