A letter to the EU

Dear EU,

I'm afraid the time has come for us to go.

I know the past few years have been difficult for both of us, ever since we stormed out in 2016. We've been trying to sort ourselves out since then, but it just hasn't worked. We're still divided, and staying around is just making things worse.

We don't know where we're going to go, and we're quite scared. Change always is scary. But we hope we'll be able to make things work on our own. There's a lot of things we need to think about, and we'll hopefully be able to get ourselves sorted, but we can't stay around any more.

Some of us still want to stay, and some can't go where the rest of us are going. Please, give them the home we cannot; don't hold what we've done over the past few years against them. To those that we are leaving behind - it's ok, we understand. We're sorry you feel you can't come with us, that we are no longer where you belong, and we hope we can see you again sometime. Try to remember the good things that have happened when you were with us, and not the bad. That's not who we are, really.

The next few years are going to be difficult for both of us. There are storms coming on the horizon, and we don't know how we'll survive them, but we're sure we'll figure something out. We have to.

We've had some good times, but we need to work out who we are and where we belong. Hopefully we'll be able to make things work on our own. Maybe, at some point, we'll remember who we once were, what we have left behind, and decide to come back. We hope you'll be able to forgive us for what we've done, and welcome us back home. Please leave a light on for us, so we know which way to go if we decide to come back.

But we can't stay here, not any more. It's tearing us apart. We're sorry it hasn't worked out, and we hope we can still keep in touch, whatever happens next.

Yours,
The United Kingdom.

Emergency? What Emergency?

It is clear our civilisation is screwed.

By 'our civilisation', I mean the global socio-economic empire that has developed over the past 70 years, and on which the vast majority of the world's processes turn. It is unsustainable. It cannot, and will not, last against the heating up and transformation of the world into a different sort of place, at a rate that nature simply cannot keep up with. It has already started - and I cannot see how it will be stopped given current politics.

Predicting the future is always difficult, and I'm just a guy with a keyboard, but you can get a shape of what is to come by extrapolating from what is happening already. At least, what will happen in the UK. If you think I'm wrong, please, please, tell me where my error is.

Firstly, it is clear that we will not limit warming to 2°C. The problem is too big, the political will is not there, and it requires sacrifices that democratically elected politicians cannot stomach and autocrats can too easily ignore. Changes that should have been happening two years ago have not started, and there is no movement to fix the problem, regardless of how many governments and councils declare a 'Climate Emergency' (and then approve the expansion of their local airport).

This means that we're heading for at least 4°C of warming, or even more if methane in the permafrost is released. So what could happen?

The new normal

Firstly, life will continue on pretty much as it is, for maybe 10 years or so. You can see it already - ice is melting, heatwaves are getting worse, storms are getting bigger, but people are largely just carrying on. The system is pretty resiliant, and people will wish for things to carry on as they are - so, to a point, they will. The prices of some things will go up, maybe double in price, maybe bananas and coffee will disappear, but alternatives will be found, because people will be willing to pay for it. In the EU and UK people will adapt to the increasing heatwaves, and carry on with their lives as best they can. The increasing deathrate will be dealt with just like the annual toll from car crashes - ignored, if possible. The poor will suffer, and the well off will cope by throwing money at the problem.

As time wears on, a few areas may become abandoned - it's simply not worth rebuilding an area before the next disaster hits, so people will move elsewhere, leaving areas to be taken over by wildlife. Areas of the equator will simply become too hot to live in. This will be noted, along with the stream of species extinctions and increasing size of refugee camps, but will quickly become normal. Maybe in the UK people will start to grow their own crops, as supplies of some things slowly dry up. Again, the new normal.

The system breaks

But then A Thing will happen, or several Things in close succession. It's very hard to see what the  Things will be, but some possibilities are:

• Mass migration causes countries to block their borders to everyone, but there will be too many people to stop
• Antibiotic-resistant disease outbreak that the WHO don't have the resources to control
• Bangladesh is flooded, leading to millions of deaths and a mass exodus that progresses outwards as people try and find somewhere to live
• A confrontation between countries in the Middle East, or in Asia, that quickly escalates to nuclear bombs

The death toll will be in the millions, and it's effects will be immediate. It may not be directly climate related; maybe the increased stresses on people and countries trying to stay alive will reach a limit, and violence will erupt. It's very hard to predict what will happen then, but it will be incredibly disruptive to the global supply network. Already strained political and economic structures will simply collapse. Over the course of weeks, or maybe a few months, countries will start to collapse into civil disorder, due to lack of supplies of food and drinkable water. Many more people will die. Millions, maybe billions, as chaos and violence spreads.

