Brexit Mishmash

Tuesday 19th February 2019 19:53 EST
 

The British image overseas has been tarnished because they entered Brexit negotiations without any proper planning, no meaningful strategy and cavalier attitude to meet the pitfalls and uncertainty we are facing today on security, aviation, Irish border, immigration, sustainable trade relations, investments, banking, IT, protection of jobs, workers’ rights, supply of medicines and food. 

We have lost credibility the whole thing has become a amalgamation of pantomime, farce, comedy and Tradegy. One does not know whether to laugh or cry? The situation has become like the layers of an onion, under the first lie is another, and under that another and they all make you cry. By taking it to the wire Theresa May is playing with fire. Brexit has already cost the UK economy £40bn per year – or £800m per week – in the period since the EU referendum in 2016, according to Bank of England economist Jan Vlieghe. He estimates that since the vote, Britain has lost 2 per cent of GDP “relative to a scenario where there had been no significant domestic economic events” – equating to a total of around £80bn over the past two years. 

This is what the European countries are saying: “It’s a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment,” says Michiel van Hulten, a former Dutch MEP. “On one level it’s entertaining, great spectacle. A pantomime you can’t stop watching. As you know, we love British comedy. Except this isn’t Monty Python, it’s your politicians.”  Spaniards, who have long viewed British politics as an ancient beacon of democracy and informed debate, are struggling to reconcile their ideal with the realities of recent days, weeks and months. 

As Brexit turns into what one French commentator called a “national psychodrama” – or, in the more prosaic words of a friend, “un big mess” – many French are addressing Britons with the sympathy normally reserved for the bereaved. “So sorry,” they say, as a no-deal B-Day looms. “What will you do now?”  

Signs of Anglophilia are easy to spot in Prague: a square named after Winston Churchill, a bunch of English-language bookshops and several branches of Marks & Spencer. Since the Velvet revolution that heralded the end of communism in 1989, most Czech politicians, diplomats and opinion-formers have routinely deferred to Britain as a cradle of democracy and common sense. 

All this has added to Czechs’ bewilderment at the seemingly chaotic drama unfolding at Westminster as the UK staggers towards the EU departure gate. Germans are also resigned – if frustrated - by British misperceptions, from Boris Johnson’s claims that a “German-led” EU is pursuing a Hitlerian superstate to the notion that Berlin would force the EU to submit to the UK’s Brexit demands in order to save the German car industry. They are also immune to the British tabloids’ assertions that Germany is morally indebted to Britain for the defeat of Hitler, and so should throw Theresa May a lifeline. 

Poland’s attitude towards Britain might be characterised as largely affectionate – but with an edge. Brexit is not helping. The wartime alliance is remembered in Poland as much in terms of British betrayals as of Polish pilots and the Enigma machine. Too much time has flown under the bridge it is time to remove the red lines with white lines to wrap up the deal with the EU.

Baldev Sharma

Rayners Lane, Harrow


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