No.230 - Happy New Year, James!
Dear James,
Most anniversaries require some sort of celebration. The raising of a glass or two, the odd speech, the salute to past triumphs. But none of that will happen on January 31st 2022, when the anniversary of Britain’s departure from the EU comes up. Instead of celebrations, expect whispered intrigue and the poisoned, whirling mists of conspiracy. Your leader Boris Johnson, will be the ghost of triumphs past as his successors plot his downfall. Things have been going wrong for Boris and your party ever since those union flags fluttered and a diehard minority of Brexiteers danced in Parliament Square as Big Ben ticked its way towards midnight. Enjoy those fleeting memories, James. You won’t see them again.
Your Latter Day Tory Party aka the English Nationalist Party, is a cult whose animistic colophon until now has been one, Boris Johnson. His non-beliefs rely upon the ancient obsessions of a small group of little Englanders who despise all institutions European. Just mention, 'The European Court of Justice' and listen to the howls of blood curdling indignation. But things are changing, James. The howling has become ever more isolated and restricted to a distant dark forest where wolves and witches lurk. By following this band of warlocks, your party has lost contact with the voters. In fact it is colliding with the natural sense and values of the British people. The latter are generally open, tolerant, fair minded and kind. More and more, the Owen Patersons, the Boris Johnsons and the likes of Steve Baker and Lord Frost are being seen as yesterday’s aberrations. The public is way ahead of its government. Few now listen to Boris. Instead they are listening to the medics. Or better still, themselves. Fake news and its purveyors are in retreat.
James, Ideologies attempt to bend reality to their aims but in the long-run reality bites back. On a large scale the grand ideologies of Fascism and Communism both failed. Current Russian oligarchism and Xi Xinping’s ‘Democracy with Chinese Characteristics’ will eventually go the same way. At a lower scale, Brexit, with its petty English nationalism, small culture wars and anti-wokism agendas, will also fail. The best antidote to ideology is a truly democratic voting system that represents the best picture of a national mood. The Brexiteers have always had an uneasy relationship with reality and today those realities face them more starkly than ever. Your party is now discovering this to its costs.
Covid refuses to go away. Instead it evolves, twists, turns and reappears in different versions. Omicron is the latest variant. It is ten times more transmissible than earlier versions and while it may not be as fatal as Alpha or Delta its impacts on ‘manning levels’ in industry, the NHS and schools may be devastating. In the week before Christmas our Prime Minister, stood before the cameras looking drained, his face palid, the adolescent vigour absent. He had just spent more than two hours in Cabinet and had decided to indulge yet again in the noble art of doing nothing. Boris, the populist, could not cancel another Christmas. The New Year would have to take care of itself.
Ten days ago Lord Frost, arch-Brexiteer, resigned. He cited his disagreement with his government’s ‘coercive actions’ with regard to Covid but more probably because he sees Boris as ‘going soft’ as Frost's attempt to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol hit a brick wall. On January 1st, the final Brexit trade barriers will come into effect as the UK applies the new tariffs to imports from the EU. Since we left the EU last January, our exports to the EU have fallen by 12% and our imports by 20%. The harsh realities of the 2016 referendum vote are beginning to bite. Yesterday Labour was ahead in a Sunday Times poll by 7 points. The latest Opinium poll indicates that 47% of voters who voted ‘leave’ in 2016 now think Brexit has turned out worse than they expected. The tide is turning James. The public is beginning to see they were sold a pup!
Meanwhile Boris sits there like a frozen blob unable to govern, stripped of authority and drained of the will to live. Like a bloated whale, he lies there stranded on the empty beach of his own personality. A recent poll showed that 57% of Brits want good relationships with the EU yet the Brexiteers continue to misread the public mood. And you James? I guess, as usual, there’s no need to ask!
So not much to celebrate after a year outside the EU, James, but time moves on. Boris is yesterday’s man and it’s time to start cosying up to Richi, James! But having already changed leaders three times in your party’s civil war, you certainly know the ropes! After all, survival has always been your one and only principle.
Happy New Year anyway, James!
BH – Your Concerned Constituent