05 March 2019

Brexit

We are supposed to leave the European Union in 24 days. I don't think that will happen. I somehow doubt that any legal clarifications on the backstop (which is necessary because we have no idea how long a trade deal would take to thrash out) would ever be enough to satisfy the ERG. Come next week, Parliament will almost certainly vote against May's deal, against a no deal and in favour of an extension.

The EU will likely grant that, but the price may be a second referendum, which I would personally support. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of just revoking Article 50 without a second vote; while there was certainly criminal activity in the lead-up to the referendum, it didn't exactly involve ballot stuffing and much of the propaganda was called out at the time. In any event, just overturning any big vote like that sets a bad precedent.

At the end of the day, I really just want to go in the quicker queue at passport control and not need a visa to go to Europe for holiday. It's trivial, I know, but much of the stuff the EU is barely noticed in daily life. Free movement is nice, but I'm very unlikely ever to take full advantage of it due to my not exactly brilliant language skills. Customs checks aren't something I deal with at all in my daily life, except for the one time I had to pay £10 extra postage for the import duty on a game I bought from the US. Goods standards... if we left we can raise them ourselves. In any event, most companies would stick to EU standards to avoid having to do two different production lines; they're the global standard in a number of fields, I believe.

Ultimately, I'm just sick of the whole thing. Are you?

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