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The inevitable Brexit post
Jan. 16th, 2019 09:56 pm[This post was going to be a post about my triumph at having sorted out VPN so I can watch the skiing on Sunday, with a short additional note on Brexit. It has not ended up this way. We begin at paragraph not-originally-one.]
I ought to be writing a post about Brexit, but honestly I am so furious about so many things that I scarcely know where to start. I was never going to be happy at the prospect of the UK leaving the EU, but I might have been reconciled to it by a responsible government that took a cross-party approach and negotiated with parliament and the EU alike in a good faith manner in the actual interests of the country and maintaining strong relationships with trading partners and allies. Instead we get Jacob Rees Mogg and David Davis drinking champagne, while May refuses to say that she won't go for no deal. Theresa May is utterly mad, and only one question remains: since a no deal exit would utterly destroy the Conservative Party, about which Brexit has always really been, why is this apparently a price worth paying for Brexit? And the answer* appears to be "because it keeps the Tories superficially together for just a little bit longer." Because Brexit is, and always has been, not a national affair but one of internal Conservative party politics, the latest manifestation of a long line of failures to contain the Eurosceptics. There is no deal for exactly the same reason that Cameron promised a referendum.
For May herself, I think that her total inability to ever admit she is wrong, or change her mind, is a powerful factor. "Brexit means Brexit", she says, continuing to fail to define the undefinable. Meanwhile the rest of us watch someone trying to do the same thing again and again expecting different results. There are no different results, not if you keep bringing back the same crap and going "What about this time? Do you like it this time? I made you wait a month, so you like it now?" May will not be prepared to budge on anything that might make the Tory Remainers or the opposition parties vote for it, even though that has been the obvious way to get a bill through the Commons for 18 months. She has to gain 116 extra votes without losing any (or at least gain one extra for each lost), and she has no strategy to do it because she is fundamentally incapable of compromise, as demonstrated by the fact that even though at this point a customs union might well fly, she has preemptively ruled out discussing it. The red lines** are apparently immovable. Apparently, the Brexiters would vote for her deal if she got rid of the Irish border backstop: except that the EU will of course refuse that, as has always been obvious, on account of their (1) supporting their continuing member, Ireland, and (2) having a slightly greater aversion to re-starting a civil war than the Conservative MPs apparently did***. The ERG will not budge on anything short of no deal, and even then they'll say you did it wrong because you can never appease a bunch of people who will only be satisfied with (1) making money for themselves and their mates out of chaos, and (2) bombing Brussels with a Lancaster pulling a banner reading "Up yours Delors!" And meanwhile they lie, lie, lie about the sunny uplands full of unicorn farms.
May's goal, I assume, is to preserve herself in power, the Tories in government as a single party in name however divided in practice, and to "Deliver Brexit." Every hour she achieves remaining witlessly in charge of the sinking ship is a success equal to actually patching the hole, because success is measured simply by the fact of having that power even if you can't exercise it. But ultimately she will fall, and she doesn't care that in doing this she is liable to pull down herself, the country, and the bloody Tories with her. No one votes for the party that leaves them without food on the supermarket shelves. No one.
I mean, it isn't everyday I find myself 100% in agreement with the head of the British Chamber of Commerce, but when he says "There are no more words to describe the frustration, impatience and growing anger among business after two and a half years on a high-stakes political roller coaster ride that shows no sign of stopping" I am absolutely with him.
And so, I bring you my solution: the PM will not resign. The Tories will not (yet?) force her out. Therefore we need something that would really shame the Tory donors into action: Theresa May/Boris Johnson/Jacob Rees Mogg deepfake porn. Normally I would be strongly against such things, but in a time of crisis all things must be considered.
*Well, one of them. The other is that people want to make money out of it and this is their vehicle.
**Surely a deliberate reference to the language of empire, mired as the whole project is in such poisonous nostalgia.
*** You would think that having your conference hotel bombed and the then PM nearly assassinated would help MPs to grasp that the Good Friday Agreement is a necessary thing to preserve, but apparently not. I suppose they don't take public transport and thus do not measure civil safety through the presence or otherwise of bins in railway stations, which inconveniences even the people not getting shot.
