Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Wanting to send a sample to Russia is at best incredibly naive and dumb, at worst a weak attempt to defend your country's enemy.

I don't see how it hurts. They already have the chemical: They made it afterall.
At worst it maybe helps back up the inevitable lies when they claim clearly its nothing to do with them. But when everyone elses tests say completely different... It really just goes to highlight that they're liars.
Shows them that we know what they're up to - sort of like all the intelligence being laid out about the Ukranian invasion.

How does it help your case (the truth) if Russia receives a sample and they get the chance to say they tested the sample and its not theirs?

Not to mention the abject humiliation of asking your enemy's help to confirm it was them who attacked you.

[garbon]

Yeah, we have already learned lying isn't really seen as that big of a deal.

[Sheilbh]

Wanting to send a sample to Russia is at best incredibly naive and dumb, at worst a weak attempt to defend your country's enemy.

Agreed. I can't see what the upside is.

Russia, having sent a chemical weapon into another country and used it in a populated area, would somehow fess up? They'd just muddy the water and probably actually spin it as "our scientists say this is something from Porton Down and we have questions for why the British state is murdering Russians overseas".

Separately I see BA workers have voted for strike action (general strike! general strike! )

[Josquius]

Wanting to send a sample to Russia is at best incredibly naive and dumb, at worst a weak attempt to defend your country's enemy.

I don't see how it hurts. They already have the chemical: They made it afterall.
At worst it maybe helps back up the inevitable lies when they claim clearly its nothing to do with them. But when everyone elses tests say completely different... It really just goes to highlight that they're liars.
Shows them that we know what they're up to - sort of like all the intelligence being laid out about the Ukranian invasion.

How does it help your case (the truth) if Russia receives a sample and they get the chance to say they tested the sample and its not theirs?

Not to mention the abject humiliation of asking your enemy's help to confirm it was them who attacked you.

How does it hurt the case?
Russia continuing to lie and obscure only serves to keep things alive and show the world what they did.

And how is it asking for Russias help to give them a sample as they asked? The UK already tested and had answer itself.

[Sheilbh]

Totally agree with this piece (this week's Bagehot) and captures the dynamic that the strongest proponents of cakeism and cherry-picking are the Remainer/pro-EU side of the debate - who want the upsides without the downsides, or without politically pushing for them. At the minute it's all very hand-wavey about winning support for free movement (very unlikely and possibly risky) which, as I say, is part of the story of how we got here.

And why I think it's very unlikely we'll see anything beyond a few specific side deals and the TCA is the structure we'll be in for at least the next 20 years or so:

Brexit's bitter end
The case for a softer Brexit is clear. How to get one is not
Jun 23rd 2022

It was the autumn of 2016 and Brexiteers were still high on the fumes of the EU referendum earlier that year. Everything, they agreed, was going to be terrific. Seventy-five Tory mps called for a new royal yacht to mark Britain's rebirth. As for the fiddly detail of Britain's new relationship with the EU, Boris Johnson, then the foreign secretary, had it covered. "Our policy is having our cake and eating it. We are Pro-secco but by no means anti-pasto."

Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the European Council, saw Britain's predicament rather more clearly. Its wish to avoid the EU's legal jurisdiction and to end the free movement of people left only the choice of a hard Brexit or no Brexit at all. The cosy deal many Britons imagined could be cooked up was, Mr Tusk thought, an illusion. "There will be no cakes on the table. For anyone. There will be only salt and vinegar," he warned.

The divorce has proved as bitter as Mr Tusk foresaw. The row over the Northern Ireland protocol has soured any hopes of a new era of friendship. The economic damage is plainer by the day. Britain's gdp was 5.2% lower by the end of last year than it would have been if Brexit hadn't taken place, calculates John Springford of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. Brexit has caused a sharp decline in Britain's trade openness that will drag on productivity and wages in the years to come, according to a new Resolution Foundation paper. The Centre for Economic Policy Research reckons Brexit added 6% to food prices in two years. A promised burst of deregulation has not materialised. Salt and vinegar are plentiful; of cake, barely a crumb.

