Taking Back Control?

So the Brexit deal has now been approved by both the UK Parliament and Brussels. True to form, Boris Johnson is claiming it as a great deal: “Having your cake and eating it“. This is, of course, a shameless lie – but when did we ever expect anything else from Mr. Johnson?

Far from “taking back control” as the Brexiteers have long espoused as their goal, what we appear to have got in its place is the EU-UK Partnership Council and its raft of committees.

So far from being “free from the yoke of unelected bureaucrats and the tyranny of red tape”, it would seem that even the post-Brexit world requires proper management of the EU-UK relations and trade. What a surprise. Oh well, it will give the Brexiteers the opportunity to continue to moan endlessly about the vicissitudes of Brussels.

The draft agreement requires careful analysis, which I am certainly not competent to do. For that, I point you towards Chris Grey’s excellent blog as a starting point on what will be a long and frustrating journey. And those frustrations will not be felt in trade alone, but affect politics and society in both the UK and EU. This is not a cause for celebration.

Addendum: from where we stand, it seems to us far from “taking back control”, Britain has been taken over by gamblers, liars, clowns, and their cheerleaders.