Lots of angry tit-and-tat over the Brexit deal, but a deal is easily doable and remains highly likely. Landing zones all over the place.
There'll be a bit more angry chatter and then there'll be a deal. I've been wrong before, of course. These things have their own momentum and it;s important not to underestimate the stupidity of the people involved. But that remains by distance the most likely outcome.
To fail to get a deal, given how small the distances involved between their two positions are, would be a failure of statecraft on a historic scale.
The thing which is not much discussed, but is about to be, is just how disruptive January 1st will be regardless of whether there is a deal. We are now in the business of recreating borders, with all the grim remorseless bureaucracy that entails.
To those saying that Johnson is inept enough to allow a failure of statecraft - I agree. But remember that he is fundamentally self-interested. He puts his own fortunes above those of any other human being or the national interest.
And the political disincentives of failing to get a deal outweigh the political risks among his Brexit ultras of getting one.
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Anyway, I still juuuuuuuuust about feel confident this won't happen. A govt about to orchestrate no-deal wouldn't have been edging closer to the EU demand on state aid a couple weeks back.
Johnson is currently managing to fill sentences with two to three lies or pieces of misinformation. It's almost impressive.
"They don't seem to want to progress a free trade agreement [false, they're coming for a meeting next week]...
... that was pretty clear from the conclusions of the summit [it wasn't]... they don't want to go any further, so unless that fundamentally changes we'll have to come out on Australian terms [this does not exist]".
Everyone's emotionally in a very similar place aren't they. This kind of simmering anxiety, basically just awaiting a lockdown of some sort or another, bracing for the longest, harshest winter.
It's like we're learning as a species how to go into hibernation.
To me, this period feels less scary than spring, but somehow more depressing. I guess because of the cold & dark. The shock and this-is-just-like-28-days-later chat of March has turned into sullen predictability.
It didn't have to be this way, even with the Leave vote. They could have pursued a compromise position which respected the views of Scotland and NI. They did not.
Instead, only the most extreme and aggressive version of Brexit was tolerated and anyone who disagreed was branded an enemy of the people. So this is where we are.
And before anyone starts with the 'isn't it ironic that you want to silence people as a liberal' horseshit: They murder those who disagree with them. They encourage violence against minorities.
Freedom demands that they be stopped. Only the most infantile, skin-deep understanding of liberty would allow them to continue.