Conclusion: Will the UK Re-join the EU Any Time Soon?

This chapter attempts to summarise the findings of the earlier chapters and to address the question, ‘Will the UK re-join the EU any time soon’? head on. It concludes that optimism, based solely on the effects of Brexit, and on opinion poll data, is unwarranted, but that pessimism is unwarranted either. For, if the 2016 referendum was intended as a means of resolving what is a constitutional issue—of allowing UK citizens to come to a settled view of their place in, and in relation to, Europe—then it is has had precisely the opposite effect. For this reason, re-joining remains possible. In the meantime, the UK will have an evolving relationship with the EU, one likely to make increasingly apparent the illusory nature of ‘national sovereignty’ in an ever-more interdependent world. Since even the most ardent believers in a salvation myth must, presumably, change their minds when the weight of disconfirming evidence becomes great enough, anti-Brexit activism remains warranted.