Five years: part 2

24th June 2016:

"I wake up at half five, go to check the BBC news and I find that the sky has indeed fallen: Britain has voted to leave the EU. This is a stupid thing, for reasons I might write in a follow up post, we shall see. It makes me agngry, and I get angrier as the day goes on until I was incandescent by bedtime, so much so that I can sleep despite being shattered."

So began the five years of the most supid act of national stupidity in the history of national stupidity.

And that included electing Trump, which the US did reverse. There is no reversing Brexit.

In the first few weeks of Brexit, I learned a few things which did not change:

1. You can have either control or trade; lots of one but then little of the other.

To say that you could have both, in this and in other areas of Brexit, Johnson declared having cake and eating it. The EU used it as an euphamsim for stupidity and pointlessness of Brexit, and declaring things like "laternative arrangements", "technological solutions" as cakey. Brexit is, in its purest form, the rejection of the idea that to get something you want you have to give something in return.

Give us what we want, or else.

And then what else happens, and the EU is a bully.

But I thought we held all the cards.

2. The Northern Ireland/Republic border.

Find a solution for that conundrum and Brexit would be easier. Not easy.

Once Brexit was defied by May in her Lancaster House speech as meaning leaving the SM, CU and the authority of the ECJ, then a boarder, somewhere, was mandated.

There were, and still are, two choices: down the border itself or in the Irish Sea.

The DUP and ERG voted down May's border across Ireland, so Johnson had a Hobson's Choice of the one down the Irish Sea. May's would have been against much of the GFA and angered the Republical side of Irish politics, and one down the Irish Sea would anger the Loyalists.

One or the other.

Loyalists got sold down the river, thrown under the bus, the UK single market broken with NI being in the EU SM for goods, and therefore checks for goods leaving Britain to NI would require checks just as goods to the EU27 would.

This was clear from the WA and NIP.

Denying it over and over again, whilst the border posts were being built, didn't make the issue go away. Reality was always going to win.

And on top of that, the more the UK (Britain in reality) diverges from EU rules and regulations, the border between Britain and NI will get harder too.

This is what the UK signed up to, having been negotiated by David Frost under a mandate from Johnson, Johnson elected on a ticket to implement this deal which was ratified by the new Parliament.

But tell us again about the EU bullying?

3. Trade has gravity.

A country trades more, and more economically, with other countries close to it. The further a trading partner is away, the less trade can be done and costs increase.

It would take 200 deals like the one with Australia to compensate with the lost of trade with the EU.

There isn't enough such countries in the world.

4. A trade deal isn't a free trade deal. And tariffs vs non-tariff barriers.

The EU is the world's largest free trade area, to leave it in the name of free trade makes no sense.

Thinking of trade in purely tariff terms is so last century. If a politician is talking about facilitating trade in just tariff terms, they don't know what they are talking about. Non-tariff barriers are the real killer, and these can change day by day, week by week, country by country. In keeping trade flowing, a never-ending series of meetings and negotiations is needed.

Any idiot can sign a trade agreement.

Liz Truss has signed about 70. Most are just continuations of what we had has an EU member state, but will have to be fully renegotiated in due course. The potential deal with Australia isn't good for UK farming. Period. Although the UK Government won't tell us what it is willing to sign up to, nor will Parliament be allowed to debate and vote on the deal as they voted their right to do so away.

Getting a favourable trade deal required leverage. As one of 28 countries, the UK had huge leverage. As one of one, it doesn't.

5. Freedom of movement cuts both ways.

In the end, Brexit was about stopping free movement.

Stopping EU national coming and working in the UK.

Because it is racist.

Not all Brexiteers are racist, but many are.

EU citizens have come over here, worked, lived, paid taxes, spent money, rented and bought houses, doing the jobs we Brits don't want to do.

We chased them away, made it clear they're not welcome, won't even supply those who apply for settled status a piece of paper stating that. Many secotrs have huge numbers of vacancies usually taken by EU nationals. The scheme last year to repace them in fruit picking with Brit volunteers was a disaster. That situation si worse this year. Now there are 70,000 vacancies in road haulage, and the whole system is about to collapse.

And UK citizens living in the EU have found the promises that Brexit wouldn't affect them were empty promises. People have to apply for citizenship, or settled status. Many who retired don't have the incomes to meet residesency requirements and are having to come home.

Passports will be the next thing. Colour of them means nothing, its the fact that entering the EU now will mean going in the slow lane as immigration, not being able to use the e-scanners, and finding that mobile phone companies will charge for roaming once again.

Brexit will be hundreds of small changes that make life more difficult, more expensive, we may get used to it, but it isn't better.

