If it happens, leaving the European Union (EU) does not mean that the UK will not have a vital relationship with the organisation in the future. Sorry about the double negative. The simple indisputable facts of geography, cultural heritage, shared history, political experience and social bonds mean that a closeness exists that goes way beyond relationships with other places.
Unravelling the UK’s EU membership is only at its beginning and yet it’s proving to be painful and tortuous. Just now, there’s the possibility of another extension to the initial part of the process. This possess more choices for Prime Minister Johnson as he twists and turns on the Brexit spit.
There’s hammering on and attempting to leave the EU on 31 October with “No Deal” and then blaming all and sundry. Genuine short-term thinking in the extreme. There’s continuing with the detailed Parliamentary scrutiny of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) in the hope that it will not take long or be too mean a radical reshaping of the deal.
Finally, there’s stopping the WAB’s scrutiny process with the aim of provoking a UK General Election (GE) and making Christmas 2019 one no none will want to remember. As in 2017, with the faint hope that one political Party or another will rule the roost as we go into the New Year.
This weekend, the indications are that the last option is taking shape. Monday may bring a “yes” or “no” to the prospect of a winter election. Certainly, winter is coming.
When UK Ministers talk of the fantastic opportunities there are for new free trade deals all over the world there’s a tendency to forget aviation and the aerospace industries. By its nature aviation is a global business. Within that mobility is nothing new. Go to Seattle or Toulouse and there’s many Brits who have made their home in those cities.
The term: “Brain Drain” was prevalent throughout my early education[1]. It was when highly qualified British engineers and scientists were attracted to leave the UK to work on exciting well-funded projects and for better prospects in other Countries. Even in the early 1980s, when I graduated as a young engineer many of my colleagues left these shores and didn’t return.
If it happens, I’d dearly love to be optimistic about post-Brexit prospects in the UK, but the signs are not good. Amongst politicians and public alike, not only is there an endemic backward-looking nostalgia but also a lack of realism about the nature of the international cooperation needed to succeed in the future.
Today, the economic situation is different from the 1970s, but the weaknesses of that time like; low productivity, short-termism and the lack of a common vision remain with us. Brexit is the wrong medicine for our ailments.
[1] http://doc.ukdataservice.ac.uk/doc/6099/mrdoc/pdf/6099uguide.pdf
John Vincent 