The Brexit Chronicles

...Bad Chidings of Discomfort and Oi!...

Published on December 18th, 2018.

In a hundred days time, all being well, the UK ought to notionally leave the EU, but is there any hope of that date being adhered to?

With Rees-Mogg and the ERG now a spent force, Theresa May having won her leadership contest, and Jeremy Corbyn's hope of a no confidence motion vanishing faster than the contents of an opened tub of Quality Street, the Prime Minister is free to do as she wishes, which is run down the clock still further; the Commons vote on her take it or leave it humiliation is now scheduled for January the 14th, but again that is likely to be a movable feast.

With the parliamentary panic postponed until then, the only thing worth noting this side of Christmas is the cabinet's decision to advance the preparations for a 'No Deal' scenario. This involves technical advice being issued to businesses, and the government 'communicating' with the populace in their one-way fashion what we should do in advance of that eventuality. All very worthy I'm sure, but this should have done earlier this year. You can thank May's incompetent deviousness that it wasn't.

It will be interesting to see what advice is given, but bearing in mind the vacuous Preparing For Emergencies booklet issued in 2004 - if you are trapped in a bomb-damaged building, bang on a handy pipe to attract rescuers' attention was one helpful tip - or the 1980 Protect And Survive brochure with its infamous direction to whitewash your windows against the thermal pulse of a nuclear explosion, I wouldn't rely on the government for preparedness information. Go in, stay in, and get online for alternative counsel if you really think it will get that bad; I'm sure this is just the fearmongering rack being tightened another notch. Proof of which is the aviation agreement signed by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling; with a stroke of his pen the risk of air transport grinding to a halt from March the 30th is dismissed, as no doubt will be many more Europhile prophecies of doom. Not that it will stop them; the same people who spend more than €7 on an airport coffee will bemoan that amount charged by the EU for a permit to travel to their Tuscan villa post-Brexit. Well freedom isn't free as you're only too keen to remind we Leavers; you can blame Brussels for it and by the way, whatever happened about the plans mooted in the immediate aftermath of the referendum result for an 'associate citizenship' and continuity maroon EU passport with fast track controles for any disenfranchised mugs prepared to pay for one? Obviously the Union isn't that communitaire; their disdain for the British is so clearly displayed by such petty measures.

I really don't have any sympathy for the wailing middle classes and their first world problems. As I write this I can hear the rain hosing down again; it'll be drenching the tent dwellers who pop up and and are just as quickly moved on from the central streets of the supposedly affluent market city where I live: the downpour will be soaking the poor sod I saw this morning huddled in a cheap sleeping bag in a shop doorway, his wheelchair parked next to him. Two thousand years on there is still no room at the inn... For many people the prospect of a dystopian apocalypse isn't dependent on which way the Brexit vote goes next year, it's a cold, wet, hard fact for them right now. Bear that in mind when you see or hear those who are immune from such privation engaging in their pontifications.