No. 186 - Tomorrow - A Sad Day for our Nation.

Dear James, 

Small gestures give away much. Did you see Boris at the Press briefing with European Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, after their fruitless last minute talks last Wednesday? As both removed their masks before the press, Boris, sporting a new and, for once, tidy hair cut, immediately and reflexively thrust his fingers through his mop, ruffing it up into standard ‘devil may care Boris’. Here we saw the brand at work. The superficial ‘seductive charm’ of populist leaders as they lead the gullible towards the cliff edge. Boris, the entertainer, the superficial chancer who takes nothing seriously except his own ego, was in his element as he prepared to inflict appalling damage upon our nation and its people. Boris is full of such reflexes that tell us all we need to know about the man. It is Boris alone, Boris the narcissist, that matters above all and he will hang the inconvenient need for ‘thought out’ policy on whatever group of people shout loudest in his ear. Hard Brexit suits him to a tee. The piratical, buccaneering spirit can now ride the high seas, free from rules, metaphorically raping and pillaging with that prankish, give away smile, seducing the gullible to into abject following.

Again, on Thursday, Boris stood in front of the cameras in Downing Street and with that same impish smile, the faux earnest eyes and his pneumatic arms pistoning volleys of ‘jolly good show’, ‘whizz-bang’ assertions  into his audience, he told us that that there was a ‘strong possibility’ that the talks would end with the ‘Australian solution’, code for no deal at all.

So weeks of intensive talks between officials have failed, two days before the deadline, to overcome obstacles in key areas, including competition rules and fishing rights. The EU rightly wants to protect its Single Market against unfair competition, Britain wants full ‘sovereignty’ and simultaneously, full access to that Single Market. There is a compromise there somewhere but Boris fears the ERG and Nigel Farage and so persists in trying to have his cake and eat it. For this, we will all suffer. Britain is being seen as the ‘crazy man’ amongst nations. It is the old, demented uncle who has finally lost his marbles and is running up and down the street singing,’ Rule Britannia!’ to the few who will listen. So sad. So pitiful!

The Independent Office of Responsibility predicts a 4% long-term loss of GDP for a deal and an extra slump of 2% next year if there is a no-deal. The Bank of England claims that Brexit will cost more than the pandemic. The OECD has recently downgraded its forecasts and puts the UK’s expected fall of GDP this year at 11. 2%. That puts Britain as second from last among its leading members. That’s ok though. Any price is worth paying for the regaining of Britain’s precious sovereignty and its escape from its humiliating subservience to the dreaded European Court of Justice. We will be free at last! Floreat Brittania! God Save the Queen! 

Economics aside, deal or no-deal will do nothing to address the real challenges of British society. Embedded inequality with its associated food banks, a creaking constitution that allows small groups of fanatics to cause huge swerves towards self-harming policies, the North-South divide and the threat of the Union break up. They all require deep thought, not the reflexive, knee jerk reactions of populism running amok. 

You’re probably too young James to remember the cod wars of the 1980s when British patrol boats rammed Icelandic trawlers and cut their fishing nets on the high seas. Imagine the glee of the Brexiteers as the Royal Navy, once again takes on the wicked ‘frogs’, who are, by the way, fellow members of NATO. But true to form, today the government announced that it has put four offshore patrol boats on stand-by to monitor UK waters. The MoD says it has "robust enforcement measures in place to protect the UK's rights as an independent coastal state". Meanwhile, long queues of lorries are already parked along miles of the motorways down to Dover as the French prepare their own border for Brexit. I can hear the ERG singing their favourite ‘oldie’.  

“We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too!” 

Except that we don’t have the ships and we don’t have the money. As we head into the perfect storm of coronavirus, the deepest recession for 300 years, unemployment at its highest rate for decades, Boris and the jingoistic pals glory in the falsehood of ‘sovereignty reclaimed’! It will be a sad day for our great nation James, if Boris does a deal tomorrow. It will be catastrophic if he doesn’t!

Kind regards, 

BH – Your Concerned Constituent