As someone who supports Brexit, I asked a number of my Remain friends what do they understand Remain to mean in the long term?

One or two were bemused by the question whilst others replied that they wished to remain part of the EU or for the status quo to continue. I felt that there was no definitive response to my question.

On the other hand, my view of Brexit is quite clear: I wish the UK to become an independent sovereign nation again making its own decisions. The problem with my question is that the Remainers I spoke to really do not have a vision of where the EU is going to end up.

The EU is continually evolving as it has always done. The last big treaty, the Lisbon Treaty of 2007, is gradually being rolled out and it has become more centralised in its decision making with increased qualified majority voting covering many areas previously the domain of individual member states.

Its main tenet is ever closer union and a movement towards co-ordinating all the disciplines of government even to form a European Army and a common foreign policy.

By remaining, gradually our spheres of independent action will come under the umbrella of the EU and one day we will wake up and our ability to act as a sovereign nation will be gone and once gone this will be forever. This is what Remain must inevitably mean.

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