Friday, November 10, 2017

Brexit turning into a Fawlty Towers farce

For many looking on at the farcical Brexit negotiations and surrounding chaos that appears to developing since the EU referendum it is more akin to a sitcom than a serious attempt to take back control and build a better Britain.

Indeed the whole fiasco has come to have stark similarities of the infamous sitcom Fawlty Towers.

Theresa May is much like the beleaguered wife of Basil Fawlty, trying to keep things in order whilst those around her become embroiled in one fiasco after another.

The bumbling Foreign Secretary is surely not too far removed from the Major and Basil rolled into one as he makes inappropriate remarks and insults.

Life imitated art earlier in the year when Johnson urged the French president not to "administer punishment beatings" on Britain for choosing to escape the EU "rather in the manner of some World War Two movie" [BBC]. This was very much like Basil Fawlty's faux pas when he kept making inappropriate references to the war to some German guests while late claiming that he might have "got away with it.

Johnson, just like Basil Fawlty, hasn't confined his comments to one group of foreigners, though he hasn't yet begun to lash out at Spanish waiters and tell them they are a "waste of space".

Many are bewildered why Britons should have voted Brexit at all and wrench themselves from one of the world's biggest trading blocks. Foreigners, not only in Europe but around the globe are puzzled why Britain would go through such painful negotiations and create such uncertainty for its own manufacturing industry as well as those who might wish to invest in Britain.

The same puzzlement is reflected in Fawlty Towers as a psychiatrist staying at the hotel exclaims that there existed "enough material for a whole conference" given the farcical events taking place.

It is perhaps no wonder that outside Britain's walls media commentators are making similar analogies.

The New York Times columnist Steven Erlanger recently said that no one knows what Britain was anymore and that it had become nearly unrecognizable to its European allies.

The party led by May has itself become more and more shambolic by the month [Reuters]. After staggering through a disastrous and unnecesssary election May has had to make deals with DUP to prop up her minority government. The Tory party conference was itself a comedy of errors as a comedian delivered a fake P45, May spluttered and coughed through her speech and letters fell off the backdrop display, a reminder once again of Fawlty Towers where the sign at the hotel entrance is displayed with missing or rearranged letters.

"Like the sign outside Fawlty Towers, the missing letters behind Theresa May are an emblem of a tragicomic farce. Who needs Basil's hotel? We now have the Tory Party," The Sun said in an editorial.

Some months ago Boris Johnson was ridiculed after he exclaimed that Brexit would "be a Titanic success", an unfortunate comparison given the fate of the ocean going liner.

The boat analogies have not gone away however. In his article published in early November 2017, Erlanger described Britain as being like "a modest-size ship on the global ocean" heading towards uncharted territory if not the rocks.

The ship, Erlanger suggests is "unmoored, heading to nowhere, while on deck, fire has broken out and the captain — poor Theresa May — is lashed to the mast, without the authority to decide whether to turn to port or to starboard, let alone do what one imagines she knows would be best, which is to turn around and head back to shore."

But making such a U-turn would, many claim, be undemocratic and betray the will of the people.

In one episode of Fawlty Towers Basil makes a disastrous mistake in telling some guests to leave after misconstruing things he overheard. On informing his wife Sybil. "Oh my God," Basil exclaims, "What have I done" before asking what am I going to do?"

"Tell them you've made a mistake," Sybil suggests. "Oh, brilliant! Brilliant. Is that what made Britain great?" Basil retorts, before storming up to the guests to apologize, but blaming the fiasco on his wife.

The line "Is that what made Britain great?" reflects very much attitudes that still prevail in Britain today. Many people still have difficulty in forgetting the glory days when Britain traded internationally across an empire over which "the sun never set".

The colonialist Britain is very much in the past and Britain's relevance is not as significant in today's globalised world [SMH].

In fact rather than a vote for a global Britain and economic liberalism, Brexit was a vote for protectionism, and its political system nowis deeply provincial and introverted at a time when Britain is supposed to be heading out into the world.

The architect of Article 50, Lord Kerr, has declared that the letter can be torn up at any point until 29th March 2017 [Guardian].

Despite concerns Britain is heading for a no deal scenario the Theresa May seems adamant that the Good Ship Brexit is on the right course.

Johnson for his part seems just as unlikely to turn around and say he's made a mistake. His recent blunder with facts that landed a woman held by Iran in even hotter water seems to indicate that whatever the evidence May, Johnson and the Tory government are unlikely to change course [Guardian].

Only when the ship is dashed against the rocks will the people and politicians perhaps realise their folly. But unlike Fawlty Towers no one will be laughing as the end credits roll.

tvnewswatch, London, UK

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