A historical mistake for Britain is proving to be Brexit.

Ten years have passed since Brexit—that is, the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.

A move that would once have seemed impossible, given that the British were among the key advocates of a united Europe after World War II and, of course, one of its leading powers.

populism was, however, the prevailing force, and the unexpected result in favor of leaving the EU in the crucial referendum led to a process that was unprecedented even for the “Brussels bureaucracy” itself, and not just for the British people.

By Ersi Papadaki

The irony, however, is that ten years later, the British themselves are now looking for ways to rejoin the EU.

And there are quite a few who now openly argue that the United Kingdom and the British government should sit down at the table and find a way to rejoin theEuropean family—even if that means essentially following from the beginning the process outlined in the EU treaties for the accession of a new member state.

Because the issue is not so much an economic one, given that the United Kingdom remained outside the Eurozone throughout its entire membership in the EU. It is more of an institutional and political issue, but also the sense that it is not possible for one of Europe’s leading powers to be, in effect… outside of Europe.

In other words, Brexit has proven to be a completely wrong decision for the British, who seem to be learning from their mistakes in hindsight, but now it is too late.

Because even if the process mentioned above for the United Kingdom’s re-entry into the EU is followed, it means that it won’t be completed any sooner than the middle of the next decade.

Until then, the British are therefore forced to live with this peculiar reality, which in practice means a limited geostrategic, political, and economic role for the United Kingdom in Europe. Nor, of course, is freedom of movement and open borders guaranteed, despite the special bridging agreements between the United Kingdom and the EU.

At the very same time, then, that Britain was deciding to leave the hard core of Europe amid celebrations and fanfare, Greece, meanwhile, was teetering on the brink of collapse. Some wanted and sought Greece’s expulsion from the Eurozone—and thus from the EU’s hard core—— while others within our own borders were set on convincing us that the country would be better off without the oversight of its creditors, by returning to a national currency, and so on.

Some of them even cited as an example the “courage” of the British and their resistance to Brussels, and believed that Brexit supposedly showed us the way forward.

Ten years later, fortunately Greece remained in the Eurozone and the EU, and the only negative aspect of that period and the national division was that we were saddled with a new, third, and unnecessary memorandum.

While this did delay Greece’s definitive exit from the crisis, but at least the steady course the country took after the 2019 elections led to the restoration of its credibility and, ultimately, to its definitive exit from any form of supervision just a few weeks.

As a result, we now look down from on high at the British who are nostalgic for the EU, while we remain at the hard core of Europe and now have a say in decisions—not merely a peripheral or bit-part role.

The near-miss Grexit is, fortunately, a (bad) memory, while Brexit and the British public’s current reaction show us that the path we took was ultimately the right one. Against the tide of all manner of populists who had set out at the time to convince us—and had deeply divided us—that supposedly our lives would be better “with our little drachma” or without “the yoke of the Europeans on our heads.” Alas…