No-deal Brexit will feel about as “in control” as a blindfold skiing novice pushed off-piste from a black run...Just to reprise the government’s own warnings: putrid rubbish will fester in the streets, and slurry will stink out the countryside, [lovely Guardian story] risking a plague of rats. Sheep will be slaughtered [no!], unexportable with a 60% tariff. Supermarket shelves will empty – it only takes a rumour to set off panic-buying [among the chattering classes especially?]. The NHS may [gosh] lack medicines [not like before Brexit]. The army and police stand ready for riots, [the Mirror story says 'Members of the military will help to keep order and bring medical supplies to hospitals, and also assist with traffic problems close to ports such as Dover.'] all this costing £4.2bn. You may shrug off Project Fear forecasts – but the pound has already fallen 15%, carmaking has lost 50% investment in a year [diesel crisis probably] , and finance is in flight with 2% less growth [not 2% less! Catastrophe!]. The business minister warns that Brexit is a crisis but no deal “will be a catastrophe”. Good grief, even the Queen may flee for fear of us storming her palace [that link leads to a piece in the Irish Examiner, but even that did not predict any palace-storming.Nor is it clear who would be doing the rioting] .
The Brexiteers remain [sic] unpanicked so far:
Their romantics, such as Charles Moore, flippantly yearn for hardship....In phone-ins, older Brexiters say, “People these days have more than enough. It’d do them good.” [an actual quote?] [Extending the war analogy herself, butnbot fliup[pantly ] Imagine digging for Brexit – how many potatoes, cabbages and tomato grow-bags might your garden fit? [especially if you live in Islington] Look in the wardrobe and think make-do-and-mend, no need for new stuff [that will clinch it -- Remainer riots will surely follow] . It will be good for the planet, good for national moral fibre if shortages bring communities together.
For Toynbee:
What tolerance does this brave island race have for privation? There’s no evidence we are stoical or rational [no WW1 or 2?, no foodbanks?] when petrol queues brought Tony Blair’s government to its knees in days [well -- the Iraq War couldn't have helped], when leaves on the line and a hint of snow paralyse transport. [A historian says] ... Nor will leave voters tolerate what they voted for, he predicts. Even in wartime, crime soared with a thriving antisocial black market – though, in postwar austerity, spivs defying rationing seemed glamorous not villainous....“Even in a supposedly collectivist decade, people were strongly individualist,” Kynaston says [so why would such rugged individualists support the EU?]. They welcomed the NHS as “good for me”, but reading mass observation archives, he detected no widespread New Jerusalem sentiment [what on earth would that look like?]. Ahead, he fears the nationalism that brought us Brexit.
[And finally, the real evidence] my mother worked on a fire service switchboard, but she said that in wartime people were no nicer.
Above all, she can't bear the impeding triumphalism :
That’s why I remain convinced that May will swerve away from a no-deal kamikaze. ...No doubt we shall still strut like turkey cocks. No doubt our best export will be nostalgic movies about the war. But the best Brexit is no Brexit.
No comments:
Post a Comment