Friday, December 13, 2019

Jaysus, I Never Imagined It Was That Bad,


The editorial board of the Irish Times writes:  "The radical right has not been sidelined in the Conservative Party, it has taken over the Conservative Party."

Boris Johnson was the airburst. The fallout comes next.
Some cling to the hope that Johnson, freed from reliance on the radical Eurosceptic right, might pursue a softer Brexit, perhaps by having Britain remain in the EU customs union. That’s wishful thinking. The radical right has not been sidelined in the Conservative Party; it has taken over the Conservative Party. Yet while the Brexit endgame, if far from locked down, today looks clearer – much to the relief of Dublin and other European capitals – Johnson’s parliamentary party will now include a clutch of MPs whose constituents have social and economic needs and expectations that the government cannot meet without changing course in key policy areas. That will be one of the recurring tensions of the next five years.
IT calls the United Kingdom "a country coming apart at the seams."

It was, Johnson said, an election result that would “bring our nation together”. That’s hardly true even of Johnson’s own nation, England, which remains bitterly divided over Brexit. But more broadly, the very idea of the United Kingdom as a multi-national state is now in doubt. The SNP’s surge in Scotland, the march of English nationalism and the election of more nationalist than unionist MPs in Northern Ireland all point to the fragility of a union that now looks in real peril. That may well be what is most significant about Thursday’s vote. Boris Johnson and his fellow Brexiteers have united their party, but their country is slowly breaking apart.
By now I think we're all suffering from chronic Brexit fatigue.  Over the past two years we became bored of it.  Thank gawd for Speaker Bercow or nobody would have paid the slightest heed.

Winning an essentially rigged, First-Past-the-Post election, BoJo is managing to use a distorted gauge to claim a majority mandate even though his party was well behind on the popular vote. Once again, FPTP perverts and defeats democracy. This time the fallout is neither irrelevant or inconsequential. What just happened in Britain is going to leave scars.

4 comments:

Northern PoV said...

chronic Brexit fatigue? Get used to it ...

Bojo's 'deal' to leave the EU on Jan 31 is bs. The real deadline is end of 2020.

"Brexit is far from over. After Jan. 31, Britain will enter a transition period when it will negotiate a new relationship with the remaining 27 EU states. " London Free Press

My prediction come the end of 2020 Bojo will crash out with either no deal or what effectively amounts to no deal. Lobsters in a pot indeed!

Owen Gray said...

We should expect Scotland to separate. And I read that Belfast is thinking of joining the Irish Republic.

John B. said...

Could Thatcher have understood what she was doing when she sowed the seeds that grew into this?

Gyor said...

I agree with you on 110%, the majority of voters wanted a second referendum, buf FPTP gave all the power to Boris the buffoon.