Brexit may be moving closer to reality, but it can’t bear too much reality

On Friday, some believed that Brexit moved closer to reality, but the best it may ever achieve is a regulatory alignment with reality.

The EU has agreed that enough progress has been made to move into the second phase for the Brexit negotiations, which some are warning will be even more difficult, but whatever phase it is in, Brexit remains a journey into the absurd.

This period will one day be studied by psychoanalysts as much as historians. They will be fascinated how this once sane and restrained country lost control of itself, driven demented by the fantasy of taking back control, and the destructive paranoia that someone may be about to deny them that fantasy.

If Theresa May had a victory on Friday, then it has come at quite a price. On Monday, her cabinet will have its first discussions about what Britain’s Brexit ‘end state’ should be.

For this conversation to be taking place 18 months after the Brexit vote may underline to some the strange approach the UK has taken to exiting the European Union, but once the talks begin, it will be easy to understand the reluctance to start them in the first place.

At some stage, May could finally crack, screaming “Get in the back of the van!” like the arresting constable in Withnail & I, broken by one final act of preposterousness by the fantasists.

Somebody probably needs to do it.

Brexit is why rock bands had to pretend they weren’t married. The compulsion that drove teenage fans hysterical at the thought that the singer of their favourite band is actually married and tends an allotment in Stoke Newington is the same as the one which prompts newspapers to refer to politicians and judges as saboteurs or enemies of the people.

A fantasy is more powerful than any reality and Brexit has always worked best as a figment of the imagination. In some ways, they may prefer it this way. Why would they want the reality when the fantasy is much more seductive?

The tragedy is that it played on the fears of many people who will find over the next two years that there was no control to take back, certainly not for them. They will, to quote Daniel O’Connell, still be breaking stones.

Their resentment may be stoked if the soft Brexit, the no Brexit Brexit, results in minimal or no changes to their lives or makes things worse. The journey will be long and mainly pointless which will allow the true believers, like all ideologues, to insist that the purest vision would have produced greater results.

Britain has embarked on a voyage of self-discovery, although at this stage they aren’t so much backpacking to Machu Picchu as sitting eating pot noodle in their underpants, talking about how good things are going to be when they finally hit the open road.

It was said once of the eurosceptics that they “couldn’t take yes for an answer” and that was before their victory last year required them to take responsibility.

Instead there have been feuds and missteps. The desire underpinning it all has been to blame all the problems on others, even problems such as their own ignorance which has led them to dismiss the issues of the border when it had the potential to derail all their plans.

But still they persist like Fitzcarraldo, determined to pull a ship over a mountain as they try to implement their vision.

Since the day of the vote, there was always the hope that the grown ups would soon take control, that this infantilism would pass, and a reasonable point of view would emerge.

It can be heard in the tone of the rebels who achieved a victory in the House of Commons last week and talked about the “best possible Brexit”, aware that the best possible Brexit is one that doesn’t take place at all,

Of course, trying to reason with children can be frustrating, pointless and exhausting. 

Last week’s rebellion by Conservative MPs resulted in the latest attempt to demonise anyone who is trying to deal maturely with the Brexit vote.

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/941077497692684288

Those rebels are aware of what the vote has already done for the country, the people deciding they no longer want to live in the UK having discovered that they were now being asked to live in a nationalistic land which previously had a healthy disdain for nationalism.

But Brexit is a story of unintended consequences and how they are more powerful than any fantasy.

After the vote on Thursday, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson announced that the best possible outcome at this stage of the Brexit would be if they left the EU without a deal, allowing the UK to negotiate new trade deals “at its leisure”, while it relies on WTO rules.

In those three words, there was the hint of freedom which so many Leave supporters believed was available when they made their decision. No more would they be pushed around by the EU man. This was Brexit as some early retirement wheeze, a desire to get out of the rat race at 45 and escape the 9 to 5.

The fantasy of crashing out without a deal and trading on WTO rules has become a key component of the illusion for some. The reality might be different. The reality might mean that the UK will be at its leisure the way the musicians on Titanic were at their leisure after the collision with the iceberg.

Yes, they were free, unshackled from the restrictions of the White Star Line playlist, the demands to play in the ballroom during dinner and deliver a waltz at the conventional times for the first class passengers. After the iceberg, they took back control of the music. They could set up where they wanted and play what they wished. They could be spontaneous and free, all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

The collision is the reality those who voted against the Conservative government on Wednesday are trying to avoid. But they have to struggle with those who believe in the fantasy, who can't tell the difference between an iceberg and a land of milk and honey.