Boris Johnson is a fool who has accidentally found himself at the centre of government. He is like a slightly more animated and colourful version of Chauncey Gardner in the Peter Sellers film Being There. A man of seriously limited intellectual ability, except with words, he went into politics after a bit of journalism showed he could write amusing but entirely fictional Euro sceptic articles. People took him seriously because of HOW he wrote and not for WHAT he wrote. And he appeared to be witty and interesting on TV shows like Have I Got News For You. But now in a position of power his shortcomings are painfully clear and the harmless fool has become a dangerous one.
The other week in yet another gaffe, he was alleged to have told a Belgian diplomat who had asked about the reaction of Airbus, BMW and others to Brexit, to "f*** business".
He was pressed about this in the House of Commons (HERE column 756) by Owen Smith on 26th June and didn't deny it. He told MPs that he had “from time to time expressed scepticism about some of the views of those who profess to speak up for business”.
Note the "those who profess to speak up for business". It isn't just Airbus, BMW, Siemens, Honda, Toyota, the pharmaceutical and chemical industries and the banks and financial institutions, it's their trade bodies as well. This is the CBI, the Engineering Employers Federation, the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors and so on and so on.
But BoJo, the privileged Etonian who has never done any real job at all in industry or commerce in his entire life believes he alone has the clarity of thinking to know what business needs and it isn't what business says it needs. This would normally be thought of as pure ideology but I don't believe he has any ideology at all. He has no faith or dogma. He urged Brexit because of the simple calculation it would be good personally for him. It would put him a step nearer to his ambition of living in No 10 Downing Street. Nothing more.
But now he is riding the Brexit tiger. If he gets off it will eat him alive. He has no option but to ride it until it or the country is knackered. There is no alternative for the Foreign Secretary.
Longworth's answer to the negotiations? This is it:
If the government did this the pound would tank along with British industry - overnight.
And no sooner had BoJo insulted UK business that along comes John Longworth (HERE) with his advice that "The Government should ignore the special pleading from false voices of business". He reserves special criticism for the CBI suggesting it represents only 2500 members not the 190,000 it claims. You can see from Wikipedia (HERE) that he is plain wrong. The NUF is affiliated to the CBI and they alone have 55,000 members.
Longworth's answer to the negotiations? This is it:
"The only legitimate complaint of business is that of continued uncertainty. In order to resolve this, the UK Government should declare now that we will move to WTO global trade arrangements from March 2019 – without a transition period and without paying a leaving bill – thus providing in one fell swoop absolute certainty".
If the government did this the pound would tank along with British industry - overnight.
