Let's get going: London wants to get on with Brexit
Last week the British government launched a campaign to prepare the public for the final farewell to the EU. Six months before the end of the transition period, the campaign aims to provide businesses and individuals with information on how they should behave after Britain's withdrawal from the European single market. Commentators accuse London of inadequate planning.
Government needs to provide clarity
The campaign message is absurdly positive in view of the uncertainty about what the future holds, The Herald criticises:
“We are less than six months away from the end of the transition period and households and businesses have very little idea of what the future relationship between the UK and EU is going to look like. This is not because they have not been paying attention. It is because the UK Government does not yet know. ... Why should anyone, businesses or households, be expected to prepare for a wide range of possible outcomes because the UK Government has got us into a position where no-one has any clear idea of which particular scenario will be the one which becomes reality after the transition period ends?”
Britain acting as if nothing were happening
Britain still doesn't seem to realise that Brexit is just around the corner, The Irish Times observes:
“The slogan for the new campaign is 'let's get going'. That is what you say to children pretending to be sick because they don't feel like school. Given that Brexit is officially the dawn of a new golden age, why does Johnson's Vote Leave regime implicitly accept that a reluctant populace has to be chivvied, not even into embracing this glorious future, but merely into accepting that Brexit is actually happening? ... It is as if there are two Britains, one in which Brexit is the greatest national project for almost half a century and one in which it is not really happening at all.”