empirical realism without a mandrake in sight

Machiavelli's home town had a boost of politicians over the last few days. I skimmed through the Florence pronouncements looking for interesting bits. Theresa May was suitably serious for her speech. She had to cover up that David Davies has been skiving and that consequently everything is even further behind schedule. Implicated civil servants are already writing CYA memos for the enquiry in however many years time.

May ruled out using the EEA or a free trade agreement for ongoing relationships. That means something new and innovative, although it's hard to spot imagination and creativity in the moves so far.

The self-righteous spin of her statements will become future text book materials. "They (The British people) want more direct control of decisions that affect their daily lives; and that means those decisions being made in Britain by people directly accountable to them." It doesn't mention all of the fibs used to those same people in the run-up to the original vote.

Further on, that stray sentence about global matters. Intriguing for a UK about to 'go global' in its aspiration. "The weakening growth of global trade; the loss of popular support for the forces of liberalism and free trade that is driving moves towards protectionism; the threat of climate change depleting and degrading the planet we leave for future generations; and most recently, the outrageous proliferation of nuclear weapons by North Korea with a threat to use them."

Inevitably the semi-colon inserters made sure that this speech refers back to the prior Lancaster House session, as if there has been some fundamental progress over the intervening period. More like regurgitating the main point of the negotiation as if something new: "...we will need to discuss with our European partners new ways of managing our interdependence and our differences, in the context of our shared values."

The reality of the new positioning statements is somewhat different.

1) There will need to be an extra open-ended two years inserted for transitioning to the new, undefined arrangements.
2) There will be significant tens of billions of costs for everything. These amounts will be announced on a trickle feed basis, to confuse us all and not make it sound like too much.

So my net. There still isn't a plan. It will cost a lot of money. It will take lot longer. And that's before the impending scatter of the Tory game-board. Again.