Brexit Britain is heading towards Italian-style disagreement on everything

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 89. 

When politicians in a country start to disagree on everything, they are sometimes reminded of Italy. “Ruling the Italians is not difficult; it is pointless.” - observed Benito Mussolini in the early part of the 20th century.

Britain is increasingly resembling Italy in its "disagree to disagree" approach. The British Parliament rejected Theresa May's Withdrawal Deal on January 15 and then rejected a vote of non-confidence on January 16. 

One does start wondering what January 17 might hold in store?

Italy map & flag (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 89 have been posted so far and another 72 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
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Brexit civilisation may turn out much more short-lived than Soviet civilisation

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 88. 

Have you seen the history of Soviet civlisation? I haven't. And neither has the professor who supposedly teaches such a subject at a Russian university (see photo). The history of said civilisation seems to be contained in a few thumbtacks on an empty noticeboard.

January 15, 2019 was the beginning of the end of the even more short-lived Brexit civilisation (excuse the oxymoron). Theresa May's crushing 432:202 defeat in the British Parliament means that UK's withdrawal from the EU is less likely to happen on March 29, 2019, if at all. Britain has experienced a few pinpricks along the Brexit motorway so far, including a sustained devaluation of the pound since 2016; bank asset transfers to the Continent; and London losing the European Banking Authority (to Paris) and the European Medicines Agency (to Amsterdam). Yet, this would be a minor price to pay for foregoing the pleasures of living in a Brexit civilisation.

History of Soviet Civilisation (notice board at Moscow university, Jan 15, 2019)

Self-explanatory (BBC World News screenshot, Jan 15, 2019)

---Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 88 have been posted so far and another 73 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
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Article 50 is a single-use tool, like clingfilm

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 87. 

Article 50 is like a piece of clingfilm (plastic wrap): once you've used it to cover a bowl, if you take it off you cannot use the same piece of clingfilm again. Only a very skillful person can occasionally manage to fold away and reuse the same piece of clingfilm.

Article 50 is a single-use tool. Once triggered and in use, it can be scrapped but it cannot be taken off and put on again like a plastic lid. However, it can be stretched to cover an extra few months, just like clingfilm can be stretched to cover an extra inch of the porridge bowl.

Clingfilm / plastic wrap (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 87 have been posted so far and another 74 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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Brexit requires removing every red thread from the EU tapestry

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 86. 

The EU is a tapestry of many colours. Britain is one of the main colours on the tapestry, most likely the colour Red. So it is no surprise that Theresa May is finding Brexit so difficult to deliver: imagine having to take out every red thread woven into a tapestry.

Many of the scenes on the EU/European tapestry have actually been designed by Britain, e.g. the Single Market (whose biggest supporter was Margaret Thatcher) and the European Court of Human Rights (not an EU institution but still a major British contribution to the post-war European landscape), to name but two. So taking the red threads out of all the scenes that are heavily infused in red is understandably difficult.

What happens after the red threads are removed? The EU tapestry will remain but will look totally dilapidated and barely recognisable. As for the UK, the British bits of the tapestry will be reduced to a shapeless pile of red threads (and I am not talking about Jeremy Corbyn).

Scene from the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 86 have been posted so far and another 75 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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UK without Northern Ireland is like a cat without a tail

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 85. 

In Bulgaria's stingiest city, Gabrovo, people are anecdotally known to cut off the tails of their cats so that if you open the front door to let your cat out of the house, the door needs to stay open as short as possible and heat loss is kept to a minimum.

Northern Ireland is the tail of the UK cat. In the current Brexit process "the tail is wagging the cat", causing enormous difficulties for Theresa May and her EU Withdrawal Agreement. She must be secretly wishing that the tail had been cut off from the United Kingdom back in 1922 when the partition of Ireland de facto took place. The spectre of the 1922 Committee (name unrelated to Ireland) is still chasing the British Prime Minister, even though she fended off the most recent attack on her premiership by the very 1922 Committee.

Manx cat with stumpy tail (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 85 have been posted so far and another 76 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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EU membership is to Brexit what Spectacles are to Sunglasses

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 84. 

Imagine a movie car scene: it is getting dark on the world stage and Britain needs to get behind the steering wheel and drive off into the future. Britain is at a ripe middle age and needs to use prescription glasses to read and drive. But in 2016 Britain stomped on its spectacles and all it now has is a pair of sunglasses. Britain puts on the sunglasses and drives off into the sunset. Won't the entire audience be wondering how long the drive will last before there is a car crash?

EU membership functions as prescription glasses. They don't look cool but they help you see clearly and get things done.

Brexit serves the role of a pair of funky sunglasses. Wearing them makes you think you look cool. But when dusk falls, wearing them doesn't help; it actually makes you worse off.

Sunglasses (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 84 have been posted so far and another 77 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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French Queen killed off English wine 800 years before the Single Market

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 83. 

When Eleanor of Aquitaine married king Henry II of England in 1152, this spelt the death of the British wine industry. Eleanor was the ruler of the wine-growing region of Bordeaux. The union of England and Aquitaine brought about an influx of good-quality French wine that killed off the less efficient and poorer quality viticulture in the south of England (which had been reasonably thriving before that).

