First of all, for anyone following this blog, sorry for the patchy comms. It’s been more challenging than I had anticipated. Secondly, I will backfill updates and pictures once I get back to home base.

Well,I seem to have failed to have any effect on the  Brexit process, and my search for a. clearer vision on the issue is ongoing. I suppose you could say that crashing out today looks less likely, but I’m not sure I can take much credit for that.

Everyone I have spoken to has an opinion: one London taxi driver felt that we had missed an opportunity for the House of Commons  to work cross party, a Dutch bus driver in Brussels told me, ‘If you want to leave just leave’, some German friends are baffled and liken the debates in the Commons as, “like Monty Python’. Most people I speak to express their views readily,  and have clearly though it through.

i am beginning to think that the real EU is about people – not as it is presented by the media. Most people are reasonable and just want their elected representatives to  represent them thusly (and justly).

I will reflect on this, my first, Brexit trip on my return to my desk. Don’t go away

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it was ambitious of me to think that I would catch yesterday’s pre-scheduled Post before it hit the fan . London is very diverting.

Anyway, I made it to College Green today. It was  interesting. The atmosphere was calm. There was a strongly Remainer  vibe – dominated by EU flags and placards questioning the 17.4 million majority vote to leave, calls for a second referendum, and the revoking of Article 50.

i spoke to the police on duty (a light presence, but I’m sure they are behind the scene in numbers) and they said it might get a bit more febril (my word not theirs) later on tomorrow; as long as people behaved, ‘no problem, people have the right to protest’.

There was a lone Scottish Saltire on the railings keeping us off the Green, and back from the large media presence. And I wanted to ask, Where do the Scottish people sit in all this? Scotland voted (strongly) to stay in the EU; most of us see ourselves as part of a strong nation within the European family (economically, culturally, emotionally). We were told that the best way (the only way) to stay in the EU was to stay part of the Union (in the UK).

how can we, the Scottish people, stay close to Europe and England at the same time?

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Today, I’m in London – capital of the UK and central to the Brexit debate. The parliamentary debate takes place in the main debating hall of the House of Commons. However, adjacent to the Houses of Parliament is an area called College Green, and this where the media camp-out and protesters make their voices heard .

The park is a common place for television reporters to interview Members of Parliament and media commentators. .

The gardens are actually the landscaped roof of a two-storey underground car park ( constructed in the early 60s).

The site was originally in the River Thames, and separated from the College Garden of Westminster Abbey by a medieval wall with a watergate (Oh, the delicious irony of that name!). Its name refers to the collegiate church of Westminster Abbey, which includes Westminster School.

There is a Henry Moore bronze sculpture, Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65, located in the gardens.

The mood, today, is … on a kind of knife edge! But it’s very British, a very orderly sort of protesting, if you don’t mind, kind of thing.

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I am in London (capital of the United Kingdom) today. I am here on unrelated business but notice that hundreds of thousands of protesters will descend on the capital tomorrow. I will report back on what develops – you’re welcome.

Brussels, of course, is the de facto capital of the EU. Next week I will let you know what I find out down here in London. Then I will dash over to Brussels to observe the reaction to the UKs withdrawal, on the agreed date of Friday 29th March 2019 at 23:00 hours.

Of course, we won’t actually be leaving on that date – unless we do. By that, I mean that acceptance of the Withdrawal and Implementation Agreement is just that – an agreement on how we will perform a controlled exit from the EU.

Right, I’m taking the weekend off to celebrate my elevation to the status of Master of Arts.

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MV3? No Deal? Extension – 3 months or 30 month? No, Non, Nein! Who knows …

The prime minister has written to the EU asking for an extension to Article 50. Henry Kissinger once quipped, If I want to speak to Europe, who do I phone? Well, we have our answer (Who you gonna call?) – apparently, you write a letter to Donald Tusk!

