What parking disputes have taught me about Brexit

Our battle with the EU has given me an insight into the parking disputes outside my house. Or is it that the parking disputes outside my house have given me an insight into Britain’s battle with the EU?

Either way, I was reading through this Brexit trade deal we’ve accepted because we can’t be bothered to counter illogic with logic any longer, and it suddenly occurred to me why my neighbours persist in parking outside my house. And why, when I then park outside their house or someone else’s, I’m the one getting the funny looks.

People push each other about for no better reason than the way one horse kicks another in a field. Sometimes they want you to know that what’s theirs is theirs and what’s yours is theirs too, as a way of hoofing you in the face.

And so it is with the strip of unmade track outside eight houses facing on to the village green where I live. This nice area of communal parking, with ample space for every house to park two cars, has been complicated to the same degree the EU has convoluted our fishing waters.

Saying: ‘That bit of water next to our country contains our fish, so why don’t we all just fish the fish in our own waters?’ is too simple. Saying: ‘Why don’t we all agree to park two cars as near as we can to our house, ensuring we are not too far left or right for the neighbours to get into their spaces?’ —that’s too simple.

This is a shame because, as there are a good 16 parking spaces for eight houses, very little brainpower is needed to work out where each of us should park.