Sunday 26 March 2017

The Children Are Getting a Bit Shrill

I don't know if the remoaners feel that by screaming very loudly and going blue in the face, they will somehow stay Mrs May's hand on the fateful pen this week.  But they really are getting a bit shrill.
Like sheep, the British people, regardless of whether they support Brexit, are being herded off a cliff, duped and misled by the most irresponsible, least trustworthy government in living memory**
Michael Heseltine: Germany will 'win the peace' because of Brexit ... Tory peer says it is ‘quite unacceptable’ for Germany to be in dominant position in Europe, having lost second world war 
Nick Clegg told the crowd in Parliament Square that “sadness” about the outcome of last June’s referendum had given way to “a perpetual sense of anger about the choices that Theresa May and her government have taken since”
Ah well.  Perhaps after the letter is sent everything will subside a bit.  I am a great believer in the idea that when the chips are down the Grown-Ups just repair to the study to get on with things behind closed doors, the mewling children left kicking and blubbing in the rumpus-room. 

Much the most likely concrete near-term development is suggested in the report we heard earlier in the week, that several preliminary agreements have already been struck and will be announced fairly soon.  That bullshit from Juncker last summer about "no negotiations until Art 50 has been triggered" was a typical children's saying.  Try and stop them if you will: but diplomats, negotiators and grown-ups in general, always pick up the 'phone at a very early stage in any proceedings.  Like speaks unto like.  

And I feel there have been signs M. Barnier is a grown-up, too.

ND

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**UPDATE: someone else liked this Observer editorial for its batty qualities:
"This week’s leader column of that great old newspaper The Observer is quite simply one of the maddest things ever published in a serious newspaper"

14 comments:

Demetrius said...

I am beginning to wonder whether Juncker has a mental age of six or is it just the brandy?

Electro-Kevin said...

Thank goodness for that, Nick.

There are children on both sides of the Brexit debate. Me included.

(Not even bothering to watch Countryfile this evening.)

andrew said...


Who is in charge of the negotiations on each side?

Nick Drew said...

taking your qn at face value: day-to-day, it's Barnier / Davis

(as far as I know)

hope to God May keeps her nose out, doesn't try to micro-manage

AndrewZ said...

There is no doubt that when the negotiations get serious, the serious people will come to the fore. The key question is whether the Article 50 timescale actually provides enough time to define a new UK-EU relationship or whether we will be left with a whole load of unresolved issues that result in a severe economic shock for both sides. After all, we are trying to do something that has never been done before.

Nick Drew said...

I am genuinely sorry Heseltine is (a) a dyed-in-the-wool remainer (b) over the hill

the way he solved the Poll Tax crisis** shows what can be done with clear-sighted imagination, intellectual confidence, managerial competence and political will

au fond, my hopes are more-or-less pinned on one of the crew being of that calibre, probably D.Davis but maybe a lesser-known member of his team [becoz it sure ain't May]

_________
**I mean, by inventing and implementing the Council Tax in the space of a couple of weeks, not the defenestration of MT

James Higham said...

Two days.

Electro-Kevin said...

Nick - The council tax was manifestly unfair but those who thought so did not smash up Trafalgar Square in opposition to it. Says a lot about Hesseltine and the side he's on.

To this day I fail to see what is wrong with individuals paying for council services - it might have made government more serious about immigration controls too.

Anonymous said...

ND - Heseltine has put it on record in a Speccie interview by Boris Johnson in 2000 that he sees all members of the EU inevitably becoming citizens of a superstate* and forgetting their existing nationality, so I'm not sure why he's worried about Germany. He's right of course that we fought a major war and bankrupted ourselves to stop Germany dominating Europe, while 70 years on, Germany dominates Europe.

I'm more worried that May will backslide on free movement of labour, or allow all those here both to stay and to claim benefits - my view is that the people pushing this agenda really want a situation in which nothing changes for working Brits - still a million on zero hours, still hundreds of applicants for every job above minimum wage, still housing unaffordable - and are hoping that there'll be a revulsion against a Brexit deal where nothing changes for them and Brexit voters ask "what's the point of leaving then?".




- "who now remembers the Heptarchy?"

Electro-Kevin said...

Even John Redwood seems to have backslid on FOM

http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2017/03/24/reassurance-to-all-eu-citizens-living-and-working-in-the-wokingham-constituency/

My position is that only people who can fund themselves legally can remain. A visa/points system please. Of course, this must be reciprocal. We can't have our cake and eat it - no-one asked that we should.

andrew said...


The EU needs to make more money

One way of doing that is to trade more.

Trading less with the UK will not make things better for the EU (never mind the uk)

There are a number of countries that would benefit with close trading ties with the EU - like Turkey / Ukraine / the UK - who will never be allowed to (re)join.

I would think a clever person could see a way to have an 'associate' membership class that allows for trade, but not integration.

david morris said...

"I would think a clever person could see a way to have an 'associate' membership class that allows for trade, but not integration."

But, but, but,

wasn't that what we voted for ?

In 1975 ?

(appreciate the irony, BTW!)

Anonymous said...

Yes, wouldn't it be nice to be in a free trade bloc of nations at a roughly equal level of economic development - say Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and Holland. I remember voting to remain in such a bloc in 1975.

andrew said...


That is the trouble when you try to make one thing that is good for one thin do two slightly incompatible things.

Look at it from the core EU's pov - how is that 'ever closer union' doing?