What don’t I think (about Brexit)?
It’s been a strange week or two; for some reason I’ve found myself in Westminster a lot, lobbying on behalf of scam victims, discussing the “net-pay anomaly”, listening to the Pensions Minister on open banking and open pensions and just riding my bike past on my way to meetings in Victoria and beyond.
I feel on the edge of something very big which everyone else knows about but me. The big thing is of course BREXIT and the reason everyone else knows about it (but not me) is that it scares me rigid.
What scares me is trying to think through the 500 pages of thoughtfulness that went into the draft agreement. My friend Con Keating who has read it tells me that the “City” section has eight pages devoted to it – fishing one more. He was surprised that there is so little in the agreement for the City – but -heh- you can get a lot in eight pages.
I absolutely refuse to engage.
My partner Stella has strong views, she’s a “let’s get out and bugger the consequences” type of working class girl – unreconstructed.
Most of my friends are remainers, as I should be, I was brought up a Liberal and still go to the Liberal Club. For a long time – being a Liberal was about loving being a European when everyone else didn’t.
Any reasonable middle class Englishman in his mid to late fifties ought to be a remainer – or so I’m told.
And yet I remain on the edge of politics and semi-detached from the arguments. I admire Mrs May for just getting on with it and taking the strain so that people like me can carry on riding a bike past Westminster without being hit by a rock!
What do I think?
It is almost impossible not to have to think about Briexit, whether its on the TV or on my bike or in a meeting, there’s always something thinking or shouting or discussing Brexit when you want to be getting on with something else.
I do think we are wasting colossal amounts of time discussing things that are beyond our reach. When we voted in the referendum (shamefully I can’t remember what I voted), we voted blind and I think that most of our chatter is blind. Those 500 pages don’t mean anything to me because whatever happens, is beyond my control. This is something that is happening to me- I don’t like it – but shit happens. At least it’s not war.
I do think that those people who are taking on jobs and then resigning from them are hapless. “There are only four more Brexit Ministers to Christmas” is my favorite Brexit joke.
I do think that – May apart – there is nobody ‘seems to be’ coming out of all this with much dignity.
I don’t understand why someone who’s job it is to oversee Universal Credit and Pensions should resign from her job over our negotiations over leaving Europe. I don’t get how that helps the people who she was supposed to be helping, but there have been so many politicians who have said they want to make a difference to those on benefits, I am beginning to wonder if the “benefits” pertain only to them.
Now we have a petition of 48 people wanting to get rid of Mrs May, most of whom appear to be serial troublemakers.
What possible good would it be to sack the manager at this stage? If we are going down, let’s have the captain leave the ship last- let’s not kick her into the waves out of puerile vengeance.
If – as seems very likely – we don’t get the BREXIT we wanted, let’s remember that we spent the first two years of our negotiations arguing with each other, while the other lot got on with planning their position and building such a strong defence for it, that by the time we turned up – we’d just about lost.
I think we’re getting what we deserve, in the arm-wrestle, we’re looking very wobbly and we should be prepared to accept if not absolute defeat – partial defeat.
If you think that anyone wins out of divorce, think again. Nobody in Europe thinks they’re winning either, they didn’t want us to go.
No-one wins in a divorce, but sometimes (and this is the argument for BREXIT) the price of staying together is too awful.
Uninformed comment?
Usually, when I sit down to write a blog- it is with a certainty of my position. I wrote this blog to try and make sense of where I stood. 767 words later and I don’t think I’m much further.
I hope that my floundering position with regards these things – finds some sympathy with you.
We are all at sea – all out of our depth- all hoping that we aren’t heading for an iceberg and we’re all rather worried for the skipper.
As I ride to or past Westminster , I have to navigate a number of concrete blocks and barriers put in to stop terrorist destroying democracy. I smile to think that those terrorists are currently redundant. We’re doing a pretty good job of destroying democracy without them.
Let’s hope that at some point – however far beyond March 29th 2019 it is, we can understand the issues of sovereignty , of trade and travel and immigration, with a degree of certainty.
I would like to comment in an informed way. I am tired of being on the outside of somebody else’s argument – especially when that argument is about me!