Some 800 years later, several consecutive rounds of EU enlargement have had similar effects on various sectors of the British economy. When Greece, Spain and Portugal joined the EU in the 1980s, the opening up of Mediterranean beach resorts to northern European tourists sent into decline England's coastal towns such as Margate and Blackpool. While the 2004 Enlargement brought the "Polish plumber" to Britain, putting pressure on low-skilled British workers. 

The economies of countries are never static - they change dynamically based on changes in the factors of production. If Eleanor of Aquitaine had not killed England's wine industry, the Little Ice Age of the 16th to 19th century would probably have done it. Or the Bangladeshi plumber could have come instead of the Polish plumber.

Maintaining a static economy as if frozen in time is impossible in this day and age. If you believe in a frozen state, you might need to consider moving to live in a freezer.

The Angevin Empire in England and France, in red (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 83 have been posted so far and another 78 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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EU is a potato plant whose value lies hidden underground. Keep the cows away!

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 82

The EU is like the potato plant. Above the surface the plant has lush stalks and leaves which humans discard after harvest; while the really valuable bits are the tubers that grow underground.

EU-bashing politicians have for decades been campaigning to slash and burn the green stalks of the EU potato plant, e.g. Brussels regulations, with the argument that they are useless to humans (and poisonous to cows). At the same time, they have failed to recognise the fundamental value of the tubers in the roots, e.g. the Single Market, which is the foundation of European prosperity and, ultimately, peace. The tubers are not directly visible so you do need to do some (intellectual) digging to see them. 

Regulations are a necessity for the functioning of the Single Market just like the plant needs its green leaves to grow potatoes in its roots. So the first step to redress the historic injustice done to the potato plant by Brexiteers is to keep the cows and the pigs away.

Potato plants (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 82 have been posted so far and another 79 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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Britain ended up shooting itself in the foot after easy rabbit hunt

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 81. 

Brexit was going to be as easy as going rabbit-hunting, if not as easy as Easter egg hunting, promised Brexiteer politicians.

It turned out it was a lot more difficult, but also dangerous. Britain not only did not catch any rabbits but shot itself in the foot by deciding to go for Brexit.

It did not help in the negotiations with the EU that the rabbit hunters were accompanied by a few accordions: Jacob Reese-Mogg, Boris Johnson and the like.

So little wonder that the rabbit hunt deteriorated into a chase down the rabbit hole of Wonderland, soon to be renamed Neverland.

Hare still life (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 81 have been posted so far and another 80 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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Wanna strike a match inside a fuel tank? Be my guest!

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 80

Once there was a man who lit a match to see if a fuel tank was full or empty. He won a Darwin Award.*

Once there was a man who asked a whole country to vote on EU membership. He won a cosy retirement.

Who knew that when you light a match inside a petrol tank, it would explode?

Who knew that when you hold a referendum to ask a simple question on a complex matter, a whole country would implode?

Explosion of fire (Source: Wikipedia)

* Darwin Awards recognise (posthumously) individuals who have killed themselves "in an extraordinarily idiotic manner" and have thus contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool.

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 80 have been posted so far and another 81 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
4. Sign-up: I would be thrilled if you signed up to receive my blog daily by entering your email address in the blank in the top right-hand corner of this page.
5. Thank you for being here!

Brexit plane, in search of the jet stream, is flying in a storm in circles

By George ILIEV 
Brexit Metaphor No 79. 

Plane pilots often fly through turbulence in order to join a jet stream: one of four fast-flowing air currents in the atmosphere (two at polar and two at sub-tropical latitudes). Flying in the jet stream helps speed up the plane when flying west to east. However, jet streams are rivers of air several-hundred-km wide that often meander and change course, so they are not a fixture easy to find for a pilot. Turbulence forms along the edges of the jet streams, so a plane needs to endure some turbulence to reach it. Air turbulence also accompanies storms, but planes avoid storms for the obvious reasons.

Brexit was supposed to take the British plane out of the stable and calm air of the EU and into a fast-moving trans-continental jet stream, with some minor turbulence along the way. However, two issues have emerged since the flight started in 2016:

1) Storm: The turbulence has been constant and getting worse in the last 2.5 years but no jet stream has been reached yet, which makes one doubt if the plane is not merely flying in circles in a gigantic storm.

2) Direction: If a jet stream is eventually reached, the plane pilots are not sure if they will be flying with or against the direction of the wind. They are not even sure which way the jet stream itself is blowing.

For the time being, the pilot keeps announcing to the passengers that the jet stream is in sight, "strong and stable". Yet the pilot's visions of a jet stream are starting to sound to the passengers more and more like "jest" & "dream".

Jet stream over the Pacific in green; and shortest flight route in red
(Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 79 have been posted so far and another 82 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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Britain wants to launch itself out of the EU and orbit as a comet. Weight & thrust pose a problem.

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 78.

Planets and comets orbit the sun - it's the most natural thing. But try to shoot a one-tonne satellite from Earth into space and you'll find it takes enormous energy, effort and technological sophistication to defy the pull of gravity.