As a result Remainers are finding their voice again. Tobias Ellwood, a Tory critic of Mr Johnson, has called for Britain to rejoin the single market. Stella Creasy, the leader of the Labour Movement for Europe, urges her party not to let the prime minister define Britain's relationship with the EU. Even pro-Brexit newspaper columnists call for a thaw with Brussels.

But if the damage from Brexit is obvious, the remedies are not. Since the referendum in 2016 opponents have failed to rally around an alternative model, flitting between softening Brexit and fighting it altogether. The Conservative right soon jettisoned fuzzy thinking in favour of a hard and unified negotiating strategy. The Remain movement is still prone to its own version of Mr Johnson's cake-ism: offering up vague aspirations that ignore the structural difficulties of a closer relationship with the bloc.

Imagine that Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, becomes prime minister in 2024. Relations with Brussels would improve overnight: no longer would the British government threaten to violate treaties it did not like. In time, life could become a little jollier for Britons who still feel themselves European. A new government could pursue the perks that Mr Johnson spurned, such as participation in Erasmus, a worthy student-exchange programme, and visa-free travel for artists and athletes. If the arrangements for Northern Ireland were settled, the door would open to Britain staying in Horizon, a huge scientific-funding programme.

Just like its Leave counterpart, the Remain movement was largely propelled by culture. These signs of rapprochement would cost little and assuage some. But easing the economic damage caused by Brexit is far harder. Britain could try to rejoin the EU, which polls suggest four in ten Britons favour. But no British prime minister will hurry to reopen the wounds of the referendum, whose sixth anniversary fell on June 23rd. Any campaign for re-entry must confront the fact that it would mean a far deeper form of integration than the one that went before, including a commitment to join the euro. The insincere, pick-and-choose membership Britain once enjoyed is gone for good.

Mr Ellwood's plan for Britain to rejoin the single market as a non-voting participant has many backers. But the problems that caused Theresa May to reject this arrangement have not gone away. Even if Britain came round to the free movement of people, an essential part of the pact, it would also have to swallow outsourcing the most sensitive questions of regulatory policy on banking, data, mergers and labour markets to its competitors in perpetuity. Such a deal works for Norway, a small country whose biggest exports are oil, gas and fish. For Britain, a quarrelsome services-based economy, it would be inherently unstable. Rejoining the customs union would bring modest benefits but it would require abandoning the independent trade policy built up over six years. Control, once taken back, is hard to surrender.

That leaves only tinkering. A deal on food standards that eases flows at the border is possible. So too, in time, would be streamlined customs rules and mutual recognition of the qualifications of architects and lawyers. But such improvements would only marginally reduce the costs of Brexit.

Spongy thinking

There is very little middle ground between the trade deal Britain has now and the freedoms granted by the full-fat single market. Mrs May tried to forge a bespoke deal, only to be thwarted by European leaders who saw it as cherry-picking. The arrival of a friendlier prime minister wouldn't much change how the EU regards its fundamental economic interests, says Georg Riekeles, a former adviser to Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator. When Mr Johnson ordered a hard Brexit, the EU was happy to serve it up.

Tory Brexiteers warn darkly of a fragile Brexit being killed by stealth if they lose power. Were it so easy. To deepen Britain's trade agreement would require clear objectives and a willingness to chisel away at the EU's position, year after year. Fitful Britain lacks this strategic patience. It is more likely that the country will be stuck with Mr Johnson's deal, perhaps for decades. With each anniversary, almost everything Remainers feared would happen has come to pass. Yet they still do not have a plan for what they saw coming. It is vindication, but it does not taste sweet.

Of course the other point is any significant change would need to have cross-party consensus across multiple governments, because the time it is likely to take. That is something that Britain has never previously had in engaging with Europe - I've said before but I think Britain was unique in the EU that there was always a partisan split and one of the main parties was ideologically opposed to the European project (for the first 15-20 years that was Labour, for the subsequent 25-30 it was the Tories). Everywhere else I think has had that cross-party buy-in across multiple governments.

[Tamas]

Not having read the article yet I oppose "it's Remainers' fault" on principle. Nothing Brexit will ever be the fault of people who wanted us to remain in the EU.

This is this usual thing on the left. "we cannot fix it from opposition - why, WHY have we failed ourselves so much?! How depressively inept we are!"

