Empire of dust

Its been a while since I last wrote about the clusterfuck that is Brexit, or the Brexit omnishambles. So here goes.

The bill allowing the Government to trigger article 50 (something like 150 words long) is passing through scrutiny in the House of Lords. Unlike the Lower House, the Lords have already defeated the Government in inserting a clause to protect rights of EU citizens already living in Britain, and this week sees a vote on whether Parliament should have a "meaningful" vote on whether to accept or reject the deal that T. May and Co. end up with from the EU.

You would think this as high treason reading the newspapers and listening to the shitgibons tasked with taking us out of EU, however, it would be the right thing to do, stop making EU citizens living here, and British citizens living in the EU a bargaining chip. Or chips. And, who in their right mind would enter into a process that has a possibility, strong or weak depending on your point of view, bankrupting the country, not be able to reverse that process?

What the PM is frightened of is not of weakening Britain's negotiating position, but of close scrutiny of how bad things will be. We have already heard many times that no deal is better than a bad deal. No its not. This is clearly a lie, and with statements last week, it was almost as is the Government were preparing us not to have a deal with the EU at all. How mad would that be, not having a deal of any kind with our biggest trading partner and market?

The main bone of contention is that like in any divorce, it comes down to money. Britain has an estimated £60 billion liability on treaties, schemes and projects it has signed up to whilst in the EU, and the EU wants Britian to honour them. In the end there may be no issue here, as it seems international law is clear that Britain will have to pay up under a treaty convention. But to try to argue this point before the trigger is pulled will put our erstwhile trading partner in a bad mood, what deal could we hope to negotiate after that start? Of course, in just accepting this would raise the ire of the red topped part of the 4th estate, best pretend, or even actually argue a point in international law that is unarguable and get the approval from Murdoch, Dacre and co?

Yesterday, a former minister wrote an article in the Express stating that negotiations with Europe should take ten minutes, including the time to drink the coffee afterwards, as both sides want the same thing. That he was once a minister of the realm is shocking.

Another one yesterday stated that the aim of trade with the rest of the world amounts to "Empire 2.0" because that all went so well, and Commonwealth countries would fall over themselves. Idiocracy doesn't even cover it.

In two days time, the PM wants to trigger Article 50, in order to meet that deadline she will have to accept the amendments to Lords have inserted. Whatever happens it will be interesting, but costly whatever the outcome.