“We are totally exhausted listening to Brexit and I think in general the country is very worried about what is going to happen”
In the second series of the excellent 1980s sitcom “Colin’s Sandwich”, starring Mel Smith as Colin Watkins, Colin's dad is dying, in hospital, and takes a long time to die - whilst being unconscious throughout, just hanging on.
This frustration of this hopeless situation is perfectly illustrated by Colin walking up to the hospital bed and thinking to himself "Die Dad! Just die! Kick the bucket, skidaddle, clear off, before they get their hands on you!". He castigates himself for this, just before his mother exclaims "For God's sake, why doesn't he just die!".
That's a symptom of stress and fatigue, and that's what we have now with Brexit.
Sam Knight in “The New Yorker” sums up the situation with Brexit as “Brexit Fatigue”, and Boris Johnson as tapping into the zeitgeist on this:
“The British public, Johnson believes, is sick of the country’s agonizing departure from the European Union and want it over with, deal or no deal. Hang the consequences. Come what may. Do or die. Done. Kaput.”. Crashing out of the E.U.—or at least seeming crazy enough to do it—is a keystone of Johnson’s negotiating strategy with Brussels.”
And people I’ve spoken to – even those who said they didn’t want to leave without a deal, have been worn down by the incessant wrangling over three years. Brexit has become like watching a father hang on and take a long time to die. People just want it to be over. Brexit fatigue has worn down any other strategies.
But that is very dangerous indeed. We have no idea what will come. It could be like driving a car off a cliff. It will certainly be uncharted territory. And people don’t think there will be consequences, or if there are, they think they will be mild.
After all, who can forget “Project Fear”, the term used to denigrate “Remainers” in the Referendum? But if you are going to leave without a deal, you need to plan for that, to be prepared, to have contingency plans.
The Yellowhammer report was a leaked document outlining some of the consequences. It has been kept strictly under wraps because the government doesn’t want people to learn about the consequences until it is too late.
When a doctor who had worked on the medical fall-out of a no-deal Brexit spoke factually about it – and looking at the consequences was in fact a task he had been given by the Government – he was mocked and vilified by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House in the Government. Rees-Mogg has since apologised, but it should never have happened.if the Government had been up front about what they might expect.
They are caught in a trap of their own making. To get businesses and people to plan as best they can for Brexit, they need to show what the consequences will be if they do not, and what must be done to mitigate the problems which will arise. But to do that is to awaken fear of those consequences, and that they don’t want to do.
But unless you plan for what will happen until you renegotiate deals (and from a position of weakness), it would be foolish to go ahead. It is like getting onto a large ship without sufficient lifeboats. And we all know what happened to that one. You may not need the lifeboats after all. But there could be icebergs ahead, hidden just out of sight.
Because “No Deal” is not the end, it’s only the beginning, and instead of being able to get on with other matters, if you think time will be consumed with trying to get deals now is time consuming, costly and tiring, it will be nothing as to the time afterwards when we do actually have to get a deal to keep trading on better than WTO terms.
Maybe Boris should take a leaf out of the Gospel of Luke:
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’”
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.”
In the second series of the excellent 1980s sitcom “Colin’s Sandwich”, starring Mel Smith as Colin Watkins, Colin's dad is dying, in hospital, and takes a long time to die - whilst being unconscious throughout, just hanging on.
This frustration of this hopeless situation is perfectly illustrated by Colin walking up to the hospital bed and thinking to himself "Die Dad! Just die! Kick the bucket, skidaddle, clear off, before they get their hands on you!". He castigates himself for this, just before his mother exclaims "For God's sake, why doesn't he just die!".
That's a symptom of stress and fatigue, and that's what we have now with Brexit.
Sam Knight in “The New Yorker” sums up the situation with Brexit as “Brexit Fatigue”, and Boris Johnson as tapping into the zeitgeist on this:
“The British public, Johnson believes, is sick of the country’s agonizing departure from the European Union and want it over with, deal or no deal. Hang the consequences. Come what may. Do or die. Done. Kaput.”. Crashing out of the E.U.—or at least seeming crazy enough to do it—is a keystone of Johnson’s negotiating strategy with Brussels.”
And people I’ve spoken to – even those who said they didn’t want to leave without a deal, have been worn down by the incessant wrangling over three years. Brexit has become like watching a father hang on and take a long time to die. People just want it to be over. Brexit fatigue has worn down any other strategies.
But that is very dangerous indeed. We have no idea what will come. It could be like driving a car off a cliff. It will certainly be uncharted territory. And people don’t think there will be consequences, or if there are, they think they will be mild.
After all, who can forget “Project Fear”, the term used to denigrate “Remainers” in the Referendum? But if you are going to leave without a deal, you need to plan for that, to be prepared, to have contingency plans.
The Yellowhammer report was a leaked document outlining some of the consequences. It has been kept strictly under wraps because the government doesn’t want people to learn about the consequences until it is too late.
When a doctor who had worked on the medical fall-out of a no-deal Brexit spoke factually about it – and looking at the consequences was in fact a task he had been given by the Government – he was mocked and vilified by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House in the Government. Rees-Mogg has since apologised, but it should never have happened.if the Government had been up front about what they might expect.
They are caught in a trap of their own making. To get businesses and people to plan as best they can for Brexit, they need to show what the consequences will be if they do not, and what must be done to mitigate the problems which will arise. But to do that is to awaken fear of those consequences, and that they don’t want to do.
But unless you plan for what will happen until you renegotiate deals (and from a position of weakness), it would be foolish to go ahead. It is like getting onto a large ship without sufficient lifeboats. And we all know what happened to that one. You may not need the lifeboats after all. But there could be icebergs ahead, hidden just out of sight.
Because “No Deal” is not the end, it’s only the beginning, and instead of being able to get on with other matters, if you think time will be consumed with trying to get deals now is time consuming, costly and tiring, it will be nothing as to the time afterwards when we do actually have to get a deal to keep trading on better than WTO terms.
Maybe Boris should take a leaf out of the Gospel of Luke:
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’”
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.”
Or suppose someone wants a "No Deal" Brexit, wouldn't he estimate the cost of that decision before going ahead with it? Wouldn't he check how much harder it might be to secure deals with the EU after the event?
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