It is true the UK voted to leave the EU.
Unfortunately it means leaving all of the 40 or more deals the EU have done with other economies and trading blocs around the world and organising some kind of border between the UK and the EU in Ireland and deal with the re-emergence of a constitutional crisis in Ireland.
So Leave means rebuild the entire network of trading relationships between the UK and nearly all its international trading partners. At the same time it requires revisiting the delicate constitutional settlement in NI.
These are two quite big problems for any government to solve and they were not foremost in the minds of the general public when they were asked to vote. Most voters in the UK have the haziest notion of how the country trades with other countries and all the know of Northern Ireland is the memories of terrorist bombs and assassinations during the thirty years of the ‘Troubles’. Foremost in their mind was immigration, interference from the EU and the European courts that impact British sovereignty and the financial benefits that would acrue for the NHS if the money sent to the EU was redirected to the Health Service.
The Brexit vote created a political imperative that a faction within the Conservative Party seized upon and Theresa May is anxious to appease. Brexit is promoted rather grandly as ‘the democratic will of the British people’ and the politicians live in fear of the reaction of voters who voted to leave. There are predictions of riots and civil unrest unless the UK government delivers Brexit. Sections of the UK press do their best to keep up the pressure the claims heard during the Referendum campaign that all the worries of the consequences of Brexit are part of ‘Project Fear’ conspiracy by the powers that be to keep the status quo. Theresa May insists that the British public simply want the Government to ‘Get on with it’ and stop making such a fuss. She has made it here mission to deliver Brexit for the British people and has been very vague about what it actually means, only that it will somehow be a benefit.
Consequently public opinion is confused and divided.
The political parties are divided. Both are being driven by factions from the Right and the Left that see a benefit to leaving the EU. The Right think it will usher in a period where the UK leads a charge towards international Free Trade unencumbered by the restrictions of being in trade bloc like the EU. The UK will cut clever, deals with economies across the world and will no longer be held back by the EU. The Left and the faction leading the Labour Party consider the EU to be a capitalist club controlled by the interests of Big business, though they do like some of the EU worker protection policies.
What will happen next?
As the deadline draws near. May presents this a challenge for the UK parliament to accept her negotiated Withdrawal Agreement or deal with the chaos and confusion that will result from a No Deal. The alternatives that have been proposed by various other factions in her party have been sidelined. Most conspicuously the rather obvious solution that is have another Referendum to see what whether the public still want to go through with it.
Pretty soon there will be another vote to see if Parliament will support her deal. If MPs vote against it the country will then have to deal with the consequences and May can lay the blame on Parliament for that happening.
If it goes to a No Deal, there will be a political, economic and constitutional crisis that will unfold over the next few years. Rather like in 1940 there will be a ‘phony war’, a period of anxious preparation for the coming tide of challenges begin. The British will don tin hats and look up to the skies once again. Except this time, the enemy is rather less conspicuously bad. It is rather difficult to see constitutional negotiations in Ireland and international trade talks in a heroic light. The economy will be the focus, there may be a run on the Pound and some years of austerity. There will be a succession of crises over immigration and anxious arrangements to stop an exodus of the EU labour crucial to different sections of the economy and most of all, the NHS.
If Parliament caves in and supports Mays deal as the lesser of two evils, this will kick the can down the road for another couple of years.
The British are inordinately fond of crises and this one will be exquisite because it will be completely self made. Whether any government will convince the public to support a national campaign to deal with these challenges, like a war effort. That I doubt. After all. Half the country will be saying they did not vote for it and those that did will say they they did not vote for the economy to be driven off a cliff, they were told everything would be fine.
The next few weeks should be interesting. The Labour party has started to split. It may be that some Conservatives join them. The tensions within the political parties are very tense, but UK politicians tend to put a high premium on party loyalty. In fact, the are concerned rather more with their party infighting than the interests of the nation (though they say the opposite.) Which is why we got into this mess in the first place.
Personally, I would have rather more faith that some good would come out of this if there was any sort of credible plan coming out of the government to promote international trade in services. Most of what I am hearing about the UK trade prospects after Brexit are not at all encouraging. UK trade negotiators are inexperienced, the EU did that sort of thing for us. So we have to learn from scratch and it takes two sides to reach any sort of deal. Just because the UK is in a crisis and has to cut deals, it does not mean that the rest of the world has to follow the same timetable. If the UK exits without a deal it undermines the credibility of our negotiators completely. If we treat our neighbours like that, the rest of the world will be right to be cautious in their dealing with the UK.
Will May get backing for her deal at the last moment? We will find out in the next few weeks. I suspect there are going to be some resignations. May might even call a General Election if she loses a vote. That would be a good reason to delay the leave deadline.
I’m not going to spend any more time trying to understand his position. I mean, maybe he just hasn’t given it much thought - in that case, it’s fair to admit that as well.
It’s gallows humor, and the bitter aftertaste comes mostly from the knowledge that there’s no fucking benefit to it, the UK could stop any time it wants, but seems insistent to jump headlong onto that landmine. It all comes down to a whole lot of people, particularly people in positions of power, being unforgivably stupid.