Whereas the right is: "we couldn't fix it from a position of power. Well who the hell cares at least we ARE in power and not those other dudes."

[Josquius]

Brexit happened. It was one of the biggest embarrassments a country has ever brought on itself but it happened.
We have to look at the situation we are in now and how to improve it - that no matter what this will obviously be a worse place than if brexit hasn't happened is neither here nor there. We need to make the best of what we've got and that does mean trying to get a situation like that of Switzerland or Norway.

I do fear the UK needs to become a democracy before we can fix things with Europe though.

[Sheilbh]

Not having read the article yet I oppose "it's Remainers' fault" on principle. Nothing Brexit will ever be the fault of people who wanted us to remain in the EU.

This is this usual thing on the left. "we cannot fix it from opposition - why, WHY have we failed ourselves so much?! How depressively inept we are!"

Whereas the right is: "we couldn't fix it from a position of power. Well who the hell cares at least we ARE in power and not those other dudes."

That's not the point of the article at all

It depends what you mean then. In the referendum - I would absolutely blame the Remainers. I think it was an incredibly badly run, unresponsive and timid campaign. I know I pick on him a lot but I'll never understand the thinking behind appointing Will Straw as its executive director - he's the son of a Labour Home Secretary, who went to Oxford to do PPE, worked for Gordon Brown (his dad's old colleague) for a bit then in a think tank and on a blog before failing to win a seat as a Labour candidate (he's doing fine and, after that stellar career of vaulting achievements, is CEO of the Prince's Trust). If you're serious about the risk of losing and its impact, which they should have been, you get someone really experienced in running successful campaigns - and you don't treat the campaign as a sinecure position for nepotism. The arrogance of it is just crazy - the comparison with the "No" campaign in Scotland is really striking because it was run by Alasdair Darling (former Chancellor, MP for 20 years and a huge figure in Scottish Labour) supported by other people who'd been running campaigns in Scotland for decades.

After the referendum there's more blame obviously to spread around - especially after the 2017 election. But I always point back to the moment in 2017-18 when there was a vote on one of May's deals and there were to rallies in Parliament Square. One by the ultra-Brexit supporters and one by the ultra-Remain supporters. The deal was voted down and you had the leaders of both groups going out and proclaiming victory to cancel Brexit/deliver hard Brexit. Both diametrically opposed sides of the crowd were cheering their speeches by Chuka Umuna and Jacob Rees-Mogg despite having radically different goals. I always remember thinking at that point both sides had basically bet the house on this and were going for maximal aims. There was zero appetite for compromise and that meant one side would lose catastrophically, which is exactly what happened.

[The Minsky Moment]

Sheilbh that's focusing on the politics of how it happened.  As it stands, now, the negative and damaging consequences of policy should not be laid at the feet of those who opposed it - if ineffectively - as compared to those that supported it because they thought it could be used for their personal and party political benefit. Brexiter leaders need to take responsibility for the fallout from the policy.

As an outsider (though admittedly an outsider with a view on the merits), I find the rhetoric about "remoaners" etc. silly; if Brexit is shit, then pointing out that fact is not "relitigating" or "moaning" - it is a logical demand for political accountability on the part of those who promoted the idea, in many cases misleadingly, despite knowledge of its likely negative effects

[Iormlund]

We need to make the best of what we've got and that does mean trying to get a situation like that of Switzerland or Norway.

While I agree to your opening statement, the reality is neither model is realistic.

The EU is quite unhappy with the structure of the Swiss deals, and would not agree to repeat such mistake.

Joining the EEA has problems of its own. For one the UK is too big and would dominate the agenda of the organization, which might give other members pause (and the Norwegians stated as much IIRC).
But the truly big issue is that Brussels would be dictating regulations to a UK without voting rights. I can't see any British government signing on to that.

[The Larch]

Another one here who just doesn't see how you can blame Remainers for what happened with Brexit.

[Sheilbh]

Sheilbh that's focusing on the politics of how it happened.  As it stands, now, the negative and damaging consequences of policy should not be laid at the feet of those who opposed it - if ineffectively - as compared to those that supported it because they thought it could be used for their personal and party political benefit. Brexiter leaders need to take responsibility for the fallout from the policy.

