Earlier this month, my hometown of Hobart had months’ worth of rain in a single evening. Wild weather floods Tasmania’s southeast. Record rain and flash flooding inundate Hobart. Storm damage at the University of Tasmania. I wonder how many old friends were flooded.
One small (not so small) detail of the Brexitshambles is its impact on UK involvement in the €10bn Galileo project, from which the UK is set to be excluded by virtue of becoming a third country. The UK government has said that if the EU doesn’t let us use their satellites then we want our money back—12% of the cost—and will develop a satellite system of our own, so there. (For 12% of the cost of Galileo? They could call it Poundlandsat.)
But this Twitter thread from someone with inside knowledge points out that the UK can’t launch its own sat nav system even if it builds one because it doesn’t have its own spectrum filing. Apart from the implications for UK drivers who have come to rely on sat nav, this means that all the unicorn-flavoured technological “solutions” for the Irish border will come to nought—even more abruptly than they already would have for being ruinously expensive pie in the sky.
Mate, I really don’t care. The issue of Brexit was settled almost two years ago. We have ten years from the point at which we leave the European Union to negotiate a free trade agreement. Your next ten years are irrelevant. I was not prepared to end up with absolutely the most harmful outcome imaginable. If they don’t support and help Theresa May to get a deal, there is the risk of having somebody much, much more aggressive. You’re deluded if you think you’ll be able to blame the debacle just on them. I’m beginning to think I may have voted the wrong way.
The departure of Amber Rudd as home secretary has increased the pressure on the government to wind back the hostile environment, although without much hope of success, given that its architect remains prime minister. Less debated is that the hostile environment is essential to the success of Brexit on the government’s current terms, so is unlikely to be touched unless Brexit is abandoned.
It’s a while since I posted a regular ol’ photo here. This is at Saughton in Edinburgh, looking down from a stone bridge onto the Water of Leith, on Sunday afternoon.