Another day in the Brexit saga yesterday as Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General and Stephen Barclay headed back to Brussels with Cox denying he has given up trying to get the Withdrawal Agreement changed and saying there is still 'hope' (HERE). I suppose you can always find somebody with 'hope' for the dodo but it isn't going to bring it back from extinction. It's a testament to humanities odd belief in the power of hope.
The Telegraph gives a firm thumbs down to the £1.6 billion Brexit Stronger Towns Fund (HERE) or what they call a 'bung' and say the left behind areas should be given the "opportunity to thrive" under Brexit (HERE). I am afraid it's behind a paywall so I can't tell you quite what they mean by 'opportunity' or 'thrive'. I assume Swindon might be interested in the idea after 2021 when Honda have pulled out - the first Honda plant to close in the company's seventy year history.
And let's not forget Burnaston (Toyota), Oxford (BMW), Sunderland (Nissan) and Broughton (Airbus) who will also be all ears for The Telegraph's plan and no doubt desperately looking for the EU Directive that has hitherto banned firms thriving in the UK. This will be the first EU law to be repealed I assume - and not a moment too soon.
BMW and Toyota both took the opportunity at the Geneva Motor Show this week (HERE) to issue stark warnings of the impact of the UK exiting without a deal. Johan van Zyl, the head of Toyota's European operations, said it was vital that there was 'frictionless trade' with the European Union.
Peter Schwarzenbauer, a BMW board member, said if a "worst case" no-deal scenario happened, "we would need to consider what it exactly means for us in the long run" and added that, "For Mini, this is really a danger." These warnings echoed those from Ford, Nissan, JLR and Airbus and plenty of others.
But in a sign that either a majority of the British people or Ian Duncan Smith has completely lost touch with reality, IDS was appearing on Bloomberg TV (HERE) at more or less the same time, telling an American audience that the polls showed a majority of people in this country want to leave without a deal - thus deliberately provoking the catastrophe that major foreign investors in the UK like Toyota and BMW were warning about. This is IDS:
"If you look at the polling it’s quite clear that the vast majority want to get out now, even if they voted Remain, and just get on with it.
"It’s very difficult, you know, to break it down, but all the polling tells us categorically – and the same in my constituency – which is [sic] that the majority are happy to get out without a withdrawal agreement, that gets the highest scoring of the lot".
Needless to say he has come in for some stick - the polls show nothing of the sort.
And sadly, IDS was not being played by the late and great Graham Chapman wearing the uniform of a British Army officer and bringing the Brexit sketch to a close by declaring it as 'too silly'. Brexit is not a Monty Python sketch, although it sometimes seems like it.
All of which brings me conveniently to an article (HERE) in the English language edition of Der Spiegel which should be required reading at Leave Means Leave and in every school in the country. It is a humiliating if painfully accurate look at ourselves through German eyes. Do read it.
Some quotes:
"Almost everyone who has a say in Brexit belongs to the British establishment, meaning they went to an outrageously expensive private school and completed their studies at Cambridge or Oxford. In this regard, too, we have been enlightened. What in the name of God do they learn there? It certainly can't be skills that would prepare them for the real world. Or would you trust a lawyer who regularly shows up to negotiations so completely unprepared that they have to be broken off again after just a few minutes?
"We don't want to be unfair. We have the British to thank for afternoon tea, Monty Python and the Beatles, which is more than many countries have managed to produce in their history. Plus, they have the queen, which, for someone like myself, who tends toward monarchism, is a reason to admire the UK. It is also worth noting that at a certain point in every country's history, decay becomes unavoidable. Some do so slowly, others more rapidly.
"The fact that the British are doing so rather quickly at the moment could have something to do with the fact that it is an island nation. I have never really understood how people could convince themselves that keeping entirely to themselves is advantageous. A look across the English Channel provides a telling example of what can go wrong".
So, let us weep for what we have become - an international joke.
