When entering an institution, you presume it has credentials and gravitas. Why else would you join? Upon receiving employment, beginning a new form of education, entering any new permanent establishment, formality is key. Official documents, rules, generic procedures, health and safety protocols and point of contact are all explained. Everything looks professional, someone in charge, the organisation as perfect as could be.
This remains the case until one becomes part of the group. There, whatever the organisation's level, wherever your role happens to slots into the groups' workings, the whole reason for you joining, the cracks begin to show. People speak in certain ways, processes take a long time (if they happen at all), errors are displayed, bureaucratic technical details from up above mean the organisation doesn’t work smoothly. While part and parcel of every workplace, as Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt and, my current read, The Secret Barrister’s Stories of the Law clearly demonstrate, it doesn’t ooze comfort. Despite this knowledge all of us gradually learn throughout our lives, I still feel – or felt – a sense that some organisations knew what they were up to. That, for groups at a high level, decisions impacting millions of people around the world, while ambiguity may be presented on the surface, people in those groups knew what they were doing. Specifically, in my thoughts were, yes, the Brexit negotiators trying to cobble together some sort of deal that, even if it unites Mrs May’s cabinet, still has the hurdle of Parliament. Yet I assumed there would inevitably be a deal. I’m sure I’ve written before about, due to the inevitable catastrophe no-deal would bring, how a deal would certainly be struck, negotiators with extensive knowledge about EU law and policy able to fumble some sort of arrangement together. That was my bubble of illusion. Whenever conducting a discussion with someone who assumed no-deal was imminent, chaos with a hard border on Ireland, lorries taking over the whole of Kent and no food for anyone, my response would be calm. Fear not, I would beckon. A deal will be done, my calm voice reassured them. Those people – you know, the hidden civil servants at DExEU and the Commission or wherever – know what they are up to. They’ll be squabbling galore in Brussels but breath, relax, a deal multiple times better than crashing out overnight won’t happen. I have now been enlightened. After all this speculation and confusion, I realize I was the naïve one, my implicitly elitist thoughts assuming, just because some individuals happened to hold high office, they knew precisely what they were doing. Worryingly, that is clearly not the case. The Guardian reports of ‘no breakthrough’ in negotiations, despite, according to a Downing Street spokesman, officials staying awake until 2.45am attempting to trash out a solution on the Irish border. There is next to no chance of a November summit to sign off the deal. In these tense times, every single day without any sort of deal counts. People, basically, haven’t got a clue what is going to happen. Doesn’t this terrify you? That we, for sure, can be sure that members of the executive don’t happen to know something we don’t. No surprise jack-in-the-box, solution to all the issues, hidden from the public exists, ready to be announced imminently. While the bureaucrats may have a higher understanding of current EU/UK law than the average citizen, an ability to negotiate is sorely lacking, any new ideas non-existent. Discovering that, less than five months way from pour departure, negotiators on all sides haven't a monkeys what to do, the fearmongering by others I was so easy to dismiss becomes all too real. And guess what: nobody has a clue about how to deal with the dividing line running through Britain. People’s Vote campaigners yearn for a second referendum, pretending June 23rd 2016 never took place and that, by voting again, people will suddenly change their minds. One moment, Labour policy is to desire this referendum before swiftly opposing it. Neo-liberal Brexiteers believing the UK turning into Singapore – because that’s national sovereignty for you – will solve all our problems. The SNP want to departure the UK shores, another form of separation, the Lib Dems have become a zombie party and Caroline Lucas, important though her environmental views are, struggles to make an impact. Everyone in the public sphere is speaking as if they have the perfect solution. The case is anything but. In a way, this is reassuring. Whatever our social class, level of knowledge, expertise of work or interest, uncertainty and confusion is certain. There is a sense that bureaucracy will always prevail, delays will always take place, agreements, if any, always signed at the eleventh hour. Perhaps this is down to human nature, humans desiring immediate gratification and rewards instead of hard graft and deferred gratification. Human error, frequently leading to delays, errors and annoyance will never go away. Certainly, in negotiations, an absolutist view, seeing pragmatism and compromise as weaknesses, could be barriers not only to a Brexit deal but businesses small and large around the world. What is to be done with my enlightened knowledge? Some of you may feel I should have knowledge from the start that a Brexit deal would always have be impossible to reach and that, of course, every organisation has its cracks: this is clear from the moment anyone applies for a job. I can only apologies. I was in an elite bubble of naivety, presuming those up above had every sorted. It has now burst, myself recognising the chaos that exists at every level of society. I find my freedom liberating and, yes, strangely reassuring.
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