....There is not much honour or integrity left in politicians.
The media is also split and severely biased. A lot of daily trash about.
There is very little true debate and with fake news and experts who all have vested interests leaves the country in a pickle.
No worries, we have Govey and Boris. Great performers they'll save us. ....
Yes Atilla, you started all this and are personally responsible for the resultant 500+ posts…..CV has helped you along but I see you both. Atilla, despite your protestions of niceness and the many helpings of the milk of human kindness I’m sure you’re most likely a closet Stalinist and probably not averse to the odd Gulag; meanwhile CV comes across as a Fascist executioner with a predilection for cruel and unnatural punishments but is actually a retired curate without a malicious bone in his body. Anyway, it’s all fun...but just not the laughing kind. Well, not entirely true, I have been very entertained
Reading back through it all though, is overall a fairly disheartening experience for reasons anchored in both the minutiae of current affairs and human nature:
IMHO your first serious gaffe is in the framing of the title: Brexit and the consequences – this is a journo header and in the profession (to which I used to belong) it’s about making it look as if there IS a specific and clearly definable set of answers to the question when actually, if the question was put slightly differently it’d be worth all of 3 short paras scribbled down over a hastily swallowed and utterly disgusting office coffee.
Then again, you could have left out the “sequences” bit of the thread title and it would have made all the difference - the lies, deceit and consistently disingenuous behaviour and attitude of the politicos that got the UK into the EU and are now getting it out, would make for a fine investigative tome. It’s a pity that a lot of these b&stards are now dead, out of office, scarpered or knighted as that leaves us in the position of the Nazi-hunters. If there are no war crims left alive to hunt down / they’ve managed to reinvent themselves as South American guinea-pig breeders / have very publicly seen the light and are suitably contrite, then the Foundation shuts its doors and we have to find some other band of sinners to hunt and noble cause to follow.
So, we’re left with talking about what will be, rather than seeking out and punishing those who are responsible for what is. The consequences of Brexit are endless, the fattest and longest of all tails - “This one will run and run” but trying to narrow it down and pick out the juiciest cherries and the really stinking turds is a waste of time – there will be latrines full of the latter anyway. We’re dealing with the future so let’s try and stay within the realms of the vaguely possible.
What is happening now will continue to happen and if we look back at history both modern and more ancient, the road travelled is as clear as it’s obvious that Cameron, Boris or Corbin (and the list goes on and on...and on) are / were not wise choices as leaders of anything except the local tiddlywinks club and even that I'd argue with.
The Brexit equation is as about as far from binomial as one can get. There is no black or white, good or evil or whatever and a reductive approach ad absurdum just makes both sides ridiculous. In short, lots of things will be better, lots of things will be worse – and very probably indeed, a great many of those things will be just changing places. In the meantime we’re all trying to guess which particular set of circumstances is going to lead to a particular set of results – this is an utter waste of time and effort. The best anyone can do is look at what’s happening generally and what has gone before, also generally and then, if we’re lucky, make a vague projection that’s not complete fantasy.
In case I’ve given anyone the impression that I’m a “Remainer” : Nah! Remain with things as they were /are is as illogical as leaving because of them. Belonging to a club which doesn’t really want you as a member with whose rules you don’t agree is an exercise in futility but deciding not to play at all without negotiating is just ludicrous. Monstrous Maggie fought the UK corner and got better deals out of mebership – the Europeans didn’t like her but they respected her position and her abilities; she did a lot of harm but in that case, she did OK and the current bunch now just throw that all away! With Brexit, it’s not just the baby that’s being slung out with the bathwater but the taps, bath and most of the house; the process openly and proudly sh1ts on anything that Britain ever did get out of membership. Needless to say, the attitude towards all this across the Channel is mostly mild irritation and amusement – along the lines of “If you insist on leaving your place empty and moving to Tierra del Fuego for the forseeable future then you won’t be too surprised or disappointed when we move in and shortly forget you ever existed.” ...and then, guess what? We come over all indignant and surprised. There’s definitely no overstimating people’s stupidity and especially so when they’ve been elected.
As for migrants, identity and culture. I disagree completely that these are not factors – if people think that these are the issues of Brexit then they
are the issues of Brexit. It’s not what is true, it’s what people believe even if it’s mostly obvious nonsense and lies. When things turn out to be worse, then they will think something else because the situation will have changed…. Mr D among them
Britain was a European entity for a long time before and during and since the advent of nation states. The English have had their own perceived and “special” identity for many centuries. This identity and our position relative to the rest of Europe and the world has changed with the ebb and flow of mercantile, military and political power. What has happened has resulted in what is happening and that, grasshopper, is going to determine what
will happen. That road led here and it goes ever on. Britain had its day in the sun with an Empire that set very rapidly and part of the current problem is that there are still enough people alive today with personal or inherited memories of past glories. The UK stopped really mattering on the world stage at the end of the second war – that many many people think it mattered even after and does still in 2018 is merely a collective delusion. Ours (yes, I too, claim part-ownership) is a small insignificant island populated by mongrels. The glorious past is a load of ephemeral bolleaux. UK military power is laughable, our political influence is today bordering on the insignificant and the only reason why the City of London employed hundreds of thousands of people in a massive financial hub is pure inertia – it used to make sense, so it didn’t make sense to leave...but now it doesn’t make much sense to stay, so the banks and institutions are already leaving. The UK is Iceland...only without the fish. What’s not to understand?
Ha!
