Matthew Parris has written his column for The Times this week with the title: The Conservatives are criminally incompetent (HERE - but behind a paywall). The Times is a pro EU paper and Mr Parris an ardent remainer but this week his column is not really about whether or not we should leave but more about the manner of Brexit's realisation. He lambasts the party of which he is a member and which he represented for years in and out of parliament for the Brexit fiasco.
He says the party is responsible for it all, echoing a post on this blog some days ago (HERE). They offered a referendum that they did not need to with a binary choice and voters were entitled, he says, to believe both options could be delivered. When leave won, the voters thought the party was prepared to go through with the choice they had made. If it wasn't clear before the referendum it was very soon afterwards that the government, and particularly Conservative Brexiteers, were woefully unprepared for what was and is to come.
Parris says Conservative party owns Brexit lock, stock and barrel and I agree wholeheartedly with this. The comments below his article was running at 1350 and rising, demonstrating the heat that Brexit continues to generate. The majority of comments are positive in my opinion.
I know there are some Conservative MPs, ministers and former ministers, clever men and women all, who believe passionately that Brexit is an unalloyed triumph. They will never doubt it until the nation lies in ruins and perhaps not even then. But I assume there are others, soft leavers who must now be having second thoughts, if only to themselves when they lie awake at night going over what is happening as the negotiations get underway. They would be less than human if the occasional doubt did not intrude into their thinking.
The whole issue of Brexit increases in complexity every week. Something new and unforeseen with huge implications for trade, commerce, food security and safety for instance, pops up every week. And while more and more things arise to be dealt with the time available for dealing with them and developing a negotiating position let alone reaching an agreement, reduces. It is a classic scenario for bureaucratic overload and chaos in March 2019.
Talk of a transitional period might reassure some but we rely on the EU to grant us one. This cannot be long delayed. All 27 EU members must agree to it and this is not guaranteed. Industry will not be happy to wait until our feet are at the cliff edge. Certainty is needed now.
