Thursday, March 28, 2019
Brexit and "Braos"
This article by Andrew Stuttaford in National Review isn't arranged in FAQ format, but it's as good a primer on recent Brexit-related events in Parliament as any I've seen so far. And a mildly sardonic and witty read. E.g. John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, is described as "a somewhat Napoleonic figure, minus hat and achievements". Stuttaford's prediction, offered without a surfeit of confidence: "Brexit will still take place: The how and the when remain a mystery."
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Interesting article, but it's still clear as mud. Nothing I've read has led me to believe that the Brits aren't in the process of cutting off their nose to spite their face.
ReplyDeleteMay I recommend this: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/tracing-brexits-colonial-roots ?
ReplyDeleteThe book cited "Heroic Failure" by Fintan O'Toole is a bit surrealistic in a Monty Python kind of way, but he is onto something.
"Finally, in his one turn to polling data, O’Toole examines the increasing tendency of the citizens of the “sceptered isle” to see themselves as English rather than British. With this, O’Toole stretches for a convoluted but plausible explanation for the Leave vote: English nationalism. Having given up the British Empire—and not entirely by choice—the English want to complete the process of decolonization and separate themselves from the rest of Britain. Some of the English would be as pleased to see Scotland go its own way as the Scottish would be to leave. The English want a parliament made up of English-only representatives. They want their island fortress back."
Today may be D-Day:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/world/europe/theresa-may-brexit.html
In that, if May goes, Boris Johnson could well step in and go crashing out!
Here's the Guardian's live coverage:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2019/mar/29/brexit-debate-latest-developments-live-news-may-at-risk-of-fresh-defeat-as-mps-debate-withdrawal-agreement-for-third-time-live-news
May just lost again by about 58 votes! Maybe the English aren't themselves either!
ReplyDelete58 votes sounds like progress. At the rate that her margin of defeat continues to narrow, her plan might pass by the 4th of July, or at least Thanksgiving, if Britain celebrated either of those.
DeleteStuttaford almost manages to inject some complexity into what is going on. But, of course, he can't because there isn't any. Johnson, Farage & Co. sold a slim majority of voters in England and Wales on the idea that they can have their cake and eat it. They can't. Mrs. May, treading where angels looked on from afar, attempted to draw up a square circle. She couldn't. Everybody in Parliament knows what he or she doesn't want. That's true, but not helpful. And the real difficult part comes when Britain is out and has to negotiate a trade deal. Like the one Trump has brilliantly negotiated with ... well forget that.
ReplyDeleteWhole lot of government-by-aspiration going on. Betsy deVos says,"The Kennedys can pay for their stinkin' Special Olympics." Trump says, "No, we will." Then he gets on Air Force One, disrupting local traffic, to take a victory lap for putting into the budget one-third of what he promised for Lake Okeechobee. State senators and officials, all of them Trump-huggers, will accompany him on his "inspection." Those are the people who said (before the election) he promised them $200 million. Turns out, $133 million of that is as fantastic as floors 59 through 68 he claims are on Trump Tower. Promise anything, deliver bupkus, as Boris Johnson would say if you gave him truth serum.
Jenni Russell, of the Times of London and contributing to the New York Times, writes today that those of us who dismiss the whole Brexit project, as presented, as an impossible dream underrate the role Theresa May's personality played in leading to the current impasse. Russell says May has tics that are odd -- and fatal for leaders of divided governments -- like not listening, choosing not to line up allies and not being able to horse trade and not even to want to be in the room when horse trading is going on. With her, it's not so much "my way or the highway" as it is "my way and I can't possibly think there is any other way." Margaret Thatcher could explain (often at tedious length) why "there is no alternative" to the requirements of her cockamamie neoliberal economics model, but she never really thought there were no alternatives, and she tried to win over necessary people who thought they had one. May is as much a TINA as Thatcher ever was, but the concepts of necessary-people and win-over don't seem to be in her makeup.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/opinion/theresa-may.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
I was prepared to grade May DE for Doomed Effort, but maybe the grade needs to be lowered to FF for Fatally Flawed.
I guess I just thought she was an example of the Peter Principle; someone who had risen to her level of incompetence. Gee we wouldn't have any of that on this side of the Atlantic, would we?
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