I'll let CNN Explain. They may be biased in the US - but they have no skin in this game.
The UK does not have a viable plan to leave the EU. It never had. And the people proposing the referendum moved forward with this knowing this was the case - they didn't know what the post- Brexit britain looked l;ike, beyond selling nostalgic images of The British Empire and All That.
Things would be grossly simplified by the simple expediant of placing the EU border in the Irish sea - it allowed the UK to leave, maintained the stability of the North, but one single small group of MP's is preventing that from happening. Early in the process British government attempted to strnegthen it's political mandate, and, in the end, hamstrung itself with a single-issue party - whose sole, single issue is preventing them from doing what's needed to make the process so much easier.
Ultimately led to May agrreing a deal with the EU that is more complicated that it needs to be, but is still a political dead-duck, because the only thing the UK parliament seems to be able to agree on is that they don't want that. When asked that they do want, they just sort of murmur and fudge and offer things like 'unspecified alternatives', without actually proposing alternatives. The alternatives proposed like 'a technological solution', fail to specify how that'll be implimented.
The UK is also held in place by the Good Friday Agreement and its legal obligations under that agreement, including the right of people from Northern Ireland to declare themselves to be British, Irish or Both. In theory, a hard border in NI wouild make Irish Citizens born in Northern Ireland immediate aliens in their own home. At worst, the border will lead to a re-emergence of the troubles and all that fun.
Furthermore, as far as the EU is concerned, having agreed the deal it is now up to May to make it happen politically. The deal was negotiated and done with the British government, and it is up to the British Government to enforce it. This was the same deal negotiated by the man who resigned immediately after negotiating it, such was his belief in it.
The crux of the difficulty is that a significant group still believes themselves to have the negotiating power of The British Empire with the ability to make demands and alter the deal. Instead it now has the negotiating power of an island. One with a strong economy, but one that is still relatively small compared to the EU. It has failed completely to realise that it has far less negotiating Power than the EU in this and that the EU can tolerate a no-deal scenario fare better than England can.
Even Ireland can ride it out. We're full food secure. Mostly fuel secure. And there is something of the expectation that the EU will have to stand by a member of the club - at least to make membership in the club worthwhile.
I for one, am enjoying this sort of final Gotterdammerung for the British Empire.
The UK does not have a viable plan to leave the EU. It never had. And the people proposing the referendum moved forward with this knowing this was the case - they didn't know what the post- Brexit britain looked l;ike, beyond selling nostalgic images of The British Empire and All That.
Things would be grossly simplified by the simple expediant of placing the EU border in the Irish sea - it allowed the UK to leave, maintained the stability of the North, but one single small group of MP's is preventing that from happening. Early in the process British government attempted to strnegthen it's political mandate, and, in the end, hamstrung itself with a single-issue party - whose sole, single issue is preventing them from doing what's needed to make the process so much easier.
Ultimately led to May agrreing a deal with the EU that is more complicated that it needs to be, but is still a political dead-duck, because the only thing the UK parliament seems to be able to agree on is that they don't want that. When asked that they do want, they just sort of murmur and fudge and offer things like 'unspecified alternatives', without actually proposing alternatives. The alternatives proposed like 'a technological solution', fail to specify how that'll be implimented.
The UK is also held in place by the Good Friday Agreement and its legal obligations under that agreement, including the right of people from Northern Ireland to declare themselves to be British, Irish or Both. In theory, a hard border in NI wouild make Irish Citizens born in Northern Ireland immediate aliens in their own home. At worst, the border will lead to a re-emergence of the troubles and all that fun.
Furthermore, as far as the EU is concerned, having agreed the deal it is now up to May to make it happen politically. The deal was negotiated and done with the British government, and it is up to the British Government to enforce it. This was the same deal negotiated by the man who resigned immediately after negotiating it, such was his belief in it.
The crux of the difficulty is that a significant group still believes themselves to have the negotiating power of The British Empire with the ability to make demands and alter the deal. Instead it now has the negotiating power of an island. One with a strong economy, but one that is still relatively small compared to the EU. It has failed completely to realise that it has far less negotiating Power than the EU in this and that the EU can tolerate a no-deal scenario fare better than England can.
Even Ireland can ride it out. We're full food secure. Mostly fuel secure. And there is something of the expectation that the EU will have to stand by a member of the club - at least to make membership in the club worthwhile.
I for one, am enjoying this sort of final Gotterdammerung for the British Empire.
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.