Horses and Stable Doors

Pro-EU acolytes are currently questioning why Brexit is no longer discussed by Brexiters.

For the same reason that nobody is talking about Swine Flu: it’s over.

The question is settled even if the fallout isn’t, so why hasn’t everybody moved onto the practical reality instead of replaying the pros and cons of the decision? Every element of the debate reflects a question of horses and stable doors. Peace was originally attained in Northern Ireland because politicians looked into the future not back into the past.

How ironic.

Whether the aftermath of Brexit will be as good or as bad as everyone predicted is a matter for our politicians and diplomats to resolve.

And there’s the rub. EU and UK institutions are crammed full of incompetent room meat, and they are allowed to remain in place by electorates that are dominated by a hardcore of activists on both sides who are propelled by emotion.

Brexit never caused anything in itself. The attempts to deal with it saw to that. Both sides were beset by philosophical intransigence.

Whether we had left or remained, the European question would always have poisoned our politics because not enough effort had ever been made to bottom out what the European ideal actually meant nor on the EU side to appreciate that the UK was where it was.

The debate has been further intensified by self-loathing EU politicians and former Remainers who had never addressed UK dissatisfaction until after the referendum result had come in. Unrealistic, self-serving Brexiters are similarly blocking constructive progress.

A more salient question is arguably why the pro-EU cabal had never discussed Brexit when it was in their gift to stop it?

And even more so, why our politicians on all sides have failed us and continue to fail us at every turn.

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