We happened to be in Britain the night Britain came out of Europe, on 31 January.
At Southend (on Sea) and all around the country, it was freezing cold, drizzling, and deserted. The long pier right in front of our hotel was in darkness and even when the next morning dawned, very few people ventured upon it.
Television kept showing a small crowd of Brexiteers waving flags near the Houses of Parliament but there was nothing similar in Southend and the atmosphere at the nearby shopping mall was absolutely the same that you would find in shopping malls anywhere – canned music, hassled mothers with fractious kids and shops all around.
If leaving Europe, or rather the EU, was a historical step, there was no sign these shoppers were aware of it.
Except that Britain has not left the EU so far. Talks have followed talks, negotiations followed negotiations, interspersed with repeated announcements the talks had broken down. First it was five minutes to midnight, now it is just seconds away and the talks are still going on, in an increasingly frantic round after round.
Meanwhile, Britain, like the rest of the world, has been hit by the Covid pandemic which has carried away huge numbers of mainly the aged.
Every country has its horror story to tell, but in Britain’s case the fight against the pandemic has been greatly hampered by a prime minister, Boris Johnson, who for long was sceptical about the virus – until he himself caught it and was at death’s door as a result.
When in late autumn people had become more or less used to cohabiting with the virus, a new variant of the virus appeared and this proved to be more intractable than the original one.
So as I write, all the countries of Europe, including Scotland, have closed their borders with Britain, flights have been cancelled, people have been stranded and hundreds of trucks are queueing on all roads leading to the Southeast coast, mostly with perishable goods.
It is the scenario portrayed over the past months as what could happen in case of a non-agreement on post-Brexit but this kind of Brexit has not happened (yet) and it is mainly happening because of the virus variant. It is a perfect storm for the British.
Back then, last February, two in our group fell sick once we came back, really and terrifyingly sick. At that time the Covid virus was still something that had happened in China and we are now learning it had been spreading around the world since October or November 2019. In the same manner, there are doctors who are saying the variant, it would be unjust to call it the British variant as much as it would be unjust to call Covid the Chinese virus, was already spreading months before it was certified as such.
The two issues, Brexit and the Covid variant, are two completely different issues. But they have come to happen at the same time and for now they have turned Britain into their target and victim.
Most of Britain is now in what is known as Tier 4, the highest tier of prevention that includes an almost total lockdown. The streets of London, usually crowded with people shopping for Christmas or otherwise enjoying themselves, going to the theatre and the pantomime, have once again fallen silent.
The same scenes can be seen in other world capitals, though to a lesser degree. The exceptions to this are very rare – such as Taiwan which has just reported its first Covid infection since April.
As the governments battle to contain the spread of the infection and as the first antiCovid vaccine injections are administered, we remember that just a year ago we had no idea what was about to happen. We were so much happier then but we had no idea what was about to happen.
We still have no idea what is going to happen and how will it happen, whether there will be an end to this and how long will it take to get back to normality.
Meanwhile the dead keep increasing and the economies of the world keep hitting the rocks.
So far there is no good news to relay.
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