The backstop issue

As May hurtles towards the Commons vote on her negotiated WA and Framework Trade agreement (AKA, the deal), the Government is putting out many ideas and reaching out to Brexiteers to try to pacify them to see if the Government can win.

There is talk of delaying Brexit, and of some kind of cross-party committee to discuss what is best for the country. This appeared on a front page of a couple of newspapers earlier in the week, then vanished without trace.

So, this is how Brexit is playing out, a series of desperate ideas, soon shot down by either side of the Brexit factions.

An idea that UK Parliament could been needed to give the OK for the backstop to be triggered, thus failing to understand that the backstop is a requirement under international law, and if it could be blocked, is not an actual backstop. So, there we have it.

And then there is reports in today's Times that a no deal Brexit could cause greater food and other shortages than in the UK< and May should use this as leverage. That this is a country that England decimated in the great famine and might be seen as a provocative measure, but that did not stop Brexiteers demanding it be used.

These are our friends and neighbours.

So, it comes as no surprise in the Irish edition of the same newspaper, that 55% of NI now supports unification. That wasn't written on the side of a bus! And if this is really the case, then under the terms of the GFA there should now be a referendum on a united Ireland.

And if the Tories are bad, then Labour is no better, as Corbyn is still saying that he could negotiate a better, jobs first Brexit.

I weep.

And bear in mind at how much of a clusterfuck May and her Cabinet has made of Brexit, and Labour is still five points behind in the polls. This is how crap Corbyn is as opposition leader!

Meanwhile May, the Brexiteers and Corbyn are not battling Brexit or the EU, they are battling reality itself. And May's WA and Framework, though not perfect, is the best that, under the circumstances and her red lines, was the best that could be obtained. May is still fighting internal party politics with the main aim to keep her party together and her in power. Corbyn is engaging in party politics, rather than both of them doing what is best for the country. All forms of Brexit will be harmful to the country and economy, but until May and Corbyn are honest with themselves and the electorate, this is never going to change.

Meanwhile the Brexiteers are fighting just reality, seeing themselves as elder statesmen fighting for the motherland, when all they are doing is looking after their own vested interests, vultures waiting for the crash so they can pick up pieces of the economy that's left for a pittance. Hearing a man who lives in a castle with an actual moat railing against the "elite" is rather funny, or would be if the consequences were not so dire for the working folk of the country. As it will be them who will suffer the worst hardships.

And as for Dover, the Governor of the Bank of England had to explain to the MP for Dover the difference in trade from Dover and Felixstowe, that one is RORO to the EU, the other is container freight to the rest of the world.

God help us all.