Back in the land of Brexit.

 Back in the land of Brexit. 

Oh no! It's time to jump onto those fairground dodgems once again. Just as we thought we hadn't seen the back of the subject, it's back again. It used to dominate the news agenda and it's that moment in the year when we should all welcome back that other old news chestnut. Don't you get the feeling that we've been here before? Are we going around in circles or are we destined to play musical chairs with the public's feelings? We keep bumping into that same old, repetitive news agenda and if it isn't one thing, it's quite clearly another. It's deja vu with a vengeance. 

Here we are in the tight grip of a global pandemic and suddenly things are slowly lurching back to your friend and mine- Brexit. Before the global virus that left a trail of carnage behind it struck in March, Britain was wrestling with the hottest political potato since whenever the last one was. Brexit was that hugely complicated annoyance that kept battering our ear-drums remorselessly even though we hadn't asked it to. For the best part of three years we were caught up in the horns of a dilemma. In fact it became the most intolerable dilemma of all time. A right pain in the neck otherwise. 

When former Prime Minister David Cameron consulted Britain and her noble inhabitants on the issue of the European Union and Britain's contentious connection to Europe, the answer came straight back at him. We went to vote on our political involvement in Europe and whether we should make a complete break with influential powers to be in Brussels. 

The response was, at the time emphatic. It was time to withdraw from that stuffy, bureaucratic organisation that dictated every decision Britain had made hitherto. All the laws that had been made since the misty days of Edward Heath's Common Market would now be placed in jeopardy. How dare those crusty mandarins in Brussels tell us what to do? Who are they to lay down the law on important matters of state when the overall impression is that they're just interfering busybodies? Brexit though has come to our rescue on a white charger horse when it looked as though we were about to topple off that galloping steed. 

Today we discover that Michel Barnier and company are once again breathing hot air and threatening to strangle us if we refuse to get on with the whole tiresome process. We now have to negotiate the final hurdles, stick or twist for the umpteenth time and decide whether to write our signature on the final document. It's hard to tell what may be going on in those sullen corridors of Brussels. There isn't a great deal to smile about in the Belgian capital because nobody seems to know where we are going with this one. 

You get the impression that all the dots and crosses will be joined up coherently but poor old Boris Johnson must feel like that rope they used in Tug of War competitions, up to his eyes and ears with official soundbites from his EU companions and then looking on with horror at the fluctuating figures from Covid 19 debriefings. Who on earth would be a Prime Minister? So Johnson will just get on with it because that's what he's paid to do. Johnson is torn emotionally and trapped physically. 

He is damned if he does and vice versa since this is the latest default position at Westminster Towers. But what on earth to do with the utterly objectionable Brexit, the one subject that almost drove us around the bend but failed because we wouldn't allow it to? Still we are confronted by legal jargon, messy minutiae and all sorts of minor details that could blow up in our face. 

After the withdrawal from the EU had been confirmed we were then on some monumental assault course of new problems, things that had to be ironed out. Would the Irish sort out their borders, would we ever compete in the Eurovision Song Contest, would we still maintain some semblance of trading harmony with Europe even though, if truth to be told, we couldn't stand the sight of them? So clear off Brussels because we want our sovereignty and identity back. 

But here we are weeks away from Christmas and Brexit is still a daft expression made up on the back of an old postcard. Politically Britain is still at the bottom of some dusty document of a European letter that was never really opened up or even read. But come New Year's Eve we'll be out of the building, off into our brave new world, ready to conquer new frontiers, engaging with Far East consortiums and reputable companies with big ideas. We'll be signing up deals with those already prosperous markets in Hong Kong and Malaysia, rubbing shoulders with Japan and exotic islands with swaying palm trees. 

And yet here we are still clenching our teeth, gnashing our fingernails  and trying hard to keep a straight face. The chances are that things will work out for the best and come next February and just before next Easter, all of this maddening maelstrom could be history. It is to be hoped that come February, March and most certainly April we'll all be gathering around Trafalgar Square and singing Auld Lang Syne months after the night we should have been belting it out. 

But Brexit is still darkening our corridors if only because it probably feels as if it's lost and would love to be guided in the right direction. So folks be prepared for another set of conferences relating to Brexit where all manner of confusing conundrums and imponderables will be discussed. There has never been any point when nothing will ever be resolved and we'll be in the same quandary again come January. It's all mixed up, this bombardment of statistics, figures, facts, tiers, stages, categories, will they won't they, anticipation followed by another round of indecision. It's enough to drive you completely crazy.