It was a political decision and they failed at the politics, which is why we're here. I don't think the politics was inevitable or that Leave would always win - but I remember feeling the likelihood grow. The campaign and the referendum (and the two subsequent elections) is the moment when everything's up in the air and they can shape the future.

I think there's less choice around the type of Brexit we get - that's more constrained. It was a referendum dominated by immigration, so I think any Brexit that doesn't end free movement is not politically sustainable, and that means leaving the single market.

The leading leavers will face political consequences for this - I think under 20% of people think Brexit is going well, I think 60% now think it was a mistake and on current polls the leavers will be voted out of office (on current polls Johnson, Rees-Mogg and Raab would even lose their seats). I don't think there's going to be a catharsis around it though, where enough people just realise they made a mistake and things change.

As an outsider (though admittedly an outsider with a view on the merits), I find the rhetoric about "remoaners" etc. silly; if Brexit is shit, then pointing out that fact is not "relitigating" or "moaning" - it is a logical demand for political accountability on the part of those who promoted the idea, in many cases misleadingly, despite knowledge of its likely negative effects

I agree on "remoaners" and "rejoiners" - it's mad and driven by weird Tory paranoia. From reporters I've read they really do believe Brexit might just be cancelled.

My big criticism of the sort of the continuity remain, where this is the big issue they care about, is that they're behaving like commentators and not engaging in the politics (I think some give the impression of thinking actual politics - the process through which we make change - is below them). Part of me wonders if it's a consequence of social media because there is a lot of this on Twitter and if they mistake posting for politics (not the only area I wonder about this).

If you want to change Brexit from the TCA then it's a political issue and you need a strategy to win support for that change - I've seen zero evidence from people who want to join the single market or the customs union (which I think would be the easy option). This is the status quo now and there are political constraints in changing it (which is what I think that article is about). Remainers, Rejoiners etc need to spend less time pointing out the problems - because people aren't blind or stupid - but working out how to deal with those political constraints.

They're just not dealing with the trade-offs. Generally they either pretend that there's some deal with the EU that means there are no trade offs, which doesn't exist and never has. Or they wave those issues away as peripheral and nothing to worry about.

Another one here who just doesn't see how you can blame Remainers for what happened with Brexit.

I don't get how anyone could have been a supporter of Remain and not be furious still at how poor they were. Leave was a bad idea, it was going to lead to all sorts of problems - their job was to stop it. I struggle to get emotionally engaged at predictable things, that were predicted happening as predicted.

They failed, and not because it was inevitable (like the AV referendum) but because they thought it would be a pushover, so had jobs for the boys and a dreadful campaign. Post-2017 I also think it was a huge strategic mistake to basically not work with May's government and try to shape Brexit, but instead to stop or cancel it (I think the 2017 election is really key in that) - and I think I posted about it here because I could never quite work out how they thought it would work. It all seemed a bit : 1 - vote with the ultra Brexiters against May's deal (which was basically to stay in the customs union); 2 - ?????; 3 - stop Brexit/second referendum.

To me that's enraging - it's just arrogance and negligence over an important issue. It's like Labour deciding to indulge in a decade of self-indulgence with Miliband and Corbyn. Tories being bad and bad things are what they do - the job of Labour is to stop them.

Or for that matter it's like Johnson as PM. He is bad at it and he was always going to be bad. That's how he'll be remembered and it's how he should be judged. But it's Tory MPs who put him there - it was their decision knowing that he'd be a bad PM but deciding it was worth it to win an election.

[Tamas]

If I am getting mugged, and I try to resist and have my nose broken, that was poor management -if I just handed my stuff over I would have saved me from the broken nose- but it's still the mugger' fault the mugging happened and the way it happened, not mine.

[The Larch]

Are we talking about the referendum or about the whole Brexit process? Sure, the Remain campaign was a disaster, but that doesn't make Remainers the ones at fault in the whole thing.

[Tamas]

Are we talking about the referendum or about the whole Brexit process? Sure, the Remain campaign was a disaster, but that doesn't make Remainers the ones at fault in the whole thing.

Even the whole Brexit process - how can they be blamed for the end result?