I have a memory of @anandMenon1 et al writing about a TM deal being greeted with a surge of ‘it’s a deal’ goodwill (it wasn’t) but the argument seems to hold true for the current deal.

Some of it is relief that we have all avoided no deal although I’d argue that much of the no deal furore was prestidigitation (as it has always been).
Some of it is exhaustion. Everyone (apart from enthusiasts and lunatics) is very tired indeed, especially after this annus horrificis.
Everyone wants to move on. Labour is a great example. That they were going to vote for the deal was visible from space. If Labour can banish the twin albatrosses of Corbyn and Brexit then, hey presto, it becomes competitive again.
So almost overnight a new consensus seems to form. The Christmas gift isn’t just a deal it’s a new beginning, again.
And yet.
This ain’t Star Wars. It certainly ain’t It’s A Wonderful Life. Maybe it’s the Grinch without the happy ending. Possibly it’s King Lear or more Likely Titus Andronicus. Reservoir Dogs without the brilliant writing or Fleabag with none of the funny bits. Apocalypse not quite yet.
So unless you believe in magic gnomes, fairies with sparkling wings, wish granting djinn and unicorns with the silverest horns and fluffiest manes this pretty consensus has, appropriately, the duration of a prime ministerial promise.
The profound demographic divisions aren’t going away. Brexit induced radicalisation on all sides isn’t going away. Independence movements in the UK’s nations aren’t going away. Neither is cronyism nor the absolute battering our institutions have received in the last few years.
In the cold light of day. Imagine, sometime in the middle of February. Freezing, grey, wet. How are we left? With a thin deal and a pandemic. And the virus doesn’t care about any of this. Thank god for the vaccine. The standout achievement of this century.
A huge national rebuilding effort is required. And yet we have a government with neither the enthusiasm nor the skill set for bridging divides. A government that will buy a bankrupt satellite company but will not participate in Erasmus. Priorities.
It’s not all bad. It could have been worse. No deal would have been a disaster. More importantly, our state of fragmentation brings opportunities. Now is the time for insurgent narratives. If you want to change things you’ll never have a better chance than in the next 10 years.
I wonder if this is Brexit’s most important legacy, it’s intentional but unintended gift to the nation. Perpetual revolution.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

/ends

More from Objective Columnist

Typically excellent piece from @dsquareddigest The exponential insight is especially neat. Think of it a little like fishing...today you can’t export oysters to the EU (because you simply aren’t allowed to), tomorrow you don’t have a fish exporting business (to the EU).


The extremely small minority of people who known anything about this who think that Brexit will be good for the City make a number of arguments which I shall address in turn...

1. They need us more than we need them. This is a variant of the German carmakers argument. And we know how that went...Business will follow the profit opportunity and if that has moved then so will the business...

And what do we mean by us / we. We’re not talking about massed ranks of Euro investing / trading etc blue blooded British institutions.

Au contraire. We’re talking about the London based subs of US, Asian and indeed European capital markets players...As soon as they think the profit opportunity has moved then so will they...it’s a market innit...
I tend to agree with this - of course many things can still go wrong...but (certainly on the UK side) as the list of outstanding issues decreases and as the cost of no deal becomes more apparent deal momentum will increase.


I find it most amusing that people invest so much value in public statements, briefings, tabloid headlines, the tweets of obscure backbenchers etc. Cherchez les fundamentals!

There is a deep vein of analytical pessimism in one particular direction, which, whether correct or not, is noteworthy. On the one hand, a firm belief in the fundamentals - gravity exists - but on the other hand those fundamentals are not meaningful to the final decision.

But gravity does exist! Whether one likes it or not. We do not have wings. Or feathers. And the realisation of the fundamentals will impact the political calculation (though timing differences may apply).

You don’t have to invest any particular optimism or see any virtue in the principal players to make this point.

More from Politics

This idea - that elections should translate into policy - is not wrong at all. But political science can help explain why it's not working this way. There are three main explanations: 1. mandates are constructed, not automatic, 2. party asymmetry, 3. partisan conpetition 1/


First, party/policy mandates from elections are far from self-executing in our system. Work on mandates from Dahl to Ellis and Kirk on the history of the mandate to mine on its role in post-Nixon politics, to Peterson Grossback and Stimson all emphasize that this link is... 2/

Created deliberately and isn't always persuasive. Others have to convinced that the election meant a particular thing for it to work in a legislative context. I theorized in the immediate period of after the 2020 election that this was part of why Repubs signed on to ...3/

Trump's demonstrably false fraud nonsense - it derailed an emerging mandate news cycle. Winners of elections get what they get - institutional control - but can't expect much beyond that unless the perception of an election mandate takes hold. And it didn't. 4/

Let's turn to the legislation element of this. There's just an asymmetry in terms of passing a relief bill. Republicans are presumably less motivated to get some kind of deal passed. Democrats are more likely to want to do *something.* 5/

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