Boris Johnson was a just a young Etonian when Roger George started waving the British flag in Brussels.
But Roger, far from opposing EU membership, was waving that flag for British food which he felt was drastically under-represented in Belgian shops considering that the nation had been in the European Economic Community for nearly a decade by then.
Roger had spotted a gap in the supermarket and he filled it, launching what became “Stonemanor - the British store” from his garage.
His USP? British produce, yes, but especially those quirky nibbly things not available in Belgian supermarkets.
Our new EEC partners had not exactly been gagging to try custard creams and baked beans and prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps and would probably gag on them if they did, assuming they had heard of them in the first place, which most hadn’t and still haven’t.
But Roger’s target audience from the very start in May 1982, was, as the Stonemanor website explains, to serve “the large expatriate community in the Brussels area, as well as bringing a little part of the UK to Belgium.”
I was one of those deprived expatriates at the time, pining for a taste of home in the form of Heinz salad cream, Mother’s Pride white sliced bread, mushy peas, Fray Bentos meat pies, Yorkshire pudding, thick-cut marmalade and clotted cream and scones.
We Brits tried to fit in here, really we did, by adopting crevette grise, buckets of moules-frites, and mayonnaise in place of ketchup, but there comes a time when a chap just craves a chip butty on square floppy white bread with a mug of English tea and to hell with integration.
And that’s why the street outside Roger’s house in a leafy Brussels suburb used to be lined with cars once a week as expats waited for his metallic gold Volvo estate car to return from Dover laden with British produce he’d picked up on his weekly cross-Channel run.
He’d stock the stuff on his garage shelves, and most of it, including square bread for the toaster, Jaffa cakes, Cadbury’s chocolate, Pot noodles, Mr Kipling cakes and Bisto gravy granules, was sold before he’d had time to get it out of the car.
There are two large Stonemanor stores now, selling all sorts of British goods, including, indeed, liquorice allsorts.
One shop is in a former dairy farm just up the road from where Field-Marshal Montgomery set up his operational headquarters in 1941; the other is just down the road from the site of the Battle of Waterloo.
I’m sure the locations are just a coincidence, but those links with legendary European confrontations, combined and the spectacle of Stonemanor’s magnificent old London taxi with its Union Jack red-white-and-blue paint job, should be enough to warm the cockles of Prime Minister Johnson’s buccaneering, Brexiteering heart.
However, Stonemanor has long-since ceased to be a supply shop of interest only to misty-eyed Brits looking for comfort food from the old country.
That certainly was how it started, but it’s now a regular haunt for large numbers of   Belgians and other nationalities looking for nutritional clues to the workings of the British psyche while experimenting for themselves with Rolo chocolates, lemon curd, Cornish pasties and custard creams.
Last time I was there to stock up on frozen kippers and bottles of Rochester Dickensian-Recipe Ginger (“with the kick of two very angry mules”), was early this year, just as shelves were emptying in the midst of bureaucratic chaos as Brexit de-stabilised cross-channel mushy pea supply lines.
One of the BBC’s Brussels correspondents, Gavin Lee, broke the news to British radio listeners in solemn, Neville Chamberlain tones.
“I’m standing outside the Stonemanor British store” said Gavin. “This is a place which serves lots of mainly British nationals with a taste of home.
“It’s where I get my custard creams for example. I’m just going inside and it’s in a sorry state. There’s no custard creams for a start: the shelves are almost completely empty, no digestives, no oatcakes, no (baked) beans, no meat, no dairy because they have not had a single delivery since Christmas…”
For four days, Stonemanor was forced to close for the first time in nearly forty years, only managing to reopen after turning to Ireland for food supplies to by-pass UK customs paperwork triggered by Brexit.
Initially, a supply of Irish sausages helped keep the British flag flying over Stonemanor. One thousand Cadbury’s Creme eggs were ordered through Ireland too, amid predictions that things would soon get back to normal.
Now, just back in Brussels after months on a small European island where Brexit is just a funny, far-off word signifying little or nothing, I find we are far from back to normal:
Day one of return - After overdosing on pasta for so long we go for a full English breakfast to a Brussels brasserie. Afterwards I congratulate the host on some exceptionally tasty sausages.  He grins and says: “Ah, maybe that’s because now we’re only getting them from Ireland…….”
Day Two of return – A visit to a small shop in the EU quarter which sells a small variety of quirky national foodstuffs from the UK and elsewhere. It’s where I buy my frozen English kippers. This time I couldn’t find them. When I asked where they were, the chap behind the counter said with a wryt grin: Have you heard of Brexit?” They he cheered me up with his new supply of Irish kippers, and very good they are too. 
