This article HERE by professor Chris Grey makes a lot of really excellent points, about how the simplicity of Brexit is slowly coming face to face with complex reality - and losing every time. It will do so until one day, in a few months, Brexit's fantasy and cold hard reality will collide with disastrous results for the country, Theresa May and the Conservative party.
The article talks about all the lies. Not the £350 million a week for the NHS but how easy Brexit was going to be. As the author writes:
"There’s just no way that any country in the 21st Century can detach itself from whatever its long-term economic and geopolitical anchors may be without sustaining massive damage. It is irrelevant that many countries in the world are not in the EU: those countries have different histories and different economic and geopolitical anchors and would also be damaged were they to abandon them. No developed, democratic country in modern history has ever attempted such a thing".
All of this is true, however much the Brexiteers and the anti-EU press cover their ears and eyes, sooner or later reality will force them to confront the disaster they have willed on the innocent people of this country, remainers and leavers alike.
But Professor Grey makes an interesting observation in the article, that among the people who are having to wrestle with the complex reality of Brexit, the negotiators, the civil servants and business there is almost certainly a huge majority to remain.
"This, [May refusing to be honest about the problems] in turn, has set up a situation where the entire country is undertaking this huge change in a spirit of sullen resentment and anger. That is obviously the case for remainers, who have been treated with complete contempt and are simply expected to ‘suck it up’ even though, the voting statistics suggest, they include the majority of those who actually have to deal with the practicalities of Brexit, whether in the civil service, business or civil society, and the majority of the economically active population".
"This, [May refusing to be honest about the problems] in turn, has set up a situation where the entire country is undertaking this huge change in a spirit of sullen resentment and anger. That is obviously the case for remainers, who have been treated with complete contempt and are simply expected to ‘suck it up’ even though, the voting statistics suggest, they include the majority of those who actually have to deal with the practicalities of Brexit, whether in the civil service, business or civil society, and the majority of the economically active population".
The Brexiteers are not in a position to do the work themselves. Davis and Fox, ostensibly in charge of the departments controlling the process are of course enthusiastic Brexiteers, but everything they do is done through the civil service. It's hard to see how we can be successful when those doing the work are opposed to it.
In fact one can see that the Brexit process since 23rd June 2016 has been one in which Brexiteers and leave voters have, at every stage, had to discover the incredible weakness of our position. The EU have made all the running and will continue to do so. What we are seeing is the sheer power of the two year timetable for Article 50 negotiations coming into play. As March 29th 2019 approaches we will concede anything and everything because there are no contingency plans for us to become a third country, with all that that means, overnight. It would destroy our economy.
And the professor also points to this, which is also true I think:
"Notably absent is any sense of joy or excitement from those who support Brexit or even, now, any great claims for its benefits, rather than a kind of Dunkirk — we can get through this, and it may not be as bad as people say — doggedness".
It is almost as if we don't want economic success or higher standards of living but we yearn for a Dunkirk style defeat, where the odds are stacked against us. We actually want an existential struggle against a superior enemy - one we are bound to lose, so we can all muddle through together, just like 1940. Madness isn't it?
