Last hurrah

The cheering of journalists in popular press seems unrelenting. England, liberated from EU restrictions will win the Euros. Nissan, basking in the same feelgood factor, has announced a commitment to British-made electric cars. Free Britain is a land of vaccinated and renewed entrepreneurs.

But is it Brexit's last hurrah, I wonder? The Nissan announcement came on the same day the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the talks with the EU on financial equivalence have broken down. So we undoubtedly will continue losing many more financial jobs and tax receipts than any tax returns we can get from car industries.

So, I protest, what about money trees, indebtedness and supporting one’s roof. Didn't these concepts once mean something to us? If we get even more in the red in the UK balance of payments, how can we decrease indebtedness? Red and blue walls don't, of course, always listen to such niceties.

But I hear the ever louder murmurings of those who say we will soon have a summer of discontent due to food shortages in our supermarkets. There is no easy way, apparently, to wean us off our dependence on EU lorry drivers. Supermarkets don't self-stock. Ah yes, the phrase I used shows I am recalling the famous winter of discontent when revulsion developed against too-powerful trade unionists.

Perhaps this time the discontent will be against too-powerful financiers – the kind who promoted Brexit, promoted Neo-liberalism in the US and UK, and have weakened the world's commitment to dealing with climate change.

So have your last hurrah, and then we can get back to developing the Radicalisms these times call for.

ANDREW VASS

Edinburgh