October 2019
BRIAN E D'S RANT TORA
MEANWHILE,
ACROSS THE CHANNEL… London calling, the fog is closing in fast. Berlin, do you still read me? Michael Wilson turns the spotlight onto the EU and considers all the things they’ve got to worry apart from when, how or whether the UK finally leaves the bloc
S
omehow, I’m not particularly surprised by the news that British voters are turning off their TVs whenever Brexit comes on the evening news – or that street interviewers are finding people who are prepared to say “oh, I don’t know, it might be a disaster for the next fifty years but let’s just it over with”. Because there are times when I get just as overwhelmed as anybody else by the sheer complexity of the Brexit mess. As I write this, with the Westminster Parliament suspended, and with Boris Johnson angrily disputing the legality of the new law requiring him to request a Brexit extension if he can’t negotiate a deal with the 27 other member states (or perhaps go to prison), it all seems too bizarre to be really
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happening. And my mind simply boggles at the idea that a British PM might instigate a vote of no confidence in himself, so that he can be sacked and then reinstated after 31st October. As a political drama, it’s vaguely reminiscent of Mel Brooks’s classic The Producers –a film about a theatrical pair of frauds who set up a deliberate box-office failure, only to watch it failing to fail, which then ruins them both. (And which lands them both in prison, by the way.) So let’s hear at least half a groan of support for the 27 other EU members, who are having to put up with our complex constitutional crisis while also getting on with the urgent daily business of running their own economies and settling
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