Ima gonna level with you. I now have a galactic knowledge of things I never wanted or needed to know about the EU. And this leads me to believe we are in a position where much of what has been done to us is pretty much irreversible without some pushback from other member states. This is not going to happen. This is what we eurosceptics were always warning about.
Consequently, unless we stay in the single market, we are totally fucked. We are looking at, in modern terms, an unprecedented decline in living standards. I don't like it, but there it is. If we had a halfway competent government, it would by now have realised this and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But here we are.
There is still a chance that sense will prevail. The government may find itself boxed in on all sides. Myself and my fellow keyboard warriors are keeping up the pressure, but it is in the hands of the gods now.
But yesterday was a moment of clarity for me. An epiphany of sort. The budget told me one thing and one thing only. Brexit is bad, but remaining in the EU is absolutely suicidal.
Y'see it became clear to me when I saw that we are making a 40% cut to the FCO. Here we are about to enter a far less privileged arrangement with our nearest and largest trade partner and the Downing Street thinks we can prune the FCO and not make cuts to entitlements. That, people, is a political establishment that has completely fucking lost it.
If you are a bubble dwelling politico then any budget day is a political event. Not for this pussycat. To me they are always pedestrian managerialism lacking any political courage. This one was no different save for one fact. The only thing that made it remotely interesting; the fact that this budget is the last of its kind. The very last one where we can afford to ignore reality.
For the last decade or so we have pruned the RN, the FCO, DIT and all the instruments of international hard and soft power. This is so we can continue with the electoral bribes and keep shelling out entitlements. We live in an age so perverse where the government can spend 35% of tax receipts on welfare and we call this "austerity".
Brexit, as far as Downing Street is concerned, is just another procedural expense. But when it hits, it will be like they tripped a claymore mine. They won't know what hit them. If that doesn't wake them up then nothing will. Only then can we arrest the silent decline. And if it still doesn't register that we cannot go on like this (which is still possible given how bent out of shape things are) then we will go all the way south.
That would be bad, and it would render Brexit somewhat futile, but I'm still ok with that because without a disruptive event that was our destination anyway.
If all we have done is brought it forward then it will be us who deal with the consequences and picks up the pieces. We will, at the very least, have done the adult thing and not kicked the can down the road in the way that our politicians do. It won't be pretty, but at least we will not have shirked our responsibility as custodians of our democracy.
One way or another we have started something here. The protected class are afraid. They are doing what they can to avoid confronting reality - but they cannot, will not, and must not win. We have crossed the event horizon. Now we have to own the choice we have made. There is no going back. AlI I can say is... buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, because Kansas... is going bye bye.
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