No 189 - A Message to James - Thank You.
Dear James,
Well, what a surprise! Let me say immediately that I do appreciate your finding time in your schedule to reply to me personally after two years of my writing to you. I suppose beggars can’t be choosers and that one personal response out of 188 attempts is not too bad as a return! Anyway, may I take this opportunity to reciprocate and wish you and your family a Happy New Year!.
Since my last letter, of course, the Brexit deal has gone through - on Christmas Eve – and as predicted in my penultimate letter to you earlier this month. Boris can glow in a very rare ’success’ for a few days. It tells me much about the man that the photo of his triumphal exuberance in his final Zoom call with Ursula Von der Leyen, reminded me more of a toddler than a serious Prime Minister. But let him have his moment in the sun. It won’t last.
For a brief moment, the whole country is feeling a sense of relief. 'No deal’ was avoided ‘as planned’. Soon the 1,246 pages of the deal will be analysed and then we shall see who is smiling. We have probably ended up with the thinnest of deals and will soon be asking was it all worth it? The markets are currently underwhelmed. We await the IFS verdict with baited breath.
The truth is that Brexit was and continues to be a fundamentally dishonest exercise is fanatical, nostalgic English nationalism. Boris’s ‘cakeism ‘ was always a lie. Without strict conditions you cannot have free trade at the same time as free entry to the biggest market in the world. As the EU has already pointed out, there has probably never been such a circumscribed trade deal in the history of the world. Expect much Boris bravado in the next few weeks as he tries to spin a success out of failure, but Boris and the Brexiteers have solved nothing. Our national problems begin at home, not in Europe. And they are locked up in the Party and personalities of our current leaders.
The Tory Party of the shires has never understood Europe at a cultural level. Public schoolboy brouhaha doesn’t cut any ice beyond Dover except as a fascinating glimpse into a once golden age. Since 1945 we have seen Europeans as the naughty children, forced to grow up under British tutelage. Those same ‘naughty children’ are now mature adults while Britain, has declined to a sad, miserable and resentful old age summed up by Farage and his avatar, Boris Johnson. “Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.”,says Gloucester of the old and blind King Lear.
The reference in your letter James, linking the Battle of the Bulge and Covid may well be a suitable analogy for the pandemic but it tells us much more about the reasons for Brexit. Over the Christmas period I have counted over 20 full length WW2 war films on prime time tv plus many other documentaries about the war. I am of the ‘Dam Busters’ generation. I admire our nation’s courage in adversity but I admire more what Germany has done since the calamity of ‘extreme right-capture’. It is the latter to which we should address ourselves. Not the former. That is the error of Brexit. Germany has become the least nationalistic and most pragmatic nation in Europe. While we spin off into our wild and wistful adventure in nostalgia, Germany and its stakeholder culture, moves steadily ahead.
Your current ‘Brexit victory’ covers only trade in goods. 80% of UK exports are in services. They represent 50% of our exports to the EU. Brits will now need a visa for stays over 3 months, an international driving license, long waits in immigration queues and special health insurance cover. Fifteen thousand students will lose the opportunity to study free in EU universities. Membership of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, to Europol, to Euratom and automatic access to the EU database are gone. Instead of cooperation as a principle of government we now go back to the old days of ragged and distorting competition. Remember those promises of ‘frictionless trade’ with Europe? According to HMRC, the new deal will involve 250 million new forms p.a. costing our economy £7bn p.a. £7bn is just under the £8bn we used to pay annually into the EU for all its benefits. But Boris boasts he has ‘taken back control’! Some taking back! And look who’s doing the controlling?
James, in the last five years you have clearly taken the King’s shilling no matter that the underlying Tory currency has changed so dramatically in that period. In the long run, that’s the road to perdition. All I ask is that you stand back, consider history in its broadest context and take a few extra risks in your own party. Show some guts as an independent thinker. I am pleased that you have read some of my letters. Perhaps that is a tiny indication that part of your mind is still open and that the career politician is just a mask? Now there’s a thought!
Thank you again and have a Very Happy New Year!
Kind regards,
BH – Your Concerned Constituent