Party poopers wag their fingers sadly at the plebs

Several pieces in the Observer today to whinge against anyone thinking of celebrating Jan 31st too boisterously

First up M Heseltine who is afraid there will be triumphalism

Lord Heseltine has accused Boris Johnson of trying to “rub the noses of Remainers in their defeat”

Triumphalism includes:

3m special 50p coins bearing the words “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations” will enter shops, banks and restaurants from Friday with a further 7m coming into circulation by the end of the year. Union Jack flags will also line Parliament Square and the Mall on Friday and the public will see government buildings in Whitehall lit up in red, white and blue.

Seems pretty routine and a little tacky rather than swaggering and boorish,but
'politicians who fought to remain in the EU said the events were deeply inappropriate.' Well they would wouldn't they? What does the majority think?

Next the unsinkable W Keegan at an agreeable conference in Venice

The UK faces economic upheaval on a vast scale if it is not, after all, to pursue ‘Brexit in name only'

Last year [his fellow attendees told him], the hope was that this country would have second thoughts and recognise how much it stood to lose by honouring a referendum result that principally reflected dissatisfaction with many things other than the EU.

The government’s own internal studies and analysis point to a severe threat from abandoning the single market, which was one of the key attractions for foreign companies, not least the Japanese, to invest in those parts of the Midlands and northern England where “getting Brexit done” has proved such a compelling slogan. (By the way, there is nothing new about working-class people voting Conservative!)

Already a study by Bloomberg finds that the cost to the economy of the very approach to Brexit taken over the past three years has equalled the entire accumulated cost of our contributions to the Brussels budget [what since 1975?] – contributions that often flowed back to us via funds from the European Investment Bank [sic!]

Good old F O'Toole next. It's very witty in that aristo Irish way:

For the great problem of Brexit is that it is a populist project without a people, a nationalist project without a nation....Britain is not and never has been a nation state. For most of its history as a state, it has been at the heart not of a national polity, but of a vast multinational and polyglot empire. And the UK is itself a four-nation amalgam of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland....the parts of the UK that have actually “taken back control” into their own local democratic institutions reject Brexit; while the parts that support Brexit have no such institutions. The Scottish parliament, the Welsh Senedd and the Northern Ireland assembly have all voted overwhelmingly in recent weeks to reject the withdrawal agreement.

There is no doubt that Brexit has worked in the way that nationalist movements try to – it has united people across great divides of social class and geography in the name of a transcendent identity....the voters in England who actually want Brexit are not recognised at all as a “people” with a voice of their own. They are nationalist revolutionaries without a political nation. They are creating a country for themselves, but it is one that dare not speak its name.[But the contradiction is] Brexit sets in motion the logic that shared sovereignty is unnatural and that all “peoples” must return to the pure dominion of their ancient nations.

So really the same old same old about the threat to the sacred Union. There's no reason at all why this should appear as a contradiction to anyone but an Irish litterateur/smart arse. Celtic nationalism probably has been most important in encouraging EngNat -- and they are all equally imaginary and faintly ridiculous communities unless you believe all that romantic stuff about only Celts being a proper people, with their own bagpipes and prolonged sense of martyrdom. Who thinks it is 'natural'?

But best of all is N.Cohen (there last night but demoted on today's website):

listless acceptance [of the Jan 31 event] extends to those who believe that leaving the European Union is an act of monumental folly. Brexit’s inevitability, the possibility that we are in for another decade of rightwing rule, is leading opponents of the status quo to retreat into private life, as the defeated so often do. Perhaps they are almost grateful for the chance to concentrate on their friendships, family and love affairs: these are in the end what matter most to everyone except obsessives....On this reading, the country has not been wholly deceived by Johnson and his propagandists. The British are just exhausted.[especially by npb identity politics and virtue signalling]

Then a rehearsal of impending doom stuff. Then a marvellous hint of martyrdom mixed with revenge -- schoolmarms through the ages have done this. They are not angry, just disappointed.

The liberal elite, the chattering classes, the remoaners, call them what you will, once worried about the fate of car workers [really?]  ...Yet at the moment they need support [favourable comments in th Culture Section of the Observer?]  they will be met with indifference. They will hear educated voices [ as if they haven't heard enough of them] say that they voted for Brexit in 2016 and then voted for Johnson in 2019. They were warned and chose not to listen...I fear that the most damaging effect of the languid complacency that has infected the national mood is the collapse of any notion of solidarity [!]. The most characteristic gesture of Brexit Britain will be a shrug of the shoulders.

Best of all, Cohen cites a psychological study of thwarted Remainers -- see blog above