Brexit: two years on and one to go.

Gosh, doesn't time just whizz past? Would you believe that this week sees the second anniversary of the Brexit referendum? And one year today sees us waving the EU goodbye. Twenty four months down the line and any reasonable person would have expected that a halfway competent government would have used this time for careful planning, highly detailed project management, and comprehensive decision making, all of which should have laid out a clear road map for the glorious post Brexit future which we were assured is going to await the UK. By this stage in the game, with the date of our departure is so close, we should have had some sense of what the government is aiming for. 
 
Instead, what we’ve got is a toxic mix of hubris, confusion, in-fighting, wishful thinking, fantasy, nostalgia, and sheer utter self-delusion: all of which have created a deep uncertainty and instability and the looming threat of a catastrophic expulsion from Europe which will poison our links with those countries which are supposed to be our closest allies. Jobs are at risk, public services are threatened, businesses are making plans to relocate elsewhere, and the UK has turned into a peripheral and unimportant state which is only prevented from being the laughing stock of the world because it does not have Donald Trump as Head of State. 

Here we are, two years down the line, and we still have no idea what our government's Plan A is. We had a general election which was supposed to give Theresa May a mandate to seek whatever kind of Brexit suited her. Unfortunately for her, she lost her majority as the electorate looked upon the self-centredness, the confusion, the greed and the xenophobia, and said “nah”. But despite losing her majority Theresa hasn’t changed tack. She really has only one string to her bow.

Two years ago we were told that a soft Brexit was remaining a part of the customs union and the single market, a hard Brexit was leaving them and crashing out with no deal at all was an unthinkable calamity that no one was even considering. The difference two years make: now we’re told that not leaving the single market and the customs union is no Brexit at all, leaving them with a deal is a soft Brexit, and the swivel eyed British nationalists in the Conservative cabinet think any sort of accommodation with the EU is a betrayal. The prospect of crashing out of the EU with no deal is a very real prospect.

It’s a litany of depressing gloom that’s worse than a November weather forecast. There’s no realistic plan to solve the conundrum of the Irish border. British citizens who live in other EU states and EU citizens who live in the UK have no clear idea of what’s going to happen after Brexit. Health workers are leaving the NHS and going abroad. There is no planning for the queues and delays that will be created at ferry ports as lorries use motorways as parking lots. Successive British governments have always relied on the financial sector to drive the British economy, but this week the European Banking Authority warned that Britain’s preparations for the impact of Brexit on the financial sector are inadequate. The EU’s most senior banking regulator has advised that banks should proceed on the assumption that the UK would crash out of the EU in March 2019 without a deal. Airbus and other major companies have announced that they are having to consider whether to shift production and other facilities out of the UK. Instead of the promised bonanza of extra spending because the UK will no longer be contributing to the EU, we’re faced with an unprecedented squeeze on public spending, a massive ballooning in government borrowing, and rises in taxes.

Any normal person who was responsible for this magnitude of cock-uppery would be traumatised by the sheer horror and disaster that they had unleashed upon millions of people. They would be unable to sleep easily in their beds, kept constantly awake by the terror of realising the harm that they have caused, crying into their pillow as they desperately tried to make peace with whatever deity they worship. But Theresa May’s government are not normal people. They get to sleep just fine, in coffins, wearing full evening dress. The only god they worship is the god of their own ambition. They don’t give a toss about the effect of Brexit on the rest of us. They are going to be OK whilst the rest of us pay the price.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair  (remember him?) warns that we’re at risk of a return to the dark politics of the 1930s, apparently unaware that he’s possibly the single individual who has done more than anyone else to destroy public trust in traditional politics. The UK is descending down a dark and threatening path to a vainglorious Britain of shattered dreams and broken promises.

It's all so bloody depressing. And to all those who voted for this mess, thank you for absolutely nothing. I'm thinking of putting a sign on my front door - if you voted for Brexit, bugger off!