I think it was Karl Marx who said history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce but in the case of Brexit what began as a tragedy is now descending into farce. The nation is terribly divided and yet the government, led for the time being by the arch Brexiteers, is making no attempt to reconcile the two sides. And the press is still feeding the division.
Articles are appearing like this one in The Telegraph (HERE) claiming we hold all the cards in the Brexit negotiations or this one in The Yorkshire Post (HERE) by Bill Carmichael suggesting the cards are all stacked in our favour. Mr Carmichael even thinks the customs proposals we put forward for a frictionless border were "sensible" and "workable" - unfortunately within a couple of days David Davis himself said the proposals were dead and we would probably have a hard border (HERE). The Spectator (HERE) says we must call Barnier's bluff. The allusions to card games are all appropriate since Brexiteers are gambling massively with the future of 65 million people.
On the other side The Guardian (HERE) believes the Brexit talks are, on our side, simply clouds of delusion and quotes Davis from last year saying by September 2017 (i.e. now) we would be in the middle of trade talks with all our favoured partners. In fact we are still in the starting blocks in the process of disentangling ourselves from the EU. Alex Massie in The Spectator (HERE) asks how much pain Brexiteers are prepared to inflict on us - the answer in my opinion is quite a lot.
He points out that Brexiteers often say we should be happy to take a short term economic hit in order to free ourselves but seem to think the EU will want to avoid at all costs taking a similar but less painful economic hit. Err, no, they are just as keen to preserve the EU as Brexiteers are to break it. It's always dangerous to ascribe different feelings to your opponents that the ones you have yourself.
Nick Cohen also has another great article (HERE) suggesting the fantasy that is Brexit will cost us dear.
Davis made a speech in the US on Friday and in the following press conference claimed The Times had once described him as a "charming bastard" on the front page. It turns out this was his own quote about himself and it appeared on page 19 in 1994. He also boasted his nickname was Lazarus - although I have never heard anyone use it. The Huffington Post (HERE) described it all as cringe worthy and Labour has said it was like an episode of The Thick of it. The Germans are laughing at us too. An article in the Sud Deutsche Zeitung (HERE) talks about our "fantastic four" meaning May, Johnson, Davis and Fox putting on a bizarre performance. It thinks Mrs may has about as much chance of leading her party into the next GE as the England football team have of winning the World Cup and says, "Whatever one may think about the British people’s decision to leave the EU, no one could possibly envy them the team that now has the task of implementing it". It's all embarrassingly true but also very funny.
What a mess we are in. 571 days to go.