There are amny other areas, of course. But is there hope? I am relying on reality and common sense. Though in Brexitlalaland there is little common sense. It all goes bac to (3.) above. It is impossible to replace any sigificant amount of trade lost with the EU with trade elsewhere. In order to trade, there will be alignment. It will be slow, and might take many years, decades. But the polls show that support for Brexit is in the older generation, and f support in the under 40s continues, then rejoining at some point is a possibility. But even if not, alignment so close it won't really matter, the UK will be happy to be a rule taker. What we will have lost is years, decades of lost growth, which so far is running at £800 million a week. Multiply that by years by decades and that growth, that wealth can never be replaced. We will just all be poorer.

Tuesday 22nd June 2021

Tuesday began as Monday did, with heavy clouds and driving rain.

I felt a bit better, and I knew I should go back to work, so I did.

When I got my new work phone, an i phone, I wanted to set an alarm for when I went to see the Lady Slippers, and instead of an alarm, it gave me no option to set up set sleeping time on a health app. As I set it to go off at ten past four on a Tuesday, the phone now sets off analarm at ten past four every Tuesday. Most weeks I remember and manage to change the alarm, but this week, I forgot.

So at then past four the alarm went off. The phone was on the dining room table. Jools went down and pressed what she thought was the cancel button. Sadly, it was the snooze button, so ten minutes later it goes off again.

We were both wide awake, though we lay in bed to five.

Outside the rain fell steadily. It does the garden well. We tell ourselves.

Jools is behind at work, so she left at twenty past six leaving me to ponder life and the IT issues I was bound to face when I logged on at six. As it turned out, there were no problems with IT. That would be Wednesday, but more of that next time.

So, I catch up on my mails, make calls and tell folks I was OK, and the day carried on as normal.

Jools had bought half a loaf the night before so we could have chip butties with fish and chips, and I could hear the bread telling me how much better the morning would be if I were to toast two slices and smother with butter and nutella. I pondered this for three nanoseconds, and agreed.

Toast and a huge, strong brew is a fine way to start the day. I mean, there is a place for fruit and yogurt, not to mention bacon butties or even a fry up. But two big slices of golden toasted sourdough, snothered in runny nutella.

Lovely.

That meant I should be careful about what I have the rest of the day.

The rain falls all morning, the cats are happy enough retiring to distant corners of the house to snooze on their own.

The rain does stop in the afternoon, but there is heavy cloud. On a tour of the garden I notice a new flower in the lawnmeadow: what can it be, precious? Not sure if it was just opening or was like I found it. Wednesady morning would reveal it to be a Meadow Cranesbill, another new species for the garden, which is nice.

Elsewhere, everywhere, the garden is overflowing, all full of green growth or colourful flowers, or in the case of the broad beans Jools planted, making a future dinner. I spot raspberries on the canes, a bit earlier than I was expecting, but other plants are already laden with fruit forming.

Dinner is courgette fritters. I now use Garam Masala to spice the fritters up, as it has a fabulous warm spicy flavour.

Indeed the fritters are wonderful again, and there is enough left over for me to have for lunch the next day too.

There was just the one game on TV, or two, but being from the same group, and the final games, they kick off at the same time. England played the Czech Republic, and we hoped for a better perfromance than in the first two games. And all looked good when England took the lead in the 10th minute. But then lost their way and got worse.

But they held on to win the group and play their next game again at Wembley, where they will play either Spain or Sweden. I think.

Five years

Five years today, the UK voted to leave the EU.

Vote Leave and Leave.EU won after much proven lawbreaking. That the referendum was advisary rather than a mandate result meant that the result wasn't annulled.

In response, this week Johnson announced plans to remove many powers of the Electoral Commission.

Almost all promises made in the campaign by the various Leave campaigns have been broken.

Rather than save the UK £350 million a week, it has costed the UK £800 million.

It has broken the UK single market in that NI is in the EU SM for goods.

And Johnson's (an May's) chosen form of Brexit was the hardest next to no deal. But even now they refuse to accept the consequences of their decision. Leaving the EU SW and CU means there has to be a border, just a case of where.

In chosing control ofver trade, the UK will have lots of the former, but much less of the latter. Something I learned in the weeks following the vote. If I could get this through my thick head, why can't Brexiteers?

The UK's position on the world stage is diminished, and will be even smaller if and when the UK follows through on its repeated threats to break an international treaty or two.

Promises were broken to UK nationals living in the EU and EU nationals living in the UK that Brexit would not change their status. It has, for the much worse, especially for those from the EU living here, they have to apply for settled status by the end of this month, and for that they will not receive documented evidence of their right. Families will be split up, and there will be much pain for them.

