I pity Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart – they share the same terrible affliction | Politics | News

I feel sorry for the Hardcore Remainers. I really want to. It must be terrible. Pathologically unable to move on, they are stuck in a cycle of disaster filled with pain and resentment, and have a constant, frenzied, foaming-at-the-mouth longing to turn back the clock to the early months of 2016, when they convinced themselves they would win. What a contrast to the vast majority of people who voted Remain, who logically, albeit reluctantly, accepted the result and went on with their lives. But this hardcore minority can’t do that. OK, that was understandable in the first few weeks.

But months later? Years later? Now almost a decade later? Remarkably enough, they are still as angry as if the vote had taken place last Thursday. It’s not called the Brexit Disorder Syndrome for nothing. These people really see everything through the lens of Brexit, forever sniffing out data and polls to convince themselves that they are right and that anyone who voted for Brexit is either bad or obtuse. Or both.

Alastair Campbell (yes, of Iraq War fame) had it bad. So is his partner in crime, Rory Stewart, who looks less and less like the Conservative Party with each passing day. There are also people like Anna Soubry, Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham and Ed Davey, another former Tory who now appears to be Keir Starmer’s biggest fan. Oh my god, picture them around a dinner party, clucking angrily away.

But there are a lot of sad hardcore types out there. We all know a few. Just yesterday I received a WhatsApp message from a few of them; they cheered positively at a new poll; It allegedly showed that if given the chance, a majority of people would vote to rejoin the EU.

“Is there democracy?” one of them wrote, willfully ignoring the fact that the British establishment’s desperate attempts to overturn the referendum results have led to the deepest collapse of trust this country has seen in decades.

Democracy? How dare they claim this symbol for their cause, when for years their entire existence was consumed by the shameful notion that the British people’s democratic desire to leave the EU should be ignored?

The desperation to prove that Brexit is a biblical disaster will never leave them. If there is an increase in crime, Brexit is to blame. Is there an increase in inflation? This is Brexit. Not winning enough gold medals? Brexit. If they could, they would attribute the February rain to Brexit. In fact, they probably are.

Meanwhile, they ignore or refuse to acknowledge the fact that the British economy has actually performed better than France and Germany since the Brexit vote, choosing instead, in a crazy cycle, to repeat the idea that Brexit has cut 4% off our annual GDP; This is a highly dubious figure based on an up-in-the-air long-term forecast from the OBR, an organization that has hardly set itself up for victory.

Meanwhile, they’re boasting on social media that British holidaymakers now have to queue to get into the EU, which if you ask me, is a good reason to take our hard-earned cash elsewhere, where it’s more sought-after and respected.

Will these painful people be able to overcome this syndrome? I really doubt it. I wholeheartedly believe that they will suffer this hardship for the rest of their days.

Years from now, and possibly decades from now, they will still be bleating about a pink bus and £350 million for the NHS, angrily denouncing the Brexiteers for ruining everything with a dull, dazed and demented look in their eyes. Yep, it’s a doomsday cycle okay. And we can only pity them.