Taking back control

How the holy heck did we get from this

to this

There was once upon a time when Britain had a reputation for diplomacy and pragmatism, but I guess that died with the generation before the boomers who are in charge of things now. This seems like a slow surrender, a bizarre interpretation of Taking Back Control. While I didn’t agree with Brexiters, I could see there were values  there – but oh how easily they are tossed aside. The FT has a point that Brexit is a cargo cult for gentlemen of a certain age.

Hardly any of today’s Tories actually remember Britain’s golden age of ruling India and winning the second world war. Even the party’s ageing members are merely the children of the Dunkirk generation. Economically, they have been the luckiest cohort in British history. But they and many other Tory MPs feel the shame of late birth. They disdain the UK’s tame, vegetarian, low-stakes, Brussels-based, post-imperial incarnation, which in 70 years offered nothing more glorious than the Falklands war. Now they have their own heroic project: Brexit.

A collective incompetence seems to have afflicted  the British body politic. Usually before going somewhere it pays to work out what the preferred destination is, whereas at the moment we are stuck with an ‘anywhere but here’ narrative. The parallels are more with the Psychology of Military Incompetence

arrogant underestimation of the enemy, the inability to learn from experience, resistance to new technologies or new tactics, and an aversion to reconnaissance and intelligence.

Although there’s much to be said for the drunk’s adage that to go there you wouldn’t start from here, it’s possible to envisage a successful Brexit, either in terms of the economy and some sovereignty or in terms of sovereignty and repelling immigration. Sadly at the moment we seem to be headed for a general clusterfuck that will cheer nobody at all. Drafting a view in government of what a successful Brexit looks like would be a damn good start. At the moment I am reminded of Chuck Colson’s poster

If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow

and at the moment the sack-holder isn’t anywhere near London by the looks of it. Get a grip and get a clue, guys.