All because some people didn't like to hear Polish on the bus.

I have accepted Brexit as it is a reality. But I will never embrace it.

Brexit rounded up 52% to 100% and rounded down 48% to zero. There has been no reaching out, no compromise, just suck it up, losers.

Any Goverment compedent to deliver Brexit, wouldn't.

Monday 21st June 2021

Mid-summer.

Or, as our calendar tells us, the start of summer.

One or neither must be right.

So, it was the weather that mocked the date, by hoofing it down all day, from dawn to dusk, hoofed it down. It flattened many of the flowers in the garden, formal and "wild". We can only imagine the exposion of new growth once the starts shining. If the sun starts shining.

And so no much chance for photography, and then there was my heath. Again.

I don't think its anything serious, but I woke up at five and found that my head was spinning, like I'd had a great night on the pop, but as I haven't had any booze for about 18 days, that wasn't the case. I suspected a case of an ear infection.

But I did feel shit.

So, I came down to drink the coffee Jools had made, then went back to bed, and once she had locked me in the house and left for work, I dropped back off to sleep, and apparently slept well until just gone half ten.

I must have needed it.

Somehow cats know when we're not well, as Scully had come to sleep on the foot of the bed all morning, she allowed me to feed her when I went down to make a brew and have breakfast, my head spinning as I inched down the stairs. She then joined me at midday when I returned to bed to read the Billy Bragg book on Skiffle and its part in the formation of the Beatles and the British Invasion of the mid-60s.

Its like everything you thought you knew about rock and roll was wrong, and I don't dobt Bragg he says that without Skiffle there wouldn't have been tens of thousands of strumming three chords ready to go electric when the Beatle exploded. The Beatles themselves were a skiffle group, initially. And it was only going to Hamburg and running out of songs to play that they started to write their own.

So it goes, so it goes.

I get up again at half four, Jools called to say she would pick up fish and chips, which was fine by me. I just had to have the kettle ready boiled.

The head spinning thing wasn't quite as bad, and once Jools was home laden with golden and deep fried scrummy food, we ate well and soon felt much better.

Due to the cats still not settling down: Poppy is nervous again and needs an alternatve way out, either through the front door or the living room window, both of which, or one of them at least, we have to leave open, it was bloody cold in the house. I had told myself it wasn't that cold, but it was. After dinner we put the heating on and closed all windows and doors. Poppy let us know when she wanted to go out, and came back through the living room window at some point in the night.

It seems less stressed in the house, even if I did cat Mulder spraying in the living room. Reminds me of the "pissing wars" my friend in Canada warned us of if we would get a Bengal kitty cat years back.

I watch some football, but it palls at half time so miss the Denmark comeback to make it to the next round as they thrashed Russia.

Stupid is as ERG does

A headline in the Torygraph:

"EU sausage laws just tip of the Brexit iceberg"

"Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure from hardline Tory Brexiteers to revise the NIP, blah, blah, blah, etc"

I am fed up with saying this, but it needs to be said anyway.

The EU did not foce Brexit on the UK, it was the UK's choice.

The referendum did not define Brexit, other than to leave the EU or not. There were several choices as to the final form of Brexit. May chose to define Brexit as leaving the SM and CU. Johnson did not change that definition.

Once that was decided, there had to be a regulatory border. May chose one across Ireland, that the ERG and other Brexiteers rejected. Johnson had to take the other choice, a border in the Irish Sea.

Unless there is dynamic alignment in a number of trade and regulatory areas, there will have to be a border between Britain and the EU and between Britain and NI, that was Johnson's choice.

He gave David Frost the negotiating mandate, he was releacted on that deal, Parliamant then ratified the WA, NIP and TCA in full, with minimum of scrutiny.

This is the result.

None of this is the EU's fault.

“The ERG voted in favour of the Protocol but Mr [David] Jones said that was on the basis it would be a temporary solution and be superseded by a UK-EU trade deal.”

Looks like the ERG have mistaken Boris Johnson’s Protocol for Theresa May’s backstop.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. But remember, the ERG's "star chamber" went through the TCA and declared it acceptable.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Johnson can lie to his party, Parliament and the electorate, but he cannot lie to the International community, and not for that to have consequences. The WA and NIP are international treaties, negotiated and ratified at speed.

Regret at leisure.

Sunday 20th June 2021

We wait through the working week for the weekend to arrive so we can go out and do the things we want to do, rather than the things we have to do. Hope that makes sense. And for me, doing what I want, at this point in the year, means orchids.