Day Four of return – a big Belgian food shopping supermarket turns up a couple of new anti-Brexit newcomers
One is “Fruitfield (since 1853) Old Time Irish Fine Cut marmalade” instead of “Frank Cooper’s Fine Cut Oxford marmalade(Since 1874)”.
The other is my favourite – the Irish version of my good old English can of Batchelors mushy peas.
I couldn’t resist digging out an old tin of the English version for comparison: the mostly-blue label on the English can declares the peas to be “one of your five a day” and carries a heart-shaped Union Jack proudly declaring “British Grown and Packed”.
The English label also boasts: “Nothing beats the flavour of British peas”.
The replacement Irish version, also made by Batchelors, states on the appropriately  all-green label that the peas inside are “an Irish favourite” and also “the ultimate fish and chip companion”.
Disappointingly, there’s nothing on the Irish label saying: “Nothing beats the flavour of Irish peas”. 
Both tins declare the contents to contain three servings, although the English version contains 330 grams compared with 420 grams in the Irish can – presumably reflecting statistical evidence about portion size differences).
I will end by saying that none of the above amounts to a complaint: far from it.
Indeed, I look forward to more foody conversions to Ireland’s finest, although for the moment I notice that my tea bags remain stubbornly Yorkshire and my pasties Cornish….
 
 
 

If I had a euro for every time someone has asked me in the last twelve months what it’s like being a Belgian, I’d have enough money to buy a round of every kind of Belgian beer for every citizen of Brussels every day for the next twelve months.
On the other hand, I’ve only once been asked what it’s like being English, and the question came from a curious Belgian.  Or more accurately, a Belgian who was curious.
That happened when I’d been in Brussels for about a year and, on a whim, had recently moved to a place in the countryside, just because of its quirky name. 
My closest neighbours in the forest of Erps-Kwerps, situated between the separate parishes of Erps and Kwerps (it sounds funniest in a flat English accent), were a local couple and their lanky, charming and very inquisitive late-teenage son.
The boy immediately adopted me as a sociological research project and spent much of his spare time popping across to my place without warning to study this fine English specimen from across the Channel.
He was concerned that I should appreciate Belgium, especially its beer and food, and that I shouldn’t underestimate the country because of its small size or because it seemed to be cobbled together from various bits of other countries and didn’t have its own language.
On one occasion he wanted to know if I agreed with him that it was a disgrace that Belgian  supermarkets usually marked their exit doors with the English word “EXIT” instead of the Flemish and, where appropriate, French equivalents. 
Another time he expressed great interest in the fact that my English sports car was still on English number plates even though by Belgian law I should have replaced them with Belgian plates after six months.
But I liked his direct manner even if diplomatic replies were usually required, and his most interesting question turned out to be the most unanswerable: “What’s it like being English?”.
I told him that I didn’t have any choice about my birthplace and joked that being English was a bit of luck, because it turned out that I could speak the language fluently.  He liked that one.    
Then, early in the evening of April 19, 1980, he crossed the road to tell me that the Eurovision song contest was on, his parents didn’t want to watch it, and could he watch it with me because he was sure the Belgian entry, by a trio called Telex, would win.
I hadn’t planned to watch it either and had never even heard of the band – we expats can be notoriously insular - but he was so insistent that I got him a (Belgian) beer and switched on the telly.
I shouldn’t have:  Telex, with their electronic pop parody of the Eurovision contest itself, entitled “Euro-Vision”, came in 17th out of 19 entries.
My neighbour was distraught and close to tears. The fact that the UK managed third place made things worse. I told him the song contest is just a bit of fun, and it doesn’t mean anything.
He shook his head and said: “You must be very proud of your country” before going back to his own house with shoulders slumped.
But I wasn’t proud at all, any more than I was mocking of Belgium’s poor result.
I only hope that eighteen years later, in 1998  he was mightily cheered when an English-language song lauding the delights of being Belgian hit the Belgian music charts and stayed there for 26 weeks and, legend now has it,  boosted this nation’s morale.
“Potverdekke! (It’s great to be a Belgian)” was written and performed by John Makin, a very good friend who came to Brussels from Liverpool as a quantity surveyor and evolved into a professional musician called Mr John whose finest hour was his novelty song about his adopted country.
He was even called upon to sing it live that year in front of the king (and many other people) as part of Belgium’s national holiday celebrations.
The cheery tune accompanies an uplifting, affectionate tribute to Belgium, referencing icons of what is now known as Belgitude, including mussels, various beers, Tintin, Captain Haddock, Hercule Poirot and the saxophone, invented by a real Belgian, Adolphe Sax. 
