It's not too late for Remainers to apologise - but it's time for them to do so

It’s funny looking back on Remainers’ Project Fear, now shown to have been arrant nonsense. The sturdy common sense of the Brits who voted ‘Leave’ has been vindicated. Every time an argument relentlessly peddled out during the Remainers disinformation campaign to keep us locked in the EU falls on its face, Remainers squirm and pretend someone else said it, not them.

Remember the claims, led by Osborne and Cameron, that Britain would face economic catastrophe? Remember the threatened increase in the price of everything, the collapse of business, the virtual destruction of the world as we knew it, blah blah ( as the great Greta would so eloquently say)?

Remember the armies of ‘experts’ the BBC produced every single day opining in doom-laden tones about the consequences of a Leave vote? They were everywhere – on every BBC news bulletin, on every radio programme, ‘experts’ dug out of every nook and cranny in the country, from unknown further education colleges, to representatives of vague ‘bodies’ no one had ever heard of. Perhaps even to fill the gaps, a few extras were dragged from some BBC soap and popped on a sofa with a script reciting how wrong people were to think independently and how morally right were those who loved the EU and all it stood for.

Their warnings were left on the BBC pages for literally days, even weeks, like a body hanging from a gibbet as a lesson to all who pass by.

In stark contrast, any pro-Leave view was airbrushed from BBC history with the speed of a Formula One driver.

And among the dire warnings was the claim that leaving the EU would render the UK a backward-looking, insignificant, insular country with no influence at all; in a weakened and isolated state the UK’s voice would be ignored. The EU, on the other hand, would apparently continue to stride forward bringing economic prosperity and social justice to all who came within its orbit, whilst enforcing an endless myriad of ever more imaginative ‘human rights’.

Now look at the reality.

It is the UK led by Boris Johnson that is leading on sanctions; it is Boris Johnson who is creating an international plan for tackling the Ukraine crisis, it is the UK that is leading the diplomatic effort at the UN, and it is the UK led by Boris Johnson that is giving active and sustained support to the Ukrainians – from vital military hardware to financial support.

It is therefore no surprise that Keir Starmer and the rest of the left - from Scottish nationalists to the Lib dems (remember them?) - who all fought so hard to keep us in the EU, are struggling for anything to say.

Remainers must feel utter humiliation at how wrong they were on every count. They must be mortified at how significant, honourable and influential a role the UK is playing in this world crisis, and they must be in despair at how strong and steady the UK continues to be in the face of state aggression.

It is not too late for Remainers to apologise. But it is time for them to do so.

Daphne Dickless