Brexit stuff - UPDATED

Consider yourself warned by the headline. But there is something for everyone here, I think, whatever your views on the subject.

1. Ivan Rogers on no-deal Brexit. A lot of sense here. One minor caveat from Bruno Maçães: "Rogers like many is wrong,though, that the backstop is something the UK not the EU wanted. And he admits this by saying EU will not scrap backstop. Why would you insist on having what you don’t want?" Interesting stuff. One big point: no deal is not the end. And what is the end? Revocation is not the end. A second referendum is not the end (what about a third?).

2. Why hasn't Brexit happened yet? asks Christopher Caldwell. Again, good stuff, although, after you have read Rogers himself, you may feel that Caldwell is too harsh on Rogers.

3. Historical prorogations.

4. The one iron-clad law of Brexit discussion prevails again. Jonathan Freedland, writing in the New York Review of Books, starts his piece as follows: "An easy way to measure how much and how swiftly Britain has changed in the age of Brexit is to compare the Britain of 2019 with the image the country projected of itself [in the past]. The last time that pre-Brexit Britain showed itself to the world, the last time it thought hard about its identity, even its own meaning as a country, was ..." I pause here to see whether you can finish Freedland's sentence. When was it, this solemn occasion on which Britain last thought hard about its identity? At the 2017 General Election? Maybe at some point during the 2016 referendum - or in the aftermath of its surprising result? No, of course not. The last time that the 60-something million citizens of this country sat down and truly considered our own meaning as a country was - yes, you guessed it! - "... on a warm summer’s evening in 2012 when, under the guiding hand of the movie director Danny Boyle, London staged the opening ceremony of that year’s Olympic Games." (The rest of the article writes itself and can be safely ignored.) Mr Boyle's achievement in channelling the thoughts and desires of an entire nation into one evening of made-for-TV entertainment is truly remarkable. Unfortunately he is not a politician and so not available for helping us out of our current mess. Perhaps instead we could turn to the politician who presided over the amazingness that was London 2012 - the man who was the triumphant Mayor of that at-ease-with-itself city now sadly one with Nineveh and Tyre. As I recall, that man, whoever he was, was "a huge asset to the Games, as a jovial Master of Ceremonies, the right mayor for the right place and time. He lifted the mood before Team GB golds rolled in, and became a totem for many of the British characteristics Danny Boyle sought to showcase in the opening ceremony, the mildly deranged humor, the appearance of chaos that overlies purpose...". If only that human representation of the London 2012 opening ceremony were available to serve as Prime Minister now! How unfortunate that we are stuck with Boris Johnson, the very antithesis of everything that we loved in 2012.

5. UPDATE. Here's a pleasant coincidence. This is the LRB, with an interesting article about the intellectual background to the Single Market (an international free-trade zone horribly insulated from the passions of the populace) and how awful it is. Meanwhile, here is the Economist, describing the Single Market (an international free-trade zone wonderfully insulated from the passions of the populace) and how it has failed to go far enough. The two articles largely agree about the facts. And here (with a bit from Alan Walters!) is how this all plays into Brexit: "What happened was single market in services never happened in part because it would favor UK and the largest part of the British economy was never fully integrated into the EU". It is perhaps fair to say that the UK is to services what Germany is to manufacturing, and would have dominated the service sector of Europe in the same way that Germany dominates manufacturing had it been allowed to do so. I doubt it is as simple as saying that the Brexiteers' mouths could have been stuffed with gold, but perhaps enough mouths could have been stuffed.