Brexit : Fintan O'Toole: Britain has gone to huge trouble to humiliate itself

[OnDoutside]

This really sums up the ludicrous position the British have put themselves in. At some point soon, someone has to stand up point out this truth. They will end up with what they have now, except NO power and NO influence. I read somewhere here yesterday that Johnson and Davies's resignations were in effect an admission of failure of their "idealised" version of Brexit.

Best possible Brexit outcome is the worst of both worlds, a state neither in nor out

The best headline about British prime minister Theresa May’s short-lived triumph over the hard Brexiteers last Friday was undoubtedly the one on Pádraig Collins’s report in the Guardian: “Possum rescued after getting head stuck in Nutella jar”.

SNIP

The story saves me the trouble of thinking up a metaphor. The Brexiteers have their heads stuck in a jar of sticky brown stuff that seemed so sweet and enticing. May’s compromise deal and the White Paper she is still expected to publish this week are the towels wrapped round the Brexiteers’ claws so that their heads can be pulled out of the jar without her premiership getting scratched to death.

Distorting lens

The only problem is that David Davis and Boris Johnson, having been successfully extracted, decided to bare their claws again. As any possum or two-year-old child will tell you, sticking your head inside a glass jar is quite a thrill. You get to see the world through a distorting lens that creates a comforting distance between you and reality. You can’t hear unwanted voices raising awkward questions. Brexit has so far been conducted through a glass darkly. It has been seen through glorious fantasies of imperial revival and layers of self-pity about imaginary oppression. What May has been attempting, very late in the day, is to force her more deluded colleagues to get their heads out of the jar and look directly at Brexit.

SNIP

The Brexit the British are now officially seeking is indeed miserable. Instead of the Star Trek vision of boldly going where no imperial-nostalgic society had gone before, it would not have enough thrust to get the UK out of the gravitational pull of the European Union. And instead of freeing British businesses from Brussels red tape, it proposes to wrap them up like mummies in layers of staggeringly complex bureaucracy, with two completely different tariff regimes operating side by side. And this, remember, is what the UK is asking for, not what it will get.

SNIP

When you take away all the heroic elements of Brexit, all the epic thrills of throwing off the oppressor and beginning a new history, what you are left with is just this – a country that has gone to enormous trouble to humiliate itself. Brexit has reached the point where the best possible outcome is the worst of both worlds, a state that is neither in nor out, neither on its own nor part of something larger. This is what all the patriotic bombast has brought Britain to: a humble request that the EU play nice and grant it a subordinate status. Imagine that at some point in the past, the EU had actually offered this to the British. How dare they!

National humiliation
Can there be the slightest doubt that the British would have been up in arms, demanding nothing less than full EU membership? Has any country ever gone into international treaty negotiations hoping to emerge with a status greatly inferior to the one it already enjoys? What do we want? National humiliation. When do we want it? Now.

Davis and Johnson know this is the reality they helped to create. They hadn’t the stomach either to face it or to publish a credible alternative. That is because the only alternatives to a mortifying Brexit are stark. One is to be honest and admit that the whole project has already failed and must be stopped before it is too late. The other is to stick your head back in the Nutella jar. If May goes, there may be no one left to pull the poor possums out.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-britain-has-gone-to-huge-trouble-to-humiliate-itself-1.3558995

[Blue_Tires]

1. A couple more excellent pieces of analysis:

Last edited Tue Jul 10, 2018, 10:35 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/boris-johnson-resigns/564659/

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/the-end-of-the-brexit-illusion/564725/

[octoberlib]

2. It seems like there's no effective Brexit opposition. Isn't Corbyn pro-Brexit?

Labour should be jumping all over this. (Maybe, they are and I just haven't read the articles yet.)

[OnDoutside]

4. Yes, he is pro-Brexit, and is as disastrous as Michael Foot was as Labour Leader. The most critical

time for Britain, what should be an absolute slam dunk for a Labour Leader, and they end up with Corbyn, though a series of activist shenanigans. There is no leadership from Labour. After the disgrace of Blair, there doesn't seem to be anyone of stature left.

[octoberlib]

3. Excellent article by the way.

[Blue_true]

5. In the late sixties, Great Britain was begging into the EU.

It could have been the early sixties. DeGaulle hated Britain and used his powerful influence to keep it out of the EU. When DeGaulle died, Britain was allowed in. Being the primary English speaking country and a coastal country, the U.K. thrived, now that role will go to Ireland. Brexit was and is a terrible idea, and of the U.K. is smart, it will go to Brussels on it's knees asking to stay in the EU with full member status.

