Sir Ivan Rogers on Brexit options

Came across this on Chris Grey’s blog - it is a long read but well worth it.

Clear and with a good understanding of the EU position (as well as the history of the situation - Sir Ivan’s lecture on Cameron and the events leading up to the referendum is also an illuminating read) - I wish our politicians had as firm a grasp of the situation in which we now find ourselves. I now see, for instance, why the EU is not keen on May’s suggestion for a customs partnership.

1 Like

Yes it’s good - I think you put me on to Chris Grey’s blog, Paul - where I’m now a regular reader. Thankyou.

1 Like

It is interesting that he feels ardent remainers are just as deluded - I suppose it can’t be argued that we can put the genie fully back into the bottle post referendum.

But I am inclined to think that we should halt proceedings. The referendum was flawed, the current mess is to no-one’s taste and no-one’s benefit and the Irish border question is unfathomable1 so wedging proceedings with an increasing danger that we will run out of time.

That is unless I’m in one of my darker moods about Brexit when I think we should elevate Rees-Mogg to PM and bring Farage in as well and tell them to get on with it. It would be mind-bendingly, unremittingly awful but they would have nowhere to hide once the shit hit the fan.

[1] Unless we join the EEA and enter a customs union with the EU - then it is perfcetly fathomable.

Just been reading this about Mogadon,

To be honest the man makes my skin crawl.

1 Like

In the half-forgotten book The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State, Rees-Mogg (William, father of Jacob) argues that the increasing globalisation of wealth, and the consequent disappearance of any viable tax base, will make it impossible for nation-states to maintain coherent societies. They will collapse into chaos - but far from this being a bad thing, the book sees it as the opportunity for a global elite of rich individuals and corporations to escape any democratic constraint, and effectively take over the world.
The only things standing in their way, of course, are international co-operative institutions - like the EU.
Now I wonder where Jacob’s fear and hatred of the EU comes from?

1 Like

I wish it could be reversed - but on the other hand perhaps the UK is now so fractured (along a number of different axes) that a compromise like staying in the single market and customs union (or something similar like EEA/Customs) is the best compromise.
I’m clear that this would be worse for the UK than staying in the EU - but for the rest of the EU it might be better, and in the UK it would give brexiters one of their main aims (escaping ‘ever closer (political) union’) and remainers on of theirs (minimising economic damage).

Membership of the EEA might be the best compromise but the Maybot has ruled it out for fear of the Rees-Moggites in the ERC.

We are still navel-gazing over two options both of which have been rejected by the EU before even emerging fully formed from cabinet discussions and meanwhile we are discovering that Brexit actually means Brexit with the loss of the European Medicines Agency and European Banking Authority as well as expulsion from Galileo all of which suggest that fears over, say, Euratom and the Open Skies agreements might not be ill placed.

Time, as they say, is running out.

Very long speech, but refreshingly different from the kind of prole-feed stuff that is endlessly pumped out by politicians; the blog does get into the entrails of the complex issues faced, or not faced, by our negotiators or non-negatiators… thanks for the heads-up, Paul.

More straight thinking from Sir Ivan

Full text of speech

Commentary on the EU Referendum blog.

And the full text of his recent speech in Dublin

http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/RogersDublin.pdf

Again with commentary here

I am in agreement with Ko-Ko in the Mikado.

You’ll have to expand a bit - I’m not a G&S fan, though May does seem to have gotten herself into a position where beheading herself would be the easy option.

It does not seem to have changed much since my school days (hiding at the back of the chorus)

Image may contain: 1 person, text

2 Likes