Where Will You Be On 30 March?

You might be hoping for an end to Brexidiocy, but unless you've been hiding under a rock, you'll be expecting that the UK will leave the EU without agreeing how to do so in an orderly fashion. 

That means EU trade terms will cease to apply in 8 months' time, as of 30 March.

The European Commission is more advanced in its preparations for Brexit, as the remaining 27 member states ('the EU27') will expect officials to enforce the UK's exclusion from the EU trade bloc and the European Economic Area (the EU, plus Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland). 

The EU says there are 7 possible steps everyone might need to take, regardless of where they live. The EU has also published its Brexit preparations, including certain "preparedness notices" as well as legislation and other activities, like risk management.

My own preparations involve adding a legal practising certificate for Ireland and signing up with an Irish law firm to keep advising my clients on their EU-facing operations and the EU aspects of cross-border data protection issues. That's step 3 on the EU's top tips for Brexit.

Given that the UK government is planning on the basis of shortages in food and medicine, I'm also inclined to recommend that the family takes advantage of my wife's dual citizenship to relocate for a month or two until things settle down, if indeed they ever really do.

But I think we'll end up toughing it out in London, where I hope the evidence of the UK's continuing decline will be gradual, rather like when the Romans left Britain 1600 years ago. Over the next 40 to 60 years money will cease to circulate widely and the bulk of the population will abandon stone and concrete buildings for wooden huts and tents before they largely succumb to famine and disease...

Inevitably, however, another batch of Europeans will eventually arrive, attracted to the underpopulated wasteland on their frontier. Perhaps they'll bring wine, pasta, hair pins and exotic perfumes, a method for conveying water over long distances and sponges for toiletry use...

Then the whole, sorry cycle will repeat itself, post nauseam.