LONELY ISLAND

BREXITEERS WANT TO MAKE BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN; BUT GREATNESS MAY WELL BE A THING OF THE PAST FOR THE KINGDOM

- ANITA PRATAP

This year has been like no other in our lifetimes, except for one issue—Brexit. Yes, Britain left the European Union last January, but the status quo continues to enable a negotiated post-Brexit free trade deal.

And that was when the fight started… again.

It was déjà vu. With a December 31 deadline, the 2020 trade talks mirrored last year’s UK-EU tensions when they negotiated the exit deal— accusations, threats, showdowns, deadlock and even the annoying exclamations from yesteryear. “All options are on the table, deal no deal, hard or soft deal, delay, no delay”. Have they not been there, done that? Apparently not. “Nothing is agreed, until everything is agreed,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

At “the eleventh hour”, because they could not “see eye to eye”, the two sides made a “last-ditch” attempt to meet “face to face” to negotiate a “make or break” deal. Covid-overwhelmed Britons seemed past caring and journalists ran out of clichés. “The Brexit frog has been truly boiled, but we’re too exhausted to notice,” said former Tory finance minister George Osborne.

The “cliff-edge” brinkmanship was preceded by one referendum, two national elections, three prime ministers and four and a half exhausting years of transcontinental haggling. The row: Britain insisted on sovereignty over its fishing waters, where the Europeans have trawled for decades. Fish is only 0.1 per cent of the British economy, but ceding sovereignty over fish and laws is betraying Brexit—which ordained “Take Back Control”.