Toothpaste flows out of the tube only one way. So does Brexit!

By George ILIEV

CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 102 (Originally published on May 15, 2019; republished on May 17, 2019.)

British astronomer Arthur Eddington developed in 1927 the concept of "the arrow of time": time only flows in one direction. In this it resembles toothpaste and Brexit.

The Brexit process is like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. Once the toothpaste has come out, it can never go back in again. Similarly, if Britain leaves the EU, it will never be able to re-join the EU again.

No other EU member state fits the toothpaste metaphor better than Britain. That's because no other EU member state has obtained so many opt-outs from EU policies over the decades. Britain also gets the proverbial "budget rebate" from the EU each year, thanks to Margaret Thatcher's tough negotiating and her "handbag". If Britain were to leave and reapply for EU membership later, it wouldn't get those exemptions, which would push the EU accession terms beyond the line that the independence-minded British political class would find acceptable.

However, there is one more twist to the toothpaste metaphor. What happens to toothpaste that has come out of the tube? In most cases it is spat out and washed down the sink. 

Toothpaste (Source: Wikipedia)

Brexit is a rewilding project. In other words: a mammoth task!

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 86

Brexit is a rewilding project: an attempt to return a habitat to its past natural state in the terms of conservation biology. Over several decades, the EU has evolved as a strong domesticating force on the EU member states. This helped maintain peaceful co-existence and economic cooperation on the continent: you can have domestic animals (dogs, cats and guinea pigs) as pets under a single roof but you cannot have wild animals living closely together (think tigers, lions and rhinos).

However, a key question is how far back in time Brexiteers aim to take Britain in the rewilding project. 

Would they wish to bring back beavers (extinct since the 1500s AD) and wild boar (extinct since 1400 AD), or elk (extinct since the Bronze Age), for example? Or do they plan to bring back the wolverine (extinct since 6000 BC) or even the woolly mammoth (which disappeared around 10,000 BC).

In economic terms, the rewilding project may range from re-introducing state aid (banned under EU competition law in order to create a level-playing field) to scrapping the EU Working Time Directive. It could go further in relaxing health and safety rules to emulate the regulatory regime of the US. Or some could even contemplate extreme scenarios like bringing back child labour (mind you, for the purpose of re-educating recalcitrant youth, some hardliners might argue). 

The latter does look extreme but didn't we all think that mammoths were done and dusted and all that remained of them were their mammoth tusks (just as we thought the "honourable members for the 18th century" belonged to the 18th century). Now, however, de-extinction is starting to become a fashionable and realistic prospect for bringing back animals that have previously gone extinct. Mammoth tasks are not so mammoth any more.

The mammoth is dead. Long live the mammoth!

Woolly mammoths (Source: Wikipedia)

(Note: this article is based on Brexit Metaphor No 112, with some amendments: 

https://brexitmetaphors.blogspot.com/search/label/rewilding)