We didn’t go for a stroll after all, as it felt rather odd and unethical to be out when it was forbidden to actual Turks. Instead I did a good bit of work, and we did some planning for the flat (including a pinterest board (!)), ate biscuits with our tea and turned the heating on in the middle of the afternoon.
Brexit talks continue, three weeks before the transition period ends. The anger and frustration this situation arouses in me remains intense, and so I rarely write about it in the blog. But it remains one of the saddest and most enraging things I am willing to even allude to. In the past couple of weeks there has been a little flurry of talk about how a strong Remainer position has led to this current choice between a hard vs hardest Brexit. I find that simplistic. Even the softer Brexits proposed under May were not all that soft, but more than that, came with the ugly language around globalism and internationalism that I still find both unforgiveable and wrong, the language that is the predecessor and articulation of Priti Patel’s Home Office, Windrush and Grenfell, the Internal Market Bill and the removal of the 0.7% lower bound on foreign aid. What happened with Brexit was always contingent, and it was not the strength of Remain sentiment that brought us here but a combination of a lack of conviction and a lack of principle.