Almost no one outside a lunatic asylum now believes Brexit was anything other than a disaster.
What is less often acknowledged is how quickly the harm, predicted by those shouted down by the swivel eyed loons prior to 2016, has happened. Britain has sunk so far already. And I’m not talking just the economy or its self-worth and global reputation.
My strongly held view is there is a sense in Europe that Britain is starting to look very left behind.
It’s a feeling I distinctly recall when I used to
regularly stay in Ireland pre-The Good Friday Agreement. Something about the
ongoing focus on conflict had left the country feeling as if it were stuck in
past decades. Way past decades.
As life and the pace of change speeds up
exponentially, it should come as no surprise that getting left behind can
happen even more quickly.
This came home to me just recently in a conversation
with a Polish contractor.
I am (again) in the midst of house renovation (when
will I ever learn?) As well as hacking away at 70 year-old glued-on floor tiles
and cutting up carpet – 3 layers deep in one room – sorting wasps in the attic etc.
there have been a legion of contractors from the rewire to new plumbing.
It was only in talking to the Polish contractor that
I began to sense the gentle sympathy of the moving
forward for the left behind. And
I’m not talking about his noticing that I don’t have a smartphone.
In discussing building materials and practices he uses compared to the British builders, it’s clear he thinks the UK is already a good half decade behind new ideas and practices on the continent. He also seems to feel this is widely accepted as fact in Europe. Phrases such as ‘we don’t do that anymore’ ‘That is not something that is used in Europe any more’ kept popping up.
Early on in this blog I wrote about how quickly the UK
could become the Greece of Europe. In fact this has not only happened more
quickly than I envisaged –it has happened more deeply and more obviously and
more catastrophically than the most Cassandra of Remainers ever foresaw.
But we did foresee. Not because we have special
powers but because the lunacy and self-harm of Brexit was always obvious.
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