So, It Is Now Getting Serious

Wednesday 18th January

A recent analysis of Donald Trump was that people took him literally but nobody took him seriously; when in fact we should have taken him not literally but very seriously.  We all thought (hoped, prayed) that as the gravitas of his election dawned on both him and the Republican party that all that rhetoric, all those stupid tweets, all that bluster would be replaced by a calmer, more considered and more reasonable Donald.  Fat chance of that, if anything he is getting worse, picking fights with the Afro-American community and the Chinese.

Likewise in a strange parallel the same can be said of Mrs. May.  All she told us for a while was “Brexit means Brexit”, a nonsense if ever there was one – and no-one really took her seriously.  There were so many possible shades of Brexit, membership or access or associate membership of the Single Market; the Customs Union whereby no paperwork has to accompany goods moving from country to country, the European Court of Human Rights which isn’t actually a part of the EU but which can hand down judgements affecting Britain…and so on.  Surely, we all thought, wiser heads would prevail and she wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Well she has well and truly pulled the plug, and the water though only just beginning to trickle will soon pour out in a flood – no lifebelt – and no chance of rescuing baby now.  We never took her seriously.  Brexit will indeed mean Brexit – a complete exit from the EU and all its ramifications.  What is less clear is how she even begins to think she will get a good deal on trade, which of course she promises.  There is no way the Europeans will allow us access to the Single Market without tariffs, especially as we are demonstrably wooing America and Australia, and probably China, soon to agree new trade deals outside the EU.

It seems that she was either always a secret Brexiteer, maybe even part of the coup along with Boris to both topple Cameron/Osborne and to leave the EU, or she has decided to bow to the Eurosceptics in her own party; maybe deciding that the old Remainers will be less trouble than the Leavers. Maybe she has an eye on the next election, where she hopes Labour will still be in disarray and the effects of leaving still not felt during the transition, and Donald smiling and rubbing his hands as he eyes up Britain being completely swept up in the American sphere of influence.