The hedonistic world

Subject: FW: A hedonistic world.

 

 

Turning on the news this morning I listened to commentary from around the world about our declining position in the eyes of other people regarding our handling of Brexit.
Brexit, that Gordian knot by which we found ourselves tied, impotent to act, faced with a labyrinth of rules designed to make withdrawal extremely difficult and damaging.
Only a clean break would satisfy the 17 million citizens who wished to disengage with the EU, a clean break which horrified the 16 million people who wished to remain. The divisions were replicated in Parliament as parliamentarians tried every trick in the book to avoid leaving and obeying the will of the majority.
Coupled with the realisation that we had grown weak and flabby under the protection of the decision making body of the EU Commission, our nation had lost its edge not only as a manufacturing trader but as a negotiator. The people sent to Brussels were clearly not up to the job because they had no veto to make the decision to 'come out' come what may. A hung parliament meant that the government could only govern with the approval of the DUP who had their own agenda and would scupper any unilateral decision to pull out and go it alone. So strong was the belief, amongst 75 % of the parliamentarians, the very people we usually leave to make our political decisions for us, that Brexit was a disaster waiting to happen.
And so we entered the period of debate, something we are good at, so long as the decision is made by someone else. Our unwritten constitution was not helpful as a guide since these were new waters to navigate and our skipper is, by nature not a collegiate person, who's intransigence had over the years not made her many friends and allies and who seemed stuck on the same track, issuing the same rhetoric week in week out.

Her deal which painstakingly had been stitched together with the blessing of the European Commission was so full of 'maybes' and points not agreed to be kicked down the road for future negotiation. The "backstop arrangement" on the Northern Ireland  boarder seemed to put us in thrall to the EU for as long as they wished and for any sovereign nation, this was not acceptable.
So Brexit has not been a divorce between two grown up amicable people where who keeps the dog is the final hurdle. The acrimony towards any nation wishing to leave this all entwining economic giant and the difficulties put in the way of any nation wishing to do so made anything, other than a clean break virtually impossible.
Our fear of WTO rules, rules by which we used to trade, 40 years ago and on which most if not all nations outside the European Union trade their goods and services was feared as being something less cozy, less lucrative than the membership of this huge market on our boarder.
History will define that this as not "our finest hour". Not decision to go to war against all the odds, rather a feeble first foot outside the home like a teenager hesitant to make his way and still wishing to take his washing home on the weekends.
In many ways although we have been exposed, warts and all for our indecision the democratic process was seen to work with all its own inherent indecision. There have been no 'yellow vests' on the streets as in France and months of bitter protest against Macron's  neo liberalism. There has been no 'far right fascist party' gaining power in our parliament. Our far right seems to elevate an anachronistic version of Bertie Wooster's Jeeves in the personage of Jacob Rees-Mogg who's starch tight demeanor  is matched by his large Victorian style family with children named, Theodor Alphege, Sixtus Dominic Boniface, Wentworth Somerset Dunstun, and Anselem Fitzwilliam. His sister called Annunziata Rees- Mogg has just gained her own fame by quitting the Conservatives for Nigel Ferage's new party called, unimaginatively The Brexit Party.  One can hardly imagine a less subversive character. No Giuseppe Conte, no Berlusconi, no Mussolini.
He is as far from being a caricature of Donald Trump,  he has none of the habits of Jean Claude Junker, famously the Prime Minister of that power house, Luxembourg, now soon to depart the EU post of President of the European Commission and who, Mrs May was unfortunate to have to do business with.
Should we be ashamed of our centuries old method of constitutional evolution, no blood bath on the streets, no water cannon, no stoning to death, no plans to build a wall between us and our nearest neighbour, (not even in Ireland), only the most diverse social structure where everyone, regardless of the proclivity, is welcome.
We have much to celebrate and hardly need the prime minister of Australia to criticise us where, in his own country political assassination has become a national pastime.
We must stop the self recrimination and applaud our political freedom to perhaps, in the eyes of others make fools of ourselves because we have so much leeway to find our own way, unhampered by the quick fix so favoured in this hedonistic world.