After the end

But what happens then? People will still be alive, life of some sort will continue (life has survived 5 extinction-level events so far, it will survive a 6th in some form). After the riots, life will continue for some, and some will find a way to survive. My vague guess is that, as global systems break down, people will start to reorganise themselves more locally again - back to a much more localised way of life, living in the ruins of the old world, and staying away from areas too contaminated or too choked with rubbish to sustain life. Some of the existing political or economic structures may continue - but they simply won't have the power to do anything. They just...won't matter any more.

However, one thing I can't predict is what effect technology will have - the increased use of surveillance systems, and the increased control a tiny minority will have on the majority. Combined with the rising authoritarianism over the past few years, and we may be in a very bad place indeed. Will we be left with a dystopia - a mix of V for Vendetta, 1984, Elysium, bits of Black Mirror, or the Hunger Games? Or maybe we will be able to fix things; after all, technological progress makes huge advances in a crisis. Your guess is as good as mine.

Either way, it won't be the same civilisation anymore. Either it will turn into something else, or be replaced entirely - as some people will survive, and they will find some way to organise themselves, or be organised.

Really?

I know as much about what's going to happen as you do. But I think this is the shape of things to come. However, what is clear is that if we want to avert catastrophe, we are not doing enough. How do I know that? Because my life has not been disrupted yet.

I know we have disaster coming, but I still drive my petrol-powered car to the shops, to buy food transported here on bunker fuel-powered container ships, wrapped in plastic that is ending up in landfill, cooked on a gas-fuelled hob, in my gas-fuelled central heated house. Sure, I'm not taking flights this year (apart from a grudging 2 flights to visit family), I cycle to work, and I'm trying to cut down the meat I eat, but that's not nearly enough. Like anyone else, I'm too used to what I do. It's just too easy to ignore. I, and everyone else, need to be forced to make drastic changes to my life to have even a slim hope of stopping this. This can only be done at a national and international level.

Off the top of my head, some things which would help:

• Immediately limiting flights per year per person, resulting in an immediate halving of flights, and reducing down to zero over the next 5 years. Yes, airports will close. Businesses will be disrupted. So?
• Limiting the distance container ships can travel to 1000 miles
• Requiring licenses for shops and restaurants to sell non-vegetarian food, with limited licenses, just like alcohol licenses. In restaurants, the vegetarian menu is the default, you have to ask for the meat menu, and pay a high supplement.
• Banning all diesel-powered cars from the road now and banning sales of non-electric cars. What, you mean there isn't the capacity to build enough replacement electric cars, not enough charging points, and not enough cobalt being mined for the batteries? Your point is?

These things are incredibly disruptive. Thousands will lose their jobs. But climate change will be worse.

However, these things will not happen. For one thing, they require international effort - what's the point of limiting flights in the UK when people can just get a train over to Paris and fly from there? And the political will is simply not there - as we saw from the fuel riots in France, even the smallest change causes outrage. These changes will cause your business to go bust? If we don't do this, and more, then your livelihood will cease to exist and your town will disappear under the waves. China and the USA won't make changes until it's far too late, and the EU takes several years for legislation to go through. We don't have that long.

We are not going to limit temperature rises to 2°C. We are going to hit 4°C at least. Our civilisation is screwed.

The Rise of the Brexit Party

So, Theresa May is quitting, and still the Brexit monster lumbers on, devouring all in its path. But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, changing the PM doesn't change the fundamental problem - Brexit is impossible to deliver as promised.

Reconciling the Irreconcilable

For the past 3 years, Parliament has been been trying, and failing, to reconcile two irreconcilable things following on from the Brexit referendum:

1. The UK is a democracy, and so if the population vote for something to happen, it should happen.
2. Parliament and the Government should guarantee the future prosperity of the country.

