End all the UK's woes -- extend the transtion*

More evidence, if we needed it, that Brexit is regarded as an epic disaster, and its advent heralds if not provokes an apocalypse. W Hutton in the Observer:

The worst recession for 300 years? A worst-case budget deficit this year of £516bn? The greater shock, of course, is that we are living through a pandemic that has already claimed such a vast number of deaths. [And, to giveit a 'newsy' twist]  People must trust that where they work, shop, teach, study, eat and drink is safe....Everything from social distancing rules, regular temperature checks, access to testing, and availability of PPE should be discussed and rules co-created

But the main theme is not at all invisible:

a government led by second-rate free-market Brexiters. Their ideological mindset – that government and public borrowing are bad, that Britain is an exceptional country for which normal rules do not apply, that robust individualism and free markets are the best default position – is obviously wrong and out of time.  ...the state also has to design and adjust the capitalist craft continually so it is as seaworthy, resilient and high performing as possible. It is the opposite perspective to free-market Brexitism....e were readier to accept the constraints of lockdown for the greater good and for our own safety than the Brexiter cabinet ever thought....And, although it is beyond the Brexiter ken, we are readier to pay taxes for the public good.

Especially:

Britain soon confronts a potential sovereign debt crisis given the scale of its deficits, made worse, although officials are too politic to acknowledge this truth even in confidential papers, by the prospect of a no-deal Brexit....[the Government] has to exclude a no-deal Brexit, signalling a readiness to extend talks if necessary, to get life-giving access to EU markets....In short, our free-market Brexit government has to abandon its beliefs if Britain is to get to the other side in relatively good order.

The tactic is obvious --to label all Brexiteers as the worst kind of neo-libs (quite unlike the EU, of course), and to see the appeal to sentimental nationalism, as in British exceptionalism,as the main driver for wider support. There can be no rational case for Brexit as usual.

There is a hint of petty bourgeois politics too. The petty bourgeois know they require working class support for any campaign. The sop offered here is:

active involvement of workers and citizens in decision-making to ensure the right calls are made and are widely owned....a new and permanently enshrined role for workplace engagement, workers now obviously as much key stakeholders as those who provide capital. Nor can the noxious societal inequalities be allowed to persist

All these things are found in the binary opposite of exceptionalist free-market Britain -- the EU

Active involvement seems to mean little more than getting data and ideas from participants about safety. Worker engagement is obviously going to be limited since 'the state also has to design and adjust the capitalist craft continually so it is as seaworthy, resilient and high performing as possible' -- some sort of German corporatist model is in mind? As for the 'noxious societal inequalities', we might paraphrase Marx again -- journalists have always sought to describe the world: the point, however,is to change it, Of course, extending the transition is definitely one thing-- the only thing -- that we might change if we campaign