Ever since the negotiations started, I have always believed we would eventually reach an agreement, and even now I am still convinced sanity will prevail. But I have to confess it is looking less likely than it was. The government is, if anything, digging in and making inflammatory statements that ministers like Raab will find it very difficult to pedal backwards from.
At the beginning I also thought the economy would bring home to enough of the leave voting masses that Brexit is a folly we cannot afford. In spite of growth slowing down we are limping along with no really serious adverse effects yet clear although I still believe the economy is the key battleground that will eventually take us back in to the EU.
Something I do stand by is my often stated belief that after Brexit nobody will be happy. I was reminded of this by an article in The New European this week about fishermen (HERE). There is real anger in small fishing communities but as the article explains, much of their problem is down to the way quotas are set by the UK government, not the EU, and the recent White Paper explicitly says this is not going to change. Bigger vessels will get the bulk of the quotas while boats under 10m, that make up most of the British fleet will get a small fraction.
Yesterday, I wrote about Patrick Minford and his plan to "run down" the car industry (HERE).
Are any of these communities going to be happy? I doubt it. And those who wanted to reduce immigration will be as disappointed as those who wanted a bonfire of regulations or the farmers, unable to get access to their largest export market. No one will be satisfied.
The Conservative party Brexiteers (and some in Labour) frequently tell themselves there will be riots if Brexit is not delivered. But equally, there will be boiling anger if it is and provides none of the purported benefits or things actually get worse - as we remainers have always feared.
On this subject I noted on the EU Referendum blog there is a regular contributor who goes by the name TonyNorthEast. He is a keen Brexiteer who makes Nigel Farage look reasonable. TonyNorthEast is argumentative and gratuitously offensive to just about every other contributor. He perhaps offers a warning to us of what is likely to happen over the next few years. He strikes me as one of those types who used to defend communism in the sixties, even down to thinking the Berlin wall was a necessary thing. TonyNorthEast might well have been one of them.
I noted this little exchange on Friday last week:
Darko Roje:
"This [where we are at present] is the result of the incredible irresponsibility of the Brexiters who have paralyzed the government . The no deal warnings are starting to appear in the press but most people still cannot believe it will come to that. If it does come to pass the aftermath will be ugly. A few led lights will not save anybody from the consequences".
TonyNorthEast replying to Darko Roje:
"The government paralysed themselves by accepting bad advice from a civil service who seem wholly duplicitous at a senior level.
""Does ‘No Deal’ equate to leaving - yes - if that’s whatever on offer then the duty of the government is now to make the best of it.
... And let’s not forget all the slimy remainers who constantly ran to Brussels to undermine any possibility of leaving with a good deal".
TonyNorthEast blames "duplicitous" civil servants and "slimy remainers" rather than Brexiteers or the sheer impossibility of Brexit. He cannot comprehend even what the EU is or that there are any difficulties or compromises to be made with Brexit. One has to be stunned with his idea that the government's duty, faced with no deal, is to "make the best of it".
This is like turning up at the cliff edge having forgotten your hang glider but deciding to jump anyway and "make the best of it".
I have never seen from him a single word of criticism or doubt about Brexit itself. Leaving the EU is cause celebre for him, worth any price in treasure or blood, as if we are struggling to throw off the yoke of a hated oppressor. Brexit is the sacred cow that can do no wrong.
It's not hard to imagine TonyNorthEast after the apocalypse, watching the four horsemen ride away from the smoking wasteland of the British isles and cheering the fact we have got our sovereignty back but blaming all the damage on slimy remainers and everyone else who doesn't share his insane obsession. The well being of his fellow citizens means nothing to him, only Brexit, Brexit and more Brexit.
When nobody is happy with what Brexit delivers, I am afraid this will almost certainly be the story that the Brexiteers will spread. We should be prepared for it.
