Mayhem

by Rick Johansen

Can we possibly try a different tack on our departure from the EU? I cannot pretend that I am any less baffled and bewildered at the result of last year’s referendum where we decided to commit the greatest act of self-harm imaginable. For all that, despite the years of pain and confusion we have ahead of us, I am in no mood to stop Brexit or to hold another referendum. If there is a mass change of heart in the years ahead when our future begins to unravel, then it’s a matter for the government of the day. I’m not going to die in a ditch about it.

Despite the lies that must surely have played a part in the result (“taking control”, £350 million a week extra for the NHS” and “sovereignty”), that is effectively that. I sense no change of heart from those who voted to remove us from the heart of Europe and now I would like to see a plan to take us forward. But where is it?

Theresa May says she has a plan, but isn’t telling us what it is. “Trust me, I’m a politician.” She won’t be giving a “running commentary” either, or though in performing his usual clown act, foreign secretary Boris Johnson does exactly that, all over Europe. She does not want to reveal her hand, as if this was a jolly little card game. It’s not a card game at all. It’s the future of the next generation that matters.

A real leader would at the very least give us some idea of her preferred direction. Does Theresa May want to retain access to the single market, as her party promised at the 2015 election? Even Ukip, who have confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that they are the BNP in blazers, made it public they wanted to remain in the single market before 23 June. What has changed? Why should we, the public, be excluded from having a view? After all, the single market wasn’t on the ballot paper, neither was immigration come to think of it. We either voted to remain in the EU or to leave. The vote to leave was exactly that and no more. A real leader would also seek to unite the country, something that May seems quite unwilling to do. How hard can it be?

If we start from the position that we are leaving the EU because that’s what the majority wanted, then surely that’s a way forward. Next, the PM tells parliament – you know, the parliament that has taken back control, resumed its sovereign role etc etc – how she envisions post-Brexit Britain. This is not “showing her hand”. It is being truthful. But we need to take account all views, surely.

Even the Brexiteers do not speak with one voice. Whilst every racist voted to leave the EU, not everyone who voted to leave was a racist. Obviously, most people who voted to leave accept the financial hit Brexit will cause and the subsequent fall in their living standards. Reluctantly, I have to accept that too, even though I voted remain for precisely the opposite reason. That is democracy and if we voted to make ourselves worse off, that’s just the way it is. Aren’t we entitled to ask the government to ensure that the hit to our living standards is as small as possible? With the removal of free movement – and I can’t see the electorate changing its mind on this one – then May should tell us what will replace it. If we can no longer travel, work and live abroad as of right, what form of visas and permissions will be required, assuming they will be granted?

And more. When EU payments to farmers and other businesses end, will the UK taxpayer foot the bill for the long term? As Brexit will cost some £100 billion over five years, from where will we find the extra money? How will we be able to find the money to bribe foreign car manufacturers to stay in Britain, as we have done with Nissan? I am not asking my loyal reader to give me the answers because I don’t have a clue about the answers. The worry is that Theresa May doesn’t either.

What it comes down to in the end is politicians and whether you can trust or believe in them. Frankly, I have absolutely no confidence in Theresa May who increasingly appears to be out of her depth in the top job, surrounded as she is by shysters and hucksters like Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and Michael Gove. I have less than no confidence in the bumbling ineptitude of Jeremy Corbyn and his shambolic front bench. I am not sure anyone currently at the top of British politics is up to the job of taking us out of the EU.

The 32,000 extra civil servants required by the UK government may be able to help us negotiate us through the 500-odd Whitehall projects that are going on, not to mention the many scores of trade agreements that cannot even begin to be sorted out until we have actually left the EU.

We are leaving the EU, it’s going to be very messy, very difficult and very painful. It would be nice to know that our politicians have some idea of how to make it work. The early signs are not positive, to say the least. If Theresa May had an interest in uniting the country around a long term plan, that would be a start, but if you are making things up as you go along you probably haven’t got one.

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