Realignment Softens Change

Blimey. Thought Brexit was put to bed? Think again.

My point is not to rehash old misinformation or suture barely healing wounds.

I riff on the language of the switch in play by the current UK administration in thrall to Brussels.

For they seek closer alignment in the “national interest”. Sectors avoiding such attachment would be the "exception, not the norm". All without any say in the actual Regs.

Opposition shouts that this is "not alignment, but subordination". Set to undo global strides taken since Britain's leaving the EU with the rest of the world. Yunno, that part of the globe that is not suffering sclerotic stasis. Economic or otherwise. After all, why the exceptions at all?

Yet their bleats always cite "the single market". Including their promise to reverse any moves that drag the country back in to it.

I sense this label doesn't help.

A 'single market' sounds a pretty good thing, right? Who cares about the details. No matter Brexiteers reciting a long list exposing its misleading angle.

This is where they go wrong.

The lack of an adjective to always accompany the term as prefix is a missed chance.

Flawed. Failing. False.

And that's just three beginning with the letter 'f'.

The same trap can exist for a deal we're on.

If we are not shaping such language we should not be bidding.

Own the syntax, own the bid.

As I say time and again.

It needn't be negative either. There may well be a sunlit upland to elicit.

Although a pejorative, when used with care, is usually more sticky.

In this case, the word 'realignment' becomes a suffix by its proponents.

That sweetens the upheaval somewhat.

And this is perhaps the biggest tip from this political messaging for sales we pursue.

Anything that lessens the shock of that hairy, looming, monstrous change which we could well wreak is our - and our key prospect supporters - dear friend.