24 Oct 2017

Brexit 2017: A Very Machiavellian Game of Chicken


At the half way stage of this Brexit phenomena, it would not be unfair to cite the negotiations as heading for a possible collapse as attitudes harden across the table.

The talks are becoming fraught. Tensions are rising. Leaders playing this political game of chicken are wondering if the chicken’s head will stay put or be lost in the current scramble for the best pieces in the Brexit end game. Better to checkmate with a Queen and a Knight -if you got them at that point.
The UK's Berlin Wall moment, otherwise known as Brexit, continues its
 uphill struggle as protagonists lose the original spirit of unity over future
 power and glory in a post neo-liberalism order. Image 2017    

And all of this could have been prevented. Or maybe it was not to be prevented, for who wins this game of chicken will go forward into the post Neo-Liberal world order as a victorious player to be reckoned with. The looser will be humiliated for years to come.

Both sides have serious handicaps. For the UK, preparation for an EU crash out scenario are underdeveloped while worst for the EU is they have no contingency what so ever, to date, for a post Brexit UK victory. Playing good chess calls for forward thinking.

Should it lose, EU member states will worry and will doubt the EU’s fitness for purpose, while a defeated UK will set Westminster alight. Brexit has become a tug of attrition between UK & EU aspirations and reputations in a game that pits democratic national sovereignty (White) against a technocratic system of government (Black) – trade is the excuse, but power is the reason – Glory is the prize- there is everything to play for.

Meanwhile, as Brexit talks evolves into the UK’s Berlin Wall moment, the widening revolt against the EU’s plans for More Europe has moved into a new phase. Germany, Austria, Catalonia and Northern Italy have each in their own way turned more than slightly away from the Brussels’s integralism ideology.

European elites are curiously silent about the most recent serious shock to Spain’s unity. Their response is to support the Madrid government. They cite respect for the Spanish constitution and how it is not prudent to interfere in a country’s internal affairs.

The EU is fundamentally flawed, and everyone seems to know it – even the EU itself. But reform is not possible because the mechanism for reform is not written into the EU’s DNA. As such, the deteriorating situation in trust and respect for the EU’s political agenda across Europe will continue as people take more and more interest in what concerns them – the power to determine their future in their own best interests.