Brexit can’t be fixed. The notion that there might be a “route out of this mess for the UK” is naive and nonsensical. The clock cannot be turned back. That which has been fucked cannot be unfucked. And much has been monumentally fucked by the British political elite.
What Nicola Sturgeon seems to be hoping for is a triple miracle. Firstly, a UK general election which restores some semblance of sanity to British politics. This to be followed by a second EU referendum which provides, not just a result, but a decision. Finally, an orderly return to a pre-Brexit status quo ante.
In the 1937 film adaptation of an HG Wells short story, The Man Who Could Work Miracles, the lead character – a mild-mannered haberdasher’s assistant named George Fotheringay – is granted the power to work miracles. Needless to say, he proceeds to make an almighty mess of things – albeit with the very best of intentions. His final miracle is to return everything to the way it was before he acquired the ability to mould reality.
Brexit may not be a folly quite on the same scale as George Fotheringay’s catastrophic stopping of the Earth’s rotation. But we’re not in a movie. Here in the real world, the last four years cannot be wiped from history. What has been done remains done. Little, if any, of it can be undone. The impact of Brexit is deep, wide and abiding. Repairing the damage is rather like trying to patch a pot-hole the size of the crater left by an asteroid strike.
Even if Article 50 was to be revoked, which seems exceedingly unlikely, none of the agencies, organisations and businesses which have already moved out of the UK are likely to return. Those that are in advanced stages of planning their departure may not consider it either desirable or economically feasible to reverse their plans. And that’s before we start to take account of the vast reservoir of distrust, resentment, lost credibility and bitterness that has been engendered by the reckless escapades of the Mad Brexiteers. You don’t cure that with a smear of Savlon.
Relations between the UK and the EU will be in turbulent flux for decades no matter how, or even whether, Brexit proceeds. Not only is there no easy fix, there is no fix at all.
Scotland still has the chance to escape the worst of the Brexit mess. The Union is the millstone which threatens imminently to drag us down with England’s self-destructive choice and simultaneously expose us to the threat of a rabid British Nationalism which regards Scotland’s distinctive political culture as anathema.
It wouldn’t take a miracle to save Scotland. Only a First Minister and a Scottish Government prepared to take bold, decisive action.
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Peter A Bell 
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a 50+ Female.
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“It wouldn’t take a miracle to save Scotland. Only a First Minister and a Scottish Government prepared to take bold, decisive action.”
What do we need to do to get, “… a First Minister and a Scottish Government prepared to take bold, decisive action” ?
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Don’t really want to join up to the march of the nay-sayers, but the waste of the past five or so years does not seem like evidence of a Scotland marching confidently toward its independence. I had hoped to see the future of a financial situation and strategy laid before us – before the voters.
Where is the Scottish Development Bank that I should be depositing my bawbees into in the expectation of adding seedcorn for our new national economy?
Where is that committee of a dozen, or just a few, who are drawing up the intricacies of the Independent Scottish Central Bank? That, by the way, will be the bank which establishes and manages our new currency!
Where are the – initially small – committees – whose titles we recognise and know will be needed to help govern Scotland? You know – Scottish Media Regulator (with teeth), Scottish Energy Regulator, Scottish Transport Commission, Scottish Financial Conduct Board, Scottish Office for Communications? And all the others we will need.
Each needs – for now – a few qualified and dedicated and remunerated people and an office and a budget.
Needed now, these will not be an unaffordable cost.
The real cost of building our infrastructure-in-waiting is in NOT building it where we would look like fearty, ineffectual, dreamers.
Hopers for miracles. Feart of work and investment.
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The power of the Yes movement needs to be turned on the the Scottish Government. It’s pointless directing that power at Westminster. That’s not where the important decisions will be made.
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It would take a miracle, it seems, to stir the First Minister and Scottish government into taking action.
They have abdicated from leadership of the independence cause. The responsibility has been passed to the independence movement and the Scottish people. The Yes movement is charged with getting out and converting enough people to move the polls to 60+ for Yes.
If the figure goes into the 60’s, the British government just might get the jitters and concede the referendum. And if, in spite of the British government having total control of this process, ‘Yes’ were to prevail – it’s cushy jobs all round for the SNP without anyone having to take even the tiniest career risk. Nice work if you can get it!
I think this all stems from the Catalonia situation. NS and the top echelon all watched how that unfolded, and – I will refrain from using a more indelicate expression – let’s just say there was a failure of nerve.
And so we have the present course of inaction. Nothing short of taking a hammering at the ballot box and/or the removal of Sturgeon is going to change the ‘strategy’ now.
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An accurate and astute analysis, Peter.
Unlike the nay-sayers above, though, who seem to think Rome can be built in an hour or so, and well before the fact, I think the call will be answered. But it needs to be done considerably more expeditiously than the heretofore promised Autumn of next year.
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Dunno about miracles but I still hanker after the return of the gaffer, sadly they’ve done their work well. RE Catalonia they seem to be saying now we are too much like them so we must be cautious. Whereas for years they maintained we were nothing like them. We are a SOVEREIGN Nation in a union. Much as I admire the Catalans they are not the same. To paraphrase Back door Boris lets GET INDY DONE. If we can’t persuade the International community of the veracity of our Independence claim after 12 years of complete democratic dominance, we never will.
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Revoking Article 50 wouldn’t absolve the UK from the mess of Brexit, but if Scotland was to cite it’s popular sovereignty and seek to revoke Article 50 unilaterally, as a sovereign and democratic prerogative, I think the effect would be profound.
If the ECJ was obliged to recognise Scottish Sovereignty, then so would the EU.
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