The Brexit Agreement is still not signed. The EU are still pissed off with our bad attitude and how we managed to a have better deal on AstraZeneca's vaccines which they don't seem to like anyway.
The Ireland / NI border is still a mess. Both politically and economically. This is apparently something that wasn't discussed pre referedum, with regular Westminstenders suffering from collective delusions over remembering differently and reading madeup stories which just happen to be dated prior to the referendum. Its a sign of how good fake news has got.
The lying architect of Vote Leave is complaining about the lying of Vote Leave's biggest champion and cheerleader, countered with the pm who cheated on his ex wife multiple times and ran off with a younger woman accusing his former aid of being deeply sexist.
The government is embroiled in numerous accusations of lining its own pockets following the brexit power grab by the right wing of the party. Which of course wasn't a worry pre referendum. As of course accountability generally.
In keeping with taking a lead on the world stage, we have seen through our promises to cut back on overseas aid, instead preferring to spend money on trading. This is well represented by our purchasing of 10million AZ vaccines from India with not much sign of sending aid to help with the unfolding humanitarian crisis there.
Our post Brexit foreign policy looks muddled at best. The new world order is a big confusing. We dont mind trading with regimes which have human rights abuses... As long as they are countries which are smaller than us and we can exploit. We don't particularly like China atm because we aren't getting much out of the shitting on others. Plus its not really proving a great opportunity for Westerners to line their pockets like other dodgy regimes because its generally closed to outsiders and this is even more true in covid times.
But don't worry, we will soon be able to go abroad again on our covid passports. The 17th May beckons when the penny will drop that efforts to integrate medical records with passport data which apparently border agencies are working on, isn't ready yet and that doesn't matter because other countries won't be ready to let us in yet, especially since we are outside the EU and EEA and we haven't been great at talking to them. And we probably will still have to quarantine on return anyway. (End of June is still optimistic but more realistic).
We've still to impose customs checks yet because we didn't want to do it in April in case that meant the shops would be empty when they reopened. So we still have that joy to look forward to. Great for EU exporters. Less great for uk exporters. For now.
Of course we have the May Council elections to look forward to, in which it will become apparent just how fucking useless and invisible Keir Starmer is and how Labour policies are not connecting with voters in spite of all of the above. Mainly due to navel gazing and an inability to get beyond their social circle. Any good ideas they do have are promptly nicked by the Tories.
Post Brexit talk of reviewing the Monarchy are also growing in steam...
If we look back it feels like the sleaziness of the early nineties has returned but with no prospect of joining the Eu, no John Smith or Smiling Tony to inspire, no coming Cool Brittania to cheer us up. Just sleaze tolerated and accepted, rather than rejected. And one massive debt than had been largely repaid.
Its hard to see where we go from here. We seem bewildered by geography and confused by technology. Unwilling to invest in science and no longer aligned with the right people to collaborate effectively.
Instead we are more pre occupied with in fighting.
As a friend said to me this week, they had started to watch alternative news channels to British based ones because she felt we had become so inward looking. She felt like our mentality was increasing like the US which simply was unaware of events and ideas beyond our borders. I think its a comment that has so much ressonnance.