On Brexit Circa 30th January

[danieldwilliam]

I think the next steps for Brexit are

May goes off to Brussels with her mandate in her hand. (Must change my Facebook profile picture back to Neville Chamberlain.)

Brussels don't negotiate. Version A) they meet for a few weeks, change a few comma, and increase the divorce bill by a few billion. Everyone agrees they should do it again in March. Option B. Brussels refuses to re-open negotiaions, May is just told, "no, take it or leave it." The EU decides that it will put Irish solidarity and future cohesion ahead of Tory Party unity.  May is publically humiliated in a way that sends a clear message to the Five Star movement.

May comes back to Parliament with a deal that is essentially unchanged.

It fails to pass again.

There is a Vote of No Confidence Again.

Then I don't know.

Perhaps the Government falls. Perhaps not. Perhaps Keir Starmer forms a government of national unity. Perhaps we end up with martial law. Perhaps there is a People's Vote. I've no idea.

And nor do you.

And nor do they.

Comments

[andrewducker]

Yeah. I'm spending this weekend clearing out the freezer and getting in some essentials for stockpiling purposes.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not, because I'm at the rugby of various sorts all weekend.

But I may find that next week I'm unwell one day and do exactly that.

[notasupervillain]

When I got my last meds filled, I asked if there was any plan to Brexit. The pharmacist said (yelled, almost), "No! There's no plan! This is Britain! We don't plan anything here!"

I think he agrees with your assessment. I don't think he likes it.

[mountainkiss]

As of Tuesday night, I decided that I am going to assume there will not be a deal and plan accordingly. Apart from anything else, that lets me off for trying to follow the shenanigans and work out what is going to happen.

[danieldwilliam]

I think that is a reasonable planning assumption for someone like you or me. A modest investment in food and a modest change in posture won't be too painful if there is a deal or a revocation. Having a year's worth of pasta and Remain won't hurt. Also, a moderate risk of a very bad outcome needs to be mitigated and managed.

My personal view is that we are actually moving closer to a second referendum and, therefore, probably to remaining.

It looks like Barnier has taken Option Two, humilate May quckly. So we've got a couple of weeks of Brexiteer nutjobs festering, two weeks of the NO to No Deal majority still being against No Deal and it becomes clearer and clearer that the choice is between May's deal and revocation / referendum.

What we are up to at the moment is slowly moving through a process of chopping out unworkable options. The Hard Brexiteer fantasy of telling Barnier and the Irish off will be exposed as non-viable this week. Next week, I think, the DUP are in for a disappointment

A lot of people, including dear friends of ours, keep seeing each vote in Parliament as if it reveals new information. Mostly I think it doesn't. We are not necessarily on a set path but we have a certain trajectory and we are operating in an environment with strange attractors. We're a political pinball. Not every impact with an obstacle changes where we end up. Most are just noise and flashing lights whilst the ball bounces exactly where it was always going to bounce. Occassionally the ball interacts with some form of chaotic attractor. Very, very occassionally it interacts with a paddle over which we have some control.

The potential outcomes remain the same

No Deal. May's Deal. Norway/BINO. Big Delay. Remain.

(Big Delay is a category of its own because of the economic and political impact of uncertainty and acrimony and the way a Big Delay interacts wtih other political processes like May's 1 year grace period, the timing of other elections and demographics.)

This is the period where we reveal to ourselves that in between No Deal and May's Deal there is no Deal Where The Irish Remember Their Place and that in between May's Deal and Norway there is no Deal Where We Are A Just A Little Bit Nicer to Foreigners. We will also reveal to ourselves, once the bullshit non-optoins are removed which 2 of the 5 options is the least popular and where their adherents in Parliament will move. I think No Deal and BINO will go down in that order. It is possible that May's Deal fails before BINO fails. That might depend on how obnoxious and stupid the Hard Brexiteers are.

[mountainkiss]

I hope you’re right about all of this but at the moment I can’t spare the petrol to follow the ups and downs of it.

[danieldwilliam]

You must, of course, ration your petrol for useful and good things for you.

I don't think spending energy following the ups and downs over the coming weeks is energy well spent. (Unless like me you find the spectacle interesting.)

Best thing you can do is make sure you and JW and your folks arrive at the end of March with cupboards full of long-lived food and other consumables that you won't mind using up over the next 12 months. If it goes wrong, you'll be as prepared as you can be. If it goes okay, hey, I might make A Year's Worth of Pasta and Remain my motto.

[mountainkiss]

I’ll write about it when I do my update tomorrow or over the weekend.

[alithea]

This is my plan too. We're going home tomorrow and the weekend will be spent sorting out the spare room and the shed so we have more storage and then we can stock up on tins and dry goods. And I'll be filling my two month prescription at the beginning of March.

Oh, and I'm going to make a raised bed in the back garden and grow some root veg. Sadly the traffic pollution is too high for growing much else.

[danieldwilliam]

IN fact it makes quite a snappy motto in Latin.