No-deal Brexit was once a sick Tory joke. Now it's serious

[Soph0571]

No-deal Brexit has suddenly gone serious. It is no longer an exercise in bombast and biceps-flexing. Boris Johnson is about to impose a massive economic sanction on his own country. He is playing with fire: it is a political stunt that has gone horribly wrong.

It is clearly reckless to assume a sensible Brexit deal before the due date of 31 October. Politicians can twiddle their thumbs, others cannot. Since March, the Tories decided collectively to stop working in the nation’s interest and play a game of chicken with Brussels. It has not worked. The government is now planning for crisis.

The outlook is grim. The Institute for Government warns that there is no magic button, no “managed no deal”, to handle border chaos on 1 November. Emergency measures on trucks, plane flights, tourism and immigration will be entirely at the EU’s mercy – as the UK will, overnight, become legally a “foreign state”. We will need to be very nice to Brussels. Even current measures on financial services and aviation are strictly temporary. Rudimentary “technology checks” on truck movements will require a huge infrastructure of certificates, gantries and cameras, inspection depots and tariff collection points. None of this is remotely in place. Sixteen thousand officials will need to be set to work on it, and by October. This is impossible.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/29/no-deal-brexit-tory-joke-boris-johnson-economic-britain#tabs-popular-2|

I have a really horrible feeling about this...

[no_hypocrisy]

1. One reason why the EU won't grant concessions to the UK's Brexit:

It sets a bad precedent.

IOW, say if France or Italy wanted to follow Britain by leaving the EU, there would be expectations of gifts for leaving. You know, swag.

It would only encourage more countries to leave.

[Celerity]

2. Brussels is not going to blink

The attitude I now see here in Stockholm this summer has went from sympathetic to 'don't like the door hit you in the arse'.

My oldest Swedish friends call me the jinx (as look at my nations leaders now, Rump and Boris ) They worry that if we move here perm that Jimmie Åkesson (the far right wing SD leader) will become PM, lolol

[Soph0571]

3. I once spent a year in Stockholm.

Long time ago now though.

[Celerity]

4. it is much more like London now than it was say 30 years ago

Cost of living has exploded (still nowhere near Zone 1 levels though) and it now is far far more diverse ethnically (albeit it is also extremely segregated, especially in the inner core.)