 The song begins:
““Potverdekke! it’s great to be a Belgian”
“I’m not English,  I’m not French and I’m not Dutch
“I’m not Spanish Portuguese or German
“I’m a Belgian, so thank you very much!”
John, of course, was not Belgian and although he loved the place and its passions, I doubt that he  had plans to apply for a Belgian passport:  he died a few years before Brexit prompted a dash by expat Brits to swear allegiance to the Mannekin Pis.
And we BBBs (Brexit-British-Belgians) must own up to being motivated by practicality more than passion. 
Nevertheless, the formal welcome from the authorities in our commune was gracious and even enthusiastic. The paperwork was minimal, and nobody posed tricky questions.
Mind you, my wife and I were fully prepared: we had memorised all the verses of “Potverdekke!”, which is, after all, the unofficial alternative Belgian national anthem.  And if asked, I would have pretended to like moules-frites and to be a mega-fan of Plastic Bertrand.
We’d even mugged up on some key Belgian facts, which is why I can tell you that this nation produces 200,00 tonnes of chocolate a year.  And that the man who most helped an Englishman invent the World Wide Web was a Belgian called Robert Cailliau.
But unlike the UK, where wannabe nationals are expected to understand cricket and be able to name Alfred the Great’s cousins, it turns out that Belgium doesn’t set a general knowledge quiz.
 Some communes of Brussels, though, do “gold-plate” the country-wide minimum nationality requirements by setting language tests, which produced strangled cries of “dammit!” – or “potverdekke!” in the local patois - from some of our fellow Brexit asylum-seeking friends. 
And although our town hall didn’t invite us round for a celebratory glass of fizz like some other communes did on completion of the formalities, we received a very nice phone call from a chap who declared, in French: “I am delighted to inform you that, as of April 23rd, you are Belgian citizens. Congratulations!”
I like to think that this would please my young Erps-Kwerps neighbour of forty years ago. But I think that he, now in mid-life, would have a fit if I told him that my old sports car stayed on its English plates for all these years – finally taking Belgian nationality when we did and still going strong.
So what’s it like being both Belgian and English?  I’d have to say mixed feelings -  all of them good…….

 
For the last couple of years a new word of greeting has been gaining currency on the small Sicilian island where my wife and I go to hide from the real world.
It is delivered loudly, boldly, with a big grin and accompanied by a mocking finger of fun, by a chap called Nino.
Nino is a big friendly giant of a man who, as it happens, looks pretty much like Roald Dahl’ s Big Friendly Giant – very tall, very skinny but jollier than the children’s book version, and with much smaller ears.
As far as I know, his greeting, which consists of bellowing “Johnson!”  whenever we come into view, is reserved exclusively for the two of us. The greeting is accompanied by a gleeful chuckle and, occasionally, a slap on the back, as if to say: “You poor buggers!”
Nino runs a hotel in our sleepy village which sits high up a winding road above the island’s port.  Most days we see him barreling up or down the mountain in his people carrier to pick up or drop off guests arriving or leaving on the ferries from the mainland.  Or we see him whenever we pop into his place for a drink or a meal.   And of course, whenever he bellows “Johnson!” and laughs heartily, so do those within earshot – hotel guests, staff, or passing locals.
We first met Nino about five years ago and got on famously with him from the start. “Ah! English! Brexit!” was his first greeting back then, shaking his head in wonder and his shoulders with mirth.
He liked the idea that we don’t actually live in the UK and that we always enjoy his infectious Brexit mickey-taking.  
Nino always greeted us after that with variants of “Ah! English! Brexit! Hah!”, until the summer of 2019, when a change of Tory leader delivered up a new prime minister.
In July of that year, when we dropped in to see him, he leapt to his feet from his hotel office desk and lumbered towards us, arms outspread, smiling broadly and boomed “Johnson!”, followed by “Hah!” and a head-shake.
This was the norm that summer and on every visit since: “Johnson!”, every time he sees us,  especially when he’s driving through the village in his people carrier packed with hotel guests. On those occasions he hoots his horn, slams on the brakes and leans his torso out of the window with a cry of “Johnson!”   before crunching the gears and heading down the hill in a haze of diesel fumes.
We’ve always resisted yelling back the name of the Italian prime minister, especially when it was Conte, but on one occasion during Giuseppe’s premiership, Nino delivered a backhanded compliment to Boris by declaring (in Italian):  “Tell you what, I’ll do you a deal. We’ll take Johnson as long as you agree to take Conte,  Salvini (then deputy prime minister) and (President) Matterella!”
But, I hear you cry, this is no evidence of the widespread adoption of “Johnson!” as a greeting/expletive contaminating an entire, if tiny, foreign community, as claimed at the start of this article.