I ought to be writing a post about Brexit, but honestly I am so furious about so many things that I scarcely know where to start. I was never going to be happy at the prospect of the UK leaving the EU, but I might have been reconciled to it by a responsible government that took a cross-party approach and negotiated with parliament and the EU alike in a good faith manner in the actual interests of the country and maintaining strong relationships with trading partners and allies. Instead we get Jacob Rees Mogg and David Davis drinking champagne, while May refuses to say that she won't go for no deal. Theresa May is utterly mad, and only one question remains: since a no deal exit would utterly destroy the Conservative Party, about which Brexit has always really been, why is this apparently a price worth paying for Brexit? And the answer* appears to be "because it keeps the Tories superficially together for just a little bit longer." Because Brexit is, and always has been, not a national affair but one of internal Conservative party politics, the latest manifestation of a long line of failures to contain the Eurosceptics. There is no deal for exactly the same reason that Cameron promised a referendum.
For May herself, I think that her total inability to ever admit she is wrong, or change her mind, is a powerful factor. "Brexit means Brexit", she says, continuing to fail to define the undefinable. Meanwhile the rest of us watch someone trying to do the same thing again and again expecting different results. There are no different results, not if you keep bringing back the same crap and going "What about this time? Do you like it this time? I made you wait a month, so you like it now?" May will not be prepared to budge on anything that might make the Tory Remainers or the opposition parties vote for it, even though that has been the obvious way to get a bill through the Commons for 18 months. She has to gain 116 extra votes without losing any (or at least gain one extra for each lost), and she has no strategy to do it because she is fundamentally incapable of compromise, as demonstrated by the fact that even though at this point a customs union might well fly, she has preemptively ruled out discussing it. The red lines** are apparently immovable. Apparently, the Brexiters would vote for her deal if she got rid of the Irish border backstop: except that the EU will of course refuse that, as has always been obvious, on account of their (1) supporting their continuing member, Ireland, and (2) having a slightly greater aversion to re-starting a civil war than the Conservative MPs apparently did***. The ERG will not budge on anything short of no deal, and even then they'll say you did it wrong because you can never appease a bunch of people who will only be satisfied with (1) making money for themselves and their mates out of chaos, and (2) bombing Brussels with a Lancaster pulling a banner reading "Up yours Delors!" And meanwhile they lie, lie, lie about the sunny uplands full of unicorn farms.
May's goal, I assume, is to preserve herself in power, the Tories in government as a single party in name however divided in practice, and to "Deliver Brexit." Every hour she achieves remaining witlessly in charge of the sinking ship is a success equal to actually patching the hole, because success is measured simply by the fact of having that power even if you can't exercise it. But ultimately she will fall, and she doesn't care that in doing this she is liable to pull down herself, the country, and the bloody Tories with her. No one votes for the party that leaves them without food on the supermarket shelves. No one.
I mean, it isn't everyday I find myself 100% in agreement with the head of the British Chamber of Commerce, but when he says "There are no more words to describe the frustration, impatience and growing anger among business after two and a half years on a high-stakes political roller coaster ride that shows no sign of stopping" I am absolutely with him.
And so, I bring you my solution: the PM will not resign. The Tories will not (yet?) force her out. Therefore we need something that would really shame the Tory donors into action: Theresa May/Boris Johnson/Jacob Rees Mogg deepfake porn. Normally I would be strongly against such things, but in a time of crisis all things must be considered.
*Well, one of them. The other is that people want to make money out of it and this is their vehicle.
**Surely a deliberate reference to the language of empire, mired as the whole project is in such poisonous nostalgia.
*** You would think that having your conference hotel bombed and the then PM nearly assassinated would help MPs to grasp that the Good Friday Agreement is a necessary thing to preserve, but apparently not. I suppose they don't take public transport and thus do not measure civil safety through the presence or otherwise of bins in railway stations, which inconveniences even the people not getting shot.
