Oh well. Maybe I shouldn’t have given up the Harry Potter series in the middle of the goblet of fire. Now the death eaters are running rampant, and I don’t know what to do. Specifically: remain in the UK (and thus leave the EU) or leave the UK (and remain in the EU)? Very confusing all this. I think that generally, organisations claiming to speak for the 3 million EU27 citizens in the UK have been too craven advising people how to jump through the death eaters hoops rather than to keep open the option of packing up for brexodus.
Since the election, I’ve been changing my mind about it twice daily, so to get some clarity, I’ve made a spreadsheet for arguments for and against moving. Right now, the case against is looking stronger. It has laziness on its side, which is a strong motivator. Plus the fact that many perks we have come to appreciate in Oxford just can’t be replicated elsewhere. Plus the rather scary realisation that if we did move to Germany (or any other of the EU27 countries) the local branch of the death eaters might take over there in a few years (ie on the same timescale that a move would take) and we’d be back on square 1.
So I guess today’s plan is stay put but shed some ballast in case we have to leave. It may be different tomorrow though.
As Der Spiegel highlighted with its cover feature two weeks ago, Germany's once-mighty social democrats (SPD), with election results dropping into single figures, are now desperate enough to vote for a pair of leftwing outsiders for the new leadership. (While I may agree with the new leaders' views on some issues, it is clear that they would never have had a chance if the party was as strong as it used to be. And the idea of a job-sharing male/female leadership tandem, nicked from the greens, is also a symptom.) If that development echos the rise of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, does that mean Germany will have a far right populist government in four years time? It could also happen in France, and in several other EU27 countries. Essentially the same crisis everywhere - centre left voters left behind by the Blairs Clintons, Schröders of this world when they rushed to embrace neoliberalism are now biting back by turning right. Not all of them, of course, but enough to tip over the old left-right balance.
-------
PSA: science news is on holidays now - I won't need any new topics until mid January, so I can skip all that filter feeding ...
No comments:
Post a Comment