Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- It's mid March and April approaches. And with these come Las Fallas and La Feria de Abril. Excuses, it seems, to take a lot of time off. Unless you're a waiter or waitress. [Are we still allowed to say 'waitress'?].
- A modern tale.
- Angry Catalans in Madrid yesterday.
- Here's the non-drumming drummer I mentioned the other day. And my feet:-
Brexit, the UK and the EU.
- So, will the EU really demand Mrs May's head on a plate as (part of) the price for agreeing to a postponement of Brexit? And/or a general election? Or even a 2nd referendum? Would they dare? Are they that dumb/ignorant of the British character? Quite possibly.
- Or will enough Brexiteers change tack and support Mrs May's 3rd attempt to get her BINO* approved by parliament, on the basis that any postponement would mean the end of Brexit and a victory for the Remainers?
- Who knows. If you can bear it, watch this space.
- Meanwhile 1: Richard North's take here. He still fears Brexigeddon. Or possibly a last minute withdrawal of the Brexit application.
- Meanwhile 2: There's an interesting article below from a thwarted Brexiteer.
- Meanwhile 3: A 'brilliant new dictionary of Brexit' can be found below.
*BINO: Brexit in name only. As opposed to LINO. Leader in name only. Mrs May.
Spanish
- 1. Word of the Day: Enervar
- 2. Seen in yesterday's press. 'A false new'. From the Spanish: Una falsa noticia. Fake news.
English
- Odd word of the Day: Gaudy loup: A ceremony in which a bride was called on to leap over a stool or rope or bench at the church porch or gate. Supposed to mean that the bride was leaving all her pets and 'humours' behind her. Or possibly a test of her virginity . . . .
Finally . . .
- A new study suggests that Generation Y/millennials (born early 80s) are, by and large, useless at working. One-third of them fail to last 90 days in a new job. Their most common failings are said to be regular underperformance, being late or absent and scoring spectacular own goals.
THE ARTICLES
1. If we can't leave on time, we should stay in - and become Macron's worst nightmare: Janet Daley, Telegraph.
Who better than the British to demolish the EU from within?
We have to assume that the chances of an agreed withdrawal from the EU are all but gone. True, there is a possibility that a number of Tory Brexiteers and even perhaps the DUP will be prepared, out of utter desperation, to support the third attempt at passing the May “deal”. But I am led to believe that the significant number of European Research Group MPs who will oppose it is sufficient to ensure that it cannot pass.
So we will be pleading with (sorry, applying to) the EU for an extension to Article 50, as was almost certainly inevitable from the start. That maniacally dedicated team of Remain saboteurs has succeeded in winning the battle of Westminster. So let’s get over the grieving and get on with the plans. Otherwise they will win the war as well – although such a victory might be Pyrrhic from the European point of view. I shall return to this point.
There are two possible courses of action. The first requires that we remind ourselves of a crucial fact: the Parliamentary vote ruling out no-deal has no legal compulsion. In law, nothing, as they say, has changed. By statute, we will leave the EU on 29 March whether a deal has been agreed or not. So all that needs to be done to ensure a clean Brexit is nothing. Since stonewalling is Theresa May’s primary (it might be argued, only) political talent, this should be relatively easy. She can just continue to do what she has been so remarkably consistent in doing thus far: delay, obfuscate, confound, make promises and then renege on them, provide mutually contradictory assurances to conflicting sides. All of that. As long as it uses up the tiny, ever-diminishing period of time that is left.
Then – bang – it’s 29 March and we’re out. What happens next? Everybody wakes up on 30 March, looks out of the window and sees that the sun has come up, turns on the radio and discovers that no planes have fallen out of the sky – and a bit later that day it becomes clear that all the secret contingency plans for no-deal have quietly slipped into gear. After a few months of kerfuffle followed by hasty agreements between mutually benefitting business interests, who are so much more efficient at these arrangements than politicians because it is their livelihood not their vanity which is at stake, life goes on. And everybody thinks, “What was that all about?”
This is the neatest and most honest alternative. It would be far less messy, unpredictable and destructive than the second option, which this column, not entirely facetiously, has mooted before. Forget Brexit. Stay in – and systematically, with all the historic conviction which hundreds of years of stable democracy have bequeathed, undermine the central project of the EU oligarchy. Elect Eurosceptic MEPs to that hopeless talking shop in Strasbourg who will stand up, with the eloquence of which this nation’s political class is famously capable, for those who have been left voiceless all over the continent.
