I know that I should be blogging more regularly about the horror story that is Brexit, but: a) it’s hard to say anything that hasn’t already been said and b) as soon as you think you’ve caught up with developments, something else happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I follow the twists and turns of the debate and I reflect on all that is happening, I am reminded of two of my favourite quotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first is something I learned when I spent four years working in two governments departments as a Political Adviser in the early 1970s: “It isn’t over till it’s over … and then it isn’t over”<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I keep thinking that May’s deal is dead and then there is talk of another vote. I keep thinking that a no-deal Brexit has been ruled out and then it’s back on the agenda. I keep thinking that we’re going to leave the EU and then we ask for another extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The truth is that, whatever happens, this Brexit issue is going to run and run for weeks, months, years, decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second quote that I recall is one that is portably apocryphal but I like it. When the then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was asked his views on the French Revolution, he was reported to have responded that “It’s too soon to say”.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As we seek to make judgements on whether decisions around Brexit were right or wrong and when some kind of leave or remain option is actually implemented, for many years – indeed decades – afterwards, we will be assessing whether a particular setback or success was or was not the result of Brexit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There will never be a final and definitive judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, even if you’re fed up with the whole Brexit debate, you’re going to have to stick with it – for life. Sorry …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know that I should be blogging more regularly about the horror story that is Brexit, but: a) it’s hard to say anything that hasn’t already been said and b) as soon as you think you’ve caught up with developments, something else happens. As I follow the twists and turns of the debate and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24419"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24427,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24419\/revisions\/24427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}