Well it has been quite a big week Brexit wise. Jeremy Corbyn gave a big speech where he said that Labour would keep the UK in the Customs Union. Theresa May gave a big speech where she said that the Conservatives would, err, I am not sure what she said even though thanks to the snow I was able to watch most of it while working at home.
Also Tony Blair and John Major both gave speeches urging that we should not burn our bridges with Europe. I didn't hear the Blair one, and only saw a little of the Major one. But to my surprise John Major who I've never really thought of as a good speaker made a very convincing and rather emotional case for keeping in the single market.
And just to finish the week off Michael Hesseltine laid into the poor state of the negotiations and suggested that the cherry picking approach he attributed to Mrs May wouldn't work.
So all in all the situation has now changed a fair bit. We finally have some idea of what Labour would actually do. I am not particularly happy with it though. In theory it sounds good as staying in the customs union is certainly a good move economically. But I just think that if it becomes a political football it is not really worth the effort. After all whose going to make a business decision if you don't know whether the government are going to stick to the deal or not. The same would apply if Labour, as now seems likely, comes out in favour of staying in the Single Market.
So it looks to me like Brexit isn't yet remotely settled. The direction of travel in Labour is clearly towards rejoining fairly soon after Britain leaves. Its new members are predominantly young and skewed towards places like London and Bristol that are leave hotbeds. Nothing is more predictable than that the members will be pushing for more Europe soon.
The situation with the Tories is less clear. They still seem to have a really vociferous phobe tendency who seem to be really powerful. The big question is how permanent a feature of the party are they going to be in the future. They have currently found a leader in the form of the foppish and entertaining Jacob Rees Mogg. (I alternate between finding him charmingly eccentric and thinking he is a cunt.) But he hasn't really got the CV to be a leader yet. I don't see any evidence of it yet, but there must be some kind of backlash building up against the europhobes. They are losing the party the support of business. And although people won't necessarily make the connection, Brexit is likely to play havoc with the economy which might well finally lead to the Conservatives losing their undeservered but very handy reputation for economic competence.
So it has been a lot of fuss and bother for not a huge amount of extra clarity. The government still haven't got a clear plan. The opposition are very slightly ahead of them. But neither have a ready to roll plan. And in the meantime the EU have started putting together very detailed proposals from their side. This is making it clearer by the day just how little leverage the UK has - or would have if we knew what we wanted.
The more I think about the more I think that what Brexit actually needs to be pulled off is a national government. After all if the two parties don't agree on something as fundamental as the customs union it is going to be very difficult to come up with a deal that is likely to stick.
Failing that it looks like Brexit might end up being simply imposed on us by Brussels.
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