{"id":1133,"date":"2018-11-25T14:08:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T14:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/?p=1133"},"modified":"2018-11-25T16:12:09","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T16:12:09","slug":"what-madness-is-this-approval-of-brexit-deal-in-the-light-of-armistice-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/what-madness-is-this-approval-of-brexit-deal-in-the-light-of-armistice-day\/","title":{"rendered":"What madness is this? Approval of Brexit deal soon after Armistice day."},"content":{"rendered":"

What Madness is this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s meeting of the European Council (25 November 2018) endorsed the EU withdraw agreement<\/a>. In the words of European Commission President, Jean Claude Junker:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cTo leave the European Union is not a moment of jubilation. It is a moment of deep sadness.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no smooth divorces.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/table>\n


<\/p>\n

It is a day to weep.<\/p>\n

With its characteristic professionalism and generosity, the EU has enabled some sort of agreement. Virtuoso work behind the scenes by negotiators means the deal that has been negotiated a lot better than it might be — though still well short of simply staying in the EU.<\/p>\n

But it is a day to weep.<\/p>\n

It is a fortnight since European leaders gathered to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War — the \u201cGreat War\u201d, the \u201cWar to end all wars\u201d. The determination to end war in Europe is what called the EU into being. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The brutal reality is that we are either heading towards peace or away from it. In the UK breaking away through Brexit, we are turning away from the path of peace. That doesn\u2019t mean war tomorrow, but it is a foolish thing to do.<\/p>\n

Our European partners know this. The goodwill they have shown in negotiations is a genuine attempt to mitigate the damage. But it is damage.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAt the opposite end of the spectrum, among those reacting to today\u2019s news was Nigel Farage, advocating an immediate hard Brexit. His folly in this stands in marked contrast to the cover of this week\u2019s Economist<\/em>, depicting the reality of hard Brexit<\/a> as a train careering over a cliff.<\/p>\n

Brexit doesn\u2019t mean war. But remember the lead up to the Second World War, with serious economic difficulties in Germany fuelling the rise of the Nazis.<\/p>\n

The Economist<\/em> is right and Farage is wrong: a hard Brexit would do huge damage to the UK. All forms of Brexit do significant damage. Those who voted Leave out of anger at being ignored or a desperation for change because things are so bad \u201cthey can\u2019t get any worse\u201d face being hammered. That is the situation that does fuel extremism.<\/p>\n

Arguably, politically-motivated austerity fuelled the alienation expressed in the Leave vote. David Cameron was reckless in calling a referendum to silence critics in his own party rather than engage with the alienation it was creating.
\nBig mistakes.<\/p>\n

The genius of the initial plans for what is now the EU was that they recognised that people make mistakes. The idea was that coal and steel were the raw materials for mid twentieth century warfare. In creating the European Coal and Steel Community (precursor of the EU), those industries were integrated. The logic was that, while treaties can be broken, this actually made war impossible. Mistakes were inevitable, but this stopped a mistake becoming a catastrophe. They\u2019ve changed since then, but the institutions of the Coal and Steel Community included an assembly, which has matured into the European Parliament, and the beginnings of the Council of Ministers and the European Commission. It gave a way for Europeans to listen to each other. A way to deepen understanding and stop mistakes becoming catastrophes.<\/p>\n

That is something to be proud of. Stepping away from it is deeply shameful. These are dark times. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The European Council has approved the Brexit settlement. Coming so soon after its members were at the ceremonies marking the anniversary of the end of the Great War, this should cause people to stop and think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[72],"tags":[21,205],"class_list":["post-1133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brexit-politics","tag-brexit","tag-great-war-centenary"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1133"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1157,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1133\/revisions\/1157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}