Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”. So says Blanche, the blameless victim, to end the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche is consigned to a mental institution and the drama concludes.

The EU27 will decide the immediate outcome of the Brexit process while a supplicant UK seeks asylum in unlikely trade deals with Donald Trump’s USA and other strangers

With Boris Johnson favourite to assume the country’s leadership, the United Kingdom too is consigning itself to Blanche’s fate. A no-deal crash-out from the European Union, the likely outcome with Boris in charge, places the UK’s economic prospects at the mercy of what strangers choose to offer. The EU27 will decide the immediate outcome of the Brexit process while a supplicant UK seeks asylum in unlikely trade deals with Donald Trump’s USA and other strangers.

Brexit, in the no-deal variant courted by Johnson, is the economics of the madhouse. It was theoretically possible to envisage a UK exit from the European Union which did minimum damage to the country’s economic prospects.

There were even some thoughtful Leave supporters who favoured careful negotiation of continuing relationships with the EU’s single market, customs union and VAT regime among many other matters, as well as a realistic assessment of what trade opportunities might arise outside Europe.

The narrow majority for Leave was driven by the public’s willingness to accept the essential delusion proffered by its leading campaigners, that Brexit was simple

The conduct of the 2016 referendum, not least by Johnson, ensured that no such careful negotiation has been attempted. The narrow majority for Leave was driven by the public’s willingness to accept the essential delusion proffered by its leading campaigners, that Brexit was simple – even abrupt departure could deliver benefits without costs.

According to one prominent Brexiteer, Gerard Batten, it could all be sorted out in an afternoon, over a cup of tea.

That this belief should persist, after three years of testing-to-destruction against the anvil of reality, is down to Theresa May and her advisers. In this, she has been indulged by a largely unquestioning mainstream media. Since she failed to deliver the impossible, a bountiful cost-free Brexit, she has been defenestrated by her party for a new leader who will intensify the pursuit of untrammelled sovereignty, automatic prosperity and Britannia Unbound.

Warned by European Council president Donald Tusk when granting the extension to 31 October, “please do not waste this time”, the UK political system has chosen not to listen.

Brexit has taken so many unexpected turns that confident prediction invites ridicule

The Tory leadership contest has been pointless: neither Johnson nor his remaining rival Jeremy Hunt has come up with an alternative to May’s doomed strategy, which was to seek an exit from the EU delivering “frictionless trade” without costs, economic or political.

Brexit has taken so many unexpected turns that confident prediction invites ridicule. No possible outcome, even the cancellation of Brexit, has been ruled out.

The UK has failed to heed the Anglophile Donald Tusk’s sincere advice

But the most likely outcome at this stage is a no-deal crash-out, in the form of a refusal by the EU27 to countenance yet another deadline extension, except possibly for a fresh referendum which the next Tory leader will not seek. The UK has failed to heed the Anglophile Donald Tusk’s sincere advice. In granting the extension, the EU was trying to be helpful.

Both aspirants for the leadership of the Conservative party are proceeding on the basis that Theresa May’s withdrawal deal with the EU can somehow be enhanced. This is the continuation of the policy for which Mrs May was deposed, on the reasonable grounds that it had failed. If there is no majority in the House of Commons for May’s deal, already fashioned by the British and European negotiators to accommodate British red lines, there is no prospect of the EU offering modifications without relaxation of the same red lines.

The exasperation of EU negotiators should not have come as a surprise

But both candidates, while expressing some apprehensions about a no-deal crash-out, are wedded to the red lines around which the withdrawal agreement was fashioned, and within which no better deal is feasible. The exasperation of EU negotiators should not have come as a surprise.

There is a tendency in Ireland to interpret crash-out, and problems with the Northern Ireland border, as the great downside of Brexit. But there is now no feasible form of Brexit which is free of downside for Ireland, not least because the feasible options are going to be so costly for the UK.

Any bad outcome for the UK is a bad outcome for Ireland and there is no profit for anybody in Britain’s misfortune.

A satisfactory Brexit in the terms of the Brexiteers is a chimera, a delusion and an impossible dream

The best possible outcome for Ireland, north and south, is whatever delivers prosperity and a secure future for the United Kingdom. A satisfactory Brexit in the terms of the Brexiteers is a chimera, a delusion and an impossible dream.

The UK, as successful a European country as any other, is going through a kind of national nervous breakdown, bereft of serious political leadership, and has chosen self-harm and needless damage to its friends and neighbours. The best outcome would be a reconsideration of the impossible project, through a second referendum if needs be.

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