Norway and Switzerland are small comets that orbit the EU. They function perfectly well in their stable orbits but they have always been flying in space around the EU and were never part of it. 

Britain is the opposite case: it is struggling to defy gravity to launch itself out of the EU and into space. It faces two major problems in this endeavour: 

1) Weight: The heaviest satellite that has ever been launched from Earth had a payload of 7 tonnes, while Britain is the size of a very large comet.

2) Thrust: The UK is a very heavy satellite that will require a gigantic rocket to launch it into space. The search for such a rocket is still going on three months before take-off.

Will Britain manage to launch itself into space? We'll find out by March 29.

Comet (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 78 have been posted so far and another 83 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
4. Sign-up: I would be thrilled if you signed up to receive my blog daily by entering your email address in the blank in the top right-hand corner of this page.
5. Thank you for being here!

The EU should view Brexit as Britain's graduation, not resignation

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 77

Management consultancy McKinsey has a vast "alumni" network. All former employees who have left the company on good terms join the alumni platform and remain McKinsey alumni for life. McKinsey alumni are also known for referring new business to their former employer.

The EU should similarly agree to treat Britain's departure from the Union as a graduation, rather than a resignation, and give the UK "alumni status". Britain needed the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC), in the 1970s and 1980s to sort out its economic malaise. In a similar way, many young people go to university to learn how to progress in life. And now that Britain has learned all it can from the EU, it can be declared worthy of graduation.

This approach is not only face-saving and psychologically-sparing but is also a win-win from a pragmatic point of view. University alumni stay in touch with their alma mater and make philanthropic donations for new buildings or scholarships for new students, just like McKinsey's alumni bring new projects to the consultancy. Therefore, it makes sense to ask "EU alumnus" Britain to continue contributing to the EU budget to support new infrastructure projects across Europe and the economic development of the newer EU member states.

So, see you at Graduation Day, March 29, 2019?

Graduation (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 77 have been posted so far and another 84 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
4. Sign-up: I would be thrilled if you signed up to receive my blog daily by entering your email address in the blank in the top right-hand corner of this page.
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Hong Kong to UK: what a small island can teach a bigger one about global gateways

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 76

The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) has a timely message to the British public (see photo): "We are not an island... We are part of something far, far bigger."  Britain is indeed far more than an island; it is a gateway.

If you apply the 1861 Scottish census definition of an "island", Britain can support more than one grazing sheep so technically it is still an island. However, many islands are remote and desolate places, while a select few are gateways.

To qualify as a gateway, you need two things:
1) a "strong and stable" avant-port; and
2) a big or growing hinterland.

The list of such locations on the world map is quite short, for example:
a) Hong Kong is the gateway to China;
b) Singapore - to Southeast Asia;
c) Dubai - to the Middle East;
d) and Britain - to Europe.

There is an implicit third factor needed for a gateway to prosper: the sustained and shared appreciation that its wealth depends on the hinterland. This is where Hong Kong's case is really instructive for Britain: Hong Kong has been bending over backwards to Beijing for more than 20 years to keep the economic relationship running smoothly. And this is where Brexit Britain comes short: by trying to cut itself off from Europe in a confrontational way, it is jeopardising its own welfare.

The UK has yet to understand the full implications of Theresa May's October 2016 "citizens of nowhere" speech. Paraphrasing it to apply to the country as a whole is a dead giveaway: if you are a gateway to everywhere, you are a gateway to nowhere.

Britain has little time left to decide whether it wants to maintain its status as a gateway, or if it is content to be relegated to a holiday getaway for Chinese tourists: a Venice-on-Severn where Winnie the Pooh and Paddington Bear "rake in the honey".

HSBC ad in the London Tube

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Notes:

1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 76 have been posted so far and another 85 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, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.

3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.

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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.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
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After Cakeism, Britain now faces a round of Proseccoism

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 74

A lot of prosecco is drunk in Britain on New Year's Eve. So Boris Johnson must have been right: the Italians will want to continue selling their prosecco to Britain even after Brexit. Given the undisputed nature of this fact, it can mean only one thing: that the EU wants a free trade deal with Britain just as badly as Britain wants a deal with the EU. 

However, the problem in this argument is that it oversimplifies the situation. Einstein had something to say on this topics: 

"everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler!” 

Britain's exports to the EU equal around 12% of the country's GDP, while EU-27 exports to Britain total only 3% of the GDP of the EU-27. So despite what Boris says, Britain will be impacted four times more strongly by potential trade disruptions caused by Hard Brexit than the impact the EU may suffer.

In 2018 Boris gave the world a new word: "cakeisim", i.e. "have your cake and eat it." In 2019 his contribution to civilisation can be marked by the following new word:

Proseccoism: a cocktail of egocentrism and oversimplification

After all, what is wrong with putting yourself first and expecting that the world will rotate around you?

Prosecco (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 74 have been posted so far and another 87 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.
3. Invitation: If you'd like to contribute to the debate, please leave a comment below or re-tweet the blogpost link.
4. Sign-up: I would be thrilled if you signed up to receive my blog daily by entering your email address in the blank in the top right-hand corner of this page.
5. Thank you for being here!