Mild Rover wrote:Nothing much. But we have left, even if in name only in 2020, and this isn’t about Brexit anymore but about establishing a new relationship and securing a trade deal with the EU. Or, indeed, not doing so.

The Remain camp has been comprehensively defeated, and has ceased to exist in any meaningful sense. We went through the gamut of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, all the way to a political dead end. It failed to stop Brexit and it cannot mitigate it. That’s what we have to accept. There’s no good outcome from our POV (WTO-Australia or Canada-minus, who gives a poop?), all we can do is watch and enjoy the discomfiture of Johnson and Gove. They won, but it is a victory that has trapped them, and there’ll be a morbid joy in watching their dishonesty/stupidity coming back to haunt them. I mean, we’re all a wee bit stuffed as well, and that is going to be massively exacerbated by COVID, but that is all the more reason to find our pleasures where we can. I don’t want us to fail, but if we’re going to, I might as well have some fun slinging metaphorical turds at the divs who led the march. Loss can be so liberating.

I don’t have a horse in this race. Or rather, I have all three - agonising and ultimately futile delay, desperate race against the clock to a humiliating climb down or kamikaze crash out in the heart of an economic storm. In the absence of hope for something better, these are all defeats to savour.

As I see it, the EU wants the UK to carry forward too many of its rules to be tolerable for the UK government and public. The UK wants to retain too many of the benefits of membership without being a member to be tolerable to the EU. So I think we’re headed towards no new deal. The question, imo, is the timing of it. Any extension is meant to be about allowing more time for negotiation, but realistically could be used to avoid having to deal with one economic shock on top of another. That’s a tricky political sell but so is going the other way and looking stubbornly doctrinaire in the face of a crisis.

Mild Rover wrote:all we can do is watch and enjoy the discomfiture of Johnson and Gove. They won, but it is a victory that has trapped them, and there’ll be a morbid joy in watching their dishonesty/stupidity coming back to haunt them.

Sal Paradise wrote:So we just continue to pay and obey whatever the EU lay down so we delay the inevitable to a suitable time? which in your is never - really?

King Street Cat wrote:To the victor belong the spoils...

Scarlet Pimpernell wrote:If they follow the usual playbook they will try to focus on life after Brexit than what it was whilst we were members. It worked with the election where Johnson distanced himself from the previous 10 years of conservative rule. He is doing the same with the virus where past failures are either the Doctor’s fault regarding care home transfers, the scientists for stopping the testing regime and local councils for failing the same care homes.
He wants to concentrate on the now once again trying to persuade the country that they had no involvement in any of the mistakes.

Scarlet Pimpernell wrote:The PPE was taken by the government for the NHS and care homes can isolate an individual if they know when they transfer from an hospital that they had the virus unfortunately this information was not readily available. The other is that without full PPE the careers could not be certain that they could not catch or spread the virus.
Let us not forget that Johnson stated he had a plan ready to go for social care I wonder what happened to that or could it be he was just making it up.