The divisive subject of EU Membership should have been at its end on the morning of the 24th June 2016. But it wasn’t to be.
With over four years passed, three Governments and three Prime Ministers too, it seems incredible that we still don’t genuinely know what the end result or Brexit will look like.
As we journey into the New Year, many of us will be hoping that we will be leaving the troubles of 2020 behind and that the early days of 2021 will herald in positive change, a new sovereign UK and the opportunity to leave the disastrous government Lockdown, its response to Coronavirus and all signs of the Brexit spilt behind us.
Sadly, as I watch the EU beginning the process of suing the UK over the content and legal meaning of the Internal Market Bill that was passed through our Parliament earlier this week, I am genuinely concerned that the rhetorical and bombastic approach that Johnson and his Government are relying on to save them from the 2020 chaos they created will be used as the excuse the EU wants to push the UK into making a giant U-Turn and going the other way.
Banking on some kind of epic climbdown by the EU at the last minute has always been a very risky approach for politicians to take. But it is foolish in the extreme to do so as we ride the Coronavirus Pandemic and enter the economic disaster zone that Johnson and Sunak chose to bring our way.
The legal process the EU has embarked on could easily give them a ‘legitimate’ tool to close our shared borders. They may use it to run down the clock until the Johnson Government collapses and is replaced by more malleable politicians who will sue for peace and the immediate reopening of borders, using the emergency as an excuse to re-sign the UK as Members of the EU on terms that will tie us in on their terms that will not allow the democratic result from 2016 to get in the way.
After 31st December 2020, we could see the supply chain for normal life come grinding to a halt whilst irresponsible politicians and bureaucrats on both sides of the English Channel engage in unnecessary, undemocratic games that could be yet another risk to lives.
You cannot fault the Johnson Government when it comes to its use of words and messaging to manipulate people and to gesture, often in ways that we have never seen before. But the stories and programming are not backed up by quality decision making and the action on the ground.
Whilst the population has not gone into physical revolt over the Lockdown and Social Distancing measures yet, take food off our tables and remove essential services and supplies for just a few days and the politicians who are running us headlong into disaster after disaster of their own making will find themselves facing a crisis that fear, threats and fines will no longer control.
The nation is tired of the Lockdown and the endless rules that fail to make sense or fail to consider the impact and consequences of what they do. The political class has taken for granted that people will remain pliable in every sense, whilst in practice the patience that we have for out-of-touch politicians destroying everything good that they touch is already dangerously wafer-thin. That patience will evaporate the moment the existence they have regulated upon us is compromised and we cannot even ‘live’.
A Government of leaders would have been working with the worst-case scenario approach to this all along. Yet the current Conservative Administration is inept, out of its depth and even the MPs that make up the numbers necessary to push legislation through are so out of touch with reality they have collectively acquiesced with the Government by pushing a further 6 months of rule-by-decree during the Coronavirus Pandemic through.
Far fetched as it might sound, we could be staring down the barrel of a New Year border blockade.
Instead of continuing with the flurry of diktats to control a virus that cannot and does not need to be controlled, the Government’s time and logistical efforts would be better spent stockpiling food and the essential day to day supplies that everybody will need potentially for a period of weeks or months. They should be busy doing things like repurposing the fleet of mothballed passenger aircraft for cargo carrying to ensure that supplies can be brought in from Countries that are trade-friendly to the UK and are located beyond the reach and membership of the EU. But they are not.
We don’t know what lies ahead of us in the 12 weeks to Christmas. Chances are that we will somehow go from what feels like the worst situation possible to the best that our politicians believe they can make us feel before the festive season gets fully underway. They can have us all ‘on side’ for the changes that they believe they can control once the 31st of December has passed and we are on the other side.
Regrettably, what will happen if both the EU and our imposter government continue on the paths that they look set to is anyone’s guess. But if they continue as I expect, 2021 could end up being a tough ride for us all of the likes we have never seen before.
Adam Tugwell 