We are heading right down to the wire on this. I have a sneaky suspicion that, when visiting Tusk et al, Mrs May watches recordings of Allo’ Allo! and get hammered on booze confiscated on various border crossings. They actually set out a strategy months ago and have a last minute rabbit to pull out of the hat next Thursday evening. I just hope it’s a big rabbit!

There are rumours floating around that some heads of EU member states are minded to say (like Charles de Gaulle) ‘Non!’ We require every one of those 27 to agree to anything from here on in – good luck to us, I say, we are going to need it.

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On 5th March 1946 (in Fulton, Missouri) Winston Churchill said that, ‘… all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern Europe …’ were behind an Iron Curtain. He was talking about Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sophia, cities we now see as, once more, thriving within modern Europe. He was issuing an early warning of the sort that had been lacking ten years earlier (against Nazi Germany). In Zurich, a few month later (19th September 1946) he called for something along the lines of a United States of Europe. Of course, not everyone agreed with him. Churchill wanted a triumvirate power block consisting of the USA, a United Europe, and the British Commonwealth, with Britain as the pivot.

Post WWII Europe was rebuilding itself – it was, as Churchill said, ‘A rubble heap, a charnel house, a breeding-ground for pestilence and hate’. It is hard to imagine what it looked like after the devastation of six years of war. There were millions of refugees to feed, there were scores to settle, and there was a great need for leadership. I’m not sure I agree with everything Winston Churchill said (after all he said something to the effect that history was written by the victors and he should know because he was going to write it!). But those years after the war and up to my birth (in 1953) would be crucial in shaping the world I grew up in – I just know that it would have been a very different world depending on which side of that Iron Curtain one grew up on.

Times have changed, few of us remember those dark post-war years, the Iron Curtain has been pulled down.

Is there still an appetite for a United States of Europe, a wish to see a progressive series of alliances and treaties, an association of sates with common ideological goals and interlinking economic futures? I think there is. In fact I think it’s vital – it’s not so much a question of should we, it’s more a question of how do we.

However, that is my view – what is your view?

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End of my first week (I’m taking Sunday off). And where have I got to in my search for a clearer vision?

My gentle examination of the Brexit process has been hijacked by events. I have been unable to read more deeply due to the day-to-day chaos spilling out from the House of Commons. Where is the analysis, the erudition, the insight, I hear you ask – where indeed!

The Daily Mail tells us that Nigel Farage is leading a march from Sunderland to London organized by Leave campaigners who accuse the Government of betraying the British people over Brexit.
Departing from the first area to vote Leave, on 23rd June 2016 and arrive in London (when I am in Brussels) on 29th March. It is being organised by Leave Means Leave and, presumably, is designed to draw attention to the alleged duplicity of our parliamentarians.

Meanwhile a piece in The Independent labels it Farage’s bizarre Brexit march and suggests that they might have cancelled the festivities by the time he gets to London. They may need to do it again in June, and again in August and again in …

Oh, wait a minute! They could be talking about me here, if the UK doesn’t leave on 29th March (as stated publicly by Theresa May over a hundred times) I may find myself getting a season ticket on Eurostar!

Of course, Nigel Farage probably won’t be on most of this journey. He will be there at the beginning and at the end, in London. There is no point in wasting his valuable shoe leather in doomed middle England if the cameras will be most noticeable in Sunderland and London. Apparently, for a small financial contribution, you can do the walking for him – you might even get a ‘free’ T-Shirt.

Well, fear not mon braves. I will be in London in the critical week leading up to the 29th; I will be in Brussels to witness the end-point of Article 50. And it wont cost you a penny piece – Farage can claim expenses as a MEP and should, surely, be at his post in the parliament that pays his wages!

Anyway, back to my plans. I’m taking tomorrow off to enable me to work offline on the details of my quest. As I’ve promised; I will be in London and Brussels, and other EU member state capital cities; I will continue seeking a better vision for our continuing relationship with  Europe; and I will take you lot with me.

Hasta pronto!

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