15/10/2016
When Paul Goodman of
Conservative Home writes about "Lichtenstein's emergency brake" and tells us, "it is not certain that Britain could join the EEA in the first place", we know we are dealing with a degree of ignorance so profound you could slice it and sell it at a premium.
Yet this is a man who would guide us through the labyrinth of Brexit, one of so many who are exhibiting a similar level of ignorance and thereby making a mockery of the public debate.
But it's actually worse than that. As Pete remarked
yesterday, the debate is breaking down along tribal lines. If you want "soft" Brexit you are a remainer trying to subvert democracy. If you want a "hard" Brexit you are a leaver, and there is nothing in between.
But this distinction has no bearing on reality. The discussion is between an option that doesn't exist and an option that isn't defined, where the line of contention between the tribes is the single market. Sadly, neither faction has any real idea what it is, and neither understands the ramifications of continued participation.
What marks out the debate, though, is that there is no premium on knowledge. The only thing that matters is tribal conformity. This makes the public debate sterile, contributing nothing to the eventual outcome of Brexit. What will be negotiated lies wholly outside the public domain.
And the reason for this is precisely because, in the real world, it isn't a binary debate, but one of nuance and complexity. The "hard" Brexit, which
ITN outlines, which has us relying on the WTO option, has already been ruled out by Theresa May. She has committed to a negotiated settlement.
Yet the so-called "hard" Brexit of which
Donald Tusk speaks is not the same animal that ITN describes. For all the rhetoric, he too speaks of negotiations, declaring that they will be carried out "in good faith".
Understandably, he also speaks of defending the interests of the EU 27, to minimise the costs. He then goes on to say that the task is to seek the best possible deal for all, arguing that no outcome exists that will benefit either side â the UK or the EU. Yet this he calls a "hard" Brexit.
That is the nub of the issue. No one grouping could define a single version of either a "soft" or a "hard" Brexit, and as fast as someone seeks to put substance to either one, the goalposts change. Then, even if it was possible to settle the definitions, an interim deal would render them redundant. A long-term deal is neither "hard" nor "soft", but in a category of its own.
You would not have thought that the media
commentariat and the politicians could make such a mess of this but, after not covering the issues properly for decades, it should be unsurprising that the whole lot of them are proving to be so incompetent.
The trouble is that there is no sign that any of the players are sufficiently self-aware ever to realise their own inadequacies, and therefore so sign of any correction. The debate is spiralling down to rock bottom but, every time we seem to get there, a new low is defined.
But then, in theory, there need not be any limit to political illiteracy. The ignorance of the herd is self-reinforcing, and there is no external corrective which can penetrate its determination to stay ill-informed. We are in for a rocky ride.
