No. 197 - The Beginning of the End for the UK?

Dear James,

On October 10th 2019, Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach, met at Thornton Manor near Liverpool Airport. Boris offered Varadkar a solution to the Backstop problem in Northern Ireland. Rather than a land border in Ireland, the new border should be in the Irish Sea. Until then Britain had seen such a solution as impossible – or as Mrs May put it - that, ‘no British government could ever contemplate’ such a move.  At their meeting, not only was it contemplated, it was done. Northern Ireland would stay in the EU single market in order to avoid damaging the Good Friday Peace Agreement. The only problem was that there would have to be customs check in the Irish Sea. Imagine Boris on his way home, telling his Unionist MPs, “Don’t worry about the sea border, we’ll deal with any fallout at the right time, in the right place.“

Well, that place and that time have arrived. Some supermarket shelves in Northern Ireland are empty. Supply chains of some goods are held up due to the inevitable checks. Graffiti has appeared on walls in the province, threatening the lives of officials working in the ports and the word, ‘betrayal’ is back in the NI lexicon. Yesterday, Ian Paisley Jr. told Boris that he should "be the Unionist we need him to be" regarding the Irish Sea border. The Northern Irish Protocol had betrayed Unionists and made them "feel like foreigners in our own country". Northern Ireland's First Minister and DUP leader, Arlene Foster, said the Northern Ireland Protocol "cannot work" and must be replaced. But surely a customs border, wherever it is, will require customs checks? Not for Boris. And the result is we seem to be heading back to the dark days of the ‘Troubles’!

Last year, after the Veradkar meeting, Boris told everyone, that any business that faced customs checks after the deal could ‘put declarations forms “in the bin” because there will be “no barriers of any kind” to trade crossing the Irish Sea. This was ‘cakeism’ gone mad. This was a classical populist strategy. Demand the impossible and when the  problems in your demand become evident, blunder and bluster through them. After all, you can always blame the other side. Boris wanted his deal and no disruption in trade. You can have one or the other but you can’t have both Boris. What's so difficult to understand about that? 

Yesterday, Johnson was embarrassed and pretended outrage, citing the EU’s mistaken threat last weekend, to invoke Article 16 - before threatening to use it himself! And, of course, we all remember him threatening to break the law last year on exactly the same subject. Michael Gove yesterday asked the EU to extend the grace period for supermarkets who ‘are experiencing shortage due to the new border checks’. The government is clearly looking to change the solemnly signed protocol. What a surprise!

Today, following calls by the DUP for the protocol to be axed, the Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, told the BBC that “there is not going to be a very dramatic change. We want the protocol to function in a way that works for everyone, north and south, on the island of Ireland”. Boris has a fight on his hands. Which, of course, is just what he wants – an enemy to feed the slavering jaws of his tabloid press. The script is already written. The dogs of war are ready to be unleashed.  

Your party James, has visited a ‘hard Brexit’ on our nation. It is a challenge not just for the economy of our country but also for the political structure of the United Kingdom itself. Driven by the needs of English Nationalism, that structure has begun to crack. Scotland last week. Northern Ireland this week. 

In Scotland last week, Boris went on a ‘charm offensive’ to persuade the Scots of the benefits of the UK. A ‘charm offensive’? For the Scots, this man, midwife to 105,000 COVID deaths across the kingdom and exuding all the self-satisfied mannerisms of the English public schoolboy, sums up everything about English nationalism that they abhor. In Scotland, Boris Johnson is toxic. In that nation, Boris Johnson is the problem.

Last week Stena Lines diverted its newest Ro-Ro freighter from the Larne to Holyhead run to the Dublin-Cherbourg route. Many other companies are making similar decisions. Your government calls them, ‘teething problems’. I hope you’re right, but it may be too late. Under your government James, our United Kingdom may well have already started out down the path to disintegration.

Kind regards,

BH – Your Concerned Constituent.