The sad truth is that over three years after the vote, over five months since we were first meant to leave the EU and a couple of months before the latest deadline, no one has a clue what Brexit means. We have a buffoon of a Prime Minister, who is great at feelgood rhetoric, but is absolutely clueless about actually having a plan to make sure we can all still run our businesses, get the medical supplies and food we need and is in a state of denial about the predictions that his own civil servants are giving him. If we really were going to do a 'Hard Brexit' we should have been preparing for it from the day after the referendum. We should not have submitted Article 50 until we 100% knew we had a plan in place to mitigate the bad effects. As we've been in the EU for decades, there was no need to put our economy at risk by rushing. The argument from the hard Brexiteers is that if you don't rush, then we'd stay in forever. To me this is the argument of charlatans who simply don't understand that other people might suffer. The irony that Nigel Farage will get a tasty, protected EU pension as an MEP is not wasted on me.
The concept that we could do a trade deal with the USA is bonkers beyond belief. Donald Trump would want to see us lower our food standards, open the NHS up to US corporations and our countryside to US frackers. You may think this is marvellous, but the EU is our biggest market for food products and if we adopt US standards, we won't be able to sell into the EU, causing havoc for our farmers. My fear is that we'll become a dumping ground for sub standard US products. Every projection says that the £ will take a battering if we have a hard Brexit. It has already lost almost1/3rd of its value since the referendum. This is why so many products are more expensive. This will get worse.
I was listening to Jo Swinson on BBC Radio London this morning. She explained that if there is to be a no confidence motion and 'Government of National Unity' to negotiate an extension to Article 50 to see us through an election, then she didn't feel that Jeremy Corbyn would be the right person to lead it. She suggested Harriet Harman or Ken Clarke. Her reasoning is that neither have long term ambitions. My personal view is that Ken Clarke should be considered. As the job will be for a couple of months, I agree with Swinson that someone without long term ambitions would be the best placed person. Clarke has huge experience of government, which would seem to be very useful. An MP with no experience of the Civil Service is likely to be walked all over. When an MP is elected and knows they have five years to settle scores, the Civil service are more circumspect, but I honestly think they would shaft Corbyn if he was the 'Prime Minister of Last Resort'. I don't think Clarke would fall for that.
I actually think that if Corbyn said "for the good of the Country, we need a period of stability to sort the mess out" he'd win huge kudos and perhaps answer some critics who claim he is too narrow, too factional and too wrapped up in his own ideology. It is not unprecedented. The Labour party put Winston Churchill into power in 1940, at the time of the last existential crisis for the UK. When the war was won, Attlee won an election and founded the NHS. Sometimes doing the right thing and waiting is the right thing to do. I believe that any leader of a government of National Unity should be from the largest party and a figure that people from all parties can work with.
Don't get me wrong, in no other circumstances would I argue for the next Prime Minister to be a Conservative, but this is a very different scenario. Clarke would not be anything more than a safe pair of hands, until an election could be held and hopefully some degree of stable government could be put together.
The problem with all of this is that country is split 50/50. Whatever happens re Brexit will see a lot of people feeling very let down. I personally do not think that even after an election, with a stonking majority, either Boris Or Corbyn could heal this. How do we put the country back together again?
Well one of the biggest myths is that Remainers do not understand democracy, as they 'won't accept the referendum result'. The whole point about democracies is that you can change your mind, you can lose an election and a referendum and you don't have to change your mind. After the 1975 referendum on the Common Market, no one said that people who lost had to change their mind. They spent the next 40 years doing exactly what Remainers are now doing, telling the other side that they were wrong. The reason that Nigel Farage has a career is precisely because he didn't accept the previous referendum. The Brexiteers wheel out all manner of reasons why the 1975 referendum was not relevant. We were lied to, it was a long time ago, it was about the Common Market not the EU, etc. The bottom line is that in politics, the losing side is always bitter. We are not in 1934 Germany, where if you didn't agree with the Nazi's (who came to power via an election, political turmoil and a coalition rather like Mr Johnson, - and that is pretty much where the similarities end) you were sent to a concentration camp. Here, you grouch and you campaign for another chance.
What the Remain side have never done is made their case properly. They never pointed out that the 'Single Market' was something Margaret Thatcher passionately fought for. She hated the political side of the EU, but recognised the need for free trade. They seem allergic to mentioning that the money we pay the EU enables us to have common standards that allow our products to be sold anywhere in the EU. They don't mention that EU fishing policies have seen the North Sea recover its fishing stocks. I've never been an EU enthusiast, it's just that I've not seen any properly argued case that leaving the EU will be in the best interests of the UK. There are arguments for all manner of single issues that you can demonstrate that the EU is not particularly good, but that is very different from a coherent argument that UK would be better off outside the EU. I've lots of Brexit supporting friends who will tell me things like "we don't want Brussels telling us what sort of sausages we can eat". These sort of arguments show just how well the Mail and the Sun have managed to convince the UK population that such matters are of national importance. Last time I looked, we can still buy tasteless sausages in Tesco's (other supermarkets are available). Then there are those who say "We'll be better off under GATT 24 WTO rules". Sadly, I've yet to have anyone who understands economics explain how this would work in the real world. If this was true, surely by now a group of senior economists would have explained how this could happen. This is usually met with a response that "THE EXPERTS ARE ALWAYS WRONG". This is the same logic that has made people abandon MMR jabs and is why we are now seeing a Measles epidemic. They say that "look at the predictions of doom after the referendum". Well if you look at the exchange rate of the pound, you will see just how much damage has been done to the UK.
This is not ta sign of a wealthy, prosperous and successful country. It is a sign of a country that has made a very bad decision. This is based purely on market sentiment. This tells us that the rest of the world does not want to invest in the UK. Every dip on the graph has been when a Hard Brexit has seemed likely.
I don't think anyone advocating Brexit or Remain should be described by the other side as 'Traitors', the language terrifies me. It seems to me that some demagogic figures are ratcheting up this sort of language to try and scare the other side. I believe in sane, rational discussion. A UKIP supporting Brexiteer living in Burnt Oak has the same right to his view as a Lib Dem remainer in Mill Hill. If both are truly patriotic, they would reach our to each other, find common ground and some sort of way to get over this mess. I can't see how at this moment, but I suggest that Twitter is not really helpful in this case. I can't see how when something is a binary choice such as Brexit that divides people so much, and there is a 50/50 split this can be done.
There are some things that are clear. London and Scotland are staunchly remain and the rest of the mainland isn't. Northern Ireland is in deep trouble unless we stay in the Customs Union. The country is not prepared for a hard Brexit. Parliament is aanti Brexit and the Civil Service is anti Brexit. Foreign press owners are pro Brexit. Donald Trump, who hates the EU is Pro Brexit. Vladimir Putin is also pro Brexit. When it comes to treason for a UK citizen, pushing for the breakup of the UK used to be viewed as a treasonous activity. So when people who support a policy that is supported by foreign powers who don't have the UK's best interests at heart, a policy which could result in the disintegration of the United Kingdom, start calling people who believe the opposite traitors, maybe, they need to sit down and have a moment of quiet reflection.
One final thought. Just suppose Boris gets his way and prorogues Parliament to force a hard Brexit. There are two realistic scenarios that may scupper the "best trade deal ever" that Trump is promising. The first is that Jeremy Corbyn wins the election that will inevitably follow. If you think that won't happen, just check the headlines from the day Theresa May called that election. The second is that it is not entirely impossible that the Democrats will win the election in the US next year. I suspect that they will take a totally different view to Trump, especially if the Irish get shafted by us.
Never mind though, we have signed a trade protocol with Luxembourg.
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