Churchcrawling on Sundays is hit and miss, as most will have services in the mornings, and from the experiences of others, something like only 50% of churches are open outside services. MAny are open just one or two days or just afternoons a week. I am hopeful that churches will fully reopen once again, but some won't, clearly. Maybe many won't. I hope to return to crawling in July or August once the final unlocking happens.

But for now, orchids.

And for orchids, that means having sunshine. Marsh/Spotted orchids need sunshine to take shots of, either that or messing round with colour balanace. Even then its hit or miss. So, the BBC said that the clouds would break at lunchtime, giving me a few hours to rush to one or two sites to do some orchid snapping.

Which meant that for a change, a slow start, a lazy two course breakfast of fruit followed by croissants, both courses with a fresh coffee.

Perfect.

At half nine, sunshine poked through the clouds, and so it was a scramble to get dressed and ready for the blast to Thanet to two orchid sites.

Just beyond Sandwich, next the old power station site is a small reserve where Common Spotted and Southern March orchids interbreed and creat fabulous hybrids.Every year the display is different, sometimes with more of the parents, mostly with more hybrids. I gave up long ago trying to identify which was which, or what was what, just happy in seeing the brightly colours, bodly marked orchid spikes sticking up from the long vegetration.

Normally, such visits are soundtracked by a cuckoo, but not this year, just silence, of the sound of club hitting ball from Stonelees nearby. There is also the hazard of beingm not attacked, but approached by over-enthuisastic dogs, having been let off the lead by their owners. It happened to Jools yesterday, not attacked, but in the dog's eagarness to say hello, her leg was scratched and no word of appology from the owners who seemed to want to ignore the event.

That aside, it was a great visit, just an hour exploring the main paths and lesser used ones crossing meadows and marshes. My feet got soaked, as did the lower half of my trousers. But nothing could dampen my joy at being among hundreds of orchids.

Somewhere in the site are two Lizard spikes. I failed to find them, but seed is spreading along the coast from Sandwich Bay, and will make it all the way onto thanet soon. We did find several wild aparagus plants, and sampled a couple of shoots just to make sure. Nothing like fresh asaragus. We left the plant with many more shoots so it will produce more plants in years to come.

Then it was up to the old Hoverport to look for Bee Orchids. Running the orchid group I see shots from location descriptions I know, so I knew some had shown this year, but would it rival the dozens there used to be here at their peak?

No.

But, after walking down the unpromising steps to the former port, it opens out and once explored you get to know where to go to find stuff, like orchids. Jools found another colony of the Yellow Man Orchids, I found two new small groups of Suthern Marsh, and in a quiet corner I found 14 Bee Orchid spikes, now going to seed and browing over quickly.

As the Viking Cafe wasn't open with skip bacon butties and/or ice cream, walk back to the car and drive home. I say walk, my feet were so wet they squelshed.

So it goes.

Back home it was lunchtime, so we have ham rolls and brews, then a mixture of writing and gardening until half three when Jols went to the pool to do 20 lengths, and I stayed home and prepared dinner: chorizo hash, and kept an eye on the Wales v Italy game.

Wales lost 1-0, but their better record over the three games, goal difference, meant they finished second and not Swtzerland, so Wales are in the group stages.

We have dinner, and ten comes the tasks that mean the weekend is coming to a close; Jools making her lunches for the week, and me doing #Wildflowerhour at eight and listening to the weekely A Word in Your Ear podcast.

Weekend, all gone.

On Brexit and COVID

I have no new revalations or insights into either subject.

I mean, neither is going well. One is destroying the economy the other has killed 160,000 people.

And yet people still vote for Johnson and the Conservatives.

The Opposition chooses not to mention Brexit, even as it still being defined.

A third wave of COVID is expected, the Government has no other weapon other than vaccines, all adults can now apply for their first shot. Track and trace still isn't working, but that hasn't stopped Dame Dido Harding from applying for the role heading the replacement of PHE. I mean destroying talk Talk and the roll out of Track and Trace, what better than to be in charge of the whole of Englands heath service?

Infections and hospitalisations are increasing, but we still wait to see if hospitalisations really ramp up. The papers, or some of them, are demanding further and quicker lossening of restrictions, whilst Comrade Corbyn's brother has been filmed removing COVID-related posters and signs from Underground trains.

Becasue why not snatch a third wave from a successful vaccination campaign?

Sir David Frost is advertising for someone to head up yet another unit to find some benefits for Brexit. I mean, this kind of shit should have been done over five years ago before the referendum. But, next week sees the 5th anniversary of the referendum, and the UK is no further forward in defining Brexit or deciding what form its future relationship with the EU will be, though it is more likely to be one of conflict rather than partnership, as conflict plays better with Tory base support.

Welcome to Brexitlalaland.