Article 50 Day
Public
As I type, the Prime Minister's letter formally triggering Article 50 is about to be delivered to the EU. Oddly, Twitter has taken to calling this "Brexit Day", which is a bit silly as the UK won't actually leave the EU for another two years. It's like giving someone a card from the Queen on their 98th birthday! =:P So as far as I'm concerned, this is Article 50 Day.
It's not exactly a secret that I didn't want this to happen. I voted Remain in June and, given a time machine, would do the same again. Still, here we are, and we have to try to make the best of it. This is what bothers me about Theresa May: she's showing the zealotry of the converted and apparently throwing her weight entirely behind rock-hard Brexit of a sort that seems calculated only to please the ultras on her own back benches. Most of industry certainly doesn't want it, as the EEF manufacturers' organisation said just the other day.
Since at times like this I tend to make predictions that prove amusingly wrong, here's today's: I think the UK will be back in something like the single market/EEA by 2030 at the latest. The EU itself, probably not, though who knows what that will look like by then? (I don't think the EU will collapse, despite some Brexiteers' fond hopes.)
As I type, the Prime Minister's letter formally triggering Article 50 is about to be delivered to the EU. Oddly, Twitter has taken to calling this "Brexit Day", which is a bit silly as the UK won't actually leave the EU for another two years. It's like giving someone a card from the Queen on their 98th birthday! =:P So as far as I'm concerned, this is Article 50 Day.
It's not exactly a secret that I didn't want this to happen. I voted Remain in June and, given a time machine, would do the same again. Still, here we are, and we have to try to make the best of it. This is what bothers me about Theresa May: she's showing the zealotry of the converted and apparently throwing her weight entirely behind rock-hard Brexit of a sort that seems calculated only to please the ultras on her own back benches. Most of industry certainly doesn't want it, as the EEF manufacturers' organisation said just the other day.
Since at times like this I tend to make predictions that prove amusingly wrong, here's today's: I think the UK will be back in something like the single market/EEA by 2030 at the latest. The EU itself, probably not, though who knows what that will look like by then? (I don't think the EU will collapse, despite some Brexiteers' fond hopes.)