[OnDoutside]

6. Yes, and we in Ireland couldn't join the Common Market (as it was then), because our economy was so

hugely dependent on the UK (plus the Irish Pound was linked to Sterling). The Republic of Ireland is the fifth biggest customer for UK exports. The UK is the second biggest customer for Irish exports.

The UK accounts for around 17% of Irish exports, but that figure leaps to 44% when foreign-owned firms are excluded.

Employment-heavy industries in rural areas are also among the most reliant on trade across the Irish Sea.

Products of Ireland's agri-food sector are among the EU's most exposed to Brexit, the research showed, led by cereals, fruit and vegetables, almost 90% of which are exported to the UK.

High volume Irish industries such as meat, dairy products, the live animal trade and wood manufacturing are also among the most exposed.

It was so much easier for Irish companies to trade with the UK because of the common language and the proximity. It was easier to be lazy and not exploit foreign language EU markets. If there is ONE benefit of this Brexit crisis for Ireland, is that it is forcing Irish producers & manufacturers to expand their export horizons, thereby reducing the dependency/exposure to the UK. Now they are chasing foreign markets, so whatever happens with Brexit, long term it will be good news (though maybe not in the short term).

P.S. The UK could just withdraw their notice to leave (right up to next March), and carry on with the same rights as before, though a little wiser one would hope.

[Denzil_DC]

7. We've noticed that Ireland's concrete preparations for Brexit contrast vividly with the UK's:

‘Brexit-busting’ ferry launched from Dublin Port

The absolutely enormous cargo ship that was christened by Leo Varadkar and other luminaries in Dublin Port on Friday morning is officially to be called Celine but over the course of a long and lavish ceremony marking its birth it was more commonly referred to by its shiny new nickname, Brexit Buster.

...

It can accommodate more than 600 lorries and is almost twice the size of any ferry currently operating out of Dublin Port. If all the parking lanes on the 235m long boat were laid end to end, it would stretch to almost 8 kilometres, making it the world’s largest short sea roll-on roll-off vessel.

It is hoped its size will allow hundreds of thousands of additional tonnes of freight go to and from the Continent each year, bypassing Britain and the border controls and paperwork that may be inevitable if a hard Brexit becomes a reality.

...

Christian Cigranc, the scion of the Antwerp shipping family that owns the Cobelfret shipping line which gave birth to Celine also addressed Brexit. Speaking directly to the Taoiseach on the stage next to him he said the British decision to leave the EU had “caused many, many headaches but let me take one away from you. In terms of maritime access, we have got this. Shipping will provide, it always does.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/brexit-busting-ferry-launched-from-dublin-port-1.3468760

That's aside from the corporate head offices and manufacturers that are relocating to Ireland.

[OnDoutside]

8. They HAVE to, we're hugely exposed as it is. As I said earlier, it's a wakeup call, and regardless

of the eventual Brexit outcome, they're doing now, what they should have been doing decades ago.

A new Cork - Santander ferry started at the end of April as well, run by Brittany Ferries. It's a small scale ferry (iirc about 100 trucks/195 cars and 500 passengers), but I suspect they are testing the market.

[Denzil_DC]

9. These are great initiatives.

"It's an ill wind," as they say ...

[Blue_true]

10. It seems that as the only true English speaking country left in the EU.

Ireland will now become the conduit point into the EU that Britain was. Shouldn't attract a lot of banks and international finance companies to Ireland? The British financial sector exploded after admission to the EU, shouldn't Ireland now see the same dynamic? Thanks in advance for answers.

[OnDoutside]

11. Yes and no ! ☺ There has definitely been an influx of a reasonable amount of them

into Ireland, but I think Paris are getting the bulk of them, with a good few of them going to the relative backwater (they way they look at it), of Frankfurt. My cousin is an employment lawyer in London and his top 6 clients are preparing to go, or have left for Paris. He said these aren't individuals, these guys are the advance party, setting up companies there, bringing over or recruiting hundreds. They are choosing Paris because they can hop on the eurostar back to London in a few hours.

Even if the British see sense and stay in the EU, they have done lasting damage to their financial powerhouse, something France and Germany have been envious about for years.

I have a genuine concern about the influx of foreign financial services into Ireland. We neither have the staff nor the regulations to cope. A bigger problem is potential Russian money. We know from the Panama papers that hundreds of millions of Russian money was funnelled through Ireland, while Bill Browder got nowhere when trying to get the irish government to bring in a Magnitsky Act into Ireland. Top that with Ireland currently campaigning for a seat on the UN security council, so they're not going to upset Russia.

[Blue_true]

12. Dirty Russian money is everywhere in the world.

I find it amazing how many Russian billionaires sprung up overnight. Communist party officials and well placed goons stole the people's money when businesses went private. That by the way is why socialism has never worked, connected people in the hierarchy take almost everything for them and their buddies (male or female).