Provide leadership and legitimacy to the chaotic, disparate – and often dangerous – forces of discontent which are springing up in European member states whose democratic credentials are less reliable. Give coherence and robustness to the case for dismantling the power of the Brussels bureaucracy and the dominant economies (Germany) which have pauperised the Mediterranean members. Expose the centralising fantasies of the utopian federalists as what they are: instruments for destroying the possibility of accountable elected government. (Fiscal union, for example, would see taxation policy determined by the EU, thus nullifying the main point of voting in national elections. On what grounds do you choose to support a prospective governing party other than its policies on tax and spending?)
The UK, furious as it would be to find itself locked in, could obstruct every step toward further unification, join forces with those other dissident members who have so much less economic power and international standing, and disrupt the proceedings of every move toward Brussels hegemony. In short, we could become Emmanuel Macron’s worst nightmare and the undoing of countless European coalitions. In the great tradition of British irony, that would be a joke of historic proportions.
Smirking aside, there is a very serious need for this role to be played by someone. Why not us? The British critique of EU centralisation would help to defuse, from inside, the charge that defending the nation state was nothing more than a front for the most pernicious forms of nationalism. The modern democratic country with a government answerable to its own population was one of the greatest progressive inventions in human history. It needs to be rescued from the fascists and the nihilists who seem to be the only ones prepared to fight for it. Who better than the British to take it back into the realm of the Enlightenment where it was born, to reclaim its liberal birthright?
This is now a matter of urgency since the coming EU parliamentary elections are certain to see an influx of some very nasty elements indeed: neo-fascists and rabble-rousing populists might well gain a majority grip on the legislature by exploiting the inchoate popular rage which Brussels has always traduced.
This would serve two equally diabolical purposes, not only discrediting the very idea of national interests, but giving the unelected Commission moral grounds for removing power and legitimacy from the parliament in Strasbourg. If anything, perverse as it may seem to say this, the next year is likely to be more destabilising for EU institutions than for ours. Britain (and particularly England) has centuries of mature democracy and rational governance to sustain its identity: European countries, not so much.
It isn’t very likely that the British would choose this role of defender of democratic freedom as a deliberate act of self-conscious idealism. That would be out of character. But if it is thrust upon them, as such obligations have been in the past, I predict that it will be taken up with great energy and conviction, and seen through to the end.
2. From Brexhibitionist to Brexhaustion... a brilliant new dictionary of Brexit: Michael Deacon, Parliamentary sketchwriter, Telegraph.
The UK’s decision to leave the EU has given rise to any number of fascinating new words. There’s “Brexit”, “Brexiteer”, “Brino”, “Bregrets”, “Brexodus” – and now, as Theresa May begs the EU for more time to work out what on Earth to do next, “Brextension”.
But what other useful new Brexpressions will we be hearing in the coming weeks?
Brexhume (verb). To bring a completely unchanged Brexit deal back before the Commons in a 78th attempt to pass it.
Brexercise in futility (noun). Any attempt to explain how the Secretary of State for Brexit can passionately urge MPs to vote for a delay to Brexit, and then immediately vote against it himself.
Brexpertise (noun). The blend of skill, wisdom and judgment that leads a Prime Minister to permit her Chief Whip – the man in charge of getting MPs to vote for her plan for Brexit – not to vote for her plan for Brexit.
Brexpletives (noun). The considered response to the news that Parliament has now voted against every conceivable Brexit outcome.
Brexistential crisis (noun). The moment a voter, journalist, or Prime Minister starts to question whether life has meaning.
Brexhaustion (noun). A heartfelt longing for the days when no one outside their immediate families had ever heard of Steve Baker, Anna Soubry, Andrew Bridgen or Lord Adonis.
Brexhibitionist (noun). Backbench Conservative MP who can be found at any time of day or night on television news programmes, typically bellowing spurious analogies about the Second World War.
Brexcitement (noun). Eager anticipation of the moment when representatives of the German car industry leap out from wherever they’ve been hiding and shout, “Don’t worry, Britain! Here we are to save the day, by ordering Angela Merkel to order Jean-Claude Juncker to order Michel Barnier to offer you a completely brilliant last-minute deal!”
Brexcommunicate (verb). To deselect a parliamentary candidate for displaying insufficient enthusiasm about the prospect of a no-deal Brexit.
Brextortion (noun). The process of extracting £39billion from the UK Government after a no-deal Brexit, by simply refusing to talk to it until it hands it over in a panic.
Brexpiry date (noun). The moment when the UK’s political agenda will finally stop being dominated by Brexit, forecast by experts to coincide roughly with the heat death of the sun.
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