To begin with I want to make an announcement. Someone on Twitter recently suggested we refer to Boris as 'Brexit Johnson' from now on, lest anyone forgets who is responsible for the almighty mess he has landed us in. I think it's an excellent idea and I intend to do exactly that. Henceforth on this blog Boris Alexander de Pfeffel will always be referred to as 'Brexit Johnson'. He is trying to make us forget all about Brexit but it will be a constant reminder to him and future generations won't it?
One of the so-called 'advantages' of Getting Brexit Done (GBD) is an end to uncertainty. For three years or more, we have been kicking around the cliff edge and for some souls going over it at the end of January may represent a certainty of sorts. But make no mistake it's going to hurt. It is a cliff edge in the sense there will be no going back. Britain is not a Road Runner cartoon, although it might often seem that way.
But the landing zone is still not at all clear. Uncertainty will persist, at least for most of this year.
Much of it will not be due to any of the 'creative ambiguity' that Blair engaged in to get the Good Friday Agreement accepted, but to Brexit Johnson himself. Usually, politicians tack in subtle ways, and some perform the odd screeching U turn as we know, but Johnson is in a class by himself. This is due primarily to his congenital mendacity and lack of any tangible beliefs. He U turns all the time and doesn't even bother to apologise or explain and the public accept it. This is probably why he fears interviews with Andrew Neil who might expose the hypocrisy.
So, it's easy for us to pick out examples from his past. It may not do us much good to point these out at the moment but I still think one day, when the history of Brexit is written his slipperiness and lies will be recorded.
I want to pick out a couple of things because they are not minute adjustments to firmly held convictions as normal politicians make, but massive course corrections or even total reversals altogether and made without even a nod of acknowledgement.
First, someone posted a video on Twitter of Brexit Johnson when he was still Mayor of London in 2013 (and looking remarkably youthful - Brexit or something else has aged him a lot I think) saying Cameron's proposal to renegotiate our terms of membership is a "great opportunity to lop off some of the brambles that have grown up around the European project but keeping us firmly in the single market. That's what I think the overwhelming majority of people want".
First, someone posted a video on Twitter of Brexit Johnson when he was still Mayor of London in 2013 (and looking remarkably youthful - Brexit or something else has aged him a lot I think) saying Cameron's proposal to renegotiate our terms of membership is a "great opportunity to lop off some of the brambles that have grown up around the European project but keeping us firmly in the single market. That's what I think the overwhelming majority of people want".
Strange how this 2013 clip of Johnson, saying he believes the UK should STAY IN the EU, was unavailable for download on all but one site.🇪🇺👀He adds "It's fundamentally not just in the interests of this country but of the whole European Union that Britain should be there". 🤔👇 pic.twitter.com/aRPQ77gMv3
— The Labour Leftie 🌹 (@TheLabourLeftie) December 31, 2019
He now wants to drag us OUT of the single market AND the customs union but that's how he is. Consistency is not his strong point.
I sometimes trawl through my own blog posts to see if I can find contradictions from his past. A year ago he was back writing his Telegraph column and plotting his triumphant return, having given up his job as a comic foreign secretary. He was like an actor resting between failures.
On January 20th his column (no £) was about Theresa May's deal which he, in typical flowery hyperbole, said was "an ex-deal. It is dead, defunct, deceased. It has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to the great Valhalla of irrelevant and superseded international agreements that includes the League of Nations, the constitution of the Soviet Union, and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland."
He went on to say this:
"It will never get through Parliament because it is fundamentally anti-democratic, and would mean that the UK would come out of the EU but end up being very largely run by the EU – unless we were willing to surrender control of Northern Ireland, which no British government could, would or should even contemplate."
Her deal wasn't dead at all, it was in a field hospital with a minor flesh wound. His deal is the one Mrs May (and he) rejected in 2018 because it was "to surrender control of Northern Ireland". It appears that both he and Theresa May now not only contemplate but endorse whole heartedly the ceding of an entire province to EU control without batting an eyelid.
Of course this is only how we see that particular U turn. Fraser Nelson at The Telegraph does not see it in the same way at all.
On NI - as on other issues - it seems Brexit Johnson gets away with it scot free but I have a feeling it will come back with a vengeance to bite him.
But it is hard to ridicule Brexit Johnson. He is a figure of fun who does not seem to take himself seriously but regularly confounds his critics (including me). He has got to the top of Disraeli's famous greasy pole and won himself a parliamentary majority. You can't knock him for underachievement - at the moment that is. But he is only enjoying a temporary hiatus in his inevitable fall.
In the video he also said it was "fundamentally in the interests of not only of this country but also the whole European Union that Britain should be [in the EU]". Now he is hell bent on taking us out of it. It's as if the Pope had suddenly declared that God didn't exist.
He is now lopping off so many brambles that there is nothing left to bind us to the single market or the customs union (all except NI that is).
I sometimes trawl through my own blog posts to see if I can find contradictions from his past. A year ago he was back writing his Telegraph column and plotting his triumphant return, having given up his job as a comic foreign secretary. He was like an actor resting between failures.
He went on to say this:
"It will never get through Parliament because it is fundamentally anti-democratic, and would mean that the UK would come out of the EU but end up being very largely run by the EU – unless we were willing to surrender control of Northern Ireland, which no British government could, would or should even contemplate."
Her deal wasn't dead at all, it was in a field hospital with a minor flesh wound. His deal is the one Mrs May (and he) rejected in 2018 because it was "to surrender control of Northern Ireland". It appears that both he and Theresa May now not only contemplate but endorse whole heartedly the ceding of an entire province to EU control without batting an eyelid.
Of course this is only how we see that particular U turn. Fraser Nelson at The Telegraph does not see it in the same way at all.
In Nelson world it was the EU who gave way!This is quite the rewriting of history. The EU didn’t lose the May deal. It offered Boris a deal that he and May had previously rejected https://t.co/boZuIiYRb9— John Crace (@JohnJCrace) January 3, 2020
On NI - as on other issues - it seems Brexit Johnson gets away with it scot free but I have a feeling it will come back with a vengeance to bite him.
But it is hard to ridicule Brexit Johnson. He is a figure of fun who does not seem to take himself seriously but regularly confounds his critics (including me). He has got to the top of Disraeli's famous greasy pole and won himself a parliamentary majority. You can't knock him for underachievement - at the moment that is. But he is only enjoying a temporary hiatus in his inevitable fall.
An FT editorial just after his election win said "the Tory party has put its own survival and unity over prosperity for the British economy". This is not quite right. It is Brexit Johnson who has now put his own survival above that of the Tory party as they will soon discover. The nation's well being is not even second, and as for the regions they aren't on the list at all, as we saw in NI and Scotland.
He doesn't believe in anything so it's very hard to tell what he would do in any given situation. This is what makes him such a difficult opponent for anyone. Nobody knows what he will do this year. He also has a habit of speaking in lurid metaphors, usually about generalities. He is the master of the meaningless sound bite.
Many leavers that I know personally think he's very clever but I do not. He will come a cropper sooner or later - or there is no justice in the world.
Many leavers that I know personally think he's very clever but I do not. He will come a cropper sooner or later - or there is no justice in the world.
