I am a firm believer in the parallax view, that looking at things from another angle can be very illuminating and useful. That is why on Brexit I often read what other countries are saying about the subject and especially the Irish media, including the ever excellent Tony Connelly of RTE.
His article on RTE’s website this morning (link at bottom of page) is worryingly frank about the prospects for the UK and Ireland at the moment. Brexit is going badly and both countries are going to suffer. The reasons have been known for years, Britain got what it asked for which was very little; but without bothering to find out what the consequences would be in the real world. Lack of preparation, ignorance, economic naivety, not listening to the experts, ignoring industry lobbying, arrogance and blind faith lead the UK to burn as many bridges as possible and to what is increasingly looking like a terrible outcome.
The overriding problem was that Brexit is a political fantasy elevated to almost a religion by its true believers. Therefore the negotiations were driven by political wishful thinking so bad it deliberately ignored those who knew what was going to happen, because they must lack true faith.
Trade talks are too important to be left to politicians, would be the obvious lesson to draw from this, don’t hold your breath.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0115/1190108-brexit-analysis-and-comment/
https://jonty.substack.com/
It is 16th January 2021 Jonty in the middle of a lockdown, be patient. The World has not ended as many of you remainers had hoped but it is clear there are initial issues that need to be addressed (or swept under the carpet without journalists seeing 😁) . I still believe we can redirect and rebuild our economy in a different direction, it will require hard work but it is not unsurmountable. The EU are now moving quickly to become one country / economy before any more countries decide they want to leave. It would have been nice to unload Scotland onto the EU (as a handicap) but now Blair and Brown are giving it their best attentions to try to win Starmer into power in 2024 - they could in theory be providing ministers into the next Westminster govt.