Two replies to that: first, it would be more than enough evidence for Boris if he had written this piece.
And second, join me now down on the harbourside where, one morning last week, my sister-in-law went into a beauty shop for some nail polishy stuff. The shop assistant, realising she was English, said “Ah! Johnson! Brexit!”.  He then went on to declare that the political situation in the UK was “mad”, and added, for complete clarity: “Boris, not good!”, before concluding a sale of a tiny bottle of what looked to me like plum yoghurt.
Let’s end in a nearby waterfront bar, last night, where Salvatore, Giovanni and Mimmo were in conversation with my wife and me. Or rather, in conversation with my wife, while I tried desperately to cling to the linguistic coat-tails of a hybrid Italian/Sicilian lingo that always gets away from me.
My wife, helpfully steering the conversation at my request in a bid to add texture to this article, asked Salvatore why he thinks “Johnson!” is so popular with Brits.
Salvatore, who is quite a character, said it is because Johnson is - come se dice in inglese? – quite a character. And also, he added, waving his hands around his head, because of his weird white hair.
Then we all shouted “Johnson!” as we clinked our glasses and fell about laughing, for all the wrong reasons…
 

In a spirit of post-Brexit positivity about the future of the European Union, I declare that from now on it is the duty of EU citizens everywhere to always look on the bright side of strife.
As we emerge, gingerly, from the menacing dark clouds of Covid-19, our collective European vision requires nothing less than the constant use of words such as bold, united, strategic, ambitious, far-reaching and foresight, as we forge a path towards a forward-looking, sustainable and resilient future.
Using this approach, the result will be a European Union not just for tomorrow, but also for the day after that. 
It will become the most must-have, go-to Union in the world, a rose-tinted spectacle built on the bedrock of a blue economy wrapped in the warm glow of a green deal, tied in ribbons fashioned from a discarded White Paper.
This is my response to Europe’s leaders and policymakers, who have called upon us all to make our voices heard in the year-long exercise in participatory democracy called the Conference on the Future of Europe.
But first we must stop the petty squabbling among insiders about who sits where and with what job title on which multilingual digital platform of the Conference’s burgeoning organigramme. 
For instance, fairly reliable sources close to someone familiar with the inner workings of the conference tell me that a significant amount of time has already been spent arguing about  whether the letter C in “co”, as in “Co-chair”, should have a capital letter. And if it does, does the Chair bit also have a capital letter?
Both answers on this central issue appear to be yes, although we should not pre-judge the final outcome until the views of a series of “Citizens’ Panels” have been considered.
But why are we the people being asked to get so involved at all?  Whatever happened to the tried and tested principle of “too-may-cooks-spoil-the-broth”?
 Surely the combined existing participatory democratic efforts of the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee, and the Committee of the Regions constitute sufficient grass roots consultation, with their ranks of elected and selected representatives of organised as well as disorganised civil society.  
Having said that, it seemed churlish not to respond to the call after so many years when the best the big cheeses have come up with on EU advancement amounts to “Do less but do it better”, or “More Europe”, or  “A Federal Future” or “Bonfire of the Directives”, or , my favourite, “Just Do Less”.
To hear from a few of the current crop of pretty big cheeses, I tuned in to the official Future of Europe Conference launch event and was shocked to see a trio of dark-suited men on stage with the European Commission President  – was Ursula von der Leyen about to be humiliated again?
Only three weeks earlier, she spoke publicly of feeling “hurt and alone as a woman and a European”, after being sidelined on a sofa in a palace in Istanbul while Turkish President Erdogan and EU Council President Charles Michel bloke-ishly took pride of place in two pole-position armchairs for top-level talks.
This time, though, someone managed to count the right number of identical chairs for the right number of four VIP bottoms.
There were grandiose speeches from French President Emmanuel Macron, President David Sassoli of the European Parliament, Prime Minister Antonio Costa of Portugal and European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen, in that order – not because Ursula had been once more downgraded as a woman, but because of the institutional pecking order.
In any case, Ursula used the event to announce that she had just become a grandmum for the first time, stealing the rhetorical thunder from the three chaps who urged the EU to “ find an effective way forward with ambition and to avoid not taking decisions”(Macron); to  “build a stronger, more resilient, more democratic and more united Europe” (Sassoli); and to  “address the key issues if we want to be successful” (Costa).
But where was Ursula’s nemesis, Charles Michel?.  Had granny banished him from her presence after the Istanbul fiasco?
