Brexit - Germany Will Not Rescue Us

While the more clueless members of the Pundit Establishment whine about the reality accompanying Britain’s departure from the EU, others fuel the propaganda machine, pumping out falsehood and misinformation on an industrial scale, telling anyone who will listen that Brexit will be OK, because that nice Frau Merkel, accompanied by all her car manufacturers, will override the Brussels negotiators and ride to our rescue.

This is the line peddled ad infinitum, and indeed ad nauseam, by the Murdoch goons at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, who have reassured readers that “our PM should cut to the chase and personally address Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron” and that “It is time for the grown-ups, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, to seize negotiators by the throat and tell them to stop wasting time with point-scoring one-upmanship”.

I have to tell the Sun’s finest, and anyone else foolish enough to believe this weapons grade tosh, that it isn’t going to happen. As any fule kno, mentions of Brexit in the run-up to German elections next month have been less frequent than a Preston Guild. The Germans are not concerned about the plight of a nation which has chosen to commit an act of national self harm on a false prospectus. They are interested only in moving forward.

Christian Odendahl, writing in Politico, calls the latest British variant on Waiting For Godot “wishful thinking”, and notes “For most Germans, Brexit is still a bit of puzzle. How does retreating from a club of like-minded democratic countries allow Britain ‘to take back control,’ they wonder”. And he has this warning for all those happy Brexiteers.

“When it comes to Brexit, all parties more or less agree: Germany doesn’t want to punish Britain and wants a good relationship in the future, but it won’t stand for ‘cherry-picking’ … For German businesses, whose complex supply chains criss-cross the entire EU, nothing is more important than the single market, with its common rules and institutions. If forced to choose, business will always choose to protect the single market over tariff-free access to the UK”. And Faisal Islam of Sky News has more or less the same news.

Guess what HER priorities are?

Summarising his findings as “The head of Germany's Automotive Association says a cliff-edge Brexit will ‘change everything’ but the UK will pay a higher price”, he reports Martin Wissman, head of the German Automotive Association, “had little time for the idea that his German car industry would approach Chancellor Angela Merkel and force a compromise in Brexit talks on behalf of an industry which exports one in seven cars to the UK”.

And Wissman added this: “Britain is very important for us, but the EU27 is even more important for us, as a market and as a political concept … So we do the utmost to support anyone who keeps Britain as close as possible to the EU … But if you ask me for priorities: keeping the EU27 together is even more important than to keep Britain nearby, so let the British government be convinced that they have to build a bridge”.

He concluded that, whatever happened, “the higher price would be paid by the British”. The news was the same: Germany is not going to ride to our rescue. Angela Merkel will not be intervening in the Brussels negotiations. We should quit believing otherwise.

Like Godot, the rescue will never come. This is the reality of Brexit.