Brexit: running on empty
By Pete North - October 17, 2020
Right now I find it difficult to care about Brexit news. I can’t be bothered with the theatricals. It was always going to come down to a take it or leave it ultimatum from the EU and that’s where we are at.
The Johnson administration has employed a number of gambits all of which have been a soggy flop – as we all knew they would be. The EU is not playing games. Had the UK been seriously engaged in the process the EU could have met us in the middle, but instead of treating the talks as a process to design a new framework for trade relations the UK has been playing silly buggers.
Being that the UK has not provided the assurances, the EU has little to work with so it can only maintain its maximalist position in defence of its system integrity and sovereignty. It’s now up to Johnson to decide who he can least afford to piss off. Between now and decision day, there is not much to be said. It has all been said.
That, though, does not stop the noisemakers polluting the debate. We’re now getting all the same lurid warnings about no deal as though the deal in the offing were any solution to the woes of industry. It’s some cause for worry that neither the government nor industry bodies have grasped the enormity of what is about to unfold irrespective of a deal.
As to the online debate, there is still no persuading anyone of anything. Perceptions are deeply entrenched and it’s simply not possible to address the misapprehensions through Twitter. The Brexiteer victim narrative is too strong and I’m exhausted with it all. Further engagement doesn’t make the damndest bit of difference so we might as well save our energies til January when things get interesting.
In any case, negotiations are not ending anytime soon. Deal or no deal we face the long and arduous task of rebuilding a functioning trade relationship over the coming years. With this phase out of the way, the troublemakers and propagandists will have moved on to something else, and maybe we might then start having more sensible discussions.
As to the tsunami of bullshit in the meantime, with endless disingenuous debates about Canada style deals, one may as well head for the hills and let the waves wash ashore. You either get it or you don’t. The Brexiteers don’t get it. But they will. By January they will be learning first hand all the things they thought they knew about trade are not what they seem.
As for the rest of us, next year is a new beginning. An awakening is coming. We are used to limping from one farce to another, yet somehow we put up with it. I think, though, that the tolerance threshold will be reached some time next year. Or at least I hope so.
This government is not handling things well. Test and trace is a shambles, and we can fully expect that systemic incompetence to spill over into Brexit, as government goes into firefighting mode. We’ll see more of the same cronyism and corporate failure (without consequence). Soon it will become apparent that the various arms of government have not only stopped working, but have been broken for some time.
It’s not just things like posts and customs. The courts, the police, energy generation, primary care and social care… are all reaching breaking point. Not through a lack of funds, but from a deeper set withering of good government. It’s not simply a case of neglect. There is a fundamental rot born of complacency. We simply assume the basics will carry on as they always have.
But good government isn’t something that just happens. It is built on solid local foundations. With essential arms of government cleaved off into remote agencies and run directly from the centre, it is no surprise at all that things like test and trace don’t work. There is no ownership or accountability, and no initiative because the power is no longer ours. Things that are broken stay broken and eventually that dysfunction reaches critical mass.
I’ve long said that Brexit would be make or break for Britain. I keep wondering what it will take for the public to make a stand. Next year could well be the turning point when we have the collective realisation that politics must change. If not, and we simply resign ourselves to this galactic incompetence and corruption then the UK will not survive, and probably doesn’t deserve to.