She’d love to, but no: Michel was not there because, for the purposes of the Future of Europe Conference, presidential precedence in the Council of Ministers goes not to the president of the European Council but to the rotating president-in-office of the Council of Ministers. Charles Michel does not rotate: Antonio Costa does - as one EU expert delightfully put it: “The president of the European Council isn’t involved in the future of Europe.”   
But before I rush off to send my thoughts on the future of Europe to whoever it is who is actually in charge of this impressive new democratic engagement with we the people, let me highlight the very last words in the speech on Europe’s future from the only granny on the VIP platform.
Ursula started her address by commending a 1939 book called The Earth of Men by French author and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupery, as containing the all the aspirations of peace, harmony and goodwill, the EU should follow in the quest for its future.
And she finished by quoting directly from the work: “The most beautiful profession a man can have is that of bringing men together.”
Ursula, glowing with grandmotherly pride and beaming beatifically from the podium, and with no hint of sarcasm, added: It’s up to us to keep on doing that.”

 
So this is how it ends: dinner for two in der Leyen’s den: Boris enters the belly of the Brussels beast one last time in a desperate attempt to snatch compromise from the jaws of confusion.
“Come in Mr Johnson, I’ve been expecting you,” purrs the European Commission president, wearing a monocle and stroking a black cat.
Prime Minister Johnson’s reply is a sly grin, the only grin left in his dwindling armoury of charm. He adjusts his Churchillian stoop, ruffles his trademark shock of already distraught blonde hair, and delivers his carefully prepared introductory ice-breaker:
“Good to see you in the flesh, Ursula old thing. Listen, I’ve often wondered – what’s the German for ‘Golly gosh, it’s all a bit of a bugger’s muddle’?”*
At the time of writing, there is still no news of her response. But we do know that, after a masked balls-up of a joint photo-opportunity on arrival at Ursula’s massive private residence (which also doubles as her office), the pair used the pandemic as the perfect excuse to stay well away from each other over a very fishy dinner.
Before the first sip of the pumpkin soup starter had been slurped, the prime minister also made clear that he would be socially distancing himself from any Brexit details as well, lest he be stricken by the dreaded virus T-B (Tory-Brussels) which has felled a wide range of Conservative Party leaders in the last forty years.
“But what about our talks on fair competition, governance and fishing?” demanded Ursula.
Boris rolled his eyes: “Oh it’s all bunkum, Ursula! Actum est onus Domini piffle!”
Ursula shook her head: “Yes but piffle can be vitally important, especially in the EU…”
The PM grinned: “You know the word piffle?”
Ursula nodded: “Yes. It is the same in German, ein Haufen Piffle.”
In the absence of hard post-match evidence of the meeting’s content (COVID meant there were no spectators despite a clamour for tickets), your correspondent has had to rely on a junior official vaguely familiar with how the top-level Brexit date-night unfolded.
The PM apparently spent time moaning about how his Brexit front-line team had run out of ideas for getting his “oven-ready deal” out of the cooker without getting the nation’s fingers burnt. And how it was now his destiny, whatever the cost and whatever the sacrifice,  to “Make Britain Great Again”.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves: things went pear-shaped from the minute the two sat down together, according to my fairly unreliable source...
First, Ursula raised her glass to toast a bright, sustainable, diverse EU-27 future based on a robust, deliverable strategy founded on equality, mutual respect and common purpose for all stakeholders once the Brits have disappeared.
Boris, nonplussed, dribbled soup down his tie and then, regaining his composure, did a brilliant Trump impersonation to declare that “Britain will prosper mightily with or without a Brexit deal. In fact we will prosper mightilier than any country has ever mightily prospered, anywhere in the history of the world!”
Ursula sat back and smiled. “That’s very good Mr Johnson, but it is this superior attitude which has got your country where it is today.  Maybe the American way is better for you Brits. How is your Biden impersonation?”
Boris shook his head: “Not too good so far. I can’t seem to talk as slowly as him. Trump’s much easier to copy.”
Ursula nodded: “Of course he is - as are you. Michel does a very fine impersonation of you….
Boris looked up: “Me? Really? Good old Barnier! Top man!”
Ursula: “Yes. Michel will miss you when this is finally over…..what is it you English say….like a hole in the brain?
Boris:  ”Hole in the head: he’ll miss me like a hole in the head.”
There was silence at the table until the soup plates were cleared. Over the main course, Boris complained about his Brexit team, who were “so hopeless that they had actually dragged me, the bally Prime Minister of all things, into this whole Brexit end-game fiasco!”
Ursula politely acknowledged that one of the perks of any top job was supposed to be that you simply got good people around you to do all the donkey work. But it never worked like that.
Boris perked up: “Exactly! Exactly!  You see Urs – can I call you Urs? – we agree:  we’re more ‘blue-skies, tour-d’horizon’ sort of chaps.”
