Britain has never been more in need of a leader capable of healing a divided nation. [The Graun/Observer has hardly helped with its own divisive hysteria] Yet though Johnson has promised to be a prime minister for the whole of the United Kingdom, the angry protests that greeted him at Downing Street symbolise how contentious and divisive a figure he is [He will never signal enough virtue for those people] Though he lacks any mandate, [ignore the Referendum then] beyond winning a contest decided by the unrepresentative sliver of the electorate that makes up the Tory party membership, he has made no conciliatory attempt to unify the country, no effort to interpret the referendum result in the context of the slim majority it produced for Leave. He has left no doubt that he will not be a prime minister for Scotland and Northern Ireland [Scot Nats are hardly enthusiastic either, surely], for those who voted Remain, for the least affluent areas of the country that will be hardest hit if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal [but they frequently voted Leave].
[Johnson's first speeches] lacked gravitas [do bring back that nice Mrs May and spreadsheet Phil] and were characterised by the rambling and blustering that have come to be Johnson trademarks [quite unlike Observer journalists].[It can't be all bluster though because]...there is a dangerous strategy that sits behind it: to make demands of the EU he knows there is almost zero chance it can agree to, making a no-deal exit more likely. And to prepare for the parliamentary showdown that this will inevitably precipitate, by presenting himself as the prime minister standing up for the will of the people against an recalcitrant legislature. [And political guile too]...That Johnson has put his new government on a general election footing is obvious, not just in the spending commitments designed to appeal to Tory marginal voters, but in his dramatic cull of Theresa May’s cabinet. Out went the moderates [!] who have been clear they cannot countenance a no-deal scenario [to the extent of plotting with Labour!] . In came a sorry collection of incompetents, unreconstructed Thatcherites and anti-European ideologues.
Name'n'blame these terrible people:
Priti Patel, who was sacked as international development strategy in 2017 for carrying out unofficial meetings with Israeli ministers while on holiday, is home secretary. She has a dismal record on civil liberties, which includes making an incoherent case for the death penalty on the BBC as recently as 2011. Questions already hang over her appointment in light of revelations that she took a lucrative private sector advisory role without clearing it, as former ministers are required to do. The new foreign secretary is Dominic Raab, whose vision for post-Brexit Britain is a race to the bottom on taxes and regulation. Gavin Williamson, sacked just weeks ago as defence secretary for leaking sensitive information, is back as education secretary. Johnson’s cabinet shows he prizes loyalty over competence [May's Government was competent?] .
Johnson has set Britain on a collision course with Europe in making scrapping the backstop a precondition for any further negotiations. The EU cannot remove the backstop from the withdrawal agreement unless there is another Irish border solution in place. To do so risks forcing a choice between undermining the Good Friday agreement or unravelling the integrity of the single market [we already know which one they have really chosen,and this will expose the hypocrisy about Good Friday] So it looks like Britain is heading for no deal, which every forecast predicts will hit the economy hard.
A no-deal Brexit also makes the breakup of the UK more likely. [The Observer -- now unionist] It would provide further succour to the Scottish independence movement. It could necessitate the reimposition of home rule in Northern Ireland, which – together with a border – might sufficiently shift public opinion to require a poll on Irish reunification.
And the real beef [sic]:
And in making Britain more reliant on the US for trade, no deal risks putting us at the whims of a volatile, self-avowedly America First president....the UK can expect the tearing down of health and environmental standards to be on the table in any trade talks. The White House is also calculating that closer trade ties will increase its leverage over the UK, drawing us further into its geopolitical and foreign policy orbit, diminishing Britain’s sovereign control over its affairs.
All that sovereignty we had in the EU! All gone! The Observer argues only on behalf of deserving others, of course:
The pain will be inflicted most sharply on the areas that have suffered most as a result of deindustrialisation and on the families who can least afford to bear a further economic shock after a decade of austerity.[But Government spending might help? However]...More money in these areas is to be welcomed, but this is a pre-election bribe for voters, rather than a strategy to rebuild a state brought low by 10 years of austerity.
Any hope of avoiding the calamity of a no-deal Brexit rests on the decisions of Conservative moderates and the Labour leadership..[But even here, the dastardly blusterer has a cunning plan]...Johnson will position the Tories as the no-deal party and treat any general election as a quasi-referendum. It’s a high-risk strategy: he is gambling that any seats he loses to the Liberal Democrats – who have been admirably, and consistently, clear on the issue of Brexit – will be more than compensated for by attracting voters that might otherwise be tempted by the Brexit party. What will ensure his bet pays off is if Labour continues to equivocate.
Our future prosperity is now at the whim of a group of ideologues who don’t represent Britain but are nevertheless running the country.
I love that 'now'.
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