Political schizophrenia? Is there any other way to describe the condition gripping the United Kingdom following the announcement of its plans to introduce zero tariffs for cross border commerce on the island of Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit while imposing a limited number of tariffs for goods crossing the Irish Sea to the UK from both parts of the country, with potentially little ability to distinguish between those materials sourced solely in the north – and supposedly tariff-free – and those moving from the rest of Ireland and the European Union to Britain – and hence subject to tariffs? In other words, a dysfunctional variation of the no-border/Irish Sea border that the British initially suggested in negotiations with the EU back in 2018 and then rejected. It seems that London is preparing to temporarily turn its legacy colony in the Six Counties into a Wild West frontier for customs and trade. But why? To bully and intimidate Dublin into retreating from its commitments to the Backstop Protocol in the Draft Withdrawal Agreement, to force changes in the deal by deliberately sabotaging the Irish economy? Because, while some in Ireland and Europe will undoubtedly benefit from the proposed plans, as unregulated items pour into the north, it will also incur great harm, especially for the domestic agricultural sector.
One is running out of superlatives to describe the utter lunacy that has gripped those in power in Downing Street, Whitehall and Westminster. It’s as if the British leaders have decided to go back in time to a late-night Essex barn-rave in the 1990s and get totally off their tits on the ecstasy of Brexit, grinding their jaws like pin-eyed yokels while gyrating to the repetitious beat of their own English exceptionalism. I give up…
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
UK are using a political approach termed “The madman theory” associated with U.S. President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy. He and his administration tried to make the leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations think Nixon was irrational and volatile.
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No deal rejected
For 312
Against 308
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Malthouse rejected
For 164
Against 374
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It’s all Ireland’s fault.
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Rejects no deal Brexit
For 321
Against 278
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The idea of “English Exceptionalism” and Ecstasy in the 1990’s seems like an extremely odd combination.
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😀 Did you watch the live reports from the House of Commons today? Not so odd! 😉
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I’ve seen raves before!!! (Don’t know how to do those faces). I for one, have a hard time associating any drugs with English Nationalism save alcohol and tobacco and then maybe, maybe maybe, things like Jones, benzos, uppers, happy pills, and perhaps an occasional case of laxative abuse (in my work I’ve seen it all!!!). I’d imagine that reefer, psychedelics, ecstasy, or anything else more “out there” would involve some level of rebellion.
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I just thought it was a nice metaphor for the way the Brits are carrying on. Very much like an Essex rave (been there, didn’t do the crazy stuff, too uptight!). Like, seriously, the UK political class is just carrying out like serious heavy-duty pill-poppers!
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I was half-joking!!!!
Saw some historians comparing Brexit to Henry VIII’s little break with Europe, and the parallels between some of the mercantile plans of the Brexiteers and Tudor’s England’s stranger alliances. Ay-ya ya ya!!!
Honestly, that scares me far more than this Empire 2.0 talk. As rotten as British Empire 1.0,……..well there’s no darn way they are going to bring back that Empire. Are they going to invade and reconquer India? I don’t think so!!!!
With Tudor England? As bizarre it as sounds? Given the state of British society today, it seems like there’s a real chance that some of that history actually could show parallels-and that’s not good. Just the idea of parallel’s is beyond eerie. And on top of being a disaster for England, it seems far more likely to be a b
A lot of the people writing about these parallels are English or Australians and Canadians of English heritage (some were Japanese or Russian or Iranian!!). Since one common phrase about the upshot of the political Tsunami Henry VIII unleashed was……”ended/culminated in The English Civil War”.
Now to most Americans the phrase “ended……….Civil War” is among the worst things you can hear with any suggestion that history may repeat itself. Fintan O’Toole accused the English of “expecting bloodless revolutions”. People educated in the US tend to have extremely dark, grim expectations when it comes to the prospect of a civil war………can’t think why.
But seriously. I definitely remember being taught a much, much darker, grimmer version of Tudor England, The English Civil War, Cromwell and that general time period, than seems to be the norm in England!!!!!
I
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Sorry that should have been
“And on top of being a disaster for England, it seems far more likely to be a be a bad outcome for global politics as a whole.”
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Another point about the term British Empire 2.0, I recall being taught about a 1st British Empire (1580’s-1780’s) and 2nd British Empire (1780’s-1960’s).
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Seriously though! It looks to me as though that particular country has some rather deep sources of political divisions. To me it looks as if there’s more to it than Britain’s notorious class issues, the “posh public school boys”, wanting that Empire back, nostalgia for a time when they were a “young vital nation”, desire for a Little England, or any number of other things.
I’m not being snarky about this. It simply seems too contradictory to be just one consistent thing. It looks like a multi-layered problem where different layers probably have different ages. It looks like the kind of thing where any one theory of why England in particular has gone to the dogs politically is unlikely to explain more than a small part of it.
Of course, they don’t have the right to make this all of Europe’s problem and certainly not Ireland’s.
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The idea of “English Exceptionalism” and Ecstasy in the 1990’s seems like an extremely odd combination.
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