Ursula shook her head as she prodded an English scallop of Italian and Greek parentage which, until very recently, had been minding its own business swimming in a borderless sea off Ostend until fate steered it towards a German-owned French trawler with a Romanian crew.
“I am German”, she said softly. “I do details. Macron and Merkel, we all do the details, the piffle, as you call it. The problem with you British politicians is that, when it comes to the European project, you are all ears and no knickers."
Boris corrected her: “We are all mouth and no trousers….”
Ursula nodded: “Thank you. I am learning a lot tonight.  You are all about grandstanding and making slogans……."  
Boris leaned earnestly cross the table, until his nose squashed against the perspex anti-COVID divide: “But that’s my thing, Urs. Details are terribly boring. I do the broad-brush stuff and help out with the messaging. Always have! Always will!  That’s what’s got me where I am today!”
He tried to lean further forward, but his DG Health and Safety-approved dining-seat belt kept him tethered the requisite two metres away from the president. “Here’s a slogan you can have Ursula, cos it soon won’t be any use to us ……..A Treaty a day helps you work rest and play!”
The rest of the conversation was described by my source as downhill all the way after the prime minister described to Ursula a recurring dream he’d been having since the end of 2016, in which the newly-elected President Donald Trump, a fine and wise chap who had endorsed Brexit and was Boris’ best chum, flew to Brussels and stood in front of Commission headquarters cheered by a massive crowd, in fact the biggest crowd in all of crowd history, to declare: “Mr Junker, tear down this Berlaymont!”
There was nothing more to say. The pavlova was devoured in stony silence, as was the cognac, as were the Apres Huit mints.
At the time of writing, the whole negotiating soap opera might be called off by the end of Sunday December 13, because, some say, no deal is better than a bad deal (a statement that can mean two very different things).
Or we might be Brexit-ing on until the last minute of the last hour of the year. Or maybe longer, because even when it ends, we all know it won’t really be over.
As far as the European Union is concerned, Boris Johnson will always be the chap who made Britain grate again – and again. 
(*Meine Güte, es ist alles ein bisschen durcheinander!)

If you ask people to sum up in one word what the hell the Brexit referendum was really all about, some say “control”, and others (wilfuly ignoring my one-word limit) mutter “Johnson’s ego!”.
But the three most popular responses in my random survey turned out to be “cake” (said with a giggle), “fish” (raised eyebrows), and “sovereignty” (ironic air-quotes).  And that’s just the Brexiteers…
Cake, because Boris Johnson famously threw down the gateau gauntlet even before the 2016 vote by declaring that he was pro-cake and pro-eating it – a cheeky declaration that the UK was determined to leave the Union and still keep the tastiest benefits of being a member state.  
Fish, because of the symbolism of the UK’s fishing stocks being bartered in the  passionately-fought and always headline-grabbing haggling every December over EU catch quotas for the following year. Regardless of months of pre-planning by officials, those end-of-year ministerial marathons routinely lasted several fractious days and nights:  one year, the negotiations went on for so long that Santa Claus turned up in a red suit and white beard and delivered light relief in the form of gifts for each national delegation. (That, I promise, is a true story.)   
Sovereignty because sovereignty, derived from the Latin word superanus, is what the British people have apparently regained, after being ruled over for so long by an oppressive EU regime which, according to cakeman Boris, saw the UK forced into all sorts of unpalatable policies despite seemingly able to avoid some very big ones, including the Schengen agreement, Economic and Monetary Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In fact, at the time of departure from the club the UK had more “opt-outs” from EU policies than any other member state.
This, argued Remainers, was a fine example of our clout as a Gold Star club member and a good reason to stay in.
On the contrary, said Leavers, such a degree of semi-detachment was clear evidence of the need to disengage completely. 
But let’s get back to cake.
Johnson’s “pro-having and pro-eating” cake stand certainly attracted interest when he went public on this crucial issue months before the Brexit vote. 
However, it was only after the referendum result made Brexit a reality that the cake challenge was taken up, unofficially, by the EU side, in the form of European Council President Donald Tusk.
He forensically deconstructed Johnson’s defiance of the fundamental logic of the nearly 500-year old saying that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.  Your cake, explained Tusk solemnly, is either on your plate or you eat it.  
It was as much an attack on a confusing English idiom as on Boris, who, being a hapless Foreign Secretary at the time, was not used to being taken seriously. (Even today, as Prime Minister, his tongue, cake permitting, is firmly in his cheek as often as possible.) 
In fact, I fully expected Boris to respond that Tusk’s analysis was faulty because he, Boris, always ensures that his plate is carrying at least two pieces of cake at all times, thus enabling him easily to both have his cake and eat it.