The fundamental problem, among others, is that the population voted for something that is highly likely to damage the future prosperity of the country. It is like the country voting for something that, it turns out, would fire 25% of the population. Politicians generally have had 3 responses to this:

1. Find a way to work round the consequences of the vote to reduce or eliminate the potential for damage
2. Follow the requirements of the vote, even if it causes significant damage to the country and to people's lives
3. Ignore the problem, and continue to insist it is possible to leave the EU without economic damage

However, no one is really addressing the solutions to resolve the problem, and no one is saying what needs to be said - there is no good way out of this situation. There are several ways to resolve the current situation, now that TM's deal is dead (note I'm ignoring other possibilities like a General Election; that still doesn't resolve the core problem):

1. Revoke Article 50 outright
2. Have a referendum on the terms of leaving the EU
3. Leave with no agreed deal

All of these are bad outcomes. The first and second are going against the Brexit result, either implicitly or explicitly, and so breaking people's trust in the current political system. The third will set back the country's economic development by decades, will cause thousands to lose their jobs, and will likely cause deaths due to lack of medicines and chaos at the border in getting critical materials into the country.

I, personally, think the way out is a referendum on terms of leaving the EU, hopefully resulting in revocation. But it still is a bad outcome, and will have very serious consequences for the political system for many years to come. I just wish politicians advocating for a referendum acknowledge the problems that will be caused.

Perhaps an analogy is in order. We have been coaxed into a prison, and the only way out is a very small hole. It is possible for us to fit through the hole and escape, but only by removing an arm (work with me here). There are some that are advocating keeping the left arm (following the referendum result), and some that we keep the right arm (not screwing over the economy). Either side is, rightfully, horrified - think of all the things we do with that arm! You're advocating we chop off one of our arms? Are you mad? We need that arm!

However, the reality of the situation is that, regardless of our choice, we are going to lose one of our arms. That will have serious consequences that we will have to deal with. The only thing to decide is which is more important? Which consequence is less bad - setting the economy of the country back 30 years, or fatally damaging people's trust in the current political system?

The rise of No Deal and the Brexit Party

Part of the problem is the polarisation between the different options in the past few months. Before the referendum, hardly anyone was saying that leaving without a deal was even a possibility, but that has now gone completely the other way. Now, any deal that concedes anything to the EU is seen as 'not a proper Brexit', and not following the referendum result.

The reasons for this can be traced all the way back to before the referendum - leaving the EU, and negotiating a deal, was portrayed as easy ('the easiest trade deal in history' anyone?). Furthermore, thanks to 40 years of anti-EU media propaganda, the referendum was subject to a strong protest vote that resulted in people pinning their wishes for the future on the UK leaving the EU. It was possible, it will be easy, it will solve all our problems. Whether the politicians peddling these lies actually believed themselves is another matter, but a lot of people, through no fault of their own, believed them.

But, as the sheer scale of the work required to leave the EU without damaging the economy became clearer, instead of admitting their mistake and reevaluating the situation, the Brexiteer politicians doubled down - the delays were due to Remainers trying to sabotage the negotiations, it was all due to EU intransigence, etc. The result of this was to close down the option of leaving with the 'easy deal' that they promised, as it was clearly 'sabotaged'. The only place to go then, was to leave the EU with no deal.

Throughout this process, people continued to pin their hopes for an improvement in their situation on leaving the EU, to such an extent that it became part of their identity, part of who they are ('We need to leave the EU'). At that stage, it becomes very difficult to change people's minds, as to consider not leaving the EU is to challenge one of the fundamental baseis of their self-identity. It challenges who they are as a person.

The rise of the Brexit Party follows on from this. It has no policies, no ideas, no plans, other than 'WE MUST LEAVE THE EU'. This connects with people at a deep emotional level, as it provides an outlet for their self-identity. It then becomes very difficult to move away from that.

So what now?

The consequence of this is that, whether we leave the EU or not, the Brexit Party will continue to be the party of choice for those with 'leaving the EU' as a core part of their identity. Because what they want is fundamentally not possible, because politicians they trusted refused to tell them, any future course of action will lead to anger from those who follow the Brexit Party as it will be a 'betrayal of Brexit' or 'not a true Brexit'. The party is already worryingly right-wing, and I fear this will only get worse as reality fails to bow to their will.

However, there are causes for optimism - the country is turning against Brexit, and pro-Remain parties are in the ascendancy. The middle ground of compromise has, unfortunately, been squeezed out. The only question is will the Remain parties be enough to counteract the rising tide of fascism before Brexit runs its course, or will the country slide further into oblivion?