Robinson on a united Ireland: Let’s engage to avert a catastrophe

One of the by-now-standard responses to British inconsistency on Brexit is exasperated impatience.

That response is often delivered with a we-could-do-better sneer that barely conceals growing apprehension around the prospect of a no-deal divorce. An imploding and increasingly toxic Conservative party, led by an enfeebled Theresa May, may not be in a position to be any more precise, but that does not resolve the quandary. The pressure needle daily accelerates towards the red zone. That exasperation is expressed through the charge that a full two years after the 52/48 vote, the British position is at best mercurial. That exasperation is fed by the impression that Brextremists’ are the embodiment of an anachronistic hubris that can only be indulged as a legacy of empire. This dilemma, for everyone involved, underlines again that we should all be very careful what we wish for.