Britain is a free country, not the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 75.

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, according to English legend, was a plant of Central Asia which grew a lamb as its fruit. The lamb was believed to be connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all accessible grass was eaten, the lamb died.

This old myth more or less matches the way some Brexiteers view the modern world: the EU is the plant and Britain is the lamb. They fear that the EU sets a restrictive perimeter in which Britain can graze and one day this will bring the UK to an end.

The EU does set economic restrictions by introducing single customs tariffs, anti-competitive legislation and commercial standards. However, in many other areas the EU has no powers at all, including defence, healthcare and education; all decisions in these fields are made by national governments. Yet, Brexiteers keep accusing the EU of encroaching on national sovereignty and serving as a straitjacket at the same time. 

The most recent example of such spurious accusations came from British defence secretary Gavin Williamson, who said on December 31 that Brexit would allow the UK to change its 1960s policy of withdrawal from regions “east of Suez” and revealed plans to set up British military bases in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. This is all fine, but the EU was never an obstacle for Britain to set up military bases in any part of the world.

Isn't it time Brexiteers stopped pretending that Britain is the sacrificial lamb at the EU altar? Or else, should we all join the club of believers in the existence of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary?

Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 75 have been posted so far and another 86 Brexit Metaphors will be published every day until the planned Brexit date of March 29, 2019.
2. Disclosure: The author has a master's degree in European Integration. He also thinks he knows a bit about business, economics, entrepreneurship, China, history, geography, science and Rubik Cubes.
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5. Thank you for being here!

Brexit: Shredder of British economic prosperity and international influence

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor 1 of 161
161 days to Brexit: an Advent calendar of ignominy

Banksy self-shredded one of his artworks (Love Is in the Bin) on October 5, supposedly in jest.
Britain started shredding its economic prosperity and international influence in earnest on June 23, 2016 and has been stepping up the process in the ensuing political chaos.

Photo credit: Eoin O'Callaghan, People's Vote March, London, October 20, 2018
(Creative placard resembling the half-shredded Banksy artwork)

Brexit can be described as harakiri or self-flagellation. However, shredding is a more apt metaphor. Harakiri requires a single sword and leaves you dead; self-flagellation is done with a whip in self-denial or out of remorse; while shredding renders the object unrecognisable from its former self and is done with a machine with tiny razors. Britain will not disappear with Brexit but every strand of its economy and society will be impacted.

How many are the razors in the shredder, you might ask? At least 35: the 35 chapters of EU law (acquis communautaire). Even areas where the EU has little jurisdiction, e.g. education or healthcare, will be impacted significantly, e.g. by cutting off the access of British students to Erasmus scholarships, isolating British universities from EU research networks, or making it more difficult for the NHS to hire medical personnel.

Britain's international isolation is starting to show. But the biggest humiliation will take place when any small EU member state, as small as Malta or Cyprus, decides to veto any future UK-EU trade deal or other agreement, simply because it can. If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.

Solutions? How about a double metaphor:
Shred the shredder!

Or simply put, stop Brexit.