Brexit

[Graham Breeze]

To be bored with Brexit is to be bored with life or, at least, realpolitik.

I thought Tusk’s comments about “hell” were right on the money although I think Davis, Johnson etc should be first hanged, drawn and quartered and then burnt on College Green in front of IMAX cameras as a lesson for future generations about the hubris and vainglory of politicians.

Since Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1934) one has known to be wise about “truth” in any documentary but the 3-hour BBC 2 series Inside Europe: 10 Years of Turmoil has been as revelatory as, what, Riefenstahl’s Power of the Will? (1935). It has all been there unfolding on the screen and in colour.

Part 3 (shown last night) revealed the negotiating brutality of Tusk, Juncker, Merkel (+ the major players for Hungary, Poland, Italy,… + Turkey) dealing with the refugee/migrant crisis of a few years ago, when on opposite sides of the debate, in their different views on/ efforts to, save the European Union from breaking up.

May and Cameron were there (and filmed talking to the cameras) so how any intelligent person could have ever believed that the EU countries (now all on the same side) would allow the UK to jump ship and threaten its foundations with a cheery wave and its best wishes beggars belief.

I have written before (for CL) that a negotiation isn’t over until it is over, one never really knows what the parties really wanted/ would settle for, etc and 50 days, or whatever time is left to the “end”, is a long time in politics, but nobody can claim that they were unaware that the UK negotiations on withdrawal from the EU might not be all sweetness and light.

Of course in film documentaries the camera sometimes lies - but not always.