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Matt Carr

30 Dec 20, 10 tweets, 2 min read

I can understand why Labour took the position it did today, but like so much of its response to Brexit these last four and half years, I still think it was in the end cowardly, based entirely on Labour’s party interests, and a failure of national leadership & opposition

I’m not expecting a Rejoin or Remain position, but given that this deal failed its ‘six tests’, and given that it’s plainly not in the national interest, and achieved through one of most reckless and corrupt diplomatic processes in UK history, Labour could have abstained at least

Now they co-own the deal, and even though Starmer has said aspects of it can be revisited, I don’t think Labour will escape that co-ownership, especially as Tory Brexiters will almost certainly revisit and renege on elements of it, just as they did with the WA

All of which will make it very difficult to do what Starmer asked and ‘look forward.’ Au contraire, Brexit will continue to drag us back...to Brexit, again and again, and its negative consequences will become increasingly apparent. Perhaps we have to through this now

Find out how bad it was and how stupid it was to do what we’ve done, if we’re ever to rid ourselves of the hubris and exceptionalism that got us into this mess. Maybe one day we’ll rejoin the EU. Maybe not. But the crucial question on which that, and so much else depends is

What kind of country do we want to be? My fear is that Labour will now tack to the right, leaning heavily towards a reactionary Blue Labour ‘patriotism’ in order to win back lost ‘Red Wall’ votes and a strong Unionist, anti-SNP position to hold onto Scotland

And more particularly, to Scottish votes. I hope this doesn’t happen, because Brexit + the Covid crisis demonstrate the need for progressive societal & constitutional changes, which will focus increasingly on England as the Union breaks up. And we absolutely need an opposition

That can bring these changes about, and create the coalitions necessary to bring them about, and oppose the ethnonationalists and the vultures who will be descending on a weak, confused, and chaotic country for their own ‘Brexit dividend.

It will need more than clever lawyerly tactics and competence to do that. I really hope Labour can find a way to be that opposition. Today doesn’t fill me with confidence

*go* through this

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More from @MattCarr55

Matt Carr

@MattCarr55

1 Jan

I really can’t see how, after the last four and half years, the breakup of the UK can be avoided. What a historical irony that a Brexit intended to make Britain ‘great again’ actually brings about the demise of ‘Great’ Britain.

I actually don’t see this as a bad thing. After all, the aggressive chauvinistic nationalism, hubris, and exceptionalism that made Brexit possible is predominantly an English phenomenon. Part of the historical paradox whereby Englishness expresses itself through Britishness,

without explicitly recognising that this nationalism is primarily embedded in England rather than the Celtic periphery. A United Ireland is long overdue. Scotland - regardless of the debates about the economic viability of independence- has reached the point when a decisive

Read 9 tweets

Matt Carr

@MattCarr55

24 Dec 20

This is sad day for millions of us - not because we wanted No Deal. That was always a Brexiter demand, which, ironically, many of those who are now praising John-Son-Un’s ‘victory’ were baying for only yesterday. I’m relieved that the U.K. was not stupid enough to do this, but

This country has now completed the dismal trajectory of the last 4 years and embraced a mean, shrunken vision of the future, whose consequences - for now - have been hidden by vainglorious delusions and the Tory political machine. It’s a future in which the country will be poorer

Poorer economically, culturally, spiritually, and politically, as countries that succumb to chauvinism and ethnonationalist exceptionalism always are. The predictions made by Brexiters in 2016 have already fallen so far short of the mark that I very much doubt whether

Read 16 tweets

Matt Carr

@MattCarr55

22 Dec 20

The #Kent lorry debacle was not caused by Brexit. But it is very Brexity. Why? Firstly, because it shows once again the lack of preparation that has become a hallmark of Brexit, and of this government in particular. Even before the new covid variant was officially announced

there were already lorries building up at the ports. It would have been obvious that France and other EU countries would want to close their borders off to travellers coming from UK who might carry the new covid variant.

Yet the U.K. did not liaise with the French beforehand as to how to prevent blockages, because a Brexit UK government would never do that with the foreign countries that have in effect become our imaginary enemies, especially the bloody French. Boney! Macron! Same thing!

Read 11 tweets

Matt Carr

@MattCarr55

21 Dec 20

Alcoholics only begin the road to recovery when they recognise they are ill. Politically-speaking, we are an ill country, engaging in self-harm. We have succumbed to exceptionalism, fanaticism, delusional thinking. Chosen worthless politicians whose incompetence we disregarded

Until it was too late. We have pointlessly alienated and antagonised countries that used to be our friends and neighbors, some of which tried to warn us that they we were damaging ourselves as well as damaging them. We have refused to look at the actual nuts and bolts

Of our connections to Europe and the wider world. We have consistently placed what we want or think we want over what is actually possible. We have ignored the risks and the dangers and failed to prepare adequately for them. We elected, with a huge majority, a government

Read 8 tweets

Matt Carr

@MattCarr55

12 Dec 20

Astonishing to think that only 4 years ago:

we were a respected member of the EU helping to design and shape the rules that bound it together.

most of us barely thought about Europe except when considering where to live, study, or go on holiday or which language to learn

we traded smoothly with 27 countries, exporting and importing to cities across the continent without tariffs or paperwork

our industries and supermarkets operated according to just-in-time supply lines that could deliver goods and components exactly when needed

people from across the continent came to live, work, and study here because there was work for them to do and because they liked our country and the people in it

Read 8 tweets

Matt Carr

@MattCarr55

11 Dec 20

Just your friendly reminder that the new Brexit ‘the EU is punishing us/it’s all the fault of Remainers’ lie is the chronicle of a lie foretold. Reposting this is not a tribute to my prophetic gifts, it’s just that the lies were so painfully predictable: infernalmachine.co.uk/brexit-the-sta…

And so obvious except for those who didn’t want to look. Bearing in mind that the architects of Brexit are, for the most part, people without a trace of honour, decency, or capacity for reflection, in pursuit of an outcome that could never be what they said it would be

Naturally, as the inevitable collision between fantasy and reality finally arrives, they will engage in some Freudian projection and scapegoating in order to cover their tracks and manage the crisis by stirring as much nationalist xenophobia as their poisoned pens can produce

Read 6 tweets

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