The special place in hell and how to save the European dream

"I have been wondering what the special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it safely" said Donald Tusk today. You should know, Donald because it's the same place reserved for those who deliberately sabotaged the negotiation by insisting that trade arrangements could not be discussed before the Irish border issue was resolved. This was always an paradoxical impossibility. If it was a figure of speech it would be an oxymoron, two contradictory and mutually impossible conditions juxtaposed. Indeed, just moronic, Donald.

The EU insisted on setting the negotiation up that way. I understand why some Remainers say that it's the UK that is leaving, so it's the UK that has to solve the problems. However, it's the EU that set the order of play in a way that means the problems cannot be solved. Hence the need for the backstop which is causing the biggest issue.

So, Donald, you designed the place in hell just as much as any Brexiteer.

But another version of hell awaits you, Donald, if you don't show flexibility to get this all fixed. In that version your mischief making helps to contrive a position in which we stay for longer. Or maybe even for permanently. Have you thought about what that looks like?

It's easy to predict that, in the UK, the political situation will be toxic for at least a decade. The referendum arguments will be re-run ad infinitum and a eurosceptic party (maybe UKIP, a UKIP successor but probably a totally eurosceptic Tory party) will do permanently well enough in the polls that any government will find itself under pressure at all turns to stick it to the EU. So the UK will be pushed into opposing every measure, however sensible or well intentioned, that smacks of ever greater union. Like some stroppy, overgrown, sulky teenager we'll block everything and anything. Brussels, already sclerotic enough, will grind to a halt.

I must admit I hadn't given much thought about how to save the European dream. But it's actually clear what British europhiles who want to see an ever closer EU should do to save the project: they should work to ensure Brexit happens.

After all, from here all options (and I mean all options) lead to economic futures that are poorer in the short to medium term than if we had voted to Remain. Even if we stay. So the game from here is making the best of it.

We may or may not be better off outside the EU but we were given a choice and we made it, in an outbreak of democracy that is alien to folk like you, Donald. The EU may or may not be better off economically if we stayed. But in terms of their precious "project" it's clear. We've never been committed to much more than a trading entity. We've always been a pain in the backside to those wanting ever greater union. They would definitely feel in a better place without us.

So Donald, if you don't want hell to freeze over - i.e. Brussels to grind to a halt - it's time to start thinking about how to make Brexit work. After all, you created this situation just as much as Boris Johnson or Dominic Cummings.