Brexit v reality: the final chapter?

Anyone who says they knew how Brexit was going to end up, will be lying.

And there may be many more miles in the old lie yet, but there are signs of strain.

Strain as Brexit and realty, now having shared the same universe since January 1st this year, shows signs of coming apart.

Its just whether reality or Brexit will fail first.

The truth is, as it always was, that Brexit was always a war against reality. Reality in economic and trade terms that if you put barriers between yourself and your closest and most profitable trading partners, trade and the economy wouldn't suffer.

And that if the UK had its own single market and customs union, though not a union in real terms, then where the UK's and the EU's met, there would be a border. Or measures and sytems in place that rendered the border invisible, or frictionless.

In terms of (Great) Britain that would be hard enough, but there is Northern Ireland on top of that to consider.

Not that the Brexiteers considered Northern Ireland that much. Odd for people who claim to love the country and were members of Parliament for what is officially called the Conservative and Union Party.

One thing I learned early on, either decide how NI fitted into Brexit and that would decide the kind of Brexit you'd end up with.

Once the UK was to leave the EU's SM and CU, there had to be a border, you just had to decide where.

And this you know.

May's choice was a border across Ireland, which wouldn't really work as it is clearly against the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), as she said a border in the Irish Sea was something no UK Prime Minister could accept.

Along came Boris Johnson and agreed to just that.

He denied the consequences, but reality and all that. But it seems the plan was to never honour the very Brexit he negotiated and was elected to implement.

Another failure of Brexit and its pushers is the fact that no county exists in isloation. Not even North Korea. And pissing of one of your majour allies might be termed as unfortunate, but to piss off the other, the US at the same time for the same reason, is more than careless.

The GFA was guaranteed, politically, but the UK Government, the Irish Government, the EU and the US Government, and even during the Trump years, Congress warned Johnson that damaging of breaking the GFA would mean never getting a trade deal with the US, as such things have to be passed by Congress, today, representatives from various committees in Washington jointly signed a warning to the UK Government not to, as previously stated, damage of break the GFA:

“The Northern Ireland Protocol was a significant achievement during the volatile Brexit process, and its full implementation is critical for ensuring Brexit doesn’t undermine decades of progress toward peace on the island of Ireland.

Today, Representatives Gregory W. Meeks, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, William R. Keating, Chair of the Europe, Energy, the Environment and Cyber Subcommittee, Earl Blumenauer, Chair of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, and Brendan Boyle, Chair of the European Union Caucus, released the following statement on the United Kingdom’s threats to suspend the Northern Ireland protocol of the EU withdrawal agreement:

“The Good Friday Agreement and broader peace process took patience and time to build, with good faith contributions from the communities in Northern Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and others. However, peace can unravel quickly.

“In threatening to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, the United Kingdom threatens to not only destabilize trade relations, but also that hard earned peace. We call on the UK to abandon this dangerous path, and to commit to implementing the Northern Ireland Protocol in full.”

Frost has backtracked somewhat in a statement in the Lords today.

But Brist is not just about battling reality, it is about keeping the Conservative united, which in the end may well prove to be impossible, but done so far by promising both side opposite things, and then when it came to it, expelling the moderates to keep the ERG happy.

But the ERG and headbanger Brexiteers are never happy, they always want me, and the more you give, the still more they demand.

Johnson now finds himself caught in a pincer formed by Brexit, the EU, his own backbenchers, reality, COVID, corruption in many forms and now the US. There might not be a way out of any of them, let alone all of them.

Who does he throw under a bus?

And that is the million dollar question.

All done to a backdrop of galloping inflation, job shortages, energy shortages and supply issues for basic goods. It will be a long hard winter for everyone, not just Johnson.