This would bring him closer to the austere Russian equivalent of the cake pro-cake concept, which is simply to say “You can’t sit on two chairs.”  Even then, I guess Boris, after doubling up on cake supplies to ensure he had plenty to eat while preserving the same amount, would claim he probably could.   
Anyway, one lasting legacy of our EU membership seems to be that some European Commission officials in Brussels have now adopted the word “cake” as a universal term to describe any attempt by any member state to make daft demands in negotiations in future.  That alone is a legacy to be proud of.
Which brings me to my point, which is that there is not one reference in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement to cake. Fish gets a mention, of course, and sovereignty is there in spirit, because it’s taken on an almost spiritual, mystical value in the Brexit saga, but cake is entirely absent.
It’s surprising that the EU side didn’t try to force it into one of the document’s nine annexes to protocols, simply to press home the Tusk message  - or even insist on explicit wording obliging the UK to acknowledge in writing that the principle of having cake and eating it cannot be invoked in any formal governmental dealings with the Union.  Perhaps Euro-MPs will modify the text when they get round to ratifying the accord…
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson remains free in principle to use his first visit to Washington under Joe Biden’s presidency to take time to nip ten kilometres south of the White House and stage a self-congratulatory photo-opportunity at a family-owned bakery which happens to be called “Pro Cakes”.  It’s in the Iverson shopping mall in Temple Hills and has a great reputation for custom-made wedding cakes and cupcakes - just a thought for the Downing Street press and communications team, but I only recommend it if Brexit is going terribly well.  
At the moment, things just seem to be going terribly, what with Northern Ireland still sort of in the EU, Gibraltar requiring Brits to show their passports on arrival in the British Overseas Territory, and UK fish and meat exports to the EU rotting on dock sides because of new and complicated post-Brexit paperwork which Boris said wouldn’t exist.
UK government officials say the floundering fish problems are just teething troubles which won’t last long. But EU Chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has now pitched in to suggest publicly that a lot of these structural cross-Channel “regulatory frictions” will become the UK’s new normal.
I suspect that naughty Michel, having emerged from the Brexit negotiations with flying colours for his sangfroid and dignity in very difficult circumstances, is trying to have his gateau and mange it too…
 

• “If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing Street, I shall be among those packing my bags for a new life in Buenos Aires or suchlike, because it means that Britain has abandoned its last pretensions to be a serious country” - Max Hastings, Daily Telegraph editor, October 10, 2012.

 
I’ve just checked and there are a dozen flights a day to Buenos Aires from London, some quite cheap, so no problem if Max wants to do a runner. He may not be alone: there may be enough people leaving to club together to charter a plane and save cash.
In that same 2012 article in the Daily Mail, Max declared: “I would not take Boris's word about whether it is Monday or Tuesday.”
It is in fact Tuesday, but Max has a point: Johnson’s opening words to the Party faithful on being declared leader were: “Good morning, everyone”.  But, as a radio presenter covering the event live immediately pointed out, it was already afternoon – another mis-step, he joked, from a man who has managed the transition, it appears, from seemingly lovable and cuddly to toxic and divisive.
Max Hastings sent Boris Johnson to Brussels as a hack in 1989, encouraging the young man’s florid and often flawed coverage which has been in the spotlight ever since the blond bombshell puts his considerable weight behind the Brexit campaign.
Max even sent his EEC correspondent a herogram urging him to be “more pompous”, which pleased Boris no end. And when his time in Brussels ended, Max promoted him in London for doing a great job.
But times change, and how!  Who knew then that one day, in the very distant future, Boris, with the benefit of a borrowed comb and a decent gent’s outfitter, would seize the crown?
Well, at the risk of blowing the only trumpet I’ve got, I kind of did, not in the Brussels days, but as soon as the Johnson, buoyed by further journalistic success in London and television celebrity through chat shows and “Have I Got News For You”, began dabbling in politics.
The fact that he twice survived breaking promises to his bosses, including the formidable Conrad Black, not to stand as an MP while employed full-time in journalism, simply reinforced the notion that this fellow, for whatever reason, could do no wrong and was a vote-winner: even those he irritated and annoyed recognised his giant personality and the charm.
And when university students started postponing going to the pub on a Friday night until after they’d seen that blond bloke on the news quiz programme (I have scientific evidence), it seemed clear where this was all heading, however long it took.
I said to all and sundry: "Mark my words, one day that chap will be prime minister." I was dismissed as a loony back in 2002.
It’s not that I want it to happen, I said, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that Boris has…….something indefinable: people will back him the minute they see him, they already cheer his every utterance, they delight in his gaffes, his clownish, impish side; he’s like no one else you know.
