As Clear As Mud!

'prepared to accept hard Brexit'

So now it’s official; Mrs May wants to have her cake and eat it! One wonders what she would say if Mr May announced he was leaving her, but wanted to go on living in the family home?

What is one to make of someone saying, on one side of her mouth, “we want to trade with you as freely as possible, and work with one another to make sure we are all safer, more secure and more prosperous through continued friendship,” while on the other, “We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave”?

What does she think the nations of Europe have been doing for the last half century, if not trying to achieve the former? But now everything has to stop, huge amounts of money and effort have to be wasted, so that we can all set about reinventing the wheel, all to suit the likes of Mr Nigel Farage, UKIP, the DUP etc! And on this basis she proposes to unite Her Majesty’s fractured kingdom?

Such two-faced hypocrisy will be called out by events. It is already happening in Northern Ireland, where the tension between those who feel empowered by the nationalistic and imperialistic undertones of Brexit (such as the present DUP leadership), and those who react against them, are inflaming all the pre-existing tensions that have bedeviled the recently collapsed power-sharing executive. It is the context of the EU that made it possible at all, and it is hard to see how it can be put together again  in the present circumstances.

The main hope there must be that a sufficient number of DUP members will take a lead from their Scottish cousins, while these will forge ahead with their project for a Scotland independent of Brexitland. Roll out the Celtic Alliance on the Gannetsway!

Meanwhile the institutions of Europe will have to get a whole more 'subsidiarized' and responsive, but also a lot tougher in some respects. They might start by firing Mr Farage out of the European Parliament; I for one really object to their continuing to pay his salary, while he has the nerve to lecture the likes of me about ‘treachery’!

Of course Mrs May is anticipating that things will get nasty; we all know how divorces tend to start with good intentions for a 'civilized' relationship, before they become really bitter. She is busy painting herself in the colours of sweetness and light now so that she can blame the Europeans when they do so.

Consider the ridiculous narrative that Mr Philip Hammond was trying to spin in Germany lately. According to the Guardian, 'In an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Hammond commented that if Britain was left closed off from European markets after leaving the EU, it would consider leaving behind a European-style social model, with “European-style taxation systems, European-style regulation systems” and “become something different”.

Asked to clarify his remark, the chancellor told his German interviewers: “We could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people are not going to lie down and say, too bad, we’ve been wounded. We will change our model, and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged.”'

‘If Britain was left closed off ‘...’forced’...’we’ve been wounded’... what sort of language is this? Who is doing the leaving? Who is it that wants nothing further to do with the European Union? Is this arrogance or mere confusion? But as for the bright future they purport to be lining up for the British people, it just does not stack up. It is already the case that this ‘great trading nation’ needs to do something drastic to ‘regain competitiveness’; in fact the use of the word ‘regain’ is entirely inappropriate in this context. Here is a graph from the British Government of their balance of payments….

Something drastic needs to be done; the status quo is not sustainable. What is to be done? Well, for a start, the currency has to be devalued, but how does one get away with deliberately doing that? Blame the Europeans and invoke the Dunkirk spirit of course! Then one can set about berating a fractious populace with the need for ‘national unity’ and ‘discipline’ as inflation takes hold, prices and interest rates go up, and they get screwed into the ground!

The whole outbreak of right-wing populism is a neurotic response to national decline, like the bombastic mullarkies of the new President in Washington. Mr Hammond's proposed race to the bottom in corporate tax rates is the exact opposite of what needs to happen, and this is just one reason why international solidarity is a condition for making our societies more just....

When I started the blog I never imagined it would become so political. Someone suggested the other day that I should find a new name for it. Well, that’s a nuisance, and anyway my favourite images derive from sea-faring and fishing. Oh yes, I'll be getting back to the Common Fisheries Policy, its iniquitous failings and how they should be addressed. But for now, let's remember that to return to a regime of 'might is right' and 'the survival of the fittest', such as this new wave of nationalists imply, is not going to help!

Still travelling, by Paddington...

and the Galtee mountains in sunny Ireland!

Photos by Fiona.