As the never-ending, extremely tedious and boring saga of the UK attempting to exit the European Union hurtles into its next phase, one matter is still very clear. As I wrote last October 2017 the UK will leave the EU without an Exit Deal in place. This entire English-driven and English Tory-induced shambles has only served to confirm to the world the worst stereotypes regarding the English. How it is a nation of immature depressing blowhards and paper tigers who crumble easily despite John Bull rhetoric and live in a deluded bubble of laughable and pathetic English cloud cuckoo land nationalism.
From start to the near finish (though the end is actually far from in sight) of this exercise in deciding whether the UK should be a European Union member state or some how manage itself as a self-governing independent sovereign country the only successful and productive outcome has been the complete humiliation of the British Government and nation led by Theresa May at the hands of the EU. The British Government gave into everything the EU asked of it even including the much demonized back-stop proposal regarding the situation with Northern Ireland. It has been an utter humiliation of the British people and British Government on an international scale perhaps not seen since the days of Suez or Dunkirk. The United States has now come to the view that its number one ally in Europe and NATO has lost the plot and is effectively out of the game internationally as a serious actor on the world stage. The British Prime Minister is not rated nor regarded highly in Washington DC with many senior figures seeing her more suited to a middle ranking Cabinet role such as Education Secretary rather than Prime Minister.
The whole machinery of British Governance, Parliament and the media have been overwhelmed and consumed for the last three years by one topic and one topic alone, that ghastly non-English word called Brexit, and it will continue to be this way for many years to come. When the Tory British Government has not been too busy attempting to prove how superior they are to other Europeans the only other topic it has attacked with relish has been engaging in ridiculous and irrational anti-Russian hysteria and attempting to damage Russia internationally. Most certainly when the English and their right wing have been exposed for the vacuous cowards they are they will lash out in an even more aggressive but utterly incompetent and fundamentally weak and cack-handed fashion.
Hilariously, for a nation that wants to take back more control it cannot even exert control effectively in the areas it still controls such as its woeful transport system with the inability to produce a simple timetable for its trains as witnessed during the commuter chaos during the summer, or place air conditioning on its underground tubes for the hot summer weather, or run a health service without endless queues and unbelievable waiting times or alleviate the economic and social conditions of the 1/5 of its population, 14 million people, who live in poverty in the supposedly sixth largest richest developed economy on the planet.
What we have had over the course of the last three years has been a very boring, very parochial, very ill informed and highly irrational debate [in short a very English debate] in Westminster and the country at large over tedious trivia of the past regarding Europe and whether or not the UK can survive outside the EU, largely driven by ideological navel-gazing and mainly elderly members of the Conservative Party, when it is plain for all to see who live, work and study in England that the English are genetically incapable of smooth, efficient, cost-effective, rigorous administration and management. But to be clear the UK is headed for a No Deal Exit with a crashing out into the WTO and a complete clean severance from the EU with the need to start to undertake the mammoth task of rejigging everything in the UK from border controls and immigration to health and safety and environmental laws. Given that the UK infrastructure is dilapidated and crumbling and that there are already so many deep economic and social problems to tackle in the UK such as its deep entrenched class culture of social and economic inequality, instead of socio-economic mobility and opportunity for all regardless of background, it will be very interesting to see how the Government and workforce at large respond to such an exercise of more pointless naval gazing time wasting.
Despite Theresa May's protestations to the contrary, her and the EU's Exit Deal do not stand a chance of passing the House of Commons. The DUP who she is reliant to get her Government's legislation through the Commons have said they will vote against it. So have the Labour Party. So have the SNP and also a substantial amount of rebels in Mrs. May's own party. The only question now left in my mind is not whether the UK crashes out of the EU without a Deal, I knew that would happen for sure last year, but whether or not Mrs. May will survive a confidence vote and remain as PM to take over the Brexit cliff which the UK is marching towards come March 29th 2019. If Theresa May had not boxed herself and the UK in with that pathetic & stupid Nick Timothy January 2017 'Lancaster House' speech where she stated the UK would quit the Single Market & Customs Union and if she had not been so politically greedy and called a needless General Election in May 2017 she could have averted the mess and catastrophe she, her party and the country now find themselves in and probably got a decent Exit Deal through Parliament. I have no sympathy for her as a politician. She has no one but herself, her predecessor David Cameron and her disgusting party to blame. The two of them will go down as probably two of the weakest and worst Prime Ministers the UK has ever had and hopefully the Tory Party come the next General Election will lose power for a generation. An excellent case study for future political historians in a total abject failure of political leadership and how not to run a country.
What is happening now in Westminster & Brussels is an exercise in reality. The fact is Britain is a very badly run and governed country still stuck in a backwards past more enthralled to Kings & Queens and the insufferably reactionary Downton Abbey unable to emerge and progress forward as a modern, cohesive and dynamic cosmopolitan country. A very peculiar country when one really drills down. No written constitution. A half elected Parliament with one Chamber known as the 'Commons' & one as the 'Lords'. A hereditary organization known as the Royal Family and Aristocracy who still enjoy vast wealth, privilege and great protection yet among the majority no real culture of aspiration, meritocracy and a celebration of success and progress against the odds. An utterly corrupt honors system with more silly titles for the likes of Sir Philip Green. The most polarized and socially divisive schooling system on the planet. The highest teenage pregnancy in Western Europe. A small island where the vast majority know very little about it beyond Newcastle and has a horrendous range of different and extremely polarized accents. A capital city more like Gotham City. Taboos and regular mockery surrounding sensitive issues such as mental health. An economy the most unproductive in the G7. An immigration system which is a complete mess. A stupid and weak domestic security service MI5 that operates merely on hearsay and speculation and an utterly incompetent, weak, feeble and frankly uneducated English police force. A transport system where it takes 6 hours to get from Cambridge to Shrewsbury. I could go on and on. Yet Brexit will solve all this according to the Old Etonian Boris Johnson. Quite the scam the English have been feckless enough to fall for.