“Yes but”, everyone said, and I had to agree that they were right.  Normally. But Boris isn’t normal. In a good way.  And, yes, sometimes in a bad way.  
And yes, anything could intervene - and often has – to upset this rollicking, runaway applecart.  Yet just when my prediction seemed to have reached a sticky end, something, some serendipitous force, often beyond Boris’s control, would right the applecart, and our hero would be back on his unspoken track to the top. And he has remained amazingly, defiantly, untouchable. 
My wife threatened to divorce me – not in protest against Boris, so much; more because she said that, if he ever did become prime minister, which he wouldn’t, obviously, I would wake up every morning thereafter and start the day by saying: "I told you so”.
When Boris was felled by Michael Gove three years ago during his first leadership, my wife sent me a text: “I don’t have to divorce you after all.”  It looked like game over for Johnson and for my prophesy.
Then, in a bizarre, gob-smacking, left-of-field decision which only underpins the rationale behind my prediction in the first place, Theresa May, having become PM, picked Boris off the floor and elevated him to the role of Foreign Secretary. 
You see, I said, you see!  This is what I’ve been talking about all this time! The Johnson force-field has intervened once again - he SHALL go to the ball! Even if it takes a little longer.
Which it has. 
So, as Max Hastings packs his bags and heads for the airport, I apologise to those who know me for banging on for so long about what has just happened.
I take no joy in being right, if only because, stupidly, I didn’t think to nip to the bookies in 2002 and bet a newly-minted 100-euro note on what has just happened: I don’t want to know what the odds would have been, or how rich I would have become.
I am now trying to stave off divorce, but I do insist on being allowed to say “I told you so” once a day for at least the next month.
And then I’ll shut up.
And maybe it’ll all work out just fine…….but I wouldn’t bet on it.  
   

 by Geoff Meade

When Theresa May first said that no Brexit deal for Britain is better than a bad Brexit deal for Britain, everyone assumed they knew what she meant – and that SHE knew what she meant. 
Everyone assumed she meant that we’d be better off without any deal at all than with a bad deal.
Because that’s what “no deal is better than a bad deal” seems to mean, right?
If that’s really what it means, the UK Treasury and Bank of England brainboxes have now made the PM look a bit silly by contradicting her and insisting that no deal would be a lot worse, economically, than any kind of deal, good, bad or indifferent.
But what if “no deal is better than a bad deal” is capable of another meaning?
After all, the sneaky ability of English to be misconstrued has often been very successfully exploited by British diplomats in European Union negotiations over many years. 
Indeed, linguistic ambiguity spices the wording of most EU Treaties, precisely – or, imprecisely – to win agreements, even at the risk of some post-facto argy-bargy over the exact interpretation of a key phrase in different language versions of the text.
This kind of ambiguity used to be considered an obstacle to clarity and is at the heart of most political satire and all of Theresa May’s Brexit language.
But a few years ago linguistic academics expounded a new theory that ambiguity actually helps communication and that people are quite capable of “disambiguating” an ambiguous form of wording based on the context.
I present to you the wise words of MIT cognitive science professor Ted Gibson: “Various people have said that ambiguity is a problem for communication, but the fact that context disambiguates has important ramifications for the re-use of potentially ambiguous forms. Ambiguity is no longer a problem — it's something that you can take advantage of, because you can reuse easy words in different contexts over and over again."
This seems to ignore the fact that if communicators avoid ambiguity altogether there is no need for their audiences to disambiguate.
But the point apparently is that ambiguity improves language efficiency by allowing for the re-use of short, efficient words that audiences can easily interpret with the help of context.
This clearly includes gems such as “Take back control” and “Brexit means Brexit”, but let’s get back to the phrase the PM coined nearly two years ago when setting out  her Brexit negotiating red lines: “No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain.”
It seems to suggest that no deal at all would be preferable to a bad deal. 
But try it this way: “(There is) no deal (which) is better than a bad deal.”  
In other words, there is no deal that we could get that could be better than a bad deal because bad is as good as it gets.
If I was the PM’s communications chief I would now steer my leader towards acknowledging that this interpretation is what she meant all along, as it precisely matches the reality in which we find ourselves in.
And on this historic day when the rest of the EU agreed the terms of the withdrawal agreement,  she wouldn’t even have to admit that the bad deal she’s got  is a bad deal, because Jean-Claude Juncker clearly said that the bad deal she’s got is as good as it’s going to get which makes it a good deal and not  bad deal at all.
After all they’ve been through so far, I’m sure the great British public can disambiguate that without too much trouble.